Its Been Awhile

Not too long ago I fell in love with Holly's idea of a collection of beach and ship paintings that she was planning for her staircase. I thought something along the lines of this would work really well for our nantucket style master bedroom I'm slowly working on! Nathaniel actually surprised me with the first painting on a trip to Victoria right before his deployment...it looked so lonely on the wall all by itself and so I knew I needed to add a few more. Most of the other ones I actually found on etsy! Another new update for our master bedroom is a dresser that I actually painted waaaaay back in the summer. You might remember it....does this look familiar?

Well here it is now in our bedroom...new paint job, new hardware, and I aged it a bit! I like it SO much more!

The other day I received a package in the mail (I love mail) and I was SO HAPPY to see it had come all the way from Afghanistan!!! Nathaniel sent me this gorgeous antique mirror he bought for me there!

Here is a closer view of the oil painting Nathaniel surprised me with in October...its an original by one of his best friend's Dad...I just love the stormy skies!

I also wanted to say a BIG thank you for two beautiful new milk glass pieces I now have in my growing collection....this one is from Holly! it has a Hollywood Regency vibe to it as Holly pointed out! I thought it was so cool when I discovered my Glade 3-wick candle fits perfectly in it!When I light it the candlelight glows through...so pretty!

And this one from Nathaniel's Mom Deb! She sent me some of my favorite black licorice candies to put in it...but I ate them all already :)

I thought I'd also give everyone a little update on my soldier! He is doing well...he says he's lost about 20lbs and is being worked like a rented mule lol! Here is a pic of him on skype from a few nights ago!

I love you babe!

I hope everyone is doing well...I'm really sorry about the lack of blog posts...exams and term papers have been keeping me pretty busy these days. I'm pretty excited to catch up on all my favorite blogs! I'm sure that will keep me even more busy after this semester ends!

Mercury Glass Meltdown!

The other day after class I headed out to Ikea for some much needed retail therapy! I really wanted to dress up my dining room table area and so I went to the big blue and yellow store with a plan. First on my list were slip covers for my two leather end chairs...which one of my darling cats recently took his aggression out on ( I was so sad too because these leather chairs seemed to be the only ones the cats had kept their paws off of). Then I picked up some new curtains and headed over to look at the gorgeous candle holders they had in a polished silver look! I wanted to make a collection of them on my dining table but at $16.99 each I just couldn't afford to make a collection. Then I spotted these cool packages of 5 pillar candles (all different sizes) for $8.99. So I scooped up 3 of them and headed for home....

I didn't make it too much further before I saw Home Sense and thought I'd pop in to see if maybe they had some polished looking candle holders for a cheaper price. Well needless to say they didn't but what they did have were some mercury glass candle holders that I had actually been eyeing for quite some time now. So I purchased a few of them and made one last stop on the way home....the grocery store.

Heres where the meltdown part comes in. When I was putting my groceries in the car my new beloved candle holders fell out of the car and smashed all over the parking lot pavement :(

I was determined to fix this situation lol! So I pulled out the crazy glue and went to town....talk about the biggest and hardest puzzle I have ever done!

So  before I show you what my dining area looks like now, I thought I'd post a few before photos of how this room has evolved (keep in mind it looked even more different when we first moved in).

And here it is now.... it looks so soft and romantic in person! Can't wait to have a candlelit dinner with my soldier when he gets home!

The slipcovers were a near perfect fit even though the chairs were from Pier One!

Have a Wonderful Day!

Let the Fur Balls Fly!

Fur balls and hair clumps are about as common in our home as the all too familiar dust bunny! Sometimes it feels like the Wild West around here....I'll look out of the corner of my eye and a fur wad resembling a bramble bush will roll by. I swear if I collected them all I could make a whole extra animal! I really don't know how its possible for them to shed that much hair!!! And surprizingly Toto is the worst culprit. Funny since the webpage I read about his breed described him as a minimal shedder....LIES!
So since I am having Linen slipcovers made rather than Fur slipcovers I thought I might as well think about the pet hair issue I have with most fabrics I have encountered. I really really want to go with Linen, especially since I really want the look in my inspiration photo. So I set out to find out which would attract pet hair the least: 100% Linen, Linen and Polyester blend, or Linen and Cotton blend. So I asked the lovely posters over at DecorPad for their advice on this. And while I was at it, I also asked what fabrics in general are not pet hair magnets!
My friend Norma posted this awesome link for me of an article from Apartment Therapy. It was so helpful! This article led me to this cool website called Crypton Super Fabrics. Their fabrics claim to give you freedom from stains, spills, bacteria, and odour...by the sounds of it they were created by Superman himself! They had some nice looking upholstery fabrics which you can order swatches of. Their twill  fabric would be great for slipcovers...although they didn't have any shades of white in the twill, Oat was pretty darn close! And they don't have any linens either but they did have a fabric called Bianca Snow (a pure white) which sounded amazing....inspired by men's suiting...'unexpectedly soft but able to withstand intense wear'!
Not only do they sell fabrics but they retail many items from furniture to dog beds!

Love this one!

I think I know a couple of dogs who would just LOVE to curl up on these!

Their dog beds are both disinfectable and washable! They cost between $109-175 depending on the size you need. Considering their durability and all their customer appreciation photos they have I think it's worth the extra bucks...especially if you want to get your dogs and cats to sleep in their own bed instead of yours or the couch (in our case).

So I'm thinking Toto and Calypso just might each get a gorgeous doggie bed for Christmas!!!

Our Red Letter Day

If you are wondering where I have been this past week, I was enjoying my last few moments with my husband Nathaniel before his deployment for Afghanistan. Actually Halloween fell on the day before Nathaniel's departure. I was so fortunate to have my Mom, sister Jessica, Dad and Leah all fly out to Edmonton to give me some much appreciated moral support. We had a lot of laughs and fun. We all had planned to have a pumpkin carving contest only to discover that ALL the grocery stores in Edmonton were sold out of pumpkins!!!! AHHHH! So what did we resort to? Well, we carved watermelons, honey dew melons, and pineapples. Lets just say we got quite the cool reaction from all the little trick-or-treaters! Here is a photo of Nathaniel and me on Halloween dressed as Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf (in Grandma's clothes):

Here is our front grave-yard and one of our fruit pumpkins!

Here are just a few photos of me and Nathaniel saying "see you later" to each other. It was a hard, hard day. I'll spare everyone the really emotional photos. I'm doing my very best to keep extra busy and think positively to pass the time. We are SO proud of him.

Here he is about to head out the doors

But he came back for one last kiss :) I love you

Thank you for looking,

I hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween

And I just wanted to also take a moment to thank everyone for all the positive thoughts and prayers for his safe return! I am SO grateful for this.

Mosquito Blue

The past few days I've been pretty sick with flu like symptoms and have spent much of the day in bed! And I'm NOT joking when I say I'm starting to resemble a troll...swollen nose, nasty hair, you name it. Thank goodness I had all of your amazing blogs to read and keep me occupied! And let me just say that I can't believe how inspired I got by all of your creative ideas....cannot wait to feel better and get back at it! In fact my "must have" and "to do" lists are growing so long I'm thinking I'll make a giant list on the side of my blog just so I can keep my thoughts organized and priorities straight.

While quarantined in our bed, I was going through some of our Mexico pictures from our trip to Playa del Carmen this summer. I came across a couple photos of this GORGEOUS restaurant which I thought you might like to see. The restaurant is called Mosquito Blue. We didn't dine there so I can't give a review on any food...but as far as eye candy goes...this place stopped me dead in my tracks and reaching for our camera.

Love all the white with the pops of colour and contrast!

Cure for Claw Marks

Remember these stools?

Well they were a housewarming gift from Leah and my Dad. Leah and I searched high and low in Edmonton for the perfect cream leather stools I had in mind....finally finding them at Konto furniture store. We literally drove all over town...like I minded...shopping is FUN!

(note to Dad and Leah....if you are reading this....the following sounds worse than it is....)

Well we have had them for just over a year now and we get tons of use out of them....and it seems to be a favorite place for our two cats to sleep. As it turns out sleeping isn't the only thing they like to do on these stools. Sharpening claws seems to be a favorite past time for Kato and Sasuke...and if I didn't love them OH SO MUCH... well you can read between the lines here.

So I purchased a leather repair kit from a local hardware store and that was an ok fix...but for the perfectionist in me it wasn't good enough. I called the manufacturer of the stool and they offered me a replacement at a discounted price. This was a good option, however, I'm afraid the cats will just love some fresh leather even more so I needed another idea....

This is where you realize I am actually nuts  am a little weird. So my next idea came from a place of despiration when I noticed a few more claw marks... and my heart began to sink. I ran out in search of slipcovers and came home with 3 pillow cases to put over the tops of the stools and 3 placemats to put on the seats. It worked but looked rediculous.

So I was searching Etsy for slipcovers and I came across these:

The sellers store is called SimpleLinen. Her slipcovers are just gorgeous but a tad rich for my blood lol! One day I will be able to afford them!

I was starting to trick myself into thinking DIY pillowcase-placemat covers were the new it thing...but then Holly was so kind to share Kim with me (the wonderfully skilled seamstress who made those beautiful wingback chair covers for her). After considering a few different designs, including the ones above (which wouldn't work as well for stools cause the skirt would just get too big by the time it reached the floor), we decided on something completely different. Loose fitting linen covers! Here is the look I'm going for...except I can't decide on the length....long to the floor, almost to the floor, or just like in the photo:

These ones are from Rachel Ashwell

My plan is to eventually have ones made to protect my dining room chairs too...and they will look more like the ones from SimpleLinen. Either the skirt with the pleated corners or the flowy skirt.

In the mean time... the other day I made the long trek out to Ikea and I had no idea but they sell slip covers for their Henriksdal style stools. And at only $15 each I was pretty happy! Finally I can ditch the makeshift pillowcase-placemat combo I had going on!

Here is what they look like for now...not a bad fit. I would go ahead and get the sticky velcro so I could secure the slip covers to the underside of the stools but since they are only temporary I'm just going to leave it.

I got those great little pillows from Ikea too at $15 a pop!

If you guys get a chance can you tell me which length of linen slipcover you think would look best?

The Master Plan

Since the master bathroom and bedroom have been on my mind I decided I would make up some mood boards and get some inspiration ideas together. The picture of the bathroom below honestly has to be one of my favorite inspiration bathrooms of all time. Its elegant, clean, and airy looking but still has elements of comfort like the white worn mirror. I painted our bathroom walls Benjamin Moore Stonington Grey months and months ago. I really love the colour, although, because we have no windows in our master bath, the walls seem to have a bit of a light blue cast to them rather than the true light grey I had hoped for. I already have that light fixture I got with my Mom when she was here visiting one time. And I can also check the shower curtain off my list which I picked up with Holly from Anthropologie a week or so ago....it is just gorgeous! Definitely a splurge for me.
The honed marble tiles I want will also be on the expensive end, but since our master bath is only 28sq.ft it shouldn't be too bad. At least this will be one more project to keep me busy while Nathaniel is gone.

My Master Bath Plan by paintingtheroseswhite on Polyvore.com

Let There Be Light

My next major project I have planned is going to be my master bedroom! When my Dad shipped out those two burgundy sofas he also sent a HUGE dark wood bedroom set. These pieces are definitely made for a large space...so my objective with this room is going to be to try and make it appear bigger than it is. I might even paint some of the wood bedroom set (don't be mad Dad)...making them look like mismatched pieces rather than a "set". For now I have painted the walls Benjamin Moore Cloud White and am figuring out the lighting situation to keep me satisfied with how it looks until I can do bigger things like rip up the carpets!

BM Cloud White

I'm on the hunt for the perfect (by that I mean cheap AND pretty) crystal chandelier. I want the room to have a beachy-cottage type feel...but I still want some glamorous accents like the chandelier.

The other day I was in Home Sense and spotted two lamps on clearance for $26 each! All because they had completely different style lampshades, the bases were a little different (but I liked that)...and one had a tiny chip in the base. I didn't mind because I was planning on changing them anyway....

Here is what one of them looked like

I painted them a really pretty light gray...you can see the difference in the base of the two lamps here

I usually prefer a drum style lampshade for the most part so I found these two on clearance for $13! They were also mismatched which is okay because I planned on changing this too!

I found 2 meters of burlap for $5 ... the lady at the fabric store thought I was NUTS to recover a lampshade with it!
Sasuke getting bored watching me! He sure loved snuggling up on that burlap!

At first I thought of going for a tight fit and lining the top and bottom to give it a more finished look...but with the relaxed and cozy feel I want for our bedroom I was loving the crinkly looser fit on the shade!

All finished!

I really like the way they look...hopefully I can post pics of the whole room sooner rather than later.

I also wanted to share my tin wall art I also found at Home Sense....they were $6.99 each.
I'm still not entirely sure where I plan on putting these...maybe in our guest bedroom or guest bath