sillymonky's Profile

Country mouse - but I too live 40 minutes outside of a mid-size city, and I work there, so I like having the best of both worlds. I can shop and go for coffee in town, and then head home to my hills, green pastures, frogs and crickets (which in season will give NYC traffic sounds a run for their money in volume, though I'd definitely take frogs over cars). If I lived in town, I'd have a bike. In the country, I have a horse - the relationship is much more satisfying. As well, the country village I live outside of is a "tourist town" - people come up from the city to hang out and take in the sites, which also means we have decent services, amateur theatre, great restaurants and live music venues. But you really lose your anonimity in the country - everybody knows everybody, and I do find that a bit odd at times.

If I had to live in the city, there are definitely some areas I could live with, but country mouse suits me fine. Can't do the suburbs though - too much 'sameness' and ticky tacky :)

It's such a shame when people paint wood - painted wood could be laminate or plastic or anything underneath. If you're lucky enough to find nice real wood, re-stain it sure, but it's sad to paint it.

We have parquet at home, and while we thought about doing a laminante overtop, I just can't reconcile myself to the idea of replacing real wood underfoot with something plasticy. At some point we're going to have them stripped and re-varnished. But, like others have said, I wouldn't do something so invasive (or expensive) in a rental.

Oops, my mistake. Make that under $200. Canadian. Makes that $1600 price tag seem a little high.
http://www.leevalley.com

I had a similar problem and just decorated around it. Our powder room is tiled floor to ceiling in a white glazed tile streaked with pink, with a pink and blue decorative trim about halfway up. We re-did the floors when we re-did the kitchen - they're now a 4" beige and white diamond patterened travertine (instead of pink and green tile mosaic - blarg!). I've put large Sid Dickens prints on the walls (something we had and that needed a new home - they're about 2.5 or 3 feet square) which partially covers the trim. All other furniture accents are dark wood, and the towel bar got changed for a smaller wrought iron looking ring with a dark brown towel. Sure, I still see some of that awful trim, but you really don't notice it with everything else being so coordinated. And I now find that the white tile walls help to frame everything else. Sure, I may not have designed it that way had I done it from scratch, but after the floor the whole "reno" cost me about $50 and I love the space - can't argue with that :)

So, that being said - see what you can do to design around it. I don't think the tiles are actually ugly, just super neutral. Remove / move the towel bar, add some art, do something funky with the walls that off-sets the grey. You might find it's easier to live with than you think.

Just have to say, you can keep cats off counters - when you're home. I swear, as soon as we go to bed they're doing dance numbers on the kitchen table, and I'm constantly finding little kittie footie prints on the stove. So, I always put the pan/pot back on the hot burner until it's cool, and I wipe down the surfaces. Little buggers know full well they aren't allowed - and they know full well we're not gods, no matter how much they treat us like we are (when they want something).

Though I have to say, it's that little indication that they know full well what they're doing and that we don't approve that makes me love them even more :-) Fine - I'll wash the counters. No problem.

To me that's not "corrugated sheet metal" so much as metal roofing panels (we have it for our roof). Anytime we've needed pieces we've gone to a roofing company, but I know our local Rona also carries it. Perhaps they're not sure what you're asking for? The stuff is pretty long (10 ft panels maybe?), but it cuts reasonably easily with tin snips. Comes in tonnes of colours and different styles of hills and valleys. Perhaps if you asked around you could find someone with some left over from a roofing project?

I've liked some of your "off topic and weird" stuff in the past, but I think those posts attracted me because they were more generally about the people living in the space. They were somehow still tied to residence living, but even more so, they were usually articles you couldn't automatically find in other places. They were articles without a niche. I'm sure it's pretty clear that there are other niches for this sort of article, and we'll go on those sites if we want to. So, thanks for trying, but don't forget your AT vision as you experiment with the off-topic and the weird. We love you guys, we love your articles, you obviously have a great formula going - just don't try so hard to work outside the box for fear that you'll fall into box that's already taken (by a whole lot of blogs that personally, I don't visit when I want to get my apartment creativity vibe on).

If you can always link your articles back to design, even if they're off topic, you're probably on the right track. Somewhere to hide your porn from prying eyes? Sure! But like someone else said, don't make it so my work blocks your site or I'll be very very sad :(

Thanks!

When I first saw this I was thinking "yes", because I like a cheap camera for doing things where the camera could get damaged (I ride horses, but don't ever want to have a fall while holding my good camera). But seeing that the picture quality isn't so great, personally I think I'd be better off with something cheap or second hand (I mean, I don't fall ALL the time). In that case, it'll just end up in a drawer, lost and forgotten.

Awesome. I have a fancy camera, about 1 step down from a DSLR. It's got a hot shoe, but I'd like to know how to make the most of the pop-up flash that comes with the camera. Ways to adjust settings to keep my photos from looking so hot, or equipment (bumps or diffusers) that can be used with non-DSLR type cameras. I take a lot of cat photos, and I'm tired of them looking like demons, and I really don't feel like photoshopping every single pic. Thanks!