Boring TV Wall Part 1: Chalked full of fun

This is the plain wall that the TV is in front of. Hence this room is called "the TV room".
Weird, eh?

I Love Lamp: Abacus Table Lamp

You might remember reading my blog about finding this lamp a month ago when we went garage-saling.

Antiquing Finds: A great day!

We had an amazing day antiquing today. My husband is convinced this officially makes us old, but secretly, he really enjoys the hunt.

Chair Reveal: Mid-century modern

I originally spoke of this chair back in the post: Chair-palooza.

Autumnal Awesomeness: Shopping

Of course I am always on the lookout for items that are vintage, or just plain cool....
And usually that takes me straight down the furniture path.

However, some truly divine kitschy stuff catches my eye too.

For example, check out this amazing Vintage owl Salt & Pepper shakers! Amazing!
If you can't live without these cuties, you can find them through Etsy vendor, Danika Malovic.

For some reason pottery always makes me think of Autumn as well.
Potter, Kaitlyn Brennan not only makes great earthen and stone ware, but she also makes the most unique and thought provoking pieces I have ever seen. Check her out!

Product Testing: Turtle Wax Headlight Lens Restorer

Our VW Jetta is almost 10 years old, and thanks to it being a diesel, it is really just starting its engine life.
Unfortunately, the headlights didn't get the memo!

So, I tried a lens restorer by Turtle Wax. It certainly takes a little elbow grease since you are essentially sanding the lens 4 times.

First, you use the clarifying compound, and depending on your damage (just yellowing?) you only have to do that step. With ours, the surface is actually gritty due to sand and weather hitting it, so we had to proceed to the sanding phases.

Although it is not perfect, it has made an incredible difference in the look of the headlights.
Total work time: 25 minutes
Cost: $12 CDN

Reclaimed Window: Following the Curve

As you will remember, we brought home an old door from a neighbour who was renovating. A few days later, I realized that they put out a large window as well!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Here in Canada, it is Thanksgiving.
It has been a wonderful weekend! We went to the movie Looper (if you are thinking of going... do!), we had an early TG dinner at a friend's house with 10 other people, and that was loads of fun.

Today, we are overdosing on tryptophan and I am doing all I can to keep my husband from taking his pants off and sleeping starfish on the middle of the floor. :)

Of course today, we had our full traditional/regional dinner of turkey, mash, stuffing, & neeps and carrots.

... with the usual accompaniment of buns and gravy too.

Mmmmm, I love Thanksgiving!

Homemade whip cream!!
I hope everyone else had a great holiday weekend.

Holiday Decor: All Hallows Eve - Inspiration

Holiday decorating is very Martha Stewart, but gosh can it ever be extremely creative and fun.

First inspiration is from The Gnarled Branch.

Trunk Treatment: Sneak Peak

What a Find!

My husband and I drove down to Lansdowne, ON, yesterday and on our way back drove up the back roads. The foliage this time of year in Ontario is just breath-taking.

We drove through the many villages and towns along the way, and happened to come across an antique store in Lyndhurst. Out front were 2 trunks. We took the bigger of the two. It is a 100 year old (at least) hump-back trunk.

Haunted Attic Chair: Reveal

Before we moved into our home, we had to have vermiculite removed from the attic. While they were up there, we also had them re-insulate the attic to avoid issues later on (winter). The guys pulled a bunch of items from the attic including files from 1961, a vintage light-up lawn snowman, Tupperware, and finally a box full of wood pieces. The wood was in a plastic bin that had water in it, leaving the ends of some of them moldy.

Reclaimed/Repurposed Door Reveal

This is the easiest project I have ever worked on.
In a previous post, I discuss lugging this solid wood door about six blocks home on my head. Not the smartest idea I have ever had, but what a great find.

Luckily, one of our neighbours is renovating, so there were cabinets and windows and doors. I am even considering going back to inspect some of the windows...

Art Deco Hutch - Part 1

We found a hutch at our favorite second-hand furniture store.

It is a waterfall front Art Deco piece that just needs a little bit of love.

The biggest issue with the hutch, is the hazing on the top. The hazing can likely be buffed out using super fine steel wool. That is really dependent on how deep the haze goes, though. Hazing is usually caused by moisture or heat.

Artwork: Garage-Sale/Sail-boats find a home!

I bought these fantastic sailboat watercolours at a garage sale... I spoke a bit about them in this post.

I bought the artwork just because I thought the line work in it was phenomenal, and the watercolour was good. Also, each of the works were fairly local to here. When I got home, I started to do some research on Ben Babelowsky. Turns out he is a well-known Ottawa artist, and has work in collections throughout the world. Soooo Yay me! This four-part is called "Tall Ships" from 1984.

Reclaimed Wood Door

Women in developing countries who carry things on their heads, are remarkably strong! How do I say this with such conviction? I just carried a solid wood door 6 blocks on my head and I thought my neck was going to snap like a twig.

On a side note; I discovered another use for my roller derby helmet...

This is my new (old) door:

So what am I going to do with it? Well there is an awful lot of inspiration to draw from on the internets.
Click 'read more' below to see some of them.