The Dappled Willow

Another week of the One Room Challenge come and gone. Last week the beautiful weather kept me distracted from my project list. This week it was our 7 year wedding anniversary! That combined with a big job move took most of my attention. Somehow I still managed to make a little progress in the living room.

Hand Casting Kit

Going out to dinner to celebrate our anniversary seemed complicated this year, so I found an at-home activity for us to do to mark the occasion. I ordered a hand casting kit off Amazon and once the kids were in bed we got to it. We decided on a position for both of our left hands so our wedding rings would both be in it, mixed up the moulding material and placed our hands in it. (We did a little LIVE video on Instagram while we waited for the mould to set if you want to check it out.)

Once the mould was set we carefully removed our hands and rinsed it out to remove any loose bits. We then mixed up the casting stone and poured it into the mould. About 3 hours later our statue was ready to be revealed!

There were only a couple of little spots that needed to be fixed, like my nails and the underside of Daniel’s fingers that the casting stone didn’t quite fill. Our wrists weren’t in the mould evenly either so I shaved them down a bit with a chisel so the statue would stand.

I still felt like it could use a sturdier base so I found a small oval-shaped piece of wood I had in my craft stash and used construction adhesive to secure the statue to it.

I haven’t decided if it should be displayed on the fireplace mantel or another surface in the living room. I know it’s cheesy but it turned out so much better than I expected so I’m happy to keep it out as a conversation piece.

Baseboards

First item was finishing off the baseboards. We didn’t have enough in storage to complete the whole room and it took a little while to get some more. Daniel installed it all in one evening while I was in a virtual volunteer meeting. It still needs to be caulked and painted but progress is progress!

Transition Strips

We’re so grateful Daniel’s brother Marc-André, who is a professional carpenter, agreed to help us out and made custom transition strips for the spaces where we widened the entryways. He’s installed one so far and it looks amazing! The strip needs to be stained and sealed and the parquet flooring needs some touch ups too but it’s coming along. The other two transition strips where the front closet was removed may have to wait until after the One Room Challenge is over but I don’t mind since that technically doesn’t count as part of the living room anyway.

Area Rug

Our new 9×12 area rug actually arrived a couple weeks ago but I wanted to be done with the dusty jobs before rolling it out. It fills the room nicely and brings in such a great splash of colours.

I love the pattern of it. It’s the ‘Layla’ rug by Loloi in Ocean Rust in case you’d like to find one for yourself. I’ve only ever had secondhand rugs so the sticker price was tough for me to swallow but thankfully my patience paid off and I found it from a Canadian supplier to avoid import fees, and bought it while on a super sale! It’s soft but low pile for easy vacuuming. The kids approve!

Music and Wood Storage

I scored the perfect furniture piece for storing our music and firewood on Facebook Marketplace a few weeks ago. I finally got around to setting it up this week.

After a little dusting and cleaning, I camouflaged the scratches and dings in the wood with a special stain product.

I filled the bottom shelf with firewood and I am so excited about this for the cold months. We often have wood fires in our fireplace once the weather is cool and having this wood storage will make that even more enjoyable. Before we had an unsightly plastic bin for our firewood that was defrosting. Now we have covered wood storage outside and should be able to transfer wood from there easily to this storage unit which is right next to the door.

Finally, I arranged our vinyl records, CDs, and cassette tapes beside our music player that plays all three and includes a radio too. I love that the doors of the credenza have slats to allow the sound from the player to come through even when the doors are closed.

Another thing we can cross off our project list!

THE PROJECT LIST:

• Declutter
• Widen entryways
• Drywall
• Prime
• Paint walls
• Paint brick fireplace
• Paint window frames
• Install and paint baseboards
• Prep fireplace mantel
• Install and seal the fireplace mantel
• Cover the Couch
• Music storage/station
• Firewood storage
• Replace rug
• Figure out lighting
• DIY Art
• Stage with art and accessories 

Only 1 week left to put the finishing touches on this room! There will always be more projects I’ll be back next week with another blog update. Until then, follow along in stories on Instagram or Facebook to watch our progress.

Cheers,

Lydia

Visit each week of my One Room Challenge™ here:

Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Week 8 |

Thanks for being here! See what everyone else in this challenge is up to at One Room Challenge™.