Three Cups of Tea

"Educate a boy, and your educate and individual.

Educate a girl, and you educate a community"

African proverb via Greg Mortensen

Last night I attended a lecture by the inspiring Greg Mortenson, author of the book Three Cups of Tea. What a visionary! He proves that with mere pennies, we can make a difference in the world. He spoke of peace, understanding, repect for elders and most of all community service.

I definitely reccommend picking up his book and finding inspiration in your own life....

"Baby Beluga in the deep blue sea"...

Today is a very exciting day for our Laundry Room, our counter top has arrived!!

I've always dreamed of having an offbeat counter somewhere in my house, and my new companion (adorably named) Beluga Beige will fit right in!!

Let the Renovations Begin!!! Pictures of our counter in its new home coming soon!

It's Awesome

It's Complicated is by far my new Favourite Movie and not just because the characters are brilliant and the plot is hilarious! As a designer, whose primiary work involves Kitchen Design, any movie that is done by Nancy Meyer's makes me swoon!! She always always always has the best set designers!!!

I first fell in love with Nancy's set designers Beth Rubino and Jon Hutman on

Something's Gotta Give,

        

then again on The Holiday,

    

and finally their genius on It's Complicated.

    

    

Moody Monday

Today's colour is.... PURPLE!!

They may not have made it into the Superbowl, but to me the Minnesota Vikings are by far the best team. No, not because Brett Favre is a genius, but because the graphic design of their helmets are GORGEOUS. By far the most clever design I have seen on a helmet- they look like actual Vikings!! Pure Gold if you ask me.

GO VIKINGS!!!

"If you spend your whole life waiting for the storm, you'll never enjoy the sunshine"

It's January 22nd, and in Southern Ontario it is a BALMY 5 degrees celcius outside!! WHAT?! All this sunshine is causing my Winter Blues to turn shades of Summer Yellow!!

Not to get ahead of myself as there is still two months of Winter left, but I'm feeling very sunny and bright and want to decorate my house with these summer shades of sunshine!!

In my dreams my kitchen looks like this:

Punches of Yellow make everything happy in this space :)

 

A yellow wall is a surprising and exciting touch! 

Yellow Wallpaper? LOVE IT :)

Thanks to House and Home For Brightening my Day with all things Yellow!!

Who Says I can't get Stoned

Thank you Rolling Stone Magazine. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Though I'm happily involved with the love of my life, if I were allowed one celebrity date it would be John Mayer. He's arrogant, he's obnoxious, but I can't help it... I think he's hilarious.

Most people I know despise him, however, while browsing the James Dean-esque photos, I came across a post from lukeee that made me nod my head in complete agreement:

"...if you were put in his shoes, where literally every girl in the world would do anything to you and for you, you’d be spending your twenties and thirties settling down with a family, having wine and cheese parties with your wife’s sister and new boyfriend Jerome. Come on guys, he’s a rockstar.

The only difference between him and half the other guys out there is he’s honest about it. He knows he’s the shit, cause lets face it, he is. Everything he touches turns to gold now, and at least in North America we’re all willing to pay to watch him do it. It’s fascinating.

For all you may read about him being an asshole to women, who the fuck cares? We’ve all done it, and girls do it back too (2/3’s of his life he spent being the loner in high school, where popular girls wouldn’t even look at him). The guy barely smokes weed, and AGAIN, who cares? He’s a far cry from most guitar god’s, who’s creativity came from the shit they were injecting, smoking, and popping. The guy is a legend. If you don’t get his sense of humor, stick to the sunday comics in the newspaper, cause the guy is hilarious."


So for all of you who love John just as much as I do... enjoy!!!




Click HERE! for more of John in Rolling Stone !!

What's not to Love

What do you get when you combine amazing fashion with a gorgeous interior?

TLC's What Not To Wear!!

Besides being one of my favourite Saturday afternoon couch-vegging tv shows, TLC's What Not To Wear 's set design is to DIE FOR. I want to dress like a scrud just to experience this set!!

Everytime I watch the show I get distracted by the beautiful horizontal stripes on the walls... this application needs to happen somewhere in my house!!

Check out the set and fashion brilliance here!!

Moody Monday

What day is worse (or better) then Monday? Despite having to drag yourself out of bed to get to work/school/life, I think it's the most interesting day of the week. It sets the mood for the rest of your week- for better or for worse.

To celebrate the joy and tragedy of Monday, I'm going to start every one with an Ode to Colour!

Today's Colour: PINK!!

"Bright pinks, like the color red, stimulate energy and can increase the blood pressure, respiration, heartbeat, and pulse rate. They also encourage action and confidence."

And because my Monday has not turned out the way I'd like it to, I'm dedicating today to PINK because according to our judicial system, Pink has been used in prison holding cells to effectively reduce erratic behavior..... if only my cubical at work could be pink....

It all comes out in the wash

To me the most relaxing room in the house is the Laundry Room. In a perfect world it's always fresh and clean, and washes that week's wears and tears away.

As an organizational junkie, this is the first room I really wanted to tackle in our house.

All of these laundry rooms show clean lines, organized shelves, soft colours, all leaving me completely inspired.

Stay tuned for my progress :S

Dish's House

After seeing one of my favourite designers, Sarah Richardson, completely renovate an old home, I decided to try it out myself!

We bought an old 1977 side split last year and slowly but surely have been updating and making it ours! We're still in the beginning stages, but room by room we are determined to create the house we always dreamed of.

Here are some of our "Before's" which hopefully will turn into some stunning "After's"

Front Yard

Front Entrance / Living Room

Den

Basement

A New Year, A New Blog!!

I spent a lot of time in the days leading up to this new decade, reflecting on years gone by and years to come, wondering what I wanted 2010 and beyond to be...

It wasn't until this past Friday night, as I sat and watched my baby cousin (21 years old now!!) speak in front of a room of breast cancer survivors and supporters at her Girls Night In benefit dinner, that I realized what I wanted to do. Here she was, this young woman in college... doing something.

So I'm starting a blog. It's not much, but it's something.

We've been told our whole lives to 'do what you love', and what I love is Design. In any capacity- interior, fashion, architectural, graphic. So that's what I'm going to do! I hope my design approach inspires, encourages, and motivates you to 'do' too!