The winner is...

After narrowing down our paint choices and painting some samples on a 2x2 foot piece of drywall, we had a winner - Behr's Observatory. It was a close call between that and Benjamin Moore's Newburg Green, but ultimately we felt that Observatory was a touch more blue.

Source: homedepot.com via Courtney on Pinterest

Source: knightmovesblog.blogspot.com via Courtney on Pinterest

We sent the kid off for a weekend with the grandparents and then spent Friday night prepping and all of Saturday painting. I love how the colour highlights our Crate & Barrel pillow shams and I think it looks fantastic with our trim colour. One day down the road we may trade out our bed, I want to change out one of the bedside tables, and we have to add art to the walls (I have several pieces ready to go) but I think that paint made a huge difference in the feel of the room.

We used Valspar's Ultra Premium paint in a satin finish and had it colour matched to Observatory. It only took one gallon and two coats although it probably could have used a third coat. I'm not super happy with the finish but that's probably a result of us not being great painters and a downfall of picking such a dark colour.

Overall, I'm really happy with the result and am yet again amazed at what a difference a can of paint can make.

Here's the before... (pardon the dark photo - I didn't get a chance to take a photo during the day.)

And the after...

Have you painted any rooms in your house recently? Do you have a go-to colour?

I'm loving... cozy grey bedrooms

Our master bedroom is large. It's not huge but it's definitely bigger than we are used to and the empty corners tend to be black holes for crap. When we built the house we chose a buttery cream colour hoping that it would be a nice neutral but it's kind of turning our bedroom into a big blah box. We have a TON of natural light in the room (three southwest facing windows) which I think would lend itself well to having a darker colour on the walls. A while ago I did up an inspiration board and sent it off to A. He liked it but doesn't want to spend money on new furniture since we just bought ours when we moved back to Calgary in 2008. I'm hating the matchy-matchyness of the set but in the spirit of using what we have, I think I've come up with a plan.

Here is the inspiration board I came up with awhile ago. Forgive the shoddy quality - I created this using Microsoft Word. Ha!

Source: flickr.com via Courtney on Pinterest

I am obsessed with the Colette bed from Crate & Barrel but since that's not in the cards I am going to swap our bed with the LEIRVIK bed we currently have downstairs in the guest room. (The bed in the photo is actually a more affordable version of the Colette called the Beaconsfield from Sears.) While it was living in the guest room I had plans of painting the frame yellow but against a dark grey wall, I think the white frame will look quite nice. Perhaps something similar to this blue room seen on Design*Sponge.

I wanted to keep the big pieces pretty neutral and bring colour in in the form of seating and accessories. I think two slipper chairs would be perfect under our large south-facing window and in my corner of the room, a fun coat rack would be a great place to hang clothes we intend to wear again.

I have plans to make three map art pieces inspired by a photo seen on Pinterest and I'd like to hack the Ikea RAST 3-drawer chest so that we can split up our current matching side tables.

Source: everythingfab.com via Courtney on Pinterest

Source: aubreyandlindsay.blogspot.com via Courtney on Pinterest

We are going to keep our big dresser but I would like a fun new (king sized! We tend to fight over the covers) duvet cover like this Lucia duvet cover from Crate & Barrel. A gift card I received for Christmas will go a long way in off-setting this cost. (Thanks Elaine!)

Maybe one day we can bring in a small writing desk to place under the window and change out the lamps, but for now I think this is a pretty good start to making our bedroom feel like a sanctuary. Here are a few rooms that are fueling the inspiration.

Source: srgambrel.com via Courtney on Pinterest

Source: day-lab.blogspot.com via Courtney on Pinterest

Source: flickr.com via Courtney on Pinterest

Have you painted any rooms in your house lately? Yearning for a change?

Making an Advent calendar

Growing up we never had Advent calendars. I don't think it was for any particular reason, they just weren't a part of our Christmas tradition. When A. and I started living together we bought the cheap $3 calendars from Wal-Mart with the waxy chocolates that we stopped eating after day six. As M. gets older and understands more about Christmas I wanted to make something that would be meaningful and that would allow us to track which activities we did over the years. I pinned several different inspiration photos to Pinterest but the one that ultimately stole my heart was this library cards & pockets Advent calendar from Not on the High Street.

Source: notonthehighstreet.com via Courtney on Pinterest

I used this picture as an inspiration for my own project. I used materials that were readily accessible and purchased what I needed (sturdy scrapbooking paper, vinyl stick-on numbers, and mini clothespins) from Michael's. My book pockets have an adhesive back so I cut the scrapbook paper to size and attached the pockets to the paper.

True to my library nerd nature I looked up the Library of Congress call number for Advent calendars (GT 4988.5 if you care) and created a Cutter number (signifies the author) for our last name. My brilliant co-worker (a crafting whiz in her own right) suggested the phrase "On the {number} day of Advent" as the title proper (fancy cataloging term) for each card.

I mapped out our activities on a calendar beforehand (some items had to be placed on weekends) and then wrote them out on the borrower line of the book card. This way we are easily able to see what we did year after year since each year will have its own line on the card.

I strung everything up on a heavy twine and each day we pick out the card as a family. I'm really loving it so far and hope it can turn into an annual tradition!

When I was trying to come up with 24 different activities I searched around and found some great lists like this one from Jordan Ferney and this one from Kim McCrary. I took a few ideas from them and came up some more that suited our family and arrived at the following list. Borrow at will!

• Hang the wreath
• Pick out a book for the Birth & Babies exchange
• Make a tree topper
• Decorate the tree
• Hang stockings
• Make a popcorn garland
• Pick an item from the World Vision catalog
• Listen to Christmas music
• Pancakes for dinner
• Go tobogganing
• Make cookies
• Make a Christmas craft
• Hot chocolate in front of the fire
• Drive around the neighbourhood to look at lights
• Make snow angels
• Hang yearly ornament (Tradition #1: M. gets a new ornament every year. She will then have a starter collection for when she has her own home.)
• Go skating
• Visit Santa
• Pick a Christmas treat
• Watch Mickey's Christmas Carol
• Snowball fight
• Unwrap a new book to read tonight
• Christmas PJs (Tradition #2: New pajamas every year at Christmas)
• Read "Twas the Night Before Christmas" (Tradition #3: We read from the same copy A. had as a child)

Do you have an Advent calendar every year? Have you ever made one?

Pinterest Challenge : Autumn edition

A lot of the projects that I've worked on around the house lately have been inspired by Pinterest, but the things I had planned to do this past weekend coincided perfectly with the second Pinterest Challenge that was hosted by Sherry, Katie, Ana, and Erin. Check out their projects - they are pretty awesome!

Since it was Halloween on Monday it was the perfect chance to try out some of the pumpkin designs I had pinned. My sister and I took M. to the Calgary Corn Maze over Thanksgiving and we picked out four lovely pumpkins. A. was in charge of two of them (M. coloured on one and then we carved a design) and I took the other two. The designs that peaked my interest the most were the pumpkin village {original source: Disney Family Fun} and the drilled holes {original source: Martha Stewart}. A. make a happy face using some cut out parts and we carved a monogram on M's coloured pumpkin.

I think they turned out pretty great although I should have stuck with one chevron row and used a bigger drill bit so more light got through. As it was, I had to leave the lid off on the little one so enough oxygen got in for the candle to burn.

The pumpkins were the main project I had planned for this challenge, but as luck would have it, we completed two others as well.

With winter fast approaching and snow in the forecast, we really needed to get some raised garden beds built so that I could plant my garlic, winter onions, and chives.  I had pinned many different raised bed ideas (like this, this, and this) but the design A. decided he liked the best was this cedar raised bed {original source: Sunset}.

I wanted two beds so we went with 6' x 4' so that it was easy to cut on a 12' board. Now, cedar isn't cheap so we could have done this project for less money if we had gone with pressure treated wood, but cedar is naturally rot resistant and we didn't want to run the risk of any of the chemicals from pressure treated boards leaching into our soil. Plus, cedar is beautiful and smells amazing!

A. built two 6' x 4' boxes in the garage in about an hour. It took another hour to dig trenches in our rock hard ground to settle the beds in to and about another hour to fill them with black garden soil. (I ordered a Big Yellow Bag from Eagle Lake Turf here in Calgary.) We did the digging and filling after M. went to bed. Now we are the weird neighbours who garden in the dark! All told we spent about $300 for the two beds - the cedar and supplies were about $150 and the bag of soil was $150 delivered. Seems expensive but the amount of money we will save on produce during the summer (fingers crossed) will pay off the beds in no time.

Last, but not least, I made these cranberry granola balls {original source: Sweet Potato Chronicles} for a Birth & Babies Halloween gathering we hosted on Sunday.

They were really easy to make and taste delicious! Sunflower seed butter is great if there are any nut allergies in the group and has a nice flavour but you could substitute any nut butter you want.

Did you complete a project recently that was inspired by Pinterest?

DIY play kitchen

M. turned two in July and I decided that I really wanted to build a play kitchen for her. I had seen all sorts of great examples on the web and settled on this kitchen that I saw on Pinterest.

| Seen on Pinterest |

| Original source: Bits Of Becky |

Like a lot of DIY play kitchens out there, this one uses the RAST nightstand from IKEA as the base. So, off to Ikea I went to purchase two nightstands and various other bits and bobs like a towel rack, handles and knobs. I picked up a cheap faucet and mixing bowl at Wal-Mart and purchased all of the hinges, fasteners and wood from Rona. I ended up stealing one of my Mom's smaller mixing bowls when I discovered that the one I purchased was too big around. (Don't worry, I gave her my new one!)

My step-dad was a huge help in the building process seeing as how the last time I used power tools was in grade 8 industrial ed. when I built a birdhouse. Bits of Becky provides great instructions including all of the cut dimensions so it was fairly straight forward. It took us about 5 solid hours of work and then another couple of hours by my step-dad to finish things off (apparently the oven door was a bit of a pain) and re-sand all of the edges. I should have started this project way before M's birthday but I'm a bit of a procrastinator. We did have it finished and ready to go for her birthday party though so I met my self-imposed deadline.

There are still a couple of things I need to do like add legs to the fridge (at least), sew a curtain for under the sink and possibly paint the whole thing. I might even add a backsplash with some of our left-over glass tile.

All in all, it was a success and I hope it stands the test of time so that one day our grandchildren can play with it.

Here it is loaded with all of the play food and the Green Toys kitchen set that she received as gifts.

Have you DIYed any birthday gifts recently?

Library : work in progress

About a month ago I saw the bookshelf below on Pinterest and fell in love.

We needed to buy new bookshelves for our basement library anyway so I decided that four Billy shelves from Ikea would do the trick and that I would paint the backs yellow. We stopped by our brand new, friendly neighbourhood Lowe's and purchased a test pot of Olympic No VOC paint in their Bumblebee colour. I sanded all of the backs (the two smaller ones were a chip board type material but the two larger ones where paper so they took more paint) and crouched on my hands and knees this past Sunday and got painting. They turned out really well and only took one $5 test pot of paint!

We finished putting together the bookshelves tonight and lined them all up and I am so happy with how they turned out. I can't wait to FINALLY unpack all of our books and knick knacks! It's going to be such a bright, happy space.