Tomorrow is the big day....possession day!  Can't wait to feel the keys to my new house in my hand.  I am feeling so very blessed as my contractor has made the time to meet me at the house tomorrow and is prepared to get started this weekend!  How lucky am I!  I think he is just as excited about this project as I am and I hope that through this blog I can show you just how fabulous the quality of his work is.  It is going to be so rewarding to see a transformation like this...the collaboration of ideas and labour to a common goal of repurposing a space to fit function and design.

This process can be intimidating and overwhelming however.  I received news today that almost robbed me of my feelings of conviction and courage.  However, what am I teaching my children by giving into that?  I can't....so with the support of those that I am so blessed to have around me and feeling their love and encouragement I am forging ahead.  

Oh yes, I can take so much more!!  We all can...we just need to find the courage to ask.

Bedrooms are so much fun to plan and decorate.....especially for a "girly girl" like me.  My daughter keeps reminding though that she is NOT a little girl anymore, she is a teenager and she has more mature taste.  So that means no more pink gingham or dainty chandaliers, butterflies, flowers or dolls.  In a previous post I shared the light fixture she chose for her room, and so in keeping with a more funky, teenaged theme, here is what I am thinking....

We are going with white furniture in her room and I love how it is highlighted with this beautiful aqua color on the walls.  Of course minus the chandalier, her fixture of choice will elevate the space to a more fun and contemporary feel.  Ikea has a fabulous dressing table that will be perfect for her to do her hair, put in her contacts....etc  every morning without having to fight her brothers for bathroom time!

It is fun to use an inspiration photo like this one and then design a room around it....using some of the elements and then tweaking it and adding some of your own personality to make it your own.  Not sure that she will want to be displaying her American Girls anymore, but no doubt, it will be a room reflecting her sunny disposition and bubbly personality! 

Yesterday was appliance shopping day and with my pj's still on and  a coffee in hand I headed directly to Sears.ca.  I love shopping online.....from the comfort of my own home! Having had Kitchen Aid appliances previously, and being so very pleased with them, I knew exactly what I was looking for with my dimensions in front of me.  

A sleek smooth top, slide-in convection range, with a warming drawer.....can't wait to get cooking and baking with this!

And, because Kitchen Aid was having a promotion, I qualified for a free Kitchen Aid Artisan mixer as a bonus....am so thrilled!!

I picked out this very streamlined and functional Kitchen Aid French Door Refrigerator with a bottom mount freezer....

And the best part is that Sears will deliver them and my contractor will install the appliances.....while I am sitting on a beach in Mexico!!  Can't wait!

As I head into the weekend, I need to remember this....

I have had a productive week and now the weekend belongs to me in order to restore my energy.  I take possession of my new house next friday and then the work really begins.  So, in an effort to be kind to myself, I am off to the spa for some pampering today!!

So I had the final walk through of the house before possession date next week with the contractor and trades people yesterday.  Hoping to nail down our game plan and be ready to start ASAP, we had some decisions to make and some issues to investigate.  Of course in buying an older home, built in 1924, you always have to prepare yourself for the unexpected.  I knew that there would be some electrical that would need to be updated, but the amount of knob and tube wiring that was discovered.....well, wasn't expecting that!!! Never the less, part of the process of making a house into a beautiful home is ensuring that the infrastructure of the house is secure so there is no compromise there.  Every penny spent on this house will be well worth it! 

Therefore, in order to make myself feel better about this electrical nightmare, I went fixture shopping, of course! Hey, they have to be replaced anyway so I might as well have fun in the process....but on a very strict budget now.  Where did I go.....Ikea of course!!

For my daughters' room.....

Totally her style....looks like a giant pom pom....a big ball of marshmallow fun!  That is my daughter to a tee and she is going to be thrilled.  A drastic departure from my taste of a traditional crystal chandelier!  It will take a while to attach all of those pretty little flowers onto metal skewers to then further attach to the base of the fixture,  but that will be her project!

And then for the foyer and my bedroom.....

Isn't that a pretty little chandelier?  I was so pleased to find this as it cost a fraction of what I was expecting to pay for something similar at one of my favourite lighting stores.  So not only will my new house be fully electrically updated, but it will also adorned with some pretty fabulous fixtures!  

A good days work I would say! 

One thing about me......I am a "girly girl"!  My favourite color is pink, I love florals and anything that sings feminine.  In decorating my own home, I am free to decide on color palettes, patterns and furniture that pleases me without worrying about other opinions......which is kind of nice!

While I love everything about this photo, I realize it may just be a little too much. 

 I do have 2 teenage sons and I want them to feel comfortable in our home and not feel banished to a "man cave" in order to maintain their masculinity!  

Ikea's ektorp sofa is fabulous and I am going with 2 in our new living room in a lovely neutral linen tone.  Wanting to add a pop of color though, and perhaps just a hint of feminine florals, I came across this chair at Ikea, also of the ektorp line. 

It is has the neutral linen color of the sofa in its pretty bright floral pattern without being too feminine, I think.  It is quite comfortable (I visited the Ikea show room to test it out!) and at $249, how can you go wrong.  It is slipcovered so cleaning it is a breeze.  And, if it ends feeling too girly, I can always buy a new slipcover for it....they are several to choose from.  How great is that!

As I approach the weekend, after having had a challenging week..... with sick children, delays in house matters, personal disappointments, among other things....I find myself becoming philosophical.  Determined to not let these setbacks get the better of me and with the same kindness I show others, I am allowing myself to be kind to me.  It is alright, I tell myself, to just be and accept what comes my way.  Everything happens for a reason...even if we don't understand why at the time.  

It will become a lesson learned.

Despite setbacks, we all have things that we can be grateful for each and everyday. And most of the time, they aren't things....they are people, experiences, memories and things that money can't buy.  I think this saying sums it up.

Happy Weekend!

White dishes, wicker basket, twigs and branches, painted white cabinet.....what could be more representative of prairie style.  I was fortunate enough to source wicker totes with leather handles very similar to that displayed in this photo.  L'Occitane in Polo Park sells these lovely baskets and I use them daily for my grocery shopping, as my gym bag, to tote freshly baked bread and flowers to a friends house.   Such a simple way to escalate a daily task into something quite special.  I can't wait to hang one of mine on a cupboard in my new home! 

It is the middle of February and I don't know about you, but I am yearning for some warm weather, flowers in the garden and a lawn of green grass.  Winter is long on the prairies and we tend to hibernate  until the milder temperatures of spring beckon us outside. So during this hibernation, it is so important to make our inside environments as comfortable and pleasing as possible.

While thinking about this, I stumbled across this quote that really put everything into perspective for me.  Of course we can adorn our environments with all sorts of pretty things that we think will make us happy, but at the end of the day isn't it more about the people we surround ourselves with.

Share your home with those whom you love.  I think that makes a house into a happy home!

I have been thinking about lighting.  I love the elegance and sparkle that a chandelier brings to a room.  Not only to a dining room, but any room.....it elevates the environment into something special.  Wanting to keep the feel of my house more on the comfortable and down to earth side, while still capturing the elegance, I sought to find a chandelier that would satisfy both of these elements.... prairie style!  Here is one I found from Pottery Barn which I absolutely fell in love with!

It seemed to remind me of twigs and yet brimming with elegance with the touch crystals on the tips of its branches.  However, at a price tag of almost $600 and considering the fact I am buying 2, as I will have one over the dining room table and one over my beautiful new kitchen peninsula, it is a little too rich for me.  

Just as I had given up hope on this idea, I stumbled across this little gem at Home Depot!

With a price tag of $186, I was elated!  Now to decide on how I will use my $800 savings back into the house budget...and I have supported another local business.

Being a prairie girl at heart, I am instinctively drawn to anything related to "prairie style".  Not too long ago, I stumbled across this book title on amazon and immediately ordered it.  I completely devoured every page of this beautiful book as soon as I received it.  As I was still living in the GTA at the time, I so appreciated how the author captured the wonder of simple pleasures and comfort with the natural beauty of the earth.  

Interestingly enough, the author, Fifi O'Neill grew up in Paris, France.  However, she lived in Manitoba for 15 years where she says that she first fell in love with the area's vast and beautiful prairies.  The comfort, simplicity and harmony with the earth became the foundation for her own style, Prairie Style.

It's all about the enduring connection between people and places and the nostalgia felt for a rural country life.  As reflected in Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie, it is a yearning for a simpler life.

Much to my delight, while perusing amazon once again, I discovered that Fifi now has a cookbook!

Of course I ordered it immediately and am anxiously awaiting its arrival!  I am certain it will be quite familiar to the way my pioneer grandparents regarded and prepared food,  with economy and grace.  To a certain extent,  my parents still live this way by continuing to plant a garden every year and using their own homegrown ingredients taken directly from their land to prepare healthy and satisfying meals.  Now that I am back on the prairie, I am already feeling inspired and ready to...garden and harvest, bake and preserve.....because that is the true reflection of the prairie way of life!

Having just moved back to Winnipeg, I was so delighted to learn that an Ikea store has opened here.  I was fortunate to have lived minutes from 2 Ikea stores in the GTA area which I often visited.  Given my Swedish heritage I felt drawn to the environment of the store and my son adores their meatballs!  As part of my goal is to support local businesses and stay on a predetermined budget, I departed from my initial wish to order from restoration hardware. My dollars will go far shopping at Ikea and I will get the maximum impact for the minimum budget.  

Here is an example of a fabulous vanity at an exceptional price. I will change out the knobs to pretty glass ones and it will set the tone for the fresh spa like main bathroom.

Sitting beside this vanity will be a freestanding shelf unit filled with neatly folded fluffy white towels and glass jars filled with Q tips, cotton pads, soaps and other relevant bathroom supplies.  I don't expect my children to replace these neatly folded white towels so I will have rows of hook installed where they can hopefully hang them up after their morning showers.  I would normally share my inspiration picture here but thought I would save that for now! Let your imagination go and think of what this unit would inspire you to do in your bathroom. 

I will admit it.....I love laundry rooms! Must be something about the clean scent of freshly laundered sheets or the soft feel of clothes after they have been renewed.  For me, the perfect laundry room not only provides a place to efficiently clean linens but also a place to organize, sort and store.  Being able to hang dry items also appeals to me as way to be environmentally conscious.  

My laundry room will also serve other purposes.  It will be a craft room, a wrapping room, a sewing room and a project room.  Its' design will factor in all of these purposes to make it a highly functional room for multi-tasking.  Since this room will be in what is now an unfinished basement, I have a clean slate from which to work.  Here are a couple of other inspiration photos.  

Stay tuned for the final reveal.  I can't wait to see how this room will turn out!