And on to the other ear now......

Bathing Beauty!!

Well, the bathroom was right in line with the rest of the house.  Totally devoid of function, storage or any semblance of beauty.  The door opened out into the room and then you walked right into the sink if you weren't careful.  And more paneling.  Someone was pretty panel happy when they originally decorated this place!  This room also had the crawl space access to all the plumbing, via a twenty inch square opening and any other issues that might arise down there.  After the first few months of living there, we dubbed it "the hell hole", as it became Dave's personal nemesis.  In the end he finally did conquer it.  There are a few stories and bottles of wine there that could fill a blog post in regards to all the plumbing issues that this seemingly harmless house gave us.  But I digress...

Words cannot describe better than this picture....

Everything but the tub is gone

                                                                             

The new WC

Now the layout makes sense.  We kept the orginial soaker tub - it made us feel like we were five years old again, it was so deep!  I kept the colours light and soothing, but still in the warm blue tones.  This WC was mainly for the boy's use and beleive it or not was very easy to maintain and keep it looking fresh.  The flooring was something brand new at the time - a loose lay vinyl floor, by Tarkett.  This was the answer to our dilema with that access hole.  The previous owner had a huge bull-ring size ring to lift the piece of flooring to open up the access.  With this new flooring, all we had to do was cut the flooring to the size of the access and lift it when needed - no ring or handle of any sort involved.  The pattern was such that you barely noticed the seam.

Ergonomic sense......

Choosing a pedestal sink to create the feeling of more space made sense - having one with an integrated towel bar was even better.  That helped to avoid drips all over the floor while someone was reaching for a towel.









 All the storage we needed was added with an Ikea cabinet and a rolling glass cart.  The cart could be brought up to the tub for setting your book and or your glass of wine on.  Adding a light to the bath area creates a sparkle on the classic subway tiles.





The family room is next on the docket.....stay tuned......

Turning a sow's ear into a silk purse......

So why would we have ever considered this tiny ugly house as a possible home?  Well......we had already sold our old Victorian home and were living in a quasi-apartment (a house that had been sectioned into three apartments of sorts)   We had originally planned on building a bungaloft which had been designed to our specifications - and some day that might come to fruition.  Unfortunately we lost out on both building lots to build our new house on.  It turned out to be a very good thing though, as there were perpetual water issues in that area that caused many flooded basements and very expensive solutions.
Desperate to get out of this claustrophobic apartment living, we were looking at almost anything on the market.  As I was doing drive-bys on the listed houses in our small town, I liked the look and position of this house on Boulton St.  It was only a two bedroom though.  Our realtor made the appointment and we looked at it at 4 p.m. and our offer was accepted at 8:40 p.m.  Wow.  It was conditional on us being able to put on an addition and that was confirmed the very next day.  And so our adventure began.

All I can say is wow.........

 The front entry had as much wood as you can find in a forest!  The previous owner's little dog had ripped parts of it out - which they had hidden behind strategically placed furniture.  Lucky for us, since when we ripped it all out, we found a myriad of electrical issues that took fifteen days to sort out.  It was an absolute miracle that the house had never burned down!  That's one of the down sides of do-it-your-selfers - a little knowledge is a very dangerous thing and can put following owners in harm's way or cause a   lot of expense in remedying it.  

A much more inviting entrance

The front half of the house is now not only safe, but beatifully re-done.  We wished we could have had the money to put in a new fireplace, but that just wasn't in the budget.  So we made the best of it with a total make over.  The colours for the whole house started with rugs from HomeSense.  I loved them then and I still love them eight years later.  That's something for me!  They have a large paisley print but in non-traditional paisley colours.  

The wee skinny door was the linen closet!

The past version of built-ins

This wall to the bedroom was so poorly constructed that you could push it back and forth.  So obviously this was ripped out and rebuilt and sound proofing installed at the same time.  Notice how none of the doors match?  What was that about - "if it's free, it's for me"??  

Instead of the closet, the antique clock has a place of honour

 After about three years of living with white interior doors, I was bored one February and decided to paint them.  The colour is BM, called Deep Caviar.  It's a charcoal/brown that is soft enough, but has wonderful depth.  Personally, I love it and have done the same in our current home.  Dave made and built all the trim and I painted every little bit, as well as all the walls and ceilings.  The blue on the walls did not look like that in real life.  It was an experiment with a new metallic BM paint and didn't live up to it's look.  Very disappointing.

The wee home office

 The fridge needed a back and we also needed a place for the phone and bills - a.k.a a home office.  So we managed to tuck it into the back wall of the fridge.  It also has a fabric covered magnetic board and lots of storage for all kinds of paper products that are necessary to life.  Who ever said we were going to be a paperless society in the near future was dreamin', because I think that was about ten years ago.  Anybody out there with significantly less paper?

The original 1940's kitchen

After the gut....

We're back in business

There was not much to the kitchen after the previous owners moved out.  They had had a big freezer on the right side under the windows.  I just can't imagine how anyone could function in something that was lacking in so much storage or counter top space.  I know that there are people who can create amazing food in kitchens without much to them - but that's not me.  I'd rather be outside than cooking or even worse, cleaning up after.  So I definitely need a kitchen that's going to inspire me to want to be in it.  Beauty, function, storage - luckily we could create our own.  Never having had a galley kitchen before, I wasn't sure I'd like it.  It did present some issues due to the fact that it wasn't a dead ended kitchen, so the highway effect was the major drawback.  You couldn't beat it though for ease of steps.  Everything was just two and a half steps away from each other.  I loved it.  I had more storage in there than I do in my current kitchen.  I've had to put some things (well, actually a lot of things) in the basement due to lack of space.  That's the difference that drawers make, versus doors on the bottom cabinets.  I'm looking so forward to that change - and that's happening in just a few short weeks - yay!

  



Dave made all the crown molding and kitchen cabinets as well, in our shop down the street.  That made it terribly easy for us to keep the mess out.  All he had to do was bring it on site and install.









 





There's a pantry at the right front of the picture and all the food storage was contained there.  A built-in mini wine rack and then a straight run of eight feet to the stove.  Heaven......  We did a stainless steel back splash that was custom made and then set a glass tile border in the middle of it to add a bit of colour.


 

I chose pull down blinds in an organic woven fabric.  I hid the mechanisms with left over fabric from the living room curtains, creating the effect of a wide stripe valance that was Velcro-d into place.














When someone was watching t.v. in the living room, or the kids were already sleeping, we could easily slide the door closed.  During the day, the frosted window panels still let light through.









So that concludes the first part of the renovation.  More to follow of eradicating the ugly........

 

Back in the saddle......!

Well, it would seem that things have changed drastically here at the Blogger website.  The technical aspect seems to have been streamlined to more of a Publisher style of composing, which even though it can have it's challenges, it's much easier than the previous application (and it's more familiar to me).  So - now that that is out of the way, let me get back to the first house that really revealed our renovation "craving".  By the time we had gotten to this house, it was already our fourth one that we had renovated.  The difference here was that it was a total gut, an addition and re-do, both inside and out.  The other difference was that we weren't living in the house while the majority of the reno was happening.  This was the first and I would highly recommend this to anyone who values both their sanity and their marriage.  It was also the fastest time line ever for us.  In two years the inside was completely done and by the spring of the fourth year the outside was done (this included another building in the backyard) and by the fifth year we were on the move again.

work had already begun

 Unfortunately, I didn't have any before pictures of the smallest house we have ever owned.  This picture already shows great improvement.  We had removed lattice that had been across the top of the porch, and an entire lattice railing with a gate for the previous owner's little dog.  We also removed the pressure treated wood steps.  The lazy homeowners solution to everything is pressure treated wood.  Pressure treated wood has got to be the ugliest thing going. 

Centered & curved concrete steps create a more gracious entrance

So many people repair and replace with it.  It's certainly cost effective, but please do something with it!  If it's not a fence, then stain it, at the very least.   Actually, even if it is a fence, stain it.  It actually will extend the life of the wood and look a lot more pleasing to the eye. 

Adding elevation and texture with natural stone

 We changed out the shutters from louvered to raised panel; we changed out all the doors and windows and added screen doors.

Excavation for the master bedroom and bath

 We would have loved to have added a large centre dormer, but we didn't stay long enough to do that.  We would have also changed out the metal roof to shingled, only because of the terrible sliding snow problems.  I know that there are ice breakers to put on metal roofs to prevent that, but I'm not sure why we didn't........
Anyway, this post will deal with the outside and then the next one will deal with the inside.  

Master bedroom's private patio

Dining room adjacent to MB extension

The new workshop - a boy's gotta have a place for his toys!

 After we sold our manufacturing shop, we had to have storage and a home for Dave's tools and small machines.  It ended up looking like another small house in the backyard - but at least it wasn't ugly.  It would not have happened otherwise....:)

Dining room

The dining room was so magical at night.  We would light our candle chandelier and the wall of water would be streaming down the glass in the background, creating a soothing sound.  I loved the cocoon feeling that was created under the canopy.

A favourite photo in contrasts

Up the garden path......

 Since we were on a tight budget, we used inexpensive materials to create our pathways and back patio.  We used the top coping stone that would normally be used to top off a stacked wall, for the edging.  It was solid and wide enough to step on.  The edges were rough and stone like in appearance.  They held the mulch in nicely, as well as the 1/4" stone that we used to fill in the pathways and the back patio.  We had 25 year landscape fabric underneath and that kept the weeds from coming up through it.

Back patio - complete with a propane fire pit

 The backyard had a one foot sloped difference from back to front, so we split the difference and created an elevated back patio, which had a step down into the rest of the yard.  This necessity created a much more interesting vista and gave it just a little sumpin' sumpin'.  We spent many a day and night in our backyard retreat and really miss it.  It was just the perfect size for our busy lives.  Stay tuned for the big changes that happened on the inside of what became the original Pygmallion House............

Sorry, but I've been having trouble

with getting my next post published.  It's the renovation of our last house and frankly it's got me ready to throw the baby out with the bath water!!  It's driving me cRaZy!!!!  The Wysiwyg is not the case at all.  I've been trying to compose this since July.  I'm not sure why the text is showing up all over the place, even though it looks great as I'm composing it.  I promise I'll try to get something else going - maybe tomorrow.........Cheers!

Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and lately next to impossible around here.....

the original deck laughs at safety

 the post holes were started on July 1

with the new deck that has been in progress since July.  Time off has been meager for my husband, Dave, the brawn and carpenter brains behind this soon to be lovely outdoor living space.  Of course, I've had my part in it as well.  We brainstormed the design, as well as tweaking it along the way.  My physical contribution has been with the post hole auger, digging thirteen rocky holes.  Holy Hannah, were we sore!!  After that, I've mainly supervised and given either kudos or criticism - depending on whether the design is becoming what my minds eye has already envisioned or if it has started to veer off course and needs to be stopped before it has to be ripped apart and redone.  We've kept it simple.  A small upper area for barbequing, including a small seating area for just the two of us and a larger

the bones of the lower deck

the upper deck is taking form

deck for the large dining table and chairs, as well as two chaise lounges.  Off of the lower deck will be a long low step, down to a gravel pea stone patio.  This will be where the outdoor fire place will make it's home, surrounded by four big comfy chairs under the old cherry tree.  Because we didn't want a railing around the lower deck, we've decided to build it up with a garden bed that will be enclosed with fourteen inch high armour stone.  That stone was to have gone in this past Saturday.  OMGosh.  I honestly don't know how men run anything, let alone a business.  How does anything get done without communication!?  I'd rather have my wisdom tooth pulled again than have to deal with the coordinator of this job any longer.  Unfortunately though, I'll have to if I want to see this done.  So the furniture for the stone patio will have to stay in storage another season.  Major bummer.  I'm praying for a long warm fall and that

 a challenging sloped yard

we'll be able to at least use our deck and maybe even entertain.  We've had literally no one but family over for the last year and a bit.  Pretty pathetic, considering I've got just about every thing ever needed by a hostess "for when the people come".  That was a phrase coined by my good friend, Michelle, that used to come with her husband for an annual weekend visit in July.  I would be showing her what we had done on the house that was currently under renovation at the time of their visit and the purchases I had made to accommodate any visitors that we might have, or as I liked to say "for when the people come".   Over the course of a few years, she finally asked who we had that summer by way of company, that had come to visit.  Well, besides family - they were it.  "So", she said, "We're your people then."  I laughed. I guess they were.  So anytime you want to stop by for a visit, I'll have my people call your people and we'll see what we can arrange.  What ever we do, you can rest assured that it will be beautiful.......

"Woman - thy name is Vanity"

Who ever said that, has me pinned.  Especially where my hair is concerned.  I never had hair until I was three years old.  My mom would put me into dresses so that I wouldn't be mistaken for a boy.  When my hair finally did grow in, she let it grow long until I was in grade two.  Then my loving mother decided that the only way that her daughter was going to have beautiful thick hair, was to cut it short.  Twiggy short.  That was also the year that I needed my first pair of glasses - cats eye shaped frames, no less, along with that newly minted Twiggy cut.  I was the anemic stick girl with scabs on her knees and being a red head was not in vogue when I was growing up.  Not even in Montreal.   After that traumatic event, the quest for the perfect hair cut was born.  It has become my holy grail.  If my hair is beautiful, then I am beautiful because I see it and consequently feel it inside.  You also realize how few really great hairdressers there are.  When I was student in university, I was desperate to find an on trend stylist.  A couple of my floor mates had great hair cuts so I inquired as to where they had gone and who the stylist was.  I quickly made the appointment with this amazing stylist Teresa.  I wish I had a picture of that cut and perm.  I ended up looking just like her/him - not sure what or which way she/he swung - with this huge wild head of hair (it was thick now!) that my motorcycle helmet wouldn't/couldn't go on without a struggle.  Wow.  Grew out beautifully though, eventually.  Who ever said " don't worry, it's just hair", was out of their mind.  Or bald.  Over the years there have been winners and big time losers.  After we moved last year, it was a challenge to find one that I could trust my now dyed red locks to, because I had just left the best hairdresser I ever had, behind.  I'm seriously contemplating making the drive back though because she made me look and feel ever so beautiful.  And that's just what this vain red head needs again, because life's too short for ugly hair!

You can't take the gardening out of the girl........

I never knew I loved photographing nature until we moved to the country.  Getting up close and personal with plants at the age of twelve was the best thing that could have happened to me.  Of course that didn't occur to me at the time - only age offers that kind of hindsight.  My parents had taken over my grandfather's garden center business and growing operation at the time and of course I had no choice in the matter.  The knowledge of trees, flowers, perennials, weeds, watering, propagating, irrigating, landscaping and design slowly grew over a period of five years.  Oh, and can I mention at this point, that Mark Cullen came with his dad to buy wholesale from us when we were both just teenagers?!  I think he's about the same age or a year older than me.  Go figure, eh?  Anyway, I discovered that I loved helping design for the customers.  It was a creative outlet that became so second nature, that I called it "design on the fly".  During these teenage years, I had also developed a love of interior design. It was physically easier and a whole lot cleaner than working on a farm or garden centre.  That was the life for me!   And so I prepared my portfolio and applications.  I went to my interviews and was successfully admitted by all three.  I declined all three.  Stupidly, I was too afraid to venture out.  So that ended that.  A year later I went to the School of Dramatic Art at the University of Windsor.  It brought me out of my shell; gave me the confidence I needed to go out into that big strange world.  Best of all - it's where I met my future husband.  So then I went back to the gardening industry and the garden centre for another ten years full time and then another five years part time.  I worked for other garden centres while living away from home as well.  With this most recent move back to where I started so many years ago, I've taken on some landscape clients.  I hope to make this a full out career move over the next year.  It's been slow to start and it's mainly me that's the issue.  But the need to turn to creating a beautiful world for myself and for others is stronger.  Stay tuned to see who wins.

It's all about the shoes

There is a picture of me at the tender age of three, strutting my stuff in my mom and dad's shoes.  One foot in heels, the other in a slipper.  And so the conundrum had started.  Fashion or comfort?  Well, as we all know - it's ultimately about the looks.  Comfort comes a close second these days, but it was not always the case.  I come by my love of shoes honestly.  My mom owned twenty-five pair when she got married - one to go with every outfit.  Every pair was leather.  Not the plastic garbage that they pass off as shoes in the big box stores.  Being as I went to a Catholic girls school, the uniforms made everyday dressing a cinch.  Shoes were the standard brown or black oxfords - buckle or lace.  Very uninspiring. The winter boots that went over them with the big buckle, went hand in hand.  There was no room for being unique or special or anywhere this side of stylish.  Just plain ugly.  But it got worse.  In grade three, it was discovered that my feet were on their way to becoming pigeon toed.  To my absolute horror, I was made to wear brown ankle high lace up shoes.  They looked more like army boots and felt even worse.  I thought I would die of embarrassment.  A whole year - which in fact was an eternity - of wearing these rectified the problem.  Of course hindsight has enabled me realize how lucky I was to have my feet taken care of.  As a result, it only made me more determined to have beautiful shoes.  While I grew up in Montreal (and the shopping was amazing!) all shoes were purchased in the Italian part of the city.  Beautiful leather shoes of every description and not costing an arm and a leg.  You were sized and fitted for the shoe.  You had service.  It was wonderful.  I think my most favourite sandals though, came from Italy directly.  Both my parents had gone to Europe for my dad's company when I was in grade four.  Aside from bringing back beautiful wool fabrics from England (more about that another time), my mom presented me with the most amazing sandals I had ever seen in my young life.  They were chartreuse leather with the strap coming up through the toe and a delicate strap buckled around the ankle.  The top was thin accordion leather pleated and a lustrous pearl was sewn in between each pleat.  I thought I'd died and gone to shoe heaven.  I still think about those sandals.  I can't remember what ever happened to them once I grew out of them, but hopefully they went to some other deserving young fashionista.   These days it's still about the shoes.  I keep my shoes - as long as they still fit and fit the fashion criteria - they stay with me, some as long as ten years.  So as a result, I have a lot of beautiful shoes that need to be dusted because I still don't have a job that I am able to wear them to.  That's why it's so important to go out with friends as often as possible, wearing your shoe of choice and having a beautiful time together.

Beauty brings balance.

What a beautiful and extraordinary country we live in. I had time to reflect on it today, while biking through the cool, green of a native Ontario bush.  My senses could discern the rapidly changing temperature and humidity fluctuations, the pungent mossy moisture and sweet familiar fragrance of some flora who's identity is still hidden in the hard drive of what occasionally is still a sharp and witty mind.  With all the required time our busy lives demand - needing to get the task at hand completed, or to the next project or appointment, a lot of us have become disconnected with the details of the scenery surrounding us.  Our eyes glance quickly over the big picture and hurry on.  Too bad. So sad.  Children see things so differently though.  They take great interest in the details of the flower, or toad, or face.  And if we adults keep our comments to ourselves, our children often see the beauty in what interests them.  We need to encourage that.  We need to teach them to appreciate and see the beautiful world that lies beyond the technological world they are being sucked into.  We all need that balance.  Beauty brings balance through nature.  I've been fortunate to have been born with a love and respect for nature.  I've lived half my life in big cities, like Montreal, London and Windsor, and the other half in the country side.  I love them both for the different things they have to offer.  One is totally "man" made and the other - well "man" just tries to get along as best he can.  Nature will not be discounted.  We need to place the beauty of what nature offers back into our streets, villages, towns and cities.  All that concrete makes it hard to breathe.  It feels like a prison - or that playground at my all-girls Catholic grade school in Montreal.  I have no fond memories of that time.  Ugliness does nothing to contribute to one's well being.  Life's too short to be living in it.  Do your part.  Beautify!

When did this love of beauty start?

As far back as my memory serves me - about the age of three - I can remember knowing exactly what was attractive to my mind's eye.  As any parent will attest to, trying to convince a young child any different is an uphill battle.  I knew exactly what colours I loved and would let my mother dress me in.  She was a seamstress and milliner during our life in Montreal, so my clothing was always custom.  Shoes were purchased in the little Italy part of of the city and nothing but leather would do.  Being that my Dad's father was a cobbler from Germany, this was a given.  The European philosophy that I was brought up with was that you bought the best that you could afford and you took good care of it, because it had to last.  Money was spent carefully and thoughtfully in order to make the dollars stretch.  To this day, my challenge has always been to have a life as beautiful as possible within my snack bracket.  It's so easy when you have pocketfuls of money. 
Both sides of my family have artists and musicians and gardeners that obviously contributed to my genetic predisposition.  My mother's mother was a Prada from Hungary.  Need I say more?  Although I believe that this is along the same lines as Smith or Jones over on this side of the pond.

Beauty is everywhere and nowhere.  It's both natural and unnatural.  It's in the eye of the beholder.  Sometimes I wonder though - What were you thinking??