Rock solid love

A little rock solid love for Valentine’s Day {click the images to go to the sources}.…

And a little love from my favourite beach, Hirtle Beach in Nova Scotia…

While we’re on the topic of love, our loveable foster dog Hooch has already found his new forever home! He was officially adopted on Monday. I really miss him, but I know he’s going to be very loved and spoiled :-)

And look who’s back – it’s Myles! We’re dogsitting him this week while his family is on holiday.

Hooch & Myles really love each other, as you can see in this picture ;-)

Hahahah! Don’t let Myles going all Cujo fool you, the two of them had a blast!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

These are a few of my favourite things

Dreamy kitchen

I can’t find one thing in this kitchen that I don’t love – check out the awesome La Cornue stove & vent, the huge wood island (doesn’t it look like a giant piece of furniture), the gorgeous rustic wood flooring, and whatever that is on the ceiling.

The gorgeous windows and mirrored corner cabinet are the icing on the kitchen cake.

I have no idea where these pictures originated. I keep hitting dead ends every time I do a search. If you know the source, please let me know so I can link them up properly.

Best. Pancakes. Ever.

Just in time for Pancake Tuesday – Janet & Greta Podleski’s Lemon Ricotta Pancakes with Blueberry Sauce are the best pancakes I’ve ever had. They taste even better when hubby makes them :-) These two ladies work some serious magic in the kitchen. If you don’t have their cookbooks, go out and buy one or two or all four. The Looneyspoons Collection is their latest and probably their best book.

PARA Paints Potion

If you read my blog last week or follow me on Facebook, you know I’ve been trying to choose a paint colour for the loft. PARA Paints Rainy Skies ended up the winner (although it wasn’t even in the running till Saturday). But I’m seriously in love with the runner-up, Potion. The only reason I didn’t choose it for the loft is because it’s probably a tad bit too dark. These are the three finalists – from left to right Potion, Ageless Rockies, and Rainy Skies.

But Potion is still going to make its way into the loft – here’s an in-progress peek at a little project I’m working on… (do you like my flowery drop sheet? :-)

Peonies 2

I fell in love with this painting by Susan Bailie as soon as I saw it on her Art Walls Facebook page. And now it’s sitting on my purple cabinet just waiting to be hung on the wall above it :-) I tried to get a good picture, but the camera just can’t capture the amazing texture and depth and sparkle from the foil.

And hopefully later today or tomorrow, I’ll be adding our newly painted loft to my list of favourite things – pics coming soon!

Ummm, yeah, OK, so I kinda lied

It was too good to be true – I had to delay painting the loft till Monday. I got to thinking too much about the paint colour, and ended up getting myself all discombobulated. Plus my blog friends {who also happen to be awesome designers!} Kelly Berg at Story & Space and Dawna Jones at Dawna Jones Design made suggestions that got me thinking…. Kelly suggested a slate blue or charcoal grey, and Dawna suggested a navy blue.

Kelly sent me these inspiration pictures, which I love. The orange accents in this first picture look amazing with the dark slate blue walls.

Image via Martha Stewart

Image via Apartment Therapy

Image via Arcadian Home

I found these beautiful navy blue rooms:

Image via Lily’s Laundry Boutique via Rue

 
Image via Because It’s Awesome via Nuevo Estilo

Images via EMI Interior Design

 Image via Houzz | Design by Avissa Mojtahedi Architecture & Design

Gorgeous, yes? So do you see my dilemma?! I’m really loving the idea of going with a dark slate or navy blue. Which means poring through my PARA Paints fan deck to find the perfect shade of dark & sexy blue between now and Monday morning. My painter friend will say something way worse than “Tsk, tsk, Kelly, Kelly, Kelly….” if ask him to postpone again! These are the top runners at the moment – still looking for the right navy blue.

What’s your favourite blue?

Fastest painting project ever!

You would think as a decorator, selecting a paint colour would be easy – and it is, when I’m selecting a colour for a client. But when I’m selecting a colour for my own home, I just can’t make a decision. I can agonize over fifty-eight different shades of the same colour for weeks, driving myself crazy trying to narrow them down to one.

Image via SheKnows

So I’m pretty impressed with myself for selecting a new paint colour for our loft in less than a day! Our loft is currently painted Benjamin Moore Stone House. The orange sectional is the Charles from Silva.

A designer chose Stone House for me, but I didn’t like it right from the moment it started going up on the walls. She assured me it would look great, but meh, not so much – there’s just too much orangeiness going on. We bought Charles after the walls were painted – we hadn’t planned on buying an orange sectional, but when you can get a brand new high-quality sectional for $750, you don’t worry too much about the colour, as long as it’s not barfy :-)

When hubby taped off and painted the screen on the wall across from the sectional for his projector, some Stone House came off the walls with the tape. So rather than touch up a colour I don’t like, I decided to re-paint the whole room in a colour I DO like. OK, maybe not the logical choice, but hey, that’s how I roll :-) I was pretty fixated on greys and browns for ages. And then yesterday afternoon as I was trying to decide between grey and brown, I thought to myself, BORING – go with something more interesting! And I found this colour in my PARA Paints fan deck, Designer Indulgence.

I love that it’s kind of blue and kind of green {more green than it looks in this sample}, not too dark but not too light, and definitely not grey or brown. It works well with both the orange sectional and dark walnut flooring. And it’s completely different from the colour that’s there now, which will be a welcome change.

I normally do all the painting in our house, but the loft is a bit out of my comfort range. There’s the vaulted ceiling, as well as some skinny skylights that are right above the staircase. I e-mailed my painter friend and asked him if he has some time in his schedule to paint our loft. He e-mailed me back this morning and said he can do the job tomorrow. This is going to be the fastest paint project EVER – 48 hours between choosing the colour and getting the whole room painted! I can’t wait to see the new colour on the walls :-)

Do you agonize over paint colours too, or do you know what you want and choose a colour right away?

PARA Paints Blog Crew project: Beautiful in Boysenberry

When I saw the PARA Paints Colour Forecast Palette, I fell in love with some of the new colours and just had to try them out. I picked up quarts of Boysenberry and Tahitian Pearl from Bonds Decor with the plan to paint my dumpster dive dressers. But they’re going to need some work before they’re ready to paint, and I didn’t want to wait – I’m just a little bit impatient ;-) So I decided to paint this black cabinet that I bought at HomeSense a couple of years ago – brace yourself for the mess!

Ummm, yeah, so housekeeping isn’t exactly high on my priority list ;-) Anyhoooo…. I’m kinda lacking in the “in progress” photo department – this is apparently the only picture I took. I primed the whole cabinet with Zinsser BIN primer and the painted the inside of the cabinet my favourite green, PARA Paints Leek.

And now let’s move right on to the “after" pics. I love that when the door is closed, there’s a little clue to the green surprise inside. I used my never-fail painting trick to make sure the line between the green and purple is clean & crisp. Click here to find out how to do it.

The finished cabinet.

I love the quatrefoil design on the mirrored door.

A little painting tip – melamine paint is more durable, but it also shows the orange peel effect from a roller a lot more than eggshell paint does. I really didn’t like the bumpy finish that the roller left, so I sanded the bumps down and painted two more coats of Boysenberry with a brush. Much better.

A few baskets from HomeSense inside the cabinet to keep things a little neater than in the “before” pics!

I didn’t really like the pewter knob that came with the cabinet. I was going to buy a new knob, but then I thought, why not try painting the pewter knob and see what happens? Some paint and some foil and voila, brand new colourful knob for free :-)

I’m planning to put a non-breakable dish on top of the cabinet to hold keys and change. But for now, I dressed it up a bit with some of my glass floats.

It always feels great to get another DIY project done :-)

Thanks to PARA Paints and Bonds Decor for the paint :-) And speaking of DIY projects and thank yous… a big thank you to Mary Beth at Cupcakes & Crinoline and Heather at Setting for Four for featuring my capiz chandelier on their blogs today :-) Check out their weekly linky party to see lots of great DIY projects… {I just found out the Heather isn’t hosting anymore, but Mary Beth is}.

 

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