Our entire neighbourhood has been shrouded in heavy fog lately. Tonight, I walked the dog and imagined myself in Whitechapel, London...in the late 19th century....when Jack the Ripper was on the prowl! It was most exciting. 

Lorenzo returned home this morning and had taken some pictures on the camera. Unfortunately, when I downloaded them something went wrong and they were inadvertently deleted. Sorry. 

We talked for a long time and hashed out what our furniture placement should be. It is such a small space, and we have two large support posts which are real obstacles. Lorenzo says we should ditch the piano and bring over his electric keyboard which would take up far less room. My position is that without the piano at the cottage, I will never be fully relaxed. Playing a keyboard is akin to drinking instant coffee: it will suffice in a pinch but it doesn't really satisfy. 

He's correct that an acoustic piano takes up a considerable amount of precious floor area, but it isn't a piece of furniture - it's an instrument. It is part of the soul of a home and without it, I would not feel the same way about being there. So the piano stays.

I have done endless 3-D designs of the cottage and I have to say that at this point I am really disheartened. I thought it would be nice to put the harvest table with two benches in front of the wood stove. I only came upon this configuration recently and it looks very welcoming and appealing - I can envision the family around the table on a chilly winter evening with the fire crackling beside us...singing Cumbiya...

 And with this idea, the dining area could be home to some comfortable chairs and a small table - a cozy space to read a book or have a glass of wine with friends. Lorenzo vetoed the idea and started yelling about how hard he worked installing those windows to accommodate a dining area and here I go throwing a grenade onto his happiness. Then he accused me of a coming up with a bad kitchen design. I scoffed! He actually came home today and announced that we should have a galley kitchen. I said, "What about the plumbing?!" He says, "I can move it." 

Here's the thing: I had a galley kitchen in our previous house. This home was built in 1902 and was quite possibly the oldest house in our neighbourhood. It was so horrible when we bought it, Lorenzo referred to it as "our east-end crack house." When I first called the realtor he sounded so weary. He said, "It's in really bad shape." I said, "I know." He said, "I don't think you understand....it's uninhabitable." Here was the back of the house before:

We painstakingly renovated it, right down to the studs, and to this day I regret selling it. My heart went into this home...but we had a refinery practically in our back yard and I couldn't take the stench anymore. But if we'd stayed, we would have been in a position to buy waterfront on Mayne Island....ah, regrets. They're a killer. ("Never look back unless you are planning to go that way." - Henry David Thoreau). Here is how it looked right before we sold it, after a bidding war:

Anyway, the galley kitchen was a giant pain in the ass. Here is it...

So, I had my stove on one wall....

and my sink on the other. Unless you rarely cook, constantly turning from one side to the other becomes extremely frustrating. Christmas dinner was especially joy-filled. You wash vegetables in the sink, and when you turn your body to put them into a pot, there is water on the floor. Back and forth you go, spinning like a top, taking unnecessary steps over and over again, leaving trails of food everywhere. So many times I would be carrying something hot from one side or the other, and one of the kids would come racing through the kitchen and it was potentially dangerous. Lorenzo did build a cute nook in that kitchen, though...

These pictures make me nostalgic..so many birthday cakes, so many images of my three kids sitting in the nook with missing teeth and flannel pajamas on...  Anyway, as cute as it was, the galley idea was not ideal. So I told Lorenzo that I do not wish to change my kitchen plan. It works, and I am just so desperate to finish this blasted cottage that I can't even discuss making alterations. Even the single French door is going to stay; why start causing more delays?

So we hashed out various plans, stated our cases emphatically to each other, interrupted each other in mid-sentence, and still we are no closer to an agreement. All this cottage talk is exhausting. And Lorenzo is determined to have not one, but several areas in which to "crash out." He envisions lounge-chairs, recliners, sectionals, giant ottomans, enormous pillows...a veritable harem of comfort; the floor littered with puffy cotton balls in case he needs to suddenly collapse.
I tried explaining to him that we can't turn 500-square feet into a furniture show room - it will look ridiculous. And if you're that tired and in need of "crashing" go to bed, for crying out loud.

I wish I had the pictures he took; he did an amazing job and it just looks delicious - he finished it all: the window & door trim, as well as the crown moulding. I can't wait to go over again. I think I'll head over Wednesday. The doors need to be painted and the hideous laminate floor has to be taken up and chucked into the bin. My cousin and his wife will be on the island too, so that will be nice.


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There is only one show on HGTV worth watching (in my opinion) and that is "Love It or List It." The show follows a fairly predictable format, but the hosts are intelligent, funny, and the final results are usually worth the wait.

 Recently, "Love It or List It Vancouver" was created, so it was with real interest that I tuned in...

Tonight's episode left Lorenzo and I stunned. First of all, the female host is a former "Bachelorette" whose design skills are dubious at best, and she comes across like a bit of a dim-wit, delivering her lines in a somewhat valley-girl style of diction. I don't believe she understands anything about construction and I cannot help but wonder if she became a "designer" after taking a few night-school classes. What I find really comical is her requisite designer side-kick who appears on screen looking stunned and never has anything to say. The realtor fellow isn't too bad, but whoever is responsible for spending the client's money should be seriously investigated. I think it might be Bernie Madoff.

Anyway, tonight her job was to renovate a Vancouver bungalow to satisfy the homeowners into staying as opposed to selling. Her budget was $80,000. The couple needed a complete kitchen renovation and alterations made to the main floor - ie, opening up walls, improving the floor plan,  adding storage, etc. The main floor was not working for a family of four. But this "designer" chose to renovate the basement instead, and relocate all of the bedrooms to the downstairs. Leaving the main floor in appalling condition and focusing on the basement is bad design sense and a poor investment: kitchens and bathrooms sell houses, not basements, and their basement was already finished.

I don't know about you, but I would not want my bedroom to be in the basement unless it was a stunning transformation. And I wouldn't want to be hunkered below-stairs with my kids like Victorian scullery-maids. Kids and parents need distance. Lots of it. To make a long story short, somehow she managed to squander $80,000 without doing anything significant on the main floor (no kitchen reno, no bathroom reno) and the basement looked, in my opinion, really bad: Three bedrooms, none of which were remotely interesting, a puny "walk-in" closet that did not provide sufficient clothes storage for one person let alone two, no en-suite bathroom, bad wall colours, horrible window treatments, cheap flooring materials, cheap-looking furniture, tacky art work, etc.

Eighty thousand dollars. Lorenzo said, "No kitchen, no bathroom...where the hell did the money go?" The only structural change was re-configuring the stairwell to meet code. It was bewildering.

I am mentioning this show because our next-door neighbours are going to be on it! They live in an adorable character home that looks like a cottage one might find in the Cotswolds and I am truly concerned that this ding-a-ling is going to ruin their house. I am cringing at the thought. Because if a designer wrecks your house, who is going to buy it if you decide to list? What if you hate the final outcome? I will be keeping my fingers tightly crossed...


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One of the best designers in Canada is a woman named Sarah Richardson. I have learned a great deal watching her shows, but for some reason she is nowhere to be found on tv these days. She renovated her own cottage a few years ago and the results were stunning. I have referred to these pictures many times...

There is a profound difference between decorating and designing. Anyone can paint a room or change the carpets. But the ability to envision space; to visualize a room three dimensionally, is a genuine skill and one that requires an artistic eye. Look at her finishing: the way trim wraps around a structural element; the implementation of salvaged materials like the barn-board on the island and the corbel supporting the counter-top. These are added features that take a room from looking nice to looking spectacular.

Her understanding of space, light, and the importance of scale is one that comes with many years of experience. Sarah Richardson has a genuine talent for design that I do not believe anyone can teach you. My favourite style is what she achieved in her cottage - it is many elements combined: vintage, salvaged, contemporary, and modern country. And it is blended together seamlessly - this is just a gorgeous space from top to bottom. There is isn't a single thing that is wrong or out of place. Most admirably, is that her cottage is completely off-the-grid.

My cottage will never...(gulp)...ever...(sniff).. look like this. 

Click on this picture: Here is Lorenzo's ultimate crash pad.

Ciao for now...