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Before the new week begins, I wanted to post some more photos and thoughts from this past week.
On Monday, I had a marvelous excuse to go back to Ikea - Matt was at home recording audio pretty much all day for a short film he's working on, so rather than tiptoe around our place, I opted to go out. After an unsuccessful trip to the aforementioned eq3 (wait time for a sofa-bed was 6-12 weeks, so it was pointless to order something that wouldn't necessarily be here by the time my mom is) last week, we finally decided on this one from Ikea. But when I got to the store and saw how teeny tiny it was - they had a sign on it recommending it for kids - I had to make an executive decision. I almost went with the original one I had wanted, the karlstad - it just looks so sleek! and even though it's way too big for our space, I thought I could make it work somehow - but when I found out that the Ektorp came in white, that was the winner!
That's a photo of it above. Not in its best state, but the white sheet is a definite necessity since the cats have already claimed it as their own. Hopefully my mom will like it as much as they do. We opened it up and tested it out briefly the other night and find it quite comfy. The only thing is that the back cushions are pretty puffy, so when you sit on it, it'd be nice to have an ottoman/coffee table to rest your feet on. That'll be something for the future!
I also picked up some awesome new stuff for my home office.
I had been coveting Ikea's helmer drawers for a long time! They are such a visual improvement on those plastic see-through drawers I'd been using for years. While the drawers are not the smoothest moving, they work and at least hide the stuff inside them. Not that the insides are messy at all :)
And my huge-ass printer (in the top left corner of the photo above) now actually fits entirely on its new surface.
You may also notice in the photo above that my office setup has changed again. And my desk looks a tad different than before. In fact, it looks a lot like the dining table that we purchased several weeks back and painted. And in fact, it is said dining table.
After all the trouble we went to - painting, breathing in noxious fumes, sanding and cleaning up - we discovered that there's not really enough room for it upstairs, at least where I had initially thought it would work as a dining table. And honestly, we don't entertain that much, so I claimed it as a new desk and moved the old one downstairs to be used as my new printing table. Score! Yeah, I'm a lucky girl!
Another find from Ikea:
I plan on painting the frame white, so you could call this a before shot.
And something I picked up from Winners a few weeks ago. It's a metal sign.
This is also slated to get a white wash, since I think it would look fabulous hanging against our dark grey wall. It would be a little daily reminder for me, and Matt.
Anyways, I have a busy week ahead, so don't know if I'll get around to blogging again until next week. Have a good one!
I'm heading out for the rest of the afternoon, but wanted to wish you all a Happy Furry Friday and Weekend! The week flew by and there's more I'd like to share, but it'll have to wait until the weekend. I managed to snap this photo of Suki this morning and captured a little video of Dex. Enjoy!
The shop has been updated!
Hurrah!
Please folks, don't all clamour to it at once.
Sarcasm aside, these are among my favourites of the new items added. There was supposed to be more, but seeing as how this was my first time making them, a few didn't turn out to my perfectionist liking. And it was a slow process, I tell ya!I will be making more in the coming weeks (perhaps, months), but my supplies are limited, so once I run out, that'll be it. At least for this type of jewelry. Glass tiles are so prevalent on etsy that I'd like to offer something a little more unique.
Also new in the shop are undies! You can find them here.
I've been making these and selling them in various retail shops for a while but had never before offered them online. We'll see how they sell.
Other new items include change purses, totes and tees, a few of which are pictured below:
I think I've spent the whole weekend indoors. Shame on me, I know, seeing as how it's now officially Spring. So I'll bid you adieu and wish you a good night! Until next week!
Normally I would take it easier on the weekends. But these days it seems that weekends are when we are busiest.
Look how busy we were here, a few weekends ago (those are the hideous beasts I mentioned in a previous post):
It was nice out yesterday, so Matt convinced me to bike to all our destinations. (He will avoid taking public transit as much as possible if he can) I agreed as long as we could go sleeper sofa shopping. Ha Ha! The last time I rode my bike though was more than 3 months ago, so by the day's end, my legs were mighty tired.
The shopping trip was kind of a bust, as we found out that in order to get a remotely nice looking sofa-bed at the places we went to, you'd need to shell out at least $2000. But when we got home, I did some more online research and discovered that this place just may have what we are looking for, for the price we want too. We'll be going there soon.
Today we tackled a paint job. At least, partly.
The table still needs another coat of paint. Hopefully not more, because it reeks and those smells are not good for the kitties or us. Matt gets to do the final coat as I will be out tomorrow.
I finally updated my site today too, though only the home page and some links. News will be updated soon. And if all goes well, expect a big shop update later this week. I've got some new things in the works, so it will depend how successful I am with them.
Wish me luck!
Well, practically. I swear almost every piece of furniture in our home is from Ikea.
When we first moved in here, we had about 5 or 6 Ikea pieces. Then shortly afterwards we acquired more, some from a shopping expedition and some from Matt's bosses, who were kind enough to bestow us with these Ikea shelves and wardrobes that had just been collecting dust in a storage facility. I'm pretty sure that the kitchen and bathroom cabinetry here is from Ikea. And the previous owners left us with wardrobes that also look very Ikea-like.
Now, while I'm all for recycling and free stuff, from day one that Matt's bosses' hand-me-downs came into our home, I'd been wanting to get them out. At least the behemoths that are these (Picture three of these in a row. In my haste to get rid of these, I forgot to take a decent picture of them all together):
here's a side view of them in a row:
In our Spring Cleaning bout, we finally got rid of three out of four of these hideous (to me) eighties-looking wardrobes. The last one (pictured above) is still with us until we come up with a better solution for our extra bedding, linens, etc. They were actually great storage units, and if we had painted them white or black, which we initially intended to do, they probably wouldn't have bothered me as much. But my biggest peeve with them is the overhang above the doors, which was designed for lighting to be put there. Practical, yes. Pretty? No!
I generally heart Ikea, though. When you're on a limited budget, but still want stuff that is stylish, Ikea is a great place to shop. And there's nothing like a little retail therapy to lift your spirits, if only temporarily.
Let's just say that I had time to develop a pretty extensive wishlist since our last trip there. Plus we had the perfect excuse to get some new things since we had just gotten rid of some old ones.
So Tuesday night was spent at Ikea.
As we walked around, Matt was convinced that the founder of Ikea is a genius. He marveled at how this man thought to create affordable and therefore "disposable" furniture. Apparently, despite his wealth, he still only files economy and wears a $100 suit.
I don't think Matt thought he was a genius last night though, when we spent part of it putting together this dining table, with cheap screws that could have been the demise of our new eating surface.
And these much-needed hampers, which you wouldn't think would be hard to assemble, but actually require a great deal of force to put together. You need a hammer for them.
I originally had wanted to get this table and these chairs in white, which look so sleek and great together. But after seeing them in person, you understand why the table is only $69. If you want to feel like hurling after a meal, get this table, because it will wobble every time you lean on it.
And the chairs, not too comfortable on the tush.
So I'm just going to paint the much sturdier table we got in white, to achieve the same look. Chairs will have to scavenged, possibly off of Craigslist.
We were also shopping for a sofa-bed since my mom is coming for a visit in May and we don't have a proper guest bed. I had been thinking about this one in white, after doing some research online, but again in person wasn't so thrilled about it.
We saw this one instead, but it's not on the Canadian website, so I'm not sure if it's available, or if there's a huge waiting time for it. Why do sofa-beds have to be so expensive? And you don't even know if they'll be comfortable.
If anyone can recommend a sofa-bed or a place to find some decent and affordable ($1000 or less) brand new ones in Toronto, please let me know!
Besides obsessing over home decorating lately, I've been printing up more scarves for this crafty chick, printing up tees to send to a new store and packing and mailing orders.
How fitting is this scarf for this post?
Yep. Still got Ikea on the brain.
Okay, I'm off to do print some more things. Look for new items in the shop before the week's end.
Sigh.
I had planned on getting more done over the weekend, but that just didn't happen. It didn't help that we lost an hour too and that I was completely unaware that daylight savings started this weekend until it was already in effect. Frankly, I've been a bit of a stress case lately (sorry to my sweet ones) and after not leaving the house for two days in a row, I needed some fresh air. So I dropped off some new goodies here, bought some supplies here and sadly, pulled most of my stock from here. Then I made a pit stop at home and had a quick bite to eat before heading out again with my partner in crime.
We spent the rest of the afternoon doing a bit of shopping, eating and movie watching, finally redeeming some movie passes that I'd been given unexpectedly at Christmas... though the movie we saw would have totally been worth paying for. If you've not yet seen it, I totally recommend it if you're in the mood for a feel-good movie. It was just what I needed.
And for your amusement, here's a little clip of one of our kitty stars showing how he earns his keep around here. (kidding!) Of course, when I tried to film him doing what he normally does so eagerly, he wouldn't cooperate.
Happy Monday!
The past two days have been a bit chaotic in our place due to my Spring Cleaning fever. We rearranged our bedroom, living room and downstairs work area and are still in the middle of setting everything up. So this photo is a bit of calm, which is just what I need right now.
I'll be back tomorrow with a longer post and more photos.
I plan on painting the frame white, so you could call this a before shot.
