Friday 26 February 2016

House Tour -Kitchen & Living Room

Just past the front room, you enter the kitchen/dining/living room.  To the right is the kitchen.

It has a nice, big island with outlets!  There's also a water tap over the stove to fill your large pots.  The door to the left of the stove leads to the 'spice kitchen'.


Beside the fridge is the wall-oven & built-in microwave.  The cupboards in the kitchen are so high that the kids can barely reach the bottom shelf, so in order to allow them the opportunity to empty the dishwasher, we opted to put all our dishes in the lower cabinets of the island.  It's strange, but it works!

Here's a peak into the 'spice kitchen'.  It has a double sink, & a gas stove & oven.  The idea of this is for when you make smelly foods, you can shut the door & turn on the industrial strength fan so you don't smell up the rest of the house.  I don't really use this room for anything other than a big pantry!  Right now it also is where I am storing more broken things that I need to keep until the moving company insurance comes through.

This picture is from the kitchen looking into the rest of the room.  It's one great big open room which is what we were looking for in a house.  We don't make use of a formal living room or dining room, so we wanted it all as one room.

The living room has a built-in TV unit which is perfect to hold all of our video game systems!



These bookshelves hold all of our DVDs, & girly fiction books.  PChad built me spacers so some of the shelves can hold twice as many books (it's hard to find shelf space for them all!)  The doors to the left are the laundry area doors...

...with a washroom beside them

Behind the couch in the living room are the shelves which had been in PChad's office in PEI, but now they are filled with general fiction & non-fiction on the left, & Christian fiction on the right.


Thanks for joining us on this tour, come back next week for the basement!
(Yes, there's MORE!)

Thursday 25 February 2016

House Tour -Front Room

Welcome to the main floor!  PChad & I are still disagreeing on what we call this space.  He calls it the front room.  I tend to describe it by what's in there (or what will be in there).  So, I call it the fireplace room, or the piano room (despite there not being a piano at this point)*

This is the front entrance!  This house strangely has no hall closets, so we installed a shelf with hooks behind the door.  A nice find on kijiji (Canadian CraigsList) which matched the decor perfectly.

As you walk in, just to your right is a nice fireplace & sitting area...

and a wall waiting for a piano!

*if you, or someone you know in the area is looking to get rid of a piano for cheap, or even free, we are in the market for one!

Wednesday 24 February 2016

House Tour -Master Bedroom

Today we are exploring the Master bedroom, which as the largest room, tends to also end up storing some random things, & this time is no exception!

Bed, nightstands, dog crate...

At the end of the bed resides the Hope Chest which holds all the spare bedding for all the beds upstairs.  The large wardrobe to the left of the door holds all the blankets for the beds, & beach towels (we have a lot since living on PEI) since there is no linen closet, it ended up in our bedroom.  The door leads to my favourite washroom...

Between the window & the closet is my dressing table.  It holds all of the hair ties for Chancery & I.  Right now it is covered with all my jewelry since the moving company has not gotten back to me about my broken jewelry cabinet.  Just imagine the top of the desk is cleaned off.  That's what I do!


PChad & I have a walk-in closet in which I hang my plethora of hoodies, & he has all his nice clothes.  Hidden behind the door is our laundry sorter.

Now for the washroom!
To the left is the toilet room, two sinks & two more mirrors to clean...


Here we have his & her shower & bath!  Now you see why the kids want to come use my bathtub!  The shower has an adjustable head, as well as 6 jets, & a rain head!  This bathroom is insanely awesome!

Tuesday 23 February 2016

House Tour -Guest Room / Office

Welcome to day 3 of the BC house tour!  Today I'll be showing you my office which doubles as a guest room.  YOU could be staying in this very room if you choose to come for a visit!


 This is taken from the doorway.  To the right is the private washroom.  It has a tub/shower combo for all your bathing needs!  The bookshelf you see here has our classic books, though some are missing since they got mixed in with PChad's office books.  The closed door is the walk-in closet which right now is storing our art.  We have not yet gotten around to putting art on the walls since we have lots, & there is not a lot of wall space in this house.  We have to choose carefully!



Here's my desk.  I inherited PChad's desk from PEI which is a massive upgrade from my desk space that I had before!  I am slowly learning how to keep a larger desk space clean!

Beside the desk we have 2 bookshelves which hold the rest of the kids books & chapter books that don't fit in the kids' bookshelves.  This is the first time in our 16 years of marriage that all of our books are on shelves!  Since the kids are now into chapter books it was time to haul them all out of the boxes!

Monday 22 February 2016

Bran Muffins

For as long as I've known him,  PChad has always raved about his mum's bran muffins.  Now, I'm not a huge fan of muffins in general, I'd rather have a cookie or a brownie, so when I think of baking, muffins are not at the top of my list.  But a few days ago PChad asked if I could please make his
mum's bran muffins, so I figured it was time (and he only asked once during the process if I was making them the way his mum did!).  They are pretty tasty... as far as muffins go!




This works the best if you make it in the really big Tupperware Bowl (Wonderlier)

Bran Muffins

Pour 2 Cups boiling water over 2 Cups All Bran (original), set aside (in Tupperware Bowl)

Cream: - 1 1/4 Cup Margarine
             - 3 Cups White Sugar

Add:    - 4 Eggs & Beat
            - 1 Litre Buttermilk

Pour mixture into Tupperware Bowl & mix with Bran mush

Add:  - 4 Cups Bran Flakes
          - 2 tsp Salt
          - 3 tsp Baking Soda
          - 2 Cups Raisins
          - 5 Cups Flour

Let stand overnight in fridge.

Fill Muffin cups & Bake @ 400° for 20 minutes.  Makes 5 Dozen


House Tour -Asher's Room

 Welcome to another day of the BC house tour!  Today I will be showing you Asher's room.  This boy is the most organized member of the family, so it's no problem for him to keep his room straight!

As you walk in his room, to the left is his closet, followed by his full bookshelf.  He has 3 drawered carts full of Lego & those 2 things represent his favourite pastimes.



We recently purchased a loft bed for Asher.  It is a double on top with a desk & more shelves below.  It was a good deal from Kijiji since it was covered with graffiti, but a magic eraser & a few well placed stickers took care of the bad parts!  The only downside to this bed is that it is so tall that Asher can't sit up on his bed, so we are on the hunt for a bean-bag chair or floor cushion for him.  His dresser is by the window, & the door leads to the shared kids' washroom.

Friday 19 February 2016

House Tour -Chancery's Room

We have settled into our house in the last month, & are to the point that we have almost stopped shuffling furniture around... almost!  So, I figured it was time to show you some pictures.  We're going to take is slowly.  I'm only going to show you one room at a time, & today I am going to show you Chancery's room.

 This is looking straight ahead from the doorway into Chancery's room.  It is considerably smaller than her room in PEI was, & she is working on learning how to keep her small space clean.  It can be very difficult when you just want to play with ALL the toys!  We got rid of her bed in PEI which had lots of drawers built-in, & now she has Asher's old bunkbed.  At least it's tall enough to fit tote boxes under!

At the end of the bed is a dollhouse & her closet.  Thankfully we have numerous bookshelves, & we had one that fit perfectly between her closet & washroom door to hold some of her toys! 

Chancery's bookshelves are full to capacity.  She is making the transition from kids books to chapter books.  There are so many old favourites it's hard to know which ones to get rid of!  Just to the left of the dresser is the door again!

The door you see here leads into a washroom that the kids share.


  It is only accessible through their rooms, & they are learning to share, & remember to unlock both doors when they are done!  There is a shower, but no bathtub which isn't ideal (it means they want to use MY bathtub!), but it works!