the buy and sell

If you ever come across a couple of hours to completely waste, I recommend Kijiji, which is one version of online classifieds. (In Halifax, no one uses Craigslist, but there's over 7000 entries in the furniture section for Kijiji. Actually, we found this current apartment on Kijiji last summer.) Unfortunately, the result of looking at hundreds of old and ugly and overpriced items is that sometimes you see something that is old and ugly-in-a-way-you-like and pretty cheap. Then you really want it... So now I have two new pieces of furniture!

The first one is a fiberglass Eames shell chair, which is a classic made by Herman Miller. (Note to parents: yes, this looks just like a boring plastic chair, but it is designer, so it is cool. Was that a flashback to 1992 and me wanting an Espirit t-shirt? Yep, I think so.) Price: $30, delivered.


Yesterday, I made Steve go on a drive out to East Uniacke (outside of Mount Uniacke, which is outside of Sackville, which is outside of Halifax) to get the second piece. This older couple was selling their place (and extra stuff) at the end of a gravel road on a little lake because it was getting too busy, and moving to cottage country, up by Windsor. (I don't know where Windsor is, or if it is cottage-y up there, but I guess I'll find out eventually. Our impression of their current place wasn't really one of busy-ness...)

It's a room divider / sideboard that they got from Eaton's back in the day (60s? 70s?). It's solid wood (pine?), covered in veneer (walnut?) that's in perfect shape. It's about 5 feet long, a foot deep and table height. The cool thing is that it's finished on both sides; the cupboard at the end has a door on either side! (The doors have magnetic latches.) Price: $60.

It would be perfect for one of those post-war bungalows where the front door goes right into the dining and living room (like Jean's place in Regina). I think you could buy those houses from Eaton's too, in kit form. Oh, and the other cool thing about the sideboard is that it is a perfect match for my mom's hope chest (which I think may have also come from Eaton's). So it's sort of like having a piece of home out here! (Finally, just to reassure you about our decorating tastes, the key will be to match this with some modern pieces when we get to the condo. Somehow I don't think the brand-new condo would be at its best if filled with semi-vintage stuff from the 70s....)

science experiment

It turns out that you can grow an onion in a cup of water (to a certain point).

We found an onion that was sprouting in the cupboard, and I poked it with toothpicks and suspended it in some water. It grew for a couple of weeks (using its own nutrients?), and then ran out of steam when the green shoots were about 10 inches tall. Nature!

it's bbq season

It was a great weekend. Reasons why it was so great:

• Sushi for dinner on Friday.
• Bought a BBQ at Rona on Saturday! (Then we lined up with everyone else who was in love with the warm weather to get our brand-spanking new propane tank filled up!)
• Went out with Ian for beers and dinner on Saturday. (Earlier on Saturday, Steve and Ian went for a dawn patrol surf, which got good reviews from both of them. I went for a run and did spring cleaning instead. It may sound less glamourous, but the results were worht it. The whole world got brighter after I washed the sliding door!)
• Went to the flea market on Sunday and bought a vase for $1. What a deal!
• Hosted our first barbeque on Sunday. Steve did salmon two ways: with dijon and herbs, and with wasabi and soy sauce. Both were incredible, and everyone was impressed. (I received a compliment on my roasted potatoes from a real PEIslander, and they have high standards for potatoes.) We had six people over, which is our maximum capacity. One of them was Darcy, who will be starting his residency in anesthesia here in July - new friend!

I think that's pretty much it. Next time we grill something, I'll take a photo of Steve for his fans...

a great start to the day

Good morning! First - I can't believe I haven't posted since April 5th... I guess there just has not been a lot going on (which may be an understatement!). The good news is that the weather is getting better, so we'll be able to start getting out and about on the weekends. Then I can post some more activities-oriented stuff (rather than sewing-related stuff, which is losing readership, I hear!).

Anyways, here are my tips on a great way to start your day:

• First, walk to the ferry terminal in the sunshine.
• Hop on the ferry, and look out the window at the calm harbour.
• Last, but definitely not least, keep looking out the window in case you see something interesting.

What would be interesting? Watching a whale swim out of the harbour!!!! Isn't that cool?!? Apparently they sometimes follow schools of fish into the harbour. Whatever the reason, it totally made my Thursday.

someone else's condo unit

Last weekend we toured the condo again. There was no appreciable progress on our unit, but the ones on the first and second floors are coming along nicely: drywalled, mudded, light switches and fixtures, some with underlay on the floor, some glass bricks and glass walls done, doors in.

The photos are from the unit on the first floor with the same floor plan as us.

When we went in January, these units looked kind of 'meh', and now they look pretty good. I'm using that improvement to calculate that our unit will go from looking pretty good to hot awesome. When it's finished (in 2012?), we'll see how that works out... ;-) (We haven't got an updated move-in date, but I am clinging to the hope that they'll get it wrapped up by the end of July!)

As far as fixtures go, I don't mind the round ceiling lights (they're practically invisible), but the others... The track lighting reminds me of the track lighting in our Holt Street house that was impossible to change the lightbulbs, so whenever the bulbs burnt out, my dad had to get a new fixture that would hopefully be better and work longer! And the 'chandelier' will be swapped out: Bo, you're coming to Halifax.