Dining Room Inspiration!

So I'm all tapped out of living room inspiration, a special thank you to everyone who commented and shared their ideas, and opinions. One of my favorite parts about blogging is all of the second and third opinions. I am a researcher at heart and love gathering all my information and opinions, Lees not so into "the process" he prefers I narrow it way down (2 choices or less haha) so all the comments are very much appreciated.
Here's what we've got going for the dining room. Now I'm not sure if you remember our post about our new dining table you know the one where we got a smok'in deal on a harvest table. The one where we bought a new dining table even though we knew we were moving, and I declared that I didn't want to live in any house that my new harvest table wouldn't fit in.
I guess you know where this is going.
Our lovely harvest table does not fit into our new dining room :( Somehow even as I was typing that I knew I was going to jinx myself).
So as you can see from my terrible picture, it's a small space for a dining room. At the end of the photo you can see an opened door, that's the door to the mudroom/laundry room and it has to clear the table.

So the plan is to go in a completely different direction. Our new house is a little more formal then our current house so we are hoping to reflect that in our decor.
Our dining room is beside the kitchen and mudroom/laundry room and in order for the mudroom/laundry room door to clear the table we need to have a round or square table. We chose round! Something like this one from pottery barn although not exactly like this one as we don't have that kind on money to spend on a dining table :)

Photo via Pottery Barn
We haven't made a decision about chairs yet but I'm thinking something in fabric, but I'm not ruling out wood chairs just yet :)
Maybe a chair like this although I don't like the skirt all the way to the ground

Photo via Ikea
We'll also need bar stools: Maybe something like this:

or this:

both photos via Ikea

Here's the current chandelier: kinda ick!

A couple of chandelier options, I'm loving the coach style one, but we are also strongly considering a simple shade on a rod (not that the second picture is simple, but that's the general idea but with a simple shade on the end :)

So there's a couple of dining room choices, Please let me know what you're thinking, I have been loving the feedback!!
Be back tomorrow with some more options, and if anyone in the greater Vancouver area needs a harvest table and three chairs we know where you can get one for a good deal :) hehe

Living Room Products

Wow all of this sourcing has been a lot more work then I thought it would be, phew . . . .
I'm very excited to share today's post with you today, I've spent many hours behind the computer picking out details of our living room, right now it might look a little devoid of color, but I have plans of adding some.
My color plans will include color that can easily be taken away and switched out seasonally on the cheap!
So here are some of our plans, again nothing is set in stone, just some ideas.

Here are some carpet options, right now we are loving  carpet tiles. I love the options they have and the price is not to bad either, depending on your choice of tile it could run from $7 a tile to $20+ a tile. With a little Max dog who, if he really loves a toy, has been known to pee on it just in case anyone didn't know it was his. And with a Lee who is just plain kinda messy sometimes (love you hunny in case you are reading this :) it makes sense in case a tile gets little doggy pee pee or a splash of spaghetti sauce we can just replace the tile instead of the whole carpet, saving money and the environment.

This last rug is from Pier 1

Here's a sconce option that's a bit cheaper then the pottery barn option I pictured above in my mood board.

Here are a couple of chair options we've been looking at:

Photo via Ikea We would stain the legs a different color :)
A couple of these would be great I love the little wing detail on the back

Photo via Pier 1

Photo via Home Depot, but I also think these chairs are sold at Target

Photo via Pier 1 I don't know where I would put this chair but I kinda love it, might be too much color for me but we'll see :)

We are hoping to keep our existing sofa, although a big huge one with a chaise wouldn't be too shabby. We will however need a new coffee table for sure, so I'll be back tomorrow with some coffee table options and maybe a little sneek of the dining room :)

Let us know what you think!

Inspiration for the Living Room

Here's the last of our living room inspiration! Tomorrow will focus more on exact products we've been thinking of, so today's post will be the last inspiration from other peoples homes. I've been loving finding photos that inspire me. Although tomorrows post will be a lot harder. I'm really more of a go with the flow decorator. I have a general idea of what I'd like to do but depending on what's on sale, or what mood I'm in, it all can change. Plus you never really know what your working with until you get all the furniture into the room and move it around. But here's a few more and a different angle.

I love the curtains and the woven grass blinds, the chandelier in the back. The desk and cabinets in the back look great! I love the light and airy feel of the room. If we decide to cut the room off by placing the couch facing the fireplace this room will be our inspiration. Minus the little tables. Both of us are tall, and Lee is big so we need large substantial furniture! Furniture that won't  break if Lee stubs his toe, furniture that will hold up to a good bump from the vacuum :) Delicate furniture does not suit us!

Photos via Elle Decor

I love these curtains and because we now have double height windows we'll need to add some length on to the end of our curtains.

Photo via Potter Barn

New House Plans: Living Room

The last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of excitement, and with 32 days until we move it doesn't look like it will be calming down anytime soon. We've got subscriptions to move and mail to forward. Cable to cancel and bills . . . . . yeah I guess we have to tell the bills we are moving too!
This weeks goal, get boxes! Lots of BOXES!

Moving Tip:
I know a lot of people say to ask stores, liquor stores, grocery stores etc . . . we've moved once with real moving boxes, and found it to be a lot easier, the boxes hold up well, they are larger and hold a lot more. But I am definitely not paying $5 a small box to $13 for a large one. So what we are doing is CRAIGSLIST!!! Craigslist or Kijiji have people who have just moved and are needing to get rid of their moving boxes. Some have the fancy moving boxes and some just have boxes they have collected from liquor stores and grocery stores. Some want money for them, some people are giving them away, but either way you go, you are saving a ton of money. 
We found two people, one person has moving boxes from a moving company. They have 20 boxes, ranging in size from small to extra large, they are selling the lot of them for $20. That's the same price as one Large and one medium box if we were to buy them new. The second person we are getting boxes from has around 20 random boxes, most of them are small liquor store boxes, mostly wine boxes (I can just imagine what our new neighbors will think when we move in with 20 wine boxes), but those boxes are free we just have to go pick them up. 
And just to be sure we have enough boxes we have some fabulous friends who have some boxes in their basement they were so kind to donate to the cause (the cause being our move :)

Now on to our Living Room:
I am so excited to share with you are new living room.

It has so many features that I fell in love with, the windows being the major feature! Huge windows, about 15 feet worth of them. I also Love the fireplace, although I have no idea why they made the cut out above the mantel so tall? But the plan thus far, could change still, is to drywall up the hole. I really don't want the T.V on top of the fireplace and that hole is way too tall! The T.V. will go off to the side on a fabulous console (I still need to find) and a set of pictures above the mantel.
Here's some Ideas I'm loving now:

Photo Via Country Living
I love the pictures above the mantel, Love the bookcases on either side of the fireplace (although we need our t.v. there so we probably won't have bookcases. Love the curtain rod.

Photo via Pottery Barn
I love this! I have no idea where it's going to go but I love it and had to include it into my living room inspiration! LOVE IT!

Photo via Pottery Barn
I love this photo also, I don't think we are going to go with red but I love this idea in any color, ooooo . . . navy blue would be nice.

and last for today: Young House Love's living room

Photo via Young House Love
Love the lightness of the room, the pop of color with the rug. But the reason I included this in my living room inspiration was the windows, I love the sea grass roman shades with the white curtain panels! This is how we want our windows to look!
Be back tomorrow with more living room angles and ideas!
Let us know what you think!

Breaking News!!!

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming for breaking news!
WE BOUGHT THE NEXT MANOR!!! WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!!!!
We removed subjects today and take possession near the end of OCTOBER!!!! eeeeek!!!
I couldn't wait to share the news with all our fabulous readers, all of whom have been so supportive and sent so many kind words and encouragement our way!! We cannot thank you enough :)
So without further adieu here is the NEW Maillardville Manor: (sorry for the poor quality picture it was dark by the time we left, although I could have stayed there all night)

Again sorry for the poor quality photos but I just couldn't wait an entire month to show you!
So here's the low down on our new diggs.  It's just shy of 3000 sqft, 5 bedrooms, 3 1/2 bathrooms fully detached house! It's a brand new house so we will be the first people to have ever put our mark on it! Which is exciting because I believe houses take on the feeling and personality of the people living in it, which can be a great thing or a terrible thing (depending on who lived there). I find it super exciting that we are starting with a clean slate! That has never happened before and I never thought it would happen :) But thanks to the two most amazing real estate agents we are lucky enough to call this house our home!
LIFE IS GOOD!
I don't really know what else to say about it!
Oh, and it has a front porch, I've always wanted a front porch :)

I also thought I would let you in on the plan for the next few weeks. Because we are moving I haven't had any new projects to show you.
So here's how the next month is going to look. I would like to update you on how packing is going once a week, show you all the empty spaces of the manor, but that leaves me with 4 other posts a week to fill in. What I would love to do, and what would really help me, would be for each of the following 4 weeks focus on one room of the new house and collect photos of inspiration spaces I would like to model my own space after. For example next week could be the dining room and next could be the laundry room! It would really help me decide and plan on what to do in the next house!

And near the end of October, right around Halloween, we will be forced to take a week break from our Beloved Maillardville Manor, while we move and set up house!!!! :) Still soooo excited!
So there is the new Maillardville Manor!! What do you think, again so sorry about the bad photos!

Full Disclosure: CD and DVD storage

Here's another installment of Full Disclosure, they are the photos from around The Manor that aren't particularly pretty, and I'd rather not share but  in the interest of full disclosure I do  :)
It would be too easy to make each room perfect take a photo and show you, but real life isn't always magazine ready so I wanted to share the parts of our house that, while they function really well, won't be making it on to the pages of a magazine anytime soon.
Behind our living room chair is where we keep all of the ugly parts of having a T.V and entertainment system. Behind the chair hides a multitude of sins.

However we are lucky that our fireplace has a spot built into it for such equipment.

The round containers hold our discs. The Bottom one holds our CD's, not super useful with MP3s now but we wanted to keep them. Where else can you find dance mix '97? oh, grade 7 memories!
The middle container holds our Video games, or should I say Lee's video games. And the top container holds our DVD's. I found that while all the DVD boxes looked organized when stacked together they took up a lot of space!

These containers are super handy and they flip down with the push of a button for easy access.

I use the bottom shelf for video game consoles and some of the recent games Lees purchased, apparently some of the games need instructions (he never reads instructions for anything but video games).
Then the usual suspects DVD player, receiver etc. . . .

One of my favorite additions to our living room was the in wall speakers Lee put in! There is nothing I hate more then big black speakers in a room! Lee insisted on have a "sound system" and the in wall system was a perfect compromise, we'll definitely be installing some in our new home! You may  have already noticed them in our living room photos but here they are again. There is four in total, two behind the couch and one on either side of the T.V. We bought them just over 3 years ago but I believe they were under $150.

So there's my full disclosure! I never thought I'd show that but there it is! Besides nothing could be worse then the mattress vacuuming post :) haha
Thanks checking out today's full disclosure and pop back tomorrow for Flowers on Friday and hopefully some exciting news :)

Our Night Tables

First let us thank everyone who has sent their well wishes and lovely comments regarding  the sale of our house!!!! We were both so touched and it just added to our excitement!!  We can't wait to buy our new house so we can share it! We are both sick with anticipation!!! Sleep is something that seems next to impossible when you are as excited as meee!!!
I realized I hadn't shared our nightstands yet, nothing too exciting but kind of scary, you'll see what I mean.
Our bedside tables are kind of odd. Lees is anyways :).
Lee loves halloween!!! It's bigger then Christmas for him. We always dress up and always celebrate! But to carry the spooky spirit through the other 11 months a year, Lee like to keep skulls out. I however do not!
So he keeps one on his night stand, why anyone would want a skull to be the first thing you see when you wake up and the last thing you see when you go to bed is beyond me, but he seems happy with that so who am I to argue. And besides he not only let me have flowered wallpaper, he installed it too!

So here's Lee's side, skull and all!

Lee also keeps our alarm clock on his side of the bed 1) because he gets up earlier then me and 2) if it's right beside me I'll hit snooze until it's time for dinner :)
And Here's my side, I keep a magazine holder (bought from wallmart, part of the same collection our photo storage containers came from) it holds magazines and my notebook, a pen and any other papers I might drag to bed with me on any given occasion. It keeps the night stand free of clutter. So I have room for a glass of water or on a really good week a small bouquet of flowers.
I like to keep a notebook by the bed in case I think of something I forgot or something I need to do. I sleep much better and in general have less anxiety when I write things down.

AND . . . . . .

That's what's on our nightstands. In case you wanted to know the stands themselves came from Homesense and the lamps from Costco!

Thanks again for all the love and support, it's been nerve racking and scary, we are about to take out a mortgage that would scare Oprah (haha, ok maybe not) and we are moving away from our town but we have a plan to pay it down our mortgage fast and are moving closer to family. So for each down there is an UP.
All the well wishes an comments have been so reassuring and just helped us keep focused on the big picture, a home of our own!

Big NEWS!!!

As you may or may not have guessed! THE MANOR is SOLD!!!!!!!!! We were very lucky we only had to show it for one week, as it turns out the first person who saw it bought it, we kept showing it as back-up! I really didn't like having strangers walking through the house so we were so relieved when the sale was finalized!!!
We are both over the MOON!!!! That means we can buy a  house, a real house, no strata, no rules just our own house!!!! :) I couldn't be anymore excited we have a house in our sights but I don't want to jinx it until we've got it, so maybe later this week we'll have an even more exciting post!!!!

But with all good there is a little bad, we are definitely going to miss our original townhouse Manor. We literally poured blood, sweat and tears into this place, but it is time to move on. I didn't sleep a wink last night I've been too excited! For those of us who know us well and that includes our wonderful readers!  They know that it's always been our dream to own a fully detached house, although I think Lee mostly cares about the garage! hehe
We are going to miss our beloved townhome and all of our fantastic neighbors, even the crazy lady who's scared of Max ( all 4 pounds of him ). Here's some of the little things we'll miss and some pictures we haven't shared yet! ( some out of shear embarrassment ).
The finch nests we put in  maple  tree off of our balcony! No finches ever used them, but they were pretty none the less :)

Our balcony during the summer months:

The living room started out like this:

Now it's like this:
Hanging out on the couch, browsing the ikea catalog!

Here's one of my very poor design decisions. This wallpaper is the same pattern as the bedroom wallpaper, but in a navy blue. I thought that It would be cool to have the en-suite and the master bedroom  match, it was not!  I still love the paper it's just a little too dark and a little too formal for me! But here's my attempt anyways.

Here's what it looks like now:

One thing I've noticed from the photos I've added is that over the 3 + years we've lived here it seems like our style has evolved to a lighter and brighter scheme! Which is something I will definitely carry over to our new house! 
So Long story short, We SOLD our town house!!!!! WOO-HOO, we are a little sad, but mostly SUPER DUPER EXCITED! and I'll need to take a nap today because I've been too excited to sleep!

Last night I caught Lee making secret garage plans on the back of a napkin (gotta love him)!