It’s been a while since I did a book review – mostly because it’s been quite a while since I finished a new book. I think I’ve mentioned before that I do most of my reading while commuting to work, so that means I generally read in 30-ish minute increments. If a book is particularly riveting I’ve been known to continue when I get home (sometimes completely ignoring anything else), but those short spurts of reading can be problematic if a book is one that’s slow to get going. Given I get my books mostly in e-book format from the library they’ve been known to expire before I’m finished. In fact I had one expire last week when I was 95% complete. This was particularly annoying as it took a while for me to get invested in the story, and given the wait list it’ll be months before I get it back and by that point I’ll likely have forgotten some plot points and will have to restart it.

This past weekend was a long one for us Canadians as we celebrated Canada’s 151st birthday. It was also ridiculously hot. Since I’m not lucky enough to have a cottage to escape to, I spend a bit of time hiding from the heat indoors where there was AC.  While hunkered indoors I finished up ‘The President is Missing: A Novel’ by James Patterson and Bill Clinton. The foundation of the story is an intriguing one, and one that is completely relevant today – the US is under attack, but not by conventional methods. This time the US is the target of a massive cybersecurity breach that will see a computer virus infect every electronic device connected to the internet and render it useless. This means all electronic records (financial, medical, social, etc) will disappear, and the US economy will grind to a complete stop as anything that runs on a computer ceases to function.

The President is the narrator of this story which confused me – given the title of the book I expected the President to be, well, missing. Anyways, along with the cyber threat the President must deal with a Speaker who’s gunning for an impeachment, and a traitor within his own cabinet.

I don’t think I’ve ever read any of James Patterson’s other books so I found the incredibly short chapters of this book strange, but short chapters are apparently something he’s known for (there are 128 chapters plus an epilogue in this novel, but some are only a paragraph or two long). As a writing style I found it extremely odd, but short chapters were rather handy for my short reading spurts on the subway.

One of the marketing tag lines for this book is it’s ‘filled with information that only a former Commander-in-chief could know’ (which I confess might have been what drew me to the book in the first place), but to be honest I can’t think of anything that was ‘revealed’ in this book that only Clinton and other Presidents might know.  Sure, at one point the President leaves the White House via a ‘secret’ underground tunnel, but everyone has known about the tunnel since Kennedy and Marilyn right?

Anyways, at 500-ish pages it’s not really a quick read, but it is a fairly easy one. If you’re looking for something cerebral this isn’t a book for you, but if you’re looking for something to while away a few hours over the summer it’s a book with a assassins, stuff being peppered with bullets and/or blowing up, secret codes, and a vision for what America could be.

Book Title: The Pressident is Missing
Author: Bill Clinton and James Patterson
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 528
My Rating: 3 Stars
Buy the Book: Amazon
The President Is Missing confronts a threat so huge that it jeopardizes not just Pennsylvania Avenue and Wall Street, but all of America. Uncertainty and fear grip the nation. There are whispers of cyberterror and espionage and a traitor in the Cabinet. Even the President himself becomes a suspect, and then he disappears from public view . . .

Set over the course of three days, The President Is Missing sheds a stunning light upon the inner workings and vulnerabilities of our nation. Filled with information that only a former Commander-in-Chief could know, this is the most authentic, terrifying novel to come along in many years.

It’s finally here! Six weeks ago I decided at pretty much the last moment to participate in the One Room Challenge, I’m happy to say that despite more than a few late nights, some self-inflicted injuries, and a few hurdles that I thought might prevent me from completing this makeover on deadline, I’m ready to share what I’ve been working on (If you missed any of the weekly posts for the challenge you can read them here: week 1, week 2, week 3, week 4, and week 5).

I decided to makeover my kitchen for the simple reason that I’ve never liked it. I’ve lived in my apartment for 8 years and I’ve dreamt about tearing it out since the day I got the keys. Sadly I haven’t yet won the lottery so a full gut will have to wait, but I’m very pleased with what I’ve been able to do with my space.

Here’s what I was starting with:

And here is my finished One Room Challenge space:
I pulled off all the old tile with the unattractive mustard-yellow accent stripes, repaired the walls, retiled, replaced the faucet, installed a new light fixture and re-imagined the kitchen hardware. All in 6 weeks and, except for some help with the demo from my ever-helpful mom and the electrical repair that I hired out, I did all the work by myself.

I love my kitchen now that it’s complete– it feels so much bigger. I think a lot of the reason the room feels bigger is I removed the 4-inch backsplash ‘lip’ that matched my counter. That combined with the horizontal line of the mustard yellow accent tile visually shortened the room in my opinion. The actual distance between my counter and upper cabinets hasn’t changed, but it visually looks like a much larger space.

I installed the Delta Trinsic Faucet in Champagne Bronze and I’m in love. I didn’t opt for the Touch2O version because there was a nearly a $200 price difference and I figure I can’t miss what I never had in the first place. The faucet it so pretty, and it doesn’t leak like my old one! When I first installed it I was a bit concerned with the scale – I thought it might be too big, but I think that’s just because my previous faucet was so short in comparison. I have to say this was so simple to install – I was really worried given how much difficulty I had taking out my old one, but  the whole install took maybe 10 minutes.

If you recall I had trouble finding handles for my kitchen that met the requirements I needed (length and with a backplate) and in the end I decided to get the ones I already had plated. Yes, I could have spray painted them which would have been way cheaper, but I decided that as kitchen handles are hard-working they also need to be hard wearing. The end result is little darker than I would have preferred, but at a cost of less than $15 a pull it was still considerably less than the $50 (USD + shipping and duties) that I was quoted for the only replacement pull I could find that met my requirements.

When it came to tiling I did all the work myself, and that included cutting all the tiles by hand (I used this, and this – it’s slow, but you can tile without access to an electric tile saw). I’ll be honest and say it was a lot of work, but I’m quite pleased with despite my aching hands. I debated going with white or grey grout, and in the end I went with the white. The walls aren’t perfectly straight so neither are the tiles, and because I had thin grout lines I needed un-sanded grout which wasn’t available in the shade of grey I wanted. Some might question why I went with the ubiquitous white subway tile instead of something more interesting, but I thought with the navy floor and the grey speckled countertop that anything more ‘out-there’ would have just been competing for attention.

I bought the West Elm Sphere + Stem 3-light semi-flushmount last fall with vague plans to put it in my foyer but procrastinated about installing it. I have to say I don’t think I would have liked it as much if I had installed it there as I would have been able to see its shape as easily as I can in my kitchen. The light can be installed as a pendant or a flush mount as I have and it was pretty easy to install – just make sure you read the instructions a few times before you start as they were obviously written in another language and then translated into English. I love the warm brass and the glow from the glass orbs. It doesn’t come with bulbs so when I rushed out on Monday night to buy bulbs all I could find close-by were incandescents. The three 60W bulbs emit a lot of light but are also very warm, so I’ll be replacing those shortly with LED bulbs.

When I did my original plan for my kitchen I envisioned a bright and colourful piece of art on the back wall. I even spent a number of hours researching inexpensive downloadable art, but it turns out I had already found the perfect piece.  In February of last year I was in the kitchen at work and I spotted a container of Morton Salt. I think it’s an American brand as I’ve never seen it in grocery stores here, but I was struck by the packaging. Anyways, I found the logo online and had it printed in poster size and I love it.

If you’re curious about how much this all cost here’s my budget breakdown:

• Handle plating: $250
• Electrical work: $350
• Faucet: $320
• Tile: $130
• Primer & Paint: $0 (I used what I had on hand)
• Plaster, grout, baseboard, painters tape, tile cutter and tile nips, grout float, grout sponge, notched trowel, and various other supplies: $ 300
• Light fixture: $350
• Art: $60
  
  Total: $1760 

I didn’t really have a budget going into this makeover since it was such a last minute decision, but it was a bit more in the end then I had really hoped. That said, two of the more expensive items – the electrical work and the handle plating could have been skipped, but in order to get a kitchen I was happy with the costs were necessary and I'm thrilled with the results.

Here are a few more pictures as I'm a bit proud.
There you have it – my finished kitchen. What do you think? Was all my work worth it?

Want some more One Room Challenge makeovers? Make sure you check out the 20 featured designers doing the One Room Challenge, and the other One Room Challenge Guest Participants.


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Okay – week five. I can see the finish line on this One Room Challenge, but there are still so many things to finish before next week! My kitchen makeover is moving right along, but my to-do list seems to be getting bigger not smaller which is stressing me out. In fact, I’m taking this Friday off work in order to get a head start on the weekend in the hopes of getting most of it done.

Let’s see, what can I update you on? I finally finished all the wall prep. It’s not perfect, but it’s many, many times better than it was and I’m hoping nobody will look too carefully at the wall. My building is almost 100 years old, so imperfect walls are to be expected right??

My kitchen when just primed is very boring and institutional looking.

I’m hoping I’ve come up with a solution to my hardware dilemma. Late last week I took my handles to Canadian Builders Hardware in the hope of getting them plated. I won’t be able to get an exact match to the Delta faucet I bought, but I’m hoping it will be close?? I won’t know until I get them back though so there could still be some late-night spray-painting in my future.

The colour options available at Canadian Builder's Hardware. The hex pull on the right is an approximate match to my Trinsic faucet. here's hoping the end result is alright.

On Sunday I went to Olympia Tile and purchased the tiles I’ll be using on my backsplash, and have finally started on this big part of the makeover. I ended up going with the 2x8 tiles instead of my original plan of the 3x6. I think they’re slightly more modern, and let’s face it – my high-gloss cabinets are not traditional in style by any stretch. I bought a hand-held tile cutter and it’s working fairly well, but as this is my first time attempting to tile it’s a bit of a slow moving process.  I spent a bit of time watching YouTube videos and found this one helpful when it came to actually tiling, and this one for tips on using the hand-held tile cutter. I still have to find one on how to properly grout tile, but one step at a time.

I have run into a hiccup though when it comes to the tiles I bought. Last night I opened the box of tiles that contained my edge pieces and discovered that instead of giving me my requested 10 bull-nose tiles that I wanted to use to edge the nib walls I mentioned in last week’s post, they gave me 10 corner pieces. So I have to go back to the store to exchange them. Grumble. I also still need to decide on grout colour – my original plan was white, but maybe, since my counter top is grey I should go with a pale grey to break up the big expanse of white?

I've started the tiling of my back splash. I think the small and narrow cuts will be very hard to do. I hope I bought enough extra tiles to cover breakage.

With the last of the major construction-y- stuff under way I’ve turned my attention to trying to decide on pretty things like art. I had originally used a wonderful piece by Leslie Weaver in my mood board, but between the plumber, electrician, hardware, tile and other material costs my budget is beyond blown. That said, I really want something big and colourful to go on that back wall – otherwise I think the kitchen will be boringly monochromatic and rather stark and institutional looking. I could try my hand at something DIY (I even have a blank canvas in my storage locker), but I don’t know that I’ll have the time if I want to get this kitchen makeover complete by next week.

I’ve spent a considerable bit of time online and surprisingly I’ve found quite a lot of downloadable art that might work. Did you know that a number of Art Institutions around the world have digitized some of their collections, and even offer some images for download? Here are a few works that I think could work in my kitchen. I think I can probably get it printed rather inexpensively at Staples or Walmart, and put it in a basic Ikea Ribba frame for under a hundred dollars.

1. Joséphine-Éléonore-Marie-Pauline de Galard de Brassac de Béarn (1825–1860), Princesse de Broglie by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, via The MET 2. Edna by Robert Henri via Los Angeles County Museum of Art 3. Coney Island by Joseph Stella via The MET 4. Peonies by Charles Rennie Mackintosh via The MET 5. Makaro by Gordon Walters via The Museum of New Zealand 6. Faustine Léo by Henri Lehmann via The MET

When I increased my budget a bit and started looking for art I could download and print for a reasonable fee (and by reasonable I mean $20 or less) there was quite a lot of choices. A lot of what I found was word art which I’m not a huge fan of, and not really the ‘look’ of what I was going for, but I did find a number that I liked. Here again I could print it and put it in an inexpensive frame.

1. Peonies via Jenny's Print Shop - $15 2. Orange Square by Paradigm Art on Etsy - $8 3. Floral Lady by aljahorvat on Etsy - $15 4.  Abstract by DanHobdayArt on Etsy - $11 5. Blue and Pink Abstract by DanHobdayArt on Etsy - $11 6. Australian Native Print by LilaxLola on Etsy - $7 7. Columbine Flowers Flat Lay by Vicuschka on Creative Market - $10 8. Dragon Fruit by LilaxLola on Etsy - $7 9. Pellegrino bottle by The Crown Prints on Etsy - $6

What do you think? Would you put any of these in your home? (I've got quite a few more free and reasonably priced art pieces saved on Pinterest if you're interested)

So, with one week to go before the ‘big reveal’ what do I still need to get done?

• Finish plastering/fixing walls
• Prime walls
• Paint ceiling and back wall
• Pick wall tile
• Purchase wall tile, mastic, grout and all needed supplies
• Finish tiling the walls 
• Grout the walls
• Clean up ALL THE DUST
• Figure out what to do for cabinet pulls
• Install cabinet pulls
• Hang ceiling fixture
• Figure out some art for the walls to add some colour
• Remove old faucet {This was literally a ginormous pain the neck!!}
• Install new faucet
• Add baseboard to the back wall

Oy – still so much to do! And at some point (hopefully in daylight, and not with my phone) I also have to take pictures so I can show you the *hopefully* finished space next week. Wish me luck!

Want some more One Room Challenge makeovers? Make sure you check out the 20 featured designers doing the One Room Challenge, and the other One Room Challenge Guest Participants

• Finish plastering/fixing walls
• Prime walls
• Paint ceiling and back wall
• Pick wall tile
• Purchase wall tile, mastic, grout and all needed supplies
• Tile the walls
• Grout the walls
• Clean up ALL THE DUST
• Figure out what to do for cabinet pulls
• Hang ceiling fixture
• Figure out some art for the walls to add some colour
• Install new faucet
• Add baseboard to the back wall

Ugh – listed like that it seems like a HUGE amount of work I need to get one in a pretty short period of time. I hope I can finish it all in time!

All the tile is gone! Also, I need to figure out what to do with that 7ft piece of backsplash on the right . .

The drywall was repaired with a number of small pieces of drywall so was very unstable. I cut them out and patched with just one piece of drywall.  It's hard to see in this image, but the white thing above the outlet is a disconnected knob from ancient knob and tube wiring.

In a spot behind the fridge the wall was again repaired very badly - I cut out a piece to repair it and found the conduit and pipes on the left. any ideas what they might have been fore?

If you remember the plug situation from last week - this is a huge improvement.

Should I tile just the back wall?

Or should I also tile some of the wall beside the counter?

• I’ll be replacing the backsplash with white subway tiles. I still have to decide if I should go with white grout or maybe a light grey for some definition and to tie in with my counter. Given I’m planning on doing the tiling myself that decision will likely only be made after I’ve seen if I’m a good tiler or not – Ha!
• I’m updating my faucet with the Delta Trinsic faucet in Champagne bronze. Yes, I know every blogger has this faucet, but I like the look of it, so I bought it anyways.
• I want to update my kitchen hardware to something brass. We’ll see. I know it won’t be the ones in my mood board – these, the Mod-12 from Nest Studio Collection are $140 each. Since I need 17 these won’t happen which is really too bad as they’re so pretty!
• I need a new light. I have this West Elm Sphere light that I was going to put in my foyer, but it might work better here.
• I’ll need to inject some colour into the space, so I’m thinking about some art for the back wall, or maybe a colourful rug. I LOVE this piece by Leslie Weaver, but sadly it’s only 8x10 and I’ll need something bigger.

My mom was in town last week and she helped me get rid of most of the tile!!!  I want to say the space already looks so much better, but it truthfully looks a bit like a bomb went off. Therein lies some of the problems I alluded to in the blog title.
I mentioned in last week’s post that my unit had been ‘flipped’ by a previous owner and they had done the kitchen. As we removed the tile it became apparent that they hadn’t properly prepped the walls before adding the tile. I expected the drywall paper to come off. What I didn’t expect was holes to appear as I removed tile that was affixed to improperly patched drywall. I assume the holes were from running the wiring, and they weren’t properly repaired (in some cases they were just ‘glued’ back in place around the edges with joint compound) . Some of the holes are smaller so shouldn’t be too difficult to repair, but there’s one above my oven which is about 10”square so I’m going to have to cut more out to find a stud before I can repair it.

I'm not an electrician, but even I know that this isn't up to code.

Another issue which I have to deal with is the wiring itself as I’ve always known that it’s a bit dodgy. I don’t think anyone could look at the wiring in the picture above (this is what powers my under cabinet lights and is in the bottom of one of the cabinets) and think that it was up to code. Since the backsplash is already off I’ve decided that I should get an electrician in to take a look and repair as needed. This is easier said than done – electricians are busy. I’ve finally got one coming over to take a look on Friday, and hopefully some work can get done soon so I can proceed with repairing my walls. A plumber is also coming because, as luck would have it, my hot water valve has sprung a leak.

My last problem is self-inflicted. While removing the tiles I had one slice open my finger. Oh my god the blood. No, I was not wearing safety gloves so this is entirely my own fault. Learn from my mistake – always wear safety gear (gloves, glasses, shoes, etc) while doing any DIY.

This is several days after the top of my finger was sliced off by a flying tile. PSA - wear work gloves!

That’s it for week two. I’m hoping that my appointments with the plumber and electrician go well tomorrow so I can get started on repairing the walls and prepping them for tile. I’ve got tickets to go see Yakoi Kasuma: Infinity Mirrors at the AGO on Saturday so I’ll only have one day to work on the kitchen this weekend - hopefully I’ll be able to make some progress. Wish me luck!

Want some more One Room Challenge makeovers? Make sure you check out the 20 featured designers doing the One Room Challenge, and the other One Room Challenge Guest Participants.

My kitchen 'before'. This is from 2012, but nothing much has changed. Note the bane of my existence - the yellow wall tile.

I think I’ve mentioned before that I tend to be a person who tends to always read a book before seeing the movie and/or TV series that is based on it. Big Little Lies has been a TV show (and judging by the latest awards season – a good one) for over a year and I’ve only just finished the book. I’ve just finished it, and I’m having trouble writing exactly how I feel about it. If I was to say I loved it that would be a little lie. If I say I hated it that would be a big lie. And yet, here I am unsure about what to tell you.

Big Little Lies centers on a group of three women who each have young children in the same Kindergarten class. Madeline, who takes no shit from anybody, but who has an ex-husband who has moved his new wife and their daughter to town and enrolled her in the same class. Celeste who seems to have it all – beauty, wealth, a doting husband, and twin boys, but is there something else going on with Celeste? Jane is new to town, and a young single mom of a son named Ziggy (aside – seriously – that’s the kids name). Over a twisted ankle and some champagne, the three women form unlikely bond that sets the stage for all the drama that follows. Oh calamity.

I actually tried to read this book last year and didn’t get very far into it before giving up. I’m not sure what it was about the book that I had trouble with – maybe it’s because I couldn’t relate to the characters on a personal level? They’re all moms and I’m not lucky enough to be one. Maybe it was the stylistic approach to using gossipy conversations between other moms in the class to move story lines ahead. Is it possible moms are that catty and judgemental of each other? Whatever it was I gave up about a quarter of the way through, but added it back to my hold list at the library once the HBO show started getting all the press.

Having now finished it I can say that I sort-of liked it. The beginning is a bit slow, but the story picks up as you get further into the book. I will say that I accurately predicted most of the plot twists at the end, but maybe some of them were more surprising to other readers? If you’ve read the book, did you predict the outcomes? Did you like the book? Have you seen the mini-series because I do plan on watching it soon.