bold2boss

It's Christmas! We have just finished decorating our Christmas tree...beautiful! The whole house is full of excitement and the festive smell of fresh fir. We headed out Saturday morning to choose our perfect tree. Strong helping hands...Benjamin gets the job of cutting and Doug carrying...no snow or rain for this year's outing! oops, a couple of slips in the mud...but all fun (for us anyway). We adorned the tree with fairy lights, candy canes and our collection of favorite nostalgic and handmade ornaments...so many happy memories of Christmases past. I love the simplicity of the tree...it fills me with joy and Christmas spirit. I hope your Christmas season is full of excitement, joy and love. have a beautiful week xo shelley

 The reno of Sam's room has expanded into his foyer...or maybe it's the 'add-on to be gym' reno that's expanded into the foyer.  My many renos are colliding and merging!  I'll interpret that as a sign that they are coming to completion after 7 years - although I'm not sure I can ever be 'reno-free', I'm just too addicted! We now have a sliding door in the foyer turning this small dark area into a light-filled open and inviting space with purpose and appeal - I love it - now I just need to add some beautiful decorative touches ! Here's our progress...removing the original door and opening the wall to create a frame... such a bonus to be working with post and beam construction so only the door frame needs to be built without having to worry about extra beam support... Having Sam and Ben helping makes the whole job fun...and their strong arms are a pretty big bonus too... keep it steady...casual one arm stance while big brother oversees ...not s...

...dings and finger prints...reminders of the kid's happy frolicking...love the frolicking but not so much the evidence - help!  Our house is full of life...kids happily bouncing, running, swinging through doorways - yes, still, even though Madeline and Benjamin are now in university and Sammy is well into high-school! My walls and doorways show the evidence of this - smudges, dings and all sorts of other representations of their happy frolicking. So I'm always on the search for a solution to keep the walls and doorways from looking like a haggard mother. The doorways 'mid-house' were a hug mess, needing serious attention...and since I had just redone Sammy's room, they were really screaming for attention. I set to the task of creating a solution for around the doorways that wouldn't require a whole wall treatment (no matter how much I love painting, the memory of painting those huge walls was too painfully fresh). I'm inspired by this Ralph Lauren picture b...

Some life experiences are transformative, ripping apart the way you understand, view and experience life.  As I lay there in that dim room, searching through a haze of exhaustion and confusion, I knew this was to be one. I could see a tiny ruddy body, limp and lifeless; my baby girl, torn from my body now transforming my life.  Silhouetted figures lean over her speaking in hushed tones; tubes; chest compressions..she’s dying…alone in this dark room surrounded by strangers. I reach for her, struggling to get closer, to give her something familiar in all this strangeness…  “Baby,” I whisper, “I’m here, stay with me…stay, please stay.” She did stay.  Her tiny delicate body wired up, naked under the harsh buzzing lights of the neonatal intensive care unit.  My delicate black haired baby, clinging to life…fierce eyes glaring and penetrating my soul. I went home without her…empty, desolate and alone...waiting for her to gather strength, waiting to bring her ...

Finally I can share the beautiful results of our year long project! Here are a few pictures of the living room transformation…(there is so much more of this little rancher reno that I will share soon… bedrooms , bathroom , kitchen, and more...) ...beautiful transformation into a light-filled home notice the popcorn ceiling, lighting fixture and yellow walls…the cheap yellow laminate flooring isn’t so obvious in the picture but is a glaring element that set the color and visual tone Prepping the floor for beautiful white-washed oak hardwood scraping the popcorn ceiling and prepping it for pot lighting  such messy work but so worth the result…and fairly quick…a good shoulder workout I used a process of coating the popcorn with non-caustic stripper (…at the time this seemed to be the best technique I’d tried yet, but not so now – see my painted popcorn ceiling removal  post) notice all the trim and crown molding removed…lots of drywall patching on the ceiling and walls Calculatio...