Monday, August 31, 2020

DIY Concrete Bowls

Hi all! 
Long time no talky! Well, at least over here. I've been hanging out mostly on Instagram for the past while but missing talking to you here. 

Let's talk concrete bowls. They are everywhere in home decor. You've likely seen them in your fav magazines or home decor stores. They're beautiful, but their price tag...not so much. Most of the bowls are going for over $100. To me, they're very trendy and if you're going to splurge on something, concrete bowls are not it. 

BUT, you can make them for next to nothing. I've made two, a larger one and smaller one and with tons of concrete left, I'll be making more. 

Head over to my Instagram and click on DIY Concrete Bowls in the headings. I posted the tutorial there. I promise, they are super easy, quick to do and look fresh.fabulous.sophisticated.

Keep it beautiful,
Alicia

Friday, May 24, 2019

KITCHEN LIGHTING - SO MANY BEAUTIFUL OPTIONS!

Hey guys! I have some pretty things to chat about…lighting!

I love lighting. It doesn’t matter where it is, simple or extravagant, lighting is my fav part of design. And…I love all forms…lamps, pendants, chandeliers, indoor, outdoor. Okay, actually…I don’t love track lighting. I think that’s the only one. Lighting can either make the room or simply just blend in. Whatever it is there are SO MANY OPTIONS. So many. And, being a lover of lighting, it’s hard to choose just which one for your space. So, obviously I go to my first stop, Wayfair.ca. You know its my fav. Honestly, my house is either furnished/decorated with Wayfair or Homesense. The prices are amazing, the options are huge and they are so on trend.

I've gathered some of my favs together...

1. School House 2. Metal Lantern 3. Gold Geometric Pendant 4. Six Light Pendant 5. Black & Gold 6. Globe Pendant 7. Courtland Pendant 8. Black Lantern

I need pendants. The question these days is do you go gold (on trend) or chrome/silver (always a good constant) or black or mix. Hmm. Like many on the design wagon, mixing metals is a thing and I like it. So I decided to look for black and gold pendants. Don’t forget that in your kitchen, you will want to consider the faucet colour and hardware when choosing your lighting. The island is going to be big…10ft.

My advice when trying to decide on multiple pieces for a room is simple. You have to just decide on your first item. You gotta start from somewhere girl. If you love it, buy it and then base everything else around that thing. I think I’m going to pick the pendant light as my first thing and it's going to be one of those beauties above. Have a favourite?

Let's talk swing-arm lighting. They've been around forevs and have gone up and down in trend. Right now they're hot hot! There is a window on the back kitchen wall that looks out to the backyard, with open flanking shelves. A light is going there and obviously, which pendants we pick will need to coordinate with that light.

More faves to pick from....
1. Black Shade  2. East Coast  3. Freddy Wall Swing Arm  4. Metal Swing 5. Gold & Black

Eventually, the same light we choose for over the window will be over the bookcase/shelving/art (can you tell we’re not sure what we’re doing there yet) in the tv room that is open to the kitchen. All we know right now is that on that wall there will be a tv and a fireplace. What flanks it is still unknown.

I’m giving myself a few days to order the pendants. Send me your thoughts on your favs or I’ll surprise you. Head on over to Instagram as I will be showing you on Instastories which one I chose!

Fresh.Fabulous.Sophisticated.

Keep it Beautiful.




*I've partnered with Wayfair on this post. You know how much I love them and shop at Wayfair, regardless if we partner together. Thank you for supporting the brands that support this blog.

Wednesday, May 15, 2019

RENOVATION HERE WE COME!

Oh hey people hey! How are you all!?  It’s been an eternity since I’ve posted on here. So much has been going on and I’ve been spending more time hanging over on Instagram and just doin’ life. I know you all know that life happens and it’s busy. BUT, I have SO much to share with you. Particularly around the house. This blog was born from renovating our house 7 years ago while I was on mat leave and we worked on renovating this 100 year old gem. As you know, when we bought the house, we always knew we wanted to eventually add an addition to it. We’ve talked and talked and talked about it for years and then just decided last summer to make it happen. YES!! We decided on our contractor in August and we’re now at month 8 of the planning process. Obviously, this is not something you should rush in to, and winter in Canada is not so friendly for digging large holes in the ground. However, while the snow fell…and fell…and fell…it gave us the time to think, review and rethink on what we wanted. So here’s the last 8 months wrapped up in a quick bow:

Basement – renovated a few years ago. You all joined us on the journey…here, here , here and here.



Remember the beach? There is no plan to change anything in the basement except that we have to pack everything up because they need to take down the ceiling to restructure part of the house.

Main floor – Currently, there is a living room, dining room, kitchen, back random room with gorgeous windows (we’ve used this room in the past as a playroom but when we did the basement, it became a room where they kids watched tv in the morning and ate breakfast…but that’s it really…so kinda useless. And it has a gas fireplace in there from an original chimney to the house. Then there is another room that we call the “breakfast room”.  And we turned it into our breakfast room with built-ins.






Kitchen – It looked like this when we bought it.

We painted all the cabinets, new appliances and countertops etc. All the floors in the house were sanded and re-stained and some areas had new wood laid. There is no bathroom on the main floor.

Second Floor – 3 piece bathroom that we renovated shortly after we moved in.  This is a photo of Nick on the phone with a plumber. All we wanted to do was take out a window and when we removed the tile, there was mold...everywhere. We were so over our heads but we did it.

 Sorry for the terrible photo. This was early in my blogging.


The fourth bedroom has been the nursery to two of the kids.


It’s a great size for a nursery but that’s about it. It can’t function well as a bedroom. The bedrooms have seen their fair share of switch-ups from guest rooms, to nurseries to big kid rooms. There is also a tv room on this floor.

Third floor- our bedroom…was pink and blue when we bought the house. We painted it, laid new carpet and it has a bathroom up there.



So all in all, there isn’t a square foot of this house that hasn’t been touched, BUT with three growing monkeys, we needed four full bedrooms, apparently five bathrooms and a bigger kitchen. This is what the back of our house currently look like...

Enter in…RENOVATION 2019! Obviously it’s one of those things that started smaller and now we’re here. So sorry, this picture is terrible.

Basement – will remain the same, except the foundation for the addition is being dug out to support the addition. This won’t be finished, but used for Mr. Fix-It’s workroom and storage. If you live in an old house, you know that storage is a problem. I thought 100 years ago women wore huge dresses? Clearly, they didn’t have the same obsession with clothes that I do! Also, this gives me more space to store Christmas decor...Mr. Fix-It just died a little inside. Ha!

Main floor – Front hall, closet, living room (remain the same). The dining room has a bit of a change to the opening of the addition but nothing major.

Kitchen – the current kitchen will become a mudroom area and powder room.


I can’t wait to show you the tile…it’s amazing! It better be still in stock when we go to lay it because I feel like the colours in the tile are what I'm basing this whole reno around. I saw it across the showroom and ran to it. Love. Here's a sneak peak...


There will be a hallway between the dining room and mudroom into the addition, as well as a cutout from the dining room to addition. Hard to see but I’ll show you in InstaStories.

Addition main floor – Think of it as a giant box with a tv area and gas fireplace and a large kitchen. Windows across the back of the house. Heaven. I used an awesome service that I want to tell you about soon that helped me design my kitchen. Amazing!

Size of the main floor addition – Roughly 650 sq feet plus the mudroom/bathroom. Same upstairs.

Let’s go upstairs…

Second floor – tv room stays the same, Ella’s room stays the same except that she wants to add to her décor (whatever that means to a 6 year old) and we’re opening up one of her walls for a bigger closet. Carter is moving upstairs to the third floor (sweet deal for him!) and Mitchell’s room is getting smaller…sorry kid, but he’s getting a fab big closet and we told him he could decorate his room to make it a hockey room ;) I may regret that when I walk upstairs and stare into a bright red wall but for now, its a win.

The nursery will become Ella and Mitchell’s bathroom (3 piece) and a hallway will be created into our bedroom in the addition. As well as, a 4 piece ensuite and a walk in closet (I’ve never had a walk in before!) Windows again across the back.

Carter moves upstairs and will use our existing bedroom furniture up there and he get’s his own bathroom which I promised him we would paint seeing how he’s not digging my pale blue damask decor and crystal hardware ;)

So…here we go. Demo began this week and I'll be over on Instastories to show you the progress. In the meantime, Mr. Fix-It and I purged, pitched and have sold tons of stuff. The house is packed up and we've moved in to my parent's 2-bedroom condo for the next 4 months! Oh, and did I mention that Mr. Fix-It is travelling like crazy for work these days and I started  new job about 6 weeks ago. Pass the wine!!

Keep it Beautiful

Wednesday, October 3, 2018

HOW TO DECORATE YOUR PORCH FOR FALL

Happy fall y'all! Fall is officially here and we're heading into Thanksgiving this weekend in Canada. Mr. Fix-It and I recently returned from a week away oversees on vacation and if you follow me on Instagram, you know we had a blast. I was happy to sleep in my own bed and to see the gorgeous leaves turning beautiful hues of red and orange. Isn't fall the best? You might remember a couple of weeks ago that I was cruising around on the internet for fall inspiration. In the post I talked about keeping it simple. Well, I wanted to show you what I've come up with and hopefully inspire you to create a welcoming fall porch. If you're entertaining this fall, this is an easy way to welcome your guests.

Something that Wayfair has done is create "Bloggers Picks". It's a great way to look for items that have been identified by design bloggers who love beautiful things, just like you. For example, let's say you are looking for a firewood holder. You would type into the Wayfair search, a listing of items would come up and on some of them you would see "Bloggers Pick". Here, you'll see one of my faves. Wayfair works with awesome bloggers so it's an opportunity to get inspired by their fav styles and picks from Wayfair.

So here is what I started with as my inspiration for decorating the front porch.

I used what I had, hit the grocery store for pumpkins and grabbed a few of of my inspiration finds.

I was searching for a new throw and decided on this gorg one. It comes in a variety of different colours, has great reviews and bonus, it's on sale right now! I just draped it over my Acapulco chair that was on the porch this summer and added a crisp fall pillow. Instant cozy. Instant fall. 


We were also in need for a firewood rack. Sure, you can stack the wood wherever but I wanted a rack that I could keep on the front porch outside the front door for those chilly days and nights we want to light a fire inside, and I wanted one that I could bring inside the living room if I wanted. This one caught my eye and it comes in a variety of sizes. I ordered the 24" because we don't need it to hold a ton of wood but I noticed the 40" is on sale now. 
Don't forget that all your pumpkins don't have to be real. I used a combo of real and faux. Faux is always good because you can just bring them out year after year. There are also a ton of various varieties of pumpkins at the stores right now also. I was loving the green ones. 

Its easy to add a beautiful wreath and whether you bake or not, your house will smell delish with a pumpkin or fall candle. So get out there my friends, bring in or out some cozy fall decorating and I guarantee you, it will make you feel fresh.fabulous.sophisticated.

*Disclosure: This post was sponsored by Wayfair.ca. Thank you for continuing to support the brands that Keep it Beautiful Designs loves to bring to you. 

Keep it Beautiful. 

Thursday, September 13, 2018

FALL PORCH DECOR INSPIRATION

Hey! Hey! Hey! Super long time no chatty on here. Holy cow! I missed you guys. It's been a whirlwind the last little while but if you follow me on Instagram then you're more or less up to date. Nothing major and out of this world but I had been taking some time to figure out what I wanted to do with the blog and the business. The world of blogging has changed so much over the last number of years and it's important to find your fit, your place and how you want it to feed, not only your reader's souls but also yours. Obviously, I love sharing my favourite beautiful designs and ways to help you love your space, so I'm back and it feels fab.

Hope you all had a fab summer! Now, we're on to fall! Summer is my fav season but September always feels like a fresh start. Back to school means a new year. A new you.

And, obviously...lattes, cozy sweaters and oh-so pretty decor. In the decorating world, I see fall as a great way to turn your mind to careful decorating and the ramp up to (dare I say it?!), Christmas!

At the end of the summer, Mr. Fix-It and I stained the front porch. We replaced the porch last summer and just never got around to staining it. To be honest, I thought it was going to be a long laboriousness process but honestly, it was super easy. If you want to know what we used and how we did it, let me know, because it was fast and simple.

Now that fall is peaking it's head, its time to decorate the exterior of your house. We can get away with not doing much in the summer because all the beautiful flowers speak for themselves.
I know you all go on Pinterest and see these elaborate photos of decorating, but honestly, let's keep it simple shall we? Simple is gorg!

I headed over to Wayfair to shop for my fav looks and made made it simple for you by creating a list of my fav picks for fall. Check it out. All you need to do is click on the pic and it will take you right there. You're welcome.
I've done some shopping and looked around my house to decorate the front porch, so look around, find some inspiration and I'm going to get started on bringing fall in, or out, in this case :)

Head back over here soon to see it all come together.

Keep it Beautiful.
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