I am constantly moving items around in our house. Pictures, plants, pillows and essentially anything that is not attached to a wall and fits through a door frame travels from room to room. Changing around interior details keeps our spaces feeling fresh and exciting without buying new items. Relocating an item can give it an entirely different look and I often find new joy in items by placing them into different contexts….
We’re currently in the middle of a rather premature heat wave and I’ve been craving all things summer. Sandals, sunglasses, swimming, and ice cream have been at the top of my priority list, especially since our home air conditioning unit decided to call it quits and our house is reaching sauna-like temperatures (ugh!). That being said, there are four new additions to our home that I’ve been loving lately, some of which are quite summer-weather appropriate….
When we moved in to our house, the master bedroom had purple walls and a forest green carpet. Yes, I’m sure the thought of that colour combination just made you shudder. Needless to say, one of the first projects we tackled was painting the walls. We chose Fine Silver from CIL and are very happy with how the colour turned out. It looks bright and fresh and always boosts my mood in the mornings.
I believe green carpet had a big moment in the 90’s, but now that it’s 2016, we thought it was time for that trend to die. So, we put down a wide-plank laminate. Installing it was a bit of a learning curve and involved a lot of math (ugh!), but we think it looks great. It has a wood-grain texture to it, which makes it look more like real hardwood and it hides footprints. Flat, high gloss floors always seem to show every footprint when the light shines in and it drives me crazy!
As first-time home buyers, we only have limited funds to work with for our renovations. The floor cost us a lot of our bedroom budget, so the rest of the finishing touches in the room had to be relatively inexpensive. Luckily for me, Ryan is pretty handy and a Pinterest enthusiast, so he came up with some amazing ideas to make our bedroom feel more cozy and more like our space.
I have trouble committing to artwork and even more so to locations for artwork. All frames and art have to be free agents in our home, able to move around from room to room because sometimes–either depending on my mood, the light, or just because–I like to change things up. As such, the thought of putting nail holes into our freshly painted walls worried me. This picture rail Ryan made it the perfect solution. It frames our bed nicely and I can move around all photos and pictures to my heart’s content, as everything is just resting on the rail. Ryan constructed this photo rail out of pine; we then whitewashed it to to tie in the white accents in our space. Success!
The space under the windows is a little short and awkward. However, because the room is quite wide, it feels like something needs to go along that wall, but everything we tried just didn’t really work out. So, Ryan built these stackable box shelves out of whitewashed pine, which are a great place to house a small part of our book collection. I love how they turned out! They are both functional and add a different design element to the space. And the BEST part is that they are just stacked on top of each other, so we can move them around and reconfigure them as we wish. Together with the chair, this has become a perfect spot to relax, read a book and listen to some vinyl.
Yes, I realize that it is now May. However, this has been one of those winters that just keeps hanging on. Spring has been fighting to take over, but the emerging tulips have been greeted with a sprinkling of snow on several occasions this spring. February through April were all about keeping warm and staying cozy while hanging the light trench coat in the closet in hopes of sunny days ahead.
There were a couple of things that were definite favourites this winter, but that I continue to reach for every day during this transitional time of year.
First of all, are a couple of products by NUXE. I received a travel-size set of NUXE products as a birthday gift and fell in love with the Huile Prodigieuse, so I had to pick up the big bottle! I have been using this dry oil on my face both in the morning and before bedtime and it is an amazing moisturizer without being greasy; it penetrates deep and leaves skin feeling super soft and supple. I feel like it gives my skin a dewy sort of glow and it smells soooo good. I read online that NUXE has created a fragrance in this scent–tempting!
As my chapstick was empty to the point where I was scraping plastic on my lips when applying it, I picked up the NUXE Rêve de Miel Ultra Nourishing Lip Balm at the same time as the oil. The NUXE balm is very thick and has a pleasant honey-citrus smell. It is sort of sticky, but this seems to help it stay on the lips longer and I find that I don’t have to constantly reapply. It’s really soothing and moisturizing for chapped lips, whereas other lip balm products I’ve used almost feel like they make chapped lips worse. All in all, this NUXE lip balm is awesome!
Next, are my beloved Glerups that Ryan kindly gifted me for Valentine’s Day. Ryan bought himself the slipper style in January and I was getting quite tired of him telling me how warm and cozy his feet were, so I was VERY excited to get my own pair in the boot style. After all, I can think of few better ways to show one’s love than giving the gift of warm feet. Cold mornings have become a little easier to handle now that I can put these on my feet as soon as I roll out of bed. These house shoes from Denmark are made from felted wool and have a suede sole. As is suggested, I wear them without socks and they keep my feet nice and toasty, without ever making my feet sweaty (eww). As wool is a natural fibre, it regulates temperature, so even now that the days are beginning to get warmer, they still always keep my feet at the perfect temperature. Every minute at home has basically been spent in these slippers since I received them and they are holding up really well; they still look like new. Great product, excellent quality, love ’em!
Winter is dark and gloomy, so lighting a candle can help amp up the cozy-factor and make a space feel warm and inviting. When it comes to scented candles, I tend to prefer more masculine scents, especially in the colder months. This DW Home candle in Warm Tobacco Pipe was one of our favourites this winter.
Green house plants add life to any space and can really make a space feel more inviting. During the winter months when everything was monochromatic brown outside, the touches of green throughout our home always cheered me up. We try to have some sort of green plant in every room. In spaces where there is not enough light for real plants to thrive, artificial plants like this one from IKEA are a perfect alternative. We caught several of our guests sneaking a closer look at these little potted shrubs, trying to figure out if they were real or not. Success!
Lastly, I love this calendar from Rifle Paper Co. featuring beautiful illustrations of different cities. We have this calendar displayed in our kitchen and it adds a great pop of colour to the space. Here’s to counting down the days ’til summer!