50 Shades of Beige

The super shopper of the family has done it again. After numerous texts and pictures, we decided to buy this vanity for my change room

and a kitchen table to paint to match the cupboards

at Ikea. Being his usual thoughtful self, Rick asked me if I would like the organizer trays that were displayed with the vanity.  I already have them, so they weren't necessary, but I was totally impressed that he was so thoughtful. Of course, they have been in the house for years, but I guess he just hasn't needed to go through my makeup for anything. That is a good sign, no matter which way you look at it!

Both items will require a little personalizing, but what are we if not inventive? My catch phrase for this house is "cheap and cheerful" which replaces the previous owner's motto of "cheap and ugly make-do"!  After following a trail of owners through the security system papers, I have determined that the original owners were not afraid to buy wisely. The subsequent owners? Not so much. The original owners of the home lived here for quite awhile, raising a rather large family by the size of the place for the era. I grew up in a house a little more than half the size of this place with five in our family, and my father provided a comfortable life. The OO (original owners) did extra things like having  lights installed in all of the closets, a hall closet fitted with shelves for "stuff" which of course in my case translates into "china". It is a deep hall closet and service for twelve including every imaginable serving piece took only two shelves of the available four!There are also two other hall closets (very long hall!) one for linens and one for out of season outerwear. At the time the house was built, the fittings were "state of the art". Pull out drawers for appliances in the kitchen. Primitive to today's standards, granted, but how special were they then? There is a broom closet in the kitchen, and a coat closet with shelves above. And above that? More cupboard space to the ceiling for things you seldom use but don't want to go down to the cold room to get...like the bread machine, and hundreds of rolls of paper towels!  AND there is a guest closet in the living room, close by the front door.  Things like that just make my heart sing. Storage space galore, that I am determined to use for the storage of a fewer things and a lot of air! It occurred to me while sorting and slaving, that I have still got far too much stuff!  Our closets were together in half an hour. We both took the Konmari system to heart and discarded or donated all old, unloved and unused clothing before we moved. Just between you and me, one day a fat lady will hit Goodwill and made out like a bandit. But what use is something if you don't use it! I wish her well!

But I digress. The second owners had the property for just a couple of years, and may have done a bit of painting. Badly. The last owners? Put in a deluxe garage, and just cheaped out on everything else. There are some things that require attention in an older home. Windows for one. Using silicone to stick them shut, requiring a 150 dollar service call to remedy? Not a good plan. They also had a fondness for doing things themselves. You can tell by the bathroom tile. Imagine if you will, a grey marbled tub and surround. Nice shiny chrome faucet, brushed nickel grab bars. A off white shower curtain with a brown naked tree printed on it that they kindly left behind. And the shower curtain rod. A curved one that protrudes into the narrow room about a foot, so you have to leave the shower curtain pulled to one side in order not to have that tree in your face when sitting on the throne. Moving on to the walls...rectangular modern tiles. Taupe. With grey metallic corner tiles. AND a chocolate brown strip running around the top and the bottom of the tile walls. A beige lino floor that really wanted to be cork but didn't make it. And the vanity? A slap dash paint job to the outside, beige of course, and a spray painted effort on the handles- lumpy metallic grey. Could they not find the time to wash them before painting? Anyway, this is offset nicely by the yellow cast to the lighting, and yet another shade of beige on the upper portion of the walls. The absolutely lovely toiletries cupboard is yet another shade of beige, with another type of handle on the door. French provincial this time. Spray painted lumpy metallic as well. Sigh. I didn't mention the khaki green cellular blind did I? Can't miss that one! They still work like a charm though and were purchased by the OO. I found the information on the blind itself. We took down a thermometer by the window, and at one time the trim actually matched the blinds, in the kitchen anyway. Did I mention that these blinds are on six windows of the house? It is such a shame because the blinds would have been great if they were white.  Anyway, in a month or two it should be done. White. Pristine. Grey. Done. You know, even my towels look dirty in there at the moment! And I go out of my way to have absolutely white and bright linens. It boggles the mind what went into these decisions, but I am thinking not much! Not much at all.  Anyway, moving on with less whining...

My goal is to declutter by another 30% but I must admit, I am going to take my time doing so. There isn't a rush, but it is a necessity to get rid of stuff before there is an urgent need to get rid of it, if you follow my line of thought. The kids have their own taste, they don't want our old stuff. So if something should happen to one of us, the other would be left with quite a burden. So, we need to be able to live a full life while here, but realize that we will need to be able to turn on a dime. Can't do that with a ton of stuff under your arm, can you?

Last night I watched a movie in the rumpus room. I curled up on the settee with a wool blanket I bought in Scotland years ago and never used. It was soooooo warm and toasty! And our family tartan to boot. Well, it was Rick's mum's family tartan. I have always loved the Royal Stuart tartan, but now I have a right to it through marriage! I just wish I had saved my Highland Queen kilt I had years and years ago...it would have made great pillows and chair upholstery for the writing desk chair! Some day I will find a meter or so.....maybe even pj flannel for cushion covers! I have pajamas on the brain today since there are no deliveries, no installers, NADA, nuttin', zippo. Today is officially a pajama day. Rick is in Winnipeg, I am free as a bird. I have a piece of fish thawing for supper and leftover potatoes in the frig. Add a bit of butter and voila. I will be one happy camper! I haven't had a PJ day in forever, so I am looking forward to sneaking in a nap or two as well. Netflix here I come!

Stalking the Pantry

I confess. I am a stalker. I spy, I pry. I interfere with the natural flow of foodstuffs into our house by observation.Although I love to peruse, I just can't seem to work up any interest in acquiring great amounts of food. I like to go to the grocery store and fill my eyes with neat rows of consumables. I fondly touch the spices that are lined up on the shelves and know better than to bring them home. I have tons of spices I never seem to use after that initial recipe. Having a pantry full of food to use up before we left our old house did this to me.  I kept imagining tickets to musicals on the shelf next to a box of tins. I found myself thinking "I could have gone there instead of buying all of this!" So, if there is a famine anytime soon, I will just have to live off of my ample reserves that I am carrying with me. The days of having a mini grocery store in my house are long gone. I rather morbidly think, what would the kids do with pounds of food that I might leave behind one day...after all, I have been suggesting pulling a Thelma and Louise trick to several of my friends. Worst luck, no takers. Even worse luck than that, none of us could find Brad Pitt or even a reasonable facsimile. At any rate, we are at the age where any meal could be our last. So we may as well buy week to week and let the future sort itself out! It is rather pleasant to visit a store, but between you and me? It is even more pleasant not having to drag it all home to place it in neat orderly rows on my cold room shelves! I am not completely adverse to the concept of food storage. Really. Even old people need a dozen cans of Bush's beans on hand.  And God help us all if we ran out of coffee for the Keurig or perish the thought, toilet paper! But all that other stuff? One week at a time please.

This just in!

Remember the old movies where there would be a radio guy announcing "This just in...."? Must be this house that is bringing back all the old memories, because that is the first thing I thought when I checked my stats and found out that you are out there, reading my posts! For that I thank you. You have changed me from a rambling old lady into someone who has conversations with people...somewhere!  France, the USA, and of course my home girls here in Canada THANK YOU!  It is lovely to know I am not talking to myself! Please feel free to introduce yourself I would love to know what is driving you to my drivel!

A Tale of Two Cookers

It was the best of times... at first. We bought a slide in stove, with convection, turbo boost burners, a warming drawer, and tons of other features we didn't need. The first time I baked a cake, I pulled out the rack and it tipped my pineapple upside down cake right out of the oven. I guess you aren't supposed to pull out an oven rack more than six inches? What is with that I ask you? The oven also vented right above the oven door. Interesting design. Since I do a lot of my kitchen work in a sitting position, I was beside the stove, not in front of it, thank goodness. PLUS that convection feature? Sounded like a jet taking off. Even when I chose the regular bake cycle, it still roared...it was supposed to shut down after reaching temperature, but for the thirty minutes I required of it, the roar continued. To make a long story short, Sears was kind enough to take it back. BUT I had to pay a 69 dollar delivery fee. AND a twenty-five dollar pick up fee to return the old one. Hmmmm. Whatever. I now have a great, quiet little number that does a great job...plus? It has a new type of rack that you do not have to take out of the oven when you clean it! HOW GREAT IS THAT??? It is self-cleaning and is white. What is not to love!  And once again, credit goes to my dear hubby who purchased it for me. I am learning a valuable lesson from this whole moving experience. If you tell my man what you need, and what you want? He is quite capable of going out and buying it!  No need to micromanage this guy.  He is a much better shopper than I will ever be. He has stamina. Determination. A credit card. What else do you need?  This week he is in Winnipeg, buying a new kitchen table, a dressing table for my change room and some sort of storage unit also for my change room.  I can hardly wait!  Imagine. I will finally have a place to sit and do my makeup. Maybe I will even start wearing more of it?  I just lose interest in face painting if I have to do it standing at the mirror in the bathroom. We won't even venture into the blow drying, hair curling segment of getting ready. I often do that sitting down on that cold white chair, without aid of a mirror in the bathroom. Imagine. A warm seat. A drawer to put my tools in. Sigh. Life will be good!

Anyway, all of these choices to be made when you move into a new to you house are quite daunting. But I am going to restrict myself to doing one room at a time...when it comes to contracting out that is.  The painting is easy. Just paint it all white, and sort out the accents later. Not that builder beige they call white, but a lovely soft pure cotton white. We had all three bedrooms in our other house painted in Decorator White and there was never a moment when I didn't love it. It always looked fresh. It made any little bit of colour "pop". It was so soothing and restful, and bright. I am going whole hog in this house, with the exception of a couple exciting feature walls. Lime green, coral red...yep, your basic neutrals! And of course my sixties rumpus room. It will remain paneled in birch, with a grass cloth panel above the chair rail. For some weird reason, I really like it down here. The furniture placement is a bit odd, due to the placement of plug-ins. Back in the day,  I guess there just wasn't the need for a lot of electrical outlets. There are three in this room. It is twelve by thirty.Yep. And one plug in is all mine for my desk. The other one fires the TV power bar. And that leaves one left over for a lamp in the TV viewing area.  In the end it was simple to arrange the furniture. We just put things where we could plug them in easily!

Monday morning....I really don't see why people don't like it! Mind you, I haven't had a job in over thirty odd years, so my "relax" time is when everyone else gets back to work, and I am left with my own little queendom to myself!

The bring home the bacon guy left for points west this morning at seven thirty or so...I immediately put on a load of dishes, folded laundry and came down to the family room to sort out all of the papers that have been accumulating over the move.

There were so many forms, booklets, and receipts!  I really didn't know where we stood financially, but I do know that we spend money wisely, and we haven't been going overboard...problem is that things like car and house insurance, taxes and appliances are expensive!  So, while there may not be any savings this month, there is a "break even" point. We haven't started our renos yet, preferring to let things sit for a bit while we really consider what we are doing. First instincts aren't necessarily right. For instance, once we got everything put away in the family room? The old carpet didn't look so bad. So, I will call in a professional, and get it cleaned. That will at least buy us time.

As for the bathroom, there is no time like the present. We have the vanity and sink waiting in the wings - all we need is our tile guy to rip down the Cowboy's efforts which basically consisted of taking a thousand dollars worth of materials and totally messing up the bathroom. The vanity was badly painted...even the handles! The countertop was nice, but far too big for the space. The tile was taupe. Problem is, the tub surround and tub are grey marble effect. Yeah, I know. Ugly. BUT we are going to put in a white floor ( the present one is a cork look...another shade of brown? Was the Cowboy colour blind?) The electrical shenanigans behind the mirror are dangerous. To add insult to injury, there was a lovely big hole that at one time housed a medicine chest.  Who wouldn't want that? The lights were on the side, but now there is one light at the top of the mirror. I would have preferred  side lights for the aesthetics...do they provide good lighting I wonder?  We also need an exhaust fan installed. These are necessities in my books!  When we are done, we should be okay sharing one bathroom. We will be in there just long enough to "get the job done" and then move to our respective change rooms to polish of the remainder of our grooming. People managed large families with one bathroom, we should be able to manage two people!  Then of course, there always is the downstairs bathroom for the man of the house.....

So, there are the plans. Today I am waiting for a window repairman.  It will be nice to be able to close the dinette window before the winter sets in!  These little details will make a big difference overall. I don't know why the people that lived here did what they did...they had a fondness for mixing a lot of beige with grey. I don't know who sold them the floor in the kitchen, but it must have been someone with a lot of grey flooring to shift! It is horrible! Made even worse by the pink beige paint on walls and cupboards. So that will be the next project!  I think it would be good to start that one once the majority of painting is done, so we will just have touch ups to do, to keep the floor as clean as possible for as long as possible! Good thing Rick has a couple more weeks of holidays!  If we do one room a weekend, we should be done the upstairs by the new year. The kitchen will be time consuming, but the bedrooms and bathroom will go quickly...famous last words!  But it is good that Rick is optomistic because there is a whole lot of panelling to deal with here in the family room! I like this quirky old shack so much!  All of our stuff just sort of fits....every new house I ever lived in seemed to require purchase of a ton of stuff to make it homey...our old stuff never worked for some reason. This time? It is surprising what goes where, and how little things just seem to sing when they are placed in their new surroundings! My mission this week, is to put away the big piles in each room that came about after sorting piles that that the movers unpacked. Fun, eh?