Ok, so we’re being a little bit terrible. The cottage is basically done and yes, we are totally holding out on the kitchen and full living room reveal. Mostly, this is because we are currently in a whirlwind of time deprivation. John is working every day this week until fairly late into the evening, we have a family event on the weekend and we’re in the midst of putting our home on the market. It’s crazy town. Contractors are flying about fixing all those annoying little projects and things that you easily learn to ignore for years on end, but that buyers will notice immediately. We’re looking to put it on the market for next weekend, so I am working double time to get things looking gorgeous (why can’t we just live our life like this? why do we become complacent with our space instead of keeping it tidy?).

I spent all day today unearthing the long forgotten floor of our office (I just walked in here to write this and said something to the cat—yes, I talk to my cat—and my voice actually echoed!). I am so inspired by the cottage and our minimal furniture and decorating, that I am determined to pare down the last 12 years of my life and break free from the STUFF.

So now that the update is over, back to the cottage.

Next year we may build a day bed for this front corner, but until then this is where the telescopes are. In the exposed shelving we’ve been going with a sailboat theme. The one on the left is an actual wooden toy sailboat John picked up in Port Dover years ago, and the picture on the right is a Marushka print we picked up on Etsy.  We’re toying with putting this crazy shell framed piece of art work that my dad picked up about 8 years ago in this area too.

This piece has baffled me since it first appeared on the scene. Yes, my dad got really into fish and water themed things, but this just seemed out of character, much to my immense enjoyment. The image itself is fantastic. A super old print of a man and woman in a rickety boat with a rough sea. It’s just so…romantic.

These two little rugs came from my grandmothers condo in Winnipeg. She was so obsessed with maintaining the carpeting that she covered major swaths of her place with little carpets, much to our collective exasperation (tripping and falling factor=high). The colours and graphic prints in these little rugs compliment the white floors perfectly.

And finally, John felt you needed something a bit more sexy than my random snapshots of stuff.

John here, I was lucky enough to find these two chairs during two separate occasions, it must have been fate. The chairs were designed by N. Eilerson marked made in Denmark, they are more commonly known as “Safari Chairs”.

We found our first Safari chair at Rogue Gallery in Queen St East several months ago, it was in Martin’s infamous “storage unit”. It wasn’t doing anyone any good just sitting there in storage so Martin let us take it off his hands for $75 dollars. The second chair wasn’t as easy. I found it on an eBay auction a few weeks later, except this one was a bright orange and the “Buy it Now” price was a staggering $350. Having just purchased the exact chair for $75 weeks before I sent her an offer explaining that I had just purchased the same chair at a reputable furniture dealer in Toronto, and my offer of $100 dollars was more than fair. The seller accepted, and it was only a 40 minute drive away to pick it up! The really horrible thing was sanding down all of that orange paint! It took me forever, and the orange got all over my clothes. I don’t know how many hours it took to remove all that awful orange but the result is so worth it.

I’ve never had a matching pair of chairs in a living room, they look so great together.

Now to avoid complete over exposure on our part, we’d love for you to share your spaces with us. We used to do this more when we started the blog, and we’d love to get back to it!

Don’t make us beg.