Malm Bedframe Upgrade

As unconventional as it is, my daughter never slept in a crib, she transitioned from sleeping with mom and dad, occasionally in a basinet in our room to a double mattress on the floor. This worked great for us for over a year but then I was ready for the room to feel alittle more finished and alittle less ghetto-student-ish.

We chose ikea's low malm bedframe. It only raises the mattress about 6 inches off the floor which is great for a toddler and I didn't worry about her falling out of bed since it was still very low. (She fell off the mattress twice and after 3 months in the new bed - she hasn't fallen at all).

The only problem is that the side is open at the bottom. This led to alot of lost items underneath, and since its so low it was hard to reach under to retrieve things.

I cut some wood, and painted it black. Then screwed it in place (using the kreg jig to make pocket holes) under the bottom side ledge.

It's great, we can't loose toys/soothers/snacks/water bottle etc. There is only one problem - we should have screwed it further in - so that you can stand next to the bed and not hit your toes.

A quick readjustment (using mega blocks as a square to keep the wood the same distance and perpendicular) and now its perfect.

(I just need to fill in the old hole with black paint or maybe a sharpie will do the trick)

- Lauren

GF Baking Class.

For my mom's 65th birthday, my two sisters and I decided to surprise our Mom and give her an experiential gift, along with some time spent with us.  We decided to attend a cooking class together at a cooking studio in uptown Waterloo. You can check it out here.  

Before I go any further, I must pause and give all credit to my sisters who came up with the idea.  If it were up to me, I would have chosen something predictable like pedicures.  And here's the thing, our Mom LOVED it.  It was something that she would never (and I mean never) normally do and it was super fun for us to do together.  We laughed lots.  Hopefully we didn't distract the other 4 members of the class.  Who am I kidding?  I'm sure we did.  They probably hated us.

The funny thing was that this particular class was a gluten-free baking class.  To be totally honest, we picked it based on the day that worked best for us, more than on the focus of the class.  However, it completely worked out to my benefit as I am (mostly) gluten free. :)

Our menu consisted of:

Pumpkin Cornmeal Pancakes with Blueberries and Cinnamon Maple Syrup

Gluten-free Strawberry Scones with Lemon Curd

Roasted Heirloom Tomato Tart

Chocolate Souffle Cookies

Everything was delish.  One of my favourtite take-a-ways from the class was learning how to make my own batch of gluten-free all-purpose flour.  I can't wait to make it and substitute it in my favourtie recipes that call for wheat flour.   Not to mention, it's way cheaper than buying gluten-free all-purpose flour already made up and packaged.  I'll be making a trip to Bulk Barn this week :)

Here's the recipe:

1 1/4 cups of brown rice flour

1 1/4 cups of white rice flour

1 cup tapioca flour

1 cup sweet rice flour

1/2 tsp. xantham gum

Turns out the day was a total success.  Even my nephew loved it!

p.s.  the homemade lemon curd was to die for!

- Carrie

DIY Kitchen Magnet Board

Even though kitchen renovation dreams are still dreams, I am continually tweaking things to make the room more functional - since I spend alot of time in the kitchen.

The fridge was becoming a catch-all and was getting really cluttered and starting to annoy me.

The fridge now is mostly photos and magnet letters - which are played with alot by my daughter.

And for lists, notes, money etc - I hung an old cookie sheet on the wall with a 3M picture hanger strip. I only learned about these recently from here and am loving them.

I also hung a family calendar and a tray on the wall and I think it looks great. Organized and alittle less cluttered.

The tray is awesome, but it's too big to fit in any cupboards. It usually just rested on the floor, leaning against the wall - this meant that whenever you wanted to use it, you usually also needed to clean it. Hanging the tray makes it accessible and it stays clean. The tray is hanging on two screws that stick out of the wall about an inch. There is a lip on the bottom of the tray and it hangs great - no issues so far.

(You may also notice we got a new french door - which leads to the basement and side door. I am loving it, It lets in light from the side door and also allows me to see outside from the kitchen.)

- Lauren

Driveway Gate/Fence

Now that the nice weather is here, we are spending alot more time outside. The only problem is that I am so nervous about our driveway which is open to the backyard. My daughter wants to explore the driveway and I don't want her to. Combination of cars, plus its a shared driveway and on a busy street.

So a few weeks ago we built a gate/fence thing. For most of the time it will act as a fence, but when we want a full driveway the fence part also opens as a larger gate and then you can use the full driveway as usual. (we haven't actually tried opening the larger 'gate' and are unsure if it will actually open since the driveway isn't flat.....but we will figure that out when we need to)

One side (the gate) is attached to our house, and the other fence (larger gate) side is anchored by a massive planter. The planter itself is pretty heavy, plus we filled the bottom with rocks and the top has a planter in it - it is very heavy. We didn't want to attach it to our neighbours garage so this was what I came up with as an alternative. So far its just filled with sticks and fake spring blooms. Soon I will buy some hanging baskets to put in my planters, I find thats the cheapest/easiest thing for all my planters.

The fence is designed to match our deck railing, hopefully tying the two wooden structures together. Although the new fence is cedar and the old deck is pressure treated, it didn't really matter what we built the fence out of since it would look newer/better than the deck. I also chose to build a low and open fence instead of a tall and solid one since I didn't want to create privacy as much as safety. We enter our house through the back door and I didn't want guests to feel uncertain about coming through the gate.

Now we can be outside worry free, and my daughter has much more freedom to explore.

Plus it feels like our backyard has almost doubled in size, I never realized how much the driveway ate up our property - and we rarely have 5 cars in the driveway.

- Lauren