Bathroom 2

The second bathroom finally is "finished".  The work has been done for months, but my part, hanging the pictures and such took this long.

Here is the bathroom before.  This picture makes it look way better, trust me.

Target  was my saviour.  This shower curtain is exactly what I was looking for and hunted high and low both locally and online to no avail.  When I was in Bismarck I found it.

And angels sang.

Well not really, it is just a shower curtain but I was pretty happy. As happy as you can be after your 12th straight hour of shopping anyway.

The one thing our house lacks is storage so every reno involves maximizing our

storage. This tall cabinet is very roomy.

And as always, I enlarge my own amateur photos to decorate. It's cheap and it makes me feel like my hobby is worth something.

These are from twilight at the lake.

And sunset at the lake - those colours are not photoshopped. I wouldn't even know how, I promise you.

And now I will  multi task - two posts in one.  Aren't you lucky?  Don't answer that.

Jack also had his piano recital this weekend.  I know I am bias but he sure is handsome. 

and that dimple....

Pretty in Pink

We have been talking about redoing our bathrooms for years and we finally bit the bullet hiring a contractor to do the work.

Here is the half bath before:

Nothing terrible but if you notice on the top right of the vanity, there is a gaping hole. The face plate broke off years ago.

And we had ripped up the flooring (peel and stick squares - never use these, FYI) about two years ago because the toilet leaked.

You kind of get used to the ugly backing of the lino that was probably laid in 1984, you know?

But it sure does make me appreciate the loveliness that is now my little slice of girlyville.

I went pink with the theme. It's my bathroom primarily, so the boys in the house didn't get a say (not that they care one way or the other anyway).

I picked the paint colour then found the antique looking frames at Winners, then found the cute little bejeweled vase and fake hydrangea another day at Winners all under $10 each.

I love me some Winner's Homesense.

And the storage I have has tripled. I have three drawers which are so much more functional that the under the cabinet thing. Little things like this, put a spring in my step (sad, I know).

And the medicine chest? I found a much more practical use for it since the three types of medicine I keep all fit in the over the toilet cupboard.

Yes, I enjoy purchasing accessories. Yes, I work at home in Lulu, what's your point?

The main bath is nearing completion too but I am having no luck finding a shower curtain to inspire the decor. The boys, again, couldn't care less about the colour scheme. Life with three boys, it has many perks. For the parents, who might actually care, pictures to come when it all comes together.

If you can't find me, I might be sitting in my little slice of pink, enjoying the view of new baseboards and fresh paint.

New(s)

I have been taking pictures galore so here is an update, in the form of many pictures.

About a month ago, our new dressers finally arrived. This marks the first time I have ever owned new dressers (as I kid I had an antique, which I love, and is now Kamden's). I don't count the "new" Jysk (aka crap) dressers we bought about 5 years ago. a) Because they are now broken and useless and b) do I really need another reason?

Instead of those dinky night stands with like, what two teeny drawers, we opted for full chests. Our bed is like 15 feet tall so I think it works. And I need the storage, trust me. (Jay off handedly suggested I buy fewer clothes. Pshaw)

My side of the bed is slightly girly. The flower box was made by Kamden for Mother's Day last year and the rest I have accumulated over the last couple years.

This bad boy has 10 drawers. Yes, 10. And the bottom four are HUGE. And sadly, I filled them all. And I go back and forth on updating the photos here. The majority are from our trip to the Bahamas way back in 2008. But the boys are so stinking cute so I just haven't brought myself to update them.

Jay's side. More manly. Well at least the wood figures carved by his Grandad anyway.

This past week, I zipped to Vancouver (and I have the bags under my eyes to prove it) for a work course. I stayed out at UBC with a friend, who fed me amazing food every night. Must tries if you are in the Vancouver area - The Flying Beaver (Mahi Mahi with coconut curry sauce - yum is an understatement), Chronic Taco (oh my word. you must try the Mahi Mahi (see a theme?) taco), it will change your life, and The Banana Leaf (the appie sampler was amazing. I even ate the calamari and if you know me, you know that is WAY out of my comfort zone).

Wow, that was a tangent. I wrote all that just to tell you about the leaf Jack is holding. Cathy and I were out for a run when I found this huge maple leaf. I hid it under a sign so we could come back and find it later. She found this quite hilarious since the campus was covered in leaves. But they were not all this big is my story and I am sticking to it.

I mean, it is huge, right? Also of note is the fact that it made it home in my suitcase in one piece.

And of course the pumpkins. My favourite part of Halloween, hands down. Used to be the chocolate but now two or three and I have a headache. Getting healthy and fit is awesome but I do miss the ability to consume copious amounts of chocolate.

And that is a wrap for now (ie bedtime for Kami).

Kami, out.

Our room

Teeni tagged me ages and ages ago to do a meme about my 5 favourite things in my bedroom. I have held off doing it only because we were working on redecorating it. It's finally done and in no particular order here are some of my favourite things about it...



When we lay in bed this is what we see. It's just about my favourite way to wake up, my favourite is with the real thing cuddling beside me! My boys are my alarm clock, every morning at 8am Jack goes and gets Kamden and they crawl in on either side of me, weekdays anyway. Weekends Jay gets in on the cuddle time too.

The walls are a blue, much like the blue you see around you on my template. The room is decorated in the exact same colours as they are my favourite colour combination right now.



On either side of the bed, above the nightstands are these arrangments of mirrors. I found them at Wal-Mart for $1.37 each. To hang them took much measuring and masking taping to square them up. But to hang them I used 3M picture hanging strips, I can't find a good link to them right now but they are awesome. The best I can describe them is like plastic velcro, one sticks to the picture and one to the wall. They remove like nothing with no marks to the wall. You velcro them together then stick one side to the picture. Next line up the picture and stick to the wall. You can easily remove the picture from the wall without removing the strip stuck to the wall for easy adjustment and alignment. Plus no figuring out where the hook is supposed to go so that the picture hangs were you want it! If that makes any sense at all... anyway that's how I got the mirrors in this arrangement and how I got the pictures above in a square... masking tape around the edge, lined up the pictures and peeled off the tape.

Blah, blah, blah.. long winded, if you are still with me, back to the pictures because the best is yet to come.


These were custom ordered from my friend, Anna. Some of you know Anna, others may not. We met on the internet, through blogging, and she has become a great friend. She is amazingly talented and when we started redecorating I asked her to paint some pictures for our room. I showed her pictures of the room and the mirror/picture arrangements and these are what she came up with.

I LOVE THEM to bits! The finish off the room fabulously and warm my heart whenever I see them. Anna, thank you from the bottom of my heart, they are exactly what I wanted!


I was having a day with the camera... manual settings had not enough light and the flash, well, it's industrial stregth so it reflectd nicely off the gloss in the paint. Just take my word for it, our room has never looked this good. EVER.

So that is three things that I love about our room and the other two are easy. The bed and my pillow. I adore my pillow so much that I often hug it when I've been away from home. There simply is no where like my own bed. No where. I might even shed a tear or two over leaving it when we go away. If I could load it up and take it with me, I seriously would.

Next up, the closet. We did a massive re-org there too and found we had lost a child in there.
You can imagine our surprise.... stay tuned!

It's All Michelle's Fault

We've been renovating and re-decorating our house for the last 7 years off and on which ironically or maybe not so ironically, is as long as we’ve lived in our house. Just recently we tackled our master bedroom. Paint, new bedding, framed pictures by MOI and in the process decided to also change the light fixtures.

Now, normally I am pretty go with the flow, follow the crowd, let’s be a sheep when it comes to decorating because really I have no talent for it. I like our house to be comfortable rather than magazine photographer ready.

Think of the yelling if it had to be kept magazine worthy all the time….*shudders for my children*.

But I do want it to look nice, in my opinion, because I am the one who has to look at it all the time.

I have seen these lights in the stores.


I used to like them. And they would have been my first choice had I not had a very significant conversation with my lovely sister in law, Michelle. She kindly pointed out to me what they, in quite a striking way, resemble.

Anyone see it?

I never even thought of it until she pointed it out to me.

I am so glad she did.

I wouldn't want to lie in bed and look up at a....

you know, a, er, hmmmm, how can I say this nicely?

A light shaped like MAMMARY GLAND (trying to avoid undesirable google searches here) on high alert!

Return of the Green Monster

The green monster lives on….. its remains have infiltrated our house. They can be found in every nook, cranny and bed.

Run, run for your lives!

Farewell Green Monster

The green glow from the deck got a lot less greener yesterday! The green monster is slowly being demolished, one satisfying step at a time. This is the lovely shade of green of the old indoor/outdoor carpet - you know the ONLY shade it was made in about 20 years ago. Now I am positive this deck was carpeted in the last 10 years but that didn't stop the green monster from going forth and multiplying like rabbits on our deck. And not to mention the carpet but the roof - also the SAME lovely shade of Roughrider green.

Now if you know me, you know that I couldn't care less about the Riders. So it was time for the green monster to go.

How many times have a said green monster so far?

Yeah, lots. I like to over emphasize.

Anyway, the carpet, she had to go. It was frayed and tearing in many places and Kamden was helping the cause by ripping up loose peices. I wasn't complaining!

Here's a before picture:



Don't know what that dark spot is. Could be where I splilled battery acid... just kidding.

Here's the boys hard at working scraping the old glue and chunks of green monster off.



I should have also gotten a picture of the relief on both mine and Jay's faces when the lady who was to install the carpet stopped by Wednesday evening. She had previously told us we needed to get rid of the grooves from the old glue before we could lay the new stuff.


Well Jay started sanding on Tuesday and it was clear very fast that it was going to take at least a month of Sundays and at least that many peices of sandpaper to get it off. The glue was melting from the friction of the sander and gumming up the sandpaper.

She came right after Jay came home from work Wednesday and said, oh this is fine. Just get off the bits of old carpet.


YAHOOO! Jay and the boys finished by the time I had supper on the table and she came yesterday morning and now it looks like this:


Someday the last of the green monster will die but for now, since there is absolutely nothing wrong with the roof other than the ghastly colour, it will stay.


I like to torture green monsters, it's kind of a hobby.