domicile

At least twice a day

  new bathroom mirror shot 
  Originally uploaded by emira.

Our bathroom reno project took officialy months longer then either of us thought it would. And in keeping with that delay, it is has taken me much longer than it should have to post anything about it. Not wanting to break that theme, I plan to delay finishing the final paint touch ups for at least another couple of days or so. Why mess with a good thing right?

So... how does it look? Well sadly our bathroom is small enough that getting any kind of representative photo for you all to vicariously experience the simple joy of our shiney, clean new bathroom with its plywood boxes and glass circle doors, and stainless steel circle sink. So you'll just have to trust me that bathing in this room is even more relaxing and lovely than it used to be.

The strangest thing about our (nearly) completed bathroom is the sink. For the last three months we've been brushing our teeth, washing our hands, and nightly our faces in the kitchen. Which at first seemed like an imposition, but slowly became very normal. So normal in fact that by force of habit I still find myself staring out the kitchen window before bed wondering where the toothbrushes have got to. And, I have to admit to a small sense of unease each time I turn on the tap in the bathroom as I wince and do a quick double check to make sure the water isn't draining out onto the floor. Plumbing really is magic.

Speaking of plumbing, I must point out that our new sink was not part of the original plan. Initially we had planned to keep the original white ceramic sink, but somewhere along the timeline there, there was an "incident" involving the sink, the floor and very nearly my right foot. Fortunately my foot made it out alive and unsquashed, but in the process the sink received a serious crack up one side. Reluctant to spend much more money -- we blew most of our budget on the marmoleum -- and the recipients of a brilliant stroke of good renovation timing, we ended up being given a spare free sink with fixtures from some friends and we ended up using those fixtures with an old sink that Martin had rescued ages ago (before we bought this house I think) from the heap of discarded junk that his dad used to lovingly cultivate. Our bathroom is too small for a full counter, so Martin built a wall mounted box, with a sheet of plywood that extends down the back to the baseboards and ties in with our plywood box recessed shelves.

While I feel like I put my share of sweat, tears and stinky unwashed elbow grease into this bathroom project the full reno props and most of the creative vision have to go to Martin. His endless font of creativity and unwavering faith in a project even when it is months off the rails beats my perfectionistic fussiness hands down. For the renovation enthusiasts out there, I do highly recommend checking out the full set of before & after shots at Flickr.

Life

We've been doing a lot less renovating and a lot more thinking about life lately. Which goes some way to explaining, for those of you who are regular readers, why there have been more sporadic than usual postings as of late.

It's been a big week, and a fog of a month. On Tuesday I had a beautiful chance to meet a new person that has entered my life, a person who as of yet doesn't have a name but who is a healthy 9lb and a few ounces baby boy. He is the second son of some close friends and it was such an honour to get to meet him just a few hours after he was born. He is, of course, beautiful.

Later that evening, in a very cliched "circle of life" kind of way, I spent time in a different hospital to have what would be a final visit with Martin's dad, who passed away peacefully the next morning. I haven't mentioned anything about Martin's dad and his very recent diagnosis with terminal cancer here as really his passing has a far more profound impact on Martin's life, and while this space does let people into our personal lives to some degree it really isn't a space that Martin controls. That said, it's been a hard month for all of us here. His dad was a man full of mirth and with an open welcoming smile for strangers. As someone who came into his life as a stranger only a few years ago now, I can report  that his joy and friendly demeanour were genuine and unbending. While it sounds trite, he lived a very full and active life, and was really struck mid-stride when he was diagnosed only a few weeks ago now. And frankly, in many ways I don't think the loss of him has yet sunk in for either Martin or I, though there has been a lot of sadness in our house lately.

While the cliche is almost too painfully boring to reproduce I feel I must. The impact of seeing both of these boys on the same day was really quite humbling. With the one the possibilities of who he might become and how he will grow and thrive and what impact his life may have on mine are wide open. Depending on what you believe, it could be said that his path in life is already carved out in the stars but for those of us on the ground we'll just have to live and wait to see. When I think about it that way, my excitement is overwhelming. The other man I can't honestly say I really knew all that well, though my affection for him is fierce and his impact on my life, given the role Martin now plays is clearly profound. And as I sat in the room with Martin's mom, Martin and him I couldn't help but wonder what was on the minds of the people in the room with him in his first hours of life. What did they imagine this little boy would become? Did they think he would grow up to travel to another country to make his home? Raise two children? Almost certainly they hoped that he would find happiness, and in that he fulfilled their dreams.

The impact of a loved one passing on doesn't end in that moment, and we still haven't yet figured out what we're going to be doing with the rest of our summer. We had big plans for a deck, painting the house and a new fence. The fence is nearly done now, and will be documented here shortly. The rest of it? We'll have to wait and see how things feel.

Square Foot Gardening July Update #2

  back box 
  Originally uploaded by emira.

Taken only a week ago, this photo is already bordering on total obsolescence.  My boxes seem to be loving the local heatwave and are thriving like the dickens. Regardless, the update generally still holds true, so if you're interested in knowing more about what's growing our backyard, check out The Dirt at You Grow Girl.

DIY Blind Project

Ever since I saw Ella Doran's gorgeous photographic blinds up at design*sponge, I've been mulling around a project to redo some of the aging blinds in our house. My hunch was that with the hardware already here, all I needed to do was strip off the less than lovely green vinyl they're currently made of and replace it with something new. Of course, my mind then ran to transferring large scale photo prints of our garden to blur the line between out and in, but for now, I think I could be pretty happy with the rice paper solution that Megan linked to over at the ReadyMade blog.

Amy Butler Pattern Success

  nearly finished 
  Originally uploaded by emira.

I promise to fill you in on the minor downs and major ups (we can brush our teeth in the bathroom!) of our Monday plumber adventures soon (I haven't been home at reasonable hours for photo taking this week), but first: a completed project! Back when summer was merely and evening day dream as days got longer and fair weather cyclists like myself started stretching their legs, I got all ambitious. "I will make a bevvy of breezey summer tops to herald in the heat!" I declared. And off I set for the Fabricana annual sale, Amy Butler Cabo Halter directions in hand. That day I bought a near shameful amount of fabric, and then proceeded to stick in a heap in the back office while other things occupied my time. The best of intentions right?

With mid-July rapidly approaching, I decided I two weekends ago that I simply must get off my butt and get at least one top done in time for "the season" as it were. And to my delight and surprise it took almost no time at all.

I started by making a rough muslin because while the Amy Butler directions said I was a size XS, I wasn't convinced (turns out I am) and couldn't bear the thought of cutting a top out of this lovely japanese print that ended up too small for me to enjoy. So I grabbed some old bed sheets that had been part of another project years ago and used them to make a rough draft. After some very akward attempts to pin myself into it (up the back) being the only one home at the time, I determined that indeed the size XS fit me to a tee and proceeded to cut out my final fabric. This version of course took a bit longer as I had to actually line it, and pay a bit closer attention to what I was doing so as not to muck it up, but all in all the whole project took a morning. Not bad.

Now, I say the whole project, but of course I discovered that day that I didn't have a zipper the correct length, so the so-close-to-being-done-I-can-taste-it top hung on my bedroom door for a week or so until I found the time to get a zipper and then sew it in, which I did last night. I'm wearing it today, but left far too early this morning to bother a still sleeping Martin with the joys of self-indulgent mirror fashion photos, so this one of the top in process will have to do for now.

My final verdict: this top was extremely easy to make, and is a joy to wear. It hangs really nicely, and the fit (for me) was really bang on. My only complaint is that the directions don't really leave you with a well finished top (lots of exposed seams inside), and if you had some forsight (unlike me) and did things a bit differently, you'd have a much more professional finished product. That said, it would also take an hour or two more, so there's your trade off.

I do have more fabric to choose from if  I decide to make another one this summer, though they're all prints and I'm thinking I would actually love to have this in a nice white eyelet. I may need to visit the fabric store on my lunch break...

Square Foot Gardening July Update

  squares emptied for replanting 
  Originally uploaded by emira.

For those of you interested in finding out how I'm making out with this square foot gardening method, I've got an update on one of my two boxes over at You Grow Girl. An update for the second box will becoming later in the week.

There's also a lovely make your own bird bath project up, posted by Renee. I would so love a bird bath but think that might be a bit too sadistic with Mr. Pluto there to taken down the bathers.

Bathroom Stall

  Bathroom renos part two 
  Originally uploaded by emira.

Regular readers may remember that back in mid-April we began a reno project on our bathroom. At the time, we had slightly different perspectives on how long it might take to complete the project. Martin figured the weekend and, his now famous phrase, "a week of evenings" for the final details. I was more pessimistic and figured we'd likely be looking at three or four weeks. At the time there were some mildly uncomfortable disagreements about what might cause the delay, Martin thought that I lacked faith in his abilities, whereas I simply held a deep fear that the all knowing force of renovations would slow momentum in ways we couldn't begin to imagine. While at this point I could be claimed the victor in that struggle, I'd rather not. For even I, at my most pessimistic, didn't think it would take until mid-July.

Three months of brushing our teeth in the kitchen sink and I'm finally kind of growing used to it. Delays following the initial "Oh look the tub is draining directly onto the basement floor," discovery have been more about bad timing than renovation disaster (though I knock on wood as I say that). Once we learned that we had a rotted out trap in our drainage pipe, we knew that the basic reattachment plumbing we would need to do was going to require a professional. And fortunately for us, Martin has a plumber friend/client who is helping us out on the cheap/contra. However, the one other piece we had to wait for, before we could reassemble the bathroom and replumb the tub drain, was the arrival of our Marmoleum flooring. And, a word the wise, going to pick out your flooring the same day that you rip out the walls to redrywall is not good timing.

The flooring we chose took several weeks to come in, then when it arrived the plumber was on holidays. And so, since then, we've been playing a bit of a scheduling game waiting for the planets to align such that Martin would have the day off, the plumber would be free and the flooring would be here so that we can undertake the final stage. In the meantime, we've been able to enjoy the luxury of at home bathing, and have simply being doing all bathroom sink activities in the kitchen. Barring any emergency plumbing events that would pull the plumber away, or unplanned personal chaos, tomorrow the reno planets should align. And we may be once again brushing our teeth in the bathroom. Praise be.

I've spent the weekend preparing for this by painting the trim that needs to be reinstalled, and the new baseboards and quarter round. Tomorrow's list of tasks is somewhat daunting and to be honest I'm pretty glad I won't be here to see it:

• Remove all the fixtures, ie/ clawfoot tub and toilet;


• Lay subfloor (already cut and waiting downstairs);


• Fill subfloor nail/screw holes with cement, let cure and sand;


• Install marmoleum flooring with bucket of glue (also waiting in the basement;


• Replumb drainage for the tub, move tub back into room and reattach;


• Install new bathroom sink that Martin has constructed (photos of which will follow post bathroom completion);


• Reinstall toilet;


• Hold breath, run water, and pray for happy drainage.

Now my renovation pessimism gets all hyped up just looking at that list, and really that isn't all of it (I'll need to touch up all the trim and baseboards once they are installed and I'm sure there are other unplanned bits and pieces), but that's the plan. So, please won't you cross your fingers for us?

Recycled Goods

  del forte jacket 
  Originally uploaded by janellep.

Janelle from Tchotchke Attack! has a photo set up from a project she's been working on to embellish recylced jeans for an organic denim clothing line. I mention it here first and foremost because I'm totally in love with it, but second because this kind of thing is very "domicile-y," by which I simply mean that we do a fair bit of the sewing/reconstructing/recycling round our house.

Both Martin and I have our own sewing machines, something which seems to tickle some folks when they see them set up in their dueling glory, however we both have very different approaches to sewing. Martin is the master reconstructor/recylcer where as I'm more inclined to start from scratch. Often for me that means taking something totally apart to pillage its fabric and then reworking that into something new, or simply starting with old bedsheets and scraps acquired at yard sales/thrift shops/from friends. Martin is more inclined to just sit down at his machine with a garment and have at it with the stitching until he comes out with something he's happy with. He does this with nearly every single pair of jeans he owns (or maybe actually every pair), something which caused me mild heart failure the first time he starting tooling around with *expensive* jeans, but which certainly seems to work out for him 9 times out of 10.

We've also been trying to use recycled materials in our house project wherever possible. Alley finds, castaways from friends and found objects from the massive "ark" that Martin's father maintains on their property full of likewise scrounged goods have helped us both save a fortune on our household projects (often being the only thing that actually makes them doable in fact), while also challenging us to work with the materials we've got rather than spending time to seek out the "perfect piece."

I'll admit some days when it comes to both clothing and renos I find myself daydreaming about an endless budget and just what money could buy -- like my own personal drywalling minion -- but at this point in my life I'm pretty happy with our approach.

Lori's Little Store

  rascal 
  Originally uploaded by lori joy.

One of our favorite local artists, Lori Joy Smith, has set up an online store (funnily enough with the help of one of my other favorites) which now makes it all too easy for you to acquire some monstery goodness in your life.

Honestly, everytime I see new pieces by Lori I get the itch for more. But with one hefty collection already up in the livingroom, some in the office and many other pieces in the homes of friends and beloved god-daughters I'm running out of reasonable justifications. So please, scratch my itch and support this talented and lovely women won't you?

Goldilocks and the Souffle Dishes

There is a time honoured tradition of souffle eating in our house. In our wee domicile that tradition, though it may stretch back to the beginning, is of course only about a year long. However, in my childhood home souffle has played a regular role. There is in fact even an intricately woven family mythology about souffle and its origins, but I'll save that for another day. Suffice it to say that my mom makes a mean souffle. And, though I'll admit my first time I was pretty nervous, so do I. Souffle, much like cooking with phyllo, seems to be one of those unnecessarily fraut cooking experiments that can give some folks the wiggins. I'm here to tell you however that it is down right simple. Easier, in fact, than pie if you ask me. And boy howdy will it impress the company.

Anyway, this post is not so much about the ease of making souffle, or my genetic inheritence of the souffle gene, this is about my need to achieve imagined perfection. Perfection in the form of the perfect souffle dish, which appears to exist only in my imagination. Bet you didn't see that coming!

You see, when I realized that Martin's daughter was a fan of souffle adding another relatively easy to make and easy to get inside the kid's stomach dinner to our repetoire, I decided to pick up a smaller souffle dish suitable for three person dinners. I figured I'd just pop into somewhere like The Bay or hell even London Drugs and get one. For surely, I assumed, most places carried souffle dishes. What could be a more useful all purpose dish afterall? Round. Goes in the oven. Simple, non? Turns out: not so much. That day I ended up caving and buying a cheap plain, and inspiring souffle dish at the dollar store of all places so that we could have the dinner I had shopped for, but I've still had my eyes peeled for a new one.

And so of course, what began as a quick trip out for a simple white 6" souffle dish has now turned into a quest for the unachievable. My ideal souffle dish would be simple yes, but not dull. A nice bright colour perhaps to offset the generally neutral toned souffle, but I find myself recoiling from versions that are all one continuous colour, meaning they aren't white on the inside (not sure why, but there you go). Emile Henry makes a very close approximation, but they're a bit too primary colour palette for my tastes. Of course, I've decided that my ideal souffle pan would be just like these Le Creuset Ramekins (and I do think that the green is an excellent choice), but bigger. Like 10 times bigger. And of course, unless a product developer at Le Creuset is reading this blog ("hello!") that is not entirely likely to be added to their product line anytime soon.

So, dear reader, if any of you see some lovely souffle dishes in your travels, do pass them my way. In the meantime, I'll continue to scour the web and specialty kitchen shops to feed my neuroses.