Spring Shopping Preview: Urban Barn

One of the new series type blog posts that I'm thinking of venturing into is some online or real time shopping posts. Here I can share some of the great new products I've seen lately that you can check out if you like. 

Philip & I are huge Urban Barn people. I actually avoid it at certain times of day because one of the sales girls always notices us and remembers that we always come in! We have to wear shades when we go there so that we can act mysterious.

Here are some of the things from their "New Arrivals" that I'm digging right now:

This pillow is bright and happy and will look great in our mint guest room
along with a variety of other pillows on our day bed. 

Loving these new canisters in all shapes and sizes. 

I love the wood grain pattern going on here, they also have plates and such,
but that might be a bit much for me. 

I'm loving something about this dresser, and I don't think it'd go out of style or be something you'd get tired of. 

Philip really needs a new office chair...and this floats my boat. 

Nice and simple side table. 

Glass and Chrome, a bit more glamorous but still simple.

Anyone else addicted to Urban Barn and get sidetracked on their way to Regent Superstore? Made any recent purchases there? It's not the cheapest, but things go on sale and the pieces seem to be quality. We haven't actually purchased much there, but definitely love to do some window shopping. What's your favourite accessory/furniture piece on Urban Barn's website right now?

Back to Business

We're back, with regularly scheduled posts - Monday-Friday. After the ankle debacle (severe sprain/tear and going to physio once a week) and Philip's drama madness (thanks again to those who came out!), we're back to sanity and you can once again expect posts from us on a regular basis. We're going to just forget about the February series, because we're so behind that there isn't really any point in trying to quickly catch up, and as we're approaching the end of our "Winter 2013" timeline on the To-Do list, we have a lot to accomplish! 

Just starting to get back into the swing of things here, but in the next little while as we get back to blogging every day we'll be revealing the new found privacy we've created in our living room, our very innovative but not useful bathroom, and some of the organizing projects that I did manage to finish as part of the planned February series. 

Looks like an electrical outlet...but it's not.

Things will definitely keep moving along here! Thanks again for your patience and continuing to follow along with this crazy renovation process as we chip away at it slowly but surely. Hopefully we'll have some progress to share soon! & an upstairs bathroom for all to enjoy! 

I'm Alive!

While I'm still pretty out of commission - writing this from our bed right now - I didn't have an ankle related death, and am hoping to be up and around soon!

I'm not sure what this means for blogging, as I'm pretty unable to get some of the things on the Reclaim 2013 series done with my limited mobility, and Philip has drama practice every evening this week in preparation for the dinner theater on the weekend so nothing much will be moving forward with our house renovations. We'll keep you posted! Also, if anyone local wants to buy tickets to the dinner theater let me know! There are still lots of tickets left - especially for Friday the 15th. 

Thanks for hanging in there and hopefully I'll have some exciting progress to share soon! All I can say is I'm thankful that I'm not a professional athlete who just lost their career, and I'm so so happy not to have a cast (I've never broken anything before). 

Day 5: First Impressions/Dirty Floors/Heard a Snap

I started writing this post yesterday, with the following beginning:

Our entryways aren't really ready for decor yet, but they did need a good cleaning.

One of the problems we addressed was buying a second entry mat. We had one, but we have 2 doors now (unlike at a condo) and people were coming in both so the back door ended up being really wet and muddy and gross. We bought a second mat identical to the other one we had so that so much dirt wouldn't be getting tracked onto the floor in the back landing.

Things have changed:

We need to find a shoe solution for our back hall. There isn't anywhere to put shoes, and since it's winter and they're wet and drippy we don't want to carry them across the house.

Yesterday I went to travel downstairs to our bathroom and tripped on a shoe, fell, heard a snap...and one very swollen ankle later I was in the emergency room. It's soft tissue damage but they're still reviewing the x-rays to make sure it's all good. For now I have to stay off of it for at least 3 days and keep icing it. Really fun when our bathroom is a very treacherous journey away! 

Boy Meets World marathon for the win.

Anyway...

The other big thing that we did was reorganize our front hall closet. I have a winter jacket problem. I didn't realize I had so many until we moved actually...I think somehow I buy them when they're on a good deal but they take a long time to wear out so I still have 8 year old jackets that are perfectly good but I don't really wear. I organized all of our items in some baskets at the top. The big basket on the left is all scarves...ah I also have a scarf problem. The right hand big basket is plastic grocery bags, and the 3 in the middle are my mitts/hats, Philip's mitts/hats, and the "!" is some lightbulbs, bug spray, random things like that. I don't have a picture and I'm unable to get to my house right now to take one, so you'll just have to envision it!

On the side we also have a hanging organizer where we put some of our extra shoes, with the rest of the shoes below on the shoe rack. Next to that are the games, which will hopefully at some point find a new home but this works for now.

I'm not sure if I'll be blogging the next couple of days, I'm pretty much stuck on the couch and actually staying at my parents right now because they have a main floor bathroom, so I won't be able to get pictures more or less clean/organize anything properly. Hopefully I'll be back on my feet soon!

Day 4: Be Prepared/Take Inventory/Does Everyone Else Have Hand-me-Down Cleaning Supplies?

So you've survived a week of Reclaim 2013 (technically it's only been 3 days...and I haven't really survived...but who's counting). Great job! Last week was hard for me, some of those tasks were a bit intense (ugh cleaning out the fridge), but I think this week will be a bit better because not every area covered is a problem area. I think I might have heavily weighted the front of the month with items that I knew were plaguing me with my procrastination.

As you might have noticed...Day 3 didn't happen. I had big plans to conquer my kitchen cupboards on Saturday but with Philip working in the bathroom with a friend and creating a lot of messy dust and debris all through the house, it didn't make sense to take clean dishes out into the mess. Sunday we were out all day for Super Bowl fun and came home to a bit of a catastrophe related to the bathroom renovation...so this weekend was just not having it. Instead of trying to power through that today and then move on, I'm going to go ahead and save Day 3: Kitchen Cupboards for the Catch Up Day later in the month and just move right along to Day 4: Cleaning Supplies today. 

As you start organizing areas of your home, you'll want some cleaning supplies handy. Use today to go through your cleaning inventory to make sure you have the goods you need to get 'er done.

If you need the extra motivation..."Be Prepared" from the Lion King is definitely intimidating enough to warrant grabbing your cleaning supplies and doing a quick run through.

I haven't bought a lot of my own cleaning supplies actually, because when we moved into our condo Philip's Oma's supplies were mostly still there...and there was a plethora of them. I keep a basket under my sink, as well as one in the broom closet - and try to segregate items into categories as best I can - the main reason for this is that my two baskets don't fit together in the broom closet or under the kitchen sink...so two locations it is! That might change as we renovate things up, but for now it works. I'll admit I don't use half of this stuff though, so today's the day to get rid of whatever is never going to get used, or at least keep it somewhere else so it isn't getting in my way (I don't want to waste good products!).


There wasn't really anything to get rid of here, but I did move some of my extra cleaning supplies to the laundry room. 

Here are my two cleaning baskets!

I use mostly a multipurpose cleaner for a lot of things like cleaning toilets, floors, anything really. I have some bathroom sprays that were hand-me-downs that I use on occasion, Windex for my table, mirrors, windows, that's mostly it! Here's a great resource if you aren't sure which cleaning supplies you should have though:

http://housekeeping.about.com/od/productreviews/a/cleaningsupply.htm

Tomorrow we'll be tackling entryways. Remember to comment and tell me about your organization progress or instagram your photos!