The Home Reno Saga Continues...

It has been an extremely unproductive month. A tingling sensation in my throat had turned into a full-blown bronchitis within days. The antibiotics didn't work fast enough, and I was non-responsive to any codeine cough syrups (well, other than the out-of-body experience. Getting high is definitely not my thing!). I was coughing my lungs out day and night -- I don't recall I've ever had anything quite like it. At some point I went almost five nights straight without sleeping: you don't need to watch "Dawn of the Dead" to see what a zombie looks like! As a result of the acute coughs, I had to cancel many client meetings at work -- to a degree my boss started to worry that he wasn't going to have that 2-million dollar revenue he was banking on before our fiscal year end. Fortunately, slowly and gradually, I am back on my feet despite occasional coughs.

On the home front, since dust and other allergens can easily trigger my coughs, I've decided to hire someone to paint our garage and front doors. I've had enough of our ugly moss-green-color garage doors the builder gave us. Here are some pictures.

Inspired by Patricia from Floorwood Solutions Inc., I not only picked up the same Turret Stair (NA32) paint color from Ralph Lauren, but also had the inside of the doors painted the same as the outside. We've also added a header moulding/pediment (again, kudos to Pat) to the door to make it appear taller. We will be replacing all our door casings with header mouldings like this at least throughout the ground floor.

Here is a shot from our porch. I debated for a long time between painting garage doors in a differnt lighter color and the same as the front doors, but decided to go with the latter to give some contrast.
 We picked up three of these outdoor lanterns in oil-rubbed bronze metal from Rona. I thought I was going to have to spend hundreds of dollars on these lights, but the total bill only came to a surprisingly low $150. We will have an electrician/plumber over when we renovate our powder room, so I will have him install these lights. Some pictures to follow.

I've recently re-furnished one of the guest bedrooms in French Provincial style, so I plan to have the room painted in Behr's Light French Gray. I will post some pictures later. Stay tuned.

Michael Sideboard by Christine's Custom Furniture

Our sideboard has finally arrived after eight month since we placed the order. Christine's Custom Furniture has proven to us again that it was well worth the wait. Our sideboard, a.k.a. Michael Sideboard (interestingly Christine has decided to name it with a masculine version of "Michelle", or it could just be a coincidence I wonder), is made of solid mahogany finished in a satin brown stain. This is the last piece of furniture to complete our dining room.

I replaced the antique brass ring pulls with larger ring pulls in satin nickle finish to create some contrast. The antique brass finish ones disappeared in the dark wood stain.

Michael Sideboard from a different angle. The wood grains are so sex-y!

The Michael Sideboard now has its own nook in our dining room. The idea is not to compete with a substantial piece like our double pedestal dining table. I keep changing my mind on what to put on the wall facing the foyer -- so for now it's best to just leave it blank.

This is a professional studio photo taken by Christine's Custom Furniture. The antique brass ring pulls have been replaced.

Crank Up the Curb Appeal

Earlier this week we had Andrew from Lusso Glass replace our front door with these wrought iron panels. Don't let Andrew's young appearance mislead you. My professional instinct asked me to give him a chance when we first met him. He was very well organized, and sincere in helping potential customers make their own decision. It turned out that our tummy was right: he did a fantastic job on the day of installation, and before that he constantly kept us up-to-date on our custom order.

So here we present you with our new entrance door. We chose Listral Glass for its simple yet elegant and functional (privacy) characteristics; and Ulysses - a custom design wrought iron insert. I wanted ours to be different from our neighbours' -- don't people just get tired of those mass-produced, imported styles like Juliana or Luna? We chose Antique Bronze (Oil Rubbed Bronze) handlesets to match the door hardware in the rest of our house.
I couldn't believe I found a Moorish Tile pattern rug here in Canada! I kicked myself for not buying the one from Pottery Barn before they discontinued it. You'd never guess where I got it from, yes, who would guess it's from Home Depot? This 32x48" rug now serves as a doormat in the foyer. Now that the doors are in, the next step is to pick a paint color (or two) for the garage and the front door. I am still debating whether to paint both the same color, or paint garage door a lighter shade (such as taupe or beige) then front door darker color (such as charcoal or espresso). I will post some pictures when we finish this task. Stay tuned.

Dining Room Makeover

It's amazing how much can be accomplished from computers these days. I pretty much planned out our entire dining room makeover from my PC: from mapping out wainscoting/appliques from PowerPoint, to visualizing a gallery wall from Photoshop by plugging in different photos.

This was designed in PowerPoint for one of the walls in the dining room. It allowed us to plan well before we started cutting those chair rails. It also helped minimize wastes. Remember, measure twice, cut once.

And...ta da! This is what our dining room looks like after wainscoting, a fresh coat of paint and new blue-grey silk drapes! Wall color is Behr Stable Hay in satin finish. Wainscoting was painted in a custom shade of white in semi-gloss sheen. The drapery panels are from Fabricland. I added linings to pump up the volume. Stable Hay paint was too gold/warm for me so I added the grayish blue drapes to tone it down.

This was mapped out in Photoshop. I was able to move photos around to achieve visual balance before I put these frames on the wall.

Dining room from another angle. I received a lot of compliments from the new gallery wall. It certainly has become the new attention-grabber.

Valbonne Bedroom Chair

At age 24 when I bought my first condo I stuffed it with contemporary and modern furniture. Though I had always been into decorating under my Mom's influence, chairs with boxy and clean outlines and dining table with tempered glass top were all that I liked. The next six years was a big blur as so many life-changing events happened such as finishing my MBA, getting married (while doing my part-time MBA and working full-time), changing career, moving twice, and paying off mortgage, etc. I rarely thought of moving furniture around or re-painting any walls at home during those years. And then when the dreadful and big "30" hit, I all of sudden realized "hey, it's time to live!". That's when we bought this new house from a builder, and that's when I realized it's now the French Provincial + Hollywood Elegant style that catches my eyes. This is what I'd like to call an "evolution" of my style preference, though Anthony would argue that I just "changed my mind (again)".

In early to mid twenties I would pay over $2,000 for a Le Corbusier style dining table just because it looked so darn good in the showroom. Right now I wouldn't commit to any furniture without surfing on the web for a few days and visiting a handful of favorite stores to compare prices. I am a proud deal hunter and there's nothing to be ashamed of. Take this Valbonne Chair for example, I paid $20 for the frame, sanded and painted it with a fresh coat of "antique white", and then had it re-upholstered for $95. The fabric originally came in red polka dots with fuchsia hot pink background. Not to make the chair look more juvenile than it already is, I used the flipped side of the fabric in solid fuchsia color. The fabric only cost me $3! So in total, a highly customized chair in my favorite color cost me $118...not bad for my first fixer-upper, eh? I haven't figured out where it will go in the house yet, but hey, it will be there when I finally get to it. :-)

Valbonne Chair in Fuchsia Fabric