Everything in our house is glowing from the bright sun shining in. It’s so lovely. All the windows are open (all 17 of them!), the breeze from the ocean flowing through and Luna running around the house in just a tank top. I sometimes just stop what I’m doing and watch my life as it’s happening. Then Luna trips on a toy and the oven timer starts beeping. Life moves forward once again.

Our kitchen/dining area faces west and on bright sunny days, the sun shines in quite strong which makes everything glow so beautifully. It’s been gloomy and raining here the past days so sunny days like this makes me happy.

Schoolhouse Electric & Supply Co. is a must visit Portland destination for homeowners and decorating afficiandos. The massive showroom is located in a 100 yr old industrial building that also houses their manufacturing and shipping center. It’s not just a candy shop for decorators – it’s more like Willy Wonka’s freaking Chocolate Factory. The brand’s signature products, reproductions of turn of the century American lighting, fill the space along with displays of the original-era molds that inspired them. On the day we were there, a group of college students were huddled around a long study table gathering reference from Schoolhouse Electric’s publicly accessible design library.

In addition to the lighting products that Schoolhouse Electric is best known for, the showroom also stocks a complete line of home accessories. The space is beautifully renovated, expansive and wide open while retaining the original factory feel. All the product displays and vignettes are finely curated and expertly styled – classic Americana filtered through an uncompromising modern lens.

For the products, for the space, for the styling, Schoolhouse Electric is full of inspiration and delight. And for extra enjoyment, there’s a boutique florist and coffee bar at the entrance. Highly recommended.

Bonus: watch this video to see more of the showroom and hear the owner of Schoolhouse Electric describe the backstory of the brand.

Happy Monday everyone! It’s sunny and gorgeous here in Vancouver which makes for a good start of the week. And, another reason for why this Monday is special is because our home is featured on Design Sponge today! Thanks to Anne for taking the time to put our story together. You can see the sneak peek of our home here.

The other weekend, we went to the Design Sponge book launch party held at Anthropologie and met the lovely and talented Grace Bonney. I’m so honoured to have my book signed by her and to have finally met her in person after years of continued inspiration. I also have to say that I am completely flattered of her nice write up on our totes over at Design Sponge – so amazingly sweet. You can read it here. Thanks Grace for including Vancouver to your book tour. Come back soon! xo, Nerissa

As Luna grows, our space grows with her too. We’ve changed our studio space numerous times to continually adapt to our ever changing lifestyle. Before Luna came to our life, our studio space was mainly used to work. When Luna came, we had to share the space with her and had to move furniture around to make room for her to crawl around. Now that she’s a little toddler and is more mobile, we’ve changed the space again to adapt to her needs and created a little fun art/play factory for her.

Luna loves doodling and being read to. So she now has a little art table, a reading rug, storage for her toys and a place to feature all her art work. We also created a family picture board where we’ll continually add photos of our family. She loves looking at it and screams out “mommy’ & “daddy” as she points to our photos. Luna loves spending time in here and every time she walks in, she goes straight to her artwork hanging from the ceiling and screams out “nice!”.

I always find it important to create different spaces in the house based on the activities that we would do in them. Luna knows that this is her space and it’s a place where she can freely explore, discover & play.

After years of dreaming about it, we finally got our brand new kitchen & we are extremely happy! The renovation wasn’t as bad as I had imagined – but perhaps it’s because we hired people to do it. All we had to do was to get out of the way – pretty simple on our part. But we did have to live without a kitchen for a full 3 weeks. Thankfully, it was sunny and warm out so we spent most of our days at the park & beach where we ate breakfast, lunch & dinner. Nothing to complain about! However, after the 3rd week, I was ready to spend more time at home & stay home.

Now that the kitchen is completely done, we couldn’t be happier. Nice to finally have our vision come to life. We are still on the look out for what to put on the large white wall by the dining table. We have quite a few ideas but are taking our time to make sure we find the right piece(s) to put on that wall. Once we have it, I’ll update this post with a photo.

When I was gathering inspirational images for our dream kitchen, I always appreciated the ones who listed the materials they used. So here’s a list for you:

Countertop : Quartz Cimstone Lapland 3cm
Backsplash : Statuary white marble 2″x4″ tile
Cabinets : Ikea
Cabinet hardware : Restoration Hardware
Dining Room Light Fixtures : Restoration Hardware
Bar Stools : Industrial Mansard Stool from Home Decorators Collection

Peter also surprised me with a laser etched engraving on the marble. “Collect the moments, one by one. I guess that’s how the future’s done.” – Feist.

We went to check out a fantastic pop up shop called The Found and The Freed which we read about through Janis from Pinecone Camp. I fell in love with the whole shop – I want them all! If you haven’t been, go check them out. They are scheduled to open until July 16th but might be extended throughout the summer or until December. But just in case, go before the 16th so you’re not disappointed.

Thought I would share some behind the scenes photos from the Anthology Magazine photoshoot day. The shoot took all day with a late but extended lunch break with Brian Stevens being the chef of the house & took over the kitchen creating a pretty special salad. That made our stomachs very happy. The day ended with some photos at the beach by our house but those photos didn’t make the cut. All in all, it was a pretty fantastic day.

We are so happy to be part of Anthology Magazine’s issue No. 3. It’s a fabulous spring issue and the theme is “Life is a Party!”

Early last year, co-founder & creative director of Anthology magazine, Meg Ilasco, asked us if we wanted to be in the issue. Well, that was a no brainer – the answer was Y-E-S! So in October last year, super talented SF/NYC based photographer Thayer Gowdy along with assistant photographer Brian Stevens flew in to shoot our home. Part of the team was also local stylist Heather Cameron and it was a full day of fun, fun, fun! Before the shoot, I didn’t really know what to expect. We were told to wear something colourful & spring like. And, maybe a little vacuuming here and there but to leave the space as is because they wanted to capture how we live and not have the space overly styled. Well, that was easy. All we needed to do was to be there & look decent.

The whole day was so casual and we were just there – living. We told stories, laughed, ate a huge lunch & just hung out. I barely noticed them working. There were also no gigantic photography lights or anything. Just Gowdy’s camera, a huge tripod and a laptop – that was it.

It was nice to have met them all as they are all so talented. I liked hearing Thayer’s stories as a professional traveling photographer. Wow, this woman has been to places! Made me envy her life a bit as she told us stories of where she’s been and people she’s met. Such an amazing woman. Heather Cameron and I have stayed in touch and I recently just finished designing her delicious Missing Goat jams & syrups. I’m so excited to see my labels on her jars soon. Yay!

You can check out their stockist list to pick yourself up a copy. Anthropologie is also now selling the magazine in its online shop and issue No. 3 will be arriving in all Anthropologie store locations in the US, Canada and UK.

Recently, I saw sfgirlbybay’s blog post on her home office. What caught my eyes were her vintage baskets where she stores her magazines. Such a great idea. We’ve got a great collection of magazines that we neatly store in our bookcase but to make them all stand in place, they have to be tightly squeezed together from end to end. Pulling one out cleanly is almost impossible especially when trying to squeeze it back in line. Solution: store them in baskets! So awesome. Why didn’t I think of this before? Now, I just take the whole basket out if I’m in the mood to read an old issue or easily add a new issue into the basket. Brilliant. I also love the old blackboard in her studio space. I want one too!

Today was spent at Francis and Tracy’s place for a little Lucy, Orla and Luna playdate and for the big people to re-connect. Francis and Tracy made us some fabulous sandwiches, banana bread and homemade apple tart made on a whim by Francis himself. We brought Peter’s yummy rosemary parmesan baked polenta chips and a couscous salad. Food with lots of chatting and laughter makes for a perfect weekend, again.

After lunch while the kids played and the two big boys chatted in the living room, Tracy and I had some time to talk mom to mom. It’s rare for two moms to be able to sit down and have a nice conversation without kids climbing all over us. Tracy and I both come from the creative industries so it was nice to be able to talk to a mom who understands the need to not loose your creative self-identity. I think it’s always a challenge to find the right balance of motherhood and rediscovering yourself again. While there are many challenges, there’s also lots of  opportunities to chart out personal passions and steer life in new directions. While there will always be decisions to make and paths to find, I believe we have the power to shape our dreams and nurture a family at the same time.

I feel like this past year, I’ve had the time to re-discover who I am again as a creative person. Even with limited alone time, I feel the most creative I have ever been in years and ideas are bouncing out of my head. I’ve learned to really stay focused and to continually remember all the things I want to achieve and to only work on things that bring me closer to what I want to accomplish in my life. With all the choices that I am constantly faced with daily, I always have to stop and ask myself this question, “will doing this bring me closer to my goals and aspirations in life?” If the answer is no, then I turn around and simply don’t do it. If the answer is yes, then I jump right on it.

Though things will continue to change while Luna grows and our family grows with her, I feel it’s important to staying focused on self-defining what matters in life. There’s no simple solution but the answers become a little easier when you’re surrounded by good friends and supportive households. The big people are growing up as much as the little people. As they should.

My afternoon was spent with Chloe and her little Avenir. It’s so nice to have these simple mommy’s day where stories are shared about life, home, family, food…  as we sip coffee and nibble on snacks and Chloe’s yummy grilled cheese basil sandwich.

Chloe lives in a beautiful two bedroom apartment in Downtown with her husband Julian. They have done a great job incorporating Avenir’s toys and play space within their home. It’s always nice to see people live the way they’ve always lived but made minor adjustments to blend baby necessities into their space and not making their home look like the toy section of a department store. I think that’s always a challenge that people have – how do you blend in your baby’s play space and still keep your home look like it belongs to the family and not solely to the baby.

In Chloe’s case, Avenir’s toys are all stuffed in this awesome apple pattern bag in the living room. It’s a simple idea and totally works. I’m always thinking of different ways to store Luna’s toys and I think this is brilliant. For a ‘small’ play space, she’s got this sheep skin rug in the living room where Avenir and Luna spent most of their time playing. It’s funny how they kind of just stayed within that area. Throws were also stacked neatly on a vintage chair on the corner of the room for anyone to use.

It’s a comfortable space to be in where Chloe and Julian still have their space to be adults but yet Avenir has his own space to play and grow.

I’ve been wanting to make this simple bunting project for quite sometime now and finally had a chance to work on it yesterday. We changed our internet and cable tv provider so I was stuck at home yesterday waiting for the new carrier to hook us up and get it working again. Without internet, I couldn’t help feeling like I had nothing to do. But I shook that idea off my mind and decided to to take full advantage of my day at home and went back to the simplest pleasures of life – back to the sewing machine! So I sewed all day and finally made this simple bunting project that’s been lingering in my mind.

Ariana, from Crow Rooster Crow inspired me to make this gorgeous bunting. Hers are made from vintage cocktail napkins but I thought it might be easier for me to source fabric instead of searching for vintage napkins. So off I went to the fabric store over the weekend and went straight to the clearance bin where I found these scraps of fabric that seemed like they were just waiting for me to take home and bring them to life.

To make the bunting, I cut my fabric to about 7″w x 9″h. Repeat this until you have enough. The seams I just eyeballed which I think are about 1/4″. Once you’re done sewing the seams on all your fabric, evenly space them along the bias binding tape (I spaced them out about 2″ apart), folding the shortest edge over, and pin in place. Then sew the flags with a straight stitch and voila, you’ve got your own handmade bunting!

I love having them hung up in our dining/kitchen area. It brings a lot of colour to the space and I also love how the light from outside shines through the fabric. When I first hung it up, Luna kept on reaching up wanting to touch them all. She also couldn’t stop admiring all the different colours as she ate her dinner last night. So I couldn’t resist and made a smaller version for her room and hung it up by her window. I think it’ll be a nice sight for her to wake up to every morning with the sun shining through all the different coloured fabric.

This is a simple project that anyone can do. Happy sewing!

For Mother’s Day, I bought Nerissa a Boskke Sky Planter. The day after I bought it, I picked up a nice orchid for it but the root ball was too big to fit inside the small Boskke. Two months later, I got around to finding a replacement plant and hanging the planter up. I chose an Areca Palm which should stay fairly petite with long lyrical leaves once it blossoms out a bit. It’s a clever piece of the design. The act of hanging the plant upside down abstracts the form. It’s no longer just a plant in a white pot. It becomes a whimsical, living piece of sculptural art. It’s a nice addition to our home.

We’ve been on a lookout for a high chair for Luna the past weeks. Instead of buying a brand new high chair, we decided to go for a used one and customize it. I found this wooden high chair on craigslist for $25.00. It had a nice shape to it so I bought it, sanded it, primed it then painted it red. A small can of paint was $20.00 so all in all, her high chair only cost us $45.00! It’s a great looking high chair for a small price tag. And, it was customized especially for her.

We made a painting this weekend! We’ve been wanting a large scale art-piece to go up on our dining room wall. We had a large framed photograph up but, at 26″ x 32″, it didn’t have the right scale for the room. We wanted to go big. Like, 60″ x 36″ big. Now the last time either of us did any painting was in art school. Back then we didn’t enjoy it much, mostly because neither of us were particularly good at it. Undeterred, we gave it a try. Things tend to be more enjoyable when you do it yourself and it turned out to be a lot of fun.

Inspired by color field paintings, I made a sketch in Illustrator and we tried different color combinations til we were happy. Then it was off to the local art store to buy the acrylic paint, the canvas and some 1/4″ painters tape. A few hours later, we were done and it was up on the wall. We’re enjoying it. It’s the bold, large-scale signature piece the room has been waiting for. We call the piece………“Untitled.”

Update: To complete the dining area, we painted a high chair red to add another splash of color to the room. View the post “Red High Chair” for the full room view. Check out the DIY/Make section for more project ideas. If you love this style of geometric art, patterns and triangles see our line of graphic tote bags. You’ll like!

Also, congrats to everyone who has been DIYing there own versions of the Weekend Art Project. You can see a few examples our reader’s handiwork here.

Bruce Lee’s “Fighting Methods” series and Charley Harper’s 123′s and ABC’s books are displayed side-by-side in our studio. The colors and design of the books play off each other perfectly despite the disparate subject matter. It’s an example of our all-ages, unisex, ass-kicking decorating modus operandi.

I found the Bruce Lee books, years ago, in the street-side dollar-bin of a used book store on Granville Street. It was quite the score since these are rare and sought after amongst collectors. Although, I have to admit I only bought them because the minimalist covers are cool. The other quirk about this set is that it’s the Yugoslavian printing. Presumably, “Metoda Borbe” translates to “Fighting Methods”.

The Charley Harper kids books were bought a couple years back when Old Navy stocked a small collection of Harper merchandise. At $10 each they’re a steal compared to the Charley Harper retrospective “An Illustrated Life.” We bought them before we were even planning on having Luna. They’re nice to have and beautiful to look at, even if you don’t have kids.

Yep, ABCs, 123s and…martial arts. All good.

Last year at work, as part of the new website design, we created a team section where we individually created compositions that represent who we are. For my self portrait, I decided to gather some of my favourite things and put them together to create a still life. Here’s a list of what you see:

- The framed pattern was a gift wrapper found at the Vancouver Art Gallery

– Framed illustration purchased from Yumi Yumi via Etsy

– My handmade Bricolage journals

– Baby Eames chair reproduction from Nood (50% off sale! btw)

– White Eames Eiffel chair from Herman Miller

– Skirt from Anthropology

– Matryoshka doll was a souvenir from my trip to Alaska

– Twigs & rocks from the beach where I live

– Brown oxfords brought back from Paris

– Smena 8M toy camera

– Catalogues: Habitat, Muji, Anthropolgy

Last note for the weekend: hello to Hooray Design. Thanks for including us in your awesome blog.

We keep an inspiration board up in our studio. It’s a easy way to casually pin-up artwork, clippings and other tidbits that inspire us. Items currently include:

• paint chips and fabric swatches for on-going projects;
• few old photos that don’t have a home in our albums;
• spare art prints that we haven’t framed yet;
• reference material and souvenirs;

But most special are the hand-made cards & mini-crafts given to us by our friends. Those gifts always get a special spot on the board or in our library. Alice Cho holds the current record for most things pinned up.

Xmas tree is up! Thirty-five more days till Christmas. Tree skirt: an old white wool sweater. Star: bookmarks I made a few years ago taped together to make a star. Ornaments: Restoration Hardware, Pottery Barn, Michaels. The hand-carved wooden nativity figures on the mantel are from the Philippines.

Welcome to Luna’s nursery. We wanted to create a playful and creative space where she can grow, learn, be nurtured and dream – a room where her imagination can roam freely and memories are to be made.

We also wanted to surround her with pieces that Peter and I love and have inspired us. Most of the pieces on the walls are things we’ve collected throughout the years. The illustrations on the walls are from one of our favourite illustrators – Charley Harper (It’s actually an alphabet card game that came in a box with other letters but I just picked out letters from her name – L-U-N-A – and framed them individually). The Black & White ABC Neutraface type poster is from House Industries, it creates a visual pattern that is classic but playful at the same time. Also from House Industries, are the wooden alphabet Neutraface slab blocks sitting on her night stand. The large canvas you see on the wall is a Marimekko fabric remnant we purchased in Seattle years ago. We stretched it onto a canvas to create a large piece of art to hang on the wall. The white mobile above the twin bed was a present given to me by Peter 8 years ago; it was made by a local artist. We also love the wooden bowling pins sitting on the ledge of her window. We saw it at our favourite home interior store called Habitat in Paris (they have stores all over Europe). They were so cute, we had to take them home with us.

We hope the space we’ve created for her will make her feel at home – a space where she can create her own memories as we watch her grow.