Tricia's Musings

Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto



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We need a new mailbox

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Pretty much ever since we moved into our house (2001) I’ve been saying that we needed a new mailbox. I can’t believe that we still haven’t purchased one!

It’s not that I haven’t occasionally looked for a new mailbox when I’ve been in a store that sells them or even looked online – it’s just that I haven’t found the perfect mailbox yet.

I’d better find one soon though because the lid on our current wall mount mailbox creaks when you open it and then stays open unless you push down on it to shut it. It used to fall back in place nicely once you’d removed the mail. It’s just in sorry shape.

So earlier today I did a search online for Mail boxes and I managed to find a few styles that I liked over at Mailboxixchange.com. I seriously thought about getting one of their post mounted Mailboxes as they have some very nice designs, but our front yard is extremely small (10 F x 10F at most) and a post mounted mailbox just wouldn’t look right.

Since we have an enclosed front porch a wall mounted mailbox is perfect for us. We can open the door and collect the mail easily no matter what’s happening with the weather outside, plus the mailbox is protected from the elements as well so it should last even longer.

If you’ve been thinking of purchasing a new Mailbox for your home take a look at the selection at Mailboxixchange. They are a well known distributor of high quality residential and commercial mailboxes. You can select from over 2500 mailbox and curbside products including wall mount mailboxes, post mount, single unit, multi unit, commercial mailboxes, mail slots, address plaques and numbers and many more items. Take a look I’m sure you’ll be impressed with the selection and quality.





Get fresh decorating ideas and share your sense of style at Micasastyle

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Do you enjoy decorating your home? Perhaps you’ve redecorated your bedroom – bought new curtains, bedding, painted the room and added some interesting pieces that brought the look of the room together?

I enjoy decorating the rooms in my home. Heck, if you read through this blog you’ll discover that we’ve slowly been renovating our whole home – tearing down walls, refinishing floors, venetian plastering the living room dining room and many other DIY tasks.

I love the sense of satisfaction I get when I’ve redecorated a room or completed a renovation project. If we get compliments from our friends and relatives when they visit our home that’s just icing on the cake.

If you’ve decorated a room in your house or completed a renovation project – even if you hired someone to bring your ideas to life and do the hard work, you might be interested in showing off your project over at Micasastyle. It’s an online community where you can share your design ideas with others who are interested in home decorating or perhaps visit to get fresh ideas for your next project.

You can registered as a member of Micasastyle for free and add photos of your space. Show off your decorating style and share your ideas.

Members can browse through photos on the site and as they view images of other members decorating projects they can leave comments, rate the images and as I said earlier members can share images of their own home as well.

When members upload photos of their spaces they can add information about where they got certain pieces. For example if you were to upload a photo of your living room you might add information about the cool lamp or wall decor that can be seen in the picture.

When you visit Micasastyle you’ll see the most recently added images, most popular and most viewed images on the front page. You can also search for specific decorating ideas by selecting “explore spaces” where you’ll find all the decorating image categories such as kitchens, living rooms, bedrooms and more.

I think this is a great site to get fresh ideas and to share your decorating style. Plus, if you have completed a decorating project you can possibly enter Micasastyles upcoming contest and win $10,000.

It’s amazing how the right lighting can change the look of a room

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The weather here in Toronto was cool for the month of May, but now that June is here it’s starting to heat up. By Friday it will be 31 Celsius (87.8 F) and we haven’t even put the air conditioners in the windows yet.

Since we’re unlikely to have air conditioning by Friday I’m glad that we have several ceiling fans throughout the house. They stir the air and even if the house is too warm that breeze created by the ceiling fans is helpful.

Actually, we use our ceiling fans year round. We reverse their motion in the winter so that warm air can circulate through the house better, and in the summer we reverse them again so that they can fan the cooler air. We can keep the thermostat a degree or two lower in the winter and save money on our heating bill thanks to the fans, and I’m sure they help when we use air conditioning as well.

All of our ceiling fans are equipped with lights so they provide some of the lighting within our home as well. Luckily all but one ceiling fan can use the low wattage florescent bulbs so we save money on our lighting bill too.

Earlier this evening I was reading a home lighting article on the HGTV website and, as usual, whenever I read home decor articles or watch decorating type TV shows I start thinking of what I can do in my own home. Remember we’re renovating, but when our work is done it will be lovely and I’ll need all kinds of new decor – especially lighting.

I visited the the Littman Bros website and had a look at their lighting products. They have quite a large selection of home lighting. They have just about every kind of lighting product you can think of – ceiling fans, under cabinet lighting, ceiling, wall, bath, lamps and even outdoor lighting.

While I was browsing the site I ended up looking at their forecast lighting. They have some lovely forecast chandeliers – ones that might look beautiful in our dining room when we’re done renovating. Sometimes changing the whole look and feel of a room is as simple as changing the lighting and I’m sure one of those chandeliers would make a huge difference in the look of our dining room area. They’re gorgeous.

If you’ve been thinking of purchasing new lighting for your home, or perhaps buying a ceiling fan to help cool your home on warm summer days (and save on your air conditioning bill) take a moment to visit Littman Bros, I’m sure you’ll be pleased with their selection. Oh, and they’re having a sale on landscape lighting right now too – 40% off. That’s a good deal!

Great selection of bar stools at Premiere Barstools

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As my regular readers know Chris and I are very slowly renovating our home. It’s definitely a work in progress. I do however have all the plans in my head of how I’d like to decorate once our renovations are complete.

When we finally get to the kitchen renovation I want to open up the wall between the kitchen and dining room / living room. I don’t want to knock the wall down, just have an opening like a large window. We’d use that area as a breakfast nook, as a way to visit with our guest while preparing items in the kitchen and of course as a way to serve or pass food from the kitchen to the dining room.

I’ve been keeping my eye open for either some nice kitchen bar stools or perhaps counter stools that would fit into our decor.

It will be at least a year before we start renovating our kitchen, but since I’m picky about decor I’m already looking for bar stools and all the other items that we’ll need.

If you are also looking for barstools for your kitchen, dining room or perhaps a bar area you might want to visit Premiere Barstools. They have a large selection of discount bar stools, counter stools, kitchen barstools, pub table sets, outdoor stools and tables and even extra tall stools.

I’ve spent some time looking at the various bar stool styles and I’m impressed with the selection. As I said earlier I’m very picky about decor. When I’ve seen bar stools in retail and department stores they often only had a few styles.

Well designed bar or counter stools can enhance the look of a room and add functionality. As I said earlier I think our guests will probably end up sitting on the bar stools in order to visit with us as we work in the kitchen preparing a meal or snacks.

What I like about the Premiere Barstool site is that you can search for bar stools by height, by style – kitchen, counter, bar, outdoor and so on as well as by the material the bar stools are made from such as metal, wood, contemporary, backless, or Upholstered. You can also search by price range. I love sites that offer a variety of ways to find the items that you want.

Premiere Barstools ships free to all of the continental United States and they also ship internationally.

I’m going to take a look at all the styles and see if I can find something that suits our home. Why don’t you take a look at their selection too.

Shop for the best deals at Shopping.com UK

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I don’t do a lot of shopping online, but when I do it’s because I’m either looking for a hard to find item, something I can’t easily buy at a retail store or something that’s out of stock locally and of course, I’m looking for the best price I can find.

One of the sites that I visit when I’m looking for the best deal I can get is Shopping.com. You can search for just about anything on the site – clothing, shoes, handbags, jewellery, furniture, garden products, computers, cameras and many more items.

Shopping.com has product listings from thousands of online retailers. You can use the site to shop and compare prices and then once you find the best deal your taken directly to the online retailer’s website. I love it. This site saves a lot of time.

I know that a number of my regular readers are from the UK so I’m happy to let you know that there’s a United Kingdom branch of Shopping.com. Perhaps you already knew about it, but if you didn’t, visit the site and start shopping for some deals.

Saving money is always a good thing!

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