Moving: Keeping it Real

I'm all about keeping it real on the blog. Although buying your first home is exciting, it's not nearly as glamorous as the blogging world or the general media has led me to believe. Let me break it down for you, first you spend the month leading up to the move packing and cleaning a house you're leaving, then you rope in as many willing and able bodies as possible to help you move all of your furniture and posessions out of that house, onto a truck (with an elevator not a ramp), across the city, off the truck and into your new home. Then. they. leave. you...in a strange dirty house surrounded by boxes wondering what you should do first. This is where my expectations got the best of me. This is where I crashed, and this is the moment where I thought gee... we probably should have cleaned and painted the house before we moved in (***somebody remind me next time). I am trying my hardest to bite of manageable pieces of work, to be ok with putting something away even if it's not going to be its permanent home and to relax and enjoy the process as much as possible. To say this is difficult for me would be a GIGANTIC understatement, but for the sanctity of my health, home and future marriage, this is the best course of action!

And while my kitchen now looks like this (sorry for the dark nightime photo)

My dining room and sitting room look like this.

I am so exited to get to a point where I can show you rooms in the house and tell you about all of my plans. Until then, I will be working my way through the boxes and cleaning things I never ever imagined I would (i.e. have you ever vacuumed your walls because I am now an expert)?

We're In!

Well, we got everything out of the old house on Saturday and everything moved into the new place, including the cats. Despite losing Missy for almost 10 hours yesterday, so far so good.

And because my kitchen looks like this:

I opted to share a picture of my backyard on facebook Saturday night:)

We'll be digging out for a few weeks now, but we're in our home and we're happy to be here:)

No-mad's Land

You'll have to excuse the lack of posting, it's moving week and we're beyond buried in boxes, meetings, and last minute details. I am taking a break to share some images of the weekend with you.

Turns out cats can sleep through anything on anything when they want to. Missy found comfort in the back of the lazyboy set on the kitchen table and Boy-Cat ignored all of the movement and boxes around him and gravitated to the warmth of the laptop on the couch.

I took this picture on the way home from a trip out to our new house and village. I love how small town it is, I love that there is a local coffee shop, community activities like fairs, scarecrow contests and bonfires, and the fact that I can walk to town in twenty minutes. 

We're moving on Saturday and thanks to a number of good friends pitching in, it shouldn't be too bad. I can't wait to be there and to introduce the kitties to their new home and a world outside of the burbs. 

Fab Find Friday: Vintage Seam Binding

I treated myself to a quick value village trip this week on my way to my night class. I picked up a cute enamel tray for the bathroom and two bags of this vintage seam binding. I just loved the colours and packaging. Some of it is local and some from Japan! I can't wait to put it to use in a craft project soon. There was a scrap of it wound around a 1979 calendar which helped take the guessing out of how old it is:)

Happy Friday! It's the last weekend before we move, so we'll be waist deep in boxes:)

Wedding Wednesday: Invitations Part 1

As I noted in my middle post last week, we've decided to complete our wedding invitations in the middle of the packing/moving process, seems sane right? We're almost there after many detailed decisions, trips to office supply and craft stores and me trying as best as possible to hone my perfectionist, straight edge, centered label, aligned stamp skills that are so not me...(my blog is called collecting patina for a reason). I want the invitations to be a surprise to our guests, so I won't be sharing them until a bit later in the year, but I did want to share a few of the details of my process.

Boy-Cat was in on the build process, and Missy supervised the printing

 I designed our invitations and response cards with a graphic designer on etsy. This is a great cost effective alternative, especially if you are planning to have a lot of guests because they charge you a flat rate for the design. I sourced my large envelopes off esty, and the shop was local, so we saved on shipping. We opted to print the names and addresses directly onto the envelopes for a classier look, which also saves on the cost of labels and custom calligraphy. I found a cute stamp at Canada Post earlier in the year, but they have now introduced a custom stamp alternative which is very interesting. Our inner envelopes came from Staples.

Almost ready for the mailbox!

Big Changes

We're less than two weeks away from our moving date, so we did some major packing this weekend. One of the big changes for me in the new house is that I will actually have a proper shoe closet (not the deciding factor I promise). Although this is very exciting news, it means having to say goodbye to the majority of my shoeboxes. For the last 8 years I have kept my shoes in their original shoeboxes, as you would have seen from this post. On the weekend, the shoes were packed and the boxes were recycled...and yes the cat's helped! I look forward to sharing their new closet with you soon!