May 2018

When we bought our Toronto bungalow two summers ago, we knew we had our work cut out for us. Our kitchen and bathroom clearly needed a full renovation. When we found out I was pregnant, we decided to prioritize the bathroom, knowing being pregnant and bathing a kid in there would be difficult. it was beyond hideous, and barely functional. No shelving/storage, a broken bathtub, and my favorite feature - hitting my knees against the tub while sitting on the toilet.

Feast your eyes of these horrifying before photos.

Now that we got that over with, here's how we updated it.

TJ and my brother in law Lucas and his dad Bill came up with a functional new floorplan. We knocked out half our pantry to create additional bathroom space and built a little sink nook. Bill made custom wood shelves to hold my black glass bowl (Kijiji find!) sink. I love how it turned out.

The floors and backsplash are from Saltillo Tiles, installed by our friends at Ceramico Tile.

I love how the black tile and white grout turned out. Bold choices for the win.

I've been dreaming a spot for this fabulous wall mural by Coloray Decor. They make beautiful self-adhesive murals that are much easier to install than wallpaper, look gorgeous, and are removable without damaging your walls.

My absolute favorite part of the reno is our faucets. Delta faucets have a stunning line of champagne bronze faucets, which make the bathroom feel so luxurious. My shower head is the best because I can rinse my hair (or water my plants!) with the removable hose and have a rain shower at the same time. Plus it's pretty. I strongly suggest investing in a good shower head if you're planning a bathroom reno. It's 100% worth it.

At the last minute I changed my mind and ordered a wall mount faucet, because how cool is this?

This faucet along with all of the champagne bronze accents (hello gold toilet flush) are from Delta's TRINSIC line. I love how clean and simple these pieces are.

There you have it. A hideous beast of a bathroom turned into my own tiny bathing paradise. Thank you universe for my talented and hardworking family. These guys worked so hard to make a bathroom reno dreams come true and I'm extremely grateful.

Now I'm off to enjoy my 41-week pregnant flower bath.

Much love,

Mercedes

Oh hey! It's been a while.
:)

Nat and I are currently in the process of redoing our websites and haven't been posting here as much. However, we threw a very special party and want to share it with you in the interim.

It took some convincing, but eventually, my mom and grandma agreed to one party - a baby/bridal shower. Being old school Italian, this was a pretty wild idea in their eyes. I argued that because of the hoards of homemade food, crazy amount of desserts and over the top decor all baked, cooked and styled by us, one party would be more than enough.

I was right. It was wonderful.

To make sure we had all the prettiest details we teamed up with HomeSense Canada and found some great pieces to pull the party together. The venue is a great little spot outside of Ottawa called The Herb Garden, owned by the loveliest family.

Since our little boo's name is Luna, our theme was a no-brainer. TJ cut the hanging moons out of wood and I painted them and added silk flowers. The gold rim glass hanging terrarium's, gold stars, and gold hanging planters are all HomeSense finds.

TJ cut this perfectly imperfect moon out of plywood and Nat, Ellie and I painted it and added silk HomeSense flowers and greens. I am over the moon about how it turned out.

Too much? Okay, I'll go easy on the moon puns.

I painted this giant floral as a backdrop for our sweet display and it doubled as a prize for the person who guesses closest to Luna's birthday.
We are still waiting to find out who the winner is!

My aunts, cousins, uncle, and grandma came together and baked enough goodies for 100 people. There were only 30 of us. Not pictured - the entire inside of the dresser filled with additional sweets.

Grandma made her incredible almond cake adorned with Nat's crazy delicious moon sugar cookies.

I could go for a homemade cannoli right about now.

The sweet table buffet is my favorite recent HomeSense find.
It now lives in Luna's nursery and fits tons of her teeny little baby things.

Do you love this pink and gold cutlery as much as I do? Courtesy of HomeSense, of course.

These may be my favorite cookies Nat has ever made. She let me help her watercolor them, a task which defines the extent of my patience for such time-consuming cookies.

The favors were beautiful watercolor moons painted by Nat that I printed and made custom DIY frames for. So worth the time they took to make.

We didn't get the best photos of the food because it was devoured so quickly but here's a glimpse at our menu. All homemade from scratch by my grandma and mom.

epic charcuterie board
meat manicotti
cheese manicotti
lemon leek grilled salmon
arancini
quinoa salad
kale caesar salad
fruit salad
stuffed mushrooms
chicken cutlets
meatballs

We got lucky with some beautiful weather that made our little lounge a great spot to open presents and hang out and take pictures with the family.

My number one gal. My wedding planner/flower girl/Luna's "big sis."

Grandma and Mom. The women who spent weeks cooking the greatest food.

My beautiful sisters and Miss Ellie.

Nat and I are always in our happy place when we throw parties together. Baking, flower arranging, dreaming up designs, crafting, staying up late making favors - you name it. We love it.

I could not be more grateful for my people. These beautiful women (my bridesmaids minus two), along with my dad, cousins, and a bunch of other family members were so helpful and full of love. My giant pregnant self could do about a quarter of the work I normally do, and they certainly picked up my slack and then some.

Then my boo showed up and Nat (thankfully) convinced me to hang in there with my massive swollen feet and take some pictures with TJ. I could not be luckier to have a brilliant photographer as a sister.

They are some of my favorite pictures of us.