House list

-The disgusting terracotta faux finish is a last 2 coats away from being totally gone. Thank goodness!! Just the kitchen and bedroom left to do!

-The turquoise paint is beautiful- so rich!

-At-home/non-pay laundry is awesome!

-Watching magpies being chased by a chubby kitty while washing out brushes reminds me of how nice it will be to live on the ground again.

-Yellow has the worst coverage of any paint. Especially when covering up terracotta faux finish.

-At first the piano was exciting, but I have now begun to find it annoying that we are expected to live with someone else's furniture taking up an entire wall in an already awkward room, with no way of moving it or painting behind it -the wheels have been taken or broken off, destroying the pedals in the process. Especially since I have no idea where I will put my organ now.

-We have some kind of fruit tree in our yard! I can't wait to see what it is!

-I love old houses. I love (and I'm not being facetious) that the door jambs aren't straight, that the walls have 80 years of texture to them, that I can feel the floor's rolls and ridges, that it creaks when you walk, that we actually have removable winter windows, that the air vents are ornate, that the bathroom doorknobs are crystal...

-Can't wait for my first bath in the tub!!

Colour scheme.

It's so hard to take pictures of colour swatches! The orange on the left is not at all mustardy, but goldenrod, and the orange on the right is more coral. Actually, in real life, these colours are all a lot brighter!

L to R: winter squash, willow wood, carousel, fargo, cheers, poppy glow.

Waking up was never so much fun!

With a different design for every minute and every hour! By Yoshimoto Nara from Unica Home.

Colours!

Paint colours, that is.

main:
-turquoise
-sea green
-muted celadon
-yellow
-olive
-bone

accents:
-orange
-magenta
-coral red

The only thing we're sure of, is that the kitchen will be olive, and the bathroom will remain yellow- though a new shade. Suggestions?

Preliminary house pictures!

Of note:

-the piano comes with the house! It isn't even that badly out of tune!
-there are TREES on the street! Big trees!
-claw foot bath tub!
-the last people who painted were apparently drunk. 1/2 a coat of paint?
-dead end street!

Handbag envy.

Spring has sprung at Ashley Watson! For those of you unawares, she is a Vancouver based designer who works with recycled leathers. New life for old skins!

The Murre bag is beautiful.

When it's bigfoots vs. dinosaurs.....

...Everybody wins!

My two long standing favourite designs at Walnut Wallpaper. I don't even want to know how much they're worth.

So, um, guess what?

We got the house!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Exclamation point!!!!!!!!

Nerd-o-rama.

So my registration date isn't for another 3 weeks, but I've already picked out my classes for next year.

1. Geology of Western Canadian National & Provincial Parks
2. Natural Resouces and Environment Management
3. Danish I
4. Anthropology of Health and Healing
5. Planning Theory & Practice
6. Intro Environmental Planning
7. Buddhism of Tibet & The Himalayas
8. Danish II

So sweet. A whole bunch sweeter than this term turned out. Boo.

This is going to be a posty day. Shawn is in Regina for the Tattoo Convention this weekend, so creeping boredom keeps me glued to the computer.

I should be researching.

Nothing says good morning...

....like a hot, steaming cup of Fish. Crap, I've wanted this for so many months now- Shawn already has the shirt!
From Upper Playground.

Magical tethered/stilt neighbourhoods!

Amy Casey makes pretty paintings!! I think the precariously cute little houses are making me sigh even more today than they would normally, due to constant dreams of having our own little magical abode...

And now we play the waiting game...

..........Fuck the waiting game. Let's play Hungry Hungry Hippos.

The house last night was amazing. Downright. A-MA-ZING. From the crown molding, to the secret storage/trapdoor, clawfoot bath tub, amazing unfinished basement (workshop!!!), wainscotting, fake (but old) fireplace, side stoop and bright yellow boot room. Even the nice young chap who showed it to us was super sweet! It's all so, so perfect. Which, again, more or less guarantees we won't get it.

Please, baby Jeebus! I've never asked for anything before!

Of course, I forgot to take pictures, due in part because I was overwhelmed, and in part because I didn't want to disturb the lovely French family that lives there now during their dinner.

The best one so far. Fingers x-ed.

Gulag (D)orkestar.

I've been listening to a lot of Beirut lately. It makes me proud of my dirty gypsy roots. And it's a veritable smorgasbord for the ears (I'll use "smorgasbord" because I don't know the Hungarian word for buffet).

House hunt update: 2 bummers of viewings. 1 on deck.

The house near Rundle Park was a huge let down. Nowhere near as lovely as suggested in the photos. In downright disrepair, even- loose tiles, draughty design, a back door designed for midgets, and a front stoop so rotted I thought I was going to fall through. What made it even more upsetting is that it was literally the ONLY house in the neighbourhood that looked like a craphole. Take your pick of lovely little houses for sale, however. If we do buy a place, we're looking in that neighbourhood first.

The cute little red-doored house was nice, clean, newly renovated, and by far in the best shape of all the places we've looked at, but applying for tenancy more or less involves signing away all of your rights and freedoms. The thoroughness of the application made me quite uneasy. After all, we're trying to get away from the whole management company aspect of apartment living.(P.S. I don't care that 'optional' is put after it, asking for a potential tenants SIN is ILLEGAL.) I was seriously unimpressed with the bluetoothed young agent as well, who seemed more like a fast-talking, commission-minded swindler than a rental agent.

Tonight, we're venturing over to the South side for the first time to see a house through a friend of a friend, which is nice (Thanks Olga!). We heart the casual. It's close to the River Valley, a direct route to school, is in a pretty, tree-y older area, and looks nice from what we could tell. It kind of reminded me of some of the older neighbourhoods on the West side of Main St. in Vancouver. We stealthily did a drive-by late last night. We'll see.

I'll try to photo-document our trials henceforth.

7 weeks in Alaska! And a (potential) place to call home!

This is how I might be spending my summer vacation. Application and funding pending, obviously. If not this year, next year anyways. How perfect! In the Valdez-Cordova area, too! Be-a-utiful!

We're going to look at a house tonight that is out of the city, near the river, in a quiet neighbourbood with tree-lined streets, and steps from Rundle Park- frisbee golf and picnics and swimming whenever we feel like it! Here's hoping it's not a drippy, hobbit cave shithole like the last house we went to see. We couldn't even stand up in the basement bedrooms! I'm so tired of downtown living, I'm actually looking forward to a longer commute to school.

We received official notice on Friday that our rent will be increasing as of June 1. Interestingly enough, it seems the rent increases are selective, as we were the only tenants on our floor to receive a notice...Hmmm...Illegal?

Happy Birthday

....to Shawn!!! <3