This Saturday marks another Style Saturday event at the Princess Margaret Welcome Home Sweepstakes Oakville Showhome. Held in the gorgeous dream kitchen, Lynda Reeves and food editor Amy Rosen will be demonstrating easy recipes and sharing entertaining tips for the upcoming holiday season!
If you weren’t lucky enough to get a spot in this weekend’s demonstration — the event is full — check out Amy’s easy, everyday recipes in her blog, and watch her Online TV segments for great party recipes. We'll be posting photos of the event next week, too, so stay tuned.
Make plans to visit The Princess Margaret Welcome Home Sweepstakes Oakville Showhome this weekend; after all, you could win it! (If you do visit the home, be sure to take a photo of yourself in your favourite room and upload it to our online cover gallery!) If you don't live nearby, then tour the property virtually by video.
The early bird draw is fast approaching. With over 70 per cent of tickets already sold, don't hesitate to order your tickets today for a chance to win this gorgeous showhome, as well as other great prizes, such as a Muskoka cottage, Toronto condos, luxury cars and more! Get yours today and help conquer cancer in our lifetime.
Photo credits:
1. Lynda Reeves photographed by Gabor Jurina; Amy Rosen photographed by Sophie Giraud
2. Jason Stickley
Hopefully you saw my last fall DIY project. Next up, my living room end table! I found this little guy at a junk shop while I was a student in Kingston, Ontario. I think it was around $40. The wood is in pretty rough shape and not worth writing home about, so I decided to paint it, too.
When a wooden piece has a scratched, flakey surface like this, I think it’s ready for a new incarnation as a timeworn, distressed heirloom. If it’s banged up, the simplest thing is to just go with it!
Make sure you sand off any loose bits from the surface. I love this Mouse Sander for small jobs like this. There’s no need to prime here, since I want to sand back the final paint layer a bit to reveal the wood below.
After painting the table with two coats of paint, I distressed the table with the sander. You could use a regular piece of sandpaper too, of course! Just sand lightly in the areas that would naturally receive wear — the edges, on the legs, and especially around the feet. This mimics the wear from being dragged around for a hundred years. But go easy, don’t bang it up too much!
For me, this look is best when it’s subtle. In this overall shot, you can barely see the distressing. This is usually how the pros do it.
For more of my DIY projects, check out our Online TV show. Or, see our complete DIY Guide.
Photo credits:
1-5. Michael Penney
Lately, one of my favourite pastimes is patting myself on the back for a job well done, and here I go again with the creation of the world’s healthiest (and tastiest) risotto.
This culinary discovery happened like most of my recipe innovations: an overindulgent weekend leads to a remorseful Monday, and I buy way too many vegetables. Then, terrified by the prospect of having them go bad before their time, I marry them together and cook them up in myriad ways.
This week’s victims? Sweet potatoes and broccoli.
What do to with them? A colourful, autumnal risotto.
Phew — dodged that bullet!
Here’s my recipe.
Sweet Potato & Roasted Broccoli Risotto
(serves 4)
Broccoli
1 bunch fresh broccoli, cleaned, dried; the stem cut into rounds, the florets cut bite-sized
1 tbsp olive oil
Salt and pepper
Risotto
1 medium sweet potato
2 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tsp olive oil
1 cooking onion, chopped
1-1/2 cups Arborio rice
1/4 cup vermouth or dry white wine
4 cups hot vegetable or chicken stock
1/4 cup grated or shaved Parmesan cheese
Step 1: Preheat oven to 400°F.
Step 2: On a cookie sheet, toss prepped broccoli in olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes, or until lightly browned.
Step 3: Scrub the sweet potato clean, poke a few times with a fork, then microwave for about 5 minutes, or until fully cooked and soft. Remove from peel, mash innards in a small bowl and set aside.
Step 4: In a heavy pot, heat butter and oil together. Add chopped onion and cook on medium heat for 5 minutes, then stir in rice, coating with butter mixture. Deglaze with vermouth.
Step 5: Have stock simmering on the stove for easy access. Add a cup of warm stock to the rice, stir, bring to a boil and let it absorb. Stir in the sweet potato. Keep adding about a 1/2 cup of stock at a time, letting the liquid evaporate each time, until the four cups of stock have been used. Stir, stir, stir! From start to finish this process will take about 22-25 minutes.
Step 6: Keeping the risotto on low, stir in the cheese and the cooked stalk rounds of the broccoli. Dish it out and top with a few of the roasted florets. Season with pepper and maybe a little extra Parmesan.
Click here for more easy risotto recipes.
Photo credits:
1-2. Amy Rosen
I am loving the new shower curtains by Amy Butler — they are so colourful and fun. What a way to jazz up your bathroom! Not only are they beautiful, but they’re made from organic materials.
They reminded me of how much I like Amy’s fabrics — her patterns are vibrant and full of life. Based out of Ohio, Amy has a whole line of products including bedding, bathwares, dinnerware, stationery… the list goes on.
Check out three new shower curtain designs below:
You can buy Amy’s collections online, browse her fabrics at macFAB Fabrics in Toronto, or purchase her new shower curtains at Bed Bath & Beyond retailers across Canada.
For more ideas on glamming up a bathroom, check out our Bathroom Design & Decorating Guide.
Photo credits:
1-3. Amy Butler Design
There’s something so exciting about the change of seasons, when the air gets a little cooler and we all start to feel something new coming on. Everybody focuses on a big ‘spring clean’, but this year, why not think a little about fall nesting?
Think about it: brisk days and cosy nights, sweaters and leaf raking and a fresh beginning. I think it’s the perfect time to try something new at home. Why not refresh an old piece of furniture with paint?
Here's a project I tried recently…
I made over a pair of nightstands. You might remember them from the story on my apartment in June 2009 (watch the video tour!). I wanted to tone them down a little, so I used some leftover Farrow & Ball paint and some simple and elegant new hardware from Lee Valley Tools. You should check them out by the way, they have so many stylish options at great, great prices! I used this plane to scrape down the drawer edges a little. If a drawer has been painted too many times it will stick. A plane is a great way to keep them gliding smoothly.
Here’s the paint and hardware. The colour is called Light Gray No. 17, but it has a lot of brown in it, so its more of a warm putty than grey. The classic brass pulls from Lee Valley are the perfect touch to make these nightstands look handsome and refined.
Of course, I had to fill the holes from the old hardware with polyfiller and sand them smooth. Then I measured and drilled holes for the new pulls.
Here is something to keep in mind: don’t let paint puddle in the corners, especially around drawers. This will only make the drawers stick and drive you crazy once it’s hardened. Keep an eye out for little puddles when painting and dab them away.
And here they are! Just a couple of coats of paint and some new handles and they look refreshed and ready for fall. Gone is the slick white paint and funky hardware — a more subtle, timeless hue with understated details completely transformed them. Perfect!
I can’t wait to load them up with books and a water glass and top them with lovely lamps!
For more of my DIY projects, check out our Online TV show. Or, see our complete DIY Guide.
Photo credits:
1-6. Michael Penney
Even if you are lucky enough to not be touched by it, you probably don’t need another pink-hued reminder that October is breast cancer awareness month. There are many groups across the country doing great work to raise awareness and funds for cancer research — check out the Princess Margaret Welcome Home Sweepstakes Showhome designed by Lynda Reeves and her team here at House & Home. Another one that stands out to me is Rethink Breast Cancer. Their annual Boobyball started as a party thrown by two girls wanting to cheer up their friend going through chemotherapy. Now in its ninth incarnation, it is one of the most successful fundraising events of the year. The theme of the October 16 party is the disco heyday of Studio 54, so in honour of the silver balls, bell-bottoms, glitter and flashing lights, here are a few picks inspired by the often overlooked era of 1970s design.
On display at the party will be the limited edition Studio 54 inspired photos taken by five different photographers for the 2010 Boobyball campaign, like the one above by Caitlin Cronenberg. It’s a great opportunity to invest in your art collection! If you are not in Toronto or didn’t get tickets the first day they went on sale (they go fast!), you can still bid on the other items in the online eBay auction from October 11 to November 1.
Speaking of art — in particular an artist that comes to mind when you mention Studio 54 — there was an Andy Warhol exhibit at London's Sadie Coles HQ contemporary gallery in 2003 that showed his “private” drawings. The sketches are primarily portraits of unidentified men and show a very different side to the artist commonly known for his colourful pop art images of Marilyn Monroe and Campbell’s soup cans.
The Nate Berkus-designed living room of his boyfriend and shoe designer Brian Atwood’s apartment in Milan features '70s pieces like this wood and chrome credenza, square cocktail table and a vintage Arredoluce floor lamp. The iconic fern-patterned Martinique wallpaper (the print is actually circa 1940s from the Beverly Hills Hotel) adds to the modern retro vibe.
One of Harlequin’s latest collections of wallpaper, Identity, includes this disco ball-like pattern called Perception. The light silvery colourway keeps it fresh and clean and not too psychedelic. Here are some more pieces to subtly add some of the '70s to your space:
The groovy waves of the Le Klint pendant light.
An Art Deco-ish console table like the Strathmore console at Elte. The circular cutout base reminds me of the Studio 54 logo.
A shag rug! I love Madeline Weinrib’s Tulus but you can never go wrong with the more affordable Flokati from Ikea.
Something in burled wood, like this hand-turned, red maple bowl. If you really want to splurge though, I’d consider anything from Jonathan Adler’s Bond Collection, like the Lucite-sided desk.
Or Adler’s needlepoint “disco lady” pillow.
And if you aren’t tired of 1970s disco inspiration yet, just look up pre-Hairspray John Travolta!
Photo credits:
1. Caitlin Cronenberg for the Rethink Breast Cancer Boobyball
2. Andy Warhol “Unidentified male figure” c. 1952 via the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
3. Simon Upton, as seen in Elle Decor
4. Harlequin Harris
5. Design Within Reach
6. Elte
7. Madeline Weinrib
8. Knots and Burls to Bowls
9. Jonathan Adler
10. Jonathan Adler
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