gold is good

Yay!!

and my date went really well too!

 

The Ceili Cottage was a great place for both.

outfit of the week

 

This week's outfit inpired by my favourite shade of green.

and more boots.

 

blouse: Zara

belt: Jacob

suede skirt: Goodwill (really? yes, 5 bucks)

boots: Miz Mooz

jewelery: me

welcome to the kitchen - before & after

When Anthropologie opened in Toronto last summer I realized I didn't want a mid-century modern kitchen to go with my lovely teak table - what I really wanted was an Anthropologie kitchen! I could keep my chairs and all I needed was the right table cloth and I'd be in business.

To recap, the kitchen looked like this when I moved in:

But with an Anthropologie table cloth, mirror from Urban Outfitters, and clock from Pier 1, I got exactly what I wanted.

The window went from looking like this:

to this, with some shelf brackets from Anthropologie and shelves from Ikea.

And the counter went from this:

to this, with some more shelf brackets & knobs from Anthropologie and pulls from Lee Valley.

The dingy stove went from this:

to this, with the addition of a shelf over the radiator and some paint on the old cabinets.

I really love the chairs now!

And there's a bit more counter space.

Cute measuring cups from Anthropologie (again),

my pink tea set,

and some childhood tchachkas all have happy places to live now.

Plus there's room for some Mccoys ...

painting the kitchen

I originally planned the kitchen transformation around my mid-century modern teak table, but I didn't have chairs to go with it. Instead I have these very kitchy spindle chairs that were lovingly hand painted by A.M. in '83 (they are all signed). They were very kindy passed on to me by the friend of a friend and I was happy to have free chairs!

 

I was determined to find the perfect chartreuse colour like I had wanted to do in the last kitchen and was inspired in part by this image which I kept folded up in my purse for months. (I would kill for that closet but that's another story.)

And also by figs which I had become quite obsessed with when they were in season. I first bought them just for the colour, and then decided that they are the best thing I've ever eaten.

I was keeping my eye out for some chairs to match the table and searching craigslist for the perfect bargain but in the meantime I found the perfect paint colour: Lemon Pepper by Pittsburgh Paints.

This was after 2 coats of primer - I did 3!

 

And I love, love, love the colour! (turns out I love the chairs too)

my second red kitchen

When I found this apartment I couldn't believe how great the size of the kitchen was - big enough for my beloved mid-century teak table! I also couldn't believe that I would have to deal with yet another hideous red kitchen.

Painting over red is particularly fun when the other half of your kitchen is a dirty white and you want the whole thing to be the same colour when you are done. (Hmmm, I guess I thought it looked so bad that I didn't even bother to tidy up, even though this is the view from the front door - ooops).

To be clear, the splotchy-ness of the red is not due to the light or the camera, it is due to one coat of crappily-applied crappy-paint. But it took me quite a while to figure out how to deal with it all as clearly the paint-job wasn't the only problem.

No counter space and dingy, painted textured wallpaper also posed a few issues.

Anthropologie saved the day when they opened in Toronto over the summer ...

my first red kitchen

When Perry and I moved in together in 2008 the kitchen and sun room had been painted a really hideous shade of dark red. I disliked it so much that this is the only photo of it I have, and painting it became priority number one in the apartment.

I mean, come on, who paints the outlet cover to match?

I wanted something a bit more green but yellow was what we agreed upon and ultimately worked better with the brick and the brown tile. And we replaced the yucky rice paper blind!

We were also less than fond of the "breakfast bar" that cut the table area off from the kitchen itself.

Particularly since it meant that if you opened the dishwasher you were trapped next to the stove and two people could not be in there at the same time.

Also after spending over an hour cleaning the tiled counter top with a knife I convinced Perry that even if we paid for it, it needed to go.

It went - woo-hoo!

I had more plans in store for this kitchen, but these two changes were absolutely transformational and made the kitchen a much nicer space to be in. Then I moved out - into a new place - with a hideous red kitchen.

(*"after" photos taken after I moved out - the Hawaiian theme is all Perry)

dear ebay

I love you but I think we should spend some time apart, and start seeing other people ...

like etsy.

squash & pear soup

I bought a bunch of my favourite "fragrant" pears recently but I just wasn't eating them. Before they went bad I thought I'd try to make this harvest squash and pear soup.

Since I'm becoming a soup expert I deviated somewhat from the recipe - or cheated, call it what you will.

 

I still had one of these mystery vegetables left so I added it too along with the ginger and some nutmeg.

Needs work.

Prince Perry & King Tut

 

Went to see Prince Perry & The Gladtones play at The Garrison for a friend's birthday,

 

and a cute guy asked me out. He wants to see King Tut at the AGO,

 

because he's really interested in seeing the jewelery ... clearly I said yes.

outfit of the week

 

This week's outfit inspired by Nana Mouskouri,

 

and Annie Hall.

 

blouse & belt: Jacob

vest: vintage from Kensington Market scored by my sister 

pants: Gap (from the 90's)

shoes: Mudd @ Sears (really? yes, on sale!)

glasses: Barton Perreira "Diprima" @ Gafas

counting my blessings today

and grateful for how many there are

vintage stuff I want

got it ...

want it ...

These are around the corner for 30 bucks.