Edmonton Downtown Apartment Project

Today I'll share with you one of the first rooms I decorated out side of my own home. This is the home of my beautiful and strong mom-in-law (aka mom) Jamila. She is a confidante and a strong influence in my life! It was so kind of her to trust me with this project! Thank you for the support mom!
We started the room with the Cedric sofa from Urban Barn and built on to it. We kept the scheme simple, with shades of grey and browns with pops of color in the pillows and throw.  The room desperately needs some wall hangings, a rug and some styling but again it was over two years ago and I was just a beginner!

The coffee table was actually my mom's find and I believe it fits in really well!

This throw pillow was my favourite, from HomeSense. And the throw is from Ikea.

Can you believe these chairs are actually recliners? You wouldn't know it if you just looked at them. They have style and function. My nephews and nieces love to flip them around for watching television. They were also from HomeSense! I'm on the lookout for similar piece for our basement movie room!

The brown chair was purchased from Kincaid furnishings and it was an homage to the walnut brown stain of some hardwood floor boards and the accent wall behind the fireplace. Most of the other walls are beige. This room gets a ton of light from the windows on all sides of the room, my mom loves that about this home.

I'll shoot some more pictures next time of the updates that we made in the foyer about a year ago. I love that dark stained front door, so luxurious!

That foyer table is an original EP Interiors restoration, it was purchased second hand, then primed, painted in jet black and sealed with a protective clear coat!  

Looking at these pictures makes me realize how much I've learned about styling and design over the past two years!

Hope you enjoyed this walk-through!

Ameera

J'adore Home 5: Kitchen Cabinets and Hardwood Floors

We had a flood! A refrigerator flood that mangled the hardwood in our kitchen and dining! The Home Insurance covers only 40% of the main floor but we are adding to the cost to replace the flooring on the entire main floor! Hardwood throughout the main floor sounds like a luxury to me. But todays post is not about hardwood floors! Its about the colours of cabinets to floors. First let's explore the contrast option.

Traditional Kitchen by Solon Interior Designers & Decorators House of L Interior Design

This style has a more casual and lived in look. Beautiful to the eye and when you enter a room like this, you have so much to look at! The floors, cabinets, pulls, countertops and everything else eye candy! Since they matched the chair fabric to the floors to some degree, there is a cohesiveness here despite the contrast.

Traditional Kitchen by Ottawa Cabinets & Cabinetry Laurysen Kitchens Ltd.

or consider this combination! Espresso brown cabinets with dark walnut floors! Your eyes go straight to the floors.. The cabinets are acting as a backdrop for the grain of the hardwood floors. For even more contrast, look at the light and bright counters, this whole kitchen is so dramatic but beautiful! Despite all of that beauty I find myself leaning towards the tone on tone look of cabinets and wood floors. like this one: Sure its a bit more traditional but it feels more cohesive and the eye is drawn towards other elements like that fireplace or the pendants!

Transitional Kitchen by Prescott Home Builders Dorn Homes

And finally there are these three kitchens:

Traditional Kitchen

Here we see that the floors are matched to the wood on the cabinets however some cabinets with the glass doors have a contrasting paint colour. The designer is emphasizing this portion of the kitchen, our eye is drawn to this focal wall! Some beautiful crisp white serving dishes and that beautiful hood fan above the stove are must haves in my dream kitchen!

Traditional Kitchen

This one is dark from floors to cabinets to builtins and paint! but those wall kitchen cabinets are set apart in white. This is another combination of mixing the cohesive and contrast look! Dramatic and feels custom! Not sure if this will work in our space, our fireplace is very country chic not quite as classy as this dark builtin effect!

Traditional Kitchen by Lake Forest Kitchen & Bath Fixtures Preferred Kitchen & Bath

This kitchen actually has the colour scheme of our current kitchen. We have cherry wood cabinets with stainless steel appliances, stone countertops are still a work in progress.. This kitchen mixes the contrast and cohesive look. Uppers and lowers along the wall are matched to the flooring but the contrasting element is the island! This is most definitely my style! It makes the island the focal point for the whole room! Our island is 84 inches by 52 inches, perhaps it needs to be the focal point, it definitely has the size for it! So what to do? Contrasting or cohesive? Which do you prefer? any other suggestions that I should consider before signing on the dotted line...
 Best wishes, Ameera

Pinterest inspired upcycle

In honour of Earth Day, I have decided to share with you an upcycle that I am especially proud of. This is the story of my upcycled CD art.

Grey-washed Sofa Table

I took a foray into the paint washing world. I refinished another piece of furniture with a grey wash last week. I am loving this new painting technique. Its so easy!

Jadore Home 5: Banquette Seating

I don’t know one person who doesn’t love sitting in a booth or banquette at a restaurant. They have a much more cozy feel than a simple dining chair.

DIY Grommet Curtain Panels

Our bedroom used to don forest green crushed silk tap top panels for about two years before our recent change to the lighter coloured grommet panels. Now that I look back, the room used to look smaller and more dingy definitely not as posh as I feel it is now. The new lighter, brighter and updated look is still functional because we have a thermal lining in the back along with the 2 inch blinds that keeps most of the light out of the room during the day and keeps the cold out during the night

Inspiring Cozy Family Room

Sarah Richardson has a wonderful design repertoire, even with her newer more edgy design choices, I still love her formula. The beauty of her design style is it can be adjusted to any taste, feeling and period

Upcycled Coffee Table Part II: Cushion

So the bench cushion that I put together to put on top of the entryway bench was a much needed element.

Upcycled Coffee Table turned Entryway Bench Part I

This following project took almost three weeks and lots of patience to complete. When we last spoke about this project, I was helping my brother redecorate his apartment in downtown calgary. Apart from the usual furniture hunting, I also wanted to give him something that I got my hands dirty in.
Enter the Entryway bench.

Mod Master Bedroom

I need to get on the regular blogging band wagon again. Its been too long.

Sew Busy!

Today I want to share with you  the ABC artwork I made for my son's small playroom. Its been a good addition because he knows the letters ABC already...

J'adore Home 4: Room Dividers

Why are room dividers on my mind? I saw a DIY version using old records and contact paper and thought this was an ingenius idea. Some room dividers are art in itself, no need for a painting when your room is divided by a beautiful lattice or an industrial style bookcase.

Refinished Vintage Chest of Drawers

Today is a blistery - 27 and feels like -30 in Calgary Alberta. This type of weather is expected for the whole week!!! The weather comes as no surprise to us because this was marked as one of the coldest winters and thus far, we Calgarians have been spoiled with warm temperatures above 0. I am looking forward to lots of evenings at the pool in Cardel Place while the manageable weather comes around this weekend.

But back to the original reason for this post! Remember that chest of drawers I scored for free to practice my staining techniques. Well I completed the work over the last few weeks and wanted to give you a peak at the new look. But before I get to the after pictures, let me tell you the whole story!

Metro Mix Great Room Design

I've finally completed the mood board for my brother's apartment in Downtown Calgary.
His great room is entirely open concept with the dining room, living room and front entry melding into one another. As a result, we have to use coordinating colour schemes throughout.

Festive Retreat: Holiday Home Tour

....And we have finally reached the end of the Holiday Home Decor series. Let’s just say that its been quite hectic around here with all the holiday activities to fit in a blog post here so I am a bit behind. Disclaimer: Lots of pictures in this post!

DIY floating mantel just in time for Christmas

This is the story of our everchanging TV wall. We finally got it right, mind you after multiple  attempts, but nonetheless we finally got it right. See we started with a black-brown mantel, very simple and there was definitely nothing wrong with it but all the wires hanging out and about for everyone to see was so unpleasing.

Festive Retreat: Holiday Mantelscape

Now on to the mantelscape for the holiday season.  Our Christmas mantel, its simple and elegant. Just the right style for me. You may recall an earlier post that said we do not have a mantel.. Well, we finally have one right above our fireplace and we actually DIYed this mantel of ours.

Festive Retreat: Christmas Tree

The next stop on our festive retreat tour is the Christmas tree. Its a simple design, nothing over the top and definitely a traditional colour scheme. Growing up, we actually never had a tree. I used to look at my friends cozy homes during the holidays and hoped that one day I could have one in my home. The first December I got married, we purchased and decorated our first Christmas tree and we have never looked back. Since then, we have acquired new ornaments and crafted other accessories to go along with the tree to bring the cheer all around the home.

Real Versus Faux?

We are all about the Faux tree since there isn’t the hassle of purchasing, transporting and hauling up to the fourth floor. Its a simple assemble and disassemble cycle every year.  To add the ambient scent of pine trees into the home, I use candles and plug-ins, it does the job without the mess of pine needles all around the room.

Tree skirt or not?

Last year, I sewed together a tree skirt in a red satin and black decorative fabric but it was never sufficient. It never looked as neat as I wanted it to. This year I scrapped that idea and went for something new. This is basically a wicker basket that I had sitting in our storage that we customized (tore strategic holes into) to hold the tree with stability.

My favourite ornament:

My favorite ornament is actually not an ornament at all. These are poinsetta tree picks that my mom gifted to me and they are just the prettiest pieces. They add a special feature to this otherwise simple tree. Those presents under the tree are merely cereal boxes wrapped in Christmas wrapping paper. As I mentioned earlier, we do not exchange presents but the ambiance that the tree creates and the traditions that the tree represents are worth the effort. The tree is the shining star of the holiday season and I just won’t go without it. 

Tree Topper: 

This year, we chose a ribbon Bow that matched our colour scheme but we are hoping to transition to a crescent moon for next years display. This would add a touch of our ancestry and religious values but with a western twist.
Update: A few more pictures for your enjoyment

Well thats it for this years Tree display. Who knows what next year will bring?

Holiday Vignette

Round back chair all dressed up!

I am so in love with reading nooks and desk vignettes right now that  I'm letting it carry through the holiday season. Amongst the preparations for the Holiday Tea Party that I'm hosting on Saturday and decorating my home with Christmas decor, I have been creating a cozy reading space in my living room.

Master Bedroom Desk Vignette

I finally have a practical solution for that extra square footage in the master bedroom. A reading nook was factored out after realizing that the reading chair was only being used to hold clean laundry. So I sold the reading chair and went back to the drawing board. Meanwhile my husband was asking for some non-disrupting time to sign in and work a bit from home. So this space is now assigned to a desk vignette.