SJC's Profile

Ikea, Ikea, Ikea. We have the Ektorp chairs, ottoman and sofa in our living room and a Klippan in our playroom. Washable slipcovers are every mothers best friend. My kids have slipped juice and mushed chocolate into the chairs and drawn on the ottoman with Crayolas ... a little Shout and they came out sparkling white again. My new baby has spit up on EVERY fabric surface in our living room and I am unphased. And my 12 year old spilled salsa on the playroom couch just this weekend. It really doesn't matter how old they are or how strict you are about food ... someone will make a mess sometime and it is wonderful to not have to worry about it. I would rather have fun and share moments with my kids in the living room instead of playing snack police!!!

We had just one TV for years (32") and our kids would sometimes use the computer (20") to watch DVDs. So our TV became known as "the BIG TV." Last year we added a 46" TV to the basement den for them to play Kinect on, funny thing is, the kids still call the 32" TV the BIG TV LOL. Personally I prefer the smaller TV.

I worked for a summer cleaning hotel rooms before college. The head maid advised that it didn't matter how clean or dirty the place was ... as long as the taps were shiny and the mirror was spotless it LOOKED clean to people LOL. I do agree with her a little, shiny taps and clean mirrors do make the place sparkle ... but it can only distract so long from a dirty toilet LOL.

The back of the house is AMAZING ---- LOVE LOVE LOVE their addition and the spiral staircases down to the yard! I adore modern meets victorian.
Also in love with columns and bookcases painted navy behind the settee. So pretty.

Lots of paint colour questions! As a fellow Calgarian I am going to say it looks like the builder basic neutral paint colour LOL. Every new house in Calgary is painted this colour unless you "upgrade" and as soon as people move in they are busy erasing this colour from their house room by room! We owned a house built by Heartland Homes (now Brookfield) and our whole house was exactly that same colour!

I like the nursery and I love that you used mostly Ikea items but it isn't noticeable. If you had added a Poang chair that would have put it over the edge into "Welcome to my Ikea showroom" LOL. They really can't be beat for baby stuff. And their cribs are so much better than their $500+ competition!!! Honestly, we had a $700 crib given as a gift for our first baby and I sold it when she was 2 and ready for a twin bed. Fast-forward 4 years and there is a new baby in our life and she lives in a $98 discontinued crib we found in the AS-IS that my hubby painted grey for me. I love it 200% more than the expensive crib we had. I can also see us using this longer than 2 years since it turns into an actual toddler bed, not just a crib with a side rail off like the expensive one!

I love to see Calgary in the Room Shares! I hope to someday get it together and send my own in!

My baby would love it. Her favourite spot to lay and look around is on our livingroom ottoman, I think because of the clear view from up high, but now that she is rolling she doesn't get to go on there much anymore. If she was in this crib in the middle of the room with her sibblings running around it screaming she would be the world's happiest baby!

Thanks to this post I was able to identify a "free couch" ad on Kijiji as the Klippan (it was the puffy orange one that looks like it is wearing a down parka LOL) and scored it for my kids playroom. As luck would have it I was able to find a new black cover in the As-Is bin for 50% off the same day I picked up the couch! What luck! I was a little worried when we picked up the couch that maybe the dimensions had changed over the years because the couch we got was constructed differently on the underside than the new ones and had different legs, but no, the upholstered part is exactly the same so fear not, a new slipcover will fit your 30 year old sofa LOL.

We had a pack'n'play briefly (went back to the store for full refund ... thanks to our expert re-packing skills LOL) and then tried the PeaPod which was more of a play tent at home than anything else. When we travelled we co-slept all night, it wasn't worth trying to get our baby to sleep in a strange place in a strange tent that she was used to playing in. Our bad.

LOL, people actually buy Lilacs? I have honestly never seen them for sale in Alberta, Canada. I have always taken a nice stroll through the neighbourhood with a grocery bag and a pair of scissors. Instant and free bouquets galore. I guess I have been lucky in that all the neighborhoods I have lived in have been well stocked with the bushes in public areas, not that I haven't taken a trim off the outside of a neighbors bush once or twice. Nothing is more lovely in the spring than an out of control gigantic bunch of dark and light purple lilacs with a few of the more rare white ones peaking out.

My 4 year old girl recently begged for fairy princess wings, but she wears them while dragging out her older brother's giant box of Star Wars figures to play with.
I think in houses with more than one child and opposite gender it is a little easier for children to have access to a variety of toys and accept them. While she never asks for "boy" toys she has plenty to play with whenever she wants to and she does play with them often. For her birthday this year she asked for only Barbies and My Little Ponies though.