Another project completed and crossed off the list!

I started with this old IKEA pine corner cabinet (door, shelves and drawer removed).

And here it is painted black with an off-white interior. I was so thrilled to finally get this done and put back into it’s place that I forgot to close the drawer all the way before snapping the picture.

I’m quite happy with how it turned out even though the door was a real pain to paint. It would have gone along much faster and easier if the glass could have come out.

Several years ago my MIL gave me her grandmother’s china which I’ve always kept in this cabinet along with some other treasures. I spent the last couple of afternoons rummaging through boxes trying to locate everything. I’m still missing one of my favourite plates and I’ve run out of places to look. My husband was quick to point out that I’m just going to have to move it all when we finally get to installing baseboards but I just couldn’t stand having it sit there empty.

So after several hours of arranging and re-arranging, here’s how it looks so far.

I need to “boost” up a couple things and that teapot in the back needs polishing in the worst way. It was a thrift store find for $5 and has lots of interesting detail (even though you can barely see it hiding back there). The top shelf is a work in progress so I deliberately kept it out of the picture.

My task this week is to get the door mouldings prepped and painted. We installed them just days before Christmas and I think I’ve procrastinated long enough. I’m one of those odd people that actually enjoys painting, however I find painting trim work extremely boring. I think it’s because I’m fanatical about taping everything off and by the time I get this done, I’m ready to call it a day and move onto something else (I have a very short attention span).

Unfortunately most of the original mouldings were long gone by the time we moved into the house. The two bedrooms are the only areas that still have their original baseboards and door trim. We wanted to get something similar to the original woodwork and chose pre-primed MDF rosettes and casings. It’s not exact, but so much better than the painted plastic that was up before.

So tomorrow I’ll grab my ladder, caulking gun and wood filler and get to work!

When we purchased our home, it was a vision of pale yellow walls with seafoam green plush carpet and an office grade drop ceiling. It was the drop ceiling that started the whole renovation process a year ago.

I always felt bad ripping out the carpet because although it’s not my personal taste, it was brand new. But it had to go since everything was being ripped out. And as luck would have it, we didn’t find beautiful wood floors lurking beneath. Instead, there was linoleum from the 40’s or 50’s on top of plywood which was nailed into the old wood planks. Beneath that was yet another wood floor which I assume was the subfloor for the planks.
So unless we were willing to rip out the old flooring and install new sublfoor, our flooring choices were limited. Our first choice was to use laminate since it’s a floating floor and we could lay it over the old lino. That plan came to a screeching halt when after several attempts we realized that it just wasn’t going to work. The long exterior wall bows outward making it impossible to line up the first row of laminate. And although the floor looks level, it’s way off and all the patch jobs in the floor made it impossible for the laminate to lay flat.

We had to come up with something else and really didn’t want carpet, mostly because we have cats and they like to scratch and carpet in the dining area isn’t my favourite thing. It’s just a disaster waiting to happen. So, off to Home Depot to see what, if any, other options they might have. I happened to find this product called Resilient Flooring. It’s relatively new to Canada so there wasn’t a lot of information on it. We took a box home just to try.

It was very easy to install, (I did the majority of it myself), budget friendly and it’s flexible so it covers all the imperfections of the floor nicely. It’s a vinyl product and 100% waterproof so it’s easy to keep clean especially when a certain feline coughs up a hairball!

This is probably not something you’d use in a higher end house but it’s fine in our little country bumpkin house. This is the American Walnut finish (no baseboards yet, hopefully next month). I like the darker floors, but every little piece of fluff and cat hair shows on it. And I did end up getting an area rug for the living room. It needed something to cozy it up in there plus it’s nice on the tootsies.

After discovering a great little fabric store geared for quilters, I decided that I need to learn to quilt. I could spend hours in this little store piled high with cottons in every colour and cozy wool felt. I even spotted vintage inspired chenille on my last visit.

I just needed a pattern to get started. I love folk art and cats so finding a pattern that incorporated the two was a true find. Plus it looked pretty easy for a first time quilter such as myself. I ordered the one pictured on the left and was so excited when it finally arrived…but wait, there are two in the envelope. Becky of Alley Cat Tales sent me a bonus pattern (pictured on the right).

The next few days would be perfect for starting my quilt project. We’re headed into a deep freeze with daytime temperatures in the minus 20’s celsius. Yes, minus 20’s with a wind chill of minus 40 tomorrow. I’m not sure what that is in fahrenheit…let’s just say it’s extremely cold!

Unfortunately, I don’t have the fabric yet and we won’t be making any trips to the city until the weather warms up. So no quilting for me. I did pick up a beginner’s quilting book at Michaels a while ago so I guess I’ll read that and at least get the pattern pieces cut out.

I’m so glad I decided to paint the tired old pine table because it’s lookin’ sharp with it’s new black paint job. The downside is that every scratch, dent and nic shows from years of dependable service, five moves plus the terrifying ordeal of being stored in a cellar that flooded. Now it just needs a couple coats of Varathane and it’s good to go.

I’ve also made some progess on the corner unit and it’s coming along slowly. Here is the before with the door off, drawer and shelves out and ready for primer.


And here it is primed with the first coat of “Organic White” painted on the interior. I put the second coat on today and plan to get started on the shelves this weekend. I may even get started on painting the exterior black.