The Interior DIYer
Geeky nerdy things

Oh, I have a blog

I almost forgot how to login to my blog … It’s been a while! While 3 months isn’t that long of a blog hiatus, a lot has happened for us since my last post in August. The biggest thing being, we bought a house! A real live house! And it’s a Victorian house! It’s charming and has its quirks and we’re still trying to figure it out getting to know it.

Begin blurry dream sequence flashback …

It was a Sunday in August and after being online for a while, I was about to log-off when I decided to quickly check the real estate website I had checked so many times before; we had been looking at houses for months, viewed many, fell for a few houses but they were either were in too bad of condition for us to take on with a toddler or they went into a bidding war, so we were feeling really disheartened. I hadn’t checked said real estate site for a few days, so I gave myself a 5-minute limit to browse to hopefully avoid the overwhelming sense of dread it had been giving me at the time.

I logged in and there was an adorable Victorian house. It had an open house that day and in a few hours time. I sent the link to Robert. The time it would take to drive there aligned perfectly with Cora’s afternoon nap [parental bingo], so we got ready and left. We arrived at the house, Cora woke up, she was extra adorable to the real estate agent [she was actually dressed as a cat that day] and within moments of entering the house, Robert and I were basically like:

… and in every room. It was the first time we were both excited about a house. Deliriously excited.

Within 20 minutes of viewing the house we were emailing our agent. The next morning we made our offer and after some back-and-forth, they accepted. We had ten days to sort out our conditions, which was the most stressful part and a phenomenal amount of paperwork because Robert isn’t a permanent resident yet. The stress was like a hot ball in my chest. It was all worth it when we found out everything was approved.

We packed, and moved [kind of – I had to still work in Ottawa so we were living between two places which was really awkward and awful] and thanks to a very busy work schedule, I’ve not been able to enjoy our new home just yet. But I’m working on it 😉

Architecture

Lower Town Dollhouse – Part II*

I’m fairly certain the moment I brought Cora’s secondhand dollhouse home and started working on it [now referred to as her Lower Town Dollhouse], I went back online in search for MOAR DOLLHOUSES. Specifically, one for myself.

I set up email alerts for the words dollhouse and doll house on Kijiji in the hopes to find another one just like it, but without the commitment of having to check Kijiji every day [it happened a few times where I found incredible dollhouses for free, but I was a day late in finding the ad and replying to it].

Months went by and nothing. I should say, nothing that I was interested in. Every morning I would get an email full of large, hot pink, plastic dollhouses, which wasn’t what I was looking for. I happened to be talking with my Work Wife last Monday about it and she suggested checking this, how do you say, Facebook Marketplace? I used my dormant Facebook account that I use strictly for posting to my Interior DIYer Facebook page. I logged in, searched for ‘dollhouse’ and there it was. Immediately. A beautiful 90’s Linfield LN190 dollhouse still in its box, in perfect condition, never been assembled, just waiting to be bought.

It’s so perfectly what I’m looking for and is in keeping with Cora’s dollhouse design. It even has little windows that open and close [!!!] and, wait for it, it has it’s own doors. I don’t have to make my own! Though TBH, they were pretty fun to make.

I quickly messaged Robert. “You’re going to think I’m crazy, but I found another dollhouse, but this one is all for me … ” and his response was, “I still play video games. You should start with that as the justification.” I knew there was a reason I married that man.

We collected it the next evening after work and I can’t wait to start working on it. But I have it in my mind that in order for me to started assembling this dollhouse, I first have to complete updating Cora’s Lower Town Dollhouse, which includes making a second set of stairs from scratch and decorating 3 more rooms. This is just how my brain works. I realize it makes no sense, but I also feel like there’s an order to things.

AFTER MONTHS OF SEARCHING ONLINE, I FOUND THE MOST BEAUTIFUL 90’S SECONDHAND DOLLHOUSE AND IT’S ALL FOR ME. THAT’S RIGHT, I AM A FULLY GROWN ADULT THAT PAYS BILLS AND HAS A KID AND NOW I HAVE MY OWN DOLLHOUSE.

—Alex C. (@InteriorDIYer) May 14, 2019

*I need a new name / appropriate hashtag for my new dollhouse. Any and all suggestions welcome. Especially double-entendres and lyrical geniuses.

#DarkRomanticLuxe

Moon phase clock from ClimeMET

For some time I had been searching for something that displays the current phase of the moon. It’s something I’ve always been interested in and just Googling the moon phases was pretty un-romantic, so I decided to see if there even was such thing as a moon phase tracker. I didn’t even know what terms to use when I first started searching. ‘Moon clock‘ just gave me results for clocks with moon faces, which wasn’t at all what I was looking for.

I changed my search terms a few times and that’s when I found the Constellations Moon Phase Clock by ClimeMET. It was perfect. It had a dark, night-sky face and just like a regular clock, indicated what time it was [out of a 29.5 day cycle]. The moon phase clock was one of ClimeMET’s only clocks that didn’t have a gold / brass finish option, but I was not at all deterred so when it arrived, I carefully taped over the glass face and gave the frame three coats of gold spray paint. It turned out pretty perfect.

I’m so happy with our moon phase clock. It’s exactly what I was looking for, is completely silent [n case anyone still has nightmares from noisy clocks] and very accurate. I would adore to put aside more of my side-hustle income and look at buying their Traditional Forecaster Dial because Canadian weather is a real struggle. Not only that, but hello, it has a solid wood surround and brass plated details. Beautiful.

This is in no way a sponsored post. I just really, really like astronomical gadgets.