Curtain call...

I've mentioned a couple of times that we've been hard at work on the living room drywall. And after drywall, comes paint.

Which leads me to my Achilles heel - picking out paint colours.

Of course, all the advice tells you to pick out your colours based on the fabric choices for your room.

Yeah.

That means I have to actually pick out fabrics for the living room, dining room and kitchen curtains (and throw pillows and dining room chair seats). The rooms, although separate (well, the dining area and kitchen are one big room), are close enough that I want colours to "go" - not match, specifically, but they have to at least get along. And of course, the only other coloured thing in the area is the living room chair.

Oddly enough, given my inability to pick out paint colours, I tend to have fabric store karma*. This time, I walked into the store, and fell in love with one of the fabrics on display. But I could not find it anywhere. I asked one clerk for help, and although she thought they still had some, she couldn't find it either. She asked another clerk who confirmed it was all gone, but it can be re-ordered.

The best part? She sold me the display swag, ~ 3 meters (~ 3 yards), for only $15. This fabric normally sells for over $25 a meter. Unfortunately, it's not quite enough to do the two windows in the kitchen, so I'll have to ask them to order me in another meter or three, but I still saved a lot of money!

Now, I know this isn't to everyone's taste, but I love it - and, the background cream colour and the greens match the chair PERFECTLY!

See? And only $15!!

As much as I love this fabric, I don't want it for the chairs in the dining room, but I have a lot of colours I can pull out of this fabric to help me pick out that one - maybe a dark blue solid?

And I also think I've settled on the choices for the living room: 

The sample on the right is a cream-coloured semi-sheer that I might use for the curtains, while the one on the left is the perfect colour and pattern for the throw cushions on the couch and love seat.

Fabric karma for the win!

______________________________________________________
*The best, by far, was the time a friend and I decorated another friend's nursery as a baby gift. We started with the paint colours (bad plan!) since I had this idea in my head, and then had to find fabric for the curtains. The colours were white, pale blue and a pale pear green - not typical baby colours, but lovely together - and almost impossible to find in fabrics. However, while rummaging in the remnant bin, the friend found the PERFECT fabric - a nice plaid with all the colours in it. Perfect match, and *just* enough to make the curtains. Of course, my melting** part of the %*^&# stuff while ironing it didn't help, but I was able to hide that part in the hem. Fabric karma, I tell you! :)

**yes, it melted. Ruined my iron :(

The most important thing to remember...

... when buying living room furniture?

Make sure it's low enough to the ground that tennis balls won't fit underneath.

Do you have any idea how much time this is going to save me??? Genius!

Oh, and please ignore the crappy green carpet.  One of these day, it will go to live at the dump... one of theses days...

I think the dogs like the new couch.

This is why I made sure to get a couch with a wide back :)

We don't need no stinkin' walls...

No walls, no paint, no flooring... why do things in a sensible order?? 

 

Although the living room looks the same as it did last spring (i.e. no drywall, still has crappy green carpet on floor), I went ahead and bought new living room furniture.   I sold the furniture I had in Saskatoon before I left, since it wasn't worth the cost to move it home.  So, for the past three years (THREE YEARS?!?  It's been three years??  Yikes!), all I've had is a hand-me-down hand-me-down love seat in a horrible burnt orange colour - the one that appears in a lot of the pictures posted here.  It was my parents', back in the day (we're talking mid 80s here), then they gave it to my sister, who then gave it to me.  Now, I'm happy I had the use of it for the last three years (!!!), but I'm even happier it will be going far, far away very soon. 

After looking at a number of stores, I ended up ordering a couch, love seat and chair from Stoney Creek Furniture.  They have a HUGE selection, and while their prices are a bit more than other places, the service and selection cannot be beat.  

And more important:  they sell furniture from Canadian manufacturers. 

Another reason I bought there was the VAST fabric selection:  I knew I wanted a dark grey couch and love seat, then some sort of brighter fabric for the chair.  The sales staff spent literally hours with me, making sure I got exactly what I wanted, without any pressure to buy.  And it arrived today!

Sorry for the crappy pics, but all the furniture is shoved to one end of the room, until I can organize a bit more :)

The couch:

 End profile:

Wonder where I got the colour scheme pf grey and cream from???

 I haz new couch.  (He needs a new haircut!)

And the chair!!  It swivels!!!!

Yeah, crazy green fabric!  But I love it.  I never would have picked it out on my own, but it goes great with the rest of the furniture, and won't clash with the kitchen and dining room.

This furniture is well made, Canadian-made, and should last almost forever.  And when the sales clerk realized I was in the middle of renovating, she went one step above and beyond any other furniture store I have even dealt with:  she sent fabric swatches to help me with the rest of the decorating.

Now, if I only had walls....

Water, water everywhere...

I hate fixing other peoples' mistakes.


Hate it, to the tune of $6200.00


That's the cost to get the roof fixed and re-shingled, as well as a "torch-on" roof for the addition (as opposed to the nailed-down stips of tar paper that currently sheath the flat roof of the addition.)

Why a new roof?  In addition to the fact that the current roof has no vents...

...wait, have I told this story before?  If not, quick re-cap.  When you look at the roof from outside, you see vents.  Two of them.  New.  Perfect. On the fantastic, less-than-10-years-old roof.

But when you look in the attic, you see... nothing.  No vents.  No holes under the vents. 

Yes, the last roofers actually went to the trouble of putting in roof vents, without actually, you know, making them vent.  Grrrrrr.....

In addition, there are two old stove pipes in the roof that go nowhere.  One would think it'd be easier to take them out, rather than shingle around them, but what do I know?  One, in fact, was completely open at the top, and "sealed" at the bottom, (which was inside one of the upstairs walls) only by a piece of metal sheeting.  How long do you think it would take that to start leaking??

Ironically enough, *that* stove pipe is mere inches away from the non-vent.  They could have actually taken out the stove pipe, and placed the vent on the hole, making a real vent.  Instead, I have a useless pipe to nowhere and a pseudo-vent. 

But the current issue is the second stove pipe.  It starts in the dining room (I assume there was a stove of some sort, possibly a cook stove, since the original wood floor is missing in that corner as well), and goes  through what was the original back wall of the house (currently the bathroom wall in the addition), and up through the roof.

 The stove pipe in the bathroom, along with the original(?) clapboard of the exterior wall.  (Please note:  a lot of the bottles you see are dog grooming products.  Really.  The dogs have more grooming products than I do.)

It was always boxed in (with a bunch of shelves added on) - at least until water started dripping from it, and we pulled it apart.  It was, at first, a slow leak, and I thought I'd be able to make it until spring.

Of course, it got worse and worse, until today, Dad rigged up the high-tech water capture system you see above :)

Hi-tech drainage system part two.

Basically, it's an old chunk of ducting, opened up "flat", nailed to the wall, with a used piece of string duct-taped to the pipe, leading into a bucket.  I love innovation, especially when its free!!

Dad's also been working on the plumbing,  with surprisingly few problems (knock on Kip's head wood).  Today, he had to change something (see Dad?  I didn't tell them about that massive mistake you made), and afterwards, wanting to make sure there were no leaks, turned on the water for the new pipes, and had me run upstairs to make sure nothing was leaking.

Nothing was leaking.  Really. 

Which was why I was surprised, ~10 minutes after the water had been turned back off, the see water dripping from the ceiling into the living room.

 The guilty party.  

(HEY!!  Wasn't me!!  - Kip)

Ooops.  Sorry Kip.

The guilty party.

Actually, the plumbing was fine too - the value that controls the shower (I think that's what is it) was open a smidge, and the air trapped in the lines took a while to squeeze out, followed by water.  Lots and lots of water.  Quick fix though, fortunately!!

And since Dad has been working on the plumbing, he decided it was time to put one of these in:

My favourite (for now) thing.

It's an outside tap!!  Woohoo!!  You have no idea how useful these little things are - until you don't have one.  I had a hose snaking out a window all summer long, so I could water the garden with a sprinkler.  Good times.

Other new things:

My reno-chic pink living room, with red accents.

At least it's WARM!

New doorbell.

Again, you don't realize how nice it is to have one - until you don't.  And holywow, you can spend some serious cash on doorbells!


And some old things - old kitchen wallpaper, peeking through here and there:

I assume these were used at two different times!


I should be posting more often, I hope, as things have calmed down a bit here, and there are more interesting things going on soon (like floor tile!  And sinks!  And lights!!).

Until then, stay dry.

Lazy Friday with Niagara Tree Service

Remember way back when, I was talking about the trees in the back yard?  Well, guess what?

We had some visitors today - with a BIG truck.

"Does this truck make my house look small?"

They came early in the morning, and went right to work

"Timmm..."

"..ber..."

"Er?"

Let's try this again... "Tim...."

"berrrr..."

And done.  Lather, rinse, and repeat a few dozen more times.

We went inside at this point, much to the relief of the crew, I'm sure, who must love customers who stand around watching.  And drinking coffee.  And taking pictures.

A few hours later, the living room looked like this...

... and the backyard like this.

And this. 

Fewer trees, more firewood.  Win-win :)

And just in case the front yard was feeling neglected...

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I cut down the wee tree too.  It was also an ash.  Planted WAY too close to the house.  Think of the size of the trees in the back, and put that in the front where the wee tree was - notice that the house is in the way?  Seriously people, when you are planting trees, think ahead - YEARS ahead - and choose your site well.  Your house's future owners will thanks you :)

So, that was my not-so-lazy Friday.  And I can't say enough about my tree cutters, Niagara Tree Service.  Great people, reasonable prices, showed up on time, worked like dogs...

...hrmmm, worked very hard, cleaned up the yard.. GREAT service.  If anyone in the Niagara area needs trees removed, I highly recommend them - and no, I didn't receive anything in compensation for this plug - just incredibly happy with Brian and his crew.  And I like rewarding good service with word-of-mouth!

The living room... and yes, those are green stippled walls...

And all the furnishings are NOT mine - these pictures were taken before I bought the house!