A Little Hiatus

We are moving to our new (to us) house on Monday the 18th! As you can imagine, things are hectic as I am trying to pack and organize here and finish the renos there. I won't bore you with the details, but we had a major roofing issue that slowed things down to a grinding halt (aaah, the joys of home ownership!) until today when it finally (and hopefully) got resolved, which will then allow for the final touches in the kitchen to be done. Yaaaay!! Can't wait to be in and using my new kitchen and my new appliances. Who knows, I may even become a decent cook!

At least the weather has been fantastic, so it really motivates me to get things done. I hope it holds off until moving day!

I am planning to show you how things look after we're moved in. Although a great deal of work has been done, it will be a work in progress as far as decorating goes, as you know, a house is never done!

So in order to concentrate on this,

I am taking a couple of weeks off blogging and planning to return in full force once we're somewhat settled in.

À bientôt!

Winter is back, progress at the house and a surprise in the mail!

Last week I blogged about the arrival of spring and how wonderful it was, blah, blah, blah. And yesterday, we were back to this:

Aaaaargh, my poor daffodils are going to freeze! And no, daffodils is not a euphemism for my buns...although they are freezing too.

Oh well, onward and upward, let the great spring thaw begin (again)!

There's been progress at the new-to-us house we are renovating. The official move-in date is April 18th.

We had the stuffy, cramped closets removed in the master bedroom, and behind the wall beside it was the closet to the room next to the master's, a tiny, useless bedroom. A friend of mine convinced me to turn it into a walk-in closet and I, in turn, convince hubby too. He didn't take much convincing as it makes complete sense. It is a much more efficient use of space. And we left the door to the tiny bedroom up, so it could, if need be, be turned into a nursery by future buyers (way, way, way down the line. I don't plan on moving again any time soon!). Anyhoo, here's the master bedroom with the closet removed. The door was the closet door in the tiny bedroom.

Here's a peek from the other side of the door in the tiny bedroom:

And here are the Pax closet components we bought on sale back in January for the walk-in closet, getting ready to be assembled:

Can't wait to show you the finished result!

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, the light fixture over the island is finally up:

Don't you just love the bling? It's girly, but not too girly. Just a little touch of glam!

And to brighten up that lousy snow day we had yesterday, my Silhouette SD finally arrived. :^)

You might recall I ordered it a while back, following a discount offered through the DIY yourself Showoff blog.

I don't know which one I was more excited about, the Silhouette or the box it came in, cause when you're moving, boxes are at a premium!!

Unfortunately, I'm so busy right now, what with packing, overseeing the renovating, working, etc., that I won't have time to play with it for the time being. I have also had to put my jewelry making on hold and I'm dying to get back to it, but not until we are settled in the new house.

Ciao for now!

Kitchen Reno so far

Yesterday, I showed you before pictures of the kitchen, all wired and ready for the cabinets and the new floor.

Here is what has been done so far.

The ceramic floor is in, as well as the cabinets, the island, the sink, the tap and the counter tops. The lighting is done except for the fixture that will go above the island.

We picked a traditional style, but not overly fussy. I love the contrast offered by the light cabinets and the dark island and countertops!

This is a little study off the kitchen. It too had dilapidated cabinets. We opted to have them replaced with matching cabinets. This will be handy to store all sorts of papers like bills, as well as recipe books and other odds and ends. A good place for my laptop too! I love the decorative columns, they add class, don't you think?

But the one of the main reason we fell in love with this house is this amazing feature:

Yes, it's an indoor pool! Now, we don't have a cottage and we don't get away very much, but we love to swim. Our present house has an outdoor pool and weather permitting, we swim everyday, but as you know, up here, it is a very short season.

Now we will be able to swim whenever we want to. Even on a blizzardy day like today! It will be our little cottage at home, our little oasis of peace.

Aaaah, Heaven!

Stay tuned for further progress!

Thrifting Away and Renos at the New House

Thank you to all who have left such kind comments on my recent posts. I now have 6 followers! I am read! Yeah!

As I explained in my very first post, De tout, de rien means Everything and Nothing, as I want my blog to be about anything I feel like writing about on any given day. I realize though that since joining the Pyrex collective and reading the blogs of the other contributors, I am somewhat of a closet thrifter myself. So I will occasionally post my finds and share them with all of you.

Today, I was disappointed that I didn't find any Pyrex, just the same old scratched bowls that have been there for a while.

There was a Colonial Mist bowl in mint condition like the bigger one on the right, but as you see, I have one already:

But the whole day was not wasted. I did find a glass cloche not unlike the one Sherry posted on her blog here. I paid a whole dollar for it! (Thank to Linda at À la Carte for showing me how to post a link! See, I'm really good at it now! :^)

As I told Sherry, I love cloches because you can create cute seasonal vignettes with them. So there's another project for me. (That would be project number 1,567, lol!).

I have to show a lot of self control however while out thrifting, as my husband keeps saying that things should be going out, not coming in, since we are moving. Well, I still manage to buy here and there, I just sneak things in and hide the evidence, lol! He should be grateful I'm a thrifter and not a clothes horse, it's not like I'm spending $500 on a pair of boots or a Coach purse, I buy $2 trinkets!

Meanwhile, the renovations are going strong at our new (to us) house. Here's a before look at the kitchen:

These were taken a few weeks ago and there has been a lot of progress since then, however I am keeping you in suspense till tomorrow, as I haven't taken pictures recently. In fact, I am mad at myself for not documenting every step, but I am at times either too lazy, too busy or too forgetful.

This new house is just down the street from our present house. We are lucky to be in a position to still be able to live here while the renos are going on, which saves a lot of aggravation and stress!

We were not looking for a new house, but it came up for sale and we went to the open house and then I could not stop thinking about it! It was absolute insanity to even do so, as our present house is more than adequate, but the more we thought about it, the more we could see ourselves living there! And we did it, we bought it. Chalk it up to midlife crisis.

The kitchen was very dilapidated but I looked beyond that and saw the potential to build my dream kitchen.

Tomorrow: the almost completed kitchen and the main feature of the house will be revealed! Stay tuned!