Friday, July 4, 2014

Fairyville Friday - part 3

Good morning everyone !

The last " episode " ( let's pretend I have a weekly t.v. show, shall we ) I showed you the Fairy Church in the Wildwood..............there's a Church in the valley by the Wildwood

DIY Fairy Garden Houses

It comes complete with a twig cross on top so that it can be seen from far and wide
No lovelier spot in the dale


There's an ominous looking collection of giant knives next to the Church.................


Ok - time for another house - this one resides on Blue Creek Way...............

Again I started off with a dollar store birdhouse -

Birdhouse to Fairy Garden House

I cut the door out with a steak knife - John's going to kill me - really he is - one of these days he's just going to have reached his limit and wham - no more simply vintageous...........by Suzan.

Anyway he didn't catch me - so there's at least one more post in my life.

I decided this house should have a thatch roof - by using this ( also from the dollar store ) faux moss
( remember when we said everything was fake?  fake fur - fake flowers - fake moss ?  How come we don't call false teeth faux teeth?  Doesn't that sound more elegant? )


If you've never seen this - it's so realistic it's unbelievable that it's FAUX - I may just cover my own house with it instead of painting it in the fall :)



I buttered on some Carpenter's glue and a paint stick - because I'm a carpenter building houses don't you know?  ( here is Montreal we have a Home Depot - and a Reno Depot - I'm giving a shout out to Reno Depot because they sponsored this post............. NOT )


Then I pressed the moss onto it and painted stripes all over the " body " of the house
( it's not easy getting into the minds of fairy's and trying to figure out what they'd like, you know, but I do my best  )

DIY Fairy Gardens

I found a little lamp finial that fit on the top perfectly ( there was a hole there where I pulled out the rope to hang the birdhouse with )

Fairy Garden Houses

I made another twig ladder - because a thatch roof has to be constantly taken care of - and like all contractors, once I'm done with a job I walk away completely - so they'll have to run up and down themselves with repairs.

Fairy Garden House - twig ladder

I was giggling out loud as I was typing -
John says - what's so funny
Suzan says - do you want to hear my post so far?
John says - sure
Suzan reads it to him - again giggling -
John says - in a flat dead voice - You sound mentally defiicient, do you realize that ?
John says - I honestly don't understand why anyone reads you sometimes
John says - It's complete nonsense
Suzan says - Oh put a sock in it for crying out loud.....................

I didn't read him the rest
OH !!!  Say can you see?  In the far right hand corner?


A fairy flag for all of my American Sisters ! ( made with a broken paint stick - the Reno Depot one to be precise - since they didn't sponsor this post )
Happy July 4th - hope you all have an amazing celebration weekend
( well I hope everyone has a nice weekend wherever they are lol )


You can see the last Fairy house made HERE
The village is growing in leaps and bounds
( and I have no idea where I'm going to put it now - never put much thought into that )


Much love,

Partying with these lovely Hostesses

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Le Chateau des Fleurs

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Hell's Kitchen ( transformed )

Good morning everyone !

black and white kitchen


I've had quite a few emails asking when I was going to show the kitchen finished and I realized last week that I've only shown bits and pieces of the kitchen so far - so thought I'd try to show it to you in it's entirety - which is a difficult thing to do because it's a small kitchen ! ( you don't want to know some of the positions I had to get in to get these photos )
Most of them you will have seen before because - well - they're better photos than I was able to take today lol

So here we go - I'm just about as ready as I'm every going to be !

We started off with this
A kitchen that we had to completely gut down to the studs 2 days after moving in ( I'll do you a favor and not repeat what was behind those walls )


Not only did the walls and ceilings have to come down - they also had to be thoroughly disinfected with tons of bleach.................that being done was the biggest relief of all.

The kitchen today looks like this

Frugal Kitchen Makeover

Because it's a small kitchen I decided to have a niche built for the fridge - every square inch counts as those of you that have small kitchens know :)  Having it flush against the kitchen wall is a huge space saver.
The back door leads out to what I'll very loosely call the " mudroom " so I was able to take the space from there - and while they were doing it I decided to build a little niche for the microwave as well - to save counter space.

Here's the view from that black door and my favorite part of the kitchen.- you can see that I used industrial type of shelving flanking either side of the stove - I picked these up at IKEA for 15.00 each - they're discontinued.

Black and White checkerboard kitchen floor

Ikea metal shelving in kitchen

Kitchen Makeover

And the stove backsplash is simply a mirror I had on hand

Using a mirror as a stove backsplash

In order to keep the sink centered to the window - I had wine cabinets ( or water ? ) installed on either side of it - this kept the configuration I needed

Wine cabinets in kitchen cupboards

same thing for the cooking section - except there I went for a place to store cookbooks ( which still aren't unpacked completely 6 months later ) excuse the mess of it - eventually it'll only house books - they're next to the stove for easy access :)

a place to store cookbooks

Although I really wanted a marble countertop - things happened and the budget had to be tweaked a little to allow for the wiring to be completely updated included a new panel box - oh and an implant for my tooth
So we went with marble tiles 12 X 12 for the time being - hopefully this will be changed out next summer for the " real " thing - but I'm pretty happy with is as a " make do " alternative for the time being
This came to 300.00 - the marble slab would have come to 3000.00 - it's light and clean looking - and I love
that it's reflective.
That back splash you see are marble " thresholds " that are placed at bathroom doors - and work perfectly.

Using marble tiles for kitchen countertop

I also created a kitchen window sill shelf using one of them

DIY Window sill marble shelf

Although this was a frugal makeover - I DID splurge on my French Country window - it opens inwards and I'm still in love with it

French country window - opens inside


I'm also still in love with the little window that I chose to keep - I painted it black - the glass is original with waves and dimples and a little latch -

marble tile countertops 12 xs 12

I chose open plate racks on either side of the window instead of cupboards

Kitchen plate racks instead of cupboards

and placed a hutch on the opposite wall for dishes and such - it's a small kitchen and I wanted it to look a little more " open " ( additional dishes are kept in the dining room hutch ) but this is perfect for the everyday ones we use.

Kitchen Hutch - painted and wallpapered

I wallpapered the back for a little more impact ( you thought I'd say " pop of color " didn't you? LOL )



I originally wanted a tin ceiling - alas - once again the budget was attacked by something else -
Because I wanted the very high ceilings ( which had previously been lowered by panels ) to have some interest  I opted for panels from Reno Depot ( which is just like Home Depot here in Canada - I go to both regularly )
These are not the ones I bought but just wanted you to see what they look like prior to installing - they're mdf - and cost roughly 150.00 to do in total - aproimately 25.00 a panel - again a nice alternative ( to something I really wanted )


There are 4 squares per panel

Pretty Kitchen Ceiling ( affordable )

and it was finished off with crown molding

glass pendants

The lights over the farmhouse table were purchase from Amazon - for 24.99 each - I have no idea why but they're now 65.00 each - I have filament lights in them and they look really pretty at night



ok - skip the above photo - that was a total fail LMHO - I can't get the filament !!!

As you can see in little snippets above I went with black or black and white artwork on the fridge wall
It's the only wall where I could place artwork - and I wanted it to have an impact.

Black and white artwork wall in kitchen

Which ties in with the original door that I painted black
You can also see that I have a " thing " for niches - I had one built for the microwave as well to clear
up counter space...............

Privacy treatment on Kitchen windows

Outside the kitchen is a room we'll be turning into a walk in pantry - this is also the outside access to the pool area.  I'll continue the black and white tile into there as well.


I painted a little frame that reads " MANGE "  with chalkboard paint I had on hand - so I could change out the message from time to time  UPDATE:  Mange means Eat in French - not mange as in what dogs get like some of you questioned - OMG - I'm laughing my head off here - I might change it up to Fleas or Heartworm ..................



and of course you've seen my vintage storage door ! ( which is tucked in a corner )

Ideas for Vintage doors


And I think that's about it.......................it's.not my dream kitchen - but still - it's fresh enough to remember the way it looked when we first came to view it - and so I'm still a little thrilled when I come down the stairs each morning - and the light is just starting to creep in


Is it time for the before's yet?

before and after Kitchen

Black and White themed kitchen

Before and after Kitchen

Before and after - a Kitchen makeover



Much love, ( please forgive any mistakes - I'm falling asleep and way too tired to proof read lol )
Oh and the floor - I forgot to mention the floor - these are stick on tiles that we paid around 120.00 for.
You can read my thoughts on them HERE

I'll be partying here!
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