Delta Accessories to Spark Up Our Bathroom

Every bathroom to be comfortable and complete needs useful, strong accessories. We used the Lahara collection Delta accessories to spark up our #BathroomReno. Adding themed accessories gives a unique, and useful touch to our bathroom. We installed the Lahara toilet paper holder, towel ring, 24" towel bar and robe hook, which gives a wonderful accent to the entire bathroom. 

Elegance and Convenience in Our Shower Stall

There are lots of benefits in having a hand shower in the shower stall. I like using the hand shower since it gives us the freedom of movement. It is convenient for everyone in the family with different heights to use. Having a hand shower in a home with children, seniors and pets is helpful. I find using the hand shower to clean the shower stall surface, allows us to easily remove soap residue and grime. Using the handheld shower also helps conserve water. 

Adding Lahara Touch2O Technology Faucet To Our Bathroom

You may already know about our DIY #BathroomReno project, we started a couple of months ago. I am glad our hard work during some evenings and weekends are paying off and the project is coming together to reflect our vision. With so many options available in today's market, my husband and I planned to invest and make our bathroom modern and eco-friendly. 

Planning Our #BathroomReno DIY Project

As our family grows and children are becoming bigger, it is easier for us to do upgrades and renovations to fit the needs and comfort of our growing families rather than moving. During fall many of you like us, plan on doing indoor renovations and look for helpful information. Doing the renovations ourself is lots of fun, as it gives us the comfort of using any product we like and saves us a lot of money. 

What We Do In Our Garden During Fall

The gardening season is almost coming to an end for this year... so I find spending a little bit of time each day will help us get ready to clean up and prep things for the next gardening season. Here are some of the things my husband and I do in our garden during fall.

Using Vinyl Is Better Than Another Material

This post brought to you by Royal Building Products. All opinions are 100% mine.

There are so many products to choose from when we are thinking of renovating or upgrading our home. Vinyl has proven to be an all-around excellent choice, when it comes to using it for windows, doors and trims. Vinyl windows and doors give excellent thermal performance and help us lower utility bills. Since heating and cooling costs are usually 50% of our energy budget, having vinyl instead of another material also has financial benefits.

Watch and Vote for Brother vs Brother on HGTV

One of my favourite channels to watch on TV is HGTV. HGTV's popular Property Brothers face off in the new home renovation competition, Brother vs. Brother starting on Sunday July 21st at 10pm ET. 

This Closet Helper Will Keep Us Organized

We usually have a hard time keeping our bedroom closet organized, since the clothes go in and out of it all the time. Like us, many people I know get frustrated with disorganized closets and have tried many ways to keep it neat, tidy and accessible. 

Our frustration was solved after we installed the Rubbermaid Max Add-On Closet Helper, as it helps us keep our closet organized and neater. I liked how easy it was to install the Rubbermaid Max Add-On Closet Helper without any tools. I found the smooth and sturdy tower plastic shelves and cubby inserts in this package to be handy and useful as it helps me neatly keep the clothes folded. 

Visualize Your Home with this Virtual Remodeler Tool

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Royal Building Products. All opinions are 100% mine.

Royal Building Products manufactures and distributes leading materials for the home re-modeling, building and municipal construction markets. For over 40 years, the company has been making quality, innovative products such as siding, trim, accessories, soffit, rain ware, mouldings, deck, window profiles and patio doors. Royal Building Products also manufactures pipe and fittings for the electrical, municipal, irrigation, plumbing and industrial construction industries.

I used their Virtual Remodeler Tool online. This free tool helps us select new window styles and colors by allowing us to visualize the options on their stock home pictures or we can upload our own picture to see how the designs look before buying and remodelling.

Step-by-Step Home Design and Decorating Ideas

This book Step-by-Step home design and decorating give us lots of ideas to get our home functioning in the style we like. We can renovate our kitchen, bathroom, living room, bedroom, hallway, home office, laundry room and outside space within our budget by using the information from this book.

The beautiful pictures and instructions will encourage us to take on a project and complete it. My husband and I enjoy doing our own DIY projects as it keeps the cost low and once the projects are completed it gives us a sense of achievement. We recently renovated our outdoor space, backsplash in the kitchen and redecorated our entertainment area. We are always looking for ways to upgrade and add character to our home by doing small renovations, so we will be using this book as a guide before starting projects.

Usually when we do projects we come across problems we don’t know how to fix, which causes frustration so having a book to refer to will be helpful. This book gives us lots of details to help us when we are planning our projects. 

The book has information about creating focal points with picture frames and placing them in the correct way so it would suit our furniture and room. We got this Big Red painting from Lowes that adds character to our living room.

I think this book is a must for everyone interested in doing DIY projects as it gives detailed explanations.

All rights reserved on photographs and written content Createwithmom © 2011 - 2013. Please Ask First

We are planning to take lots of Gardening Shortcuts this Summer

It is that time of the year when we start thinking of gardening projects and designing outdoors.  I totally look forward to spring, as I like to plan and think of all the possible projects we can do in the garden even before the ground thaws.  

Since we are planning on a trip this summer :) the time I have to garden this year is limited.  I want to make sure that we maximize the fun of gardening by spending as little time maintaining it.  This book Gardening Shortcuts has lots of ideas that will make this possible, and I am sure every gardener will appreciate the tips found in this book.  

The suggested tips and ideas in this book lets us get the maximum benefit of enjoying our garden with less time maintaining it.

Last year, we gave a quick lift to a dull garden space by creating a flowerbed and adding rocks.  Seeing this idea in the book made me feel good that I had come up with this project last year.

To make this flower bed we mounted a lot of soil because we wanted some height.  Then we planted a Japanese maple tree that we bought from Sheridan.  We chose the blood good variety of Japanese maple tree that doesn't grow too tall, and has bright red leaves.  

Around the tree, we placed Pefferlaw deco stones and gravel river rocks that can be purchased in all these locations.  I like how rocks give a serene, natural atmosphere to the garden while helping control weeds in an eco-friendly way.  Usually adding rocks and hard elements to the garden brings the lush colours of plants and flowers to become more focused and attractive. 

We also put a solar spotlight in this area that makes the plants glow at night.  To give the area more colour we planted different coloured pansies and marigold.  To make sure the area does not get a crowded and cluttered we always prune and remove the plants that spread.

This book gives a lot of ideas on how we can create privacy and sheltered spaces in the garden by adding fences and patio.  It also has lovely decorative projects that we can do without incurring a big cost.

This book also shows us neat ideas on how we can grow fruits and vegetables in a decorative manner.

All rights reserved on photographs and written content Createwithmom © 2011 - 2013. Please Ask First

Our kitchen renovation DIY project using Aspect metal

We renovated our kitchen and changed how our kitchen looks using Aspect Metal peel and stick tiles. This DIY project was very exciting as it changed the whole look of our kitchen giving it a sleek, sophisticated, modern and a clean feel that we really like. My husband did all the work on his own and completed the project within a couple of days during the weekend. The project would have been completed sooner, however because of time limitations he did the project a little bit at a time.  

We had wallpaper prior to doing this project and had a few prep work to do. He removed the wallpaper, cleaned it up, fixed up the wall, primed it with an oil based primer and left it to completely dry before starting to paste the tiles. The instruction that came with the tiles said that it would work well only on flat, primed, smooth walls so we wanted to make sure the wall was perfectly ready :) We read the instructions very carefully twice before starting and I highly recommend this. The video on this site is also very helpful to watch before starting the project.  

The instructions on the tile box has a list of tools we may need.  

We used...

hacksaw for the large pieces

chisel for small pieces

sandpaper to smoothen the sharp cuts

utility knife

pencil, paper, cloth, primer, brush

adhesive glue

drill (only needed if want to put any shelves or screws for hanging purposes)

Before sticking the tiles we measured, then measured again and decided that the subway pattern was most suitable for us.  There were lots of design ideas online as well as on the instruction sheet, which was helpful.  

My husband drew the middle line before pasting the tiles starting from the centre and out.  He also did the bottom row close to the counter to make sure the tiles will be aligned correctly.

We chose the long grain, brushed champagne tiles.  Each box has 8 tiles that are 3"x6", and to cover our area we needed 12 boxes.

When doing this projects we encourage and recommend that...

• You measure everything twice :)
• When cutting think about the grain because if the grains are not in the same direction it will look different depending on the lighting and angle; unless you want the different shades as part of your decor
• Use glue adhesive to stick the tiles it is better in the long run
• Remove the film on the front just before placing so the tiles don't get any scratches
• Throw away the front and back peel immediately to avoid slipping on these
• Start from the centre so the pattern will flow and look good
• We wanted to put a shelf so we had to make holes into the tiles so we drew the location of the holes first on a piece of paper then made the points on the tile and carefully drilled it
• After cutting don't skip on sanding the edges
• We can use a clear or coloured caulk to seal around the bottom and edges 
• Get matching switch plates, this is something we forgot and had to hurry to Home Depot :) and found decor wall plates from Atron.  The Aspect tiles site recommends outlet covers from Wall Plate Warehouse.

There are lots of pros in using these Aspect Metal tiles:

• The look is fabulous and gives the space a contemparary feel.
• Instantly adds a whole new beautiful look, which also adds value to the space.
• A modern look with the metal for an affordable price and a fraction of the cost compared to using real tiles.
• We can do it ourself and not have to pay contractors and experts.
• Easy to maintain and clean by simply wiping it with a soft cloth.
• The tiles are eco-friendly as it made with 50% recycled materials and the tiles are 100% recyclable 
• There is a good choice of colour we can choose from; brushed champagne, stainless, copper and bronze.
• There are two types of grains we can choose from long or short grain. 
• Once the project is complete we will feel really good :)

My husband really enjoyed the whole process and he says he liked how he felt when every tile was placed :) which is good news for me as I can think of other projects to do.  My children and family/friends who came said how good it looks.  My four year old suggests that we decorate the entire living room with these tiles :)

These tiles are available online and at home hardware stores such as Home Depot.  Aspect metal tiles will look good as backsplash, in small areas of the wall to add accent, in cabinets and to put detail around fireplace etc.  We really enjoyed the process of doing this project and are enjoying how good the kitchen looks now.  If you are thinking of doing something to spice up your kitchen or other areas around the home think metal and choose these tiles from Aspect ideas.

All rights reserved on photographs and written content Createwithmom © 2012. Please Ask First

Updated September 3, 2015 In Reply to a question from a reader (Thank you Stacey):

Was curious how they have held up. More info about the additional glue you used would also be interesting. Did you take the foam backer off first?

Answer 

The Aspect tiles are holding up great since we placed them in 2012. We did a kitchen renovation (Cabinet transformation) and decided to keep the aspect tiles because it still looks new. We did not remove the foam backing as it is not supposed to be removed just the peel from the sticker was removed before each tile was pasted. There is a film protecting the tiles which was removed after the tiles were installed. The glue that was on the peel off wasn't as strong (the items in 2012), so I used the "Weldbond" universal adhesive that can be found at Homedepot or Lowes, you could use any construction adhesive. I primed the wall before installation so the tiles stuck firm.

Also another tip, if you need to cut the tile its best to use a utility knife and keep scoring it and then snap off.