When I started blogging in 2011 I did it mostly on impulse, and while I understood that my new blog needed a name I didn’t really understand what the implications of that name choice would be. When I chose the name Sweetsuite10 I thought it was cute, and it fit the subject on which I intended to blog about – namely my small apartment that happens to be suite #10. What I didn’t realise on that very early morning was that the scope of what I planned to blog about might change over time, and that a name that referenced an apartment unit was not a great long-term choice (while I love my apartment I really hope I don’t live here forever).

Here we are in 2014 and, as you can see, deciding on a new name for my blog literally took me years – either because the names I came up with were already in use by some other smart blogger, the URLs were unavailable, or, as in a couple of cases, after buying the domain I realised a few weeks later that it wasn’t the 'right' name. 

The name Eamonn & Jack wasn’t decided on a whim – I first thought of it last fall and let it sit and simmer before making the final decision. What I think is special about the name is that there is only one other person in the world who shares the same relationship with the men who inspired it – my brother. Eamonn and Jack were my grandfathers.

Eamonn was born in Dublin, Ireland as the 2nd of 6 children. He and my grandmother met at a tennis club where they both loved to play. After my grandparents married they had 9 children – 5 girls and 4 boys over a span of 16 years. My great grandfather was a well-known builder/developer at the time, but instead of joining the family business my grandfather started his own, making wood furniture for schools and churches. One of my grandmothers prized possessions is the lovely dining room set my grandfather made for her. Sadly he passed away at the age of 46 before I had the opportunity to meet him.

These are the two men who this site is named after. It’s hard to put into a couple of short sentences who they were especially since I didn’t have the chance to really know either one. Even in these short descriptions I see facets of them - of what they did, and what they liked, that are strikingly similar to some things that I too like and enjoy. I can’t think of a more fitting name for my new site, and I hope they don’t mind that I’m using their names to share some of the things that I love with you.

Classes started again last week; on Saturday I had my first Interior Decorating 1 class and I’m admitting right now that I’m scared. So far the courses I’ve taken have been a little easy – no actual decorating happening. That’s going to change with this class, and I’m currently experiencing an overwhelming feeling of terror.

I’m absolutely terrified that I’ve made a huge mistake. What am I doing going back to school? Where in the hell did I get the idea that I had any sort of skill at actually decorating a room? There’s so much to think about, and source, and pull together, and I haven’t any idea what I’m doing, and there’s a looming deadline for the project and I don’t think I can have it done in time. Oh my God – what have I done???

*Breathe*

One of the projects for my class (one of two that are terrifying me) is to take an image from a fashion magazine that has a triadic colour scheme and translate that into a contemporary living room. After hours of searching (mostly at Chapters since I don’t own a single fashion magazine) I ended up with one from a issue of Fashion magazine from 2009 that is predominantly navy blue (And yes, I used the term ‘ended up with’- what's with current magazines only having monochromatic or black and white fashion spreads? How terribly boring.).

Since I have to keep the colour ratio in my space the same as the image we're using which means most of the room will have to be navy blue, and in order to accomplish that I’ll have to present a room with navy walls. This worried me for a while – how to do a contemporary room with dark walls given that when I think of a contemporary space I usually think sleek, modern, open, and mostly white with pops of bright colour.

Yesterday morning when I woke up it hit me – lacquer. Lacquer has been popping up more and more frequently in the magazines and blogs that I read and I’ve always rather loved it as it adds a little something extra and unexpected to rooms.

During my Design Theory class last semester the final project involved using images to demonstrate the theories we'd learned. Naturally I used Pinterest as my source for images. I came across one picture that I loved, but unfortunately it wasn't credited properly so I did a bit more digging and discovered where the image was taken.

It's late as I type this on Sunday night (which is technically Monday morning). I've spent all weekend working on my final project for class, and I'm still not done. I expect to see the early hours again tomorrow night.

Before I head off to bed for some much needed shut eye I thought I'd post this image, which by all accounts has flown around the internet many times, but somehow I only discovered it this past weekend.

Her home has been featured a number of times in print, including in Elle Decor and Elle Decor Espana, but I found this image on the website of photographer Joanna Henderson.  Had you seen Christine's home featured somewhere before? What do you think?

Good Morning! Are any of you wondering where the weekend went - I know I am. I think it's because last weekend was a long one due to Thanksgiving, and I'm rather partial to long weekends so wish every weekend was at least three days long.

I came across this image a while back and I fell instantly in love. This was the living room of David Collins, who was an Irish Architect and Interior Designer based in London.

What do you think? Do you like this space as much as I do? If you could use one thing in this room in your home what would it be?

PS - I couldn't find the original image on the AD Spain website. It and more shots of David Collins' apartment can be found here.

Good morning everybody! I hope all my fellow Canadians are enjoying the Thanksgiving long weekend. Happy Turkey day!

Do you guys know Meredith Heron? She’s an amazing designer here in Toronto (she also recently spoke at BlogPodium) and she’s one designer whom I’d love to shadow for a few days – the pictures she posts on Instagram of the fabrics and finishes she’s mulling over? Amazing.

Anyways, about a month ago Meredith tweeted about a giveaway she was going to have later that week on her blog and naturally I responded:

Etosha is quite a bold pattern which is a bit of a departure for me, but after poking around the internet and finding some lovely spaces in which the paper has been used I’m excited to see it in my place.

Here’s what I’m working with (apologies for the unmade bed - it was laundry day yesterday) :

On Saturday September 21st I had the amazing opportunity to attend BlogPodium for the 3rd time (you can read about the previous years here and here).  This time the conference was an expanded all-day affair with 250 marvelous bloggers from across Canada and even a few from the US.

It’s been a few weeks since I attended the conference, and even though there are quite a number of really good recaps already done by attendees (you can read them here) I still wanted to do a post to share some of what I learned for those of you who didn’t go, and so I always know where my notes are ;)

I hope to be able to implement some of the points I outlined above (especially the ones on balancing blogging and working) in the next little while. This blog, like everything, is a work in progress. I learn new things, and try new things, and hopefully it becomes better for it.

Did you go to BlogPodium? Are you already looking forward to the next one like I am? What did you learn? Have you already implemented some of those things?

Good Morning Everyone! This is going to be a short post today, as I was up late last night working on some homework for my colour theory class, and it was one am before I realized I hadn't written a post yet for the morning (nor had I managed to write my BlogPodium recap, but that's another issue).

Fiddle Leaf tree's have been pretty popular in the last year or so, and when Lindsay over at Little House Blog posted in February that Ikea sold them for $15 I headed out and bought one. I was happy with it for about a week, and then I realized that I may have a bit of a black thumb when it comes to plants. It hasn't really died, but it's no longer pretty - the leaves that have toughed it out have gone brown around the edges, but most have fallen off so my cute little tree now looks rather sad. I can't get rid of it though 'cause it's not TRULY dead.

You can see more of Keri Russell's home in Elle Decor.

If you've read my blog for a while you'll know of my deep and abiding love of the Eames dining chair with wooden legs, so I thought I'd share some lovely dining rooms all using the chair, but with hugely varying looks.

Now I need to let you in on a little secret I've been keeping. Last summer I was walking by my local Kitchen Stuff Plus and I spotted a replica version of the chair. I was so excited I even blogged about it, and asked your opinion on what I should do - buy the replicas, or keep my black dining chairs. The opinions were evenly split, and then my mom (who is a great sounding board for all my schemes) came down on the side of keeping my black spindle chairs. So keep them I did - for a few more months anyways.

In early spring I opened my email to discover Kitchen Stuff Plus was having a 25% off all furniture sale. Excuse me? (insert image of me mentally calculating while doing a happy dance). A savings of 25% times four dining chairs is practically one free chair! Now the sale was limited to only one item per day per customer, and I still had my black dining chairs, but Kitchen Stuff Plus has a rather amazing 30 day return policy. I therefore did what any other self-respecting lover of Eames style chairs, who also loves a sale, would do - I bought one chair a day over four days and schlepped them home (it's a 1k walk). At the same time I listed my black chairs for sale on Craigslist and Kijiji with the promise to myself that if they didn't sell within the 30 days the much-loved Eames dining chairs would be returned.
Within a few days my black chairs were sold for $200, and that meant my dream chairs were finally mine. For those of you keeping track the chairs were normally $67.49 each. When you subtract the 25% they were $50.62 each or $202.48 for four. My four black dining chairs cost $71.28, which means when you subtract the $200 I got from their sale on I got four of my dream chairs for just $74.
The moral of the story is eventually, if you're patient enough, and crafty enough you can get exactly what you want.

PS - Kitchen Stuff Plus has no idea that I'm writing this post - I got a good deal so I thought I'd share.
PPS - The KSP 25% off all furniture sale is on again though September 22nd.

Morning everyone! I hope you had an excellent weekend. Saturday was my company golf tournament, and I woke up to a torrential rain storm which continued though the morning and into the early afternoon. Thankfully the rain slowed down just as we teed off, and by the time we finished the first hole it stopped. I hadn't played since the tournament last year, but after a few rough holes I got a bit of my swing back and had a good game - I even won ladies closest to the pin. Despite the soggy conditions it ended up being a really good day.

Have you seen the new Guinness ad yet? I saw it for the first time last night and thought I'd share it with you - hope you like it as much as I do.

I've got a very busy week ahead with a heavy load at work, a condo board meeting and the first class of my new course - wish me luck in surviving it all with a tiny bit of my sanity intact.

I can't believe it's already September. Seriously - where did summer go? I hope you're all enjoying your long weekend. I've been trying to work on some painting projects, but some unfortunate hiccups has made finishing everything on my to-do list this weekend rather impossible. If you follow me on Instagram you've seen some of my setbacks. If I'm lucky I'll hopefully get a bit more accomplished today.

September, like most people I expect, always me think of back to school. It's been a rather depressing number of years since I've experienced the nervousness and excitement of the first day back at school after summer vacation, but I will be continuing with my Interior decorating courses this fall, so I suppose that means I'm heading back to school too.

When I return to class I'll be doing my homework on my dining room table, but I really wish I had a big house so I could have a designated office/work area.

Do you have a home office/work space or do you use another area of your home for homework, working on projects and paying bills like I do? If you don't have a work specific space do you wish you did?

Morning everyone! I hope you had an excellent weekend. Is anyone else having a hard time believing that it's the last week of August already? Where has this summer gone? It seems like just last week I still putting a hat on when I left the house and already there's fall clothing in stores, and today I saw Halloween decorations for sale in Home Sense.

You may recall that this summer I was taking an Intro to Drafting course (this might be part of the reason I feel summer has flown by). Anyways, the final grades were released yesterday, and I'm a little pleased with myself.

Yay me! Anyways, I hope you all have a wonderful week!