Toronto Fall Home Show 2011

EI EI Home offered up two tickets for the Toronto Fall Home Show to me and the ol' bloggo, so my buddy Gary and I headed on over last weekend.

Gary was impressed that my tickets got us through the VIP Entrance (psst: every attendee was a VIP)

One thing I was definitely interested in checking out while at the home show was window coverings. The condo that we're moving to next year has 2 complete walls of windows - a long wall facing east (the bedroom, den and living room) and a short wall facing south (the other side of the living room and the kitchen).

We came across a Hunter Douglas booth with some pretty cool shades. These Duette Honeycomb shades had my attention for a good 20 minutes. I'd never seen shades like this before... I've also never gone shopping for window coverings either though, so take that with a grain of salt. After a bit of research online, I can tell you that these types of blinds are called cellular or honeycomb. The reasons I thought they were awesome is that:

a) they have a cordless lift option so the blinds can be positioned by hand (When Riley was a kitten, I once found her hanging from the cord of my blinds in my first university apartment. Needless to say, but cords are dangerous yo!)

b) they were top-down/bottom-up (hehe saying that makes me laugh every time) so you can pull them down from the top or pull them up from the bottom. 

c) the ones on the left had a sheer portion on top and a blackout portion on the bottom (perfect for a bedroom!)

This picture shows what the sheer part looks like for the shade on the left

These blinds would be $$$ and the option I had in mind and am still considering for window coverings is what Anna from Door Sixteen has. She used the ENJE roller blinds from Ikea and they look great. So clean and minimalist. I think they would be a great option for the living room/den/kitchen, but I would definitely need a more opaque option for the bedroom. I literally cover up every single source of light when I go to sleep. Light drives me nuts when I'm trying to doze off.

On another note, Gary and I also checked out some cool storage options while at the home show. This above-sink storage option immediately caught our attention. It uses an internal mechanism that counters the weight so it is easy to pull down and lift up.

This was a nicely decked out pantry. I imagine this would be easy to keep organized because everything is in plain view.

And we saw lots of options for bedside tables for beds with storage underneath!

This one would be pretty easy to make... I think

This one has more storage potential with the drawer. And I think it had integrated lighting in the headboard.. very cool.

Did you go to the Home Show? Find anything interesting? Did you get the bread pudding mix?? I may or may not have taken three packages...