Hello Monday

Sunny images to start off your week...

Happy Monday!

Via Coastal Living.

Doilies & Lace

My recent post about brown paper packages and how you can dress them up with doilies got me thinking about all things doily and lace. I love the DIY doily art I did for Chloe's room and still have a few more vintage doilies in my stash to use for other projects. Here's some ideas that are inspiring me...

Lace tape to pretty up your packages. From here and here.

Vintage doily candles from here.

More doily art via here.

Doily ideas from Martha - decorative tins and a doily chandelier.

And a doily table runner. Wish I had a harvest table just like that too!

Brown Paper Packages

"Brown paper packages, tied up with string, these are a few of my favourite things!" Maybe it was seeing the recent reunion of the Sound of Music cast on Oprah, but walking through Ikea recently I just HAD to buy some of this kraft paper (a bargain at $1.49 for 8m/26ft!). Immediately, I had visions of creating a vintage Christmas... HandyMan's childhood ornaments decorating the tree, handmade gifts, and presents wrapped in kraft paper and twine.

These images are inspiring me...

Color Me Pretty (via decor8)

Maybe I'll try out the faux bois tool I found this summer and try making Martha's wood grain paper too!

Have you started thinking about the holidays yet?

Inspiration

Have you heard of Inspiration for Decoration? Its one of my go-to-blogs when I'm in need of some, well, inspiration for decoration. Here's some of my favourite images (and best of all she provides most of the links to the original image source).

Velvet & Linen


Alexandra Interiors

HGTV

Good Girl Gone Glad

Samantha Pynn

Do you have any inspiration sources you'd like to share? I also like Houzz and the Canadian House & Home website. So many pretty pictures!

Speedy Decor

Its 10 days till Halloween and I still don't have any decor up. Any of you readers procrastinating like me? I'm looking for quick and easy decorating ideas, if you'd like to share any. Like our power-tool pumpkin from last year. I like when you can finish a project in three easy steps.

Maybe I will just print off this fun & free banner from Jeanie & Jewell.

Or create some Halloween bunting like this using fabric or scrapbook paper

Then again, I could just spray paint a bunch of pumpkins and call it a day.

Good thing C still fits in her costume for last year. Last-minute-decorator has no time or skills to whip up a new one, haha!

Kids & Design

I posted about this on my kids blog, but thought some of you readers would also be interested. Kirsten at 6th Street Design School is featuring a series this week entitled "good design with kids in mind". And she has some of my favourite bloggers contributing like Jenny from Little Green Notebook and Christina of Full House. So if you've ever wondered how to create a beautiful home that can withstand the demands of the littlest folk in your household, check out the series here.

(and just because I dislike pictureless posts, here's a pic of my littlest folk)

Craft Room Love

I want to gobble this room up, its so sugary sweet.

See more pics on my kids blog, Little Folk Design.

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Have you entered my Sarah Richardson paint chips giveaway? Only 2 days left!

Country Fare

I find myself drawn more and more to this look... call it Americana, call it folksy, or modern country... always white and airy but grounded with hints of black.



The curviness of the furniture, the spool legs and rounded backs, provide visual softness against the rough textures of sisal and burlap.


We're off on a week's vacation and plan to explore down some country roads and get out of the city. Posting might be light around here but hopefully I'll have some folksy treasures to show you when I get back.

Time for a Bath

We've been debating whether we include the basement bathroom in the basement renovation. Its well laid out, has a functional shower and really we could get by with just changing out the pedestal sink for more storage and painting over the floor to ceiling Van Gogh sunflowers mural (yes, we had more than one masterpiece in our bathrooms!)

But with just those cosmetic changes, I think we would never really be happy with the space... the cold textured tiles, the ones that catch all the dirt, would bug me; and HandyMan would still fret that bugs were getting in through the uninsulated walls or unseen cracks. We've had blog friends with the exact same house layout who found ants in those walls so we've always thought the bathroom may be the source for the occasional critter we've seen.

If we redo the bathroom, we could keep it similar in style with the planned laundry room. I'm thinking something a little bit country, a little bit coastal, fresh, and light... tongue and groove, white shaker cabinetry, classic subway tiles, glass and mirror. Mmmm, now that's a bathroom!

Arren Williams design; Angus Fergusson photograph


decorpad


inspiration for decoration


decorpad


Hampton Design

Rustic + Modern

The area I'm most looking forward to in the basement remodel is the crafting area. I love having things organized, labeled, and put away so we're going to have a bank of cabinetry to store paints, fabric, wrapping paper, and art supplies. The basement will have a bit more modern look than the rest of the house so we're planning on sleek Ikea cabinetry to house all our stuff.

I dream though of pairing the contemporary cabinetry with a more rustic working table. I have visions of Chloe sitting beside me, scribbling away as I work on the sewing machine, making her little pinafores with matching kerchifs, just like my mom made for me as a kid (what can I say - it was the 1970's and Laura Ingalls and Holly Hobbie were my heroes).

I love this look. Rustic farmhouse tables paired with mismatched chairs. We could even take our time with the chairs, picking ones up here and there at garage sales or antique shows. Chloe could help me paint them, a fun little art project as time goes by.

The harvest table with more modern chairs looks just as nice - though, I'm sure we have don't have the budget for six Marais A chairs! A good thing about the worn table is that any paint spill or crayon marking just adds to the charm!

Image sources: Marie Claire Maison, Habitually Chic, daisy chain, Melanie Acevedo photography, Country Living, Apartment Therapy

Feeling Inspired

Do you have an inspiration board? We do. It sits in our office and features an ever evolving collection of magazine pages, paint chips, sketches, photos, and bits and pieces of ephemera picked up along our travels.

{click on the picture to see it in detail}

This is what the board looks like today. Its funny how some things on the board are new additions while others have been there, well, since we started the board three years ago! And while I'm not the type to exactly replicate a look I see in a magazine photo, its cool to see how some of the inspirations are skewed and twisted and turned and reinterpreted into our own home (like the striped stair runner and the white kitchen cabinets).

When I look at the board, I guess I get a sense of what our general style is like - new traditional with classical details and some pattern thrown in. Do you keep a design folder with pages torn out of magazines? Or is your inspiration board a virtual one with hundreds of links to favourite online images pinned to it? Tell me - how do you stay inspired?

Laundry Room Inspiration

We haven't progressed much on the plans for the basement reno lately. But that's kind of how things happen around here... draw up lots of sketches, wait for more inspiration to strike, let the ideas stew in our brains until we feel like we've found "it", the perfect design solution.

I've been thinking about the laundry room. Why is the laundry room often one of the most neglected rooms in the house? At worst, you have washing machines sitting on a concrete floor in your unfinished basement, with a bare hanging lightbulb buzzing overhead. At best, you have a clean, simple, finished room.

Clean and simple is what I'm hoping for, something like these inspiration photos:

This laundry room resides in The House That A-M Built. She just sold this house (and had I lived in Brisbane and had an extra $700K in my pocket, I would have scooped it up myself). I love the mix of open storage, and closed cabinetry with frosted doors. White always looks right in a laundry space. The glass door is a nice touch, to bring in even more light.

I've had this photo from Canadian House & Home in my inspiration folder for a long time. There's just the right amount of spring colour. A rug underfoot is a good idea too.

Yummm, beadboard! I love the vintage feel of this room. The drying racks and cabinet trim add some style to what is typically a spare functional space. The hardwood floor looks great too though I would probably opt for something more water resistant.

Another fave from Canadian House & Home. The rod for drying items is a great idea and we'll be doing something similar in our laundry. The industrial farmhouse stainless sink is pretty fab. Right now, we have a deep plastic utility sink and its always getting stained and nicked.

I think this laundry room is practically perfect... lots of counterspace for folding; storage for linens; good lighting, and pretty green glass knobs to boot.

If I had a laundry room as pretty as these, I actually might be motivated to do more loads!