My Sis and BIL bought us the perfect housewarming gift 💕! A water colour of our new home painted by my Cousin’s SIL. Her company in Calgary is called Art & Alexander.
I had no idea how difficult building a house would be. Not only building a house but LIVING in a house that has an extension being built on top of it! I had no idea how many decisions we would have to make!!! It was SO hard to start somewhere and pick colours, materials, handles and fixtures!
I started at the Kitchen and Bathroom store. I went into the store at 1:30pm. The lady told me to carve out a few hours to go through everything but I told her I had 45 minutes, let’s go! I was very sure of my first picks. I wanted simple and easy to clean. That is a big one for me! I clean a ton of different bathrooms and I have my favourites 😂.
Colours were a LOT harder. I ended up starting in the ensuite! As soon as I figured out the look I was going for in the bathroom, it was easier to make some final picks in our master bedroom. I wanted the bathroom to feel like I was at a hotel and the bedroom to be soft, quiet, romantic and like adults live in it and not children. A place to get away from the noise of the day and recharge. The first thing I picked was the wallpaper. I LOVE wallpaper! I love pattern! I have boxes of gorgeous fabrics I have bought over the years because of the gorgeous patterns. Maybe someday I’ll learn to sew 😜. As soon as the wallpaper was picked I had the start I needed to create a vision for the dining room, the master bedroom, and the ensuite.
In the bedroom, we picked the Benjamin Moore Colour of the Year, First Light. I love it! We chose a cherry blossom print because we have special memories of cherry blossoms. We bought a white dresser from Wayfair and changed out the silver handles for black ones. We had our closet doors sprayed high gloss white and added black reading lamps above our headboard and a black fan for a little edge. We picked black modern handles for all our doors. Ninja refurnished our oak nightstands and painted them white. We changed the handles to match our dresser. I love our closets and the custom built-ins. My shelving unit is on rollers so that I can get into the beautiful jewelry box my Mom left me. Now I just have to get jewelry to put into it 😂💕. I love that our reading lights are smart lights and can change to any colour we choose and can be activated by voice command on our Google Mini!
Our bathroom is very dramatic and I LOVE IT!!!! I giggle every time I go in 😂. We picked a gloss/matte black textured wallpaper that was crazy hard to put up!!! Ninja and I hung all the wallpaper and this was the first one we did! In the dark lol. We had a very specific design in mind. I really wanted white subway tile with black grout. We chose black glossy octagons for the shower floor and the bench. After a long debate, we chose corners shelves that were grouted in over an inset shower ledge. I am happy with our decision as it is clean, modern and different! I also wanted a glass swing door. Tracks SUCK to clean! All our fixtures are matte black and the accessories are as well. We chose to have 2 shower heads as we like to shower together. The water can be on 1 head or both. We also chose a fixture that allows us to set our temperature as we bought a hot water on demand system and now we just turn the handle and TA DA, the exact temperature that we like it at! We bought the backlit mirror and the vanity at Wayfair.
The kitchen was my favourite space to create and is my favourite space to be in. We got a GREAT deal on our appliances at Best Buy. We took advantage of their policy of honouring sale prices for 60 days after you buy and checked deals over Black Friday and Boxing Day. We were able to get money back on all our Smart home products that we bought! All of our appliances are smart and can be activated with our phone apps as well as our doorbell, our thermostat, keyless entry and smoke alarm. We knew right away that a gas stove was important to us, a lot of storage and a big island. We went to 3 different kitchen places until we found the design that was right for us. We picked shaker style, maple cabinets in distant grey. Most of our shelves are on rollers so we can get to everything easily. Our corner shelf is a LeMans and it is amazeballs. We also got them to build me a broom closet at the end and put in a big pantry. I really like my rollout spice rack and the cabinets that have built in dividers for my pans. We chose Hale Navy as our island colour and my favourite piece, the counters, are Tranquility quartz. We bought the stools from a little local store here in town, Hummingbird. We decided to stick with subway tile for the backsplash but chose charcoal gloss tiles with rain coloured grout. We got our pendants from Wayfair and the bulbs are Phillips Hue smart lights that work with our Google Nest and change to any colour setting that we program! Our under the counter lighting is programmed to come on with movement so that if either of the Girls get up during the night the lights will come on. Super convenient. Also very convenient, the central vac toe kick under the sink, the garbage/recycling bin cabinet next to the sink, and the garbage disposal 💕.
The Girl’s rooms are a work in progress. SBean wanted a rainbow colour pallet and HBear went more mature with a coral, gold and turquoise pallet.
We are still working on the living room, the main bathroom, the Girl’s rooms and the den. Stay tuned for more updates!
We are KILLING dinners lately! Having so much time has allowed us to slow down and make more dinners from scratch. Before I started working again, I cooked like this all the time but the past few years I have felt tired after work and don’t do as many as I would like to. This was an easy pasta dish that used stuff in the pantry. I have been making menu plans for 17 days worth of diners right now. The new norm. I will discuss more of that next week. This was incredibly easy to make and tasted amazing. The original recipe called for 1.5 teaspoons of paprika but by accident I put in 1 tablespoon. It was a happy accident because the flavour was unreal! Ninja licked his plate, the Girls asked for seconds and I didn’t get to the leftovers fast enough the next day so I guess we will have to make it again soon!
Cheesy Pork Marinara
1 tablespoon oil
1 lb ground pork
1 onion, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups vegetable broth
3 cups short pasta
1 jar marinara sauce
1 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese, shredded
1/4 cup parsley, chopped
In large pot, heat oil over medium-high heat. Cook pork, stirring, until browned.
Stir in onion, bell pepper, garlic, paprika, pepper and salt; cook until starting to soften.
Remove from heat. Stir in mozzarella.
Sprinkle with parsley. Sprinkle with additional mozzarella, if desired.
Take care my friends! Listen to the experts and stay inside! Practice social distancing and just enjoy this time together 💛