new house lighting

When we first walked through the house, a few things were obvious. We would need to rip out wallpaper and repaint... and we would have to replace most of the lighting.

Nobody wants boob lighting, amirite?

On top of that, there were fixtures like this:

We both know that the dining room fixture had to go...

 So I decided, new lights everywhere! I have to admit, I was a bit naive... I didn't realize how expensive lighting can be. In our current home, we replaced all of the lighting when we moved in, 10 years ago, as a childless couple on an Ikea budget. Meaning, we bought every fixture from Ikea. ha. Except for the one from Homesense... I almost had a heart attack when I figured how much was being spent on lighting. pffft.

But at 37 years old, we decided we wanted a more grown-up looking home. And my hubs was getting scared of all the light-colored walls and white furniture I was talking about. He said the words "too girly."

In the spirit of compromise and making my partner happy, we decided on these lights for our main living areas:

While I keep painting our dark wood furniture to white, the lighting can help the space look more tailored. manly, even. ha.

I keep looking at the boxes, and I can't wait for all the ceilings to be painted in the new house! I want to see these beauties go up!

In case any of them catch your eye, here are the links:

stairwell chandelier: Lowes

dining room fixture: Lowes

entryway pendant: Wayfair

powder room lights: Wayfair and Wayfair

kitchen flushmounts: Home Depot

Please note: I linked to the Canadian Lowes and Home Depot sites. 

Let's talk paint colors next time, yes?

♥

renovations, renovations.

This whole blogging/renovating juggling act isn't going as I planned.

To be honest, this whole renovating things isn't going as we planned either. It's what people always say, right? It will take longer than you think, cost more money than you anticipate, and you will find surprises along the way.

our original view of the living room

There have been some surprises:

♥ We ran out of hardwood, and it will take another few weeks to complete the flooring

♥ The door leading to the small balcony off the master bedroom showed us her leaky personality in the face of heavy rainfall this week

♥ The front door needs changing, even though the previous owner changed it, because the quality is so poor

♥ We found evidence that the basement had flooded in the past, despite reassurances from said previous homeowner that there had never been water damage down there. We are talking to neighbors who say that it was a few owners before that lived through the flood.

We're not too worried about these surprises, but we've found these out in the space of a month and are worried that there's more lurking around.

In any case, there are fun things happening:

♥ We've replaced the parquet flooring on the top 2 floors (minus the missing parts.) We decided on a grey-ish maple. It looks better than it sounds. ha.

the maple is on the left, and the floating floor for the basement is on the right.

♥ Removed wallpaper, wallpaper everywhere. Some walls were salvageable, but others had to be cut out and replaced. She glued that stuff down to last. But as soon as it all came down and the walls got a good coat of primer, it was like a breath of fresh air.

wallpaper, wallpaper

♥ We ripped out the staircase spindles and rails. New posts are going up and it will change the look of the whole main floor.

Here's a look at the living room in progress. With the wallpaper gone, and the wall separating the staircase gone, it's already like a whole new room.

living room in progress

I am not crafting these days, but would you like to see more of what's going on at the house? And would you be interested to see things like paint colors? Lighting choices? Rugs? 

♥.

New home dreaming: bedrooms

In case you missed it, we're moving in the spring!

We'll be removing wallpaper and updating flooring, but I'll have to be creative with our budget to get the look I want in all of the rooms.

For today, let's talk master bedroom.

We've had the same Ikea bed for almost 15 (it was mine when I moved out before we got married.)

If you look at the footboard, you could see where the dog chewed - erm, actually the kids - had their way with it.

Our bedroom has never gotten a makeover, in the 10 years we've been living in this home. It's so basic and boring.

Most of all, I just want a grown-up bed.

After browsing some furniture stores and seeing the beds I want with price tags over a thousand, I switched gears and bought a sleigh bed secondhand, for 150$.

The look of a painted sleigh bed is so beautiful:

In white,

source

or putty-colored,

source

or even in grey,

source

What do you think?  

We're leaning towards either of the non-white options, because I have in mind to paint out my existing night-tables white.

We are also planning on moving this rug, from our basement up to our bedroom:

It is the gray scroll tile rug from Pottery Barn. The scroll detail lines are a very creamy ivory, almost beige color. I'm dreaming of a bed in a linen color that ties into the rug, and then all white bedding and white bedside tables.

Can you picture it?

For now, it looks like this:

How embarrassing. For how uncluttered the rest of my house is, my friends are always surprised to see the garage. We hide our messy behind garage doors. haha.

We made room for the new bed frame, around the hubby's weight bench, and are filling in nicks and scratches to ready it for painting.

I can't wait to show you the finished bed!

♥.