August 20th, 2009 -- Posted in domestic engineering, house to home, pics |
So my learning-to-sew adventures continue and it’s going pretty well. I made only 1 trip to a fabric store and got 2 different fabrics on sale. For those few metres and 4 buttons, it was less than $20. And out of it, I’ll be able to make 3 valances, give a piece to Paul to construct some nifty Roman blinds for our bathroom AND have enough left over for a pillow or 2.
The fabric I chose for the kitchen valance is just amazing, I love it. Cream with streaks of metallic gold!
I kept the valance pretty simple – just a rod pocket about 2 inches down. After the pocket, there was about 15″ of fabric to make up the valance. The kitchen window was 51″ wide, and the width of the valance was more than that to give it some volume.
We’d been very lucky to find custom wood blinds in our local Home Depot that were almost exactly the size of our window! It’s possible someone in the area also had a Minto home that was the same model or a different model that had a similar window. So we were able to get the blinds (a dark brown with 2″ slats) for a third of the price!
All in all, the look came together really nicely…
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June 16th, 2009 -- Posted in domestic engineering, family, hill to haven, life as a mom, pics, things that make you go LOL |
Warning: if you leave laundry in the washer for a long time (like, say, if you are busy coughing to death with a killer sore throat and/or stairs are extremely painful to go down and your laundry room is in the basement), they can really develop a disgusting smell. To re-wash or not to re-wash???
We painted the family room at the new house this past weekend. Well, OK the hubby did. But I helped! And my contributions were absolutely essential, I tell you! They must’ve saved him at least 5 minutes of work.
I also put together a little project I am making for Avery’s “jungle” room (in other words, the Diego-themed room that he wants that may still survive as a room decor after the Diego fascination has waned!). Curtain rod + fake plastic ferns ($4) + raffia ($2) + bits of window blinds (free, but only if you happen to have purchased window blinds…) = jungle finials! 
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April 25th, 2009 -- Posted in domestic engineering, hill to haven, love & marriage, pain / disability |
See previous entry “I am excited about siding” for further proof I am getting way too… suburban?
OK but really you have to admit these are great deals:
- washer with sanitizing cycle + dryer with quiet feature for about $1600
- basic self-cleaning coil stove for just under $500
- dishwasher with tall tub and adjustable rack for about $600
- and best of all, a 22 cubic foot fridge with bottom freezer for less than $1K (which we hadn’t seen anywhere!). Paul says the freezer is the “coolest” part lol 
What a relief that not only is the shopping over (and I don’t have to drag myself through any more appliance stores) but that we were able to get everything for reasonable prices. Most of my excitement up ’til now hasn’t been external expressed though as I’ve been in tons of pain from the trip. 
But I’m so glad I saw the e-mail from Sears about their VIP sale, advertising their lowest prices of the season, and convinced Paul we should check it out. We got the “3x the GST” option because of what we chose and then we avoided having to pay PST on most items because they were Energy Star.
So all in all, a really good bargain, and much cheaper than the price we were quoted by Minto to put it all in for us with the house. And it’ll be delivered soon so we’ll be able to use the appliances at the new house even while we’re still in process of wrapping things up here.
ETA: I’m sure this would all make waaaay more sense if I hadn’t needed the extra painkillers today, but just wanted to clarify that we got to *save* “3x the GST”, not that we had to pay 3x the GST. lol
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