tracing the genealogy of our home

The Winnipeg Free Press (WFP) recently made available an online archive of their paper dating back to the nineteenth century. I paid for a one day subscription and searched for information about our home. Last spring Dave and I spent some time in the Manitoba Archives tracking down information about our house. Through these searches we have discovered that have been at least two families of note who lived in the house:
Hugh Northcote Baird (lived in our house 1904 and 1905)
Duncan D. Young (lived in our house 1906 to 1911+)
While searching the WFP online archives I was able to find reference to both of these families in the Society section. very cool. I will try to share visuals later.

dining room + library = dining library

One of the happy challenges of taking over the entire house is to determine how to best use the space. Right now our old bedroom (on the main floor) is functioning as a large dressing room. Once we clean this room out it will be turned into a formal dining room. We will then re-arrange our living room which will include moving furniture into the dining room. I had planned all along to move all of our books and bookshelves into the dining room. It looks like others have had the same idea of creating a multi-use space, in this case a dining library

gardening on my mind

After receiving the Sage Garden Herbs catalogue in the mail a few weeks ago, I spent last weekend on their website selecting seeds. I submitted my order and this past week I received the seeds!

I think I will go back now and order some tomato seeds and start these next weekend. I was going to simply buy tomato plants and transplant them in the garden, but perhaps I'll try to grow them again this year. However this time I will either buy a grow light or bring them to work to place on my window sill (I have fabulous south facing windows).

I started a garden book two years ago when we planted our first garden with Andrew and Annie. Each year I map out the garden on paper and decide where to plant what. I planted Asparagus last year and it takes 2-3 years before this perennial plant produces. I have my fingers crossed that we will be able to enjoy some this year.

master bedroom renovation

Displayed in reverse chronological are images of what will soon be our master bedroom. Before we could paint, David (with help from Gody) scraped away sections of wall paper seams and then mudded/sanded the walls. My task was to select the paint colours (I also helped to paint and tape). I found inspiration in a magazine and decided to paint the walls a warm grey colour and, of course, the trim a warm white. We decided to purchase our paint from Cloverdale. The store is practically behind our house on Gertrude. I think they actually make the paint in this location. Talk about buying local!
I spray painted the chandelier white and we think it looks fantastic!
Yesterday, Dave and I went shopping for a new mattress. After some requisite comparison shopping we narrowed it down to a Serta mattress from Dufresne (another local company, or least local to western canada).

hurray for toxic paint stripper chemicals!

David decided to tackle the multiple layers of paint covering the beautiful wood of our handrail.

Dinner party

Hosting a winter dinner party was long overdue so David and I decided to make it happen during the first week of March (I was on vacation). We had a lovely time (great company, food and conversation). The night ended with a long game of Settlers of Catan.

Here's what was served:
Raspberry champagne cocktails
French bread and cheese
Elk roast (from local supplier)
Vegetable pancakes (got to try out my fabulous new food processor)
Roasted squash salad (thank you Sheryl for the fabulous recipe)
salad (contributed by colin and natasha)
Wine (of course)
Ice Cream sundaes for dessert! (contributed by angela and kelsey)

The picture is of me preparing for the dinner party. Notice the short hair (I chopped off my hair earlier that day).

fam in da house

shirley abby naomi gody and emma are spending sunday with us.
tonight we will eat elk tacos. mmmmmm
ab is going to hook up the satellite action.
parents in for three days. two nights.
have to get new bedroom done by thursday night.
dinner party on friday. this is what passes for vacation for brandy
the luckiest girl ever...