Window Coverings–Sheers Out, Blinds In

My mom made sheers to go on the windows in the living and dining room. The biggest issue with this is my parents live in a house with several animals – three cats, one dog. At one point last year there were five cats and one dog (eek!). The bottom of all the sheers were pretty ratty looking from rips and animal hair. After a while there isn’t really anything that can be done to make them look good. Also, in my opinion, sheers can look pretty dated. I’m not a fan.
Overall there are 5 windows downstairs – one very large window in the dining room, and one large window flanked by two tall thin windows in the living room. My parents recently invested in blinds for all of the windows downstairs and they look SO. MUCH. BETTER. It’ll probably help my sister with her allergies too because they won’t hold onto as much dust and fur as the sheers did.
I took some pictures – the quality isn’t that great because they were with my phone. The first one is of one of the small windows in the living room, and the second one is the dining room window.


My mom inquired at several places before placing her order. She called Blinds-To-Go first, thinking they would be the least expensive, but they weren’t by a long shot. She ended up getting a much better deal from Select Blinds, which is something I’ll be keeping in mind for when we move into the condo and have two walls of windows to contend with… although we’re definitely looking more for roller blinds, not slatted blinds like these.
Overall, the best price she was quoted from Blinds-To-Go was over $600, but the valance was very thin and to get a different pull cord was an added cost. At Select Blinds she got a much thicker valance (standard) and the price was $330 total! Literally almost half the price!! She asked at Blinds-To-Go if they could match that pricing and they said no. I was surprised because I always thought they would be the least inexpensive.
Have any of you gotten a great deal of window coverings? It’s one of the first things I think people should put up in their homes when they first move in so I’m doing my research early! Help a gal out!

Kitchen Cabinet Cork Board Tutorial

I love pinning crafty projects on Pinterest. I've pinned quite a few crafty projects so I decided I should try re-creating  a few of the pins I have. That's what this post is all about. 


This project all started with this pin, which is a great idea for storing notes, recipes, shopping lists, etc. I wanted to do something similar, but jazz up the board with paint or fabric... A little while later I saw Lindsay's tutorial for adding some pizazz to tacks by attaching pretty buttons to them and saw Jenn's post about painting her board. I mashed together all three ideas for this DIY.


I went to Walmart and got a cork board, then I headed to Michael's where I bought Gorilla glue and some prism-y jewels (I think it's for jewellery), and got the tacks from Dollarama. 

The Gorilla glue takes about 48 hours to fully cure, so I went ahead and jazzed up the tacks first. 

As per the instructions, I wet one surface, then put a small amount of glue on the other surface, and then pressed them together. I put the tacks aside and resumed the project 2 days later. 

Once the tacks were done curing, I taped off my board. I wanted diagonal stripes and I wanted a border so that the paint wouldn't go all the way to the edge. I did this because I thought it would look tidier and have less potential for leakage under the painters tape. 

I wanted to get an ombre effect (dark to light) with the paint and I wanted a bit of sparkle, so I used varying combinations of black, white and silver crafter's paint I already had on hand. I made sure to really press down on the tape in the corners to reduce any incidence of leakage. 

I peeled off the tape while it was still wet and I held my breath hoping there wasn't any leakage....

And I was SO happy with the results! Phew! I couldn't stop staring at it for a few minutes :) But once I could, I moved on to the next step: attaching the board to the cabinet. I didn't want to make any holes in the cabinet and the board was really light, so I just used double sided table along the back border.

Although, I must note that I would've better reinforced the board to the cabinet if there weren't already a lip around the edge on to which the board fit perfectly. Seriously, this board was made for this cabinet!

After attaching some notes and a (fake) grocery list, here's what the cabinet looks like now

I'm very happy with the results. My parents both like it - my dad especially likes that I didn't drill any holes into the cabinet lol. And my mom says she likes the sparkles from the silver paint.

Here is a side by side before and after. 

Total things needed for this project and their costs:

Cork board $9.44

Tacks $1.00

Jewels $2.99

Gorilla glue $3.50 (was originally $6.99 but I had a 50% coupon)

Paint (already had)

Painters tape (already had)

Painting utensil (already had)

Double sided tape (already had)

Total cost for this project: $16.93!

Difficulty* of the project : 2

(*1=breathing, 10= tightrope walking across high-rises on a windy day) 

Tutorial: DIY French Door Curtain Alternative

At the beginning of the month I blogged about the lack of cover on my bedroom's French door. Unfortunately I have to pass by the door to do pretty much anything in my room so the lack of privacy was an issue. 

My interim solution was to drape a curtain over the top of the door... As you can see, it was more of an eyesore than a solution. 

I pinned around for ideas but kept in the back of my mind what Daniel from Manhattan Nest did to his French doors in his old apartment. I knew that solution would let the light come through, be easily removable, and most importantly, look great (hopefully!).

So I looked into his original source (Jessica, from How About Orange) for the project and it turns out it really is an easy process. I made a few modifications to their process because both Daniel and Jessica said they made way too much of the paste that sticks the fabric to the doors.

Here is my revised paste:

1. Boil 2 cups of water
2. While the water is boiling, stir 1/8 cup corn starch into 1/4 cup cold water
3. Add the boiled water and mix it up
4. Wait for it to cool down

While I waited for the paste to cool, I took the measurements from one glass panel on the door and used those measurements to make a template on a thin piece of cardboard (think cereal box thickness). The fabric I used was a basic white 100% cotton twin bed sheet and I ironed it thoroughly. Using my template and a pencil, I outlined my template onto the fabric, but drew it about 0.5 cm bigger on each side of the template so that I wouldn't have any gaps once the fabric was pasted onto the glass. It's definitely a good idea to test paste one or two pieces before you draw out and/or cut the rest of the fabric. That's how I figured out to cut the fabric slightly bigger than the glass panel. 

Once the paste was cool, I slathered it onto the fabric with a pastry brush until the fabric was fully saturated. I worked on big plastic bag so I didn't make a mess. I placed the fabric on the door and used an old metropass (any plastic card will do) to gently smooth out the bubbles. Have paper towel or a cloth on hand because most of the paste will leak out! 

I let it dry over night and am SO pleased with the results!!

Here is a close up of the fabric

And here's what the door looks like from the other side of my door with the hallway light off and on

Total things needed for this project and their costs:

Cornstarch (already had)

Water 

Fabric (bought a 100% cotton white sheet for $8)

Bowl (already had)

Pastry brush or paint brush (already had)

Sharp scissors (already had)

Paper towel or cloth (already had)

Total cost for this project: $8!

Difficulty* of the project : 3

(*1=breathing, 10= tightrope walking across high-rises on a windy day)

Notes: Even halving the recipe, I still had a lot of paste left over, but I wouldn't have reduced it any further. 

Here is the before and after side by side so you don't have to scroll up and down :o)

Packed Up and Shipped Out

Kevin and I lived in our apartment for 2 years and 2 months - it was the first time either of us had ever lived with a significant other, so I think it'll always be special to us.

That said, moving was tough. Apparently, I don't deal well with open houses. Our landlord was kind of a jerk about it and wasn't giving us nearly enough notice - he's supposed to give 24 hours, but we'd always get less, sometimes only 1 hour's notice. At first, I felt like I should be accommodating, then I got upset about strangers traipsing through our place, then I got bitter and stopped trying to make the place presentable (We were moving after all!).

The last week was probably the hardest because we were living with next to nothing. No couches, no TV, next to no food, no computer, no seats at all... and Riley had already been brought to my parents' house. I would get home from work a realize I couldn't watch TV, go on the computer, or even sit anywhere (except for the bed). Ergo, I spent a lot more time napping than I should have - this was my way of procrastinating with packing. Because let me tell you, even when you think you're almost done, you're not. You're not even close. You still have more to do than you realize or want to even think about!

I finally got the pictures that the realtor used for the MLS listing, so here are the before and after pictures I promised. (I realize the "after" pictures are small, but there was SO MUCH dust in the air so the pictures weren't coming out properly...I think you can click on the image to enlarge it)

 I know the bathroom shot doesn't have any "after" pictures, but it looked pretty much the same - I just took back my extra medicine cabinet and changed back the shower curtain.

I'm almost settled into my new place. Kevin and I have done some trading of furniture in the last week because he had some stuff I use regularly and I had some stuff he used.

If I Were The Landlord Series - Part 2

This apartment has 1 window in each room and they're all  very decent sizes. The bedroom and bathroom windows face west so we get a lot of evening light in those rooms, especially in the winter when the leaves have fallen from the huge tree in our neighbour's yard. The living room has a HUGE east facing window, which brings in fantastic light in the morning. This room is where all my plants die live. But the kitchen. Oh the kitchen. This window has the most ideal orientation - south! There's just one problem, about 3 feet in front of our kitchen is our neighbour's house so all we see from that window is green siding. What a waste! 

There are so many issues with this window:

1. The view sucks
2. It always seems like night in the kitchen because this window lets in NO light
3. Our neighbours have a window, that if you were to draw a straight line from their window through to our window, it would lead straight into our fridge. I'm pretty much always walking around in my skivvies in the morning while I'm eating breakfast or making lunch and cringe every time the fridge door light shines on me when I open it. Those guys are either going to celebrate or be very sad when I'm gone in a week... 

Kevin's mom gave us a baker's rack (fantastic gift!) that we use to store our microwave, toaster, cookbooks, etc. For the longest time, we hesitated in putting it where we wanted (in front of the window!) because we didn't want to block what very little light came through. We had it on the wall to the left of the fridge and had our kitchen table in front of this window, but it was really close to the oven this way. Last year, Kerry and her boyfriend, Aaron stayed with us. I was making them pancakes and left the room for a minute. I came back to find Aaron flipping his own pancakes...while seated at the table!! LOL At that moment, I was like, "To hell with this window!" and we moved the baker's rack to the window and the kitchen table to the wall.

While this new arrangement made things in our apartment flow a lot better, I was still very unhappy with the lack of light in our apartment. Especially because the kitchen is the first room you walk into upon entering our place. I always used to think, "Wouldn't this room be so much brighter with a sky light?" Our landlord put in pot lights when he renovated this room, but a skylight would've made so much more sense! Especially if it was one that could open to let hot air escape. We literally always have the lights on in the kitchen so a skylight would've saved a lot of electricity and if it opened, we'd be able to let the hot air escape in the summer. It feels like a furnace in here if I dare turn on the stove in the summer months. 

Since I'm a friendly tenant and chat up all my neighbours, one of our neighbours, Pam, invited me to her house one day to check on the renovations she had done. Her house is semi-detached and ours is detached, but they're mirror images of each other. Guess what she had upstairs in her tenant's kitchen? A SKY LIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I couldn't believe it. It was amazing. It was so BRIGHT. She was in the middle of redoing the floors so the place wasn't looking how it normally does, but I was blown away by how much better that room looked with some natural light coming in. I took some pictures :-) They're not the best, but it'll give you some idea of what we're missing.  

This photo was taken at about 4:30pm. This room is a mirror image of our kitchen; the window to the left is the same one that I took a picture of above. See how much BRIGHTER her kitchen is? I'm so jealous. Pam says the skylight is what sold her on the house when she was buying it!


If I were the landlord, I would definitely have put in a sky light - one that can open. It would cost a bit up front, but I really think it would be a great investment. 

A Little Caulk Goes A Long Way

If you're laughing at this post title, you're not alone.


Seriously, I can't read that title out loud without laughing. I also can't hear the word "duty" without laughing either. A couple weeks ago I was in a meeting with my coworker, Kim, when her supervisor said, "Whose duty is that?" and we burst out laughing. Ohhh geez. Judge me all you want. That's how I get my jollies.


So anywho, on to the post. 


I posted several weeks ago about repainting my bathroom window frame. If you take a look at the "after" shot, you can see there are gaps in between the window and frame. Every time I took a shower those gaps were just asking to be filled, but for some reason I thought it would be a lot harder to do. When I went to Home Depot with my Dad on Father's Day, he helped me pick out the right kind of caulk and lent me his caulking gun for the job. When we were at the register paying (and by we, I mean "he".. it was only $2 after all and he was buying a bunch of other stuff) I said, "Dad, don't forget to lend me your gun." The cashier was like, "Whaaaaaa?..." I'm not sure if she was more surprised that I called this guy Dad (we look NOTHING alike) or that I was asking to borrow his gun lol I assumed the latter and clarified so she wouldn't think we were crazy. 


When I got home, I googled how to remove old caulk*, and then got to work. 


I filled in all the gaps around the window - as it turns out, there was very little caulk in the window. There couldn't have been more than a foot's worth. Unfortunately, when I was working on the bottom of the window, a huge strip of paint came off and I haven't had a chance to repaint it yet, hence no "after" shots of the window. 


I did, however, manage to caulk a bunch of other things in the bathroom while I was at it. Caulking is such a little thing, but it made the bathroom look a lot less dingy.


Here are some before and after shots:


The vanity may or may not be breaking free because I routinely sat on it so I could sit super close to the mirror to apply mascara..... Lesson learned! I apply my mascara from afar now!

This one might be a bit less obvious. I recaulked where the short side of the tub edge meets the tile. 

All in all, I caulked the window, the vanity, the tub (as shown) and the exterior of the tub where it connects to the bathroom floor. For $2, I'd say (Dad's) money well spent!

*There are more steps involved, but for me, removing old caulk basically consisted of cutting it away with a utility blade, scraping away any residue, and then thoroughly cleaning and drying the area.

Plant Killer on the Loose

I love plants and flowers and I've loved them as long as I can remember - in any form... potted, cut, hanging, terrariums, dried, silk...all good. I imagine myself having a beautiful garden in the front and back of my house one day - similar to what my mom has going on, but with less grass and more garden. 


But here's the problem:    I can't seem to keep them alive.


I know it sounds pathetic, but it really upsets every time I kill a plant. And trust me, it happens way too often! When my mom comes to visit, she (not so subtly) eyes all my plants and graciously takes the dying one(s) home with her and nurses them back to life. 


I've always been called a tree hugger and I'm a Virgo (apparently we loooove nature) and I come from a line of women (my grandmother and mother) who can pluck a sprig from a plant and grow a whole new freakin' plant!! Why didn't I inherent this green thumb?? It's embarrassing how fast plants wilt in my care. My defense is I just love them too much. Does this happen to other people??


My total plant collection includes 2 bamboo plants, a potted Gerber daisy, and 2 potted 4" Osteospermums in my living room, and an unidentified plant from Ikea that resides in my bathroom. I also have one currently in my mom's care - it's a vine of some sort...


In any case, my plants underwent some care this weekend: I cleaned all of their pots/vases, pot saucers, and wiped down their leaves. I'd like to think they "feel" a little better about being in clean pots and looking all nice with their lustery leaves, so maybe they'll live a bit longer now.


Obviously these aren't the same leaf, but after I wiped them all, I couldn't remember which one I used for the before photo...

 I emptied out the water, rocks, and marbles from the vase into the bathtub. I collected the rocks into a colander then sprayed them off with hot water to get rid of the residue. I refilled the vase halfway with water then put the rocks back in (large to small) a few at a time.

 Kevin gave me this plant for my desk at work when I first got hired, but the air circulation isn't great and I have a north facing window, so I brought it home with me. It used to be a bright green container, but I spray painted it white.

I cleaned off the stems and rocks 

The after shot of the bamboo shoots is making me crave asparagus...

A Dark and Scary Place - Under the Kitchen Sink

Everyone has a place in their house that they'd rather people didn't see. For me, it's under the kitchen sink. It's pretty horrifying down there... There's a mix of the compost bin, cleaning products, foil, parchment paper, plastic wrap, lunch containers, a bunch of different cooking oils, garbage bags, etc.... On top of that, it's just plain dirty and stinky with crumbs and the smell of the compost bin. When we have people over for dinner and they ask where our compost bin is so they can scrape their scraps in there, I hurriedly tell them to just leave their plates on the counter and I'll deal with it later. Oh the shame!

Here's what I was working with:

Here's the horrifying part... All of the gross old contact paper was mostly covered up by my blue storage containers - thank goodness! It was like a crumb city down there...

I pulled up the old contact paper, which came up very easily. Then I spent about 10 minutes trying to get rid of the adhesive so I could work with a clean surface, but it didn't come off. Oh well. New contact paper was going to shortly be covering up that adhesive, so I guess it didn't really matter much...

This is the paper I chose. I bought it for $3.99 from Canadian Tire. I guess I could have looked around elsewhere for a better price (this stuff is probably sold at Dollarama), but I was already at Canadian Tire and I figured super cheap stuff will probably just un-stick in a couple of weeks

It was super easy to apply! The top left corner is lifted a bit because there's foam insultation popping up in that corner from under the bottom of the cabinet.

Here's the after shot! It's a lot cleaner, brighter, and better organized. Now my dinner guests can scrape away their own scraps!