The Colours of My Room

The room I grew up in was my room my whole life. Although the 4 walls never moved, the room changed looks a lot!  When I was just a wee baby, my mom decided to paint the light grey carpeted room a "dusty rose" however either someone mixed the paint wrong or named the paint wrong because it came out HOT PINK!!!! So I had a very pink room for the first couple years. I barely remember this so I must have been young when my mom turned my room into a Victorian magazine. The bottom third of my room was thin stripped pink & cream wall paper, with a very florally border above the stripes. I want to say the top of the room was also pink?? Mom correct me on that??

Then I got old enough to make my own decisions and that's where it got crazy! I was still in Public school so I was probably 12 year old, when I told my mom I wanted to paint my room lime green!!! She just about had a cow!  However the amazing parents that I have let me do it! I got really creative! That might have been around the same time as the "Floor Incident".

What is that you ask? well that's a whole other story but I will tell it to you anyways!

My parents were having the hard wood refinished that was under the carpet in the living room and the old wide pine hardwood that was in the kitchen/dinning room replaced to match it. We went on vacation and put all of the furniture in my brother and my rooms. The fridge happened to be in my room! In that fridge the floor workers stored their lunches....also in the fridge was a pitcher of red Kool-aid that one of the workers lunches pails accidentally caught on and spilled all over my light grey carpeted floors! AND HE DIDN'T TELL ANYONE! Crazy right??? So we get back from vacation to a beautifully hard wooded house and one big deep red stain in my Victorian bedroom.  Once the owner of the flooring company learned of this, he offered to replace the carpet in my room or re-do the hard wood that was also under my carpet. My parents left it up to me to decide! I wasn't crazy I did grow up in a classy house so I made the right decision and picked the wood!

Back to Lime Green!! I, being the grown up that I was at 12 years old picked out 3 colours that no one in their right mind would put together today.... lime green, pastel purple and a pastelly-blue-almost periwinkle. I came up with this crazy idea, that who knows where it came from, because Pinterest wasn't around then.... heck the internet was barely around then! I painted the bottom the light purple with a darker shade of the same purple sponge painted over top. The Top 2/3rd of the room was the Lime Green and the border is where it got crazy!  I had 4 of my best friends forever come over and we painted the bottom of our feet, rolled around on a computer chair and placed our feet wherever our initials were on the wall.

I remember I had a sophisticated sticky-note system: something like: KP - P, MK- B, JI - G, etc. which stood for Katie Porados -Purple, Mandy Kenney- Blue, Jessica Isherwood - Green. I think the 4th person was Laura Goulden but I sadly can't even remember!! I'll have to go back and look at pictures! I'm still friends with Mandy and still sort of friends with Laura, Jessica was my best friend for YEARS and I should write a whole blog about that.  Katie was a really "cool" girl thought she was best friends with Mandy, but that is iffy, again a whole other blog!   I was the 5th set of feet around the room and I also put 1 hand print on the back of my door surrounded by 1 foot of each girl! I remember that if I could remember the order of the feet pairs I could always figure out who's were who's because Mandy had the biggest gap between her big toe and her next toe, so I would find hers and go from there!

notice the hand print on the door

The next transition of my room came as the final transition. I wanted the room to be empty for wedding pictures of me in my dress in the big amazing floor to ceiling mirrors, but I wanted a rich colour on the walls and I promised my parents I would do all the work!! However sadly due to immigration stuff I had to stay in the USA up to my wedding so they ended up packing up my room, and painting it (every parents worst nightmare).

My brother was moving in so we agreed on a colour that would work for the rich wedding pictures as well as make him happy to live in that room until further notice.... We decided on a burnt orange, and after the wedding he painted all the trim a tan colour!

The Basement

This is one of those memories I'll never forget because as soon as I light a wood burning fireplace, I'm transported right back to the basement of the house I grew up in.

The basement, now home to a new guest bedroom with a gas fireplace on the wall, and the laundry room was once our main living space. The upstairs living room used to be full of antiques and was more of a formal living room.

There used to be an ugly green and off-white-ish sort of couch as well as a burnt orangish red lazy boy chair.

There was a large hutch, which I believe is still there that used to hold our box TV and if I am remembering correctly it had a dial to change the channels. I remember watching cartoons and Sesame Street on it! I remember my dad coming home for lunch and us RUNNING upstairs

Most of my memories stem from looking at pictures of my childhood which might be why I LOVE pictures so much! But we had many birthday parties down there. We had a long table set up along the front side of the house of the basement... There are home video's of these parties and I love seeing my Grandma in them!

We also used to have Christmas down in the basement. We used to get a REAL Christmas tree that went in the basement every year and the fake one in the living room upstairs. The one down stairs had all the goofy, animated, colourful ornaments and the bead strands. We also have a wood burning fireplace in the basement which is why we lived down there. Once we got the "fake" one upstairs the downstairs ceased to exist as "the" hang out place.

My brother and I used to make some forts down there that were pretty cool! I remember a series of tunnels we made with the amazing cardboard boxes my dad used to bring home from work! I need to remember to bring home random stuff like that for when I have kids!

I also had a fancy tea party birthday down there one year!

I remember falling in love with  Kristi Yamaguchiand Scotty Hamilton's backflips there, snuggled up under ugly but warm (yellow, brown & orange zigzag striped) blankets, sipping cocoa, replacing wood in the fire. Such wonderful, wonderful memories!


One year I hosted a big dinner for 21 girls! It was formal attire, and it was a full turkey & potatoes spread on Valentines Day! After dinner we had an awards show in the basement that Carrie helped me plan! We had a red carpet lined with Christmas lights, and a podium! We invited Anne - the Youth Leaders wife, and we even had entertainment; Nikki & Nicole sang a duet! We gave each girl an award based on something from their personality!  That could be a whole other blog post as well!!  But here's a picture of the senior girls from the party!!

Practically an Older Brother

Way back around the time we got our first computer, whenever that was, I also got a big brother.

How did I get a big brother you say? There was a guy who was attending our church who needed a place to live. He had been kicked out of his home and my parent's offered our basement to him. Man was he cool! I think he lived with us for 2 year or so but I don't remember for sure... He had a really cool set of weights and a bench press. He also had a really cool sterio set with a lot of speakers.  Isn't it funny what you remember from when you were really young.

The thing that I think my whole family will never forget is that he made the BEST French Toast.

He dated this one girl for like 5 years, and then it didn't end up working out but they both ended up getting married within a couple months of each other!

It was really fun to have an older brother who had a girlfriend. We made some fun memories together.

Random Weddings

You remember that age when you look up to all these people who are older than you and you feel so special when you get included in their life?

Well there are a couple weddings that stick out in my mind that I thought were sooo cool when I was young.

I got invited to Susie Groombridge's (Thames') Wedding and I think it was the first wedding that I specifically was invited... you know I wasn't invited because I was the kid of my parents.....  I was probably 12 years old or so... She had her reception in the gym of our church and she had a tent in the middle of the gym and that's where the newlywed couple sat. It was so different than normal! The groom also wore a kilt and bagpipped into the ceremony! How cool!


Another moment I remember was most likely way before that. I was invited to Susan Ewald "shower". But it wasn't a shower.. I can't remember the word for it... (I'll have to ask my mom) it was a lingerie display party... which sounds weird but it's a thing rich people do. She had invited women to her home and had fancy snacks and stuff and had all the "outfits" that she planned to take with her on her honeymoon!I  was just a kid, and I remember thinking that it was sooo cool!

I didn't go to this wedding, but Shawn was practically a brother to me so I wish I was at the wedding but I had another event that took priority in my mind. However one of the little boy's that were there, pulled the fire alarm in the middle of their ceremony! 

Taking a Class with Mom

Ok a whole bunch of years ago, approximately around 1999... my mom and I decided we wanted to take a class together! How fun is that!! So we signed up for tole painting classes.

Tole Painting:  is the folk art of decorative painting on tin and wooden utensils, objects and furniture. Typical metal objects include utensils, coffee pots, and similar household items. Wooden objects include tables, chairs, and chests, including hope chests, toy boxes and jewelry boxes.

We took our classes from an eccentric lady who taught classes in her barn way out in the country! I wanna say it was Tuesday nights? I specifically remember that the time period that we took the class was the time that "Breathe" and "This Kiss" by Shania Twain were really big! I think every single week we were there it was on the radio at some point during our class.   Anyhoo each were able to do several projects. I did a green calendar holder, we both did matching cornucopia's .....

 

.....and we both did matching teddy bear Christmas ornaments, but the ornaments we painted differently.....  I still put the ornament and the cornucopia up every year at their respective holiday's!

It was such a fun thing to do together with my mom... if you are a mom, you should do something similar! When I'm a mom remind me to do it as well!

(Pictures to come hopefully!!)