Getting closer to a Master SWEET

 

You may or may not remember the matchy-matchy bedroom “set” that I have had to deal with/ decorate around in my master bedroom….but just in case you forgot, I present….

THE LARGEST DRESSER ON EARTH

Seriously now, 8 years ago I walked into one of the big furniture stores with one purpose. A king size bed with something in a dresser that matched. I ended up with the Godzilla of dresser sets. Oh yeah, I went whole hog. The bedframe, lowboy, highboy and matching nightstand. Oh, how I wish I could talk to that Dharma now….*sob*

So when we created the master bedroom from 2 bedrooms, I thought we’d have a football field of room to house these badboys. Not so much. In fact the lowboy just ate up the entire midsection of the room. I started thinking about smaller dressers, then I remembered my lingerie addiction and my 147 tanktops. So I sucked it up and continued to bang my leg every morning on the corner of the dresser. Every morning.

Last December I walked into a local thrift and consignment store and there HE was. A deep walnut hued, gorgeous hunk of wood. He had large expansive drawers, a bow front and the most impressive hardware I’ve ever seen. The tag on his front said “$375.00”. I wept a little. I could not bring myself to pay that so I walked away, only turning back once….to remember him. I left my card with the owner, asking that she keep her eye out for something similar but not as pricey. I have thought about him since.

Flash forward to 2 weeks ago and I get a call. The dresser was still there, no one had claimed him and the owners did not want to take it back. Would I pay $150.00? Now, this is where the true “rubber hits the road” in thrifting. I tried to quit jumping up and down so that I didn’t sound out of breath and said “Would you take $100.00?”

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Eduardo…..

Slight dings, some water damage at the back but nothing that couldn’t be LOVED out, right?

Gaze upon his hardware.

Oh Eduardo. Your patina. I got straight to work. Picking up a few supplies and getting that elbow ready for some serious buffing.

His façade was scratched, someone had been unkind. But I knew I could change him. I was sure.

So, after much rubbing, buffing and staining I started to see Eduardo’s true shine come to life.

Darling. Isn’t that better?

Here he is, not staged but so much more loved. Appreciated. Adored.

Mi amore, Eduardo.

To Die for or Tie Dye For?

Busy morning today. Up at 7:30 a.m. to go to the Zumba class at the YMCA, Quinn was leading a set today and he was pretty stoked. The class was all ages so I got to "rumba and zumba" next to Grammas and 2 year olds :) It was an awesome way to start my day. Not to mention, the Class Instructor was sooooo cute doing his choreography to "Dynamite"....



After that, Mr and I headed out in driving snow to retrieve a little something that I thought had been sold out from under me, but NO! It was mine today :) All mine. More on that to come.

Here's a hint....

I found this version online HERE and no I did not pay over $3000 for it!!!

This afternoon, I rearranged my master bedroom to make some room for the new find, but as many times as I made the bed I just couldn't stop staring at the fugly cream coloured bedskirt I have been stuck with cause I am cheap using. It just didn't sing with the new comforter set I scored at Marshalls last fall :( All that lime, olive and teal....gone to waste because of a cream bedskirt.....

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.....I know!

Walmart = $4.99

Now before you start laughing, my inspiration was Anthropologie-esque in that I knew if I could pull off the same tones and colours, this would be genius....but that's the trick isn't it? I love this bedding from the Anthropologie site and was thinking of this for inspiration.

So, what to do when your project could possibly be a disaster and you don't want to shoulder all the blame? Enlist minions, then you can share the shame.

I am pretty pleased with our results, the colours are muddier than the crisp pattern on the quilt but I kinda like the contrast. If you peek to the left you can see my new find.....a little teaser :)

So, thoughts and opinions.....do I keep it or start shopping now? Truthfully, it was a fun project for Q and I and we only ended up with blue and green hands for the trouble.

Showing off:

L-O-V-E in our house is a 4-letter word!

And y'all can spell that word M-E-A-T.

Seriously, I spend a lot of time, energy, shopping and money on flesh. Now, for those of you not at the meat counter (religious, moral issues or otherwise), you may want to skip this post. That being said, I cook for "guys". Not just my guys either. At any given meal I can have between 3 and 7 men/boys at the table. This requires an inordinate amount of potatoes and/or rice and bread but for the main course, these guys expect DEAD STUFF.

So by way of showing my love to you on Valentine Day 2012, I am about to share an *old family recipe* for Pot Roast. Nope, this is not your Mom's pot roast this is my Mom's pot roast recipe ripped off lovingly from Australian Women's Weekly. Do not ask me why my Mom (a Canadian prairie girl got hooked on AWW). You can link to the recipe here or you can follow the directions below:

Beef Pot Roast

A good pot roast makes an ideal family meal. Meat, vegetables and sauce cook together in one saucepan. Corner of topside, bolar blade or fresh (ie uncorned) silverside can be used. A whole chicken can also be pot-roasted in exactly the same way, but needs only 1 hour's cooking time, instead of the 2 hours for the meat, plus a further 30 minutes when the vegetables are added. The meat pot roast in our recipe will serve six; the chicken serves four.

INGREDIENTS

90g butter
2kg piece of corner topside
3 large carrots
3 medium parsnips
8 small onions
4 medium potatoes
50g (1/3 cup) plain flour
750ml (3 cups) beef stock
500ml (2 cups) water
3 tablespoons tomato paste
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
pinch mixed herbs
1 teaspoon sugar
saltpepper

METHOD

1. Heat 30g butter in large frying pan, add meat, brown well on all sides. Remove meat from pan.
2. Add to pan scraped carrots cut into large pieces, scraped parsnips cut into large pieces, peeled whole onions, and peeled potatoes, cut in half. Saute gently until vegetables are golden brown. Remove from pan.
3. Melt remaining butter in pan. Add flour, stir over high heat until flour is dark golden brown; do not allow to brown. Remove pan from heat, add water and stock, stir until combined. Add tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, mixed herbs, salt, pepper and sugar. Return pan to heat, stir until sauce boils and thickens. Put meat into large saucepan, pour sauce over, bring to boil. Reduce heat, cover, simmer gently 2 hours. Add prepared vegetables, simmer further 30 minutes or until vegetables are tender. Keep meat and vegetables warm on serving plate. Bring sauce in pan to boil, boil uncovered 10 minutes or until of good gravy consistency.

Your men will think your alter ego is this lady!

...and if your really ambitious you can make my FAMOUS F'en POTATOES (Backstory here includes cussing - be warned)

The men/guys/boyos in your life will thank you.

Happy Valentines Day!

The Q-Lounge

So after much digging, relocating and general bailing out of Q's room, we have a new look.

To refresh your memory....we started with this.

Then it all started to degenerate, downward, spiralling into madness:

....cue the operatic crescendo....cause here is the fruits of all our labours! We like to decorate together :) Well, I like to watch the boys build what I bring home, the littles can sort and clean and I get to decorate. It is a system that has stood the test of time :)

C'mon guys.....how long does this take? I mean really a second hand IKEA bed, with a baggie full of parts and assembly instructions off the Internet. How hard can it be? Actually they rocked it out (pardon the pun).

Someone couldn't wait to get up there! Get down here boy! There are clothes to sort!

The final product. The outdoor lanterns were a summer score from the Dollar Store, the IKEA rug I've had since Liam was tiny. The chair was a curbside rescue years ago, the "side table" is a recycled set of childrens drums. I like the loungey feel in here......we need a disco ball to replace that BOOB light :)

The "cloffice" got a clean up too, still awaiting that lime-green paintjob on the tabletop I see...

Paint and drapes are all that's left. Whew, what a fruitful afternoon!

Rocking and hopefully no Rolling!

Back in 2011, I started the process of updating the old master bedroom into a new-to-him boy's crash pad for Boy#2. We cleared out Mom and Dad to their new boudoir and started on the rock mural wall a la this:

Well, flash forward a few months people and as I entered my son's bedroom this morning I saw a little sumthin like this:

Twin bed? Done. After discussing the merits of diagonal sleeping, my son looked at me with his usual suspicious glare and then got totally wide eyed and exclaimed "I can get a bigger bed!" Cue the groaning from the wallet regions of my handbag.

















So, being the thrifty Momma that I am, when I got to work I put out a corporate-wide email asking if anyone had a full/double for sale or swap. Hey, it never hurts to ask. Barring any bites there, I'm off on a 4 hour round trip to IKEA, right? I explained my plight and sent the email out.

SHAZAM! In 2 minutes, one of the women I work with sent me this pic. Is this what I was looking for? Would it suit Boy#2?

Source: IKEA.ca - Tromso Loft Bed


















So, of course throughout my lunch hour, I have been looking at ideas like this:

source

from Sprinkle it with Fabulous













...or go right to the source for some decor ideas...

source

















Now I'm getting excited. Oh the floorspace! Can you sing it with me people? Floor Space! Now I have yet to get Boy#2 on board but seriously...the convo will most likely go like this:

Me: "See this bed? Would you like something like this in your room?"

HIM: "Totally! I could hang blankets all around it, make forts, swing off the top rails and hang all my teddybears!"

Me: "I was sort of thinking a crisp, clean esthetic with a modern flair."

HIM: "Nope, total hangman's gallows coming up!"

It will end up looking like this...which is cool with me anywhooo...

from To Get Pregnant












Any thoughts, ideas? Had/have one of these bad boys? Pitfalls? Falling off in general? Even though he is 10, I still think I'm going to hear at least one 2:57 a.m. crash ;)

The True North Strong & Free....

Thanks to Jo who blogs with abandon over at To A Pretty Life, I now proudly wave my maple leaf on my sidebar.

When I started blogging, I would only run across the very rare and elusive Canadian blogger....and I would leap allover that mess! "Friend!!!!!!" As I have been around longer and longer, started attending blogger events here in the GTA and made more connections across this vast frozen wasteland (lol), I'm finding more and more of you out there. For that, I am very thankful. It is an amazing thing to come here and make dear friends from all over the world but there is something to be said for your homeys :)

Thanks Jo, for the button that tells people right away when they visit that I am polite, wear a toque in the winter and have once in my life eaten blubber.

I have lived in 4 provinces in my lifetime. Which makes me VERY Canadian :)
B.C., Alberta, Manitoba and now Ontario.....I seem to be working my way east.

Where is home for you, my friend?

Who is Following all this?

Roeshel at the DIY Show Off has posted about the upcoming Google Friend Connect going away for WordPress blogs. I'm currently on Blogger but I don't want to miss out on any new peeps coming to play at the Mermaid. Nor do I want to lose everyone forever that I read and enjoy everyday in WP. So I've added the Linky Followers app to my blog. I'll be migrating some of you (those I stalk) out there over soon :)

As said on Roeshel's site, it's just a matter of time before Google decides to nuke the whole shebang for everyone. Is everyone else as tired of this as I am? I mean first Picnick, now Google Friend Connect??

What's next?

Facebook?

HA!

Check out Linky Followers, it's the wave of the future, don'tcha know?