Progress with a bedroom

Like my mosaics, this bedroom is (slowly) getting finished - little bits at a time.
Before                                                                      After

Closets finished √
Room painted white √
Mirror changed up√
Next project - hardwood through out.

One Crazy Before and After!

A while ago Hannah wanted to change her bedroom up - something I'm always game for.
The first thing she wanted to do was take the wallpaper down. Ugh! I said. That's such a big job! I said. How about we paint the wallpaper instead! I said...
Months (many, many months) later my brilliant idea(?), which was a huge job, is finished! All due to the diligent work of Hannah:)
It was the craziest before and after we've (she's) ever done!!!
Oh yeah, and we painted the bed too but that only took a couple of days.

Happy Birthday Sunshine!

Trash to Treasure Desk

A couple of weeks ago, on the way home from grocery shopping, I spotted these 'kicked to the curb' night stands. They were in my car before I knew what I was going to do with them:) They're in good shape, kind of funky, and have lots of drawers - all good things.
Wood glue and white paint to the rescue...
I built a very simple 6ft long box top from leftover plywood which took the height to 30" and gave Miss Hannah the new (free) desk she wanted/needed. Yeah!

White♥

Hello Sunshine!

I was just finishing up a run the other day when I spotted this sad looking chair that had been kicked to the curb:( I thought should I, should't I? Do I really need another project? where would I put it?... And then I was painting it:)

It was in pretty good shape - just needed a little glue and some paint. It looks lovely in Hannah's room.

Change is Good.

A couple of months ago Emma started talking about painting her room (again). It didn't take much to get me on board:) I'm always game for some decor change. She just had to pick a colour...

A couple of days before she went off to a weekend leadership camp we purged, cleaned and emptied the room.
This is what Emma's room looked like the Thursday before she went away. Yikes!

And this is what Emma's room looked like when she returned the following Monday.

Benjamin Moore's Cloud White, Benjamin Moore's Black.
Yes I can paint a room in a weekend but not much else gets done (Marathon Man and Hannah barely saw me all weekend).
Emma was very happy with her room's new look. She plans on adding some funky boho pillows and a quilt from Anthropology. All of which she'll purchase with her own money, earned from her first job. Yeah!

Change is good:)

Winnie the Pooh Bedroom Flashback

While cleaning out our basement today I came accross this old picture (1999?). It's the other half of Emma's fun crazy coloured kids room from yesterday's post. I like to think of it as 'controlled crazy'.
It made me smile and it's a far cry from my present day love of all things white.
I asked Emma (now 15) what she remembered about this room? She said that she remembered watching me paint it and that she loved it. Another made me smile moment:)

The Life of A Daybed

In 2000 we bought a day bed for Emma. At the time she was climbing out of her crib which meant she was ready for 'a big girl bed'. It was purchased at Sears and was originally a cream colour. I painted it lot's of fun bright colours to match Emma's fun crazy coloured kids room. What I really liked about this bed was that it had a trundle (2 beds in 1 really).

By 2005 we'd moved to another Province and Emma's day bed became Hannah's new bed. It was painted white to match Hannah's purple and white coloured room.

By 2011 we'd moved to another city (same province) and Hannah's bed stayed white but we took the rod iron swirl work off the back and sides as the little (kind of sharp) maple leafs kept catching on her pajamas:(

Last week I filled in the back and sides of the bed with tongue and groove pine, added some big wood beads (because I had lot's of them in my studio waiting to be useful) and repainted it white.
Then it was moved from Hannah's room to the guest room. Where it will most likely live out it's life, unless Emma would like to take it with her when she moves into her first apartment? The circle of life:)

Hannah, by the way, was very happy to switch up this bed for the guest room's queen size bed - the ultimate 'big girl bed'.

And this is William and Kate (our other kids), in the guest bedroom, right before I yelled at them to get off the just made new/old day bed!

...and they took it to the floor:)

Got lemons, make lemonade

Who knew I'd be posting about our guest room again so soon. My After has become a Before in record time! We had a large, unfortunate, water spill in this room (that would be the lemon part) which led to a huge piece of the carpet being pulled up, which led to pulling all the carpet up, which led to putting hardwood down (the lemonade:)...I love hardwood.
Now it's time to go pillow shopping (sweeter lemonade;) to give the room a new punch of colour.

For the love of white...

This cute little cabinet (a freebie), with it's fresh new look, is a perfect fit between Hannah's windows. Thanks again Margie and Poppa:)

The Blue Saree Mirror

In January I posted about my creative process and a new design/sample board that was inspired by beautiful Indian Bridal Sarees. This is the finished mirror.
The Blue Saree Mirror is 40.25" in diameter and weighs 25lbs. It's made with hand cut blue vitreous glass tiles, blue and crystal glass seed beads, blue and green acrylic beads, blue/green decorative trim and chained crystal rhinestone. All the elements play beautifully together. The photos really don't do it justice. I like it so much that I've started gathering supplies for a red version:)

House Proud

I've been feeling kinda house proud lately.
I like this collective of photos. There's no laundry piled up on the couch, no dirty pots on the stove, no knapsacks on the kitchen island and the beds are all made - just another regular day at our house;)
Since we moved in, August of 2006, making things our own has been a slow process - working one room at a time. There are only a couple of rooms that I'd consider done. There are still carpets we'd like to take up, hardwood we'd like to put down, lighting replaced, molding added...the process continues...but, so far so good:)

First new year switch up

Our Front Hall gets switched up a lot. The first before shot was taken over the Christmas holidays (our shortest lived vignette to date). I bought the red table at HomeSense, in early December, with the intention of painting it white and putting it in Emma's room. When I brought it home everyone loved the colour! It was so very festive (and notably? Pantone's colour of the year). On Hannah's begging urging we decided that it would stay red and become part of our 2011 very simple Christmas decor scheme.
We ended up liking it there so much that it almost stayed there. Almost. Three days after Christmas I painted it white, changed the knobs (Anthropologie:) and topped it off with a piece of clear glass.

It's now in Emma's room where, as you can see, it was desperately needed - yikes! And our front hall is back to the way it was - for now.

The 'Biggest' One

The finished product
This is the biggest mirror I've made, to date. It was delivered to the client's house yesterday and installed today. The installation which can be stressful (lots of glass!) went very well. Everyone was happy, especially the client (yeah!). The design is from my Shag Series. This one being the loose shag in light grey. It measures 9'x5' and weighs about 120lbs (we think). Its big and definitely made a big statement in its new lovely bedroom.
The process
There's only one way to do a mosaic and that's one piece (of whatever) at a time. There's no high tech machinery to speed up the process or little Disney mice running around cutting tiles in the wee hours of the night. The process is tedious, laborious and always seems endless...but in the end when everything is neatly in it's place all that is forgotten. And I start another one...

Emma's Bedroom Makeover

I have a thing for Before and Afters. I love looking at them and I love doing them. After Emma saw Hannah's bedroom makeover she asked if we could do her room. Not that there was anything wrong with her room. It just needed a little freshening up.
It all started with the colour choice - turquoise, with more blue then green in it. And that's how we went from pretty in Paris to happy in The Hamptons.

That's Alice. She's been around for a long time. The odds are good that she'll be around long after we tire of The Hamptons;)

Paint: Benjamin Moore, Tranquil Blue 

Ceiling light: Ikea

White lamps: HomeSense

Mirrors: Mosaicworks

Wicker chair: Pulled out of a trash bin (Emma's idea) a couple of summers ago (she's my girl!:)

Hannah's Bedroom Makeover

We started Hannah's bedroom makeover during our March Break and finished it today, which happens to be her 10th birthday. We said goodbye to Benjamin Moore's 'Million Dollar Red', painted the walls and chandelier white and punched things up with yellow. We couldn't be happier, especially with the accent wall! This was our first experience with wallpaper and we just might be hooked. Happy Birthday Miss Hannah. If you were a colour you'd be yellow - a bright, beautiful burst of sunshine.

Dog Print - from Etsy, by a Toronto based Illustrator

Lamps beside the bed - Value Village, $7.99 each

Night tables - Craigslist, $12.50 each

Yellow Daisy Mirror - Mosaicworks
White Glam Mirror - Mosaicworks
Wallpaper - From 'The Ink Book' through Benjamin Moore

Hannah's Yellow Daisy Mirror

Recently I've been having a love fest with yellow. We're in the process of making over Hannah's bedroom. We're going from red walls to white and accenting with hits of yellow. Here's a sneak peek of the mirror I made for Hannah's new room. It's made with white vitreous glass tiles, chained rhinestone, a lovely cotton daisy trim and yellow and white glass seed beads. Stay tuned for the before and after shots. We're trying wallpaper for the first time!

The Orange love fest continues...

I liked The Pencil Mirror so much that I decided to make another one - a smaller version. I'm calling it 'The Starburst Pencil Mirror'. It's hanging in our bedroom right now adding a nice punch of colour to the previous colour scheme (see photo below).
With the help of a small purchase from HomeSense, the two table lights, my orange love fest continues...
P.S. All my HomeSense purchases are 'small'. At least that's what I tell myself (and Marathon Man).

Emma's new 'perfect for her room' lamps

Because I've been doing a lot of switching up lately - mirrors moving from one room to another (a regular occurrence), table lamps trading places...the inevitable occurred. Emma's room was left in need of new lamps. Which of course called for a trip to Value Village.
The minute I spied these big, gaudy babies I knew they were the ones! The size, the colour, the glass. They were perfect for Emma's room, only $14.99 each and a better fit then her old ones (which are now working wonderfully in Hannah's room).
There really wasn't much to do. I painted the base and stem gold and found the glam, damask shades at HomeSense ($19.99 each). The best part, which I discovered later, is that these lamps are wired to fit 2 bulbs and they have 3 different settings. The first turn of the switch turns a small bulb on that's inside the glass globe. The second turn of the switch turns the top bulb on and the third turn of the switch turns both bulbs on. Very cool. Who's your Mamma Emma?!!