Summer Lovin' - Camping, outdoor furniture and a sunburn.

Happy summer friends!  It is definitely feeling like summer in Vancouver, and it is awesome! Some people have a misconception about Vancouver that it rains here all the time and we all must be waterproof (which we are, by the way) but our summers are amazing, hot and they make me truly believe I live in the most beautiful place on earth!

It was Canada day yesterday (hence my oozing love for the place I live!) and man did it ever feel like summer. We went camping for the 'long weekend' (as many people have reminded me it wasn't a real long weekend, but my days off are Sunday and Monday so it was for me!) and we had a great time. I have camped at Cultus Lake my whole life, and it's probably my favourite place to go in the summer. I don't get to go as often as I did when I was a kid, but being there instantly relaxes  me and makes me feel all happy inside.

They have a cool new adventure land up there across from the waterslides full of awesome rides and treats... It's definitely worth going to see if you are up for the day or a weekend! We had a blast!

We were there for 3 days of my 5 day vacation, as I extended my long weekend to a 5 day holiday because I haven't had 5 days off in a row in 2 years!  I guess that's what happens when you're working to build your career, sometimes you forgot to take a bit of time for yourself. I'm enjoying a nice relaxing day today doing some errands, making a yummy and healthy dinner and taking care of my brutal sunburn I got on Monday! I always burn on my first trip into the sun in the summer since I am ridiculously fair skinned... this one hurts pretty bad. I'll definitely have to go get some aftersun today so hopefully I don't peel!

Yeah. It's bad. 

Lastly, since it's summer, I thought id share the patio furniture we got! It's definitely patio season (although we haven't really been able to use it since we got it). I'm excited for dinner and drinks on the patio in the evening, soaking up some sun on the weekends and eating lots of delicious BBQed foods! :) 

This is the patio set we got... The evening sun hits it and it's such an nice place to sit and eat! The chairs are comfy, the table is big and since it's from walmart it didn't break the bank! 

And here are lounge chairs my mom gave us so we have a few extra seats outside. I have a feeling a lot of books will be started and finished here! In the morning and early afternoon there is lots of sun on this side of our patio, and we get lots of sun on the yard too, so I'm sure they will see the grass now and again too.0

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend, and are enjoying the excellent weather! Cheers to summer! 

Blog, and be happy! 

Kyleigh. 

Our New Home: A Lesson in Storage.

I love our new place. We have been here for just over a week and it has been great! Have there been a few bumps along the way? Of course. Luckily Alex and I have been together long enough to problem solve without completely wanting to kill each other (most of the time!).

One of the biggest things we have struggled with is storage. We have one closet in our whole place, and it is in the bedroom. To top it off, that closet isn't even quite full sized, so we have had to be a little bit creative as far as finding places for things that would otherwise go in a closet.

We are lucky that in our laundry room we have a few shelves above our washer and dryer that we can use for seasonal stuff like our Christmas tree and camping gear.  We are also lucky that we have two shevles above the rod in our closet that have been useful for storing a few extra big things that can't hide in plain sight!

Living Room:

When we first started looking for a place, we didn't really know exactly how big or small our place would be, so we started to refinish a small table we planned on using as a coffee table. Once we found our place and bought the rest of our furniture, we realized it was going to look small and ridiculous in the space, so we had to improvise. This actually turned out to be a good thing, as we started to look at multi-use coffee tables. Coffee tables are stupidly expensive for being a piece of wood with legs, so we went on craigslist and found our very nice storage coffee table for 20$!

This has probably been the best thing we bought for 20$ or less. Does it have a few scratches on it? Yes. Does it matter? Not really. At the moment it holds all our games and a few random things that we didn't really have a logical home for, but the storage space is huge and we can always move stuff around and use it for various things in the future! PLUS when one of our friends (or one of us) accidentally scratches the thing, it's not a murder worthy event.

Storage Score: Kyleigh - 1 New Place - 0

Bedroom:

Because we only have one closet and it is in our bedroom and being used for several things other than clothing, we had to be a bit creative in our bedroom as well. Actually, not really creative but we had to compromise on something that we didn't have before. When Alex had the bed at his house he had it boxsprings on the ground, which was fine until I realized we were going to need under-bed storage for some rolling bins I had, plus a few other things like wrapping paper. Alex was not very enthused by this idea as the bed frame brings the bed up about another 6" (which for someone as short as me equates to quite a bit of extra height) but we gave it a try and it is actually working out quite well. The bed is obviously higher than we are use to, but we'll get over it, and it gave us a king size bed's worth of storage!

Storage Score: Kyleigh - 2 New Place - 0 (Alex - 1/2 because he didn't want to do it but did it anyway)

Kitchen:

One of the other unique challenges we have had to face is that we have no upper cabinets in our kitchen. We have four beautiful windows that look out onto our backyard, but as far as enough cupboard space for not only pots, plates and cups, we had to reserve a couple of cupboards for pantry space too.

Needless to say our counter is a little full, but not overly cluttered (I'd like to think anyway). I found some neat countertop shelves at the dollar store that I might go back and get if I find that the counter seems too busy, but it's tolerable for now.

What I did find useful at the dollar store today were stack-able shelves to put in the cupboard for canned goods. Those damn cans take up so much space! I also used a few containers that I had laying around to organize my spice refills and bags of pasta that were floating around in there... I still have some organizing to do, but it's definitely getting easier to find the things I need!

Storage Score: Kyleigh - 3 New Place - 0

For the moment I am winning the storage war... whether I will continue to win it or not is a difficult question, but I'm up for the challenge!

Blog, and be happy!

Kyleigh.

Our New Home: T-minus 1 day!

This whole week has been a blur of packing, unpacking, moving boxes, loading and unloading cars and having the most sore shoulders I have ever had, but finally the day is almost here! Tomorrow night all of our furniture will be in our new place and we will have officially moved in. 

I'm not 100% sure where this last month went... I can't believe it's already June 1st this weekend. I'm excited and tired and not looking forward to trying to get settled in, but we have lots of time to get everything right where we want it. 

I can't wait to spend the summer out in the sunshine on our patio with friends and family and enjoy our living space that we've really created from scratch! We still have a few things to buy to finish everything up, but we are definitely close to having everything just as we want it. 

It can't wait for you all to see it! :) 

Blog, and be happy!

Kyleigh. 

Our New Home: Keys!!

I have been waiting almost 3 weeks to write this post! Yesterday we went up to our new place, signed some rental agreements and GOT OUR KEYS! 

I'm so excited. This is actually the sign that this is real... As if all the boxes and the excessive spending of money wasn't already making it real. If I could frame these keys I would... Except I need them to get into the place so that's probably not a good idea.

We measured and re measured, took some pictures and tried to visualize our new home... It's coming up really fast and we are able to start moving in boxes next week! 

I'm so stoked to move and I can't wait until we are moved in and I can post about something other than packing! 

Blog, and be happy!

Kyleigh. 

Our New Home: Packing and Pinterest

I've moved many times in my life and packing is not even remotely fun any of the times you have to do it. I'm throwing out as much stuff as possible so I don't have to pack it... It's not really working. 

What I have discovered is that when you're stumped on the best way to pack something, pinterest is rampant with ideas!

I have loved Pinterest for several years, it is especially useful for planning my imaginary wedding, finding awesome DIY projects I'm far too uncoordinated to actually do, and looking at delicious food I'm too lazy to make... But it has actually been super useful for planning my packing! 

I honestly have never packed up by myself before... All the times I've moved in the past I've moved with my mom so I really had no idea where to start. What I did find on Pinterest is somewhat of a schedule that helps sort out what you can pack and survive without for several weeks or only several days. I've been trying to follow the rough schedule... But I have about a months worth of packing to do in 2 weeks so it hasn't been going well. 

I also found some handy tips about the best way to label everything so boxes don't end up in the wrong rooms, and something I never thought of that most people call "Box #1".

Box #1 is pretty much one of the most useful things I've read about in my search for efficient packing. It's basically a box that you label "open first" and it's the essentials to get you through the first night/day before you can get to unpacking all the boxes scattered around. A lot of people pack an overnight type bag with clothes and toiletries, but I didn't really think about other things required for the first night! Most people include the following in Box #1:

Cleaning supplies

Paper plates, cups and napkins

Toilet paper

A shower curtain to shower after a hard day of moving

A couple of towels 

Sheets/bedding 

Cables, remotes and chargers (although phone chargers should probably stay out of boxes and be in purses)

A utility knife for opening boxes

Pens and sharpies 

Pet supplies (if required) 

Honestly, a lot of these things seem super straight forward, but I'm the kind of person who would most likely pack these all in separate boxes without a clue where I put them. 

We are lucky however that we can move boxes slowly, so we shouldn't have too many problems keeping things organized! 

I can't wait to post about getting our keys... Any day now! :)

Blog, and be happy! (And happy long weekend!) 

Kyleigh. 

Our New Home: Furniture shopping.

So... Furniture shopping sucks. 

Well let me clarify, I actually find it kind of fun to go around and sit on different couches and see if I could imagine important things in my life happening on that couch. Really, where else do you live more than your living room? The reality of it is, furniture shopping on a budget for a home that isn't your 'forever home' is pretty exhausting. 

Alex and I definitely have different ideas about what we should have as far as furniture, and how we should lay it out. 

I am the practical type. I like something cozy, something I can snuggle up on, read a book, watch tv, take a nap now and again. I'm not very big so I don't need a 14ft couch... I like things not huge, clean and reasonable. Our suite is big but it's not a mansion... I'm looking at furniture that would be movable to other places we may live in the future.  Example:

Alex is the go big or go home type. He literally likes only the biggest, most ridiculous sectionals in the store because he is a lounger and loves to have as much room as possible to lay across the whole room.   Example: 

You can see why furniture shopping is a challenge. 

We definitely don't see eye to eye on a lot of the stuff we are looking at. We also don't have a 5000$ budget for furnishings either... Trying to keep the shopping at a reasonable price point is also a challenge. Have you been furniture shopping lately? Who knew an ottoman was 400$! 

As we are looking around, we also came to the realization we don't actually know the dimensions of our new home, and that's really thrown us for a loop. Funiture is usually about 3-4 weeks away, and we move in 3 weeks... We can't really wait until the long weekend when we get the keys to measure and decide then! We did some guesstimate work last night and so we hope we can get something that will make us both happy.

Who knew couch shopping was such a chore? 

Blog, and be happy,

Kyleigh. 

Our New Home!

So... I'm sitting here with food poisoning on my day off, watching Dexter and I thought I would write a quick post about some changes in my life... it's been like 6 months since I really sat down and felt the desire to blog about something, but I'm pretty excited so today seems like as good a day as any to write a post!

As most of you probably know already, Alex and I are moving in together! After 4 years we pretty much decided that now was a good time.. so as of June 1st we will be moving up to Westwood Plateau in a beautiful basement suite we just knew we had to have the minute we saw it! The fact that we got it is a whole other thing... We've liked suites before and they have gone to other people but I am SO excited to not have to search Craigslist every other hour looking for new postings... That part of the stress of moving is finally over!

Here are a couple photos to give you an idea of why we are so excited!

The big living room and the door to the bedroom!

The massive kitchen that faces out to our own private little lawn area and patio.

        We actually have two little patio areas outside which will be awesome for the summer.  Maybe we will actually try to have a couple plants around even though I have a super brown thumb and I kill absolutely every plant I come near. It's worth a shot... right? I'm also so looking forward to having people over for dinners or game nights... it'll be so cool to actually have people over instead of always being the ones going over for a change!

So we left the security deposit yesterday, and we get the keys on the Victoria Day long weekend! I'm super excited... but now comes the difficult part.

We need to buy a LOT of furniture. Well... not a lot.. but we don't have a couch and so that now becomes priority #1. We also need kitchen stuff... probably a coat closet of some kinds as there are hardly any closets... probably a rug or two... some side tables....

The list goes on, so the next 3 weekends will probably be spent at Ikea, various other furniture stores... hopefully it will be more fun than stressful, but I'm looking forward to picking out some stuff together and building our little home!

Anyway... I feel absolutely horrible so I'll stop here. I look forward to various new home updates as moving is probably going to take over the next 4-6 weeks of my life!

Blog, and be happy!

Kyleigh.