One sad little garden gets a makeover

As you read about here, we spent last weekend in Calgary with hubby's parents. For a few years now we've talked about visiting them in the springtime and helping them with misc stuff around the house and yard. In just two and a half days we were able to paint three bathrooms, clean mold off of the siding, and plant a small flower garden for them.

This is what the sad little raised garden at the front of their home looked like upon arrival, then just a few hours later~ voila!

Yikes, right?!
The bigger yikes was trying to pull up the sod that planted itself there over the years with a 2-pronged, 3 foot long hoe. I felt like I was working with a fork, pulling up only an inch at a time. Needless to say, it took about 2 hours just to pull everything out. We were too lazy to venture back to the store for the proper equipment.
Digging with a doll sized garden hoe.
At least the weather was GORGEOUS. Warm and sunny in the high 60s.
I needed one or two of these to keep me going. ;)

Our newly purchased goods were all lined up, eagerly awaiting the smiles they would soon bring to several faces.
Ah...digging is done.

Time to lay down the mesh fabric for weed control. Notice my little helpers move in once the hard digging is complete~ ha!
Positioning the plants.
Cutting the mesh, digging holes, and filling with potting soil.
Topped it all off with red mulch.

We also added the little solar lights since this is right next to their front walkway.

My sweet mom in law was SO pleased. ☺ Today just so happens to be her bday~Happy Birthday Granny!
We ♥ you Granny and Bapa!!

xo~
T and gang

A cool change

We couldn't pass up an incredible last-minute fare for Calgary last weekend, so the three of us jetted off to visit Granny and Bapa. We hadn't seen Bapa in over a year! We helped out with lots of stuff around their place including painting three of their bathrooms and planting a cute garden for them. I'll share the garden post with you soon.

We got out of Houston just in time for the miserable heat and humidity to arrive. The weather was beautiful in Calgary, with temps in the mid 60s every day.

We snuck in some long walks along the trail behind their house that goes on for miles.

A new wildlife viewing platform was built on the marsh behind their home so we had to check it out.

The marsh and wildlife viewing platform are still under construction, hence the large, ugly pipes. We thought these were gophers, but according to the wildlife info guide they could very well be ground squirrels, we aren't really sure.
N and her Bapa, strolling along. They are two peas in a pod when they're together, it's so sweet.

We snuck away from the burbs for a few hours for brunch and some sightseeing in downtown Calgary.
You can barely make out the baby geese (goslings) in the photo below. We were so tempted to get up close to see them but didn't want to risk being squawked and chased by the moms.

We had brunch at River Cafe in Prince's Island Park.

We sat on the patio which overlooks the park. It was gorgeous!





This is the view exiting the restaurant.
We messed around along the river for a bit.

Then went for a long stroll through downtown, to the Glenbow museum. The little one was a bit too scared to go to the top of the Calgary Tower, so we just admired it from the street below.

Fun shops here and there. Very cool artwork on the sides of buildings.
It was a holiday weekend in Canada so not many people were out.

I love going to special places that people consider 'institutions' in different cities. This is one that hubby insisted we try. Deliciously greasy burgers and shakes in every flavor imagineable.


Life is good. ☺



xo~
T

Tastefully done

We are just returning from a weekend in Calgary visiting the in-laws. As usual, I threw a stack of unread magazines from home into my carry on for the flight. When I opened Elle Decor and saw Keri Russell's fabulous home I knew I had to share it with you. I'm sure it's already made the rounds in the blog world but I couldn't resist nonetheless.

Enjoy!

A non-white kitchen that manages to give me goose bumps.



Aren't they the cutest family?! She seems like such a real person and seeing her home makes me believe that even more. It's cozy yet chic, but not overly so that you don't want to sit and hang out for awhile.
xo~
Tricia

Via Elle Decor

Family room re, re, re, re~do!

Holy cow it's been a long road to get to this point.

This is the official ending of the family room transformation chapter (original post here).

Just to get everyone up to speed, we've lived in our rental home for 3 years. The home was built in the late 1930's and probably hasn't been updated since the 1980's or so. We obviously don't want to put much money into the home itself, so my focus has been on updating only the stuff we will take with us whenever we move on. Of course if we owned this home we likely would've gutted every room by now.

The influence of the homes in my neighborhood motivated me to move away from dark and masculine home decor to light, white, and neutrals.

I had to take it slowly and as you'll see below, this has been a full 3 years in the making.

We sold the leather sofa and chair on a whim, which put everything into motion. Having an empty family room for a few days was the perfect opportunity to paint the accent walls a much lighter color while we decided on a new couch.

This was also the perfect opportunity to scale back on the accessories a bit and clear out the clutter. This included ordering special cables to move our television system off of the mantel to clean up this big focal area. I ordered a long white cord cover and it just arrived yesterday so you can see it looks a bit better in the pictures later in this post.

I've received quite a few emails from readers who are also trying to change the decor style in their homes without breaking the bank. I'm a budget conscious person in general and travel is top priority for my small family, so we weren't able/willing to sink too much into revamping our decor. While much of it came together in these past few months, it's been a 3 year process of painting stuff that would fit in, getting rid of stuff that just wouldn't cut it, and purchasing some new things along the way.

I've shared the prices and sources of the newest changes in the family room below and I'm happy to say that we were able to finish the final phase of the transformation for right around $1500 total.

~$599 Linen Euro Chair from Wisteria (here). It's normally $799 but they had a sale the week before Easter and we snagged it for $200 off. This was my bday gift from the family this year. ☺

I still have some editing to do on the bookshelves but I'm dreading it too much to make it a priority. Anyone want to come over and help? There's lots of wine to drink while we work! ☺

The paint made such a difference in this room. Gray was hubby's idea and I knew exactly which shade to use.

~$40 Fieldstone paint by Benjamin Moore (here).

~$200 Aiden end tables from World Market (here). These were on sale for $129 plus we had coupons.

I love the added industrial touches to this room. These tables helped inspire me to zinc-ify the console table in my dining room.
We considered getting a nice, high end sofa, but after feeling stuck with a high priced leather sofa for years, I felt better about spending less, just in case our taste changes again in the next 7 years. Plus, I had read so many good things about the Ektorp that I had to test it for myself. We are very happy with it and the quality for the price just can't be beat (thanks for helping me with this Holly!). As I was putting it together (about 5 simple steps to set it up from the box. Putting the slips on took much more time than setting up the sofa), I saw a few goose down feathers floating about which made me excited. It's quite comfy!

~ $399 Ektorp sofa from Ikea (here). We also purchased an extra slip cover set for $50.

Here's the reality shot of the sofa, with protective blanket thrown on for 'Max' protection.

Thanks to the savings on the sofa we were able to splurge a bit on the lamps.
~ $400 Aiden Gray table lamps (here). Thanks for your help Laurie!!

~$20 cotton cord cover (here) to cover the 8 feet of cable running from the mantel to the wall behind the hall tree.

Talk about service, I had the cord cover within a couple days of ordering!

It's still not the prettiest look hanging off of the mantel but it's the best solution I have for now.

The archway to the left leads upstairs or straight ahead into the kitchen.

One of the grain sack ottomans from Round Top now sits between my two DIY white linen chairs.

A glance through the French doors at Monique, spending long, lazy days in the sun room.

The trash to treasure chandy in the left corner and the large, personalized, Morning T clock are both much more at home with soft, gray walls.

The Chinese shutters above the couch make a clean statement while balancing the big tv opposite, and the color flows with the sea grass rug and mango wood table tops. Again, the cord situation on the floor to the right of the tv is now taken care of so don't mind the plant in the basket (hiding the long coiled up cord) and the black wire on the floor.
The view towards the front of the room from the landing.
This little area is just a floating/extra seating area. I'd love to put this small wine tasting table here in place of the chest and different chairs, but I'm afraid I'm cut off for a long, long time.

I hung one of my daughter's sweet drawings here and a professional photo of her from kindergarten. Painting the room and building my Ektorp sofa. ☺
The brown wall looks much more faded in this 'before' picture than it actually was. Ah, the 'after' is a breath of fresh air to me.
As I went back and added the post back links throughout this post I realized that I really have shared just about every long, b.o.r.i.n.g. step of this transformation with you. Thanks for hanging with me all this time and for all of your support. Without dream~interior inspiration from Joni, Linsey, Brooke and Holly AND without the hands-on help and expert advice from Laurie, I never would've gotten to this final point.

The biggest thank you of all goes to Mr. Morning T for humoring me all along and finally giving in to painting those dark brown walls. He even helped paint~ ha! ♥

So what's next for me and my little house? Well the upstairs of course. I'm so ashamed of our upstairs that it's off limits to everyone but family. I have a few projects started so stay tuned.

xo~
T