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Lifestyle

August Goals: Soaking up Summer

August 4, 2020 by admin Leave a Comment

Happy August! Did July go as fast for you as it did for me? I feel like I was just celebrating Canada day a few days ago, but in actuality as I’m typing this it’s already the on of BC day! July was a very busy month  full of hard work with some fun sprinkled in between. We got to see both sides of family this month which was so great. I love spending time with our families, but that’s become even more important since we’re keeping our social circles small.

I’m really looking forward to August. We’re headed to the beach for vacation and I couldn’t be more excited to get away from the house for a few days, enjoy a beautiful beach and eat at restaurants!! On top of vacation we have many beach and lake days planned with friends, family birthdays and household projects planned this month.

August 2020 Powersheets

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN AUGUST:

  • Beach days with friends
  • Family Birthdays
  • BC day long weekend
  • Going on summer vacation!!!

WHAT I LOVED IN JULY:

  • Celebrating family birthdays!
  • Having dinner with my parents and siblings (the first time since Covid!)
  • Finishing projects around the house
  • Having breakfast at the beach
  • Getting my temporary promotion extended into the fall!

BOOKS READ:

  1. January: F-Factor Diet – I’m following (and loving) Tanya Zuckerbrot’s F-Factor Diet, so this was a must read and was so informative!
  2. February: Is everyone Hanging out without me? – I started but did not finish. The first third had me laughing out loud and I’m excited to finish it this month.
  3. March: Girl Wash Your Face – I started this book a few years back, but finally revisited it and finished in March.
  4. April: No book this month
  5. May: The Miracle Morning – After feeling like my work from home mornings were chaotic I decided I needed to make a change. This book has helped tremendously with implementing a morning routine that enters my mind, works out my energy and prepares me properly for the day.
  6. June: The One Thing – This book was pretty good, it such a basic concept but sometimes that’s what you need to hear to re focus your thinking.
  7. July: No book this month

REVISITING JULY GOALS:

    • Buy Mumsie & Karen’s Birthday Gifts
    • Complete Garage Mudroom Project Did you see the finished product? I shared it here!
    • Plan a full day of fun with Calvin
    • Hang bedroom gallery wall (the frames I ordered are out of stock, hopefully they come soon!)
    • Meet my friends for a walk
    • Document Cleaning Routine
    • Book a weekend at the beach

    AUGUST GOALS:

    • Enjoy Vacation!
    • Beach day with friends
    • Plan something fun to do with my mom
    • Organize/purge office (working from home has made it a disaster!!)
    • Master bedroom gallery wall

Our Garage Mudroom Makeover

July 27, 2020 by admin Leave a Comment

Let me start this post off by saying I LOVE our house! My husband and I regularly look around and comment on how much we love our home and how lucky we feel to live here. But, I HATE the lack of storage in our entry way!!! When we bought out house I knew we would have to do something about storage for coats and shoes. Since we bought our house from studs I’m sure we could have had our builder put in a nice size coat closet. As overwhelmed first time home buyers we just didn’t think to ask for any changes (lesson learned). So here we are with a great house with ZERO storage in the entryway. Enter the need for a mudroom.

Planning

We decided to add a small mudroom area to our house but the question was where. Since we enter our house from the garage 95% of the time we decided to put the main mudroom in the garage.The next decision we had to make was what type of storage we should have. Benches, lockers, hall trees or wardrobes. We really went through it all. In the end we settled on a large enclosed storage unit. We came to this decision because we felt out coats would be more protected from the dirt and debris that inevitably ends up in a garage. Once we settled on closed storage we had to find custom plans or a pre-made option.

Garage Mudroom Planning

After much searching and measuring we decided to go with a customized Ikea Pax Wardrobe. We went with this option for the following reasons;

  1. It looked easy, I was tackling this project solo so it had to be simple!
  2. The wardrobes come in many different sizes including narrow widths. Since I park on this side of the garage we needed something narrow.
  3. The wardrobe has a sliding door option, this is great since again I park in our garage.
  4. Lots of different interior configurations and options.

I used the Pax Wardrobe planner to map out our needs, we went with two 75cm wide units in the tallest and narrowest size available. I added a pull out coat rack to each, shelves for shoes and another shelf for baskets. I highly recommend using the PAX planner it really made the process painless.

Assembly

Assembly of these units was actually really easy! I was thrilled because I was using these units in part as a trial run for our master closet. The actual boxes were very easy to assemble and place solo. Once I got them where I wanted them I used the anchoring system provided as well as some further reinforcement from my favourite drywall anchor system! We have used these all over our house and they have never failed me. I didn’t want to mess around finding studs to anchor into (I did hit two!) so these were perfect! Once the boxes were up it was time to hang the sliding doors and soft close system.

Building our Garage Mudroom

Pax Wardrobe Assembly

Mudroom Progress

Now this was the hardest part! Youtube saved me because the instructions for the sliding doors were pretty minimal. Once I got the sliding door system set up I enlisted my husbands help to hang the doors on the tracks. I tried alone but the units are just under 8 feet, so I just couldn’t do it solo.

Once the doors were on I configured our shelves and our coat rack. Once the Pax wardrobe was fully assembled I decided the unit needed handles. I knew adding them would mean the doors wouldn’t open to there full range but I felt having something to grab onto was more important. I ordered these great flush handles of amazon and they were exactly what I was looking for. Once they were installed it was time to fill up the unit with shoes, coats and lay out the new runner (this was a great find!).

Final Product

I’m so happy with how this turned out. The shelves hold the perfect amount of shoes since we only keep our everyday shoes down here. All of our coats fit very comfortably on the racks (I didn’t think they would). And our baskets leave lots of room to grow. I filled one of the baskets with cold weather accessories, and reserved one for storing our sandals in for the winter.

Pax Mudroom

Garage Mudroom

Garage Ikea Mudroom

What I love about this unit is that I can move things around very easily as our storage needs change. Like maybe after our first winter we realize we don’t use the baskets. We could remove them and move the self to create more room for shoes. I could even buy another set of shelves and move things around a bit more to create room for more shoes. It’s so great to be able to change things up in the future.

I’m so glad we tackled this problem area in our house and can’t wait to see how this works for us this fall and winter! Do you have a problem area in your house? How did you solve it?

Danielle xo

 

 

July Goals: Mid Year Refresh

July 6, 2020 by admin Leave a Comment

How are we only halfway through the year? I’m not one to wish time away, but this year has been a long one. So much has changed in everyones life and I don’t think anyone can predict how the rest of the year will unfold. Because of all of the unknowns and life changes I’ve found it hard to stick to and plan future goals. So during the mid year refresh I decided to simplify my goals. I also dropped down from 8 goals to 6.  I figure if I pair down my goals I’m more likely to achieve them given that life still looks very different than it did before. You can read about my original 2020 goals in this post, but here is a look at the changes from my spring refresh.

2020 GOAL REFRESH: SPRING

  • Maintain a healthy lifestyle
  • Cultivate a welcoming home
  • Strengthen our family finances
  • Enjoy life with loved ones
  • Blog about whatever inspires me
  • Create a legacy
  • Simplify daily life
  • Grow spiritually and intellectually

2020 GOAL REFRESH: MID YEAR

  • Maintain healthy lifestyle – just a reminder to myself to keep going the way I’m going
  • Cultivate a welcoming home – continue to make out house a home
  • Enjoy this beautiful life – enjoy life’s journey and have more fun!
  • Build/maintain lasting & meaningful friendships – focus on being a good friend though this pandemic
  • Share my passions & authenticity though the blog and social media – continue to share what I want and not get caught up in expectations
  • Create life giving routines – create routines that simplify and improve my life

July will be a pretty quiet month for me since my husband’s business is super busy right now (which is fantastic!) we’ve held off on any summer travel until August. But I still want to make sure we get out to have fun as a couple as well as with our friends. We also have a few family birthdays to celebrate, so this month should be a lot of fun.

July Goals

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN JULY:

  • Canada Day (I’ll be over by the time I post this)
  • Two family Birthdays
  • Our garage mudroom makeover (don’t worry I’ll share all about it)

WHAT I LOVED IN JUNE:

  • Celebrating our second wedding anniversary!
  • Getting together with my in laws for Father’s Day
  • Heading to a winery with my Dad for Father’s Day
  • A takeout picnic with my best girls!
  • Getting a temporary promotion at work.

BOOKS READ:

  1. January: F-Factor Diet – I’m following (and loving) Tanya Zuckerbrot’s F-Factor Diet, so this was a must read and was so informative!
  2. February: Is everyone Hanging out without me? – I started but did not finish. The first third had me laughing out loud and I’m excited to finish it this month.
  3. March: Girl Wash Your Face – I started this book a few years back, but finally revisited it and finished in March.
  4. April: No book this month
  5. May: The Miracle Morning – After feeling like my work from home mornings were chaotic I decided I needed to make a change. This book has helped tremendously with implementing a morning routine that enters my mind, works out my energy and prepares me properly for the day.
  6. June: The One Thing – This book was pretty good, it such a basic concept but sometimes that’s what you need to hear to re focus your thinking.

REVISITING JUNE GOALS:

  • Plan & Celebrate our second wedding anniversary!
  • Buy Dad a birthday and Father’s Day gift
  • Plan a girls backyard picnic
  • Lose 3 more pounds
  • Document our daily/weekly/monthly cleaning routine
  • Schedule/Plan July blog content
  • Declutter ensuite cabinets

JULY GOALS:

  • Buy Mumsie & Karen’s Birthday Gifts
  • Complete Garage Mudroom Project
  • Plan a full day of fun with Calvin
  • Hang bedroom gallery wall
  • Meet my friends for a walk
  • Document Cleaning Routine
  • Book a weekend at the beach

Well there you have it my July goals, what goals are you working on this month? And how have your goals changed since the beginning of the year?

Danielle xo

Master Bedroom: Board and Batten Grid Wall

June 15, 2020 by admin Leave a Comment

If you’ve been around a minute then you will remember that last year we bought our first house. This is the first place we’ve lived that we could decorate and make our own. And honestly that was super overwhelming. When we moved in we had barely any furniture and no design direction. Now that we’ve been here almost a year I’m finding my way and slowly chipping away at little projects to upgrade our new build home. The first room I wanted to start with was our master bedroom. Over the first six months in our  home we replaced our mis matched college dressers to nice clean white dressers and night stands and upgraded from a metal bed frame to a beautiful upholstered bed. From there I knew I wanted to add moulding or create some kind of interesting feature in our space before I finished the room with decor.

Master Bedroom Makeover

Planning:

That when I went to Pinterest, I searched high and low for a simple wall treatment for beginners and settled on creating a board and batten grid wall. After loosely reading tutorials from Angela Rose Home and Young House Love I was ready to get started.

First up measuring the wall and determining the size of the squares. For us since the wall behind our bed is not very big we didn’t want to have too many squares and create a busy design. To start I drew out two options. Option one had four vertical columns and three horizontal rows and option two had five vertical columns and four horizontal rows. I measured and drew our the plans for both on a sheet of paper. We then mapped out the size of the squares using painters tape. This was such a great visual for us and helped us choose option one. Not only was option one the ascetic we were hoping for but it seemed like a slightly easier design for these newbies to handle. Now that we settled on design it was time to gather materials and tools.

Tools and Supplies:

  • 3 1/2 inch primed mdf trim
  • tape measure
  • level
  • miter saw
  • brad nailer w/ 18 gauge nails
  • wood filler
  • putty knife
  • caulk
  • caulking gun
  • sandpaper
  • paint (we used Benjamin Moore Cloud White)
  • paint brush, roller, tray
  • drop cloth
  • optional: palm sander

Once the design is complete and the materials were gathered it was time to get started on the wall/ We split this project up into three steps.

Step 1: Install Board and Batten

Step 1: Moulding Install

For our design we decided to keep our existing trim on the wall, add a piece of trim flush to the left and right corner and one to where the top of the wall where it meets the ceiling. Then add the vertical trim and then fill in the horizontal rows. To us this seemed most logical, but any order would work.

We used our miter saw to make our cuts and attached the trim to the wall using the brad nailer. We chose not to use liquid nails for this since the MDF is light. I figured between the nails and caulking it to the wall it would be plenty secure (it defiantly is). Since we didn’t use liquid nails if we ever decide to remove it there should be less damage on the wall to deal with.

 

My husband and I tag teamed the install of the board and batten in and evening after work. We were quite surprised how easy and fast it was. Considering neither of us had used a miter saw or nail gun this project was super painless and I can’t wait to see how easy our next project like this will be.

Step 2: Fill and Caulk

Step 2: Fill and Caulk

The next morning I tackled filling and caulking the wall. From here on out I worked solo and learned I am extremely skilled at filling holes, who knew!

I started out by filling all the nail holes and joints with wood filler. My biggest time for patching landfilling holes is to use more then you think you need and don’t rush the drying time.

Once the wood filler was dry I sanded. I started with the palm sander and switched to regular old sand paper once the putty was mostly gone. After I finished sanding I went over any holes that weren’t 100% flat and smooth with more wood filler. Once dry I sanded again, this time just with sand paper. Once all the holes were filled and sanded it was time to caulk. I applied caulk anywhere the trim touched the wall, so the inside of each square and the corners/ceiling. I let that fully dry before moving on.

Step 3: Sand and Paint

Step 3: Sand and Paint

Now came the easy part PAINT! I taped off the ceiling, side walls and outlets and got to painting the wall and trim. We chose to use the same white paint as our existing trim for this wall since we wanted the transition from wall to baseboards to be seamless. I used a paint brush to cut in a mini roller for the trim work and a regular roller for the inside of the squares. After two coats the wall was done and it was time to remove the tape and re attach the outlet covers.

Results:

DIY Board and Batten Grid Wall

I am obsessed with how the wall turned out. The bright white paint helps to make out bed pop in the room and the moulding add so much interest and really elevates the room to another level. This project also gave us a lot of confidence to take on other small cosmetic projects around the house (shiplap stairwell anyone?) which is fantastic as new home owners.

Now that this project is complete it’s time for me to decorate the space!! I’m so excited to hand art and wedding photos on the walls, buy cute but functional design pieces and maybe even hand some killed sconces by the bed! Oh the possibilities.

I hope this post inspired any of you beginner DIYer’s to tackle board and batten project in your home!

Danielle xo

 

June Goals: Embracing our “new normal”

June 1, 2020 by admin Leave a Comment

Hi friends, happy June! May was a really fun month between my birthday, Mother’s Day, long weekends and the loosening COVID restrictions my goals took a backseat. Sometimes having fun is better then accomplishments!

I’m super excited to see where June takes us since this month is full of celebrations and fun! I’m also excited to get back into my Power Sheets and dig into my goals for June! As things with COVID improve here I find myself looking forward to summer and getting creative with how to have fun while keeping our bubble small and staying local. With that said lets get into a fun and productive month!

June 2020 Goals

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN JUNE:

  • Our second wedding anniversary
  • My Dad’s birthday
  • Father’s Day
  • The first day of Summer!

WHAT I LOVED IN MAY:

  • Celebrating my birthday with socially distanced time with family, zoom parties with friends and a romantic evening with my husband.
  • Getting to see my parents, celebrate Mother’s Day and add them to our “bubble.”
  • Starting a new Sunday morning tradition of picking up coffee and going to the beach.
  • Starting Hal Elrod’s practice of The Miracle Morning.

BOOKS READ:

  1. January: F-Factor Diet – I’m following (and loving) Tanya Zuckerbrot’s F-Factor Diet, so this was a must read and was so informative!
  2. February: Is everyone Hanging out without me? – I started but did not finish. The first third had me laughing out loud and I’m excited to finish it this month.
  3. March: Girl Wash Your Face – I started this book a few years back, but finally revisited it and finished in March.
  4. April: No book this month
  5. May: The Miracle Morning – After feeling like my work from home mornings were chaotic I decided I needed to make a change. This book has helped tremendously with implementing a morning routine that enters my mind, works out my energy and prepares me properly for the day.

REVISITING MAY GOALS:

  • Celebrate my birthday well
  • Finish the office organization – Our files are organized (yay!), but we really need to buy a piece of storage furniture before this project will be 100% complete.
  • Finish the closet organization
  • Reconcile March and April spending
  • Write Q1 and April journal
  • Plan June-August blog content

JUNE GOALS

  • Plan & Celebrate our second wedding anniversary!
  • Buy Dad a birthday and Father’s Day gift
  • Plan a girls backyard picnic
  • Lose 3 more pounds
  • Document our daily/weekly/monthly cleaning routine
  • Schedule/Plan July blog content
  • Declutter ensuite cabinets

That’s my plan for a FUN and productive June! What are your goals for June?

Danielle xo

May Goals

May 1, 2020 by admin Leave a Comment

Well April was a very different month then I was expecting. When March ended I don’t think it had fully sunk in what was really happening in our world. The reality of how long we would be stuck at home hadn’t hit me yet. Thinking of all the things that had to be cancelled or we can’t do has been tough. Honestly I bit off way more then I could chew with my April goals, but I’m not beating myself up. I’m just going to learn to be more realistic.

Although the situation where we are in BC is improving we are still under a state of emergency and no reopening plans have been announced. I’m preparing for at least another month at home. Which means I’ve paired down my goals and only chosen simple but meaningful goals.

May 2020 Goals

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN MAY:

  • My 27th Birthday!! My husband has fun day planned for the two of use, so I’m excited to celebrate just the two of us.
  • My Zoom birthday party with my girlfriends
  • Socially distanced Mother’s Day celebrations
  • Victoria Day long weekend

WHAT I LOVED IN APRIL:

  • Finishing our first home project since owning our home. The board and batten we installed in our bedroom turned out so great!
  • Celebrating Easter with my husband. We dressed up in our Easter Sunday best and I made a delicious roast chicken dinner for two.
  • Officially being done with year end at work, my stress level has significant decreased and it’s a great feeling.
  • Our Sunday lunch and drive. We picked up some naughty fast food and drove all over town. Funny how grateful we are for such simple things now.

BOOKS READ:

  1. January: F-Factor Diet – I’m following (and loving) Tanya Zuckerbrot’s F-Factor Diet, so this was a must read and was so informative!
  2. February: Is everyone Hanging out without me? – I started but did not finish. The first third had me laughing out loud and I’m excited to finish it this month.
  3. March: Girl Wash Your Face – I started this book a few years back, but finally revisited it and finished in March. 
  4. April: No book this month

REVISITING APRIL GOALS:

  • Declutter master closet and ensuite – The closet is almost done, but I haven’t touched the ensuite.
  • Organize office – I got through our files, but the rest of the office is still a disaster
  • Reconcile March spending – Totally forgot about doing this
  • Get a will – We used Willful to get a will, power of attorney and healthcare directives. We still have to get them witnessed, but I’m calling it done.
  • Complete my Q1 journal entry – In progress but not finished
  • Create a recipe binder – Another thing I didn’t touch
  • Research and budget for my summer capsule wardrobe
  • Complete Master Bedroom board and batten

MAY GOALS:

  • Celebrate my birthday well
  • Finish the office organization
  • Finish the closet organization
  • Reconcile March and April spending
  • Write Q1 and April journal
  • Plan June-August blog content

There you have it, that’s my plan for a productive but realistic May. Wishing you all the best in the month ahead.

Danielle xo

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Danielle at Home

Hi, I’m Danielle. I am a twenty something woman working her office job by day and blogging at night! I’m married, a new home owner and I love sharing all my favourite things on this blog. So grab a glass of wine and follow along. I’m so glad you’re here!

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