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office talk

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As a reward for finishing all nine season of The Office, I got myself a new office!

Okay, so that’s not really why I moved…

I have been working from home for ten years, upstairs in a small bedroom. It suited me (and my dog Henry) well but this year a few things changed. Henry is now twelve and I didn’t want to burden him with too many trips up and down the stairs plus, we decided David was old enough to come home after school and keep himself occupied for the few hours between dismissal bell and 5:00. Let’s be honest, back in September, I imagined a blissful year of homework, math exercises, reading and writing – all done silently next to me in our co-space.

Things have not been perfect – and more days than not, David ends up playing with friends or Googling dog images and whining about being bored but I still love the new space.

Come on in and take a closer look!This room is formally the “living room” of our house. It wasn’t really touched during the renovation and has served as a playroom up until now. None of the furniture is new and most came from down from the upstairs office including the massive old desk which took four of us to move. I scored the rug from the Ikea sale section! And yes, the walls are PINK. The details are what sold me when we bought this house.The alphabet poster came from David’s room.The Stendig calendar was on my wishlist for years, happy to have found the perfect space for it.I recycled three bags of magazines when I moved downstairs. This is what remains.
The window shade goes up and down which is great for maximum light but good privacy!I actually got another beautiful marigold chair for my office (from the sale section at Ikea!) and although I love it in this space, it’s more practical in the living room where people actually sit. The chair above is from a secondhand store, Wrinkles is from my childhood and the family portrait was done by Jessica Morgan (Etsy).I bought two Waterhog mats from L.L.Bean to put under the chairs so the floor doesn’t get damaged. The three posters are from Ork.My neighbour just informed me this is a piano window – gawh, old houses are so charming! The little David train is from the Toy Maker of Lunenburg and the jar of sea glass was given to me by my cousins. They collected sea glass from the beach in Pugwash when I was in the hospital (age 13) and the globe came from my in-law’s basement.Pottery by ME! And the two cards are from here and here.

So in the end, the only new purchases were paint, a window shade, the three rugs and the calendar. Everything else was repurposed. Let me know what you think!

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As great as my space is, I get asked all the time how I manage to work from home. Honestly, I often wonder how Y’all handle leaving the house every day! I love my home office. If you’re thinking about making the move, here’s a great article: Get More Done: 18 Tips for Telecommuters – Remote workers weigh in on what helps them amp productivity and stay in touch with the office. (link)

1. Identify what needs to get done every day and make sure to do it. 

2. Use the cloud. 

3. Get dressed.

4. Don’t let friends stop by. 

5. Get out of the house. 

6. Make a stoplight for family members. 

7. Invest in creating a comfortable office. 

8. Be clear about your working hours. 

9. Pretend you’re not home. 

10. Don’t go to non-work appointments in the middle of the day. 

11. Get in-person time with co-workers. 

12. Use Google+ Hangouts. 

13. Enjoy your flexibility. 

14. Enjoy disruptions. 

15. Stay out of the kitchen. 

16. Buy a noise-cancelling headset with a mute button. 

17. Check in with co-workers and the boss several times a day. 

18. Make use of free or inexpensive communications technology.

I strongly follow 1, 3, 7, and 17… I can do better.

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hooked

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I’ve been itching to make a few cosmetics tweaks to our front entry but have held off for five years because the hooks I’ve been eyeing are bold and beautiful but pricy!

Just recently however, I was lured to something else. Let’s explore the exciting world of coat hangers!

Which one do you like? Can you spot the one I’ve dreamt about? Can you guess which one swooped in and stole the spotlight? We will get to that but first,

Here’s the current space:

It’s a little awkward because in this small space there is a huge window + the exterior door + the door leading inside + an odd little old window that looks into the powder room (I know, weird). So what I’m thinking is:

  • Keep the print and bench where they’re at
  • Line up the hooks on the wall with the odd window and interior door
  • Swap out the baskets for something nicer
  • Add a mirror
  • Touch up the paint
  • Replace the boot trays

Here’s what’s staying:

Here’s what’s going/coming:

  • Coat rack (discontinued)
  • Baskets (I want to find nicer versions – like this)
  • Shoe mats (I want to bring cohesion to the boot trays because we have 2 different trays and one is cracked)
  • Mirror (like this or even smaller is fine)

We bought the coat rack in Montreal when our condo was about to go on the market – a little self-staging. Mike hates it so much that he refuses to hang his jackets on it and my gripe is purely self-inflicted – I can not control the amount of bulge it accumulates. It must go.

As mentioned above, there is one I’ve been eying for five years (below, left) but the problems is I want 3 of them side-by-side and that would be $600 US. I know. Crazy-stupid-love. I thought I’d never find another so I just accepted my fate and convinced my self that people should not judge my house by its entry – it’s what’s inside that counts (or something like that) until I landed on the Schoolhouse’s website and… SHUT THE FRONT DOOR… I found this beauty (below, right)! I think we can all agree it’s amazing. I still want three (eeek! maybe four) but at $80 each, that’s a third of the price so I feel really good about that. Plus hello yellow, you’ll look fabulous on my blue walls.

In the end, I hope this small change makes a big difference.

1. Crate&Barrel – Leigh Wall Mounted Coat Rack / 2. Anthropologie – Cayden Hook Rack / 3. Jpegs – Wooden Hooks / 4. Urban Outfitters – Mid-Century Modern Wall Hook / 5. Pottery Barn – Wooden Coat Hooks / 6. Design Within Reach – Eames Hang-It-All / 7. Schoolhouse Electric & Supply Co. – Mollie Hook / 8. MOMA Store – Hello Coat Rack / 9. Design Within Reach – Coatrack Dots, Set of 5 / 10. Anthropologie – Le Bistro Coat Rack / 11. Jonathan Alder – Brass Finger Coat Hook / 12. Ikea – Hemnes Hat Rack / 13. Room&Board – Crew Modern Triple Wall Hooks / 14. Restoration Hardware – Coat Rack Bench / 15. CB2 – Journey Coat Rack

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it’s going down (and up)

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Over two years ago I wrote about my purple stairs and now, I am happy to say the day has finally come, phase two is complete – we have a stair runner!

Henry, our dear Golden is turning 11 this week so safer, gripier stairs have been on my mind as he has cataracts and has become a little slower and more nervous going downstairs in the mornings. I spent some time researching options online but in the end, I could not consider anything other than Dash & Albert. I’ve heard so many great reviews and the colours and patterns were hard to match (plus a company that puts dogs front and centre has my approval).

Luckly I discoverd the Halifax store Bellissimo is a supplier and I was able to see samples in person and even take some home to see how they’d look over our stairs. And, after a lengthy debate, my heart was set on Stone Soup. stairrunner_1Once we knew which one we wanted, the tricky part was figuring out how much we needed to order. Our stairs have two landings and since we were installing it ourselves, we were not going to get too fancy with diagonal cuts and turns on the landings.

Here are our measurements:

  • 11 treads (at 10.5″ each) : 10.5 x 11 = 115.5″
  • 14 risers (at 8.5″ each) : 8.5 x 14 = 119″
  • two landings (3′ x 3′ each) = 36″ x 2 = 72″stairrunner_2

I emailed Dash & Albert and they replied with this helpful formula for quantity:

((Rise + Run) x Number of Stairs) + ((Rise + Run of Additional Landings) x Number of Landings) = A

A ÷ 12 = number of feet needed

Which meant, we’d need one 12 foot and two 8 foot runners for our stairs! stairrunner_3

So our rugs arrived months ago and have sat in our basement waiting for the big reveal but summer came and interior home reno projects got pushed aside until last week when I hinted to Mike that we needed to get back into finishing a bunch of things that were half done. The list is long friends.

Obviously he took my words seriously because when I got home from a saturday morning run, everything was out and ready to go! DIY game time:stairrunner_4Turns out, it was actually not that hard – we didn’t loose it on each other and had the project was done in less than 5 hours. We laid a grip under the two landings and applied two strips of carpet tape on each tread and one strip on each riser. We used a staple gun to secure everything, which pinch in the lip of each tread nicely:stairrunner_5 stairrunner_6 stairrunner_7The rug was trimmed and folded under at two points but it’s hard to noticestairrunner_8 stairrunner_9Hello colours! David always asks why I choose to paint almost our whole house white and this is why… you get to have purple stairs and striped runners y’all! stairrunner_10 stairrunner_11 Oh, and the birthday boy is happy too.stairrunner_12

psst. I am not thinking of painting our bathroom door Purple to match the stairs since most of the purple is now covered. 

Here are some great step by step posts about installing a Dash & Albert Runner:

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oh, life could be a dream

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I was about to title this post Cottage Country until I realized I have already written not one, but two posts titled Cottage Country (here and here). Fire the editor!

It’s cottage season and these days, it seems like more and more people own cottages. We don’t but, every time we visit my parents on the Wallace River, I spend the drive home on Realtor.ca scoping out what’s available in the area; my criteria being: Waterfront (river or ocean). Close to Pugwash but on the Wentworth side. Maybe Tatamagouche? Near the trails. Winterized for ski season… 

And then Mike reminds me that my parents have all that and more at their place, and it’s free, so why do we need to own a cottage? (love you mom and dad). So no cottage for us right now.

That doesn’t stop me from dreaming, and for as long as I can remember, my dream has been to own/build an A-Frame. There are actually two A-Frames in my ideal cottage location that I have been eying and if one goes up for sale I may loose my mind.

Below is an assortment of drool-worthy A-Frames. Cue the music and enjoy!

HelloSunshine_A-Frame

A. / B. / C. / D. / E. / F. / G. / H. / I. / J. / K. / L. / M. / N. / O. / P. / Q. / R. / S. / T. / U. / V.

***

Oh, and not an A-Frame but I had to share: The Pool HouseHelloSunshine_ThePool House

If you are curious to know what’s available in my ideal cottage location for under $250K (waterfront) check these out: $49,000 / $189.900 / $199.000 / $199.000 (horse not included) / $248,500

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this ol house

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Our house is almost 100 years old – built in the early 1920’s, shortly after the Halifax Explosion.

When we moved in eight years ago, the house had only one previous owner who had recently passed away. The family freshened up the house for selling by pulling out all of the dated pieces and restoring the original details which gave the home its character. I have no shame is saying they did exactly what they needed to do to convince a gal like me the house was absolutely perfect… And for a few good months, I kept that thought.

Don’t get me wrong, I have always loved this house and the neighbourhood, but I quickly found faults: No closets, small bedrooms, no open space, darkness, rot, dampness, etc. and by the time David was born, less than two years later, Mike and his Dad tore off and rebuilt the back mud room that was rotting. Next up, the bathroom! And after spending a few weeks in a house without a full bathroom and an eight-month-old baby, we realized we were the type of people who could conquer any renovation thrown at us!

Why not rip apart the entire main floor, dig out a basement, and replace all the windows? Hire a contractor from hell and go wild! Who needs a kitchen when you have a retro toaster oven and a bathtub? We lived upstairs above all of the dust and chaos for seven months when David was three. It was nuts but worth it when all was said and done.

Since then, we’ve scaled back on renovations but have done some landscaping and updates to David’s room and our bedroom room.

Now that it has been over four years things are starting to need a little TLC.

I read about the idea of creating a WHOLE HOUSE TO DO LIST on Young House Love and thought it’d be fun to write one for our home.

So here is the list. Some big. Some small. Some that will happen. Some that likely won’t:

Main Floor:

  • Paint the stairs (they’re chipping) and add a runner (not sure if they will stay purple)
  • Wallpaper the powder room
  • Repaint the hallway
  • Paint the playroom – keep it as a playroom or make it an office?
  • Replace the broken TV unit
  • Build built-in shelving for the playroom
  • Replace the broken pane of glass on the french door
  • Replace the coat rack in the front room with wall hooks
  • Fix the under cabinet lightening in the kitchen
  • Paint the bathroom door deep navy?
  • Replace the rug in the living room
  • Replace the hallway rug
  • Replace the coffee table – move coffee table to basement
  • Add more pictures to the gallery wall
  • Fix the clutter problem with the closet under the staircase and add lighting
  • Mount the TV or fix it so it looks like it is not supposed to be mounted

Basement:

  • Finish building the laundry room
  • Paint the stairs
  • Paint the railing
  • Mount the TRX
  • Buy a deep freeze
  • Build shelving for the old basement storage
  • Declutter!
  • Move the washer and dryer out of the new basement and into the laundry room that needs to be finished
  • Add baseboards and repaint the new basement
  • Install the Flor floor tile carpet we have
  • Furnish the basement so it’s an awesome rec. room

Second Level:

  • Fix the cracks in the walls… plaster woes
  • Paint the bathroom
  • Fix the window trim in the bathroom
  • Replace the bathroom mirror
  • Replace the current hallway linen cupboard with a floor to ceiling closet (but account for the attic opening)
  • Figure out a plan for upstairs…
    A. Move the office down to the current playroom and make the current office a closet. This will give us a proper guest room.
    B. Move the office to the current closet/guest room and bust out the wall between the current office and our bedroom to make a bigger bedroom with a closet.
    C. Move David’s to our current room, keep the office where it is and bust out the wall between the current closet/guest room and David’s room to make a big master bedroom with a closet.
    D. RENOVATE: Build out on top of the flat roof to make a big master bedroom with a closet and ensuite that wraps around David’s room. Move the window in David’s room to accommodate this. Keep the office where it is and make our current bedroom the guest room.

Outside:

  • Get a swing for the front porch
  • Hang the mailbox
  • Stain the decks
  • Get a hanging flower basket for the side entry
  • Move the vegetable garden
  • Get a new outdoor dining set
  • Install a lap pool
  • Add outdoor lighting to the shed
  • Add tall grass to the back of the backyard
  • Get a new BBQ
  • Get a mechanical shade awning in the backyard
  • Finish sealing the patio stones

I know, it seems like a lot of stuff right? But I think it’s smart to write it all down so we can keep track of our goals and priorities. We probably won’t get a lap pool but it doesn’t mean it’s not worthy of our wish list!

Do any of you have a crazy list like this or is it too overwhelming to write down? Let me know!
IMG_0557IMG_0562IMG_0605IMG_0650IMG_0972IMG_0973IMG_0997IMG_1016IMG_1018IMG_1087IMG_1165IMG_1175psst. If you like what you’re reading, please subscribe and share. xomeg