Fabulous Design + Architecture

Big news around here!  After about two years of thinking about turning my design hobby into a legit business, it’s actually happening!  I’ve teamed up with my friend Marilena, who is an architect and loves interior design.  We’ll do the official intro’s in another post, but as you can probably guess, she’s fabulous!

the fabulous girls-9

(Carissa on left, Marilena on right)

Speaking of Fabulous… I took a design course last year, and it cautioned against using words like ‘Fabulous’ in business names because it might alienate potential clients.  Huh???  Marilena and I agreed that if anyone is not ok with Fabulous, then we definitely want to alienate them because #1 – they probably suck and #2 – they probably won’t like us anyways!

So the official business name is:

FD A stacked

We’ve been working hard on the branding, portfolio, website, and social media stuff, and the official launch is set for September.  (We spend a disproportionate amount of time talking about our launch party!)  For now, we thought it might be fun to start documenting our business adventures on the blog. 

If want all of the details, you can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest too!

photo by Cynthia Hernandez

Outdoor Spaces

truth.

Yep.  That pretty much sums it up.1  However, I am heading out camping this weekend!  Wish me luck.  Although, I probably won’t really need it with my parents’ gigantic motor home and all…  

In honour of the great outdoors, I’ve collected some favourite outdoor spaces.  Enjoy!

Outdoor Decorating with Color: Vintage Lantern Hangs Over DIY Live Edge Table by Kristin of  The Hunted Interior

HM outdoors summer 2013

Black and white looks classic and beautiful! See more fabric makeovers for outdoor rooms: http://www.bhg.com/home-improvement/porch/outdoor-rooms/outdoor-fabrics-and-rooms/?socsrc=bhgpin052513blackandwhite=2

best outdoor room ever

Outdoor room like this? Yes please!

* image sources are all linked on my Outdoor Rooms board.

 

1 – for anyone that knows me well… even the above statement is a bit of a lie.  Because of my stupid bird phobia, I don’t even really enjoy drinking on patios!!!  People really need to stop feeding birds bread crumbs and french fries so that I can enjoy summer a bit more!

New Kid Art

I treated myself to a little update for my kitchen shelves…

IMG_1394 

This little black painting is the only piece of art that Jack brought home from grade one, so it’s pretty special to me!  I had it framed, and for now I’m enjoying how it looks on our kitchen shelves.  I think it works pretty well alongside the pink and gold beauty by Christine.

Here’s a close-up of the masterpiece:

IMG_1392

Gotta love kid art!

Cancel! Cancel!

Ugh.  I’m Officially. The. Worst. 

I’ve already changed my mind on the ceiling scraping project.  Three main reasons:

1.  THE MESS

2.  My crazily optimistic estimation of the scope of the project.

3.  My desire to stay married.

Allow me to elaborate…

1.  MESS - Kind of obvious… but even I (ha!) underestimated how bad it would be. I’ve already cleaned twice, and we’re still finding chunks of ceiling popcorn everywhere.  Like the top of the fridge.  (Ooops.  That may have been missed in the double cleaning.)  Under the microwave, all over the railings.  It’s literally everywhere.

dust

2.  PROJECT SCOPE - Yesterday was cloudy, so it was like looking at the ceiling through a filter.  Today in the bright sunshine there were just way too many imperfections on my ‘smooth’ ceiling.  I think I’m too much of a perfectionist to be happy with it like that.  My Dad thinks we can sand the rough parts.  But seriously… scraping, then SANDING the whole ceiling???  Is WAY too much work for me.

3.  MARRIAGE - I don’t think Jeff we can live with the mess of scraping/sanding every room in the main floor of our house.  So we’re going to have to re-popcorn the part that I scraped.  What a sad, sad sentence to type.  Blerg.  I was bitching and moaning mentioning to Jeff that our house was going to have to stay stuck in the ‘80s forever because of the ceilings.  He reminded me that if I wanted prettier ceilings we could build a new house in a new neighbourhood, but we wouldn’t live on the park where we can watch our kids walk to school, or have a yard surrounded by mature trees with bunches of perennials that are beginning to bloom. 

IMG_1279 

OK, fine.  The ceiling stays.

Popcorn Popcorn Everywhere

So I started to do a minor ceiling repair this morning in my kitchen.  We needed to patch the area left by the old fluorescent light.  It turned into me scraping a little bit more, and a little bit more.  Until it was apparent that I was going to do the  Whole.  Freaking.  Ceiling. 

Ohmygoodness.  What did I get myself into!?!  The ceiling in my house has no starting and stopping point.  Every single room is connected.  So now I’m committed to doing the whole main floor. 

Scraping the ceiling is something I’ve always wanted to do, but thought it would be prohibitively difficult.  Turns out that, nope… it isn’t.  With a little bit of water, the stuff pretty much just slides right off.  But the mess!  The MESS!!!  That white dusty residue is everywhere.  Seriously.  Like piles of it. 

IMG_1271 IMG_1272

If anyone is considering scraping off their popcorn ceiling, I’d say totally go for it!  I’m already amazed by how much brighter and taller my ceilings seem! 

I’d recommend using one of these sprayers to make the job go way quicker.  (You can get them at the dollar store for $2.)  You pump it up, then it sprays continuously to soak a big area.  Then the popcorn stuff just falls away when you scrape it with drywall trowel.  Easy! 

IMG_1268 IMG_1269

In the picture on the right, you can see the line where a small section of the ceiling has been scraped.  Can you even believe how much whiter it looks than the popcorn part?  Craziness!  If you can handle the mess, the result is SO worth it!

Inspiration File: the Ensuite

OK… here is a sneak peek of ideas for our ensuite reno.  I wish I had more specifics nailed down at this point, since the demo has already started, but I guess that’s just not how I roll.  I had to have the instant gratification of demolishing that monstrosity of a tub, and now I get to live with a construction zone situation for longer than necessary. 

But back to the fun part.  Spoiler alert… I’m going with black and white.  Shocker.  Here are looks that I’m loving.  (You know what I’m not loving?  Staying on budget.  It’s kind of the opposite of fun, but also a worthwhile challenge.  But that’s a subject to tackle in another post.)

tub collage

Shelving Collage 

vanity Collage

image sources are linked on my ensuite pinterest board

And… I’m Back!

Hello! 

… hello? … 

*cricket’s chirping* 

It’s been so long that I don’t know if anyone will even read this!!!

I’m back from my extended blogcation! Here are a few things that are new since I last blogged:

1.  Both boys are in school full time!  I have to admit, it kind of threw me into a bit of an identity crisis.  It's weird being a stay at home mom when your kids are in school all day.  The good part?  I get to go out during the day to drink pretty mochas in places where I would never venture into with the two boys. 

coffee

 

2.  Speaking of the boys, this happened to my piano.  They thought it would be funny to make every key black.  Grrr. 

DSCN6026

… the tops and fronts washed off.  But not the sides.  (I hope their piano teacher doesn’t see this.)

DSCN6028

My goal going forward is to have no more ‘shit my kids destroyed’ posts… my kids are OFFICIALLY to old for this!

 

3.  We saw Oprah!  She did a talk in Saskatoon, and I got to go with my Mom, sister, and bestie.  Amazing.  Definitely one of those bucket list experiences.

 

 

4.  We started our bathroom reno!  It was quite a challenge to get this beast out of our house.  More on that later this week! 

 

5.  A few people actually noticed that I wasn't blogging... So special shout out to the friends and family that encouraged me to get back at it again!  Thanks for checking in!

Blog friends... I feel so out of the loop!  I'll be around to say hello later today!  

ps… I have more exciting projects in the works.  Stay tuned!