Just the right medicine....cabinet!

This week/months commissioned project was to build a medicine cabinet.  In black...out of an old window for the door and tin for the back.

A great client of mine who also hired me to do a custom cork and chalkboard asked me to build this to fit in her bathroom.

I had a great, salvaged window that was the perfect size to fit in the space and then I built the box around that.

She asked if it could have 2 shelves in it so I used some old salvaged barn boards for those.

To finish it off, because the door was glass, I asked if she would like the back to be tin (remember that great tin ceiling I rescued from the dumpster?).  I cleaned up a piece and attached it to the back.  It goes really well with the black finish, which I sanded off and distressed and then finished with a coat of furniture wax.

Here's the finished product:

Flea in a fit!

What a whirlwind....today was our annual fundraiser ...Longboard4kids www.longboard4kids.com....we had about 100 longboarders out and raised more than $7000 for our charity Coast to Coast Against Cancer which benefits kids and families living with cancer.  It was a great day and everyone had a blast.

Next up on the agenda is the first ever Leslieville Flea.  Little did I know that my visit to the Brooklyn Flea a year ago would lead to us opening up our very own Flea....but that's often how things happen for me.

Hope to see you all there...Behind the Duke!  Visit www.leslievilleflea.blogspot.ca for more info.

And hope all the Dad's out there have a great Father's Day!

Sharks and Fleas

What a whirlwind this past month has been!  After many months of planning my bizz partner Brigid and I found a space and founded The Leslieville Flea.  We'd been trying for so long to get a venue for this and after speaking with the guys at The Duke we found one.

I've been selling my stuff at various markets for years...but it's always been a hassle.  Long drives to load in and out and with little or no success sometimes on the day of sales.   Brigid and I starting brainstorming and concluded that we should just open our own market to sell our things.  And invite some other great vendors to join us.  And that's how the Leslieville Flea came to be!

www.leslievilleflea.blogspot.ca

We will be holding this market the 3rd Sunday of each month starting June 16th from 10am-3pm.  It will take place "Behind the Duke" at Queen and Leslie.  Their parking lot is the perfect location for our East End Leslieville Flea Market....and the guys there have been so great about inviting us to host it there.

We sent out the call for vendors and got some incredible responses.  There will be antiques, vintage collectibles, clothing, art, photography, jewellery....and amazing hand made and crafted designs. 

I've got so many great items that I will be bringing...after another trip up to see Ed (who proved to be a great resource for vendors at the Flea too)....my back yard/basement/living room/shed are loaded with items just waiting to show themselves off at the Flea.

I also managed to score another huge load of tin ceiling tiles from the construction site down the road....and they may make an appearance there too!

Hope to see you all there June 16th (which is the day after our Longboard charity ride...yes, I'm nuts)

The other happening thing in the house was a project for my youngest son....he wanted a surfboard with a sharkbite out of it to hang on his wall.

So I cut out the board from a sheet of plywood and then taped it off and painted it....super easy fun project and it looks great in his room.  I have to mention this is the first time I've used "Frog Tape"....always wondered what the fuss was around it....and it was really great stuff.  If you have to do any kind of precision painting this is the product to use canada.frogtape.com

Here's the surfboard in progress.....

So that's what has been keeping me busy around here....lots more projects in the works...but I'm enjoying this May 24 weekend right now...hope yours is fantastic too!

Coffee anyone?

This week my project was to complete a coffee table for my friends and neighbours.  They had been searching for a long time to find the right table to work in their living room that was newly redone.  They wanted it longer and skinnier than the typical coffee tables they found so they hired me to make them one.
Trying to find one that they both liked was difficult, as it always is.  The hardest part is trying to agree on a design that suits both people in the house and works for their family.

Another friend had coincidentally posted a table design to my Facebook page

 with this link to how to make it.  http://thelocker.typepad.com/the_locker/2012/02/diy-industrial-coffee-table.html

I passed it along to my friends looking for a table design and they loved it!  It is a great design....so simple, which I always find has the best results.  They were looking for a really interesting design with a reclaimed yet polished style.

Once the design was agreed upon, I set about finding wood for this piece.   My friends wanted a bottom shelf added as well so I had to figure out how to work that in too.

Of course, if I am looking for reclaimed materials and hardware it means a trip to visit Ed.  I hadn't been since before Christmas and it was great to see Ed and his wife, their dogs and 2 of their sons who were there working on some projects using the reclaimed wood and hardware for clients of theirs.  Seeing their workshop in the barn I had the biggest pang of envy....that would be my dream workshop...in an old barn surrounded by endless amounts of raw materials????  You'd never see me again!!

In case you are trying to reach Ed, his contact info has changed.  He takes visitors by appointment and you can contact him by email at :  edwardcasella@hotmail.com or by telephone 905-888-9181

I always love heading up to see him because he has great ideas for projects and never ceases to amaze me with what he has stored in that barn.

I found two pieces of wood for the table....one solid piece 22"by over 6' long!!! This was just the kind of thing I was looking for....and another piece about 13" by 6' long for the bottom shelf.  I sanded them down and cut to size for the bottom shelf and length of the top.

I headed to see the orange aprons to get the pipe and fittings for the legs.  When I bought the pipe, they cut it down for me and put it through the threading machine.  It turned out to be too high (the pieces were too long) so I went back and they recut and threaded them for me...I had to ask nicely to get them cut shorter than their posted minimum length but they said they could do it and delivered.

This is my bundle of pieces and fittings for the legs.  I had to wash them off and then assemble them.  I also gave them a coat of clear laquer to prevent rusting.

Here are the legs assembled....

The round "flanges" are perfect because you can screw the top wood piece right to them.....the bottom shelf I attached with "C" clamps...which are just that....c-shaped clamps with holes on either side.  They wrap around the pipe cross support and then screw to the underside of the bottom shelf.

To finish the wood I used a new product.  It's a urethane but is a combination of oil and water based ingredients.  So it is easy to clean up after but has the durability and won't show those cloudy water marks you get from pure water based products.

Here's the finished product.

My friends love it!  And it was such a fun and easy project to make!

Dumpster Diving

This week was pretty fantastic.
On Thursday I was part of a shoot with Curtis Stone...the Australian Celebrity Chef...fun day and great client.....and the week just got better from there.

Later that night as I was taking the dogs for a walk I spied some antique tin ceiling in a dumpster around the corner from my son's school.  I've been keeping an eye on this dumpster and finally hit the jackpot.  In case you didn't already know I am a little addicted to garbage picking!

I climbed up to have a better look and noticed there was quite a bit of old tin ceiling still attached to the wood strapping.....I quickly walked the dogs to the park and then headed home to get the van and some tools.

I grabbed a claw headed hammer and crowbar....and my teenage son who wanted to come along.

Parking the van beside the dumpster we started pulling out the tin and prying it off the wood strapping.  Then a man came out from the building they are gutting....I asked him if they were throwing the tin out....and if so, could I have it.  He said "sure" and then showed me the rest of the ceiling around the corner!!  I couldn't believe it...the entire ceiling from an old store had been ripped out...complete with the tin crown moulding!!

We got to work and managed to salvage about 25 pieces of 2 foot square tin and some lengths of crown molding too.

My son got right into it and was a huge help....very proud mom moment indeed!

Then he spied some objects in another pile and pulled them out.....

They turned out to be vintage industrial mixer parts!!  So cool!
I am going to wire these into hanging pendant lamps with those Edison bulbs that are so popular right now....sort of like this:

What a score!! Can't believe how lucky we were....when I went back the next day it had all been removed and taken away.  I am so glad I took that walk when I did.

Turns out today I struck it rich again......another walk with the dogs ....on the beach this time.  We had a huge storm yesterday and the waves crashed in about 100 feet up on shore...which makes for fantastic scavenging.   I spied this piece of wood and loved it for the metal attached.

I

I'm going to dry this out, clean up the metal and paint the word "BEACH" on it with an arrow...then hang it from the chains on the wall in our kitchen....can't wait!

I'm off to see my guy Ed on Monday to look for some wood for our school's bench project and a coffee table project for my friend....hopefully my luck will continue!

All in all it has been a great week for finding treasure...hope yours has been just as fantastic!

The Sweetest Ensuite

We have finally finished our 3rd Floor Master Bedroom Ensuite Bathroom.  Pinch me.

I can't believe I finally have my own bathroom.  I grew up in a house of 6 people and 1 bathroom.  Needless to say getting ready in the morning was chaos....4 teenage girls in 1 room getting ready?  I may just use that as an excuse for my bad 80's hair.

When we first started talking about adding an extra bathroom we figured we would put one in the basement.  We thought it would be easier to tie into the existing stack etc.  This is always a major concern since the biggest part of this reno was to tie into plumbing in a 100 year old house....not fun....or inexpensive!

We realized that we never used our 3rd floor family room...and our son who had his bedroom up there, across the hall from the family room, didn't like it.  Since his old bedroom was on top of our existing 2nd floor bathroom this seemed like the most logical space to add a bathroom.  We decided we would take over the family room as our bedroom (since we all spend more time in the basement family room now) and the 2 existing closets would merge into 1 larger closet....and our son's old bedroom would become our new bathroom.

Once that was decided, it was like Jenga with switching things around....our sectional couch had to be taken apart to get out of the 3rd floor (we had it built in place up there) and moved to the basement...it literally fit within millimeters in the space and is now enjoyed by all.   The basement couch moved up to my old office which became our guest room....our furniture moved up to the family room...and our son's down to our old room. 

Here's the only pic I have of what used to be my son's bedroom....sadly I didn't take very good before or during pictures....silly mistake but I got too caught up in the idea of the project.

It was basically an almost square room with 1 window, door in center and low knee walls with sloping ceiling.

I had spent weeks...okay months....thinking of this project.  Like most things I do, I try to be super prepared to ensure smooth sailing.  I drew up the plan.....

Keep in mind this thing has been passed around to contractors and taped up to the window for the past 3 months.  I tried to make use of every square inch up there.

I had picked our fixtures and look of the space in my mind years ago....I've always wanted a clean, spa like feel for an ensuite bathroom.

Construction began and went pretty smoothly....a few hiccups but nothing major.  And our contractor was really fantastic about helping us fix things when it went wrong.  I think this is a true reflection of how good or bad customer service can be.  It's only when things go wrong that you can judge how great the service is.  And when something didn't work out, Adam fixed it and made it right without question.

The worst part was that when it was all finally finished, we started using the bathroom...only to look up once a few days later to see water marks and wet drywall in our kitchen walls....sigh.  So the walls got opened up again....in our 2nd floor bathroom, kitchen and other son's room.  Turns out our stack was leaking....so we fixed that.  Also turns out that when they disconnected the old plumbing years ago from when our son's room was a kitchen they just cut the pipe and left it!!  so it was venting gases all this time!!  And when we went to put water down the pipe from the 3rd floor water just ran right out of this cut pipe and into our walls!!  Not easily forseen but Adam came back and fixed it all anyway.....so now it is finally finished and we absolutely love it!

Here's how it is looking now.

 A double Vanity was on my dream wish list....

 We loved the open clean idea of just a glass wall with no door and used a very low profile shower pan.....love this....highly recommend it!

We had to move the wall in to get the height required for the vanity wall, so we took advantage of that unused space behind and made a large linen closet.

 Behind the wall with the towel hooks on it is the closet extension...we used leftover space in the bathroom to make the closet behind larger.

 A salvaged door lintel from the old bedroom....and some great vintage jars I picked up.

I don't know what Amyl. Tritici is but I love this jar!!  The gold trim adds some warmth to the cool bathroom scheme.

The closet is still being finished with trim work but it's functional now...after 3 months with clothes all over this is a welcome relief!  We salvaged the doors from the 2 old closets and put them together to make one large opening and we bought the interior fittings from Ikea....I am so impressed with their product.  Easy to adapt, I had to cut the sides and backs down to accomodate the sloping ceilings, but it was inexpensive and easy to customize.  Now we have a place for everything...I've told my husband that once that shoe rack is filled that's it...something will have to go....his shoes, not mine!

All that is left is to paint the hallway/stairway leading up to the 3rd floor and then to put finishing touches on our bedroom.....I feel pretty lucky to have this space!!  If you are thinking of a reno in your own home, look at how you use your existing space and see if you can't repurpose it.  It's much less expensive than an addition and often you already have the space you need, you just need to rework it.

Newest Project....

Hello again....it's been a while to say the least.  Chalk it up to new puppy and a bathroom reno.  Plus a trip to Vancouver for an event set up.....all that put together sort of did me in for the past month.

Now that the weather is warming up and spring appears to be here????  I am inspired to get cracking on some projects and finish up all those things on my to-do list.

We are still putting the final touches on the master bathroom we just had put in.  We took on the finishing work ourselves to save some $$.  It's a bit stressful (okay a lot stressful) but worth it in the end.  It's a functioning bathroom right now but I want to wait til all the trim and door work is done to post the results... all those little things like towel hooks etc that take a while to finish off.

In the meantime....I had a commission that I got from my site on Etsy https://www.etsy.com/shop/offherhinges?ref=si_shop
The client contacted me and was in Toronto so came over and we discussed what she wanted.  She was looking for a sideboard similar to a piece I made for us here.

But they wanted it longer and with mesh in the doors/windows and a shelf inside.

I hunted around for the right sized windows to use as doors and the right sized door to use for the body of the piece. 

This piece took quite a while to get together....lots of measuring twice, biscuit joining, sanding scraping, gluing, screwing, cutting....phew!

When it was almost all done I sourced a piece for the top....the only one I could find that was great looking was an old barn floor board.  Almost 16" wide and 2" thick!  This baby had some substance!

Once assembled the piece was really heavy.....I mean back breaking how the heck am I going to move this heavy.  But we finally got it into the van, drove across town and loaded into the client's home.  They absolutely loved it...which made me feel great. 
I realized how much I love making things and wished that I could just do this all the time....but alas, a bathroom reno won't pay for itself!  But I do really feel pretty lucky that I get to do things like this that I really enjoy and get paid for it.
Here's the finished product:

Making this piece also makes me realize how much time and value goes into handmade things and that we all need to be conscious of that in our daily shopping.  In this mass produced era where things are so abundant and so inexpensive, we often have to remind ourselves to support small businesses or craftspeople.  I hope it isn't a dying art to have people hand make things (I think the success of Etsy which focuses on just that is an example that it is thriving) because often the most beautiful and well made things are crafted by hand with lots of time, effort and passion put into them.

Right now I am working on trying to get a Flea Market happening in our neighbourhood....similar to the Brooklyn Flea we visited in July last summer and fell in love with ....and the Junction Flea in the west end of Toronto.
We are finding that there is a lot of paperwork and naysayers....which is frustrating.  I think our city needs to pay some attention to the small businesses and entrepreneurs who make our neighbourhoods amazing and are a big reason this city is so interesting.  If Toronto is to thrive we have to make sure that big box stores aren't taking all the focus away from the little guy.  Don't get me wrong I shop the big box stores from time to time for price and convenience....but we need to make sure the mom and pop shops aren't forgotten.  Or that it is too difficult for these small enterprises to thrive.

Okay...enough of the soap box for me!  Off to walk the dogs!

Puppies and Slipcovers...go together like peas and carrots

This past Sunday we got our new puppy!!  We've been wanting to get another dog for a while now and when I found a litter on Petfinder....www.petfinder.com....I filled out the application for adoption right away.  We got Scout, our first dog, on Petfinder too and it's an amazing place to find rescue dogs.

Here's our new addition Carter:

We adore him....and so far everything is going well.  But what I had forgotten about getting a puppy is that is really makes you housebound.  I've booked some time off my regular work to stay home and hang out with this little guy.  I'm loving it, but I am remembering how much time it takes and that you really are stuck at home quite a lot.

So, necessity being the mother of invention, I decided to start on some projects I had long put on the shelf.  Those projects we all have that get pushed aside?  I've got tons of them so I decided to make the most of my stranded state and get cracking on them.

I had purchased fabric for slipcovers for our kitchen chairs way back last spring.   I also recently took my sewing machine in to be re-serviced so the timing was perfect.

We've had such a long cold winter (I know....I know....I'm Canadian, should be used to it....but, well...I'm not) that it was the perfect time to get some colour into the kitchen with these chairs.

Slipcovers are fairly easy to make especially if your furniture is as simple as these parson chairs.
Just pin the fabric on with the good side facing in...slip off....sew up....and voila!

I love how bright and graphic they are....and I had forgotten how much I love sewing since I've been doing so much wood work lately.

If you are tired of winter too....see what you can do to inject some colour and life into your house....even a bright and colourful spring plant will do wonders!

I've got lots of other projects in the works now too....I've gotten a commission to design and make a sideboard for a client out of old doors and windows so that will be the next thing I will be working on while home with the pups.

Hope you all have a great family day weekend! 

It's a Shoe In

Finally finding some time to write another post...lots has been happening around here.  Our 3rd floor bathroom reno began yesterday - very excited about this!!! finally an ensuite!!! so sweet!
And we are in the process of applying to adopt a rescue puppy - very exciting as well!!  And of course, because it would be boring otherwise, I am doing some more shows to sell my things....and planning an event in Vancouver...and prepping to get some of my things into a local store...and trying to sell our car...and planning a birthday party sleepover complete with custom made Hobbit swords as giveaways!

Made by my amazing husband for our son's 11th Birthday party! Each guest gets their own sword with a personalized insignia Luke is designing for each friend...crafty much?

So, yup a lot going on in the Roberts household!  But anyone who knows me realizes I wouldn't have it any other way!  It is a very busy time but it's all positive and I feel fortunate for how many things we have going on right now that are so great.

On top of all the usual, and unusual, stuff going on around here I completed a project some friends hired me to do for them.  To build a custom shoe cabinet to go at their front door.  It had to be narrow to fit in there and be able to hold as many shoes as possible...and have a nice top surface to hold keys etc at the front entry.

I used an old door for the side panels and frame....and found two windows that were almost the right size. 

 

The window/door frame in pieces

 

 putting it back together after cutting to size...and sanding it down

They now fit perfectly as "doors" for the cabinet

The top is an old reclaimed piece of wood that was just the perfect size....love when that happens!

The client wanted tin ceiling inserts in the door and the whole thing to be painted black to match some of their existing cabinetry.  I sourced the tin from a local salvage shop.

Here is the final result!  It looks great in their front hall and is really functional too...which is what every designer hopes to achieve.  They are really happy with it also...and that is why I love making pieces like this.