Winter blues

For someone who dreads winter, Northern Alberta is not the best place to live. This year I've decided to try and make the best of our longest season. Spend time outside, catch up with old friends, sew, watch great movies, and improve my cooking and baking skills! Today I decided to make cinnamon buns for the first time. I found a recipe from Chef Michael Smith, pulled out one of my favourite holiday movies, Love Actually, and off I went!

Apple crisp

Apple crisp is on my top 5 list of favourite desserts. And breakfasts. And snacks. There are endless recipes out there and I thought I would try this Caramel Apple Crisp I found by Betty Crocker via Pinterest. It calls for a Caramel Topping and instead of finding out what that was, I thought I would use up leftover ganache I made for Butterbeer Cupcakes a while ago. Yes, Harry Potter fans, you read that right. 

I was planning on saving this for tonight but I think I don't think I can wait!

So Lila and I tried it and I truly think this is the best apple crisp I've ever had. The only thing that might make it better is walnuts. There's always next time. 

I love wallpaper!

I love wallpaper and I have for years. In our old house, I wallpapered our office a grasscloth which became my sewing room and eventually Lila's nursery. I wallpapered one wall in our bathroom which I have to say looked pretty great. The last room I wallpapered before we moved was the girls' playroom. It was such a fun room and I miss it. Who wouldn't want to play in a room full of stripes?

We have three wallpaper projects in our new house, two of which have been completed. We were planning on painting around the fireplace in our family room to cover up the dark green walls that, in my opinion, made the room look smaller. Unable to match the existing paint on the other walls, we decided to go with wallpaper. An easy choice! This blue/teal lattice pattern is from Bouclair. One complaint I have is that it did have a tendency to rip if not careful. One of the downfalls of a great price.

The second project is the master bedroom. I love the look of big, bold flowers in a bedroom. The hard part was choosing from the many patterns and colours. We ended up going with a pattern from Home Depot and we couldn't be happier. The walls before were a pale yellow which were painted a white called Milk Moustache (blogged here.) I don't mind hanging wallpaper. I don't find it hard, just tedious but we will be hiring someone to do project #3!

I'll say it again. I love wallpaper!

Wordless Wednesday

Walls

We spent about a week moving into the new house before spending our first night sleeping here and we wanted to have the girls' rooms finished to make the transition easier, especially for Lila. With the new carpet in, it was time to paint. We like to do things out of order. Keeps things exciting. 

The old paint was yellow and had to go. Nothing against that colour but the last time I painted with yellow, it turned out to be Safety Yellow and I've been against it ever since. My ideas for the girls rooms have all been based on art and colourful accessories so I knew that I wanted the walls to be white. I never thought I would want white walls since I've always been drawn to colour but I knew that with the right white, it would be perfect. After a bit of research aka Pinterest and Google, we decided to go with a white called Milk Moustache by C2. I'm very happy with the choice and it's definitely my go to white from now on.

Slowly but surely I am working on getting art on the walls so we'll save that post for later. 

Cereal Milk Ice Cream

Our first house warming gift was an ice cream maker. Best. Gift. Ever. This flavour is based on the Cereal Milk ice cream made famous by Momofuku's Milk Bar. 

Wordless Wednesday

First things first

It didn't take us long to start discussing all of the things we wanted to change in our new house. The absolute most important thing? The carpet. The existing carpet in the bedrooms came straight out of the 70's. All 3 bedrooms, all different styles. We were going to extend the existing hardwood into the bedrooms but decided on a plush, cozy carpet to help us through our long winters. The installer was ready to come the minute we got the keys to the house. When I say the minute, I'm not exaggerating. He was pretty much waiting outside when Travis got the keys and by the time I arrived at the house for the first time, the old carpet was gone. We should have planned it a bit better and painted FIRST but it all worked out in the end.

There's no denying that the old carpet doesn't have style. Just not the style we are going for.

Before

During

After

Welcome home

The idea for this blog has been floating around for a while now. After living in the little brown house on the corner for the last 15 years, it was time to pack up our two girls, two dogs, and two cats. We saw a lot of potential to make our new house our home, so why not blog about it? Renovations, decorating, cooking, BBQing, sewing, and everything else that we love . Welcome to our life at home!

Andrea and Travy D