Decisions, decisions...

I'd like to know why it is so @#$%&* hard to pick a paint colour for myself.  This is so totally frustrating!

In a previous post I told you about my dresser find on kijiji that I absolutely adore.  I love the lines and the workmanship! 

What I didn't love were the many scratches, missing veneer on the feet and the mahogany colour of the piece.  So it became a project - one that has taken me F.O.R.E.V.E.R. to accomplish!

Of course, as with every project, there are like a gazillion steps before you can get to the fun stuff - and I'm NOT exaggerating!  I got through most of those steps, sanding, patching, asking Santa for and receiving a paint sprayer for Xmas, but this next one seems to be the absolute hardest.

What colour do I paint it???

The dresser will reside in our newly painted master complete with the new closet, closet doors and trim.  As I posted here the paint colour on the walls is Ostrich Feather from Pittsburgh Paints:

I love this colour.  I love how it is both gray and beige at the same time.  Throughout the day the room appears to change colours, not that I lounge in bed all day ;), but I do pop in now and again to admire the changes.

All of the trim and doors are done in BM's Snowfall White.  The colour combination makes the room feel very clean and airy and I love the results!

But now I have to decide the colour for my dresser.  Initially I thought of a nice creamy white like this.  It would contribute to the room's clean airy feel.

 

But I didn't want to wash out the beautiful lines and workmanship, so would it maybe look better in a darker colour, like a charcoal gray or a deep eggplant or even black. 

 

But the grays aren't appealling to me for some reason - it's like they have no depth.  It's hard to explain.  So I took some time over the weekend to browse (and thin out to the delight of hubby) my massive collection of Shelter mags for inspiration.  I didn't find a whole lot, but came across a colour group that I thought I liked.  Something along these lines that would build on the brown in the wall colour.

 

And then I hit the local RONA and came home with a colour called Fortress which is more along the charcoal gray, with a bit of the brown mixed in.  Along these lines...

As you can clearly see I've made my decision - NOT!!!  I am all over the place with this - which is so disheartening, because I've been trained to help people select colour for their homes.  And I never go through this when I'm in a client's home - it's always clearly obvious to me what colours should be in their homes.  I think the problem is that I see and like so many inspiring rooms and colours that I can't choose one.

So, I need your help - tell me what you think! 

1. Mayonnaise
2. Kendall Charcoal
3. Gray
4. Galaxy
5. Gloss Black
6. Livingston Gold
7. Caramel Apple
8. Taos Taupe

Or do you have a different suggestion? Although that would just be contributing to my indecision wouldn't it - LOL!

HELP!!!

Earthquakes … and winners!!!!

Well folks, this has been quite the exciting day!

First, I had a very real life experience of being 18 floors above the ground during a 5.0 earthquake.  YIKES!!  If you hadn’t heard, we in Ottawa were quite close to the epicentre of an earthquake centered in western Quebec (A on the map below). 

As I was working away at my day job in IT, about halfway up a 27 storey office building in downtown Ottawa, the floor began to shake, then shake a little more, then the walls and pictures began to visibly shake.  It lasted only a few seconds but was certainly scary!  Having only experienced earthquakes from the first floor of my little bungalow years ago, this was certainly a new aspect to earthquakes – not one I’d like to relive thank you very much!!!

I quickly tried to check in with hubby and daughters one and two, but land and wireless lines were either down or overloaded.  It is interesting to note though, that Twitter carried the news at record speed – I even tweeted my experience (@donnahargrove) and checked in with my many twitter pals to make sure they were OK.  Eventually, contact was made with family and all was OK – phew!!!  And when we arrived home everything was as it should be and the pups were safe and sound.

And then after all of my daytime excitement, tonight I get to draw the winner of my very first blog giveaway!  I was so lucky to have connected with Jane from The Earring Lady on Etsy to put this giveaway together.  If you missed the giveaway, please give Jane’s Etsy shop a gander – she does beautiful work!  Thank you so much Jane!!!

And now I know you are wondering about who the lucky winner is, aren’t you? Patience my friends, patience…

In order to randomly select the winner, I printed out the comments and numbered them as seen here:

Then I went to www.random.org to use their true random number generator.  I entered from 1 to 44 and clicked on “Generate” to select the lucky winner.

Drum roll please…………………………………  

And our winner is…..

Nancy of Marcus Designs!!!  Congratulations Nancy!  From Nancy’s previous comment she selected the Turquoise Briolettes as her favourites.  Aren’t they gorgeous?  Great choice Nancy!

Congratulations again Nancy – I know you will love these beauties!

Thank you to everyone who took the time to enter the giveaway!  Hosting my first giveaway was fun and I will definitely do it again, so stay tuned!!!

Happy Father’s Day!

Here’s what Dad’s everywhere should be doing today!

1. Lounging on a very cool hammock:
   
2. Planted in front of a large TV with FIFA:
3. Grilling on a top of the line BBQ (ok Mom might like this one too):
4. Fishing in “the spot”:
5. Sailing the Abacos Islands (Bahamas):
6. Watching the lawn mow itself:
7. Enjoying the scenery from the back of this yacht:
8. A “leisurely” drive in the country in this car: 

Whatever the Dad in your life is doing today, I hope he is enjoying himself!

Happy Fathers Day!

It’s Nate Day!

Make sure you check out my very first Giveaway here

and enter for your chance to win cool earrings from

The Earring Lady!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Over on Twitter the the Moggit Girls (@moggitgirls) from the Moggit blog have started a revolution :-).  It’s a Nate Berkus revolution.  Last month it was announced that Nate Berkus would be starring in his own show, which will air September 13th. 
Well Joy and Janet (the real Moggit Girls) are huge Nate fans.  They’ve suggested to Nate that he have one show where the audience is full of design bloggers, and Nate and his producers AGREE!  To show how serious they were, they suggested that design bloggers prove  their love of all things Nate by doing a post on June 14th of their favourite room of his.   And so, today is Nate Berkus Day!
It was very difficult to pick one, so here are a couple of my favourite rooms – and I’m just touching the surface here …

Thank you @moggitgirls, and…..

Happy Nate Day!

Now check out all the other great design blogs who have contributed to Nate Day here!

My first Giveaway!

My First Giveaway is now closed. 

Thanks to everyone who entered. 

I will announce the winner later today!

I am very excited to announce my very first blog Giveaway, and I KNOW you are all just as excited as I am!

A couple of months ago I was browsing through my blogroll, visiting one of my favourite artists - Laura Trevey - on her Bright Bold and Beautiful blog.  I love Laura's blog.  Every post is an inspiration.  If you love watercolours check out her blog – she is very talented.  Anyway, Laura did a post some time ago about an Etsy find of hers - The Earring Lady. 
Well, I love earrings and I love handmade goodies, so after just one click I found myself in “earring heaven”.  So much so that I purchased not one but four new additions to my “earlobe” wardrobe (hey… that rhymes)!  A short time later these arrived in my mailbox:

View Full Album

I adore these beauties and I noticed that Jane (the real Earring Lady) did custom orders, so I asked if she could make pendants to match.  Et voila, these beauties arrived in my mailbox soon after.
I have had nothing but compliments on these sets and I can think of no better way to thank Jane than to turn my blog friends onto her beautiful work.  Hence, my very first “Giveaway”.  If you check out The Earring Lady on Etsy, you will find goodies like these:

I love that these don’t match! These are so cool – I love the length!Pearls to go with every outfit – so dainty and dangly I love the colour of these! 

So, now to the Giveaway.  The prize is any pair of earrings currently for sale in The Earring Lady Etsy Shop.  The draw is open to residents of Canada and the United States.  You will get one entry for each of the following – so the more you do, the more chances you have.

To enter you must:

1. 
   
   Visit The Earring Lady and leave me a post telling me which pair of earrings you absolutely MUST have. 

For additional entries you can do any of the following:

1. 
   
   Become a follower of my blog and leave me a comment on this post telling me so.  If you are already a follower, leave me a comment saying so.
2. 
   
   Do a blog post about the giveaway and leave me a comment with the link.
3. 
   
   Share the giveaway on Facebook and leave me a comment telling me so.
4. 
   
   Tweet about the giveaway (using hashtag #dhdsgngiveaway) and leave me a comment telling me so.

The giveaway will run until midnight on June 22nd.  I will pick the winner via a random number generator and announce on my blog.

Good Luck!!!

Now….I think I saw some earrings I MUST have…..

Random images…

A few garden images to celebrate the arrival of summer temperatures….

 

From our trip to Montreal last weekend to celebrate our 28th anniversary (wow – when did “that” happen?):

  

Le Parchemin, a lovely french restaurant we have frequented for anniversary celebrations located right beside the church pictured above:

  Lovely tulips basking in the early spring sunshine:

My gorgeous magnolia…      

Enjoy your weekend…

Keeping your cool

I’m not quite sure if the weather we are having in Canada’s Capital city this week is record breaking, but I’ll say one thing – IT’S HOT!!!   On Monday, the temperature reached 30°C, Tuesday we hit 33°C and yesterday it was a very stifling 36°C. 

All I can say is – WOO HOO!  I actually love the heat, of course I may be singing a different tune had I not somewhere to go to get out of that heat :)  We’ve had the central air running full blast, the windows and blinds were all closed against the sun and we even turned down the temp in the hot tub – it’s now a cool inviting 34°C – which is actually very nice even in this heat.

(And yes – this is me – in my dreams - lol)

Speaking of heat – or actually cool, along with the AC, we have had all of the ceiling fans in our home running to circulate the cool air.  I know that “ceiling fan” is like a dirty word to many decorators, and some of them have a lot to be desired in the looks department, but functionally they do a great service.  Each of our three bedrooms has one, as does our stairwell and kitchen.  Admittedly, they were all here when we bought our home and are on the pedestrian side of design, but, hey, you can only tackle one thing at a time.

So, with our master bedroom undergoing renovations, hubby suggested we replace the current ceiling fan, which can only be run on high without squeaking, with a new one.  Now, I’m all for upgrading, but I know my hubby, it will need to be done on a budget.  So, no running off to the high end lighting store, we’ll be looking at the likes of good old HD, Rona and (new to the area) Lowes.  Of course, there are a few styles I’m trying to stay away from.

1) the bowl light that mimics a part of the female anatomy (you know - the boob/nipple light :)) like this: 2) the three/four light fixture like this:

Here are a few I’ve been eyeing from Home Depot, Rona and Canadian Tire:

And here are some that I dream of …

And I did find a light kit on the Fanimation website that I did like:

And then there are some really different and funky ones out there:

 

Ceiling fans – love ‘em or hate ‘ em?

  Leave a comment letting me know how you feel.  And if you have a great source for ceiling fans, let me know that too.