Sold!

What do you do when you fall in love with your dream home, on your dream street in a pretty little town? Do you tell yourself it will never work and just go back to the same old, same old or do you find out what it would take to make it happen and go for it? Well, we went for it and with the help of an amazing realtor, we were able to fix up our circa 1925 East York semi that we've lived in for the past 14 years and sell it within a week - Christmas week! We actually have two amazing agents - Alex Brott in Toronto, who also happens to be a cool, funky Pyrex collector herself, and the very classy Catherine Sennett who works the greater Hamilton area. Our dream has come true. Below are some slightly blurry photos of our decluttered home, staged with Pyrex. Follow your dreams!

 Alex brought in this vintage cowboy painting, so I put my cowboy crockery on top. The old bookcase belonged to my grandmother. In our rush to pack, all the books that were in it were boxed up and put in storage. It was Alex's idea to turn it into a Pyrex display case. Love it! Pyrex purists will note that it is not filled exclusively with Pyrex, but beautiful vintage crockery nevertheless. 

 Here's our beautiful kitchen that my husband did completely on his own. The colour is Behr Poppy Glow, if you like it. Ken was going to use glass tiles, but at the last minute switched to these stick-on stainless steel tiles for the backsplash. He thinks it's a bit too much steel, but everyone else likes it. Check out the Pyrex and other vintage crockery in warm tones. I staged that one!

 The dishwasher has to be up there with the wheel in terms of brilliant inventions. 

 Look, still life with Pyrex bowl!

 Alex brought in this circa 1960s US school map from her own place to hang over our sofa. The area carpet comes from Ikea. It's a little hard to keep clean with a seven-year-old boy and a cat, so we'd been cleaning it every day with zeal and verve (feel free to add your own adverbs).

 A look out the window: I will miss our wonderful neighbours the most. Friends and family will always be visitable. 

 We bought these green cabinets a few years back to hold glassware. I really like them. The Umbra clock is ours and Alex added some pretty candles and vases. 

 Close up of the vintage cowboy theme. Time for come chuck wagon stew!

 To highlight how roomy our little dining room is, we removed our retro fifties table and chair and Alex rented this vintage tulip table with funky repro chairs. She bought the pendant light at Ikea and brought in the big mirror and modern art you'll see in the blurry photo below. The art is really cool. It's painted on wood panels and adds a much needed splash of colour to the room. 

There you have it. The upstairs rooms are just bedrooms and our refurbished bathroom, so I didn't bother taking pictures. I hope that the new year will be full of good health, good times, and good thrifty pickings for all of my blogging buddies. When we get settled in our new home, I'll post pictures. 

Happy new year!
Erin

Merry Christmas

Hello there,

Our big news is that we've found our dream house and we're in the process of selling our current home in Toronto. We may be close to an offer, so we'll see. I'll be back over the next little while to show how we've used vintage Pyrex to help in the staging of our home. We have an awesome agent who collects Pyrex too. How perfect is that? 
Merry Christmas and bye for now,
Erin

Here's a piece of classic eighties Brit one hit wonder pop to get you smiling for the holidays. Get into it!

At Long Last

After a long wait, I've finally found some amazing treasures to show you. Enjoy! P.S. Thanks for all the nice comments. 

 My good luck started at the Value Village near the school that I work at. I scooped up this beautiful buttery Pyrex bowl for $6.99. It was in pretty good condition. 

 I also scored these Termocrisa bowls for $1.49 each. I already have three of the green bowls, so that's virtually a set!

 Alright, in a moment of thrifting weakness, my husband and I decided that we were overdue a trip to the gigantic Southwarks Antiques in Cambridge. It was there that I found this Pyrex Ponderosa mug. I have so many happy childhood memories of going to the Ponderosa steakhouse that I told myself that if I ever find it, I will plunk down the money. Gulp, it cost $9.00, but I do love it. 

 My most extravagant piece was this $22.00 Horizon Blue casserole dish. I love it. 

 Above and below: a Daisy casserole dish that cost $12.00. So much happiness and sunshine in one dish!

 This Friendship casserole dish will go nicely with my other Friendship pieces. It has some tiny scuffs, but generally worth the weird price of $13.50. 

 More childhood nostalgia: We had a wooden snack dish that was very similar to this, hanging on our kitchen wall when I was a kid. I still have it and I've collected a few more of these over the year. Sorry about the harsh sunlight. Old man winter is just around the corner. 

 I quite like the Shenandoan Pyrex pattern. When you're shopping at Southwarks, the staff keep walking by and take your collectables to the front desk. I ended up finding the larger size dish for less than the small dish that a different vendor was selling. The woman at the cash pointed this out, so I split up the vendor's set and got a deal. Hey, business is business. The small dish cost $10.50 and the large one cost $10.00. 

Lastly, I couldn't resist this Red Rose coffee tin for $9.00. Red Rose is a Canadian tea company. I had no idea that they once sold coffee too. 

I will try to get the Pyrex pics on the Pyrex Collective soon. 

Bye for now,
Erin 

That's Life

I'm a lumberjack... Duncan poses for a Halloween picture after a night of soggy trick or treating. This costume cost $1.99 for the axe. My sister donated the beard and the rest came from stuff we already had. 

A couple of posts ago, I introduced our new cat Lily. Sadly, Lily became very sick a couple of weeks ago and had to be put down. She was only two years old, but she was a tiny cat and they think she died of a feline virus FIP. Our older cat Kiko thankfully seems healthy, but we're going to wait until we get another cat. You are supposed to wait at least a month in order for your other cat(s) to excrete any remnants of a virus they have fought off. It's all rather strange how it happened, but we don't know Lily's history. We never have let our cats outdoors and up until Spook became sick in the summer, we've never had any health problems. It was hard saying goodbye to a cat we'd only had for such a short period of time, but at least she's not suffering. We gave her a good home for her final days and we'll look to help out another cat in need as soon as we know it won't be at risk of contracting a virus. 

I've been trying to look for cool things in the thrift stores and unfortunately, I've only come across scuffed Pyrex and nothing else of interest. I'm hoping to start going to antique dealers soon. Speaking of dealers, has anyone seen Salvage Hunters on Discovery? It's like American/Canadian Pickers, but set in England. The treasures are generally older, the scenery is gorgeous and the production values are more understated. 

Here is a not-so great quality clip. We watch it on Friday nights at 9 p.m. 

Here's the great Stan Ridgway singing Mission in Life. I love the lyrics. 

Good, Clean Fun

 Last weekend we went to the apple festival at the Spadina House in Toronto. It's an old, Edwardian house (I believe) that's stuffed with furnishings and objects from the past. It only cost $5 to get in (free for kids). Here, you'll see volunteers pulp-ifying apples grown in the sprawling orchard. 

 "You turn my crank - literally." Some random gentleman squeezes the apples until the juices run down into the bucket. You'll see the end product below. 

 Duncan signed on for an old timey sack race. 

 Ah, life before video games!

 Here's what's left of the apples. 

 And here's the juice. 

Sadly, it all ended tragically when the house wolf mauled Duncan. Fortunately, he was back to his old self the next day. Or was he?

Back in Action

Our dear little Lily - the newest member of our family!

Thanks to everyone who posted a comment regarding the death of Spook. I've been very busy over the past few weeks getting my classroom set up and of course, teaching. I've got a wonderful class this year and soon, we should be into our routines and I'll have more time (and hopefully money) to do a bit of thrifting. The yard sales really dried up in my neighbourhood this summer. I'm hoping that the Value Village near my school will give me something special to blog about soon.

Lily is slowly making herself more comfortable in our home. She's now having snug time on the sofa at night. We tried to make a little bed for her, but instead, she prefers to hang out in a bucket. Go figure cats. 

I'll be back much sooner next time. 
All the best,
Erin