Dreamin’ in Vermont

Ok, no I’m not actually in Vermont… but my dreamy space is…

HGTV’s Dream Home 2011

 

 

 

 

Downstairs Tomorrow!

Just had to share...

I got my boys these great leather jackets (for $49.99) for their birthdays in February... (they wanted Harley Coats) Can't beat that deal considering they retail for $165.00

Check them out here!
http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-Knuckleheads-Sample-Sale-Leather-jacket-lined-/130464244429?pt=US_Baby_Toddler_Boys_Clothes&var=&hash=item641eb055d0

Where's the easy button? And why I am not organized...

I keep coming back to the same stresses, no matter that I was supposed to be more disciplined this year. My life is disorganized, my house is cluttered and messy and that makes me feel messy and my brain feels cluttered. I used to be so good at organizing things, a place for everything and everything in it's place. The kind of life where you don't lose your glasses or keys or those important papers. The kind of life where things are where they are supposed to be so you don't waste minutes, hours, or days looking for them. The kind of life where you don't forget important appointments or forget to file your taxes on time. I used to be disciplined, I used to be organized, I used to be sane! I am now overworked, underpaid, overwhelmed, and at the brink of insanity.
 
Now I find tools on the bathroom sink, or the top shelf of the coat closet, dinky cars and batteries, and cell phone chargers, and magazines, and just plain junk amidst the piles of mail that has gathered on the kitchen counter for months. Bills that might have been paid on time if my memory served me well. I find toothpaste in the buffet, plates and cups hide out under couches (the cups are always filled with chocolate milk that has soured by the time we find them). Getting ready to go anywhere is a chore, there are about 5 places that shoes and coats congregate in our house (one of those being the dog's bed of course) so I run around like a mad woman searching for coats and matching shoes and the ball cap someone has lost. There are toys everywhere, laundry piled up on the washer and drier waiting to be put away, dishes in the sink, disorganized, cluttered, mess everywhere. Every morning the newspaper is left on the dining table. Inevitably over the course of the day, there are coats hung on backs of chairs, toys and play dough collected on the table, a magazine, a computer, a box of crayons, maybe a box of nails or a screwdriver or hammer too, so that where it is time for dinner we gather the entire pile and shove it someplace else. Not very disciplined huh?


My day is consumed with diverting disasters and cleaning the chaos of the moment, there is no time for the piles and misplaced items that need attention. I'm lucky if I get to unloading the dishwasher before the nights supper dishes need to be loaded again. I could clean all day and accomplish nothing, because behind me are two little boys that leave a mess in their wake, tornadoes in jeans. A puppy that steals clothing from the hamper, chews shoes, and anything else she can get her paws on. A husband who is a little (OK maybe a lot) like his sons. And a Mom who can't juggle it all.

 "Cleaning your house while your children are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing." -Phylis Diller

Like the time Bruce took the boys for the day and I spent the entire day cleaning and organizing the family room/play room, only to have my glorious 2 1/2 year old son dump the entire ash bucket all over the room the very next day. The ashes from the wood stove that were supposed to be dumped the week before by a certain someone {who is not me} I might add.

5 minutes. 5 minutes he was out of my sight, 5 minutes he was left to his own devices, whilst I cleaned another of the messes he had made upstairs in the bathroom. This is one of those messes that will take a LONG time to clean up. Ashes make A LOT of dust. Dust everywhere. And not just in the family room, nope it traveled all over the house. See why I have no time to get organized?

Coat Rack Inspiration

The mudroom progress is coming along, but the closet that is there probably isn't usable as a coat closet (there is no back wall, and the plumbing is in the way to put one in). So, we need a place to hang coats...

I love the vintage look, and think that's the way to go. I will probably wind up building it myself but there provide some great inspiration! Hubs would love the deer antlers and the kids think the horse shoes are pretty cool! Me, I'm loving the tin shelves from Black Canyon but they don't give prices just a range Prices range from $50 - $795. Um $795 for a coat rack? I don't think so!!

Come On Baby Light My Fire

Fall is by far my favorite season. The leaves in full color. The cool crisp air. The harvest. Thanksgiving. Halloween (not my favorite, but surely a favorite of the boys). I only wish it wasn’t winters precedent! Autumn makes me want to nest. Pull out the warm quilts, add a few extra pillows and cozy up by the fire.

Fire.

There’s nothing better than the smell, the crackling, and the warmth of a real wood burning fire. 

We have a wood burning fireplace insert in our basement family room. It does a great job at heating the basement, but because of the layout of our house not much of the heat makes it to the main floor, therefore keeping us dependent upon electric heat. When we first moved into the house I had hubs change the baseboard heater in the living room (remove the big one that was under the window and install a smaller one further away) JUST so that I could put my couch under the window (because there was no other LOGICAL place for it might I add). So for years we’ve been um… freezing in the winter. True, our basement is now a “finished” space but for some reason I prefer the main floor, plus it’s where the bedrooms are. Sure, cooler air might be good for sleeping but we don’t want to have to crank the thermostats just to want to be in the room.

When it comes to green living there are differing opinions surrounding the carbon footprint created by wood stoves. Firewood is a renewable resource, yet it leaves a carbon footprint when burned for heat. However, a carbon footprint also has to take into considerable how the fuel source was prepared, and in that, firewood has a tiny footprint compared to natural gas, electric, or heating oil. The carbon produced by log cutting machines and chainsaws is miniscule compared to that of processing crude oil into fuel stocks. And of course, in many parts of the world, most if not all of the wood cutting is done manually, so there’s no footprint at all.

So, we’ve decided to invest in wood heat for the main floor too. Sure it’s a big expense on the front end, but it should save us significant amount of money during heating seasons to come. (And Canadian winters can be… well cold!) Now the question is whether to go with a wood stove or a zero-clearance wood fireplace…

I have a thing for fireplaces- I’m drawn to them, I think they add ambiance to a room, even when they’re not in use. I would get a mantel (OK, I know that a mantel is essentially just a shelf as my husband so eloquently reminds me every time I bring it up).

So what’s the problem? Well… the fireplace route costs much more than the wood stove route. Much more $$$$$$ and technically the heat output isn’t as good with the fireplace as it would be with a wood stove, because the woodstove radiates heat from all 4 sides and the zero clear is specifically designed only for heat from the front so that it can be installed close to combustible materials. It requires the use of blowers and hot air vents can be installed.

OK… so the wood stove is a better choice right? Technically yes, aesthetically not so much. My living room might not be overly traditional but it isn’t exactly country or rustic either. It isn’t lodge like or cabin like. In the basement family room a wood stove would look appropriate, ironically we have a fireplace down there. A huge fireplace. Clad in black/grey slate though, with a rustic mantle. So I have been trying, with very little luck, to find a wood stove that doesn’t look as though it belongs in a lodge, or a cabin, or a big old country home. All the while trying to convince Bruce to build me a fireplace instead!

I do like the enamelled ones… again $$$$$

This is about the only instance where I have seen a wood stove in a traditional room.

I would rather the fireplace, I’ve said that it will help with resale some day because women like fireplaces, more than wood stoves. But when it comes right down to it economics will probably be the deciding factor.

My Bench

A few weeks ago I mentioned to hubby I wanted a bench for our newly finished mudroom, I had all these great locker style benches in mind, with wainscoting or bead board. Storage was a must/ Kind of like this:

Or even like this:

Especially like this:

Unfortunately due to the layout of the room and the electrical panel that was in my way I couldn’t quite have what I wanted. So I began my search for an appropriate bench. Unfortunately finding something big enough and well constructed… forget it. Imagine my surprise when this little bench found it’s way into the back of hubby’s truck:

He found it just sitting, collecting dust in his father’s basement. It was a little sad, someone had painted it with about 4 layers of house paint over the years. Hard, probably lead based house paint. The story is that the bench is at least 100 years old, it’s former home a church that was on family land. Painstakingly I stripped it, it took 3 bottles of stripper, a lot of scraping and A LOT of sanding! I got MOST of the paint off. I had originally intended to paint it black but after all that work it seemed like a shame to cover it with black paint!

I say painstakingly because I splashed stripper in my eye, at least three times got it on my skin and my poor Birkenstocks became the innocent victims to the gunky, sticky paint residue. 

The mudroom projects are not completely finished, the door still needs to be painted black and hooks need hung and the closet on the other side of the room needs work but it’s a start!

Jacquelyn

Dreaming

 

All images courtesy of  Linwood Homes. They do the hospital home lottery houses, the ones valued at very large prices... unaffordable to me, but good for dreaming!