all gone for ten or so months

Sigh.

Loud sigh of sadness.

Sigh.

It's all gone, all put away.  The tree and other decor we'd had up in the condo are boxed and in storage.  See you in November, my friends.  December at the latest!  And now a fresh start for at home in the new year.  Or something like that.

Sigh.

I really do love Christmas, you know.

more small improvements

We have a bit of a party planned for tonight, friends and drinks and little nibbles set out.  That's been great impetus for us to actually tidy our place a little more.  Finding home for piles of things or putting them in storage.  Swapping out artwork what with the stuff having come from Vancouver.  Replacing the toilet seats even!

We did the bedroom first.  No, we're not entertaining there, but we will be giving some folks the tour of the condo.  It all seemed pretty impressive to me once we were done. 

There's more we want to accomplish - we'll be swapping out the rug and the oval table and adding some lighting there eventually - but I was pretty pleased.  I'm loving looking around here in the dining room where I am parked at the table at the pieces we now have hanging on the wall as well.  Over time, I'll capture some of them in additional photos for sharing.

staged

The condo is not yet listed, but it is staged.  Since the tenants moved out, we gone in to clear out junk, give away furnishings and home goods, do some light cleaning, then had painters and real cleaners come in.  This past week, the stager was doing her work, and her work looks good.

No, it's not staged for someone to live there.  It's staged to show off the space and the views, and I think it's pretty successful at that.  We changed some light bulbs there this afternoon, and now Conrad and I won't see the place again until we visit in December.  I mean, unless a sale and closing happen THAT quickly (which would be pretty awesome!).

adventures in re-furnishing

I’m writing this on Sunday, some 30,000 feet up, I’m not quite sure. Ask the pilot (digression: I’ve long been fond of that column, but it’s been ages since I read Salon regularly). Anyway, a good time to get some thoughts down on the weekend that was. It’s not every day, after all, that one gets to refurnish a condo.

So, backing up a bit. I think everyone reading this will know that Conrad and I have had a second home in Vancouver for some time now. 5 years this May, in fact. Most of the time since that purchase my sister, Marie, has lived there. But Marie (darn her) went and grew up. My big sister now owns a condo of her own (she’s a suburbanite now!), and as of a week and a half ago, she no longer lives in our place.

This might not be a big deal, but most everything in the condo was hers. Oh, we had a bed, we had clothing, we had a Christmas tree (what? You know me – are you surprised?), we had some kitchen stuff. We didn’t have a lot. Over the holidays, we set to work purchasing things for refurnishing as soon as she left. That set the stage for this weekend.

Yes, I know that IKEA is relatively cheap stuff that college students buy. Yes, there are a lot of cool, funky, whatever furniture stores in Vancouver. Can many of them let us take home things in a modestly-sized rental car? Can many of them deliver the next day? Frankly, the IKEA aesthetic suits us reasonably well, especially in the concreteness of our condo. We shopped there a bunch over the holidays and kept things boxed up in anticipation of this visit. We shopped there more on this trip – a visit a day save for Saturday when Conrad had to make a second visit to pick up a missing part. I’m unashamed. I’ve also got battered fingers and hands from all the putting to together. Ugh. So many screws and pegs and such. All that we bought is together and arranged, though. Yay!

We also took time to pop by bed in Kitsilano, locally-made bedding. We don’t have the linens washed and set up yet, but we do have a gorgeous gold duvet cover, natural sheets, and charcoal grey pillow cases. I think they’ll look sharp.

I’m in love with it all (though I have yet to fully re-arrange my kitchen, and we still have to deal with art and such on the walls)(oh! We also need a sofa and coffee table and a side table in the bedroom). I absolutely loved coming to Vancouver and the familiarity of the condo as Marie had it arranged. That wasn’t ours, though. This is. And it’s very welcome. Best of all? That dining table that theoretically seats 10-12 but will currently seat 8 comfortably with the chairs we’ve bought for it. I can’t wait to have friends over and enjoy food with them around that table.







Next trip? I’m not sure. Perhaps not until this summer, unfortunately. We have drop cloths on some of the furniture right now, keeping the dust off until we get a chance to enjoy it again. And, happily, add to it!