June 4th, 2010

Oh my goodness, what took me so long??? Yes I knew the doorknobs in my house were ugly. Guiness book of world records ugly. But like a lot of things, I just didn’t get to them until now. I figured that new knobs would solve the problem of me wanting all new bedroom doors and would be much much cheaper. What I thought would be a quick/easy/cheap project turned out to be a little more difficult than I had anticipated. The ugly knobs required a smaller hole in the door than the new knobs. So I had to come up with a way to make the holes bigger;

My jig
Luckily Adam had a hollow punch door knob drill bit that was the right size. But this process slowed down my project big time, and made an “instant gratification” project turn into a “be patient” project.

Old view from my bed
These knobs were everywhere in our house (3 remaining) and it is such a relief to have them gone. Here’s the new view from our bed;

3 calm doors to wake up to
Ahhhh, much better.
I’ve also been working hard on the boys bedrooms and they are coming along beautifully. Can’t wait to post finished photos!
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April 7th, 2010
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February 23rd, 2010

California coast
I saw these images about a year ago when this house was featured on Apartment Therapy and ever since then I find myself thinking about the layout of this house often. It belongs to Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I’m not crazy about the floor, but for some reason I just love this house. I can imagine how comfortable and fun it must be to hang out with friends and kids in this space. The coastline and weather is a super bonus.

Red Ligne Roset Togo sofa


- sunken bedroom, so cozy
See what I mean? I also love how this house is jam packed with art, sculptures and musical instruments. In the past every time I see a Ligne Roset Togo sofa I normally find it so ugly. But tucked away in that cozy little room off of the kitchen I love it. I can just imagine someone sitting there playing a guitar while dinner is being prepared.
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February 23rd, 2010

inspiration, I think this comes from domino mag (Mark Ruffalo's kids room)

more inspiration
It’s been three years and three months since we moved into this house and the boy’s bedrooms are still not done, they look like they were inspired by a no frills orphanage. Victoria’s room was done within weeks of moving in and she loves it (except for the paint color I forced her to choose…). So I am trying to find some inspiration online but can’t seem to come up with much. I know that I want some framed vintage posters from Canadian Pacific, like this:


And I know the white Ikea beds and dressers are staying, but that’s all I know. The boys have asked for their rooms to be painted red and blue, but commiting to a paint color so bold is way too difficult for me so we’ll have to see about that. Here’s what the boy’s room’s look like now;

Jordy's room

Jack's room
As you can see, the baseboards have been removed so that we could spray foam/insulate to stop the cold air from coming in. We need to paint before we put up new baseboards (like we did downstairs!!!). Hopefully I will have some after shots soon.
Posted in Art, Kim's house, bedroom | 1 Comment »
September 26th, 2009

It’s that time of year again at Belley Acres Organic Farm. I took thses photos a few weeks ago, so these pumpkins we grew are now orange and full of little nibble marks from the squirrels. The garden had a tough go this season because of all the rain. It’s hard to grow veggies with no sun. But we managed to get 3 pumpkins and enough cucumbers and tomatoes to feed a village. But it was not our year for peppers or carrots. Here’s a few shots our daily cucumber and tomato harvest, we couldn’t keep up. I’m already looking forward to next summer.



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August 4th, 2009

Can’t believe that my favorite room in my house has been absent from the blog. I don’t cook but somehow I live in the kitchen!



Posted in Kim's house, kitchen | 2 Comments »
August 4th, 2009

A while back Kel gave me her old basement couch. I have managed to squeeze it into my living room. I knew I wanted more seating and it just happened to match my white cotton slip-covered couch perfectly (thanks Mom, she makes amazing slip covers). At first I thought the arrangement was a bit awkward with the back of the couch to the fireplace but it feels pretty…pretty good.

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July 17th, 2009

Vintage GE Potbelly Percolator and new Tassimo by Bosch
The morning coffee preparation in our house has been comical this year. We thought we had cashed in big time at Adam’s work Christmas party last year when we won a Grind & Brew coffee maker by Cuisinart. I actually made Adam trade a cordless drill for the coffee maker! I swear every time I drank good coffee at someone elses house they always credited their Cuisinart coffee maker.

DO NOT PURCHASE THIS COFFEE MAKER
Disaster from A to Z, it was an adventure every morning, some mornings we got a jammed grinder, sometimes just plain hot water, sometimes it overflowed, but everyday the door holding the filter basket would pop open during the brewing so one of us had to stand there forcefully holding it shut.
My thoughtful mom came to the rescue and bought me an amazing Tassimo coffee maker by Bosch that I love and it makes perfect coffee quickly and easily every time. Thanks Mom!! The only problem is that my tree-hugging husband does not like to produce garbage. The Tassimo does use a small plastic pod of coffee grinds to make a delicious serving of coffee. So for him I have broken out my adorable 1950 GE Potbelly Percolator which my Dad bought for me years ago at a flea market for $10 (I see the same model for sale all the time for about $50 online). The only casualty was my vintage Kitchenaid which has gone back into storage to make space for our 2 coffee makers.
Posted in Kim's house, kitchen, retro | No Comments »
July 17th, 2009

Kim's front garden
Yup, this pretty much sums it up. The 2009 summer in Bangladesh Montreal has been one long rainstorm. I took this photo last Saturday, I decided to get my gardening done despite the rain. It poured all afternoon and caused my eavestroughs to overflow which caused a mudslide down my front steps and filled my beautifully manicured garden edge with mud. But despite the rain, my garden is looking gorgeous so far. I like to keep my front garden very neutral and since my house is black, white and yellow, I stick to white and yellow flowers in front. Mostly big white Hydrangeas which I transferred from my parent’s old house when they were moving. Ironically my mom had gotten them from her parent’s old house once upon a time.

Back garden

In back I like to have lots of color, several of the tall perennials have not flowered yet. I will take some better shots of the back garden soon that will be more colorful. This is also a glimpse at “the wall” during the summer. This year we added quite a large vegetable garden, so far so good. I’m having a little trouble growing carrots, 2 years in a row, no carrots!!
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July 12th, 2009

Tiffany box cake
I am a lucky lady, I was thrown two wedding showers, one by my sister for ll my girlfriends and the other by my cousin and my mom for all my cousins and aunts. My uber-creative cousin came up with the Breakfast at Tiffanys themed party and it was a huge success. Right down to the finger foods, the perfect Tiffany inspired cake, the little black dress dress code and the very cute gift bags, not a detail was left out. I hope this inspires someone else to throw a similar party for one of their girlfriends one day.

The beautiful food table

The gift bags that all the ladies left with

Posted in Entertaining, Kelly | 1 Comment »