Eamonn & Jack

Rooms to Match My Mood: Dark and Brooding

August 14, 2012

I was feeling a little 'off' yesterday, so I amused myself looking at pretty pictures on the interweb:) I can get lost for hours clicking away at pretty pictures - this is probably not the best thing to do too often (especially when I have piles of projects to start/work on/complete) but every so often it's nice to escape.

The pictures that were taking my fancy last evening seemed to match my off mood - a little dark and brooding, but I think each is beautiful in its own way. If I had to choose a favorite from the images below I think it would be the last one - it's stunning. What do you think - which do you like best?

Dark Green Living room by Todd Yoggy

Dark Grey Living room by O'Connor and Houle Architecture

Dark and Moody Living Room. Source: House Beautiful, July 2009

Dark Living room with Green velvet Couch Source: Redonline

Grey Office via Elle Decor

Botanical no. 5510 by Kari Herer Photography via Etsy

PS - I made a very concerted effort to find what I believe to be the original sources of these images and link properly to them. Please let me now if I am mistaken.

Travel

A Visit to the Okanagan Lavender and Herb Farm

August 11, 2012

I few weeks ago I had the opportunity to visit the Okanagan Lavender and Herb farm in Kelowna, B.C. I’ve never been to a Lavender farm before so I was quite intrigued by the rows of fragrant, and brilliantly coloured lavender plants. They have 2.5 acres of plants and a little store where you can purchase hand-crafted lavender products. I love their Sea Salt Scrub - it smells divine.

If you’re ever lucky enough to visit Kelowna I encourage you to pay them a visit, but until you have that opportunity I thought I’d share with you some of the pictures I took when I was there. There are quite a few pictures - I took the opportunity to work of my photography.

I love the way some of these pictures came out. What do you think? Have you ever visited a Lavender farm?

Before & After

Refinished Living Room Media Console

August 06, 2012

You may remember back in May I introduced you to the new-to-me console for my living room that I bought on Craigslist. After it's introduction I worked on it pretty steadily, and it began its new life as my media console in July.

Here’s how it started:

Here is the little piece of missing trim around the front:

Here is the damaged piece of veneer on one side:

The damaged veneer - it's about the size of a deck of cards

And here it is, in all its refinished glory:

My refinished Craigslist console

The damaged trim – fixed.

And you’ll never guess what I used to repair it.

Yup, those are wood chopsticks. I had been planning on using wood dowels, but they were just a wee bit too thin. I always have wood chopsticks around because I use them to stir small cans of paint and varnish. The chopsticks were the perfect size – I just cut them down and attached them with wood glue. After staining they’re not a perfect match as they’re a different type of wood, but from a distance it’s not really noticeable.

The damaged veneer has been fixed as well. I replaced the entire section which was a little bit of an adventure. I definitely learned some things. Here too it’s not a perfect repair, but given it’s location on the piece I’m not at all concerned.

Repaired veneer prior to staining

One other thing I did was build a shelf for the inside. I knew there was originally a shelf inside, but when I bought it there were only the supports remaining the shelf was removed at some point. I carefully measured the inside of the cabinet and then had Home Depot cut down a piece of plywood to fit.