Hey friends!

So excited that we are heading into our first long weekend of the year!  It also just happens to be our anniversary weekend (12 years!).  Here are a few things that caught my eye this week:

Photo credit: Poppy Barley

I'm SO excited to share that the Poppy Barley team will be back in the Toronto area for a fabulous pop up event!  I'm beyond thrilled with my Foxhunt boots and I'm positive that their new collection will be a huge hit!  Be sure to book your fitting appointment and to stop by to see it all!  It's super exciting because the team will be bringing the full product line with them (typically you can see a small selection of sample product if you live in the Toronto area).  Find out more about the event here.

A few other things that caught my eye this week:

• Traditional Home's TRADhome magazine is live and it's full of inspiration!
• This home got a major facelift and I'm loving it!
• This lakeside home has left me speechless
• We're getting ready to stain our deck, thankfully Brittany is one step ahead of us and has posted some extremely useful tips!
• This post about SoulCycle made me laugh
• I need to find a spot for this gorgeous fabric!

And lastly, our basement makeover is coming along nicely!  We are almost done and I can't wait to share more pics of it with you!  Here's a sneak peek:

Have a wonderful weekend, friends!

Cheers,

"Pinning" the Old Fashioned Way

Gold Foil Heart Print by Kardz Kouture

I have to admit that I love Pinterest just as much as the next person (my For The Home board alone has over 3k pins!), but I still have a complete love for the good ol' bulletin board.

I have one in my workspace and it's probably one of my favourite elements in the little nook of mine.  It's ever changing but typically it's full of inspiring words, gorgeous spaces from magazines, crafts made by the kids, colour palettes that I'm particularly fond of and projects that I'm working on (look closely and you'll see a sneak peek of my plans for the basement makeover & kiddo 1's room).

"Love Deeply" print by Brittany

It's a standard cork board (it was hubs' when he lived at home) that I gave a quick update to by painting the frame in a high gloss white paint.  I added a decorative wooden ornament that I picked up from Home Depot and once again, sprayed in a high gloss white paint, above the bulletin board for a little extra detail.

How about you?  Do you still have a bulletin board aka inspiration board that you use?

Life is Short by Anna With Love, fabric swatches from Tonic Living

Cheers,

Our Spring Garden

I absolutely love this time of year not only because of the warmer temps and the fact that we can enjoy the outdoors without freezing, but because I love watching our gardens come back to life.  I love gardening and I love walking around our yard with a cup of coffee (or glass of wine in the evening) in hand to check in on each plant.  Truly one of my favourite things to do.

I have a few favourite plants, and each year, I am thrilled to see them spring back to life.   Hydrangeas, salvia, astilbe, irises, weigela, peonies and weeping trees are among my favourites.

Grasses of all sorts, evergreens and phlox are high on my list of favourites as well.  It's wonderful watching everything grow and to see the yard filled with texture and colour again!

I love to place wave petunias in our planters which are at the front of the house and on our back deck.

Last year, we planted a weeping jade crabapple for a special reason.  Our wedding rehearsal party was held in hub's parents' backyard.  Their weeping jade crabapple was in full bloom for the party and it was just lovely!  Every time we see it bloom, it reminds us of our wedding, so we decided to plant one in our own yard and sure enough, it's getting set to bloom right on time!

I will have to do a follow up post with pictures of the plants in full bloom!

Do you love to garden?  What are your favourite plants/flowers?

Cheers,

BlogPodium Heads West and Melvik Lingerie Has Launched!

This has been a great week!  It included a very exciting announcement, a highly anticipated launch and progress on kiddo 1's bedroom makeover decor.

What announcement?  Well, the BlogPodium Team is thrilled to announce that this year's conference will be happening in Vancouver, BC!  How exciting is that?!  The conference will be held on Saturday, Sept 26 and the venue is absolutely spectacular, the Pan Pacific Hotel!  Hop on over to the BlogPodium site to find out more and to see a super fun video!  If you're looking for inspiration, to connect with fellow bloggers and brands and to to increase your blogging knowledge, then this is the conference for you!  It's honestly such a fun day, I love it!

A highly anticipated launch?  Last year I had the absolute pleasure of working with the talented ladies behind melvik Lingerie.  They shot their lookbook here at our house!  What an amazing experience it was.  Hope on over to their site to view their gorgeous collection.

photo credit: melvik lingerie

Kiddo 1's bedroom is taking shape.  I'm currently narrowing down the fabrics, but a good portion of the plan is in place.  Here's a sneak peek:

And just for fun, how adorable is this scarf that I picked up from Chapters the other day.  Love it (and it's on sale!).

The weather is supposed to be amazing this weekend, I can't wait to soak up some vitamin D!  Holla!

Happy weekend, friends!

Cheers,

Kiddo 1's Bedroom - Progress Report

We are still in the super early planning stages of kiddo 1's bedroom makeover.   I'm currently on the hunt for the perfect shelving solution to flank his desk, once I have those chosen, I can get on to finalizing the remaining pieces.  I'm debating two options right now, but I really need to get to the stores to see the items in person.

With that, here are a couple of mood boards that I put together.  We already have the desk (except his desk has white legs), the desk chair (I may swap this one out for a vintage wooden one if I can find it), bed and dresser.  Everything else needs to be purchased.  Not shown are the roman shades that I hope to make (neutral fabric with blue band) and I haven't really decided on a bedside table (will either be grey to match the shelving or wood).  The walls are currently a nice & light shade of grey, actually, all of the kids' rooms are the same colour!  It was an easy choice that I knew we could work with later on vs stressing to choose colours in the few days we had to select everything for the house.

In the first image I've pulled the shelving from Ikea, the mirror is also from Ikea.  The pillow and pouf (round circle at the foot of the bed) fabrics from Tonic Living and bedding from West Elm.  I love how the bedding ties in with the shelving.  Storage is key here.  He loves to display his Lego creations and Star Wars toys, we want to give him ample space to do just that!

For image two, we swapped out the Ikea shelves for iron shelves from Restoration Hardware.

I really see the space with open shelving, but I'm also considering bookcases which would include some fab DIYing.  See, I told you that we were still in the early stages!  I'll get there!

I've ordered a slew of fabric swatches from Tonic Living and I think it will really help to choose the right fabrics once I can put them against the paint chip.  The blue on the walls was all his choice, he's pretty stoked about it!  And as I mentioned in the first post, he's wanting to go with just blue, which is totally fine but that's why there's not much more colour in here (took some convincing to add the green mirror, which will beautifully reflect the striped wall!).  The addition of accessories, lighting and art will really bring this room together!  The finishing details will be key.

What we need:

• new bedding (duvet and cover)
• pillows
• pouf
• bedside table
• shelving (preferably open for an airy feel, but we'll see!)
• roman shade
• artwork & frames
• baskets for shelves
• blue and white striped wall (wall that bed is on)
• task lighting (bedside and desk)
• metal hooks to place behind door for hats

I think that's it for now!  Don't forget, you can always follow along on Pinterest to see the inspiration for this space! It will be interesting to see how close these moodboards end up being to the finished product!  We will have to compare them once the room is done.

Cheers,

Kids' Bedroom Makeover

Howdy!

If you're following me over on Instagram, then you already know that I've decided to finally tackle the kids' bedrooms.   Oh yes!

I feel good about the rest of the house, the main floor is pretty much done (I'd eventually like to fix up the laundry room, but for now it's good).  I have some exciting plans for the basement space, but you'll have to wait a while to hear more about that!  So it just makes sense to give each of the kids a space that reflects their personalities.

Up first, kiddo 1!  The fabric swatches have been ordered from Tonic Living (there's a peek at a few of them in the photo above!).  I've chosen a floor plan that will maximize the space and now it's onto finalizing additional furniture and other details.  His room currently lacks storage, so that will be added and we really want to make this a cozy space where he will totally want to hang out.

I've been busy pinning inspiration photos and potential pieces that will go into his room over on the "For The Kids" board on my Pinterest page.  He absolutely loves sports, so I'd love to tie that in as well.

We don't have a huge budget to work with on this, so many of the pieces that are already in his room will stay.  I do see the addition of plaids, stripes and perhaps some iron (thinking skatepark).  He's requested to only have the colour blue, which is so him, so tone on tone will be the name of the game.

I've always loved Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware bedrooms and would love to create something equally as beautiful for our boys.  Of course, there will have to be quite a bit of creativity to create something similar since we are working with a smaller budget.

I'm looking forward to this project and of course, I will be sharing some progress shots and the before and after with you here!  Hopefully it won't take too long to get to the "after" stage!

Have a lovely weekend, friends!

Cheers,

On Set With HGTV Canada & Income Property!

You guys!  This is a post that I've been so excited to share with you for some time now!  A couple of months ago, I had the wonderful opportunity to go behind the scenes of the taping of an episode of Income Property!  It was all thanks to a fantastic giveaway at BlogPodium, which I attended in September of last year.  HGTV Canada selected two lucky winners, Lisa from Fab Frugal Mama and yours truly were the lucky two!  Giddy up!

This year, the Income Property team is celebrating their 10th season and so far, the 10th season has been everything!  Did you get a chance to see their special Vacation Property episodes?  I officially want to buy a cottage and hire the Income Property team to renovate it.  Fabulous (also, I need to find out how to rent the cottages that were on the show, so good).

The day was absolutely amazing!  The team is full of talent and they work so unbelievably well together.  Their dedication to transforming spaces and capturing the transformation from beginning to end is really and truly admirable.  There are a lot of hours put in to each episode!

The crew began their set up around 9am, prepping for the Realtor reveal which happened around 10:45am and shortly after that, it was time for the Homeowners reveal!  The couple (who you will absolutely love) was so welcoming and beyond excited to see their new rental space.  Lisa and I had a chance to tour the newly renovated rental space prior to the taping of the Homeowners reveal.  Can you believe that I nearly spilled the beans by telling the Homeowners (who hadn't seen the space yet) what it looked like?!  Geesh, so something I would do.  Thankfully I caught myself and asked them if they had seen the space (to which they replied "no") before blurting out how wonderful "yadda yadda" and "this and that" were. Ha!

Now of course I won't share a full reveal of the finished space, you'll have to watch the episode for that (more info on that below), but I can share a couple of sneak peeks of the details.

The Income Property team did such an amazing job transforming the space (I am excited to see shots of the space before the renovation).  The new space is a renter's dream!  The team thought of everything, from storage, to how to maximize the space (the floor plan completely changed).  The space has character, stunning details and well, I'd move in! ha!

Having the opportunity to watch the Homeowners take everything in for the first time was something else!   Their reaction is truly unscripted and 100% genuine....goosebumps!  Ah, I loved it!  They were given the new numbers for their space around 11:45am and honestly, you won't believe what they were told!

This episode will be airing tonight at 9:30pm (with another fantastic episode airing right before it) on HGTV Canada.  So pop some popcorn and get cozy on the couch or your favourite chair because you won't want to miss it!

And of course, I just had to get a photo with the host of the show, the talented Scott McGillivray!

A huge thank you to HGTV Canada, the entire Income Property team and BlogPodium for this once in a lifetime opportunity.  I had such an amazing time!  Thank you!!

Cheers,

A Quiet Week and A New Book

The last week and a half has been relatively quiet and it's honestly felt like a mini vacation of sorts.  I've had a chance to give the house a good spring cleaning, study and of course, enjoy this lovely weather with the family.

I recently picked up a copy of Windsor Smith's new book, have you had a chance to read it?  I adore Windsor's work, she creates such stunning spaces.  Her focus is not only to design beautiful rooms, but to change the way that people live in them.  I think it's safe to say that she's succeeded.

The written portion of the book is just as fantastic as the images.  I have a feeling that Homefront will be one of my go-to's for inspiration for a long time to come.

With the warmer temperatures, I'm eagerly anticipating getting to work on our gardens.  I have also completely fallen in love with the idea of owning property with stunning gardens and walkways after reading the latest issue of Veranda.  Amazing!

I hope you're all enjoying a lovely week.

Cheers,

Around Here Lately and an HGTV Canada Series Premier!

I can hardly believe that April is here.  Did you have a chance to catch my Easter & Spring decor post?  I shared some simple tips to decorate for your guests with the help of some delicious treats and spring florals.  You can find the post here!

For today, I'm sending you into the weekend with a quick "around here" post.

As a huge fan of HGTV Canada, I was pretty darn excited when this absolutely amazing fella arrived at my door.  Beautiful detail and hard to believe that it was made with a chainsaw by the talented Ryan Cook.

HGTV Canada is celebrating the Series Premier of Carver Kings a show that goes hand in hand with their hit series, Timber Kings.  Catch the Series Premier of Carver Kings April 5 at 10pm ET on HGTV Canada.

Now that the snow has melted I can finally rock these stunning Poppy Barley Foxhunt boots!  I've been waiting for a couple of months to take them out and you guys, they did not disappoint.  Super comfy and they go well with any outfit.

Super excited to have this vintage inspired Anewall print up on the wall!  More photos coming soon!

The self-taught piano lessons are going well, but I also love having another surface to style!

Grocery shopping trips are that much better during the spring months thanks to the lovely spring flowers!  Grocery store tulips are inexpensive and they last a good week or so!  Don't mind if I do!

And lastly, a sneak peek of something I worked on last week at the Leon's Trenton location.  Can't wait to share more!

Have a wonderful Easter weekend, friends.

Cheers,