Our Holiday Home – Canadian Bloggers Christmas Home Tour 2018

Our Holiday Home – Canadian Bloggers Christmas Home Tour 2018

It’s DECEMBER!!  Where has this year gone??  It’s been a looong while since we checked in with all of you here in blog land. We’ve had a busy few months of ups and downs and decided that we needed a break and some much needed R&R.  But we figured we couldn’t let the holidays come and go without making our way back and what better way to re-introduce ourselves than with a friendly walk through the Dreamhouse. We’ve got the main floor of the house all dressed for the holidays so come on in for a little Christmas home decor inspiration! (more…)

Choosing the right furniture for your big kid’s bedroom

Choosing the right furniture for your big kid’s bedroom

Choosing the right furniture for a kids bedroom can be overwhelming. It often takes patience and planning to select pieces that can last through their ever-changing needs and tastes.  For our 8-year old son’s recent bedroom makeover, we partnered with The Brick to upgrade the furniture in Kash’s space and have compiled our best 3 tips to help you navigate the process.

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Kichler Lighting Review + a GIVEAWAY!

Kichler Lighting Review + a GIVEAWAY!

Hi friends!! WOW! We’re seriously overwhelmed at the responses we’ve received since we posted the reveal of Kash’s ‘Modern Marvel’ Bedroom.  You guys have sent so many amazing comments & messages and we honestly can’t thank you enough.  We thought it only fitting that we do our part to spread some of that love around, so we’ve teamed back up with Kichler Lighting to giveaway a few of the pieces that they so generously sponsored for Kash’s bedroom. You can enter the giveaway using the widget at the bottom of this post. (more…)


Creating a Geometric Feature Wall (ORC Week 3)

Creating a Geometric Feature Wall (ORC Week 3)

We’ve made it to week 3 of the One Room Challenge which means we’ve officially hit the half way mark. If you missed the previous two weeks, you can go get caught up on the before of the space and the design inspiration for our “Modern Marvel” Boy’s Bedroom.  This week we’re focusing on the geometric feature wall treatment we’ll be creating behind Kash’s bed. (more…)

“Modern Marvel” Boy’s Bedroom: The Inspiration & Design (ORC Week 2)

“Modern Marvel” Boy’s Bedroom: The Inspiration & Design (ORC Week 2)

We’re into week 2 of our Spring One Room Challenge. If you missed last week’s post we revealed that we’re finally tackling our son’s room and shared a few before pics of the space.  It’s been a busy week getting the room emptied & replacing the flooring, but before we get into the progress we’ve made we thought we’d take you through our design plan for his superhero bedroom & some insight into where we’re drawing our inspiration from. (more…)

Our Spring Home – Canadian Bloggers Home Tour

Our Spring Home – Canadian Bloggers Home Tour

Hi again friends. It’s March and it’s Spring Home Tour Day!!!  Today we’re excited to be sharing a bit more of the Dreamhouse with you all!  It’s been a while since we shared our first ever home tour, but we’ve never actually shared a walkthrough of our living space when it wasn’t all decked out for the holidays.  We figured it was about time we came out of hibernation to remedy that. We’re joining Shannon of Home Made Lovely and Christina of The DIY Mommy along with 21 other amazingly talented Canadian bloggers and all of us are opening up our homes to bring you a healthy dose of inspiration for Spring. At the bottom of this post, you’ll find new posts from different bloggers every day this week – all things Spring. Hopefully Mother Nature will take notice and things outside of our homes will catch up. (more…)

Simple & Stylish New Year’s Eve | Year of Feasting Pt. 2

Simple & Stylish New Year’s Eve | Year of Feasting Pt. 2

Kes & I love entertaining over the holidays.  Whether it’s elaborate family dinners or quick pop ins to deliver presents, the best part of this time of year is getting to spend time with friends and family. Often though, holiday entertaining is so focused on all things Christmas that by the time New Year’s Eve rolls around, we’re all partied out! We tend to stay in to ring in the new year so it’s easy for decor to become an after thought. But it doesn’t have to be that way! (more…)

Revealing our Dream Kitchen

Revealing our Dream Kitchen

IT’S KITCHEN REVEAL DAY!!!! After 7 long weeks of having our kitchen torn apart, our main floor thrown into the chaos of packages, tools, & building materials – and definitely more takeout meals & sleepless nights than I care to admit, we’re so excited to finally be able to share this space with you all! Welcome to our Dream Kitchen. If you are looking to create your dream home too, you could look into using a building company to help you achieve the look you are after. (more…)

The Dream Kitchen: Racing to the finish (#ORC Week 6)

The Dream Kitchen: Racing to the finish (#ORC Week 6)

We’re finally into the home stretch of our dream kitchen makeover. It’s week 6 – which if you’re familiar with the One Room Challenge is typically the day of the big reveal. This round however because of all the hurricanes & flooding that have impacted so many people across the US over the last few months, the reveal date has been extended to give everyone an extra week. Thankfully we haven’t been hit with any natural disasters, but we’ve definitely had our share of setbacks in the kitchen so for us, that extra week has been a bit of a blessing in disguise. (more…)

The Dream Kitchen: Let me upgrade you! (#ORC Week 3)

The Dream Kitchen: Let me upgrade you! (#ORC Week 3)

We’ve reached the half way mark of our kitchen makeover for the One Room Challenge. If you missed the previous 2 weeks, feel free to go get caught up. In Week 1 we shared our overall design plan for the space. Week 2 was all about our colour inspiration and a little progress update. This week we’re getting into the details of the biggest element we’ll be upgrading. (more…)

The heart of the home – Our Dream Kitchen (#ORC Week 1)

The heart of the home – Our Dream Kitchen (#ORC Week 1)

Welcome back friends! Well here we are – summer has officially drawn to a close and with the cooler temperatures comes that inevitable urge to get back into project mode. We still have a mile-long list of to-dos and projects yet to be completed before the house will feel like it’s anywhere close to being ‘done.’  but the number one question we get asked is: “So is your house done now?”, followed closely by “What’s still left to be done on the house?” or “What project are you working on next?” (more…)

Ryobi North – Sitting Fireside for Canada’s 150

Ryobi North – Sitting Fireside for Canada’s 150

There’s just a few short days to go before Canada celebrates it’s 150th birthday and all across the country people are getting ready for the party.  Everywhere you go, businesses & homeowners alike are getting into the Canada Day sprit with displays of national pride, flags & colours.  When RYOBI reached out to us to create a Canadian themed DIY in celebration of Canada’s 150, we needed not look further than our own backyard (pun intended)! (more…)

Elements of a Dream Bedroom – (ORC Week 4)

Elements of a Dream Bedroom – (ORC Week 4)

It’s Week 4 of the One Room Challenge and if you’re new here you should probably go back to Week 1 and get yourself up to speed.  But in case you’re lazy like me let me give you the Coles’ Notes version. We’re 4 weeks into a 6 week challenge where we’re creating our Dream Bedroom.  There. That wasn’t hard at all! But with just 2 weeks to go, there’s no time to waste so let’s get down to business. (more…)

Paint & furniture – Master bedroom update (ORC Week 3)

Paint & furniture – Master bedroom update (ORC Week 3)

It’s week 3 of our One Room Challenge and true to form I’m beginning to feel the stress. Every time we decide to tackle a room makeover, Kes and I come up with these huge ideas & plans for multiple DIYs. Week 3 is usually about the time when I take a look back at the long list of to-dos that we have yet to complete and start to seriously doubt our ability to pull it all together in time. This time around is no exception. (more…)

Back to the bedroom: Master suite inspiration (ORC week 1)

Back to the bedroom: Master suite inspiration (ORC week 1)

It’s that time of year again!  We’re doing another One Room Challenge.  If you’ve never heard of the ORC, it’s essentially a huge online event that Linda of Calling It Home hosts twice a year. Hundreds of bloggers join in to makeover a room from start to finish in just 6 weeks.  This will be our 3rd time participating. Well technically it’s our fourth, but we don’t speak of our first attempt lol! In any case we’re really excited to finally have another space in The Dreamhouse join our master bath & family room in the ‘completed’ column.  This time around we’ll be tackling our dream bedroom. (more…)

DIY Valentine String Art

DIY Valentine String Art

Valentine’s Day isn’t usually a holiday we really get into around our house. Sure most years, I make valentine cards for Kash, or bake goodies for his class parties, but Kes and I tend to keep things pretty low key.  Typically we’ll just cook a nice meal for one another or catch a movie. It’s been years since we’ve exchanged gifts and I can’t remember any year where I’ve felt the need to decorate the house. This year however, with everything going on in the world I kinda feel like we could all use a little more love in our everyday lives. I decided to make this DIY Valentine string art to inject a little ‘heart’ into the Dreamhouse – and to serve as a gentle reminder to show love for one another, no matter our differences.  (more…)

Battling the post holiday funk

Battling the post holiday funk

Happy New Year friends! The holidays are behind us, we’ve said so long to Christmas decorations and lazy days. It’s a new year, and with it comes the prospect of new goals and a fresh start….right?!  Isn’t that how it’s supposed to be?  Well for us there hasn’t been a whole lot of that.  Truth be told I had an entirely different post planned for today.  Actually if I’m being totally honest, I had a different post planned for last week, but I digress… We’re battling a serious case of post holiday funk in the Dreamhouse.  (more…)

A Dreamhouse Christmas: Home Tour 2016

A Dreamhouse Christmas: Home Tour 2016

Happy Holidays friends! And to any of you who are new here, thanks for stopping by. We’re pretty excited today to be sharing our first Christmas home tour with all of you – and really, our first EVER home tour here in the Dreamhouse! We’ve also teamed up some fabulous & super talented Canadian bloggers to share a whole lot of Christmas inspiration from home tours, to recipes, travel tips & everything in between so be sure to “Have Yourself a Canadian Little Christmas” & check out the links at the bottom of this post. (more…)

10 minute DIY: Ornament string garland

10 minute DIY: Ornament string garland

You guys!! How is it already the second week of December?! Am I the only one who feels like this month is flying by? Christmas will be here before you know it & if you’ve been following us on Instagram you know we’ve been hard at work getting the Dreamhouse all snazzied up for Christmas. Our tree is up & I’ve been working on a few quick & easy crafts to add to our festive decor. I’m all about crafts that are simple & don’t take up too much time so I thought I’d share this one that literally took me 10 minutes and cost next to nothing – our DIY ornament string garland. (more…)

Shop the look: Our Modern Industrial Family Room

Shop the look: Our Modern Industrial Family Room

We’re just a few days away from Black Friday in the U.S.! Who am I kidding, it’s almost Black Friday here in Canada too (since our retailers have insisted on making it a thing), lol!  And as all of our inboxes fill up with flyers, deals & door crashers, we thought we’d share a little inspiration to take with you as you head out to all the sales this week. We’ve had so many questions about how we put together the modern industrial vibe for our family room, so we’re sharing a source list to help you shop the look! (more…)

Our modern industrial family room | One Room Challenge Reveal Day!

Our modern industrial family room | One Room Challenge Reveal Day!

We made it to the finish line!!! I can’t begin to tell you how excited (and relieved) I am to be able to say that. Today marks week 6 of the One Room Challenge and we’re revealing one of the largest spaces in the house – our modern industrial family room.  This is the first truly ‘finished’ space on the main floor of our home and it feels so amazing to finally be able to walk in and get that first real glimpse of our vision for the Dreamhouse. (more…)

The making of a family room [Inspiration board]

The making of a family room [Inspiration board]

After our very long hiatus from all things DIY, it’s not surprising that lately Kes and I have been feeling the itch to create. So now that this beautiful summer is creeping to a close and shorter days are bringing with them cooler temperatures, we’ve decided it’s finally time for us to trade in our shorts for a few pairs of comfy paint stained track pants. The first space we’re tackling is our main floor, so we decided to start with a little family room inspiration. If you are feeling inspired to change up your house, but are unsure how to get new furniture into you home, then you should check out something like this shiply furniture page to give you a better idea of what you could do. (more…)

The reality of the Dream … 9 months later

The reality of the Dream … 9 months later

Well hello there old friend…and by old friend I can only assume I’m talking to myself because after over a year of radio silence on the blog it’s possible that I’m the only one still here. Okay, maybe my mom. Hi mom. 🙂

It feels like forever since I’ve written anything or even checked in (nearly 13 months to be exact).  A whole lot has happened in our lives since my last post. For starters – after 3 long years on this journey, we finally moved in to the Dreamhouse. (more…)

ORC Week 4 – Setbacks

ORC Week 4 – Setbacks

I just had a feeling things were moving along a little too smoothly….

It’s week 4 of our One Room Challenge where we’re participating along with the 20 designers & over 150 bloggers in the linking event over at Calling it Home to transform a space in just 6 weeks. If you’ve been following along on our progress to complete our #DreamBedroom & #MasterBathRetreat, you’ll know that thus far in Week 1, Week 2 & Week 3, things have been moving along at a good pace.  But what challenge would be complete without a few setbacks right??  Well this seems to be our week for that across the board…. (more…)

ORC Week 3: Colours, fixtures & finishes

ORC Week 3: Colours, fixtures & finishes

Happy Thursday! It’s week 3 and we’ve reached the half way point of our One Room Challenge!!

If you missed our previous updates, you can go back to read Week 1 & Week 2 where we shared the before of our entire master suite & the plans for our #MasterBathRetreat.

The bedroom space still looks much as it did last week, with the exception of the windows that have now been trimmed. We’ve also cleaned up a bit & removed all of the drywall pieces left from the wall that needed to be opened for the en-suite plumbing, which should happen next week. (more…)

One Room Challenge Week 4: Choosing the right neutral

One Room Challenge Week 4: Choosing the right neutral

It’s week 4 of our One Room Challlenge and we’re very behind on our progress. If you read our last post you know all about our devastatingly huge little setback. Sadly we still don’t have an update on that front but we’re hoping to find a solution this weekend. Trying not to be discouraged though we’re attempting to move forward and this week we’re talking paint. (more…)

When tiling goes wrong…

When tiling goes wrong…

Soooo we’ve hit a setback with the tiling for Operation Organized Entryway. If you follow us on Instagram, you might have already seen this. Remember our beautiful honed grey basalt tile that I love and was ranting & raving over in our last post?? Yea….well…. here’s how it looked the next day once the tiles were set & we snapped off all of the leveling clips… (more…)

One Room Challenge Week 2: Multi-tasking & material sourcing

One Room Challenge Week 2: Multi-tasking & material sourcing

Well it’s Week 2 of the One Room Challenge where we’re transforming one room in our house over the next 6 weeks along with the 20 chosen design bloggers as well as the 96 other bloggers playing along in the linkup rounds over at Calling It Home. In Week 1, we started things off by revealing our plans for what we’re calling #OperationOrganizedEntryway (if you missed it you can go get caught up here).
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One Room Challenge: Operation Organized Entryway

One Room Challenge: Operation Organized Entryway

Well we’ve made it into the finishing phase of the Dreamhouse and with so many projects on the go at the same time, we’re beginning to feel a little bit of blogger ADD. With the whole house to finish at once we’ve been having a hard time figuring how to document them all without having the blog to descend into the chaos of multi-tasking that our evenings & weekends have. (more…)

Talking life, business and DIY with Bryan Baeumler

Talking life, business and DIY with Bryan Baeumler

If you follow our blog, you know that it’s no secret that Kes & I are HGTV fanboys (or fanboy and fangirl, lol). So when Jennifer Flores recently approached us to ask if we’d be interested in interviewing Bryan Baeumler on behalf of BlogPodium, our reaction was something comparable to a teenage girl at a One Direction concert. I seriously had to re-write my email response to her three times to tone down the number of “OMG”s and “that’s amazing”s!
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#IceBucketChallenge for ALS Canada [Video]

#IceBucketChallenge for ALS Canada [Video]

Unless you’ve been living under a rock somewhere, I’m sure you’ve seen countless people – friends, coworkers & celebrities alike – dousing themselves in buckets of ice cold water & then uploading the videos to their various social media accounts & challenging their friends in order to raise awareness for ALS. So when Kes & I saw the ice bucket challenge begin to make its rounds in each of our facebook feeds, we knew it was only a matter of time before someone called us out.

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Dreamhouse Update: Construction Progress Report [Video]

Dreamhouse Update: Construction Progress Report [Video]

Things have been crazy busy lately – which you’ve probably gathered from our lack of blog posts in the last month. It’s been a bit of a struggle trying to strike the balance between our day jobs, being a parent to a 5 year old (Yes our little guy is FIVE now), working on the house, & staying on top of the blog, but we’re working on it.

Thankfully though – this time, our silence here hasn’t meant things over at the Dreamhouse have ground to a halt. Quite the opposite actually. Things have really progressed since our last update & we’re even starting to glimpse that light at the end of the tunnel. So rather than ramble on and on about all of the things that have been happening we thought it might be easier to share a quick video progress report so you can see for yourselves. (more…)

Tool essentials for the DIY Dad

Tool essentials for the DIY Dad

Growing up, my Dad was never the most handy guy. I know a fair few people who’s dads are also not handy guys (which is why most of them just called in a professional, see here for more information). Not to say that he isn’t capable, just that working with tools was never really a high priority on his list. He’s more the phone a friend & “supervise” kinda guy. I remember always having family friends come by to fix various things around the house & bringing with them the most fascinating tools. I quickly became the one who’d hold the flashlight & learned so much along the way. I guess you could say my extended family of DIY Dads probably taught me more than I would have learned having just the one…lol! But when Father’s Day came around I was never the girl you’d find in the hardware store looking for gift ideas. (more…)

Checkin in from #Workcation: First 3 days of DIY

Checkin in from #Workcation: First 3 days of DIY

Workcation:
work·ca·tion (noun)
1. A period of vacation from normal work activities, not used for rest, recreation, or travel, but rather used to work your house:  Eg. Team Dreamhouse is on workcation right now.

This week Kes and I decided to take the week off to knock a huge DIY off our to-do list.  We’ll be installing our radiant in-floor heating system.  We’ll get into the full details of radiant heating in a more in-depth post in the coming weeks, but right now I just wanted to give you a quick glimpse into the fun we’ve been having so far… (more…)

Dreamhouse update: Construction progress report

Dreamhouse update: Construction progress report

It’s been over a month  a loooong time since my last post and even longer since we’ve given you all a proper progress report on the Dreamhouse.  I wish I could give you some amazing reason why like Kes & I have been off traveling and having the time of our lives.  Or better yet that we’ve been keeping an epic secret & I’ve simply been too exhausted to write because I’m busy growing a human (a girl can dream right!?)… (more…)

Investing in an income suite: Q&A with HGTV’s Lisa Colalillo

Investing in an income suite: Q&A with HGTV’s Lisa Colalillo

If you’ve been following our blog you already know that we’re huge HGTV fans.  Remember our PARA Blog Crew submission video??  Yea….it’s a problem.  On any given day you can pretty much guarantee there’s an episode of one of HGTV Canada’s many awesome shows providing the soundtrack to our household.

One show in particular that we’ve been enjoying in this season’s lineup is Critical Listing.  If you’re not familiar with the show, you really should get familiar! (more…)

SPRING FEVER with the PARA Blog Crew

SPRING FEVER with the PARA Blog Crew

Well it’s finally here! It’s Spring Fever Reveal day & I’m pretty excited to share what Kes & I’ve been slaving over working on!

When I think of spring projects for the home, the first things that tend to come to mind are storage and organization.  So when we were tasked with a ‘spring paint projects’ challenge, we wanted to find an area of the house where we could solve a problem while adding a bit of style. (more…)

Spring is (finally) in the air…

Spring is (finally) in the air…

It’s April!!! And after months of snow, ice and Polar Vortex temperatures, Mother Nature is finally giving us a bit of a reprive (knock on wood) from what felt like the longest. winter. ever! Oh – and let me take a minute to say thank you for the overwhelmingly positive emails, text messages & blog comments I received after my last post.  It’s funny how a public online meltdown always manages to provide the most reader engagement.  So thanks guys for allowing me to vent.  🙂
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Fighting the Winter funk

Fighting the Winter funk

3 weeks….

(That’s how long it’s been since my last post.)

I should probably start by apologizing for the radio silence of late.  I’m still here. I haven’t abandoned you guys. But if I’m being totally honest, anything I had posted in the last 3 weeks, you probably wouldn’t have wanted to read.  Or maybe you would – sometimes a public online meltdown just makes for good entertainment.  Lol! I’m kidding (sort of). (more…)

Random Acts of Paint: An Elegant Family Room Makeover

Random Acts of Paint: An Elegant Family Room Makeover

If you’re lucky in life, you’re blessed with the kind of friendship that spans decades. Through breakups, triumphs, & crazy vacations; loves, loses, adventures & many many glasses of wine, I’ve been blessed to have an amazing friend by my side. Angela of Endless Possibilities Image Consulting is one of my closest friends. Friends from childhood we weren’t always as close as we are now, but as we grew into womanhood together, I came to realize she’s my kindred spirit of sorts.  She’s my person.  My go to when I want to want to ‘shop, share, heal, hurt, joke, or just be’.  So when Kes and I came up with the idea of paying forward our PARA Blog Crew windfall by performing Random Acts of Paint, there was one person who came to mind first. (more…)

Finding ‘light’ in the kindness of strangers…

Finding ‘light’ in the kindness of strangers…

It’s amazing how quickly karma can come back around. A couple of weeks ago we introduced the concept of Random Acts of Paint as a way of paying it forward. I’m a firm believer that if we all made an effort once in a while to do something nice for someone else there’d be a little more light in the world. As it happens, not more than a week later, Kes & I found ourselves on the receiving end of a random act of kindness that quite literally brought ‘light’ into our lives…. (more…)

Vote for us in the 2014 Apartment Therapy Homies!

Vote for us in the 2014 Apartment Therapy Homies!

We hope you’re all enjoying the long weekend. I know I am. There’s just something awesome about heading into a Sunday evening and being hit by the realization that there’s still one more day left of the weekend. It’s kind of like putting on a jacket you haven’t worn in a while & finding money in the pocket.  I don’t usually post on Sundays but today I wanted to take some time out for a little bit of exciting news! (more…)

Heartless Valentine’s Day craft

Heartless Valentine’s Day craft

Okay…I know that in blogging terms this post is probably a few weeks late given that Valentine’s day is tomorrow, but meh – that’s just how I roll.  Actually full disclosure how I usually roll is leaving everything to the last second and then pulling an all nighter to finish just in time for Kash to wake up the morning of [insert school event requiring me to bake, craft, etc.. here].   So in terms of personal achievements, I think being done a full day ahead of time deserves a pat on the back.  Plus this project being one that Kash and I could work on together meant that I had to operate within the constraints of 4-year-old bedtime hours. (more…)

IDS 2014 Highlights

IDS 2014 Highlights

It’s Thursday again already and I have no idea where the week went!  Not that I’m complaining. Any time I wake up and realize it’s almost the weekend is a victory in my book!  But I digress… As you’ve probably noticed, the blogosphere has been all a buzz with recaps & highlights from the IDS 2014 this past weekend. Well today I’m finally getting around to writing mine.   (more…)

New Year, New Goals

New Year, New Goals

Happy New Year!  Before I get into today’s post, I want to take a moment to thank everyone for the overwhelmingly positive feedback on the Laundry Room Makeover project we did as a gift for my parents.  Thanks also to everyone who took the time to enter the giveaway.  Of course there can only be one winner & congratulations to Angela M for winning the gallon of PARA paint as well as the PaintStick EZ-Twist Roller & QuickPainter Pad Edge Painter courtesy of HomeRight.  Good luck with your bathroom reno Angela & be sure to send us pics!

Now that all that is out of the way, let’s talk 2014… (more…)

Project Santa: Laundry room progress + paint

Project Santa: Laundry room progress + paint

Happy Friday friends!! Well, Project Santa is well under way and if you’ve been following our behind the scenes progress on Twitter and Instagram you know that we created a workspace in the basement to stage and dry fit everything.  By measuring and taping off the dimensions of the laundry room, it basically it gave us a place to plan, construct, & assemble all the elements to see how things would all fit together before we got into the actual space.  It also allowed us to do all that, without forcing my parents to go without a laundry room for 2 weeks while we carry out our little transformation.

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Design Week: The Exterior – Mixing Materials

Design Week: The Exterior – Mixing Materials

After narrowing in on the look we were going for, we set out to finding the right materials to accomplish it.  As it turns out – we simply live on the wrong coast.  Who knew??  Apparently the exact type of house we love is so popular on the other side of the continent that it’s coined it’s own style.  A quick google search of ‘West Coast Modern” and you’ll know what I’m talking about.  We found a ton of information on expressed joint panel systems, & cedar cladding materials in the Pacific North West, but were hard pressed to find building practices & materials for that style of home locally. (more…)

Back at it! Plus an exterior sneak peek…

Back at it! Plus an exterior sneak peek…

Happy Thursday folks – and Happy Thanksgiving to all our Ameri-friends!

First of all, I feel like I should apologize for the radio silence over the last couple of weeks. Between broken laptops, business trips, a sick pre-schooler & some much needed family time, there hasn’t been a whole lot of room left in my schedule for the blog. I know…BAD blogger!! Not to worry though cause I promise to make up for it. (more…)

A Halloween Reveal: Kash’s DIY Angry Birds costume

A Halloween Reveal: Kash’s DIY Angry Birds costume

Last week we gave you a little peek into our Halloween costume making obsession.  I have to admit that even I think we go overboard sometimes – and this year was no exception. But honestly, when you ask your 4 year old what he wants to be for Halloween & his response is: “Da bwack Jedi Angwy Bird fwom Angwy Birds STAR WARS!!” you simply CANNOT disappoint.  I mean…ok yes – he’s obsessed with Angry Birds.  But he’s 4 and knows the words ‘Jedi’ and ‘Star Wars.’ I must be doing something right… (more…)

Ready or not. Halloween is coming!

Ready or not. Halloween is coming!

Halloween is in exactly one week. And we haven’t started working on our costumes. Aaaaaand cue panic!

Anyone who knows us well, knows this is the time of year where we go all out. There’s just a certain satisfaction that comes from taking a cool idea, applying some brainpower & a few crafting skills and executing an EPIC costume. The fact that I was blessed with a partner that feels the same is nothing more than kismet. (more…)

The day we pretended to be on HGTV: Our PARA Blog Crew Submission [Video]

The day we pretended to be on HGTV: Our PARA Blog Crew Submission [Video]

This is going to be embarrassing…

When we attended BlogPodium a few weeks back, one of the announcements we were pretty excited about was that PARA Paints was launching the search for their 2014 Para Blog Crew.  We knew instantly that we wanted to apply because we thought it’d be fun to shoot the submission video – that AND we do have an ENTIRE house to paint, so figured we’d have no shortage of content to blog about should we be chosen. (more…)

Confessions of a BlogPodium virgin

Confessions of a BlogPodium virgin

I have a confession to make.

Well a few actually. But the first is I’ve spent the better part of this week in a post-vacation funk. Does that ever happen to you? You spend a week in tropical bliss – away from the stresses of your daily life – only to return & have it all come crashing back down on you?? Surely I’m not alone in this. Well today, I’ve made a decision to pull myself out of the funk. I’m back to blogging today because writing always makes me feel better & I’m choosing to let go of the “everyone else’s recap is already so much better than yours is going to be so why bother” mentality that has been stifling me & keeping me from writing this post. (more…)

A slice of shoe heaven: 20 years of Louboutin

A slice of shoe heaven: 20 years of Louboutin

My name is Tash & I’m a shoeaholic. There. I said it. Anyone who knows me well will tell you that this isn’t the most shocking admission I’ve made. And anyone who’s met my mother will tell you that I come by this affliction honestly, lol! So when good friend & Image Consultant Angela of Endless Possibilities Image Consulting (EPIC) invited me to attend the Christian Louboutin exhibition at Toronto’s Design Exchange, you can imagine that it took me all of half a second to accept. (more…)

Window waiting woes…

Window waiting woes…

You might have noticed things on the construction front have come to a bit of a standstill lately. Well they haven’t entirely – we’ve merely switched our focus from the main area of the house to another. More on that in a bit – but first here are a few of the lessons we’ve learned in the last several weeks: (more…)

Happy Mother’s Day

Happy Mother’s Day

Happy Mother’s Day to all the wonderful Moms out there! Especially mine who didn’t hesitate to take us all in while we embarked on this journey to build our Dreamhouse. Mom, we appreciate you in more ways than we could ever express! You’ve taught me what it is to be a great mom, and I hope I can do the job justice. (more…)

S#*t our kid is whining about

S#*t our kid is whining about

Being a parent is a tough job. Kids – especially young ones are unpredictable. One minute they’re smiling, the next they’re saying something hilarious, and sometimes they’re just completely irrational.

We came across this Tumblr today that has been blowing up all over the Internet in the last few days, and I couldn’t help but laugh…like serious, tears spilling down my cheeks laugh. Mostly because I CAN SOOO RELATE TO THIS! (more…)

Team Dreamhouse: Introducing Lisa Lev Design

Team Dreamhouse: Introducing Lisa Lev Design

Happy Monday folks! We hope you had a restful weekend – ours unfortunately was filled with laundry, chores & a few of the other things we’ve been putting off for the last several weeks. And sadly we didn’t even get through it all. Sigh…

But on to more exciting things…  Last week we promised that today we’d reveal our choice from the short list of interior designers we met with.  So let’s not waste any more time (since if you’re reading this post, you already know who we chose – we kinda gave it away in the title, lol). (more…)

Interior Design: where to start?

Interior Design: where to start?

Now that the structure is up finally, despite the fact that we had some difficultly deciding on what we wanted the structure to be like, it was mainly the windows to be honest. There was too much choice, one of my friends recommended we use someone like Window Company Atlanta but I let my husband decide what to do because it was easier for me. But now that is all over and done with and we’re beginning to switch our focus to planning out the interior spaces. With having such a wide open floor plan, we figured we’d need some help defining the various spaces so that they best serve our functional needs.

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What a difference a year makes…

What a difference a year makes…

We’re blogging from Barbados today as we’re on vacation celebrating Tash’s grandmother’s 90th birthday.

The other night we decided to pop by one of our favorite spots on the island for an impromptu dessert. Tapas Restaurant is a great little place that you can sit right on the water’s edge and enjoy the fantastic food and ambiance. (more…)

The Race Against the Elements!

The Race Against the Elements!

You may have noticed that we’ve been a little quiet on the house front for the last couple of weeks.  Well, you’re right. We have, and the main reason: WINTER.

Now on a normal year, we aren’t winter’s biggest fans, but this year we’re especially bitter as the sudden influx of full blown arctic weather has essentially thrown our construction schedule to the wolves! (more…)

Design Week: The Dreamhouse Revealed

Design Week: The Dreamhouse Revealed

Well Design Week is coming to a close.  In case you missed it be sure to check out the rest of this week’s posts. We first took you through our search for inspiration, then outlined how we focused in on our full wish list and created our look book. Today we’re finally revealing The Dreamhouse on paper as we go through Kevin’s design and it’s evolution from rough sketch to colour rendering. (more…)

Design Week: The Look Book

Design Week: The Look Book

Once we got through the initial research, we took a more in-depth look at the photos we had compiled. What we figured out is that overall we love modern contemporary architecture and we want our house to reflect that in its design both inside and out. That said, we’d still like to maintain a bit of neighbourhood charm because let’s be honest, we’re not trying to create an art installation in the middle of the suburbs! (more…)

Mail Status: Undeliverable

Mail Status: Undeliverable

Canada Post said we can’t have our mail. 🙁

Ok, wait…that sounds crazy. I guess I should explain. So back in December, I lost my purse at the Buffalo Bills game in Toronto. Thankfully a kind citizen found it emptied my wallet of the cash, and turned it in to security. So I did get it back the next day, but not before cancelling my credit card.

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After the dust settled… [Video]

After the dust settled… [Video]

We’ve been pretty busy with the holidays and enjoying some down time with the family. The only down side of that is we haven’t had much time to update the blog. Just because we’ve been quiet though, doesn’t, mean we haven’t had busy bees working away on site. We’re fortunate enough to have a dedicated crew of guys willing to work almost right through the holidays to help us make up some of the time we lost.

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A Pinterest Christmas

A Pinterest Christmas

One of the things we love about this time of year is decorating the house.  There’s nothing like that sense of accomplishment you feel after everything is all set.  You’ve finished putting up the tree. The mantle is decorated. The gifts are wrapped.  All that’s left to do is throw on some Christmas music and sit back with a glass of wine (or egg nog if you prefer) to admire the prettiness that comes along with the season…

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The Demolition [Video]

The Demolition [Video]

With the holidays around the corner we’ve been super busy, but the demolition video is finally edited and ready to go!

When you watch the video, it’ll seem like all smashing & crashing, but in actual fact, the backhoe operator was quite the artist. He used the machine like an extension of his arm – in some instances, only removing a few bricks at a time. It was pretty amazing to watch.

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S#*t our kid says

S#*t our kid says

Kids are funny.  They never say what you expect them to.  Sometimes it’s heart warming, other times you wonder what devil spawn has overtaken your sweet baby, but most of the time, the things that come out of their little mouths are just priceless.  Now we know we aren’t the only ones who think that our kid is possibly the funniest kid on the planet (all parents think this), but seriously – this kid is freakin’ funny and WAY too smart for his own good…

So we thought we’d share with the world a few of the cute, quirky & random conversations we find ourselves engaging in with our son.

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Storage Woes

Storage Woes

One of the things you don’t think of when you’re preparing for a big move are the seasons ahead.  As you might remember, it was August when we packed up our things and decided to move back home.  Of course being that it was August, our closets had long been thinned out by the spring/summer edit; our warm weather clothes a distant memory, neatly boxed away and stored in the basement for the following season….

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The Waiting Game

The Waiting Game

It’s been about a month since our last post which we know is a VERY looong time!  You must be wondering what Team Dreamhouse has been up to.

In all honesty…nothing.  Well, okay we put up a construction fence.  But, otherwise – a whole lot of nothing.  We sourced some window quotes & lined up a whole slew of trades, but for the most part, we’ve just been playing the waiting game with the city for our building permit.

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Closing day: Take 2

Closing day: Take 2

Every cloud has a silver lining…

As you know, our closing got delayed by one day. Boo right?  We thought so too.  The upside however, is that because of that ONE seemingly insignificant day, our first mortgage payment has now been delayed by ONE MONTH! Woo hoo!!! I guess it’s true what they say – everything happens for a reason.  🙂

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Closing day??

Closing day??

Well today was closing day.  Sort of.  At least it was supposed to be.  As it turns out, however there was an error in the mortgage paperwork that caused a delay in the final release of funds between the bank and our lawyer’s office.  Despite everyone’s feverish attempts to rectify things, ultimately the clock just ran out before the issue could be resolved.

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It’s GO TIME!!

It’s GO TIME!!

We know it’s been a little while since we blogged and you’re probably as excited to see the plans for the Dreamhouse as we are….well maybe not quite AS excited as us, but still.

Its been a busy month full of settling in with the parents, budgets, drawings, quote gathering & securing finances; all while balancing the day to day of work and raising a 3 year old. Oh yea – and we managed to throw in a couple of trips and celebrating 4 years of marriage.

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That’s it, that’s all!

That’s it, that’s all!

Well it’s closing day and it’s with mixed emotions that we say goodbye to our first home.

All the hard work and stress of moving aside, and as much as we  are looking forward to starting our next chapter with the new house, I couldn’t help feeling a little sad as I took my last walk through the empty house – and with the hubby being away this week, I had to do this one solo.

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I. HATE. PACKING.

I. HATE. PACKING.

We are less than 2 weeks till moving day and I just need to get a few things off my chest.  You ever notice how websites always show photos of happy, smiling families packing boxes as they are preparing for moving day??   In preparation for writing this post, I did some Googling to find these images and I can assure you that these people do not exist in reality.

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Done and done!

Done and done!

It’s been a while since we blogged, and lots to update you on.   Specifically what happened with the seller after the inspection…

Well of course – he was anything but reasonable.  Essentially our agent Mike went to him with our inspection report of what could potentially add up to $25,000 in repairs – and his response was “I won’t come down one more penny.” That said, we know that the renovation plans we have will address most, if not all of the issues the inspector raised.  But the bottom line is, ultimately we’re buying THIS house, in it’s present state, and regardless of our future plans for it we shouldn’t have to absorb all the cost of any repairs that it needs going in.

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Home Inspection

Home Inspection

It’s been a busy couple of days.  We got all of the offer paperwork signed and finalized, made a quick trip in to the bank to pick up our pre-approval letter to satisfy our financing condition, then topped it off with a road trip to Ottawa to visit a friend and celebrate the Canada Day long weekend. It was our first time spending the holiday in the nation’s capital and we had a blast!  Definitely recommended if you’ve never experienced it before – so much to do and the fireworks on Parliament Hill were a spectacular end to the trip!

Now after a little much needed R&R, we’re back and down to fulfilling the final condition of our offer – the home inspection.

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Buyer frustrations…

Buyer frustrations…

Ugh…home owners can be so frustrating!

Don’t get me wrong, it’s TOTALLY understandable to be emotionally attached to your house…but seriously – Pricing a home for sale is a science. You can’t just arbitrarily pick a number that you want to sell for just BECAUSE. These things have to be based in reality.  Lot size, square footage, how many upgrades you’ve put in, comparable properties in the neighbourhood and their past sale prices – these are all things that you have to keep in mind when setting the right price for your home if you expect to sell.

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This might be the one…

This might be the one…

So after expanding our search area, we’ve found an interesting property in the West Shore neighbourhood. The house itself isn’t much to look at.  In fact it probably hasn’t been updated much since it was built in 1962.  Now in saying that we don’t mean the cool ‘retro chic 60s’, we mean circa 1962 textured plaster walls, parquet & vinyl floors, avocado tub in the bathroom – we’re talking full on time machine the second you walk through the door.  Not exactly what you might envision us looking for in our dream house.

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SOLD!

SOLD!

Up and down in less than 48 hours….and here we were all geared up to endure at least a couple weeks of stress around keeping the house in immaculate ‘show ready’ condition.

When we listed the house, we thought we were a little bit on the ambitious side in terms of our asking price.  After reviewing the past sales and comparable properties in our area, we had an idea of what we were hoping to sell for and naturally priced ourselves slightly above that to leave some room for negotiation. What we really didn’t imagine was that the house would go OVER asking or that things would get wrapped up so quickly and easily.

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Officially on the market!

Officially on the market!

So in between all the property hunting, we’ve been busy prepping our place for sale.  Now after several weeks of painting, carpeting, cleaning and de-cluttering, it’s nice to be able to say that our house is officially on the market!  It’s been a long and laborious process, but we made it to the finish line.  All the papers have been signed and submitted so we should hit MLS by sometime tomorrow – just in time for the weekend!

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Seeing the potential…

Seeing the potential…

With our dream mapped out, we set off in search of the perfect property. But after getting outbid on a house in our ideal Pickering area of Rosebank South, we decided to widen our search a bit to include the neighbourhoods of West Shore.

Rosebank South is one of Pickering’s more exclusive neighborhoods that essentially contains one of two things: older, reasonably priced bungalows; and renovated custom homes priced in and around the million dollar range. Because of its proximity to the lake, larger lot sizes, and higher property values, this tends to be a high demand area. Of course, that makes snagging a property pretty difficult – especially at the entry level.

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Chasing the dream

Chasing the dream

Being that we’re young creative professionals it sort of fits that we’d be attracted to the urban contemporary loft aesthetic. The problem being, the ‘urban contemporary loft’ generally comes with  inner city living – downtown core, smaller square footage, higher prices, etc – which is fine when you’re in your 20s and focused on your career.  When the time comes to raise a family though,  you tend to re-evaluate the things you want in a home; things like proximity to schools and family, having a backyard, and overall wanting a bigger living space.

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Welcome to The Dreamhouse Project

Welcome to The Dreamhouse Project

So what is The Dreamhouse Project?? Simply put, it’s going to be our all comsuming labour of love over the next year. We started this blog to document the journey – our ups and downs, musings and random thoughts on selling our house, moving in with parents, renovations, design ideas and everything along the way leading up to our ultimate goal…building our dream home.

We hope you’ll come along with us for the ride – we can’t wait to get there!