I went and got my legs waxed last night. This is only the second time in my life I have done this. I am Italian, and therefore I have thick dark hair, which is not a good thing when it grows in places other than your head.

While I don’t really mind shaving, over the past year I have found that my legs have started to hate me and have retaliated with stubborn ingrown hairs that itch the crap out of my legs. It was driving me nuts. Actually, beyond nuts. I finally decided to do something about it and see a professional, in other words, my esthetician.

It turns out that over shaving and not enough exfoliating were the reasons I was getting ingrown hairs, so now I scrub and watch, like a hawk, for the little buggers to return. Things have been much better but I figure a good hair pull every so often would be beneficial to my legs.

I guess I never really thought about it before but I have every sensitive skin. I have to moisturize all the time. If I go to the bathroom and wash my hands, I have to moisturize them otherwise they internally dry up and die. When I shave my legs I have to lather on the body butter otherwise they scream at me. The one time I washed my face in the morning and didn’t put moisturizer on I thought I was going to have to rip off my skin by 10am. This is why I married Chad. I bottle up his excess grease and use it to keep my skin youthful and moisturized.

Leg hair is weird. Ever noticed how you shave your entire leg and a week later the lower half of your leg is covered in dark long hairs and your upper leg barley looks like there is anything there? Maybe it’s just me.

I decided to get my legs waxed before we left on vacation so for good measure I stopped shaving 3 weeks prior. Maybe a bit excessive but it wasn’t hot out so I had no desire to expose my legs anyways. As of yesterday the lower half of my legs looked like they belonged to a wild beast and the top half of my legs looked like I had shaven the day before. What the hell? Even my esthetician commented on how she didn’t know how much she would be able to wax from the top half of my leg given the length of the hair.

My esthetician, thats another story. When it comes to people in the beauty industry, if you find someone you love, you stick with them. It is very important to women to have a an amazing hairdresser, someone they trust to wax their eyebrows, and a great lady who can paint nails like a hot damn. However, there are those times when you need something done, you can’t wait for it, and your special lady friend isn’t there. This is what happened to me.

While getting your legs waxed isn’t a difficult science, there is some coordination that is involved in it. As soon as the girl walked out to get me I had a weird feeling about whats was going to transpire. She was a very sweet girl, but it felt like either she was flustered with what she was doing or she was some what new at it.

I was covered in wax. She was covered in wax. I was stuck to the bed, and she was stuck to me. I had to laugh at how comical all of it was. She had so much wax on her hands that when she would go to rub down the strip she would stick to it and couldn’t get it off. Omg it was a disaster. I mean I wasn’t too concerned with it. The goal was to get hair free legs so as long as that’s what I received in the end, then I was fine with how much of a circus the process was. Plus I kind of felt bad because the girl was very sweet and it really just felt like she was a little over whelmed.

After unsticking myself from everything she rubbed my legs down with oil and said they were quite swollen so I wasn’t allowed to put any warm or hot water on them, and if I had some wax left on my legs just to rub it off with some unscented oil or lotion.

When I got home and got ready for bed I realized that my legs were stuck to the inside of my Lululemon pants and once I managed to get them off I was left with black fuzzy patched all over my legs. I guess there was a lot more wax left over than I thought. HA. I didn’t have an unscented oil or lotion so I tried to gently get it off with some cold water, but my legs were way to irritated to handle that, so I figured I’d go to bed and hopefully by the next morning they would be better. Well, they were not batter, so pants for another day!

Hopefully giving them 24 hours of breathing time will allow them to calm down so I can get all the wax off tonight and finally wear something other than pants. And next time, I am definitely going back to my regular esthetician. Oh the things we do as women to be beautiful!

This kitchen was designed by Tommy Smythe, who you may remember from Design Inc with Sarah Richardson. This was where I first got the inspiration for putting in Herringbone floors, which up until last week, was causing me quite the headache.

As I mentioned in my last Reno post, we were having a very hard time finding a tile that would work of us, in the size and colour we wanted. After hours of research I finally got the brilliant idea to see if I could find out any info about this kitchen, since thats where the inspiration came from. A lot of times if a room is featured in a magazine or website, they list off the products that were used so that people who are interested in using them can find them. I finally found the source of this kitchen and discovered that the floors were done in a black slate. Bingo, this was the solution! Because slate is a natural stone it has a live edge instead of a beveled edge. This means you can cut it in half and the cut edge wont be any different from the other edge. The only down side to slate is that the surface is very uneven, which can be quite the pain in the butt. However, Chad discovered that slate can be gauged which means the surface is worked down to be as even as possible. So after hours of research and more hours of running to every tile store in the lower mainland we finally found a black 16×16 gauged slate tile, in our price range, that we can cut in half to create a herringbone pattern!

Thank God we solved that issue, because it was driving me nuts!

We also met with my uncles who will be building our cabinets for us. We have chosen to do simple shaker style cabinets, much like the picture above. The over head cabinets (which there are only 5 of) will have glass doors, and all the pulls and handles will be the same. We have also decided to paint our cabinets in the same colours as this kitchen. The 5 glass front cabinets and open shelving will be white, as well as our wall of cabinets, and all our base cabinets, including the peninsula will be black. I am really fascinated with base cabinets being painted a different colour, and I think by painting ours black it will really ground our very white space, and add some visual interest and drama.

During our cabinet meeting we also discussed our timeline. Since making cabinets is something my Uncles do in their spare time, its going to take them longer than normal to make ours. 8 weeks longer to be exact. On top of that they are away in Italy when we take possession of the house and wont be able to measure the space and start on the cabinets until they come back. However, we are in no rush to move in, and it will allow us time to focus on other areas of the house and have then all freshened up and set up while we wait for the cabinets. In the end I think it will work out quite nicely even if we move in later than originally planned.

I have been obsessed with Quartz counter tops ever since I first saw Candice Olsen use them on Divine Design, one of my favorite home decorating shows. Since I really want to go with white counter tops, there aren’t many options in the Granite department and I have heard bad things about the way they stain. I would love to do Marble, but again I have read some negative things about its use in the kitchen, so going with Quartz was an obvious choice. We have decided to go with this Caesarstone Nougat. I love that the particulates are quite big and chunky, as if it were Granite, and that they reflect a bit of colour so that it’s not too white.

We have also found the backsplash tile we like. It is a white/grey subway tile that does not have an even surface. You can kind of see in the picture that there is a bit of a ripple affect to it. It catches the light beautifully and is a little bit more visually interesting than a basic subway tile. Since we are going to be tiling from counter top to ceiling, we didn’t want something too boring but at the same time we didn’t want something too overpowering. I think this tile has a nice balance, and works with the counter top quite well.

We have also decided that if we are going to have a rustic beam going along the ceiling between the kitchen and dining room, it might be neat to add some interest to the kitchen ceiling, since we have to replace it anyways. We have decided to go with white wooden planks much like the ceiling in this picture. I love the way it looks and think its fit our ‘Modern Farmhouse’ quite nicely!

We have also picked out the carpet we are replacing in the basement, and have decided on what style of baseboard we like.

I’m still floating between paint colours, but I think once we are in the house and I can see things coming together it will be easier to pick colours.

Other than that, we have pretty much finished doing most of our research for the renos. We have made decisions on all the major stuff so now we get to wait and relax until our posession date comes up!

Last Sunday we were out in Surrey visiting with my Uncles who are graciously building our cabinetry for us, when we decided to meet up with the Tyrrells for a day of golfing. In other words, they golfed and I take photos. I do have a set of clubs that are being saved for me in someone garage but I have no gone to pick them up just yet.

Both Chad and Elise think they know what they are doing but only Ryan actually does.

I really think I need a new pair of vans considering I wear these almost every day.

I’m awkward. I’m cutting my hair.

I am obsessed with this photo.

Golf Ball.

Yes, these are probably too big for my face but my other ones broke.

The profesh.

I am so in love with trees, which is perfect considering our new house is surrounded by them. Love love love.

It was a lovely day walking about and even though I didn’t participate in the golfing it was still very enjoyable.

Fresh air, sunshine, and people taking golf way too seriously.

On Saturday we had dinner at the Pourhouse in Gastown to celebrate my birthday. We chose the Pourhouse because it was one of the few Gastown establishments we hadn’t been to yet and we pass by it every time we park down there.

We should have asked with the Devils on Horseback were.

We were totally obsessed with the decor of the place. Yes, we are predictable. I’ve now got Chad looking at interiors thinking about how they would look in our home. Needless to say we were totally inspired by the Pourhouse and got a great idea of our ceiling in the kitchen. I was also justified in my purchase of our lighting because the Pourhouse had the same style everywhere.

I now need to find some oil lamps.

We got the charcuterie board to start. Chorizo Sausage, Smoked Prosciutto, and Venison Salami. I put a bunch of the mustard on one of the slices of bread and then piled some meat on top, not realizing how hot the mustard was. It literally felt like I was being stabbing my mouth with fire and it went up through the top of my mouth and into my nose. The most painful mustard experience of my LIFE. Chad laughed. He thought the mustard was perfect.

Chad ordered the Steak & Frites, because that’s what he does, and I ordered the Steelhead Trout. While I like seafood I am usually not a big fan of fish and often find myself disappointed when I’ve ordered it, however I have had good experiences with trout (specially the dish I had in Lake Como, Italy, SO GOOD) so I thought I would take a chance on this dish.

The trout was perfect. The skin was so crispy but the fish was still moist. It came on a bed of gnocchi that were fried, mushrooms and spinach and drizzled with a lemon, capers, and butter. It was fabulous.

It’s all about the mood lighting.

They had Chocolate Chip Cookies and a Shot of Milk on their dessert menu. Considering I have survived these past 27 years solely on chocolate chip cookies and milk (trust me, ask my Mom what I eat for breakfast every morning) I thought it was fitting that I should have then for dessert. They were baked fresh to order and were the perfect ending to the evening.

After dinner we met up with Nori, Jeremy, and Ryan who were all in the neighborhood and made our way over to the Shebeen for a drink, because you know, I love Whisky…

How does Chad turn everything about me into something about him?

It was a great evening in my favorite part of the city. An excellent way to celebrate my 27th year.

So, it’s my birthday today. I’m 27.

I’m still scared of the dark. I still sleep with a pink fleece blanket. I still think my stuffed animals have feelings.

I guess no matter how old you get, some things never change.