A long awaited Happy New Year to all of you! You heard from Jasmine last month with a wonderful post on eclectic design. She’s been helpful as a contributor when I’m not able to post and has a vast knowledge of design and design history. Thanks Jasmine!
This year started off slowly and so far I have tried to be very intentional with my time. We are splitting our time about 50/50 between the cottage and our apartment. We have enjoyed leaving the city and getting breaks from crowded parks, beach, grocery stores and neighborhood. We have to be that much more careful for Milo’s health. He’s immune compromised and not able to receive the vaccine. We are cautious but also try to have responsible outings when possible. Going up to mountains is the simplest thing we can do to avoid exposing him to COVID. It’s very quiet and peaceful at the cottage too.
We are spending a lot of time talking about our vision for the house and know that it’s going to take time to make the renovations and repairs it needs. As much as I wish we could fix everything overnight like a HGTV show, I know that isn’t realistic especially with our budget. I’ve been lucky enough to get a small sponsorship to help decorate our master bedroom which is underway now. We have painted a couple of the bedrooms and are making our way towards Milo’s room. I created a rough sketch floor plan and am hoping I can fit two small beds in the narrow attic space. It’s little tricky with the built in cabinets so we are planning to remove those altogether to give more space to play and bring in cute vintage furniture. This weekend we are planning to start the DIY renovation of Milo’s room so more details later.
At first we received estimates for all the different repairs around the house, but a lot of it felt overpriced and we realized we are capable of completing the small tasks on our own. So far we put in new flooring in the master bedroom, that reveal is coming soon. We also painted and are installing new baseboard trim to match the rest of the house. We patched the ceiling in the guest room (which was going to cost at least a thousand dollars) for the price of a few inexpensive tools. We started installing handrails, as required by insurance, by recycling tree branches that we had to trim around the property. We also started cleaning up the garden, but it snowed again today so that’s on pause. I have lots of wildflower seeds that I’m anxious to plant and enjoy this spring and summer.
My lovely sofa from Interior Define finally arrived and the fabric is beautiful. It’s a performance velvet so it can withstand toddler spills (maybe some wine spills too) and our lovely cat. Velvet isn’t a fabric cats love to scratch usually, but I’ll still have to keep an eye on him. We still plan to upholster a pair of arm chairs for the living room and then paint. Yes, I should have painted first but it was really hard to visualize everything, given the shady mountain lighting too, so I decided to wait. I have a few favorite colors from Clare to choose from. I am also in the market for a custom cover for our sofa bed in the media corner (not shown). It’s currently a very sad dark grey and makes me feel gloomy haha! The one we wanted from IKEA keeps selling out so I found a couple online companies that make covers. Bemz has great quality custom covers, but didn’t have our exact sofa so I found Comfort Works instead. I received a few samples and we’re comparing the watches to our boucle’ swivel chairs.
I’m happy the home is coming together slowly and it will be so lovely to enjoy this summer. There’s a lot of outdoor space, including the hot tub, and I’m excited to have an escape in the forest. I have some very old patio furniture that could use a little makeover with paint and fresh cushions. Lighting is also important because it gets soooo dark in mountains and you cannot see at all. We’re looking at outdoor solar lights for all the pathways and some nice string lights for the courtyard.
I’ll have more updates to post soon, like our bedroom reveal sponsored by Joss & Main. You can always follow along on our journey via Instagram! Yes I know I need to be in more of the photos. Honestly it’s a little tough, I’m usually keeping Milo occupied while Joe executes projects and then I take pictures intermittently. It’s definitely a learning curve when there’s a toddler underfoot!
