Visiting and a bit of shopping

Michelle (my sister!) and Jody came over on the weekend and took all the cousins to the Aquarium, while Andrew and I got a few things done. 

Off they go in the big van!

We found the "door man" who used to be on West 4th, Martha! He's moved to Surrey with all his stuff. It's way out in the boonies, junk yard dogs prowling and barking behind the chain link fence and everything. (Apparently, there's still a store on West 4th, but it's not the same.)

This guy's got a lot of doors and lots of interesting junk.

We passed on the artwork. 

but had fun digging through the stuff, some of it just in piles like this.

As well as the perfect bathroom door, we found these treasures:

A solid-brass antique doorknob in beautiful condition. From a hotel in Vancouver that burnt down, I think he said. Forget the name of the hotel. Will see if Andrew remembers.

This gorgeous light fixture (not sure where it will go but it was too good to pass up). It was really buried deep in a pile! Apparently, people go in search of the little pendant bit on the bottom.

I had to have this pretty piece of stained glass; not sure where it will go either.

If you like hardware, Andrew found a great source for new, vintage-style hardware, The Source in Gastown. Great selection and great prices too!

We are also restoring a lot of the existing hardware; on Sunday, while I babysat the cousins, Andrew went to U-Blast in Langley and blasted some of the window sashes and things.

FYI, there are two types: sand (garnet) blasting and walnut-shell blasting (not sure, Andrew's asleep or I'd ask him). The sandblasting gets it all off and down to raw metal (on the right); the walnut gets the paint off but preserves the patina (which we prefer), but I think it's more work.

He never did get to the register grilles, which was part of the plan. I think he's decided to just go with paint stripper!

Nice to see you, couple of cuties. : )

PS, paint colours

Just a small addendum to my post on colour choices the other day.

Here's the F&B "Cooking Apple Green" we did in the guest room -- very happy with that colour.

And Katie is very pleased with her pink room. She just wants to kiss that colour, she said.

The blue in Fifi's room is really lovely, very soft, but doesn't read as "baby blue," at least I don't think so, Janet!

Just wanted to post my handwritten colour lists for posterity.

Getting down to the wire.

Another move tomorrow! But this time it's into our own home! So exciting! But boy, do the guys have a lot to do today!

Here's some of the last-minute things they were doing over the weekend.

Finishing off the new stairway (they're restoring it to original but the banister had to be raised to get it to code).

Tiling.

Keith and I figuring out the tile border for the upstairs bathrooms.

Peekaboo.

SO pleased with the tile. (This is one of the examples of how awesome Keith is: I had asked for the border to be three tiles out from the wall, with black tiles every second tile. When they were about to lay it that way, he called to say, now that it's going in, it looks like four tiles out from the wall might be better because of wall overlap, etc. Not only was he spot-on, but he didn't just "do what the client asked," but, rather, knew what look I wanted and when the actual work was happening thought how the look was best achieved.)

Katie's pretty pink.

Oooh! Light switches going in! Making it seem real. A lot of them even work!

Kitchen sink's in!

Floor tile in upstairs!

The floor reveal in the dining room! We had no idea this detail was there!

Fir in the dining room, white oak in the living room.

Michelle's feet.

Fridge in place (girls excited: water and ice in door! Mom excited: a luxury fridge instead of the ancient, apartment-sized one we lived with the last 12 years!)

Toilet in d/s bath! Plumber I'd never seen before was putting this in, and looked up at me as I passed and said "where'd ya get this toilet from?!" Um, it's German I think, I said. "It's strange; complicated" he said. Oh dear. Well, at least it's cute, and, surprise! Stylewise, it matches the sink!

Honey (Michelle), Ogie (Jody), Baby Noah and the Little One came to visit! It felt like a real endorsement to have them so enthusiastic and positive about all our choices!  Huge step in making it feel like home.

After house tour, street antics ensued.

And a fun dinner out at family-friendly Famoso.

Instead of colouring sheets and crayons, they give the kids balls of pizza dough to play with. Great idea! They loved it!

Noah mesmerized by sports on the TV.

Cleo apparently has a loose tooth, even though she's barely got her baby teeth in!

Ice-cream fueled hilarity.

Fun times!

Colours.

Choosing paint colours is intense, especially when you have to choose for 10 rooms at once, rooms that you're not actually living in. You hem and haw for weeks, and then suddenly one morning, Keith calls and says, "have you got those paint colours, then?" and you just have to decide.

We started with the backsplash tile; hand-poured glass by Stone and Pewter Accents called "Agate" in a "silk" finish. Here's a link, in case you're interested in the process (better pictures that this too). This photo doesn't do it justice: it's a beautiful mix of transparent and opaque glass in natural blues and greens. It has the sea colours I was looking for, but soft and subtle.

A few weeks back, I met with a colour consultant, Amber Welton, and she gasped when I showed her the tile, and just said "yes. It's beautiful. That's your first choice, and it's gorgeous. Don't even show me any more." (I had a pile of samples.) It's informed all our subsequent colour choices.

I love over-dyed carpets! Found this blue one over-dyed with green on a really good sale at East India Carpets! How perfect is that?

Then began the obsessing over paint colours.



We gathered many paint chips... Luckily, the girls thought it was jolly good fun!

Does anybody want a bunch of almost-full sample cans of paint, some of them the half litre size, mostly in the blue/green/teal range?

We tested a bunch ...

....and took them over to the house to see how they'd look under various lights. 

 And here are some of the choices:

Farrow and Ball Green Blue. 

My friend Jo Sommervill (Hi Jo, if you're reading this!) introduced me to F&B paints years ago, and they really are unique paints, and particularly well suited, I think, to the kind of plaster walls we have. Expensive, but in the grand scheme of things, paint is pretty cheap anyway, so definitely worth it, I'd say. 

The two main colours for the hallways and main rooms on the ground floor are in these soft turqoisey colours. It was hard to find a balance between having some colour and not being too intense, toned down without being dull. F&B hits it right on the money, IMHO. 

Colours are never accurate on the computer, but you get the idea. 

F&B Teresa's Green (just a lighter version of Green Blue). Both colours look lighter in real life.

Ah, love it! Called "Morning Walk" by Benjamin Moore. Something a little brighter for the kitchen. Brings out the green in the backsplash tile and contrasts with the blue. Really reminds me of the green in our old kitchen, which is the first thing Michelle said when she saw it last night!

F&B Cooking Apple Green for the guest bedroom upstairs (though we had the colour copied in a more utilitarian brand).

An off-white, the name of which I can't recall, for the wainscotting and trim downstairs [edit: it's "Timid White" by Ben Moore]. I wanted it to be a neutral, soft, creamy off-white. Not too white as there's going to be a lot of it! I agonized over this white, so fingers crossed!

Katie wanted pink. It's a really pretty, soft pink, aptly named "Ballerina Pink" by BM.

Fifi wanted blue; this is Harbour Haze by BM. These rooms are actually done already. Will post pics tomorrow.

I wanted to find a ceiling colour that would glow! And this definitely does it! It's quite amazing. Has a bit of a greenish undertone, which perfectly creates the "ethereal" look I had in mind but wasn't sure how to achieve! So pleased!

It's Cloud Nine by BM. Darker than the ever-popular Cloud White, which the colour consultant recommended and which we are using for trim in the bedrooms.

Random pictures.

Thinking about colours made me think about this Still Life with Fruit at Jane and Lorraine's place, which was just begging to be photographed. And what a beautiful backdrop that wall colour makes!



And that made me think about the baked apples they made that night. Delicious and photogenic. You see why we didn't want to move out of this neighbourhood?