More Storage Please!

Let the carpet arrival begin!!

Which has only made me think more about making significant changes to our bedroom!

About 4 years ago, we moved from a spacious 2 bedroom apartment in London, Ontario, to our large (by city standards) one bedroom apartment in downtown Toronto. 3 years before that, we had packed our car with just the basics when we moved across the country from Alberta. Which means in 7 years, we've accumulated a whole lifetime of stuff. Or at least it feels like it.

When we moved to Toronto, we didn't get rid of any of our furniture, instead we just jammed it into our new space. Though we've made it work, it has also meant living in constant rearrangement mode to make things fit. 

Recently, we took on changing our bedroom around. We have lots of furniture in there, because of the almost complete lack of closet space. The big pressure point in the room was near the closet. Because everything you needed to get dressed was in that small space. Plus, there was always laundry everywhere because there was no room to put it or sort it.

So we decided to do this. 

Which completely solved the issue of bumping into each other in the morning. But it didn't solve our storage issues. As well, we'd like a bigger bed! With a cat and a dog and two humans, there just isn't enough space in a double bed for everyone. 

Here's what I'd like to do. 

But to get from what we have to what I want. The to do list is pretty intensive. 

And just like Iggy Azalea says, first thing's first, we need to find a bed frame!

How have you dealt with bedroom storage issues? Or linen storage? Or just storage in general? 

Leave a comment and let me know! Ideas welcome!

Tiles Vs Tiles - Round #1

For years, we've lived with all tile floors, everywhere! And since we live in a rental apartment, that is also a basement, we needed a flexible solution that wouldn't break the bank and could also move with us. Plus, we wanted something that would be easy to clean, because with two pets (Henry, the dog, and Patches, the cat) you find yourself, more often than you want, with a rag and a spray bottle of pet cleaner. All of this made me think that carpet tiles would be the perfect solution for our cold floors.

And I think that I almost instantly fell in love with FLOR's All Dolled Up in Teal! The sample I ordered only reinforced my love of this tile! The colours work with our bedroom's yellow walls (which you can see below in the last image) and what's not to love about teal and green! 

The only kicker about this carpet, is that it's $22 a tile! And I need more than a couple of them. 

I need 44+ tiles to make it around the furniture in our bedroom. I say 44+ because there are bound to be cutting errors and I want a little flexibility in placement. I could settle for 47. But even a little math tells me that 47 X $22 is more $$ than I want to spend on carpet. 

FLOR has lots of different styles at different price points, and though this is starting to sound like an ad for them, it's totally not, I'm just obsessed with their tiles. But back to the different options. I got thinking about using different colours, which could be cheaper mixed in with my fav. Using the FLORbuilder, I came up with a basic idea. 

But as you can see, those 32 tiles still cost $576.94. Well beyond what I want to spend! But there was still one more option for cost savings, the FLOR outlet, where good carpet goes to find it's forever home with those who only want to spend $6.99 a tile. The cost comparison looks like this. 

The only problem is that because the outlet is an outlet, things are constantly moving in and out. Meaning that to create a floor for less, I would need to watch the store, buy ones I like, possibly wait, then buy a couple more. Which, I can totally accept as a process, if it means nice carpet for cheap. 

Plus, I have a couple of remnant carpet tile samples from a previous job, I thought I could incorporate, since I will probably use them again to show colour and texture, they might as well be part of my flooring rather than collect dust in a pile (at least that's my logic right now). UPDATE: Make that almost 2 dozen sample tiles. I never would have guessed there were that many in that storage pile!

Though this is an amazing price, it's important to keep in mind that at the end of the day, I will only be the owner of 26 tiles, and the user of 21. Sorry Patches, those tile are about to get some use!

Why Imperfectly Built?

Perfectionism is the refusal to move forward.                Julia Cameron

Perfectionism runs through my veins and for years its kept me from blogging. I'm finally willing to move beyond trying to be perfect and instead accepting that everything is imperfectly built.

As much as I'd like to believe that perfection is a possibility, the deep reality of building or creating anything is that there will always be imperfections. Even digital fabrication (3D printing, CNC milling, laser cutting) can't escape human error, material defects, construction mistakes, site constraints, etc.

I'm looking forward to sharing with you  all the imperfect projects I've done or am working on.

Welcome to Imperfectly Built!