It's been a busy week but we managed to do some shopping and decorate our accent table in the living room. We found this cool Welcome sign, our first lettered piece and also picked up some seashells from a local gift shop for $3.00 each. We also used some existing coffee table books.

We love to buy books when we travel. Chicago in Photographs and Montreal remind us of our recent trips and are great coffee table or in this case accent table books.

Are you a fan of accent tables?

Remember our post on Decorating with baskets? We mentioned an armoire and promised to show you how we have converted it to a wardrobe. We bought an entertainment armoire (originally designed for TV and media) and it's now an elegant wardrobe in our hallway. Traditionally, European homes have wardrobes, not built in closets, so we wanted that familiar look in our new home. Wardrobes used to be very common many years ago before closets became popular. Some older homes don't even have closets. Armoires are now mostly decorative but you can also use them for storage. Using armoire to hang your jackets and coats is an aesthetic option and a great solution if you are short on storage space, plus when you move, you take it with you. It's also a nice piece of furniture to have.

This armoire was designed for a TV/media and it was ready to plug it in. We saw another purpose.

How to convert an armoire to a wardrobe:

We bought two Alexandria Molding baseboards from Home Depot ($5.53 each), one wooden bar and Minwax wood finish for $6.55 to stain them.

* Hint: staining must be done in a well ventilated area, make sure to wear gloves.

We drilled a hole in each baseboard to install the hanging bar and attached baseboards to armoire using screws.

We use wooden hangers in our armoire. Their colors match the armoire and they hold heavy jackets better than plastic hangers.  We also keep the longest jackets and coats on one side of the armoire and have a basket on the other side for small accessories.

If you consider converting an armoire to a wardrobe, we strongly recommend it. It's fairly simple and inexpensive and it will look elegant in your hallway. It's a great center piece just like a fireplace in a family room.  If we ever move, we will take the armoire with us, and we can always use it for TV/media in the future, so it's an investment.

If you have converted an armoire to a wardrobe and would like to share your pics, just email us. We will be glad to post them. Good luck with your projects!

When we bought our raised bungalow, we inherited the 70s style kitchen with very dark cabinets, no backsplash and laminate countertop that looked like wood paneling. Kitchen window was also original in a very good shape but dark brown. We decided to replace the window and refinish cabinets instead of installing new ones. The only good thing about our 70s style cabinets was that they were maple wood, so we could send and paint them.

Here is the kitchen before:

First, we removed all cupboards and hardware.  We used electric sender to send cabinets to bare wood. It was a very time consuming process but eventually saved us a lot of money, and we were pleased with the result.

This is how the cabinets look like after sending. They were ready to be painted.

Once our window was replaces, we installed two identical light fixtures above the sink. We paid lesss than $100 for both lamps at Home Depot.

New light fixtures

We met Le from Australia when she came to visit Blueloom. Today we would like to introduce her great blog to you.

Home Front Inspiration is about sharing ideas and all things designed for the home front and you. Le says it’s a place to save images and ideas that one day will inspire some aspects of design and function for their own home.

Le has a great giveway open until Feb 28th. Visit Le's blog to win Jac Coates Cards.

Le loves to share pictures of beautiful homes and interior decorating ideas. Thanks to Home Front Inspiration we get a chance to see how Australians live and design their homes. We hope you will enjoy Home Front Inspiration as much as we do.

Thanks Le for a great giveaway!

We love to decorate with natural products such as dried floral.  We use elegant natural accent balls and flowers to make custom floral arrangements. We got inspiration for this project from our friend who used dried floral in baskets.

Pod mushroom stems & dried flowers

We made our arrangement using IKEA bowl we got 10 years ago! We bought pod mushroom stems and dried flowers and cut the stems. Here is our coffee table floral arrangement.

For your dry floral projects we recommend Michaels where you can find a big selection of elegant flowers and accent balls. Michaels offers several varieties of covered balls, pine cones, leaves, and assorted dried flowers. You can also use them to add beauty to a wreath.

Do you use dried floral in your home decor projects?  We would love to hear from you.

Good luck with your projects!

We bought a set of three frames for our home office and decided to use pictures from our trips to remind us of places we love. Here are the pictures we chose for the frames.

And here are the same pictures after using sepia tone.

Do you like the sepia effect?  Here is how you can convert your digital photographs to sepia tone in Adobe Photoshop:

1. Open picture in Adobe Photoshop.
2. Go to Image, choose Adjustments and then Desaturate. This will turn color picture into black and white.
3. Go to Image, choose Adjustments and then Variations.
4. Click on More Yellow once.
5. Click on More Red once.
6. Click OK.

Brighter photographs are better for creating the sepia tone. You can also play with different sepia tones like More Blue or More Green. Have fun!

p.s. Our project is not finished yet. We are visiting London, UK this spring so there will be more great pics from our trip. Stay tuned.

Time to take a break from the renovations and decorating posts. Olympic Winter Games start tomorrow.  Vancouver and Whistler, BC will welcome athletes from around the world.

Olympic Games information center in Whistler, 2008

We had a chance to visit Vancouver and Whistler in 2008. Here are some pics from our trip to British Columbia.

Beautiful Rockies

VANCOUVER

WHISTLER

We absolutely loved Whistler. It's a small ski resort just 2,5 h north of Vancouver where you can golf and ski the same day.  We stayed in Whistler and did day trips to Vancouver. The drive was great with fantastic views.

Driving back to Whistler

European winter has been very cold and snowy this year.  Our friend sent us pictures of a really bad winter in Poland. Take a look...

Click on each pic for a full size.

How is your winter this year? Do  you live in a country where there are no winters? We have a pretty mild winter in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) but can't wait for spring. Stay warm everyone!

We were painting our french door last week and it's finally done.  We applied one coat of primer and two coats of paint last week. The final step was to remove the protective plastic foil and install hardware.

Step one - removing protective plastic foil using a utility knife

If you read our post on decorating with baskets, you know we like to use them throughout the house. This is our Welcome basket by the front door (photo from last summer).  English Ivy and some colorful flowers work great.

We found it at a local landscaping nursery for about $20.  Besides a traditional wreath, it's another great way to decorate your front door.  We use it all year and decorate it with pine branches for Christmas.  You could also use it for your entrance to the backyard.

Do you prefer a wreath or maybe an elegant flower urn for your front door?

We found this great Tiramisu recipe online and tried it on the weekend. It was actually very easy to prepare.  When you look up Tiramisu online, you will find tons of recipes, so it's hard to decide which one is good. We liked this one because it's seemed easy and used natural ingredients.

Tirami su literally means "pick me up" in reference to the effects of the sugar and espresso. They also say it means "pick me up to heaven" due to the delightful taste. This traditional Italian dessert is sooo delicious, it will pick you up! Here is the recipe.

Tiramisu

INGREDIENTS:

• 6 egg yolks
• 1 1/4 cups white sugar (you can use less if you wish)
• 1 1/4 cups mascarpone cheese
• 1 3/4 cups heavy whipping cream
• 2 (12 ounce) packages ladyfingers
• 1/3 cup coffee flavored liqueur (we used espresso and added rum)
• 1 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder, for dusting
• 1 (1 ounce) square semisweet chocolate

DIRECTIONS:

1. Combine egg yolks and sugar in the top of a double boiler, over boiling water. Reduce heat to low, and cook for about 10 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and whip yolks until thick and lemon colored.

2. Add mascarpone to whipped yolks. Beat until combined. In a separate bowl, whip cream to stiff peaks. Gently fold into yolk mixture and set aside.

3. Split the lady fingers in half, and line the bottom and sides of a large glass bowl (we used 8.5 by 13 inches baking pan). Brush with coffee liqueur. Spoon half of the cream filling over the lady fingers. Repeat ladyfingers, coffee liqueur and filling layers. Garnish with cocoa and chocolate curls. Refrigerate several hours or overnight.

4. To make the chocolate curls, use a vegetable peeler and run it down the edge of the chocolate bar.

Enjoy!

We are finally painting our french door in the living room and can’t believe it’s been a year since we’ve installed it! It’s not a complicated process, just time consuming.  Like with other painting projects, there is a lot of preparation and clean up involved :(

We removed the door handle and taped hinges to protect them from paint stains.

Regular painters tape works great to protect the hinges.

Don’t remove the plastic foil which protects glass during painting and will be removed later.

We applied one coat of  Behr Premium Plus Enamel Undercoater Primer & Sealer which is 100% acrylic latex and dries to touch in one hour.

It's easier if you use a brush to do the molding and small roller for the sides which are flat and easier to paint.

We just applied a first coat of paint and used Behr Premium Plus Interior/Exterior High Gloss Enamel.

We hope to apply the final coat of paint this weekend, so stay tuned...

So you enjoy your backyard, got some shrubs, perennials, set up outdoor living space to entertain but something is missing… It’s the sound of water - great idea for any backyard or garden. There are also many different solutions. You can get a small fountain that can be attached to any fence or a bigger size fountain that can be installed on the ground. And there are ponds.

We decided to share our biggest landscaping project with you. We did a lot of projects around the house inside and out but the pond gives us the biggest satisfaction. We went through many landscaping books and websites before we actually made the decision to go ahead with the pond.

Pond design: We found a perfect sunny spot in our backyard and used a garden hose to create desired outline. Once we had the perfect shape, we sprayed the grass with paint to mark the size and shape of the pond.

We strongly suggest following some basic steps when designing your pond. It’s basically to ensure that your pond will not leak. The minimum deepest point in your pond should be 18" and it’s a good idea to create shelves for your plants. It will be easier to place water plants that have different requirements – for example make the first shelf 12" deep for most marginal plants and the 24" deep for most submerged plants.

• Use sand on the bottom of the pond to protect the pond liner from small rocks in the soil
• Install underlay which is essential to preserve the durability of your liner
• Drape the liner evenly over the pond, make sure it’s quite loose - liner is always more flexible in hot temperatures
• Put some small weights to keep the liner in place and start filling pond with water
• As the pond gets full, start removing some of the weights which will allow the liner to take the shape of your pond
• Adjust wrinkles in the liner
• Trim excess of liner once the pond is full of water, leave 12’’ flap
• Finish the edges of the pond by concealing the liner which will give your pond a more natural look, liner must also be protected from U.V. rays.
• Use rocks to cover up the liner

Trying to design the perfect shape.

Liner is in, time to fill up.

You will need:

• sand
• underlayer and liner (amount depends on the size of your pond)
• river rocks – we used 3 different sizes
• decorative rocks to secure the liner and create the waterfall (waterfall is optional, you may design your pond without it)
• submersible pump for the waterfall and eventual fountain
• water proof lights to enjoy it at night – also optional
• water plants - we use mostly floating plants and water plants in special baskets
• fish - optional :)

We suggest to plant perennials between the stones for a natural look.

We got the frog from a friend - perfect addition to our pond

We got rocks from a local landscaping supplier and the electrical pump and waterproof light from a hardware store. Plants come from a local nursery specializing in water plants.

Our favorite annual plant

We didn’t hire a landscaper, so the cost of our pond was basically the material, but you should know that pond requires maintenance. We clean it every spring and buy fresh floating plants. When we sit outside and enjoy the sound of water, it’s all worth it. Here is the final result.

Waterfall

Fountain

Did you design a pond? Let us know how you enjoy it. We absolutely love it.

*We are going to upload a short video in one of the upcoming posts.

Choosing tiles for your home is almost like choosing paint or maybe even worse because that's more permanent move. It's much easier to repaint the room than remove tiles, not to mention the cost.  It’s hard to decide in the store which tiles you like. We recommend bringing samples home to see it during the day and in the evening. Just like paint, tiles look different in your home than in big showroom or home improvement store. We had tiles installed in our kitchen, bathroom, laundry room and hallway. We have installed backsplash ourselves (more about that soon). We find that most home improvement stores don’t offer free tile samples. You basically have to buy tiles and eventually return them later. If you want more customer focused experience, we strongly recommend local flooring stores. They have to compete with large stores and usually offer free samples and many times better prices. We found a local family owned flooring store in our town (recommended by many friends and coworkers) and had a great experience. We were able to bring free samples home and even got the actual display board which shows the pattern and it’s finished with grout. They allowed us to keep the board for a week which was great. We could decide if we really like the pattern and if it would fit our décor. Take a look at the display board we brought home.

Tiles by our front door - trying to see how they look like on the floor.

We also recommend getting extra tiles. They say you need 10% in case tiles brake during installation and for those unusual cuts like in the corner of your room. Besides that get some extra tiles, let’s say 5 or 6 just in case. Many companies discontinue some designs after a while, so it’s good to have extras just in case they brake or get stained. We have extra tiles for our kitchen, hallway, laundry room and bathroom and if we ever sell our house, we will leave them for the new owner. We also keep leftover grout. If you do, just make sure to sign the box, for example: Kitchen Grout. You may have similar colors for different rooms and may not remember it in 5 years :)

And the finished product -looks exactly like on the display board.

Tiles are very durable and easy to clean and also don't show age as fast as hardwood floors. They work great in kitchens, bathrooms and laundry rooms where floors often get wet. Have fun and good luck with your tiling projects.

We try to stay organized as much as possible and baskets are the best solution for us. They are affordable, practical and at the same time fit any décor. We use them throughout our house to store magazines.

We have purchased an entertainment armoire (originally for TV and media) and have converted it into an elegant wardrobe in our hallway. Traditionally, European homes have wardrobes, not built in closets, so we wanted that familiar look in our new home (we hope to post pictures of our armoire transformation at some point). We have baskets on top of the armoire to store little items like hats and scarves.

When we bought a small TV for our kitchen, we needed a little table and the one we liked didn't offer a great storage solution. With two simple baskets we have created storage for our cell phones and incoming mail.

We also got a Debbie Travis banana fiber hamper. In Canada you can get it at Canadian Tire or online.

You can also use baskets in kids’ rooms for toys, puzzles and even clothes. They are great in nurseries for diapers, books and blankets. Check out great storage solutions on Pottery Barn website.

If you love history, architecture, arts and great food, you will absolutely fall in love with Montreal in Quebec, Canada. Coming originally from Europe, we are absolutely fascinated by this vibrant city.

View from Mount Royal - the name Montreal comes from the name of this mountain.

Tourists love local artwork - great place to get souvenirs from Montreal.

Notre-Dame Basilica

Old Montreal

Some the best Canadian universities are located in this French spoken metropolis, and you can see students all over the city. People are very friendly and speak English, so you will not be lost. It's very safe to walk at night in Montreal.

Chateau Ramezay Museum

Hope you will enjoy Montreal as much as we did.

Our bathroom makeover was a two-stage process. It looked like this in 2005 when we moved in - shocking pink and the avocado green, plus the wallpaper! Must be the 70’s.

Makeover #1 - We were not sure if we should go ahead with a complete renovation right away, so we decided to remove the wallpaper, paint the walls and just make the bathroom look clean and less cluttered.

• demolish the entire bathroom
• install bathtub and shower head
• install tiles in the shower
• install floor tiles

We have painted the bathroom and installed the rest ourselves:

• curved shower rod - we really recommended it; it gives you extra elbow room and looks elegant

• vanity came in the box - relatively easy to put together and much cheaper

• toilet - classic white with elegant base

• granite countertop with a built-in porcelain sink, just install faucet

So here it is, our new bathroom. The 70's are gone!