It's beginning to look a bit like Christmas

While my Christmas decorating may have gotten off to a slow start, it's finally starting to come together - just in time for my parents' first visit to my new home!

Wednesday night was spent baking, decorating and eating (far too many) cookies with a good friend. Our tasty treats will be displayed on white platters when guests arrive (currently they're safely stowed away in containers, with the hopes that out of sight really is out of mind!).

I also dressed up my dining room console/rad cover/wine rack with this cheery, and shiny, little guy, who I saw in a shop window one afternoon and just couldn't pass up. I do keep trying to resist the urge to hang things from his antlers!

And my favourite, and far most labour-intensive, project was the first phase of my mantel makeover. Our mantel was designed (by the previous owners) to hold a TV, and we have yet to hang one there. So, up until this week, it looked like this:

 

Not exactly a stunner, is it? All those holes up top are designed to accommodate the TV and peripherals, while the one below leads to another outlet. Totally convenient, but less than pretty. And certainly not the polished look I'm going for! Someday, it will host our TV and Wii, but in the meantime, we needed a cover-up!

So, with a picture frame left over from a previous project and a few bits of glassware, we get this:

 
We framed some pretty snowy wrapping paper for a seasonal touch (and it perfectly disguises the TV mount), then added some candles and a vase filled with mini ornaments. Finding pieces that fit on the mantel was actually pretty tricky because it's very narrow!

Despite hours of searching, I couldn't find any stocking hooks that I actually liked, so we ended up hanging our stockings on peel and stick hooks, which thankfully blend in fairly well with the white backdrop.

Presents will fill the "fireplace" area, which I think is a great festive touch (and honestly, where else would we put them?), plus it hides the hole.

Like all things in our house, it is still a work in progress. I need to pick up some greenery to help fill out the space, after I wrap the ledge in clingwrap to keep it from getting all sappy and sticky (thanks to Better Homes and Garden's Twitter feed for the tip!).

But, despite my still-growing holiday to do-list, every ornament I put up helps get me a little bit more in the spirit! Plus, isn't half the fun in decorating slowly, until everything's just right?

To tree, or not to tree?

My holiday preparation is certainly moving slowly this year. We're starting pretty much from scratch decorating-wise, as there wasn't a whole lot of space for festive touches in last year's two bedroom rental and we were spending much of the holiday out of the city with family.

That means that, in addition to buying presents and sending cards, I've also got to choose, buy and put up decorations! And, my current decorating dilemma is whether or not to put up a tree.

Growing up, I always had a real tree (which is right on trend this year). We'd spend an evening drinking eggnog, listening to carols and trimming the tree as a family. It was a wonderful tradition, and this is the first year that I won't be going home to Nova Scotia to take part in it. That feeling of missing out - and the perfect Christmas smell - makes me inclined to start our own tree trimming tradition here in Ontario.

But, on the other side of the wishy-washy coin that has become my holiday planning, real trees are messy. You end up with pine needles scattered throughout the house for months. They take up space, and I'm not sure where we'd put it. They also take time, which seems to be at a premium these days.

And, there are loads of alternatives.

Fake trees, especially the pre-lit variety, are easier to put up and decorate, and you can find increasingly authentic looking ones. But, they still take time and floor space, and I worry that it just wouldn't be an appropriate substitute for the real thing.

Spray-painted branches (I'm thinking white or silver) in a pretty vase, dressed with a few miniature ornaments, would be a space-saving and stylish option. 

Paperwhites or a potted sapling would help bring the outdoors in and add a "live" touch to my decor, along with looking gorgeous on a table or mantel. Plus, they're cheap, and decorating them is easy - just plunk them down into a pretty pot!

Or I could let my mantel - decoration currently "under construction" - stand in for my tree, and fill my faux fireplace with presents.

I could even just put out a bowl of ornaments, in a nice variety of sizes, shapes and textures, and call it a day.

Decisions, decisions. How's a girl to choose just one (or find time to do them all)?

Is a tree part of your holiday decor? If so, do you go faux or real?

Stretching the budget in our master bedroom makeover

Mr. Speedy and I were busy with the paintbrushes this weekend, replacing the blotchy baby blue walls with a lovely shade of grey. (See my sneak peek here).

While the touch-ups are done and the furniture has been put back into place (hooray!), I'm not quite ready to share a photo of the whole room - because it's part of my much-delayed (due to illness, vacations, holidays and the like) master bedroom makeover! (Catch up here and here).

I will, however, share a great tip I've learned during the process. You might remember that we're trying to transform the room on a skimpy budget - a mere $200 - so we couldn't just pop on over to the hardware store for a $50 can of paint.

Instead, Lisa Canning, who has a reputation for being able to do a room on the cheap, advised me to explore the world of mistint paint. So she and I hit up Rotblott's with the hopes of finding a can of sophisticated grey.

While the selection was mostly neutrals, we were lucky enough to score a can of mistinted "Rockport Gray", a Benjamin Moore classic. We also picked up another small can of a similar grey, in case we ran out, and some rollers, all for the sweet price of $13!

The downside to going with a mistint is that we could only find one can of the mistinted Rockport Gray, so if we ran out, it would be seriously tough, if not impossible, to match.

Bracing for the worst, we bought the safety can of a similar shade, which we could have used to paint the mostly-covered up wall behind our wardrobes - where the colour change would have hopefully been hardly noticeable. Luckily, we were able to do the whole room with one can!

The new coat of paint has already made a world of difference in our space, and our sweet deal will definitely help us stretch our budget even more.

How do you divvy up the housework?

After checking out that study on how couples that do more housework have more sex, I couldn't help but wonder about how households split up all those unpleasant, but necessary, chores.

The study found that women spent much more time cleaning house than men - 41.8 hours compared to 23.4 - but those stats also showed that the men were spending more time in the office (33.8 to 19.7).

What about the couples who spend an equal, or at least similar, amount of time doing paid work? And how did the wives and husbands in this study split up the household work?

At Casa Speedy, keeping up with the chores (along with completing all the necessary renovation, maintenance and decorating projects) can certainly be a real challenge.

We try to split things up, but most often the jobs fall to the person who cares the most. For example, I'm picky about having my clean clothes folded just so (a girl's gotta keep her closet organized), so the laundry generally falls to me. Mr. Speedy has developed a very precise system for handling our trash and recycling, so I happily keep my hands off that task.

Along the same lines, I generally am the one responsible for cooking supper, while Mr. Speedy handles breakfast and caffeine for me, the resident sleepyhead. We share the dishes, and take turns tidying, sweeping, and scrubbing, based mostly on who's free, bored, or most bothered by the state of the place.

How do you keep up with the household chores? Do you try to split things 50-50 or does one person in your household do the heavy lifting?

Bye bye baby blue ...

And hello grown up grey!

We decided to tackle our master bedroom on Saturday, and, while I'm not in the office on Mondays, I just couldn't resist sharing a sneak peek with you!

This space, between our his and hers wardrobe units, will soon be home to my vanity!

Stay tuned later this week for more on my master bedroom makeover.

First the heater, now new boiler regs

It's been one of those weeks around my house. So much to do, so little time. All compounded by our old hot water heater giving up the ghost and soaking our basement. And, of course, because it was one of those weeks, one of the connections to the new one was leaking too, so we had to have yet another service call.

Because it was a small trickle, they booked us an appointment for two days after we noticed the problem, meaning the repair guy showed up yesterday. He soldered up the hole in the connector, and the basement is drying out again. At that point, I expected that we could finally put the whole soggy mess behind us.

But, it wasn't that easy. We happen to have an old boiler that's still trucking along and doing an excellent job of heating our house. But, we were unaware of new carbon monoxide regulations - effective yesterday! - that required us to have a carbon monoxide test done, a carbon monoxide detector in our sleeping area - ours was in the basement, near the boiler - and more ventilation to the unfinished portion of our wee basement, which required removing a door between the spaces. (Read more about the regulations here).

We were lucky, we passed the test, and removing the door was a quick fix (armed with pliers cause our hammer is MIA), as was moving the plug-in carbon monoxide detector upstairs. So we got our pass tag, and, other than the inspection fee, the whole thing was pretty painless. Here's hoping that once we get our annual cleaning out of the way, we'll be done with service calls for a while!

This new homeowner's trying to stay afloat

Buying a new home is exciting. So's decorating it. Even moving, while stressful and messy, also comes with a fun sense of anticipation.

But, once the dust settles, there's also an awful lot of work to do. Always. With winter coming, the eaves troughs need cleaning, the lawn needs its final mowing and the roof could use a bit of patching. We also need to buy shovels before the white stuff hits.

And that's on top of the other stuff on our to-do list, like finishing the painting, hanging artwork, installing more shelving units in closets and getting the guest room ready for holiday guests.

Plus, there's all that 'regular' stuff, like cleaning and cooking that really ought to happen.

So, at any given moment, I feel like there's at least a dozen things I should be doing, taking precedence over the things I'd like to do. Mopping the floors or washing dishes will always trump the creative fireplace makeover that I'm dreaming of, or even catching up on some TV. 

And, then there's the unexpected stuff, like our water heater turning our basement into a wading pool earlier this week.

So, this week, this new homeowner is feeling a little bit overwhelmed. OK, really overwhelmed.

But even with my anxiety over everything that needs doing, I still couldn't help but get a little inspired by today's Home Improvements special section, which includes how to figure out the return on your renos, how to green your projects and getting your furnace ready for heating season.

How am I ever going to whittle down my to do list if I keep adding projects? Guess I'll just have to buckle down, keep plugging away, and learn to accept that owning a home means that nothing is ever truly finished.

Our first wet basement

After spending Thanksgiving weekend with my in laws, we returned home Monday ready to tackle the week. While I stocked our fridge with leftovers, Mr. Speedy ran down to the basement to feed Allistair, our bunny, who had been home alone all weekend. All seemed well.

Then Mr. Speedy yelled "We have a problem" followed by silence. I shouted "What?" while wondering whether we'd been robbed or if the bunny had not fared so well flying solo for the weekend. When I still didn't get a response, I dashed downstairs to try to quell my wild imagination.

That's when I saw Mr. Speedy standing in water up over his ankles in the unfinished portion of our basement. What used to be our laundry and storage area had turned into a wading pool.

So, I grabbed some flip flops and started rescuing boxes while we tried to figure out where the water was coming from. A quick investigation showed some telltale bubbling from the water heater, so we quickly phoned the rental company and turned the handle to stop the flow of water from the cold water pipe to the heater.

Repairmen, and a new hot water heater, were on their way (and arrived within hours, thankfully) but, it was a holiday and we still had several inches of water in our basement. And, we had neither a car nor a wet vac.

We called in a favour from a friend with a car, who then did the tour of closed-for-the-holiday hardware stores with Mr. Speedy while I waited for the repairmen. We figured we were out of luck, but thankfully, our friend remembered that his church had a wet vac, and was able to borrow it for us.

The wet vac, along with uncovering a floor drain that had been closed off by a previous owner, helped take our basement from a pool to a puddle.

So, things are looking up. Our shiny new water heater has been installed. The carpet and underpadding that had been down there (which, honestly, we hadn't liked much anyway) has been trucked out to the garage awaiting disposal, the dehumidifier and fans have been working overtime, and the space has had a thorough scrub.

But, sadly, the story isn't over. Last night, while debating whether it was finally dry enough to return all the storage items, which have been cluttering up the finished portion of the basement, Mr. Speedy noticed a small but steady trickle of water streaming down the side of our shiny new tank. Turns out the soldered new connection isn't quite sealed. Argh.

So, they're coming tomorrow to finish patching it up. All in all, we were pretty lucky. No real damage was done to our home, and nothing important got waterlogged. But, it was definitely stressful and perhaps the least fun we've had since moving in. I'm hoping that after tomorrow, and another scrub, my basement will return to its former glory of storage area and laundry room, albeit sans carpeting.

Kitchen envy

Lately, I've been experiencing a whole lotta kitchen envy. My kitchen is relatively functional, but not so fabulous. (Read more about it here).

And, in case those lush spreads in the fall magazines weren't enough to have me shopping for my imaginary kitchen makeover, Frigidaire has just introduced a new line of lust-worthy appliances.

The 200 (!) revamped appliances look super sleek and offer "time-saving" features, like the ovens' "PowerPlus Convection", which is supposed to reduce cooking time by 30 per cent and pre-heating times of "less than six minutes." 

The new dishwashers offer speedier wash and dry options, while refrigerators have more storage and a fancy new organization system.

The other thing that's got me drooling is the new washers and dryers, which have something called "TimeWise" technology - meaning wash time is supposed to be the same as dry time. I hate waiting for the dryer to finish when I'm doing a serious run on laundry, so my impatient side welcomes this idea!

"Our goal was to build the kinds of appliances that would help families breeze through household tasks to create more time to enjoy the things they love," said Tom Coulman, Director of Product and Brand Development for Frigidaire, in a release. Keep an eye out for the new lines at retailers like Sears, The Brick, Leon's and The Bay. Read more about the new lines on the Frigidaire website.

More from the basement ...

The basement was my major project for the long weekend. My goal was to take it from a dark, cavelike space filled with boxes to a fun place to hang out, watch TV and play video games (The Beatles Rock Band is our latest addiction).

Mr. Speedy had already swapped out our overhead light for one that worked - which made a huge difference in making the space less cave-like! - and we'd already sorted out a colour scheme of black, white and red (black to match the TV and PS3, red for the Xbox 360 and white for the Wii, of course).

Earlier this week, I shared my start at colour-blocking my books, and the next step was to start decorating!

A black slipcover made our old futon look a little bit less sketchy while we save up for a new downstairs sofa, and, to really make the room pop, we've hung this delightful, vintage-inspired poster, an amazing project spearheaded by a Yourhome reader! With its clean lines and quirky message, it's really the perfect piece to set the tone for our basement den!

The next step is to finish sorting the DVDs back into their cases (embarassingly, I forgot to move the folders for them before snapping this photo on my way out the door this morning), and finish tidying up all the unpacking remnants (which I really must do before sharing a picture of the full space!)

After that, my major next step is to choose a paint colour to freshen up the walls. I fear white could be too stark for the space, against all the eye-catching black and red, so I've been thinking maybe a soft grey. What do you think?