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I’m not one to change up my decor with the seasons but I make an exception with bedding: warmer temps call for lighter blankets and so I’ve recently switched up my heavier duvet cover for a light-weight, cotton jacquard that I purchased in India. Jacquard patterns are loomed rather than printed so the image is reversed on the underside. In this case I believe the orange (above right) is the top side but I prefer the taupe-y reverse, which goes better with the wall colour, Farrow & Ball’s Dauphin.

I know what you’re thinking: What happened to the gold? Late last year the apartment above mine opened up which allowed me to move onto the top floor of the building, so now there’s no one walking around over my head. When I made the move in December I painted the living space exactly the same as downstairs but I changed the bedroom, just because.

Bedding is about the only thing I bought in India and, in fact, I purchased four bedspreads, one of which I intend to use as a bedskirt when I get my new bed. The shop-keeper told me the coverlet above is a knock-off of a Hermes design but I haven’t been able to corroborate that. The numbers have blurred in my mind but I believe I paid around $150 CAD for the would-be Hermes; it’s reasonably good quality and it makes me think of the Portlandia skirt, “Put a Bird On It.”

My favorite Indian bedspread is also the humblest, the indestructible, cotton quilt, below. The elephant motif may be a hoary cliché and perhaps even a tad juvenile, but I simply love it! It makes me smile and it washes beautifully, and even better, it cost less than $30 CAN.

My least favorite purchase is the one for which I chose the wall colour, the quilted, silk stripe, below. It works well with the painting but I guess the wall colour is too close, the room feels meh. Next time, I’ll go with cream walls and see if the silk works a bit better.

For now, I’m down with the Jacquard which is the perfect weight for summer. A summer look is supposed to be cooler in colour but in my world it’s about the change from dark (winter, below left) to light (summer sun, right).

When I first blogged about Furnish it With Vintage enthusiast Connie, she was new to the blogging world but an old hand at thrifting, a gal who knows her way around Goodwill, Salvation Army and Value Village. But that’s the thing about decorating with thrift, once you overhaul a sofa you’d better love it ’cause it’s yours for a good long while. Fortunately, Connie does love her teak-arm sofa set, now looking smart and comfortable in an updated neutral chenille.

It took vision to see past the original orange upholstery and I’m pretty sure that like most thrifters, Connie was swayed by the price tags, $80 for the chair and $150 for the sofa. “I didn’t even try to negotiate,” she says, “what a deal!”

She quickly discovered, however, that the initial purchase is the cheapest stop along the way to a new-look living room. By the time she’d paid for fabric and reupholstery, courtesy of Whitby’s Brooks Upholstery (926 McCullough Dr., 905.666.1852), Connie had coughed up $2,200, about 10 times the original outlay.

But she loves her set and that’s what matters, and it should stand Connie in good stead for years to come now that’s it’s been remade from bottom to top. Good job, Connie! Your space looks very late-era Mad Men. An area rug of some sort might help to set it all off.

Happy Mother’s Day to my Mom and all you other Mom’s out there. Thanks to my friend Susan for sharing this snap of flowers her boys brought her last week. The nice thing is, the digital flowers keep on giving, their blooms will never wilt. I love you, Mom!

It’s ridiculously short notice, I know, but I only received the flyer yesterday for Waddington’s Cobourg‘s bi-annual fine furniture auction. And let me tell you, there is some sweet stuff in this sale. Do you remember the post I did about designer Michael S. Smith and his masterful use of pairs? Well there are some very pretty pairs on offer, including the handsome tchotchkes above and the pair of side chairs below that once belonged to the late Robertson Davies [there are several items from the writer's estate in the sale].

There are also many excellent carpets on offer and some promising furniture, much of it Georgian, with smatterings of Empire, Regency, Victorian and yes, Louis. The preview is all day today and tomorrow morning with the first lot going up at 11 am Sunday (May 12); if you can’t make it to Cobourg, feel free to place a reserve bid over the phone. I hope you get lucky!

My friend Rebecca was very excited to show me her latest reno project; after six years in her current house, she and husband Dan had finally removed their eighth (and final?) wall, the one standing between them and their backyard. Instead of having to go out a side door and around to the back, sliding glass doors now provide outside access and abundant light.

Like so many young couples in gentrifying cities, Rebecca and Dan fought their way onto the property ladder then slowly scaled it one rung at a time. Their Victorian semi in Toronto’s Palmerston/Little Italy neighbourhood was a duplex when they bought it and so it stayed for the first two years while they adjusted to taxes, a mortgage and all the other joys of home ownership.

When their first daughter arrived, they knew they would need to reclaim the upstairs living space; when their second daughter joined the family there was no turning back. The renos have come slowly as the couple could afford them, first as part of realigning the upstairs — eliminating a now-redundant extra kitchen, for starters — and then to unify and beautify the main floor.

The before pics, above, will be familiar to anyone who has lived through a renovation, but doing it all with young children ought to come with a special merit badge. To see the space now, all white, bright and calm is to completely forget the mess and expense.

During our house-tour tea I observed that Rebecca and Dan must really like white because they’ve used it as a neutral throughout the house. “I like a calm palette,” she said, “that then gets coloured up like crazy with the frenetic energy and very bright clothes/toys/drawings/laughter of my kids and life in general.”

I appreciate the observation that if your life comes with lots of colour, your interior doesn’t necessarily have to provide it.

Before all the walls came down it didn’t matter that there were four disparate light fixtures on the main level because they were all in different rooms; now with those spaces conjoined and unified with bamboo flooring throughout, harmonizing the lighting is on the do-to list. It’s one of those things you don’t think about until the walls are gone.

On the second floor are the girls bedrooms and a roomy family den for TV and lounging.

The third floor is reserved for the master suite, a spacious sanctuary away from the chaos of family life.

Rebecca and Dan splurged on a beautiful marble bathroom, their reward for living through this long and sometimes painful transition from duplex to beautiful family home.

Click through for a few more pics and vignettes . . .

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