Great Find: Lighting

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you've probably already seen the photos below of these latest finds, but they are just too good not to share on the blog, so I'm going to do it. Side note if you're not stalking, I mean following, me on Facebook and Twitter, then better get on that! Anyway my boyfriend's home renovation is coming to an end and he asked me to help him pick out some light fixtures, one of my favourite things! There are so many good stores to choose from in Toronto, but the key thing is not going over board and remaining on budget.  So here were the stores on our list:

• Morba
• CB2
• West Elm
• Living Lighting
• Modern Furniture Knockoff

Here is what we bought....

Master bedroom light fixture/ceiling fan. Full credit goes to my boyfriend as he found this one all on his own and at Rona. The best thing was the price, originally $250 reduced to a whopping $70 because it was a floor model. The other cool thing about this light fixture is that it's a ceiling fan too, as it spins, the blades open up, perfect for air circulation when you have a vaulted ceiling, just like my boyfriend does.

This beauty is for the living room and bought at CB2 for $149. He has a grey couch and coffee table with tons of red accents, so I thought this light would be perfect. Now I'm second guessing myself though, should we have gone with the gold instead? 

Next up is this one for the dining room bought at West Elm for $199. We bought some chrome tipped bulbs to use here and in the living room light above. Trying to keep it relatively consistent as the light fixtures are so different.

With a little bit of make shifting, these will be the new pendant lights hanging in the kitchen above the peninsula. We have tons of pot lights so we didn't need a light fixture. These pendants will get the same chrome tipped bulbs too! Oh and these were bought at West Elm too, $30 each for the pendant and $15 each for the conversion kit

One more special treat for today....we visited the granite manufacturing warehouse yesterday to hand pick the granite slab for the kitchen, it was really cool seeing everything in action....

And we ended up choosing this one...Alaska white, which will go perfect with the high gloss grey cabinets in the kitchen

Can't wait to see it all come together, we are so close to the finish line!

What do you think of our choices? Have any favourite lighting stores you would like to share?

My Finds In Aberfoyle...

I had a very relaxing long weekend, but it wouldn't have been complete without a trip to the Aberfoyle antique market. My boyfriend is in the midst of renovating his next project and since it's getting close to the end, I'm already thinking about how we are going to decorate it. We have a lot of items already from the last renovation project I helped him with, but there were a few items on my wish list that I needed to find in Aberfoyle this weekend and they were....

• 2 lamps I could re-finish
• tall wooden ladder
• handles for a barn door
• wheels for a barn door

Luckily we were very successful in finding everything right before it started to rain heavily, at which point we packed up the car and called it a day!

Here are our finds...

I have DIY dreams for these bad boys which will sit on a table behind his couch. Best find of the day...only $20 for the pair!

I also have plans for this wooden ladder, paint plans that is, don't worry I will feature all the after photos on the blog

I did some barn doors in my last project as closet doors in one of the bedrooms, here it is...

Now we are going to take it one step further for his house and add a track that you can see and some wheels, just like this....

Source: countryliving.com via Aleksandra on Pinterest

   

He will make the doors himself, just like in my house, but then we will add these to make it look like the picture above, along with the track

I also wanted to take this home with me, but unfortunately it was a no go, oh well there's always next time!

Although I was thinking some paint and a cool bulb with a cage would have looked amazing!

What do you think of our finds? Have any great finds from Aberfoyle that you would like to share?

Treasures From Aberfoyle

I had a busy weekend spent on home renovation errands and a trip to the Aberfoyle antique market. With my home renovation wrapping up, there were a few specific things I was looking for, here was my list:

•  light fixture
• old letters of the alphabet
• old map of Toronto, preferably my neighbourhood, the Junction Triangle
• piece of furniture to transform into a wet bar for my basement
• ironing board
• suitcases and school chairs for a friend

Unfortunately, I didn't find everything on my list, but I was really happy with what I ended up taking home. Plus it was a great day to spend outdoors doing something I love, with my boyfriend and puppy, Roxie!

This is what came home with me.....

Total fluke that everything matched so well, found my light fixture, ironing board and suitcases

Didn't find an old map of my current neighbourhood, but found one of the neighbourhood where I bought my first and second house, dating back from 1910, how cool? I'll be getting this one framed.

 

Got a bit side tracked and bought this Coca Cola wood tray which I thought would be perfect for the backyard with some glasses and a pitcher of ice cold lemonade, spiked with a little something and this cream coloured light fixture for my boyfriend who will be starting his home renovation in June.

How awesome is this light fixture?

Candy machine, once again for the boyfriend and not me. We were told by the lady who sold us this, that this machine is a replica, but she said it was a good one because it's made out of cast iron, like the old ones.

Then I discovered these........

Yummy cupcakes from Robin's Cupcakery. This was the first time I've ever seen cupcakes at the Aberfoyle antique market and I was excited, how cute are these? They tasted even better.....flavours from left to right, banana nut, red velvet, cinnamon bun, raspberry lemonade and cotton candy. The best part? They are located in the GTA, dangerous!

The missing cupcake.....S'more

This is what didn't come home with me....

Always wanted and still want one of these, but with a hefty price tag of $350, it didn't make it home with me

Totally fell in love with this old door turned corner bookshelf, I was prepared to take it home, only to find out it had been sold :( It further broke my heart when they told me they sold it for $110 and they were originally asking $160, sigh!

So those were my adventures and finds of the weekend, what do you think? Did you attend any antique markets this weekend?

One last piece of good news for today, my steel stair stringers finally arrived today. I can't believe the pain and agony these stairs have put me through. I started off my home renovation by deciding I was going to rip out the old staircase and do a new modern/industrial floating staircase. A fellow renovator recommended a company in Saskatchewan, Artistic Ironworks, which he had used for his stairs with success and a great rate. Needless to say I placed the order and 3 weeks later they arrived at my doorstep. My contractors went to install them and it turned out they made them in the wrong size! I called them up and they sent out a replacement pair, free of cost right away. The ones arrived 2 weeks later and once again they were wrong! I called them once again and spoke to the owner of the company. After realizing their mistake for the second time, he informed me that the stairs I'm looking for is a custom job and the price increased by double of the original amount I already paid. I guess you're wondering where the good news is, I promise it's coming. I told him that was unacceptable and that at this point I would source a local company in Toronto to make them as my timeline was now getting tight and I couldn't afford any more mistakes. I gladly agreed to ship back their stairs at my cost for a full money refund. At that point the owner lost on me, yelled and swore  and things got nasty. Lesson learned, don't ever order from these people again or recommend them. So after finding Ignac Blacksmith and not having stairs in my home since the beginning of March, these puppies arrived today.....

They don't look like much now, but once they get installed tomorrow and the wood steps get mounted on, they will complete the look on my main floor. So for any of your artistic metal needs either inside our outside your home, make sure to contact Ignac Blacksmith.

The completed stairs will look something like this, just to give you a hint

Can't wait until it's all done! 

***Image via Beaucher***

Flooring Update

Today or should I say tonight as I write this post on a Friday night, I have a treat, I'll be doing 2 blog posts, yay, I know you're super excited right now.  I spent the day running around taking care of some last minute details for my home renovation as well as buying tiles for my front foyer so there was no time for blogging. Also this evening I met up with my favourite first time buyers to help them celebrate their closing today with a little bubbly, more details on Monday. So in conclusion, instead of just doing 1 post in the limited time I had today, I decided to do 2!

Anyway, back to the front foyer, my entire first and second floor  have brand new hardwood installed, but I thought tiles might be appropriate for the front foyer as it's the only spot on the main floor that's enclosed and I personally don't want people to step on my beautiful hardwood with wet or snowy shoes. So my mission today was to find some tiles for this area. My challenge was trying to figure out whether I should buy tiles that match as close as possible to the hardwood floor colour, as they will sit side by side or go with something a little lighter and in a similar colour to the floor. After calling around for some much needed advice and spending way too much time at the Home Hardware with my giant sample of hardwood, I made a decision.

Here it is....let me know what you think!

I think it's a perfect combination as the hardwood is a mix of a grey/brown colour and the tiles are a medium grey with flecks of brown, couldn't have been more perfect. Oh and by the way $2.25/sq ft and I only needed 20 sq ft, you do the math.

Now on to post number 2!

More Great Finds!!!

I was busy all last week shopping up a storm for my project home and I'm excited to share some of my finds. First off, let me say it's hard to shop for finishes when your home is a complete reno mess, but somehow I managed, with a little help from a good friend of mine (Renee Elliott), to help me see the complete vision and be confident in the choices I was making.

Let's start with the paint colours, the pictures of the swatches are not the greatest, but I'm sure you will get an idea of the colours in the home.

The paint colour is from C-I-L, it is a Pewter Grey colour from their Clean & Playful collection and will be used throughout the whole house including basement. I have a lot of chunky window trim and tall baseboards that will all be painted white, so I think this Pewter Grey colour will act as a great contrast against the white and really  make the baseboards and window trim pop!


Next up is Grey Tweed also from C-I-L, this colour will be used in both bathrooms, as I like using a darker colour in the bathrooms and comes from their Deep & Luxurious collection.


Last, but not least, is the accent colour in the master bedroom. I LOVE accent walls, as is evident throughout my previous projects, so of course I decided to do one in this home too. This colour is Dark Cavern from Behr and will be used, you guessed it, in my master bedroom for the accent wall. I can't wait to see it all come together.

Let's move onto the flooring. The main floor and upstairs will have oak hardwood floors installed, whereas the basement will get carpet. Again you don't want to spend to much money in the basement as your focal points are on the main level anyway, so I find carpet is the best, inexpensive option. It also makes the basement feel more cozy and usable. Normally I choose a traditional medium brown colour for the floors as it's not too light (which I don't like at all), not too dark, where every dust particle shows and it's safe. But this time around I decided to live life on the edge and go with this colour.......

I love how this floor colour incorporates warm tones and cool tones, which is perfect for the home considering one whole wall on the main floor is brick (warm tones) and the other walls will be in the grey family (cool tones), how perfect is this? I received a great price for these floors too, courtesy of my good old friends from the Hardwood Liquidation Centre.

Now that I have established the colour palate in the home, here are some of my great finds....

Kitchen

These will be the colour of my kitchen cabinets, which I will be purchasing from Ikea. These stools I bought for my peninsula in the kitchen, from Urban Barn last week for $99 (on sale)!!!!!

A white farmers sink from Ikea will be placed in the peninsula and above it will hang pendant lighting which I haven't decided on yet.


Main Bathroom

I found this vintage beauty last week at one of the antiques stores on Queen St W in Parkdale for only $150!!!! I have been dying to use a vintage dresser as a vanity for my washroom and I finally got the opportunity after scouring the stores. I would normally go to an outdoor antique market, but there aren't many options during this time of year, so I had to stick with stores. This dresser has a long way to go, his and her white bowl sinks will be installed on top and the whole dresser will receive a makeover from Re:Creative Works, I can't wait! That light fixture I found at Home Depot for $79.99 and will go above this bathroom vanity, amazing!

3rd Bedroom


My 3rd bedroom closet is big and was missing closet doors. I really wanted to put up sliding barn doors, but didn't want to go through the hassle of finding ones I liked. Therefore, I had my contractor build these with some pine and a bit of stain, all that's missing is a cool handle. You also can't beat the price, this project came in under $100!!!

Front Porch


I found this great vintage light fixture during my visit to the Queen St W antique stores for $95!!! Upon seeing it, I instantly thought it would be a great front porch light fixture for my new beautiful porch (which still has some work). I love how the exterior of the home will have an old meets new look, just like the rest of the home.

I hope you enjoyed my great finds from last week, and let me know if you have any great finds of your own, I would love to hear about them!

Great Find: Bathroom Vanity

As you all know, I'm currently working on my 4th house project and it's slowly coming to that time where I have to start choosing and buying finishes for the home. I already chose the paint colours which I'm really excited about and will be sharing with you this week in my first ever video blog, but in the meantime I wanted to share my great find today!

I was at Rona, just looking around and found a nice looking bathroom vanity. For the upstairs bathroom I already have a big plan for the vanity, where I will be using an antique dresser, refinished, with his and her bowl sinks, as I talked about last week, but I still have to take care of the 2nd bathroom. It's located in the basement, so that means I don't want to spend too much money, but it's a total gut job (see picture below).


Therefore when I saw this vanity and then saw the price, I snatched it up immediately!


This beauty, which also comes in all white, can be found at Rona for $129.00 + tax, amazing!!!! Also, remember that you can collect Air Miles at Rona too so it's a win win situation. Once I buy a nice, sleek faucet and redo the rest of the bathroom, it will go from drab to fab. I'm thinking grey porcelain floors (same ones that I used in my last project), grey walls, white sink and tub and white subway tiles in the shower area with grey grout and of course this vanity. I don't have a lot of room to work with as the bathroom is small, so I think a combination of all these colours with this vanity, will create a nice open, airy feeling and make it feel bigger then it actually is and modern.

What do you think?

Great Find: All Things Metal

 Are you looking to add some new decorative pieces to your home? How about some metal? Well, look no further, check out some of these cool items from Debbie's Curious Sofa online shop. All I have to say is....I want!!!! These would make great Christmas gifts, wink, wink!

Triple Clip Hanger- $13.50


Hotel Silver Teapot- $48.00

Mini Photo Album- $42.00

Italian Florentine Wall Shelf- $42.00

Pedestal Column- $18.95

Aged Florentine Tray- $42.00

For more metal goodies, check out Debbie's online shop
***All images via Curious Sofa***