Beautiful Mont Tremblant

David, Sydney and I have just returned from an amazing trip to Mont Tremblant and Montreal.

We left for the eastern part of our country last Thursday and endured the five and a half hour flight and almost two hour drive to our beautiful piece of mountain paradise. Mont Tremblant seems to have been frozen in time. The cobblestone walkways and colored houses give the fee ling that you have entered some small European mountain village from long ago. Mont Tremblant is beautiful!

Here are a few photos from our walks around town. 

Mrs. E

On Vacation...

The blog with be quiet for the next few days. We will be enjoying this:

And David will be doing this:

Cheer him on this coming Sunday by going to the Ironman Live website HERE and typing in his race number which is 159. We will also read all of your good luck comments here!

Mrs. E

Where Are All of my Peeps?

Hmmm.... 

I know I have a lot of lurker readers and followers out there because this blog is getting hits left, right and center! Where are all of my peeps? 

Follow me! And please.... don't hesitate to leave a comment or question at any time!

Mrs. E

Blog Update!

I have finally updated the look of the blog! I tend to get bored really quickly with how things look so it was fun to put together a new look. The only problem is that I don't have a really great recent family photo. The photo in the header is actually from our trip to Hawaii back in March! I think I am going to have to get a great shot of the three of us in Montreal this weekend. 

What do you think? Is the chevron background too crazy?

Mrs. E

Our House ~ Kitchen Renovations

I have started the process of designing what I want our kitchen to look like. 

We are very lucky in our new house. Our kitchen is not too outdated and it has a good layout. We could live with it for a long time if we needed to.... but who wants to? So I've started putting together some ideas and images so that I can show David the aesthetic I am going for. I love the idea of mixing old and new and creating a modern space with classic pieces. I really want our kitchen to evoke feelings of the fifties and sixties. Here is what I have come up with:

1., 8. and 10. via Ikea ~ 2. via Home Depot Canada ~  3. via Restoration Hardware

4. via Unknown ~ 5. and 9. via D Lawless Hardware ~ 6. and 7. via Home Depot USA

All of our cabinetry will be going white to match the trim in the house. I will be replacing our stainless steel sink and faucet with a white sink and vintage style faucet. I am going to tile back splash the entire kitchen (most likely with the white lantern tile) and replace all of the plastic hardware that we have in the kitchen now with beautiful milk glass knobs. The island will go full butcher block and I am going to paint our little wood kitchen table to give it some character.

This is one project that I anticipate will take us a while. We need to first come up with the budget and then find the time to tackle all of these projects. I was really hoping to re use the cabinetry we already have in there... but it's all plastic laminate..... I have tried and tried to find a way to paint it but I think in the end, we are better off starting fresh. I cannot wait to get it all done! It will make such a difference in that space!

What do you think? Any cost saving renovation tips for me?

Mrs. E

Our House DIY ~ Laminate Flooring

I have been promising this post for a while now but I JUST got around to cleaning the house enough that I felt comfortable taking pictures of it. 

We have been very busy making our new house our own. It has taken many hours of work after coming home from the office and many sore backs and achy knees but I can officially say that the majority of the really hard work is done. The rest is all in the details and paint touch ups. 

When we moved into the house, the entire thing was beige. Every surface was the same boring non-color and we could not wait to change it. I knew that I would only be happy if we got the majority of the work done early on, so we moved in and hit the ground running. 

I knew that the biggest project would be the flooring. When we signed all of the paperwork on our place and everything was finalized, one of the first things we did was run over to Home Depot to check out some flooring. I played around with a couple of ideas and settled on a nice dark floor that had a lot of texture and character  David loved that it looked like real hardwood and I loved that it was a gorgeous dark color that looked incredible with the paint color I wanted to put on the walls. We ordered it in almost immediately and waited for a call to come pick it up.

Putting it in was such a process. After ripping up the carpet, we found that we would have to put in an extra layer of sub-flooring to bring everything up to the same height as the linoleum sections. After a quick trip to the store and some help from some great friends, we finally had the sub floor down and the flooring began. It took an entire week of evenings, one whole Saturday and a couple of hours on Sunday to finish everything. Brian and Conni Pohl were instrumental in helping us get the job done. If it weren't for them and their tools we never would have even known where to begin. Thanks guys!!

Here are a few photos from the project. Please ignore some of the patches on the walls. We are going to have to do some touching up after ripping the carpet out. Also.... sorry for some o the crappy blackberry photos. When we moved in we had no idea where the camera charger was.

~ It took us two car loads to get all of the wood back to our house ~

~ Laying the Sub Floor ~

~ Rolling out the underlay ~

~Yay! New flooring! ~

~ After night one ~

~ Progress! ~

~Tour de France and some floor laying ~

~ Sydney was unimpressed by the mess ~

~ Moving into the kitchen ~

~ Front room before...~

~ Front room after! ~

~ Front entry before... ~

~ Front entry after! (The green and yellow mats will obviously be replaced by a nicer front mat) ~

~ Dining room before... ~

~ Dining room after! ~

~ Hallway ~

~ Garage  Entry ~

~ Another view of the front hallway ~

~ Kitchen before... ~

~ Kitchen after! (many more renovations will take place in here including new cabinets and a butcher block island ~

~ Family room before... ~

~ Family room after! ~

~ Another view of before... ~

~ And after! ~

Mrs. E

Our House ~ Introducing Color

I am so glad that the base of our house is finally done. It means that I get to really start putting effort into adding color to our home and fun details. 

Last week I managed to find some time to swing into Chintz and Company over the lunch hour to pick up a few things. They had these beautiful flowers that I knew would be the perfect pop of color on our dining room table. I am not usually a fan of fake flowers but I also cannot justify buying new flowers all the time. i think it is all in how you arrange everything. I pulled the arrangement together with a great little vase I found at Home Sense. It is exactly what that space needed. 

Mrs. E