The Best Way Ever to Spend Your Money

We had an expensive weekend over here at the Osbott house.  We redid our roof!  I was just kidding about that fun way to spend your money thing.  A roof is the least fun way I know to spend a bunch of money.  It's a lot of work and you don't really get any enjoyment out of it besides not having a leaky house. 

However, we were extremely lucky that we have some great friends and family who were willing to help us out with it on Friday and Saturday.  Doing the roof yourself significantly cuts costs and so we are so appreciative to everyone who came out to help.

My assistance came in the form of food.  I bought the food and made some of the food.  Ryan's mom brought some as well an we cooked up a bunch of hot dogs and hamburgers for everyone at lunch.  Moral of the story, to get people to help you, make sure you provide them with sufficient beer and food.  But not too much beer, they are on a roof after all.

 It was touch and go for a while as twice during the day there was a pretty big thunder storm.  This resulted in a few wet spots in our house as it kind of came out of nowhere the first time and the roof wasn't fully tarped.  But luckily, they didn't last long and they were able to finish the roof.

It's nice that it's done and we don't have to worry about it anymore.  Now we can think about spending our money on something that is a bit more fun - a new deck! 

Pipsi had a rough day running around the house playing with my mother in law and brother and trying to figure out where all that noise was coming from!  So she was totally wiped out by the end of the day!  It's exhausting being a cat she says.

My Naked Entryway

My brother is home from his University reading week this week, and I went with my mom to pick him up at the bus station on Saturday.  We stopped at Wicker Emporium on the way there.  I wish I could buy everything in that store.  They have awesome furniture for really reasonable prices.  I have been looking for a table for our front entrance since we moved in.  The problem is, there isn't much room there.  The maximum length is 37 inches.  Most hall tables seem to be at least 10 inches longer than that.  I also don't want anything too bulky, because the entry isn't huge and you come through it to go into the living room.  I don't want it to seem crowded.  So we found this in the store.

It's 36 inches long and about 11 inches deep.  Perfect!  What's not perfect is the colour.  I just don't really enjoy the red.  And the only other colour it comes in is cream.  At first I thought about being all DIY and repainting it.  Then I thought better of that idea.  Chances are I would screw that up and then be pretty upset about ruining it.  It's a good price, but not good enough to destroy!  I feel like this space is just meant to be empty forever, and it makes me sad all day. 

So I guess the search continues.  What fun would decorating be if you found everything you needed right away?

A Game of Who Dun It?

I know that I said that I would have a story about wine, but sometimes real life happens and the pre-planned posts have to wait until next week.

We have a mystery in our house.

Wednesday night I woke up at around 2:00 am to the sound of water.  It sounded like the shower and I thought, it must be raining hard.  I woke up again at 2:30.  I thought maybe Ryan is showering.  (Why would I think that?  Because he has been known to get out of bed and shower when he realizes that he hasn't showered that night.)  Then I heard him breathing next to me. 

So I get up, and sure enough, the shower is running.

Was it Ryan?  Was it Me?  Are we sleepwalkers?  Do we have a ghost?  Was it the cat?

We are thinking, for our own sanity, that the cat turned it on.  It's the most reasonable explanation.

This seems like an unreasonable explanation, but last week the knob broke and Ryan has temporarily fixed it but sticking a toolie thing (that's not it's official name) on there to pull out when we want to turn it on.  It's kind of flimsy and we figure if she was playing with it, it might turn on.  That's what we are hoping anyways, otherwise something weird is going on....



Tubs aren't meant to have their pictures taken - notice the contraption where the knob should be



The Room Where We Live

Also known as the Living Room.  What an appropriate name. 

I am hoping for some improvements in the form of wall art in the next little bit, but until then, here is an update on what we have done with our living room.  But first, here is a reminder of what we started with last December.

I think that because of this here picture I will be moving our hall tree.  It looks awkward there.  But it is a beautiful antique hall tree that we received as a wedding gift. 

My mom made these curtains for me.  Perhaps the last curtains she will ever make.  I don't think she had a good time working on them.  She had bought the dark brown material a few years ago for cheap.  The lighter brown is from Ikea.  We bought three packages of these curtains, for a total of around $80.  My mom sewed three of them together for each side.  The light brown ones can close if we want them to.  As much as I'm sure my mom hated making them, there is noway we could have gotten anything like this for as little as $80 anywhere else.
Little details include this super awesome lamp from Homesense, a wee wedding picture, a dice box that has five dice in it from our honeymoon in Jamaica.  On the bottom end of this picture is a box that I bought for our blankets from the Antique Warehouse, as well as a sewing table from the Antique Warehouse that we use as an end table.  It opens up but I haven't hidden any goodies in it...yet...

Isn't the little frog cute?  My mom and dad have one, and when I found one at the Keady market on our cottage holidays I just couldn't resist.  The candles are made by Ryan's talented dad. 

So that's what we have so far.  It still needs a fair bit of work and decorating.  Nothing in the room is overly expensive, but it's comfortable.  Coming up in the near future, I have ordered wedding canvases for above the couch.  I also plan on adding some of these picture ledges from Ikea to the wall behind the TV.  I think this will go a long way in this room. 

The Beginning of Something Special

Before

In Progress

My basement plans are at least moving along.  Slowly but surely. 

They started with bringing this baby into the room.  I bought the cushion new from Pier 1 and bought the chair used from Kijiji for $100.  It came with a brown fuzzy cushion, which unfortunately is much more comfortable than the green one that I bought, but brown isn't really in my colour scheme.  So I didn't really save much on the chair, but I might try selling the cushion.  And we sold the old electric fireplace that used to be there that we never used.  Kijiji for $30.  I wished we had put a higher price on it because there was so much interest.  Live and learn.

Also last week, I got my Tonic Living fabric samples in the mail.  Tonic Living ships out of Toronto, and their prices aren't bad.  Plus you can order samples for $1 each plus $2 shipping on the whole order.  So I ordered about 10 different samples. 

So here's the plan for this room.

• The chair and the TV are going to switch places
• Floating bookshelves are going to be put up in the corner behind the chair.  I'm hoping for 4-6 shelves in total to make it a little reading nook
• I want to get a cushion for the wood box, and cover it in one of the fabrics
• We need bar stools, they may or may not get covered in the same fabric as the wood box, depending on where the stools come from and what their current condition is
• I really need to make me some curtains.  It will be out of a different but matching fabric.  I may make some pillows to match (I don't know how to sew, so hopefully I can learn)
• I also need to buy some throw pillows, currently we got nothin'
• On Ryan's side of things, he wants to replace the doors into the furnace room and change the trim
• He would also love to make the bathroom bigger and add a shower, that may be a longer term plan
• Obviously the painting still needs to be done, the walls are going to be grey and we will change that wooden strip above the panelling to be white
• And last but not least, I plan for my gallery wall to go in this room, if I ever get up the nerve to put that many holes in the wall

I guess it's a fair bit of work, but none of it's overly complicated or expensive.  So I say before any money has been spent.

 

Pretty sure we are going with the second lightest paint, and I really love this material

Bar stools required

An Extra $70 in My Pocket

First off blog world, I'm disappointed in you.  Typically on Monday mornings, I wake up and sign onto my feed to find new posts from everyone.  There were only two this morning.  Hopefully my feed will be flooded later today or I won't know what to do with myself.  Now onto my actual post...

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner.  I won $116 on Friday in the 50/50 draw at work.  I'm not generally a winner so this was tres exciting.  First thing Ryan and I did was go out for dinner.  Now I have $70 left to do as I please.  But it's a super hard decision.  There are so many things that I want that I don't buy because it's just not in the budget.  I can't buy all of those things for $70.

I could buy the Harry Potter 8 disc set.  I have been asking for this since it came out, but nobody will buy it for me for birthdays or Christmas because they think it's dumb.  But I really want it.  The regular set is $70.  The blu ray is $110.  But if I buy it off EBay, I could probably get the blu ray for close to $70.  I'm not sure that I trust EBay though....I had a bad experience once.

I also really really want a Papasan chair.  We rearranged the basement this weekend and I know that it will fit now.  I figure I can buy the base of Kijiji and save about $40 there, and I'm hoping that this green cushion matches the room.  However, this may be something that I could justify spending money on in the future because it is "for the house".  But I kind of want it now.

Pier 1

12 hours later....

I took a break from writing this post to go to yoga, buy a Papasan cushion (not with my winnings), eat and have Sunday Funday with my family.  This involved them eating steak and nachos with cheese and a delicious dessert with pudding in it, while I ate chicken, no nachos and cheese and the delicious dessert without the pudding.  (If you don't know what I'm talking about, I can't eat beef or dairy for a month.)  But thanks mom for making me a special meal!  I do appreciate it, I just love me some steak.

OK so, I asked Ryan's opinion and he said to spend it on the chair.  Apparently he didn't know that I wanted Harry Potter and said that's a Christmas gift....geez Louise.  So my next question is, do I buy a new chair or a chair off Kijiji. 

Here are the facts:

Kijiji Chair

• approx $50
• light brown

Pier 1

• on sale for $100, regular $120
• dark brown as seen above
• richer looking

The savings seem worth it.  And I did just spend $77 on the cushion.  But I love the dark colour....I may be the most indecisive person ever.  Somebody tell me what to do.

There's Something New 'Round Here

I'm in the office blogging, Ryan is hanging pictures.  Ryan says: "Are you documenting this? I thought you were a blogger"

I think I was just reprimanded by my husband for being a bad blogger, while I was blogging.  Geez, how are you supposed to document life and write blog posts all at the same time?

Anyways, on our final vacation day (yes I'm slightly behind posting this), we were just doing stuff around the house.  We got a new mirror, and hung up some additional pictures, and stared lovingly at my new Gurgle Pot.

The Gurgle Pot in it's natural habitat...for now

This is the Gurgle Pot Michaela gave me for doing a reading at her wedding.  I have told Ryan that this is a decoration and it's not to be put in the cupboard.  He hates having things on the counter though, so we will see how long it lasts there. 

Just in time for me to check myself out all dolled up for Michaela's wedding

The mirror has been a long time coming.  I knew I wanted one for here.  We didn't have a full length mirror anywhere in the house, which makes getting dressed difficult for a woman.  Who knows what I have looked like from the waist down for the past 8 months.

The mirror really completes the hallway.  It feels more homey.  Every time we put up anything new on the walls, it just feels a bit more like a home.  Maybe we should keep doing it slowly and dragging this out!  At this rate, my house should be decorated by 2020.  Just in time for everything to be very outdated and ready to be done again.  Isn't that how it usually goes?

Please, Mom?

So I was on a roll this morning.  I have to be out at Ryan's parents house by 11 to start the preparation for his sister's wedding.  Once I leave the house I'm not coming back until the wedding festivities are over. So I woke up earlier than I would prefer on a day off, worked out, hopped in the shower, grabbed some breakfast and sat down to read blogs.  Well that's where the efficiency of my morning ended.  Everyone posted something last night so I was all giddy on blog updates.  So this little post is all I have time for now, because really, this girl needs to get some stuff done now.

I have been craving decor lately, which if you have read any of my past posts you may have figured out.   I discovered West Elm on Young House Love and I want practically everything they sell.  But I'm cheap, and I have issue with paying for shipping.  However I found out that they have a store in Toronto!  So my maw maw and I are going to travel down there, someday, when I have time....maybe in 2013. 

So these are some of the things I want so desperately:

I feel that this pillow might match my basement.  My basement has a green carpet with blue in it. I don't really know, but I don't really feel like matching decor to the forest greenish carpet.

I love these hive vases.  Aren't they neato?  I don't know what else to say that could explain how I feel about them.

Oh this little owl.  Isn't he cute? I don't know where he would live but he must be mine.  And he is only like $10 or something.  Probably in the Canadian store he will be $30.  That's what they do to us up here.  Even when the exchange rate is awesome, they jack up all the prices.  And then they wonder why we go to the states to shop?

I just think these are cute.  I'm pretty sure they were only a few dollars too.  And they don't look too big, so maybe they would actually limit my ice cream intake.  Or maybe I would just keep refilling it. 

Ok, I better get on with my life now.  And get my stuff in order. Nobody wants a bridesmaid with a wrinkled dress, do they?  Side note: I find it hilarious that when I spell check my posts, blog comes up as an incorrect word.

{all pictures taken from West Elm}

Big Plans

I wish everything could be done all at once!  I've been thinking about the house a lot lately, and have come up with some great plans for the entry, the laundry room, the rec room.....but I have these time constrains and money constraints...

I wanted to decorate more.  But even though decorating items may not be overly expensive, they add up.  I want a bench, or a hall table for the entrance way and some sort of art above it.  I want to make the laundry room pretty.  Flip the door so it opens the opposite way and add some organizational shelving in there.  I want to make the rec room more homey, add some nice bar stools, art, side tables. 

Homes aren't decorated in a day though.  We did a pretty good job turning our house into a home in a couple months.  It's just these small details that I just want to get done.  Realistically, it will probably take years. 

But here are some things that I am dreaming about for my home.


A bathroom redo




Huge book shelves, I have a lot of books




A console table for my entry. This one is from Sears.




A gallery wall




This exact kitchen




Organization for my laundry room




This comfy chair for my basement from Pier 1




This sectional for all my (I mean Ryan's) friends in the basement from here

All other pictures are from my Pinterest.  Oh Pinterest, you make me want all the things that I don't have.
Oh and an area rug for under my kitchen table.  But a 6x8 area rug seems to be hard to find.

So it's only a few items that I desire! Is that so much to ask for?  I think not.