Have a happy and safe long weekend!

I was lucky enough to purchase a condo in Florida this Spring.  It is a two bedroom, two bathroom space with an eat-in kitchen and spacious living room.  It has a comfortable screened in balcony over looking the water.  The condo came furnished and in very good condition.  It had been a rental property prior to me and had good basic pieces.  However it didn’t have a “beachy”, “holiday” feel to me at all.

BEFORE

I closed on the property on April 2, 2013.  I had a planned visit for April 15th (by car) and only had five days to complete my projects.  So time was an issue and then of course….money!!  So mini make-overs it was!!  I must say, although totally exhausted (my friend Diana too!!) it was very rewarding! With mostly editing (all donated to a local charity who picked up!) small furniture changes and art work, it is definitely feeling boho, beachy.  I love it!

We actually completed a couple of small projects in each room.  But I am only showing the living room today.  The coffee table came all the way from home.  It was won at my son’s school fund raiser. It is from UpCountry and it definitely paved the way for the rest of the space.  The matching chair to the sofa was donated to charity and replaced with two very pretty bamboo chairs.  Although very comfortable, I wanted to both soften the chairs and add some colour.  The beautiful throws and two pillows on the sofa made my decision to add orange as an accent colour an easy one.  Of course I had to include blues….what seaside home is complete without blue?? With new art work, lamps and some pretty books, the room is almost complete! I moved the TV to the opposite corner of the room for more comfortable viewing.  I also replaced a leather lazy boy chair with a side board for storage, a lamp with rope accents and some home made art.

When the budget permits I will change the carpet out for scraped hard wood.  I of course have plans to spray furniture, but Paint It Like New is kind of far away…….hmmm……hmmmmmm.

This month Paint it Like New was featured in Style at Home’s High/Low budget makeover and we couldn’t be more thrilled! It’s no secret that we’re happiest when we can help our customers take pieces that were ready for the curb and transform them into statement pieces they’ll love for years, here’s what the experts at Style at Home chose for their project.

Here are the 3 pieces we worked on:

The inspiration photo was a curvy mirror in a brushed nickel finish; we found one very similar from Moveline hotel liquidators in a mahogany finish:

The designer’s chose a minty green color for the mirror, in a semi-gloss finish and paired it with brass metals and grey walls:

The next piece we did was a sideboard with gold medallions topped with a piece of glass for long term durability and beauty. The gold was sprayed with a Champagne color gold which was much softer and easier to work with than yellow/brassy golds of the past.

The bench was one of our favorite pieces, because it took something that was so traditional used outside the box design idea’s to turn it into something completely modern and custom. The base was a french provincial style piece sprayed in a light pink in a high gloss finish. The upholstery took the bench to the next level, using a long white/grey shag fabric.

What do you think? For more tips and tricks and to see the full article pick up your copy on newstands now!

We’ve all seen these chairs before, you may even own some yourself, tried and true the windsor chair has become a staple in many homes, there’s really nothing special or unique but they sure are comfortable. We had four of these little beauties dropped off to the shop for the cover of Canada’s Chatelaine Magazine, and at first we even gave our heads a scratch wondering if these were truly “cover” worthy.

The first chair we did was a matte white with sprayed gold legs, sort of a one off of the ombre trend which has been so popular.

Seen here in the photo shoot:

A spicy red in a high gloss finish:

Sitting pretty in it’s magazine shoot:

The banana yellow chair in a high gloss:

Seen in the photo shoot:

And in an electric orange in semi-gloss:

Seen here in the magazine:

And one last shot of them all lined up before they left for the photo shoot:

The best thing about common pieces of furniture is that they are easy to come by, the tricky part is using them in your space to make it feel like your own and not like every other home you’ve been in. Chatelaine nailed it by taking this typical chair out of its “typical” environment aka the kitchen. It’s the same chair used four ways, with the same console table to get completely different looks and feels for a space. So are you beach-house casual? preppy glam? rustic modern? or urban eclectic?  Each style is so different, and so is each cover!! All four styles were used on the cover, but which will you choose? To see the full story pick up your copy of Chatelaine Magazine on news stands now or head to http://www.chatelaine.com/living/home-decorating/how-to-make-an-entrance/?gallery_page=1#gallery_top and vote for your favourite look!

The newly installed dishwasher beside the fridge meant new gables which were cut and brought to us to be sprayed up. This is a perfect example of not only spraying your doors a new colour, but taking this opportunity to make some additional changes.  You can pre-cut crown moulding, baseboards, new gables. You can even remove the centre panel on a door and have glass inserted.  This is the  time to customize your kitchen at a fraction of the cost of a new one.  Scott, Mike and Vita were ecstatic with the changes in the entire house, but we couldn’t help but be impressed by Scott’s mention on Pintrest!!

So excited to be a part of the show, it’s  a proud day here at the shop!

 We will be closed Friday, March 29th for Good Friday and reduced hours Saturday, March 30th 9am-1pm.

Monday we will be back to business as usual! 10am-5pm

 Happy Easter!

Before:

After:

Follow Rambling Renovator’s awesome blog here: http://www.ramblingrenovators.ca/2013/02/the-basement-painted-vanity.html

We’re getting a jump start on spring, and one the new colour trend of the year, to keep our minds off the snow, rain, meteors and whatever else is going on outside our window. Unfortunately I didn’t take a before photo of the office, however we didn’t do a complete over-haul, just a bit of editing.

Here’s the before of our chairs:

The colour they were originally sprayed was Monterey White in a satin finish from Benjamin Moore, it coordinated well with the linen embroidered fabric from European Textiles.

We wanted to lighten them up and match the colour to our Ikea cabinet’s that make our lives oh so organized! Here they are sprayed in Cloud White with this beautiful almost water colour flower fabric from TonicLiving.ca called Landsmeer in Citrine. Just a heads up, you’ll be seeing lots of golden dijon’s and wasabi colour’s this summer, brace yourself for some beautiful things!

Here is the after:

The next order of business was to get the drawers cleaned and organized, and painstakingly put together the Ikea cabinet’s. We purchased two of the “Alex” drawer units and 4 of the “Erik” filing drawers in grey. The Alex chest of drawers were great as they were, but to make life a little easier we purchased some silver labels from Staples in the Martha Stewart collection that were so simple to apply and just make life that much sweeter.

We’re just loving the laughing Buddha from Urban Barn too! We picked up a few other accessories and switched the fabric on our pin boards to Bella Porte in Citrine from Tonic Living and we were content with the outcome. Here is a photo of the office (the labels hadn’t been applied to the drawers yet)

What do you think? Do you like the new colours? Let a comment!

Here is the before:

The kitchen was painted in Manchester Tan HC-81, and the counter tops were changed out for a natural stone. They added a new back splash and the hardware and appliances remained the same.

Here is the after:

Here’s what they had to say about this stunning, and not-too-painful kitchen makeover!

“I just wanted to send a note of thanks and some before and after shots of our kitchen so that you could see firsthand how much impact your work has had on our kitchen renovation. We were able to turn our outdated kitchen into a modern space by keeping materials that were functional like the appliances and cabinetry and by simply replacing the counter top and hardware. The cabinets and Paint-it-Like-New were the starting point and inspiration for this transformation.”

Manny & Susan