Happy Holidays!

Whatever you celebrate, wherever you are, just know that I am sending happy and warm holiday wishes your way. 

This holiday season has been so busy, but the last few days have been filled with a sense of peace. As someone who runs full speed ahead at all times it is a very refreshing feeling and I hope it carries into my new year. 

And I am thrilled that after 2 years of growing paperwhites that never bloomed, we finally have a bumper crop of them! 

 

Maybe using dirt and sand was my issue? Who knows! But I'll be forcing them in old milk bottles again next year.

 

Last minute wrapping, out of tags and paper at the end.

 

A sweet little card from my bestie for Wren. 

 

Jingle bells and baker's twine make for festive touches on odds and ends.

Have a special, safe, happy holidays.

xoxo Holly

The big 3-0

Today I have officially started a new decade. We had a big party on Friday night, it was a joint Holly-Wren-Christmas party, filled with our favorite people. Family, friends, kids, pets, the kind of party I will remember for a long time because I couldn't help but feel we are incredibly lucky to be surrounded by such caring, wonderful people. 

The rest of the weekend was quiet and peaceful, considering it is the last weekend before Christmas!

Wren and Sean built this adorable igloo my cousins little boys got her.

 

Making it fit for a princess.

 

Sean surprised us by getting his craft on and making a birthday banner for the party. I didn't see this one coming (perhaps he should start a DIY blog???).

 

He also made the sweetest photo collage to share with all our guests of the last 30 years. Good job Mr. B. Good job.

'  

I think 30 will be my biggest and most colorful year yet.

5 years

It's official. I have a 5 year old. 

She loves purple, pink, Cars, dogs, crafting and balloons. She hates jeans.

We gave her her birthday gift last weekend(a Barbie house that was supposed to be a Christmas gift, but she stumbled onto it looking for gift wrap...). Today she asked if she was going to get any more presents and I said "no, not from us". When she saw the pile of balloons I ordered for her she light up like a light bulb and exclaimed "but you said I wasn't going to get any more presents and now I have a whole bunch!! So while the Barbie dream house was a big hit, I love seeing her over the top reactions to small surprises.

 

She is most definitely a special little person and a big bundle of fun.

 

"look Mommy, I'm floating away!"

It's amazing how much joy comes from one little bundle of energy.

Dashes of Holiday Spirit

We are officially all decked out in these halls now! We did all the exact same decor as last year in the family room (which you can see here!), but we added a few fun new touches that were easy, fast and CHEAP. Here are our last minute, quickie holiday touches.

I picked up a glass felt pen at HomeDepot (it was $5, by Rustoleum) and did a little free hand message on the front of our bookcase. How fun would this be on a mantle mirror, maybe putting names over stockings? I think it would be cute to add snowflakes or other seasonal touches (a santa beard and hat) to photos or paintings that have been framed..

 

These funk-a-licious black and white ornaments from Urban Outfitters (full price here online, but I found them for $2.50/set instore) make a cool touch to small bunches of clippings in the dining room. Totally non traditional and unexpected, but perfectly awesome.

 

because every holiday arrangement should feature cats and unicorns. 

 

My vintage jars-turned-hurricane lanterns got festive some greens looped around the neck thanks to some floral wire. I don't think I'll chance lighting these with real candles, but the battery operated pillars will be beautiful in the evenings.

 

A stray jingle bell got tied onto the creamer and another creamer welcomed a few more stray clippings from the back yard.

I hope the holiday spirit is in full force in your home and life this season! And thanks so much for putting up with all my absences this month. It's good to be back!

A moment to breathe

Last week was one of the most exciting, educational, fun weeks I've had in a long time. I never mentioned anything about it here, but Robin and I have been talking about shooting a story for Style at Home for over a year and a half! Why did it take so long to happen? I confess that I put it off every time we were starting to settle on dates.

I was excited, but at the same time frightened out of my wits. Despite tons of reassurance from everyone I felt scared. Scared that our DIY, thrift-filled house didn't measure up to all the beautiful, million dollar homes they feature. Scared that all the little odds and ends that us DIYers never seem to finish will be glaringly obvious to the eyes of professional decorators. 

But the ladies at Style at Home and Robin could not have made me feel any more comfortable and I am so glad we made it happen. Robin arrived on a Sunday afternoon and we shot all the way up to a couple hours before her flight left the following Saturday. It was just the two of us and I cannot tell you how much fun, how much laughter and how many amazing things were shared. After emailing for so long it felt like reconnecting with an old friend. 

We were so busy from sun up to sun down that I didn't take any photos (hence the radio silence here) but here are a couple iPhone shots I grabbed and shared on Instagram of our adventures. As soon as I know when our hard work will be appearing you will be the first to know!

(and be sure to follow me on Instagram, @inthefunlane, if you want to see more sneak peeks)

Now that we are settling back into daily routines that don't involve a hundred trips to HomeDepot per week the spirit of the holidays is in full effect.

Wren and I created and built our first gingerbread house together.

 

We held off on decorating until Sean got home from work (but we didn't hold back on sampling the goodies beforehand)

And have been filling the house with holiday (and Birthday!) cheer all week.

 How have you been enjoying the holiday spirit? watching holiday movies, making peppermint cocoa? I have some catching up to do and need ideas.

DIY Light and the FINALLY Planked Ceiling

Whew, sorry about not popping in sooner guys! Our shoot has been going wonderfully, but I've barely had a moment to whip out my camera and share all of the progress in the dining room until earrrrrrllllyyyy yesterday morning. I was going to take pictures over the weekend to share on Monday, but plans change and Sean did a real number on his thumb last Saturday so we ended up in the ER and woefully behind schedule. But despite everything, Sean and I managed to tie up all the loose ends without a moment to spare. And his thumb is nicely tied up as well with a small number of stitches.

What I find the most shocking about the whole ordeal isn't that it happened, but that we actually have had the great fortune of not needing to make an ER run sooner in our 5 years of stumbling around the learning curve of renovating!

But enough about that, today I am going to show you the light fixture we came up with to deal with our off-center dining room light.

It  took about $10 in plumbing pipe and fittings for the mounted portion, and another $50 in these  pre-wired cord kits from Ikea.

We cut the plug-ins off the cords at various lengths and wrapped them around the pipe as needed to get the varying lengths and heights we wanted. The cords are still totally adjustable since we wrapped a little bit extra around the pipe for each strand.

Sean told me mid-project that he didn't 'see the vision'. Which is his nice way of saying 'this is crazy, and I already hate it'.

So I was SHOCKED, SHOCKED I tell you when he declared it his favorite thing in the room now.

My favorite part is the ceiling. It just feels so much calmer now without all that spackle distracting me.

I found this map of paris at Urban Outfitters last month and it is the perfect fit for a nearly monochromatic room.

   

I layered a couple cowhides, also from Ikea (originally bought for CottageK) and it gives the perfect amount of curve and texture to all the straight angles.

And just so you can see a glimpse of real-life. The kitchen was piled up with stuff from everywhere else while I shot this, with lots of cleaning supplies peeking in as well...

A little extra storage never hurt anybody! And this awesome graphic from fifteen.ca is easily one of my favorite new additions.

This room (and you!) has seen so many changes and updates over the past few years but I think I am fully and totally in love! The mix of scandi style with all my favorite things (planked ceilings, industrial lights, and lots of white!) make it a pretty happy spot in my world. 

Now I'm off to finally set up the Christmas tree and get started on our last 3 days of shooting with the incredible Robin Stubbert 

Wish us luck that we get it all done!

Friday

We haven't had a Friday post in a while, but I always love them because I have a lot of fun looking for and reading quotes to use. Happy words and pictures make for a good start to any weekend. 

This weekend is going to be filled with last minute preparations and LOTS of projects to finish before we start shooting on Monday. Which means lots of good blog material, but not a lot of time for posting it. But I will!

 

I love this quote by Steve Martin (never thought I'd be quoting Steve Martin...). The reason I love it isn't because I am trying to be the best decorator/mom/friend/and on and on. I am just trying to be the best me! And you should be the best you. Let go of the competition, the pressure we put on our selves to measure up to each other. Just tap into what  makes you You. Then be the very best you can possibly be.

The happiest people I know are really really good and being themselves, and you know what? Success always seems to find those people. I don't think it is coincidence. They have a drive and a passion that is hard to ignore. 

On a lighter note, it is hard to ignore the improvement already in the living/dining room. We have been dedicating about an hour every night to getting this done (it is HARD on the arms) and we are nearly done. Here was a progress shot a couple days ago.

Tonight we are installing a new dining room light I've envisioned and built, and I'll give you all the details on Monday!

Happy Friday

Living Room Ceiling is Getting Planked People!!

Things are getting wild over here! The kitchen/family room is a sea of white furniture...



Anything able to be moved out of the living and dining rooms has been shuffled in here while we try to FINALLY plank our living/dining room (I know you've been hearing me talk about that for about 2 years now, so it's only right we do it in t-minus 5 days to shoot time)


We brought home the wood yesterday and got about 30% of it up. Only 70% to go...

Bits and pieces of life

I hope you had a special Thanksgiving if you celebrated last week! If you are way up here with me in the north, I hope you are staying warm and safe while it blizzards out there.

As I briefly mentioned last week I have a big Style At Home shoot happening. It goes all of next week while we shoot both my house, CottageK, and then our house in holiday mode. I am handling all the styling as well, so besides getting everything spiffy and clean I have my hands extra full with props and flowers, etc...

LOTS of ground to cover, and I owe a massive thank you to Ikea Canada for assisting me a ton last week.

Did I mention that we have decided to tackle some long overdue renos here at home before this all goes down? I'm not sure if we have gone off the deep end but we are totally in over our heads... 

I'll tell you more soon.

 

I always seem to work best under pressure (those around me may disagree. Stongly). But that is often when the most productivity happens so I'm going with it. 

Besides that craziness around the house we have been having a ton of fun lately. We hit up the Royal Bison show this past weekend and picked up some amazing art with one of our favorite couples.

And to cap off the weekend we went out to the Drake show that was in town. AMAZING!

The insanely fabulous Courtne AKA Queen Shmink invited us down to enjoy the night OVO style. (sorry about the finger in this picture... had no idea I was doing that. Sean, however, did mean to wear the shirt. Boys.)

While she wasn't able to join her best friend Drake on this tour she was right when she said we needed to get down to the show.

Wish you could've been here Courtne!

 

Because you see all that space beside me? I basically danced like a crazy person for 4 hours straight there. Sean stood looking on in a state of dismay for some of it, then gave up on me. It would have been nice to have someone to enjoy the crazy with me.

Crazy seems to be my middle name these days, hey? I'm starting to warm up to it.

Hope you have a happy and wonderful week.

CottageK: The bedroom and bathroom

I know most of you are going into your Thanksgiving weekend, and many of you may be travelling today so be safe and have a special weekend!

It may not be Thanksgiving again here in Canada, but I am thankful that we are nearly finished with CottageK and that we have had a wonderful  response so far. I didn't take any before shots because it never even crossed my mind, but Sean and I are just putting the final touches on the basement here that we decided to finish off as well. We did some new laminate floors, added trimwork and beadboard for a brighter, open space. 

But in the meantime, I've been neglecting my hour tour here. So let's talk about the bedroom and bathroom.

 

Before, it was darker with all those old window coverings.

 

I think it is a calming, happy space now. I brought in my own antique childhood bed. It is a beautiful piece that I have always loved. These awesome pillow cases from Uncommon Goods add the perfect touch of whimsy.

 

I ended up not painting my yellow pedestal table, it seemed happy as it was! Plus it ties in nicely with our yellow accents in the kitchen.

For the lovely reader who wanted me to link the light fixture, here it is.

Our last room to be completed was the bathroom. In fact, I took the afters before it was quite done, and have yet to update the shots. But I think you can see the transformation still on these ones.

Here was the pepto pink bathroom before.

And a much calmer room after. We did an Ikea vanity and basin (which is impossible to fully shoot!)

some caulking, trim and bath fixtures were yet to be completed here, but I was happy just to see the pink all gone!

A HomeSense mirror is a little hit of glam in an otherwise simple, white bathroom.

I apologize because for the life of me I cannot remember the paint color here, but I will check the can and update this post ASAP. 

That tentatively concludes our tour of the happy little place I like to call CottageK! It was a lot of work, but I am so thankful for all your words of support, that totally makes this gig so much more fun. I hope you had fun following this journey. While I love love love working on these houses I do enjoy getting back to normal life for a bit, back to regular blog posting about fun things like clothes, christmas and lots more DIY.