My little herb garden

I long for fresh summer cooking with organically grown ingredients and fresh herbs. But I live in Edmonton where the growing season starts late, so this year I came up with a cute solution:

My windowsill herbs!

I chose to plant parsley, basil, and chives (my favorite summer-cooking herbs)

In order to be budget savy I used 3 little IKEA vases that I had kickin around from our wedding and filled them up with some potting soil.



Then I made these cute little tags and secured them onto popsicle sticks:





Then I planted my seeds and tagged them, and voila, a little herb garden.

I planted a couple weeks ago and I already have some sprouts! My chives are growing like weeds. But they sure aren't going to taste like weeds. Mmmmmmm I can taste them already........grilled baby potatoes with herbs, grilled lemon basil chicken, herb bicuits, strawberry arugala and basil salad.......yum!

Happy cooking!

Leah xoxo

I need your help.

Okay bloggers, today I need your help to make a decision.

While doing all of our renos in the back of my mind is always resale because I know that we are not going to be here forever (actually probably only a few years depending on where Dman gets into school).

So, while I have TOTALLY stayed true to my style when picking out things such as doors, tile, cabinets, countertops, etc, etc, I have also tried to stay somewhat neutral for resale.

I want to spice it up a bit in the living/dining room with something on the walls (I am so over plain painted walls) - wallpapaer is out for me because I feel that it is too specific to someone's taste and not a good option for me if we are going to be selling in a couple years. So I have decided that I am going to do a panelling of some sort - where I need your help is deciding between two styles. I know which one I want to do but I need to know what potential buyers would like.

Pretend like you are in the market to buy a house - which one do you like or does one turn you off? Or do you even like either?

Option #1:

Wainscotting

OR

Option #2

6 foot panelling

Images courtesy of 'Just Beachy'

What do you think? Comments PLEASE!

Leah xoxo

Doors, doors, doors.

Ugh, renovations. Oh how I am sick of them.

But all is worth it when Dman and I get to step back and admire our work.

Today's treat for y'all: our new mission style doors!

Here is what was in the house when we bought it:

Yes, I failed to take a real before picture (as with most things we have renovated - darn excitement - I jumped the gun with everything), and yes, the door is now functioning as a fence hole-filler-inner to keep the mutts in. Our fence is HORRIBLE but one project at a time right? I know it's very white trash but don't judge me.

Anyway, as you can see, they were u-g-l-y, UGLY. A bad paint job of oak, and those bronze doorknobs that totally remind me of my childhood which, I might add, were all loose and falling off. Quite a few of the doors didn't even close because the frames were warped.

So, we decided to replace them with these beauties:

Please ignore the poor picture - I was at an awkward picture taking angle.

I chose to do mission style doors. Why? I am in love with the design movement. It originated in the late 19th century when people looked to break away from Victorian design but wanted something with more substance than the mass produced furniture of the industrial revolution. So furniture makers began making pieces that had straight lines, uncluttered profiles, and used very heavy/chunky peices of wood. It's a very modern (clean lines) but rustic (chunky, often highlights wood grain) look. Love it.

I was debating going with shaker style doors, which is very much of the same style. It originated with, no suprise here, the shakers and is characterized by many of the same characteristics as the mission style, the only real differences being that the shaker style is more delicate and not so heavy, and in the way that it is constructed. Modern shaker style uses a more complicated joinery that mission which is a lot more work for the manufactuer, and hence, a lot more money. So I went mission!

I chose brushed bronze doorknobs to match the mission period:

And thick, chunky, plain molding, again, to match the mission period of the doors:

One more project down, a zillion more to go!

Have a good one.

Leah xoxo