A Windy Welcome

Thanks to Hurricane Sandy, our third night in "the castle" is going to be peppered with wind gusts up to 100kms an hour, and sustained winds of about 50kms an hour. Southwestern Ontario (where the city of Brantford is located) is apparently going to be one of the hardest hit areas of Ontario, so we are hunkering down for a long night.

In other news, after going full-force (and then some) on our unpacking adventure yesterday, we made a conscious effort to go a bit slower today and our muscles and brains are vey thankful we did! Choosing to slow down translated into not being as far along in the set up of the house as I had wanted, but as my Mum said to me "Jodi, you have all the time in the world". She's right - but don't tell her I said that!

I'm hoping to cross off the following items from our to-do list tomorrow:
> receive Ikea delivery tomorrow and assemble ALL items (a whole lot of allen keys are going to get used up in this going!)
> unpack and put away ALL clothes in the master bedroom (and, hopefully fill a garbage bag or two to donate locally)
> install baby gate at the top of the stairs (even though our baby is two-and-a-half, I still don't want to worry about her going downstairs to play in the middle of the night)

Here's a sneak peak at an overly filled shelving unit in the Yellow Room:

Note to self...

We are NEVER moving again!!

I forgot how utterly exhausting moving is both physically and emotionally, but also, I'm in awe at how wonderful the new house is, i cant imagine a better place for us! Emmy's room is quite possibly the pinkest, happiest, most perfect room on the planet and everything else already feels comfortable and I honestly feel like its always been our home.

Here's a visual of my to do list for tomorrow (and probably a few days after that!):

I like to move it, move it

Actually, I hate moving because I hate packing.

Unpacking, however, is like being a kid at Christmas. Especially when 80% of your belongings have been in storage since late July! Can't wait to see all my stuff!!!

Goals for today:
> stay dry (it's supposed to sprinkle and then full out rain)
> keep calm. No raised voices, no fighting. Hug a lot.

Here's what the dining room looks like on move day! At 5:56am!!

My Theory of Life

Just a little post to remind myself that during times of stress (e.g. quitting your job to move out of the city you've lived in for 11 years and making that move the day after you finish working), you should always try to keep your cool.

Stay calm.

Keep smiling and treating everyone with the respect they deserve.

Sure it's a cheesy movie quote (from Gladiator), but it so perfectly captures how I feel about my life, my choices and my actions. Every choice has a consequence. Every action has a reaction. It's up to me to make a positive imprint on the world through my choices and my actions. Every day. Even the stressful ones.

Office Space Plan B

We got some sad news about the floating shelf idea I had for the office based on an image that I saw on Pinterest:

The original concept for our office!

Apparently our room is too wide to safety have this type of floating shelf - with no visible support - so the carpenter we had quote the job says it's a no-go. Insert sad face here.

I'm especially sad because we had the room painted white to match the floating shelves, just like the inspiration shot. Had I known that floating shelf concept was not happening, I likely would have chosen a different paint colour (oooooh, maybe a dark, inky blue!).

Unfortunately, I really didn't have a plan b for our office, since I had based every office decor decision around the floating shelf idea. That is until this week when I was catching up on my Young House Love reading. I was looking back in their archives and saw that they had DIY'd their own 13 foot home office desk and love the warmth that the stained wood counter brings to the room, and also the way it contrasts against the white cabinets. Once I gave it some thought, I realized that our office could use some warmth to make the white walls and builder beige carpet feel a little friendlier. That is, if we can pull this off ourselves by sourcing some kitchen cabinets and re-purposing them as desk bases with drawers!

We will need to decide quickly what we want to do, since move day is only FOUR DAYS AWAY, and the whole working from home scenario will need to start pretty quickly.

Here is the rough cabinet + countertop plan I put together after looking at Ikea Akrum cabinets online, however the overall cost added up a whole lot quicker than I thought it would based on my size selections (CHA-CHING) so we may investigate some alternative cabinet retailers. We'll see. Here is my crazy sketch/plan:

Sometimes I need to get the pen and graph paper out in order to have the ideas swirling around my head make sense!

Here's what I like about plan b:
> it allows each of us to have our "own" set of drawers so that I can keep my crazy, bright, colourful desk accessories separate from Max's more standard items (he's a fan of blue binders and black notebooks).
> there would be a large scale drawer unit in the centre in which the print could live and be hidden from view
> again, the stained wooden counter top will bring some warmth into the space that the original concept didn't do

Can't wait to get this finalized, the items purchased and installed!! Here's the new mood board for the room:

Everything happens for a reason (even carpenters crushing your floating shelf dreams), and I think this new office set up will serve us even better than what I had originally envisioned! Yee haw!

Cookies and Milk in the Bathroom?

I never thought I would truly and obsessively covet a soap dispenser and a toothbrush holder, but this pair of bathroom accessories (from Urban Outfitters) has stolen my heart and they will be mine. Oh yes, they will be mine.

I mean Emmy's. Yes. Emmy's. 

This whimsical duo is sure to bring a smile to my face every time I use the loo!

Seriously though, they will be the perfect addition to her bathroom to add fun and whimsey, because you are only a 2-year-old for so long (365 days to be exact), and will only put up with Mummy decorating your room and your bathroom for so long (I feel my time is already limited).

The cherry on top? They match the existing fun and whimsical elements we already have in her bathroom, namely the Ikea shower curtain and the pendant light I have my eye on at Ikea (surprise, surprise) too:

Our View

I adore sunsets. I love how cozy and snuggly they make me feel and how the way the sky can sometimes go from blue to yellow to pink to red can make my heart happy.

The new house backs onto open farmland, and our view of the setting sun is SPECTACULAR.

Tonight we were at the new house just as the sun had set, but the sky was absolutely stunning nonetheless. I snapped a pic with my phone camera, hence the blurriness, so I'm also including another shot I snapped one morning, bright and early!

This picture doesn't do it justice. It was spectacular!

At about 7:30 am there was a mist traveling across the farmland and the sun was starting to peek through the clouds!

Scoring my Goals

Move day is only 9 days away (GAH!) and I've been reflecting about how different my life will be after we have an N3T postal code instead of an M6S one. Quite honestly, I've also been panicking a little bit about why I thought it would be a good idea to give up a secure, well-paying job to move out of the city and try to be a part-time stay-at-home Mum. I shared these panicky thoughts with an amazingly wonderful co-worker (who is also a Mum) and she brought me back to reality.
 
She reminded me that I'm doing this for Emmy. For the relationship I want to have with her. So that in 30 years when I look back at her formative years I know that I was there with her, experiencing and creative adventures together. I'm also hoping that a positive side effect will be that we strengthen our marriage by bringing balance to our lives (date night, what's that?). Family is what life is all about, and I know how truly blessed and lucky I am to have this opportunity. Our little family will have struggles I'm sure, but in the end, to be able to have a stronger, more in-depth relationship with my little Lemon will be worth it all.

The Project Manager in me thought it would be a good idea to hold myself accountable to some goals that I hope to achieve over the coming months, and also that by posting them here, I will feel publicly accountable to seeing them through. Some are personal (e.g. shedding a large amount of extra weight I've done nothing about for the past number of months...ahem, year) and some are house and work related. Here they are:

30 Day Goals
> be totally unpacked and have no boxes/bins anywhere except for the basement (oh the poor unfinished basement has no idea what is going to be expected of it!)
> join a gym
> have the basic design plan firmed up/set up for each room (location of furniture, artwork, etc)
> develop and implement a firm play vs. learn schedule for Emmy during the days we spend together at home
> sign Emmy up for an activity (e.g. swimming/dance class/gymnastics)
> have a schedule/plan in place for bi-weekly dates with the hubby (yay!)

90 Day Goals
> be 10 pounds lighter as a result of regularly attending the gym
> have a firm plan in place for projects to take on to improve the house and the decor, organized by room
> determine a hobby I want to take on (right now I'm thinking knitting, but I'm totally open to anything) and have a plan for how to achieve it (e.g. classes, purchasing a book, signing up for a seminar)
> determine if Emmy is happy with the activity we've enrolled in and continue with it or change it up if necessary

Half-Year Goals
> be 30 pounds lighter
> be securing ongoing freelance work on a regular basis

One Year Goals
> be 50 pounds lighter and FIT!
> continue to work as a freelancer
> continue to enroll Emmy in activities that challenge her and that she enjoys
> continue to work on house related projects to improve, tweak and add to the look and feel of our home

No doubt this list will change once we make the move and I have a better idea of what is realistic and what is totally not going to happen (50 pounds is doable, but I do really, really (!!) love chocolate), but I hope to keep a few over-arching goals in mind through it all:

Balance. Happiness. Adventure.

And love. Lots and lots of love.

King vs. Queen

Our little Lemon, Emmy, likes to constantly refer to herself as "a princess". And by constant I mean about two dozen times a day we hear the following come out of her mouth: "Mummy, I a princess!"...or sometimes it's a question "Mummy, I a princess?"..."You the Queen Mummy?"..."Daddy the King?".

Grama and Grampa made sure to get in on the action and Emmy now refers to Grampa as "the Prince" and Grama has been deemed "Queen Mother".

The point of all this Princess talk is that if I were to ask Emmy what this post was about, she would immediately say it was about Mummy and Daddy, since we are the King and Queen, but in reality this post is about the size of bed we will be having in our new master bedroom (that is nearly bigger than our Toronto living room and dining room combined).

The hubs and I have lived together for more than 10 years (in six different apartments/houses but that's a whole other story and something I should probably create one of those cool infographics things for), and we've never shared a bed bigger than a queen, with the exception of being on vacation.

It feels so luxurious to spread out and sleep in the starfish pose on vacation (and not have someone's elbow bump you square in the back in the middle of the night!), so we thought, why not live like that all the time? Add to the sleeping situation that the little Lemon does come into our bed on occasion (although we try very hard to limit how often, sometimes you just need a snuggle with your kiddo), which translates to one adult being displaced to the spare room, and the decision was made to trade in our queen for a king. Cue cheering!!

The Pros:
> I can sleep in starfish pose (picture your arms and legs outstretched as if you are mid-jumping jack!)!
> snoring sounds (from either side of the bed) will be farther away from sensitive ears
> even if the Lemon is snuggling with us, no one has to leave the bed...we can make a snuggle sandwich with the Lemon!
> I am short enough to sleep sideways on a king sized bed if I ever needed to!

The Cons:
> we don't own one so we have to purchase one
> that's about it if you ask me!

Here she is! We tested it out (when I say we, I really mean "me") by laying down on it, shoes off in the middle of the showroom, in the starfish pose and it was a done deal!!

We chose Ikea's Sultan Hultsvik memory foam pillowtop mattress. It really does seem to "mold to your body shape for precision support" like the write ups says - what that really means is that it feels like you are sleeping on a cloud!

Let there be Lights (from West Elm)!

Wooooooo-frickin-hoooooooo!!

After a lot of online research, shopping and investigating, I narrowed down the arduous search for the perfect kitchen/dining room pendant lighting to these beauties from West Elm:

These bad boys will be positioned over the "breakfast counter", side by side. Their official name is "Globe Pendant".

I can't tell you how much I love how this Cluster Glass Pendant from West Elm! So fun. So stunning. So perfect!

Why I like them:
> they are visually striking (as in; "Whoah, you've got big glass balls hanging from the ceiling") and I think they are quite unique (as in: they won't be in everyone elses house).
> I was struggling to find something that was beautiful, but didn't block that amazing back door view. What better material than clear glass could I have found!?
> they bring a teeny touch of what I call "industrial" aesthetic into the space with the combination of a visible bulb and gleaming metal.
> they remind me of an amazing necklace (that I drooled over) made of small glass orbs that a co-worker of mine wore to a photo shoot we both attended.
> they are surprisingly affordable! (the hubby especially liked this about them)
> they are just plain cool.

Globe Pendant 1 and his best bud Globe Pendant 2 will replace the breakfast counter pair, as depicted in this picture of the house in its "staged" state before it became ours, and Cluster Glass Pendant will fill the empty space left behind when we remove the monstrosity in the center of the dining area:

Our house before it was our house with scrolly, fancy pendant lights.

The next lighting challenge in the new house will be to tackle the replacement of more than 20 "boob" lights. You know the ones I'm talking about...and why they are officially called that (according to our Realtor). That might be a project we tackle in a few years, because it's proving tricky to find low-cost "boob" light alternatives.

Big fat happy stripes!

The new house is done being painted! YAY!

What a smart decision it was to hire someone to do it for us - I'm pretty confident that we'd only be done one room had we tried to tackle slapping colour on that many walls!

The highlight of the paint job, for me, was the bright pink, happy stripes in Emmy's room:

Bright, happy, big fat stripes!!!

...as well as more subdued stripes in our main floor powder room:

YAY for more stripes!

I can't wait to start ordering/shopping/choosing the items that will go in these (and all the other) rooms to pull everything together! The next 16 days are going to go by FAST!!!

Pack it up, Pack it in...

...let me begin...

No, seriously. Let me begin. We MUST start packing and pronto. There are but 15 days and 21 hours (I have an app for that) until a big ol' 30 foot truck will be parked in our driveway and want to eat up the content of our house.

Here's the problem: we have run out of tubs. When we staged the house for selling, we filled every single one of the 30-ish Rubbermaid tubs we already own and also had to open our wallets and spring for about 35 more tubs (which we scored on SUPER sale at Home Depot). Those 60+ tubs, along with about 30 more tubs that currently sit in our shed should be enough, but alas, I like "stuff" and I anticipate the need to purchase about 20 additional tubs.

That translates to 100+ tubs required for this move. That's a lot of tubs. That's also a lot of "stuff".

Good thing the new house is double the size of the current house.

And has an unfinished basement that will easily hold all of our "stuff". 

"I love my castle!"

...that's what our little Lemon said when we visited the new house this past weekend. Oh the things she says - I wish I could follow her around with a recording device 24/7!

She also ran around in circles (since there is zero furniture in the "castle" to get in her way right now), and gave us approval on all the paint colours (her exact words were "this is so amazing"!).

The painter is back in today and tomorrow to fix a few things (a few missed spots, a few touch ups here and there), and also to paint big, fat, happy pink stripes on Emmy's headboard wall! I'm so excited to see how it turns out. Once that is completed, we'll need to think about curtains and headboard fabric for her room - the hubs isn't too excited about that, but I think I might be in heaven! Here are some fabrics I've been looking at online to go with her bubble gum pink room:

Hubby likes this one best!

This is my fave, simply because it contains so many colours, but it might be a little overwhelming on curtains that are 12 feet tall. 

This is gorgeous, but seems a bit grown up too. Part of me wants to choose a VERY childish fabric with animals and cartoons on it, but that would not be a very good long term investment now, would it?

Check out some teaser photos of the nearly-completed paint job!

Benjamin Moore Muslin - I ADORE how this colour looks different in every room, and also how it has made the fireplace (which is not reflective of our tastes) blend in seamlessly! YAY!

The master bedroom in the new house is bigger than our current dining room and living room put together, so it will be a huge adjustment having SUCH a big room. I wanted a dark colour to make the space feel cozy and I think Benjamin Moore's Gray Horse did the trick!.

I LOVE how this turned out - this is Benjamin Moore Concord Ivory. We have plans to turn this room into a library/playroom/tv room highlighted by a bright red sofa! I can't wait to see how this room comes together!

The next big things to cross off the list are:
- confirm someone to steam clean the carpet (it's about 2500 square feet of pet hair covered rug, so we are hiring someone to do this!)
- carpenter to quote on shelves for the office and window seat in the Lemon's room!

Move day is 16 days away!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Guess we should start packing?

20 Days and Counting

Well, apparently I have a lot to learn about this blogging thing.

One little tap of "command + z" and I somehow deleted the very first blog post that I had previously published. Lesson learned - I certainly won't do that again.

So, to recap, here's our story:

We are a family of three (a mummy, a daddy and a spunky, silly two-and-a-half year old little girl, whose middle name happens to be Lemon) who is trading our 80-year-old Toronto semi-detached home that's a quick 20-minute subway ride to downtown for a 2500 square-foot, detached 2-year-old house in a spanking new development. We're going from a city of 2.5 million to a town of less than 100,000. A lot will be different, but I'm sure some things will surprisingly be the same (I'll be honest, as long as the McDonald's McCafe coffee tastes as good everything else will be OK).

I'm trading in my fancy advertising/marketing job to be a part-time stay-at-home Mum (yes, that's how I spell Mom...I can't help it) slash part-time employee at the cutest children's clothing boutique ever slash part-time blogger, creator, designer, writer, DIYer.

I hope use this blog to capture all of the ups and downs we encounter on this adventure - from parenting lessons I learn to decorating projects/ideas and the trials and tribulations I go through learning to cook (seriously, right now I can make hot dogs, brownies and pasta, but that's about it) to my thoughts on everything we go through and learn about life, ourselves and our home, I promise to share it all. The good, the bad, and even the ugly.

Here is a look at some of the decorating ideas I've been pulling together as we wait for our move date:

Our master bedroom mood board

The front room/playroom mood board

I hope that you'll have fun following us on this crazy adventure!!

Real Life Tetris

The hubs and I hit up Ikea this morning - they currently have a sale on dining room chairs that we could NOT pass up. Buy three, get one free.

So we bought eight!! (and got two of them for free)...after we had their yummy $1 breakfast (scrambled eggs, two sausages and potatoes - yum yum).

I can't tell you how much we love getting a good deal, so two free dining chairs was something that just made sense (since we had planned to buy eight dining chairs anyway) and we could not pass up - the best part is that they are super comfy too.

Here is how they fit into the decor plan for the dining room (which is the least planned out room in the house right now):

Not quite finished dining room mood board

We picked up four Nils style chairs with the Dillne gray/beige covers. Two of them will be placed at the head of the dining table (pictured in the mood board) and the other two will be placed elsewhere in the house.

We also chose four of the Henriksdal chairs with the Kungsvik Sand covers. They match the Nils chair covers nicely and also have a similar tone to the Benjamin Moore Muslin we chose for the walls on the main floor. They have nice high backs which means we can sit comfortably in them for as long as it takes us to gobble up our dinner!

Now I just have to talk the Hubs into letting me get the Cluster Glass pendant from West Elm and my vision will be complete!

Here's how we got eight Ikea boxes/chairs home with us...it took about 20 minutes to "Tetris" them into the Tucson, but the Hubs is seriously a Tetris master at packing, so I knew he'd find a way: