Our kitchen is now officially de-goldified, and looking so much better. As you know, we plan to rip the kitchen out eventually, but we are making some small changes to make it look a little nicer. We found these backsplash stickers that will work well for now. Jeff actually thought they were real tile in the store, so I thought that was a good start! They are a metallic subway tile, which is supposed to look like stainless steel.  

They were easy to install, simply cut to size and stick, and took couple of hours to complete. Most of that time spent measuring and cutting to size. I just used a blade to cut a straight line, and scissors to cut off the extra. After all the stickers are in place you use caulking to seal around the edges to make it look even more like real tile. They clean up well too! It gives the coffee bar area some visual interest, and a finished look. 

We got a Nest! I've never been so excited over a thermostat. I can't wait to see how well it works. I'll do a follow up post, all about what we think of the Nest, after a month. If nothing else it's going to look pretty funky on the wall. 

We decided to go for a long walk on Sunday and explore our area, finally. It was so bright and sunny out, and just hovering around the freezing point, which made it such a beautiful day for an adventure. We found the beach that is near us, and I'm happy to report that is looks amazing! It's not huge, but big enough, and so very sandy! 

There is a great trail that goes all along the water front. We walked a very small section of it on Sunday. There was a map along the path and it goes on forever, from downtown Toronto to Oshawa. It will be amazing to explore when it gets warmer. Spring will be here soon, and we can't wait to get our bikes out!  We are 100% happy with the new area, there is so much to do!

We are slowly de-goldifing our place. I can't wait to renovate our entire kitchen, but that's probably not going to be for awhile. In the meantime, we are making small changes to make it more liveable. We found these value packs of knobs at Home Depot. We didn't want to invest a lot of money into these as we will probably be changing them later. There were definitely some cabinet knobs we liked a lot more, but they were $6 - $10 each! That would add up to a lot for a temporary change. These value packs are great! They come in packs of 10 and work out to be about $2 per knob. A much better deal for us for right now. This little change really makes a difference, the cabinets look a lot more modern. Next up give this kitchen a major cleaning! 

NEXT Architects have designed an viewing point up on a hill overlooking Rotterdam in the Netherlands. I really like the organic shape of the structure and the way it twists around. The neat idea around this pathway is that the underside becomes the top side. Check out more photos and description at Comtemporist. 

It is done! For the most part anyway. Still a few things to do at a later date, including changing the carpet and reorganizing the closet shelving. However, the main stuff is all done and I'm loving having at least one room looking amazing! 

Shelving unit with all my stuff back on them. One day these will probably go, but for now they work well for an office/art room.

This is my desk area all set up. It's my old desk from the condo, set up on a new wall! I also got a new office chair from Ikea.

Secondary work and photography area. I was given this desk for free from a good friend. The Eiffel Tower framed paper looks pretty good there. We also put up a white board I've had for years, and bought a couple of small cork boards to add some interest to the inspiration board wall. 

This is first room in the house to not have track lighting. Don't get me wrong, track lighting is neat and all, but it's just everywhere! So we got a fun new overhead light for this room. 

Just a few simple changes, and it is hard to think that this was the easiest room to fix up, but I love the outcome. 

Whenever I find myself in our pink disaster of a master bathroom I start to daydream of how wonderful it could be. I started to come up with some floor plans and design ideas. I came up with this quick sketch for the bathroom (my father said he would make a nice computer generated one for us to scale).

I can visualize it, however, my drawing skills are much lacking. But here are a few ideas I was thinking of. I would like to open up the shower area and make it glass and larger with a built in bench. That bench would also be built-in to the tub area, leaving room to place your towel or anything else in the corner. Then I would like a neat floating counter and sink area. I'm not sure when we will undertake this project, but hopefully sooner rather than years from now. Here is my design board so far (even though itself is not even on the wall yet).

Hopefully we can go from this to something like this!

Just thought I would share some photos of this crazy amount of snow we have been getting! It came in two waves. First one came last Saturday, and we decided to go out for a walk in the beautiful snowfall and ended up building a snowman! So much fun! He sits right at our backdoor, which was a little frightening at night when I kept thinking someone was standing there. 

Then over the last couple of days all that snow basically melted in the sun. Last night when we went to bed there was no snow on our railings. Then this morning there was about 15cm! And it is still falling! So much snow, and so pretty!

This is all that's left of our snowman. He looks like he is facing the other way now. I don't know, that might be scarier, looks like he might turn around at any moment. 

Snow, snow everywhere! So nice to look at and venture out for photos. However, so glad I don't have to drive anywhere today. If you are venturing out in this, stay safe! Hope you find something to enjoy in all this white stuff!

We have made a couple of small changes in here, and it's making a big difference. It's amazing how the small things can make such a change in your place!

Number One: Changing Out the Gold Knobs

We bought new door knobs for our closet doors and they looking 150% better. I guess I'm just not a gold knob kind of gal. They are much more modern and a lot more our style, plus they are easier to grab than those tiny gold knobs.

Final result! Still lots to do on the closet area, but it's an excellent start. 

Number Two: New Bathroom Stuff

I also got a couple of accessories for our master bathroom. I am planning some of these accessories for our future bathroom, and definitely not matching them to the current pink disaster. 

Little accessory boxes for the counter, and I got this Moroccan style mirror for the wall.

I found these baskets, which I have placed in our powder room. They might have another home in the future, but they now they look cute in our smallest bathroom.

Number Three: Framed Paper

I found a couple of different, travel inspired, papers at a fun paper store in Ottawa. I've had them for awhile but wasn't sure what to do with them. I decided to frame them to use as art for our many empty walls. This one matches the new paint colour in my office perfectly.

Number Four: Big Art

We were in need of some huge pieces for our massive walls! We got this photo of the Toronto harbour and skyline for the hallway that leads to our bedroom and office.