1/wk, wk 1

It's 2015.

I like making goals.

This year, one of my goals is to do one house project per week.  52 house projects in total (some are two week long projects, so...you know, numbers have to be crunched, etc.).

I thought up this "one per week" (which goes by the street name "1/wk") idea since New Year's goals/resolutions can be daunting, and by daunting I mean tackled vehemently for the first three months of the year, then felt guilty about for the next three months, then utterly forgotten, then only vaguely remembered around Christmas.  CYCLE COMPLETE.  This way, if a week is missed because of illness or lack of energy or too much wine or something more noble, a new, fresh, exciting week is just around the corner and, with it, another chance to complete a goal.

If you're still reading, you:
a) used to read my blog and are wondering where I went,
b) also like making goals,
c) have a house, with projects that need doing,
d) are sitting at a desk in a cubicle around 3:00 p.m., a.k.a. "I'm So Bored I'll Click Every Link I Come Across" o'clock,
or e) all of the above.

Week 1: Hip Nautical Curtain Tie-Backs For Under $30*

Time required: 10 minutes

Materials required:

• rope (Michaels)
• galvanized cleat (Canadian Tire) (helps if is miss-priced)
• roll of twine (Dollarama)
• glue gun (Walmart)
• scissors, or very sharp teeth 

I'm providing my retail sources not because I believe in them as retailers, but because I wholeheartedly believe that home improvement and especially DIY projects should not only be affordable but cheap.  It's part of the fun. 

Technically, you also need a few screws, washers, and a screwdriver but I just raided my garage for these items and you can't raid my garage for these items as well.  You have to find your own.

Here's the final product, since the image is worth a thousand step-by-step...steps.  If you have questions, please feel free to ask in the comments.  Otherwise, it's pretty straight forward.  

This is how legit-non-fancy I am.  Under the aforementioned DIY project is our empty luggage waiting to be taken outside to the garage since we just unpacked from a staycation.  Outside the sliding door is a Little Free Library which my brother made me for Christmas.  Another 1/wk project - stay tuned.

*  My parents own a sailboat so, for me, this project is sentimental as well as practical.  Feel free to copy if sailing isn't your thing, or if you want it to be your thing, or you've been perusing any one of the 3,498,201 websites, blogs, and apps and notice that the nautical theme is So Hot Right Now.

foto friday: bachelors and hipster restaurants

Today, a sneak peak into two lovely design spaces: first the one-bedroom apartment of our good friend, Paul Kalvaitis (who, I'm sure, thought I was joking when I said I would feature his apartment on my blog), and second is a quirky restaurant on Ossington called Delux.

Paul is one of the coolest bachelors I have the pleasure of knowing.  He's an accountant (NO WAIT! DON'T CHECK OUT), an avid lover of football, a fabulous musician and is hilarious.  It came as no surprise that his apartment was well decorated but what we weren't prepared for was the extent to which his tastes matched his incredible personality: tasteful, classic and charming.  As you will know from previous posts, I always give my readers the option of stalking these eligible friends of mine.  You're welcome.

K, first of all, this was the spread. This picture is not altered.  Veal chops, mussels in white wine sauce, grilled peppers and onions, fresh tomatoes with bocconcini, and baguette.  The boy can cook.

EVEN MORE FOOD!  Next to GQ magazines and mini samurai swords.

Move over, John Mayer.

Every bachelor pad needs a dart board with vintage cigar boxes perched on top.

And killer vinyl collection in old suitcase.

Paul's turntable and dial turned to Q107.  Good boy.

Fish tank (he's nurturing!) and James Bond 007 collection (he's adventurous!).

Jazz posters and - no joke - Audrey Heburn.  Serious point scorage for this.

Next, shots from an adorably hipster restaurant in the so-hip-it-hurts neighbourhood near Ossington Avenue.  

You'll never miss it.  Unless you don't know that W.C. stands for watercloset and don't know that watercloset stands for bathroom.

Andrew, probably Tweeting.

Fresh donuts, made in-house.

wifercize wednesday: suzie home-maker

It hit me like a sneeze.  At first, a slight tingle - an itch, really - barely perceptible and mostly ignorable.  I think it began when my mom gave us a subscription to House & Home for our one-year anniversary.  No harm done.  Just a magazine.  But then the tickle grew, the eyes began to twitch, and the mouth formed a turned-down crescent.  I began to bake (a foreign tradition to me, as my mother was more of a cook than a baker).  I discovered I liked baking.  And Andrew liked my baking.  I tried my hand at gardening.  I requested patio furniture.  For my birthday.  Now, the urge is irresistible.  No amount of superstitious preventative measures could possibly stop this impulse.  I weekly check home decor blogs such as Covet Garden, Remodelista, and Design*Sponge.  We ordered two matching grown-up couches.  I revel in doing laundry, cleaning dishes, and Swiffering.

Eyes squeezed tight, face distorted and stretched, a large gasp of breath, held, and...

I've caught the home-making bug.

As surprised as I am to have been struck with this contagion, I largely blame my married status, my home ownership, the influence of my wife-friends, and my biological clock - which once I assumed was digital, but has now morphed into a city hall clock tower.

Don McKay, a Canadian poet Andrew introduced me to when we were dating (the story is a little more romantic than that: we were at Starbucks on a date, one of those Starbucks attached to a Chapters, when he grabbed my hand, pulled me into the poetry section, selected McKay's Camber from the shelf, and read selections to me out loud, such as: "I want to spread the shed years on us as a mulch"...I know...I win - and others which I posted a few months later) wrote in his book Vis-à-Vis: Field Notes on Poetry & Wilderness:

"Home, we may say, is the action of the inner life finding outer form; it is the settling of self into the world."

I love that sentiment.  Our home, our little house nestled in what otherwise would be a strictly Portuguese neighbourhood, with its butter-yellow stucco exterior, its heating/cooling issues, its dark bamboo flooring, its seamless blend from living room to dining room to kitchen, its two matching grown-up couches, and its tiny patio furniture on its tiny patio is an expression of Andrew and myself.  The bamboo floors are scratched because we love our chocolate lab, Solomon.  The dish rack is nearly always full because we love to feed our friends.  We have three 6.5-foot bookshelves, all full, organized into fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and reference, by author's last name, because we both graduated with English degrees and love literature...and we're anal retentive.

It's our little plot of land.  A little plot of land that speaks of who we are on the inside.

What McKay continues with explained my current fancy with home-making:

"To make a home is to establish identity with a primordial grasp, yes; but it is also, in some measure, to give it away with an extended palm.  We might try to sum up the paradox of home-making by saying that inner life takes place: it both claims place and acts to become a place among others.  It turns wilderness into an interior and presents interiority to the wilderness."

I've been pondering what a funny thing home-making is. Its a dusty concept, buried behind suffragettes, feminists, and mommy wars.  It makes me think of Betty Draper, coiffed and at home, preparing meals, keeping house, and gossiping with neighbours over cocktails.  But if home, as McKay puts it, is weighty enough to warrant the definition "inner life finding outer form" why should a the role of home-maker be so drôle? 

I'd like to think that the movements begun on our behalf by women who we will never meet were to give us the freedom of selection.  When home-making was the only entrée on the menu, our choice was limited, and social norms cruelly kept us there.  Likewise, if being a career mom with children in daycare were the only widely accepted option for women, the equation would still be unbalanced. 

I watched the movie Mona Lisa Smile when it first came out, and one speech in particular stuck with me all these years:

Joan Brandwyn: You stand in class and tell us to look beyond the image, but you don't. To you a housewife is someone who sold her soul for a center hall colonial. She has no depth, no intellect, no interests. You're the one who said I could do anything I wanted. This is what I want.

I'm eager to experience for myself what home-making will offer.  I'm eager to see what my particular brand of home-making will incorporate.  I'm eager to turn wilderness into an interior and present interiority to the wilderness.

---

She looks over a field and buys it,
   then, with money she's put aside, plants a garden.
First thing in the morning, she dresses for work,
   rolls up her sleeves, eager to get started.
She senses the worth of her work,
   is in no hurry to call it quits for the day.
She's skilled in the crafts of home and hearth,
   diligent in homemaking.

(Proverbs 31 woman)

foto friday: just chillin' at the home show

Someone at Andrew's school gave him free tickets to the National Home Show two weeks ago and since free things get us all excited, we went.

We were consequently quite pleased that we didn't buy tickets.  It's a bit of a bore, lots of exhibits and pamphlet-pushers, and very few booths that we liked.  Still, FREE IS FREE, and we amused ourselves regardless.

Melissa, bless her, came along despite being a week away from giving birth.  Her nesting impulses drove her.  Incidentally, we saw a few booths with art so poorly rendered (Andrew: "I could paint that.  And I don't paint.") that we coerced Melissa into opening a booth next year with some of her awesome art instead.

Just chillin' in my gangsta whirlpool.

Just chillin' with my homeboy, Bob Villa.

Just chillin' with his kristal chandeliers.

Just chillin' in a Japanese full-body massage chair.

Just chillin' in my dream wine cellar.

Just chillin' in the reflection of this helpful sign.

Foto Friday: nylons + dried lavendar = scented drawer sachet

Sachet. I wonder how many guys reading this blog just stopped reading. Join us next week for another Wifersize Wednesday, boys! I know you read it, because you're making notes about how women think. This is where to get the inside scoop.

OK, back to sachets. I came across this idea goodness-knows-when (it might have been from my mother originally...if so, THANKS MARM) and have always wanted to try it. Last Saturday I did, and discovered it to be a pleasant and easy experience.

Here's what you'll need:

1. A pair of nylons (I refuse to use the word pantyhose because it makes me involuntarily puke). I bought my nylons at the Dollarama. They don't have to be top quality. We're not competing for ice dance in them.
   
   
2. Dried lavendar. My husband planted a vegetable/herb garden in the backyard last summer and we had lots of lavender left over to dry. Other sweet or spicy dried herbs will work, but stay away from using anything too savory. No one wants their sweaters smelling like crushed chilies.
   
   
3. Scissors.
   
   
4. A bowl for the herbs. Things tend to get a little messy/dusty.

First, cut the pantyhose, or NYLONS, into segments about 4-5 inches in length. Depending on the bulk and amount of herbs you'll be using, you might want to give yourself more room. Remember, you'll be using part of that length to tie a knot or two.

Then dump the dried lavender into a bowl (it's surprising how much lavender crushed down into so little).

Jam as much lavender into a segment as you can, starting with the toe. For middle sections, tie a knot first to form a base for the sachet and then jam the lavender in. I found it useful to make a pocket like this:

Tie a(nother) knot to close the pocket and voila! a lavender-scented sachet to use with your clothes, lingerie, towels, winter storage, etc. Just don't bother giving one to your husband. I offered a few to my husband and he asked me if I thought he would enjoy smelling of lavender. He did a fairy-like high kick along with the question, so I assume it was rhetorical.

Finished products will look like this:


If the sachet looses its scent after a while, try crushing it in your hand to release more scent. Accompany with fairy-like high kick.


Oh, and dogs seem to like the smell of lavender, whereas cats do not.