My Photography - Meet the Lucic Family

 Introducing to you my cousin and her family. A while ago she mentioned that maybe one day I can come and take some photos of the kids. Me being fairly new the to the photography world happily obliged.

Let me remind you I am not a professional photographer in any kind of way, it's just a hobby. I purchased a Canon T2i that came with 18mm - 55mm lens and recently I purchased the 50mm f1.8 lens so that I can attempt to take some better portrait photos.

I've also taken one small class in Orangeville just so that I could better understand some of the features on the camera. 

Any editing just came from playing around in Picasa/PicMonkey and reading a lot on Digital Camera World website. 

 Over 600 photos and 3hrs of editing here are my favorites:

 

 

So there you have it my first photo shoot. 

If you have any tips or super friendly websites for new photographers please drop a note below. 

Vacation Time!

I've been kind of MIA in regards to my blogging about our home renovating and with good reason! We are kind of on a break. We finally finished everything we needed to do in the old home and put it up for sale. We set a goal date of when we would start renovating the new home and that time has come! 

In between the waiting time Branko had a few things he needed to do around the house and I had busy weekends. Made a trip back to Aberfoyle to pick up our coffee table and bar stools. My mom and sister joined me this time, my mom seemed to really enjoy Aberfoyle but she is probably best going on her own or with my dad. She loves to inspect every booth and item available! 

The coffee table is set up in the old home as a TV stand for now, Branko and I both really love it! 

 I also picked up a little surprise gift for Branko's garage (he loves his coke):

 

I also saw a few other things that I would have liked to pick up like this copper bucket from pottery barn: 

 

This one is $259.84...ummm no thank you! The one's I saw at Aberfoyle were between $60 and $90. Next time we go I will be sure to pick one up so I can use it to store our wood for the fireplace like the picture above. 

I also saw a ton of old window frames and would love to do something like this one day:

 

Now that I conveniently killed some time on pinterest this morning I should probably get back to getting work done. I am off to the new house to clean out the basement and have everything prepared for more storing.

This weeks plan is for Branko and I to complete the electrical work, rip out the old flooring on the upper level and create a new sub-floor, build the walls for the new bath room and also start on the drywall. 

The exciting part starts NOW! Bring on home renovating for our dream home!  

 

 

Aberfoyle Finds

This weekend for the first time in a long time we took Sunday off...meaning no renovation work, no yard work...nothing just a day of relaxing. 

The morning started off by heading out early..we've been wanting to check our Aberfoyle Antique Market for some time now. As you all know we actually tried a little over a month ago but our car broke down and we didn't make it. 

We took out Branko's classic car and headed down Forks of the Credit (beautiful drive) and into Belfountain. It's a quaint little town just South of Orangeville. We stopped in at Higher Ground Coffee Company & The Belfountain Village Store. I had a double espresso macchiato (it was excellent!) and Branko had a panini sandwich and some Sheldon Creek Dairy Milk...he was a happy boy...he loves his milk. 

Back on the road to Aberfoyle! 

Once we got there the first thing we came across were bar stools which we need for the new house! We decided to walk around some more to see what else we could find. Our second big find was the coffee table we had been looking for, again we decided to walk around some more before making any decisions. 

Half-way through the market and after seeing other vendors prices we decided we should go back to the guy with the coffee table...good thing we did!!! Some other lady was there and almost bought the table we wanted!!! 

So here it is....

We both love it! It will really ties into our rustic modern look that we are going for in our new home. 

After putting the deposit down we walked around some more...found tons of stuff but decided we will wait to purchase small items that were not really needed and knew it will still be there next time we go back. 

Before leaving though we both still had those bar stools on our minds so we went back and took one last look...sat in them for a while..discussed the pro/cons of the stools and also talked about other types stools that would fit into our home. The only other stools I found were $395 each from restoration hardware. Even though I knew we could afford them I knew deep down it was a bit unrealistic to pay $400 a barstool. 

Soooooo we decided to go with them...$150 for 3. I was a very happy girl! 

I plan on spray painting the iron black, refinishing the cushion part and also staining the small wood piece(more then likely to match our dining table/floor colour). 

They were in great shape and they also spin all the way around which will be great for entertaining purposes. :) 

Heading home Branko and I were both very happy with our purchases and knew that we will be visiting Aberfoyle more often. Branko found some great pieces that will look good in his shop once it's done. 

We made it home around 1pm had some time to relax, wash our cars and wait for our guests to show up. (Great visit with Bernadette and Jay!! Thanks for coming) 

We ended the night off with a stop at our new neighbours home(they have 25acres just down the street from us) After some wine and a bonfire we headed home around 10pm and went straight to bed!!! 

A complete day of friends and relaxing ( no renovation work!!) 

Drop a note below and let me know your Aberfoyle Finds or any other great antique markets you love.

Our Yard in our First Home

Our little retreat with a creek, a place we called home for 5 amazing years.....

Even though this place will soon no longer be ours it will always be a home we will remember with so many great memories...family gatherings, bonfires, engagement pictures and so on....

Hello pretty lantern:

Waterfalls I will miss you as I fall asleep:

The Love Bridge:

These boots will soon have a new home:

Any special spots you really love in your yard?? 

We bought a TRACTOR!

Never in my life did I think I (actually "we") would be owners of a TRACTOR! 

For everybody who knows me it's almost laughable most people still can't believe I live in the country "just outside the city" as I like to say. 

I love it out here and I'm pretty sure my new tractor will be photographed often :) 

And yes our tractor actually looks just like that one in the picture! 

 That's all I have to say....

Have a great weekend everybody!! 

12 out of 22.....Long Weekend Update

Honestly I am not even sure if I have the energy to write about what we did this weekend. 

All I can say is that as you can see in the image above many items were crossed off the list, not to mention that I added one extra item. 

23. Paint all doors in the house . Call me crazy. 

It was an excellent weekend and even though we are both completely exhausted today that for sale sign is so close.....actually it's this close:

I also got around to setting up the 2 bedrooms for staging:

Master bedroom with new carpet (the bedding will be changed to something more neutral): 

We did manage to sneak in some fun, my parents had a big BBQ to celebrate the birth of my niece. We took the Cutlass for a cruise and Branko took one of my little cousin's for a "spin"

How was everybody's Long Weekend? Are you back in the work groove....being at work for me is almost like a break these days ;) 

Our First Home Renovation Journey...

The above picture was taken before we did any kind of work to the house. The country fence was probably one of the first things gone. 

Our first home renovation journey has been so amazing and the end is close. We started out with this home renovation thinking we were going to live here "forever" but soon realized we needed something more. 

I thought I would compile the very long list of changes we made to this place so that if I ever forget how much work we did I can come back here and read all about it. 

This journey started in 2006:


- Cut down 45 trees from front lawn. Including cutting off all of the branches and chopping the logs into pieces and stacking them and then burning what was left over. (probably the biggest job that we did on the property)


- Re-seeded the front lawn with grass and planted 20 new 7ft spruce trees 


Front yard before:


The point all of our neighbours thought we were crazy, yes we burned that all in the front yard:




Front yard after:



- Cut and cleared 20 trees from the back yard. 

- Cleaned up all 10 flower beds(ok maybe we added 3 or 4 more) but they were lacking everything and completely over weeded. 

- Built a 1500 sq ft garage, all of our sweat, blood and tears poured into this project. We did everything ourselves with no contractor's. 


- 32 Dump Trucks of fill so we could build the new garage 

This is the old garage:

This is what now stands in its place (the double door is actually cut off in this picture):



- Fresh coat of paint inside the entire house, including the bathroom (3 coats after bad colour choices - lesson learned)

- Installed a new vanity in the bathroom.


- Bought new washer, dryer, and stove 

- New carpet in both bedrooms 

- Kitchen counter top was removed and replaced (some ugly laminate thing) we also did the back splash. 


Our sweet little kitchen will be missed:

- Pot lights added in the kitchen 

   - Painted all of the window trim and doors on the outside ( from an ugly washed out green to black)

- New shingles on the house 

- Completely re-did the mudroom (new paint, new slate tiles, and new light fixtures) 


- Installed new well pump and water softener 

- Refaced the driveway with new 3/4 gravel (10 Gravel Trucks)

- Replaced all of the door handles in the house

- Replaced all light fixtures in the house and the 2 ceiling fans 

- Stained the back deck and the front entrance way steps. 

In between all of this we got married in 2010, made many trips to Florida for vacation, visited New York City twice and Boston once. (I agreed to baseball games on all trips and Branko agreed to shopping) 


Once we are completely done (which should be next week) I am going to post one final picture of the front of the house. It looks a bit different now. 


Till then....happy home renovating.