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painted vintage mid century modern sideboard before and after

Before and After: Painted Vintage Sideboard

This past Summer Andrew and I found this awesome solid plywood vintage sideboard, credenza, mid century modern cabinet (whatever you want to call it). I finally took some photos of it to share here and can’t wait to finally sell it….or keep it…

It weights a ton and if you could have seen how we got it home you would of had a good laugh, lets just say thank goodness we didn’t live too far from where we found it!

Here’s the before photos of this vintage sideboard:

vintage sideboard before and after

Here’s some close ups of all the ugly laminate that was broken and peeling off. Those legs though…
You have no idea how good it felt to remove all the loose bits of laminate!

vintage credenza before and after

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Minted metallic foil holiday cards

Christmas Card Design Trends at Minted

October is quickly coming to an end and you know what that means, suddenly Christmas will be near! Huuraaah! But along with the feelings of excitement and joy, that overwhelming feeling of getting things done sneaks in. One of those things is creating a unique Christmas card to give out to friends and family. The last few years I’ve been into sending out cards to the clients I work with as well as friends and family and making my own gift tags.

I usually make the designs myself and print them locally, but with my schedule being fairly crazy this year, there’s just not enough time in the day to create a design I’m happy with (I’m my worst client!) and deal with printing, so this year I’ll be looking to Minted.com to get them done.
Minted metallic foil holiday cards
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Craigslist Etiquette

Craigslist Etiquette: Tips for buying and selling

Craigslist Etiquette

I’ve been selling stuff on Craigslist forever. I’ve sold tear outs from home renovations, appliances, old toilets, cabinets, housewares and furniture. I feel like over the years I’ve really developed a knack for knowing how to write a post. As much as I’ve sold stuff on craigslist, I’ve also purchased a lot over the years too.

My purchases are mostly vintage furniture for our apartment and for our furniture upcycling projects. Going to strangers homes to buy something from a photo you saw online can be very scary, there’s a lot to consider and so I thought I’d share some tips and general etiquette on how to show up at someone’s home when you purchase and also how to write a typical post.

Buying
You go on Craigslist and find that perfect item. You want to start off by reading the post thoroughly and finding out if it has all the information you need. Does the seller mention their preferred method of contact? Normally it’s email through anonymous craigslist forwarding. You’ll want to email the seller and set up a time to pick up the piece. Here’s a few key tips on how to avoid being a pain when buying.
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frigidaire-professional-range

Why I Dislike My Gas Range

I decided to write about my gas range after having a few recent conversations with people helping them decide if they should go electric or gas. I used to be all about electric only because it’s what I grew up with and I had a mild fear about using gas, but when we moved into our place over 3 years ago, the gas bill was included in our strata fees and the gas line was already there, so it was a no-brainer to go with a gas range. I immediately got over my fear and now I’ll never go back.

loft-kitchen

Since we had a limited time to complete our renovations and a very limited budget, we picked our appliances pretty quickly and our gas range was one of the more affordable Maytag ranges and right from the beginning there were problems. The seal around the door has never been installed correctly even after they came for a service call.

loft-kitchen2

Then after a few months the grate that’s on the top of the stove corroded, not just a little bit, but a lot. It was so shocking it made me completely regret purchasing this stove. After a few weeks of trying to get in touch with Maytag, they said they’d send me a replacement grate, but in the end they only sent me half instead of the full 2 pieces. It’s so incredibly ugly and impossible to clean now.

Here’s the corroded mess:
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modern satin brass hardware pulls

Modern Brass Hardware

If you’re following me on instagram you’ll know that I’m currently working on a new furniture makeover. It’s a vintage sideboard/cabinet with sliding glass doors and 3 drawers. Check out the before photo below.

vintage mid century modern sideboard
The dilemma with this piece was that I really wanted to change out the old brass hardware with something more clean-lined and modern. The round brass knobs set into the glass doors had to stay, so the new pulls on the drawers had to be brass.

I can’t stand the look of shiny vintage brass, so I hunted online for satin brass hardware that’s been spotted on pieces at West Elm and other large retailers furniture. The dream hardware I had been lusting over for a while was just so far out of my budget, but they’re really stunning. They’re the Bar Collection from Lew’s Hardware, check them out in the top section of the photo below.
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Dairy-free Blackberry Coconut Ice Cream Recipe

Recipe Adventure: Diary-Free Blackberry Coconut Ice Cream

It’s been super hot in Vancouver this Summer and we’re currently experiencing a drought, which is kind of ironic for a city that’s known for it’s rain. I miss the rain and cooler weather, but I know it will come soon and I’ll be longing for the sunny days again. Anyway, I don’t do well with heat and I’ll do anything to try cool off, I like to indulge (a bit too much) in ice cream, but sometimes a little too much dairy can give me a stomach ache, so this recipe is an alternative for when you’re craving ice cream, but don’t want the dairy.

Dairy-free Blackberry Coconut Ice Cream Recipe

We picked a silly amount of blackberries the other weekend and I thought I’d experiment with this ice cream recipe:

Ingredients
5-8 Cups Fresh Blackberries
1 can Coconut Cream
1/4 Cup sugar of your choice
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
3 Tablespoons Corn Starch

Dairy-free Blackberry Coconut Ice Cream Recipe

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Replica Eames Chair: Discussions on Quality

white eames chair

The classic Eames chair. It never goes out of style. It’s beautiful and functional. In recent years there’s been so many companies selling replicas of the design, but I’m here to discuss quality. In an ideal world I would buy an actual Eames chair, because I’m all for quality and original design, but I just can’t afford to, even the vintage chairs in local antique shops are out of this world expensive. Considering I’d want to have 6 chairs in total for the office and dining area, the real deal just isn’t going to happen.

When we first moved into our place, we purchased replica Eames chairs from a local shop, they gave us a great deal because we purchased 5. They were still fairly expensive, but not nearly as much as an original. We’ve had them for just under 4 years and I recently discovered that one of them has a horrible crack on both sides of the back! It’s really sad to see this, but I should have known, the plastic was pretty flexible. Here’s a photo of the very sad crack, there’s one on each side.
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