The Great Canadian Blog Bash is on!

Happy Birthday Canada!

In honour of Canada Day on July 1st, I’m be partying with other Canadian bloggers in The Great Canadian Blog Bash over the next couple of weeks. If you’re a Canadian blogger, link up your Canadian-themed post and join in with the other party-goers. If you're not Canadian, come check out the party and learn about what makes Canada such a great country and why we’re proud to be Canadians :-)

These are some of my Canadian things…

1. Awesome artists & artisans

I love original art, and I’ve discovered lots of great artists and artisans both here in Ottawa and across the country. Support Canadian artists!

Jill Alexander – Arnprior, ON  |  Susan Bailie – Ottawa, ON  |  Matt LeBlanc – Dieppe, NB

RAVEK Architectural Glass Art – Ottawa, ON  |  Cabin Road Art – Ottawa, ON  |  Sue McNenly Designs 

Edgewater Studio – Vancouver, BC | FAT Paint – New Westminster, BC | IZM – Edmonton, AB

And I guess a little plug for myself wouldn’t be out of line, seeing as this is my blog and I’m Canadian ;-) Some of my artwork…

 

2. Awesome ocean – The Maritimes

I’m not exactly a world traveler, but I’ve been to the Rockies and the desert and the US and Europe and both coasts of Canada. And of all the places I’ve been, my very favourite is the Maritimes. The ocean and beaches, the food, the people… Maritimers know how to do it right!

3. Awesome food

There’s not too much I miss about living in Montreal. But I have serious smoked meat envy! I haven’t found a decent smoked meat place in Ottawa in the 15 years that I’ve lived here – that’s a long time to go without good smoked meat! Schwartz’s has been a staple in downtown Montreal for over 80 years. A bit of a dive, but the meat is soooooo good! Vegetarians, look away.,. ;-)

One thing Ottawa does have is Beavertails – YUM! A beavertail is a long, thin, oval-shaped piece of pastry that’s deep fried and then covered with a variety of toppings. I said it was yummy, not healthy ;-)

Imagine a combination of chocolate and vanilla ice cream with white chocolate chunks. chocolate-covered almonds, toffee bits, and peanut butter cups… OK, you got it! Ben & Jerry’s exclusive-to-Canada If I Had 1,000,000 Flavours might be 999,994 flavours short of 1,000,000, but MAN it’s good!

4. Awesome interior design

Being a design blog, I have to end off with some of my favourite Canadian designers. I love Jane Lockhart’s use of colour…

Dawna Jones is a blogger friend and an amazing interior designer. Her home in BC is absolutely gorgeous, and has been featured in House & Home magazine.

And another shameless plug for my interior decorating business, JAX Decor & Design :-)

  

Are you feeling the awesome Canadian love yet? :-) There’s a whole lot more of if to go around at The Great Canadian Blog Bash – check it out! And if you’re Canadian, be sure to enter the big all-Canadian giveaway while you’re there :-)

 

 

Master bedroom evolution

Sometimes I have a vision for a room and it goes totally as planned. But more often than not, things change along the way, and the room I end up with isn’t what I had envisioned at all. Like our master bedroom – I knew as soon as I first saw it that it was going to have to change ASAP. These two pics are the befores from inspection day – I had nothing to do with the paint colour or anything else! And yes,  those are dolls on the bed. There were dolls all over the house. Creepy.

 

 

That’s my grandma in the doorway, and you can see the pink hallway and pink guest bedroom (door on the left) and pink laundry room behind her. *Sigh* So much pink!

 

 

(Click here to check out the guest bedroom makeover and click here to check out the laundry room makeover)

 

My first idea for the room was a bad one – I painted it orange. I never really liked it, and never bothered to actually decorate the room. OMG, this is so embarrassing! But here’s the room in all its orange glory…

 

 

 

OK, so anyway, try to put that orange monstrosity out of your head, and let’s move ahead to around to five years later (yep, we lived with the orange for  that long!) I decided to go grey with a dark brown accent wall…

 

 

 

Better, but that bed totally wasn’t working. And the accent wall was kinda dark and overbearing. So I painted it a lighter grey than the other walls, and then gave up on that idea and painted it the same colour as the rest (Debbie Travis Manta Grey). Then I bought new furniture and bedding and a chandelier – which started making crackling & popping sounds, so it went back to the store!

 

 

Still not working. More new bedding, lamps, and artwork, and hubby and I (well, mostly hubby) designed and built an upholstered bed. (Kelly at View Along The Way wrote this great tutorial on how to build your own upholstered bed). And finally, the room was done… kind of ;-)

 

 

There was still something missing. Other than the curtains and a few cushions on the bed, there was no pattern. And the room was on the masculine side. I wanted to add some more feminine touches. What to do, what to do… I know, wallpaper! Graham & Brown, Charming – it’s the perfect match to the other colours in the room.

 

 

Ooh-la-la! Love, love, LOVE IT I picked up a few rolls at Home Depot — yes, Home Depot carries this beautiful paper.

 

I hit every store I could think of to look for new bedding, and finally found a subtly patterned grey duvet cover at HomeSense and euro shams at Bed Bath & Beyond. A few accessories & new lamps – from the basement, my favourite store! ;-) – on the night tables, and now we can really call the master bedroom DONE :-)

 

 

 

His-and-hers night tables…

 

 

 

The cushions spend 99% of their time on the floor, so let’s give them their moment of glory while they’re actually ON the bed :-)

This is a shot of the other side of the room:

 

The “before” one more time and an “after”…

 

 

 

Cross another room off the makeover list!

 

 

Now you see it…

The not-so-attractive thermostat on the bathroom wall…

And now you don’t!

Seriously, easiest “makeover” ever! I bought this cute piece of art by Sue McNenly at last weekend’s New Art Festival. And it fits just perfectly on this shelf in the guest bathroom :-)

Who says art has to hang on a wall? :-) Stand it up or lean it on a shelf…

   
Images via Centsational Girl

Or on a piece of furniture…

Image via A  Piece of Toast

Or even on the floor…

Image via Upworld

Do you have a creative way to hide a thermostat?