CURB APPEAL - POST THREE

Now that God has shipped us back to our first home, we have some work to do!

Our house has cedar shingles which I am conflicted about.  On the one hand I'm not a fan of the look of vinyl siding.  On the other hand vinyl siding has zero maintenance which is kind of awesome.  Hubby and I had been complaining to each other because a previous owner had painted the shingles rather than leaving them stained.  We were worried that was going to make upkeep a far bigger job than necessary.

And back to having work to do.

Those shingles needed to be painted, people.  Or the house needed new siding.  Cost wise painting is the better option and once we decided to do it - go big or go home, right?  We chose a different colour.  A waaaay different colour.

You may remember old red/brown before?

We never felt strongly one way or the other about this colour.  Mainly we felt strongly we didn't want to paint.  You know how it is.  But when you're going to be painting it anyway and the world is your oyster?  Let's make a dramatic change to the neighbourhood!!

My advice when you're changing the exterior of your home?  Drive around your neighbourhood!  We took a drive and paid attention to the colours we did and didn't like, as well as the colours directly around our house.  There are a lot of gray homes within direct sight line of ours so although we liked gray, we had to eliminate it.  As we did the neighbourhood tour we realized we liked muted colours best - muted blues, greens, yellows, creams, etc.  Then we went to Home Depot and below was our jumping off point.  We painstakingly selected a bunch of colours and then went to the kitchen section where we could put them on a counter (that wasn't surrounded by thousands of other distracting paint colours) and analyze them in peace.

Hubby wasn't feeling any kind of blue, which as you can see above, eliminated more than half of the colours we had chosen.  Neither of us was feeling the cream.  That left us with a few gray/green options.  And then choosing darker vs lighter was a challenge.  

We are planning on replacing our front door next year (one thing at a time) so I thought we should head to the door section and compare with wood tones.  I was happy with either of the greens against "Caramel" or "Medium Oak" pretend wood.  (Don't you just hate pretend wood, though.  I know the fiberglass doors must be more efficient but really.  Pretend.  Wood.)  And maybe I am the only person who has ever taken paint samples to compare against doors because we were asked my multiple employees if they could help us.  They seemed confused when I said, "Nope!  Just checking out this paint colour against the door colours!"  I dunno.  It seemed logical to me.

Stay tuned for the finished product.  Spoiler alert - we chose urban nature.  One side of the house is done but I want to wait until we finish the front before I share!

NURSERY INSPIRATION - GENDER NEUTRAL

See? I told you I was back!

I wanted to start my first post back with a little interior design inspiration.  One of my besties is a little over 20 weeks pregnant with her first baby and she has been digging into nursery design.  Last weekend she was showing me her recent purchases for Baby E's room and asked me what I would do if I was planning a nursery.  What luck!  My favourite game to play!

You might remember from a post earlier this year that I am into gender neutral nurseries.  I have had this vision in my head since I found out T was pregnant. (And this is my first attempt at making an inspiration board so hopefully I'll get the hang of it.)

I hope you found this as super duper exciting as I did.  I especially love that fitted sheet - it has little sheep on it.  So cute.  Have a great weekend, all!

I'M BACK

Hey guys!

I know I have been totally AWOL for awhile (from both this blog and the gym, unfortunately) but I'm back!  It's been a bit of a roller coaster the last few months - graduating, starting residency, moving (twice - and even a third time if you're being exact), back and forth for rotations, etc but I need to get back into a routine and I've missed the old blog!

For the next two years I'll be living between two cities - my residency site AND the home you've seen in pictures for the last four years.  I'm mostly home on weekends if I'm not working so I don't exactly know what form this blog will take over the next couple of years.  I would really like to focus on my favourite thing - interior design - but as a part time homeowner that might be difficult.  So we'll see!!  Bear with me while I figure this whole thing out.  And check back because I have a few posts planned for the near future.

Also you might have noticed I've made a few changes to the layout - I hope you like it.  I just added links to my Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram (that one's new) so go ahead and follow.

ART - IT'S WHAT YOU MAKE IT

Over the last four years of home ownership I've accumulated some items that we have used as artwork.  Some of these things are a bit nontraditional so I thought I would (hopefully) offer you some home inspiration!

You can use whatever you like as artwork.  Do you have a beautifully printed scarf that you love?  A pin or medal from a grandparent?  In hubby's case, a frisbee from an Ultimate Frisbee tournament?  There are no rules!  Frame them!

Here are some of my less conventional pieces.  (Some of these you may recognize from previous posts.)  I'll ease you into this with something not too wild and crazy.  This is a photo I took on our trip to New Orleans and I had it printed on a canvas on the Shutterfly website.

Again, from our trip to New Orleans, I bought three postcards at five dollars each and framed them.  They hang in our kitchen.

Don't make fun of me for this, but one time watching MTV Cribs (I know) we saw a collection of crosses hung over a fireplace.  Hubby and I both thought that was really neat so we pick up crosses on our travels (and by that I mean we have picked up exactly two).  Hopefully over the years we'll collect more!

I posted this little guy awhile ago.  Hubby and I used to say "Hey You" when we were dating.  I made this little sketch (took literally 2 minutes) and framed it.

This was another photo I took in Prague, Czech Republic, at the John Lennon wall.  I took tons of photos of the wall and then framed my fave.  She's in our bathroom.

And now my current favourite.  My grandparents collected tea towels over the years and there is a cupboard at their cottage that is full of them!  I snagged my favourite one (it must have been from a trip to western Canada due to the Rockies in the background) and had it framed with a vintage frame I found online.

There you go!  I hope this inspires you to frame something special to you that you have lying around your house!

WHERE WE BECAME A FAMILY

The news I referred to in my last post is... we're moving!  (Assuming we sell our sweet little house, that is.)  We have mixed feelings about it, but this means we'll be living together and both commuting to work in different directions.  The most important thing is we'll be together and we can deal with the rest.  When our house went on the market one week ago I realized I should take more photos so we can look back on our first home years down the road and remember this little place where we became a family.  I'm mostly sad about leaving this little home of our own, but I know it's the people (and animals) that make a home not the walls around you.

And just for the memories, here is the dining room and living room we spent the last four years of our lives in.  It's just little but it's ours and it's home.