Confession

I bet you thought I'd totally abandoned this blog, didn't you? Well, you'd be right. I think the chaos of having two young kids while building my business meant sacrificing my writing time for bedtime stories or precious sleep. I recently got a good kick in the pants from an old friend to start back up and that's exactly what I'm trying to do.

I'm having some trouble though. I've changed so much in the past couple of years that I barely recognize the carefree, crafty girl who started this blog many years ago. Back then, I was new to real estate, we didn't have kids and were living in a two bedroom condo. We had zero responsibilities! As Madonna says, "experience has made me richer" and that's very true, but it's also made me more contemplative and perhaps a tad more serious. Don't get me wrong: I have had an incredible couple of years and I feel very fortunate but I also feel a little more adult and a lot less self-absorbed than my younger self. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm hoping my blog is still entertaining enough for you to read, but my post topics may change a little and I think I'll need some help deciding what to write about. I must say that it feels good to be taking a step toward blogging again. I think I've been using my Instagram account to share and write a little but it's not quite as satisfying!

While I didn't officially stop blogging until a year ago, I know my post frequency has been tapering off for a couple of years. Here's a recap of the past year:

It was early in 2018 that I started to notice that the anxiety and depression I had experienced during pregnancy, was creeping back postpartum. I loved my sweet Maude but I wasn't bonding with her the way I knew I should be and it was heartbreaking. I wrote an Instagram post on it for Bell Let's Talk Day and I'm happy to say that medication has helped immensely and I feel better than I have in years!

At around the same time I was being diagnosed with postpartum depression, Rudy was diagnosed with Autism. We had known Rudy was Autistic for several months but the diagnosis was a shock nonetheless and I spent a long time researching everything I could on Autism and speaking with Autistic adults before I was comfortable discussing it. Now, we are a proud, Neurodiverse family (Corey and I even got tattoos!) and Rudy knows she is Autistic and likes to tell people about her special Autistic brain!

As my real estate business has grown over the years, I have invested so much in my staging inventory that I now have my own warehouse filled with furniture, art and accessories. It is definitely fun to be able to post colourful photos of my staged listings and I love sharing and hearing decorating tips. In other real estate news: I decided last summer that an innovative, marketing-focused brokerage would be a better fit for me and the best place for me to learn from like-minded professionals, so I joined Sage Real Estate. Finally, Corey obtained his real estate license last summer and is now helping me and my clients in an official capacity!

Last summer, we introduced Maude to camping and went on FIVE short camping trips. We also bought an OLD tent trailer, which Corey has been fixing up!

Last spring, we adopted another feisty barn cat and now the two cats are thick as thieves! It was nice for them to have companionship when we lost our beloved Barkley in the fall. We missed having a dog so much that we adopted a senior beagle (Lola) who was found nearly dead on the streets of Mexico last year.

This past year has been filled with changes for our family! Now, we're finally in a groove and have found a good routine which allows me quality time with the girls even during my busiest times at work. Rudy and Maude are becoming so close and the two crack us up all the time. Rudy in particular says the most hilarious (sometimes unintentionally insulting) things to us... Like last week when she told me my hair looked like a yak, or when she asked me if the large, white blob person (photo below) was me and I almost threw out my oversized white sweater!

So now I need your help! What do you want to hear about? I think I'll still write a little bit of everything but I need a place to start! Are you interested in:

Real Estate market or staging posts?

What about home decorating tips, tricks and trends? Cool vintage finds?

REAL parenting and family posts? Posts about raising an Autistic child? Fun activities and crafts for young kids? Ideas for fun family outings?

What about adult crafts and hobbies?

Home reno posts? (Corey's about to gut our upstairs powder room!)

Help me out! In case you're curious, I'll link below to some of my most popular posts of all time:

My Condo Survival Series

Kitchen Reveal

Our Home Tour

DIY Climbing Wall

Ikea Hack: Toy Storage and Desk

How to Take Good Photos of your Kids Using Your Phone

Growing Baby Succulents

On Miscarriage

A Poem for My First Child

My Crazy Cat Story

Our Week in the Rockies


Thanks so much for reading guys and please please please let me know what you'd like to read. It'll be the kick in the a$$ that I need to resume blogging again!

Our 300th Post!

Thanks to my little blog hiatus, it has taken us a while to get here!  Can you believe post 200 was back in September?  This time, Corey and I are each choosing our five favourite posts from the past 100 (excluding yesterday's pregnancy announcement and the Condo Survival series, which are hands-down favourites) and writing a little about why we chose each post.  

It's been a busy several months which have included our first holidays in the new/old house and many major improvements as well as wedding plans.  Here are our top posts since September:

Corey's Favourites (written by Corey) 

Checking the List (Our Six Month House-iversary) was one of my favourite posts since I'm a big fan of lists, and was really proud to go back through our home to-do list and see how far we'd come.  Still working on it, I'm sure you'll see more soon! ;)

When we went for our Snowy Walk, it was just such a lovely little simple date, and having a post to remember it gives me a bit of a smile.  We go out on the trail so often, and we always have a great time.

This was just such a Crate and Barrel-O-Fun!  Nobody had really told us how much fun it was to just grab a scanner and go nuts, and we found so many great things that we wanted and previously hadn't agreed on (like cutlery).

It was so much fun recounting what had happened Exactly One Year Ago Today...(well not TODAY).  When we started looking at houses, this wasn't my first choice necessarily, but I wouldn't give it up for anything!

Possibly, we've left the best for last!  Our Story (As a Children's Book) was a surprise Taylor showed me one day when I got home from work, and I LOVED it.  I love the story, how well the animation turned out, and how cute it is.  It's even on our wedding website! I just can't explain how happy it makes me! :-|)

Taylor's Favourites:

I still really like the Glass Cutting DIY post, because it was our first major wedding project and because I was so touched when so many friends popped over after reading it with bottles they had collected to help us reach our goal.

My Top 10 Modern Christmas Movies post will be fun to revisit each year.  I love round-ups and I love Christmas movies so this was a perfect post for me.

Do You Have (Or Would You Get) a Tattoo? was a fun post to write and Corey and I were sooo close to getting our matching tattoos when we discovered I was pregnant.  Now I suppose we'll have to wait until after Singleton arrives!

I was so surprised and thrilled when We Were Nominated for a Homie!  This post reminds me of how far this blog has come and how amazing my readers are.  I also found some awesome blogs to add to my favourites in the Homie awards nominees list.

Advice to My 20-Year-Old Self was such a fun post to write because I got to ask so many friends for help with it and I learned so much from their answers.  It's amazing to see how similar many of our experiences are!

I can't wait to share so many things with you in the next hundred posts.  Expect more renovations, more wedding preparations, a look at the giant snake-like pillow Corey has on order for me (which is supposed to be the Cadillac of pregnancy pillows) and pictures of yet another (4-legged) addition to our family!  Life right now is busy, crazy, hard at times, but generally beautiful.  I hope you'll join us!

Blog Spring Cleaning

I was recently looking for an old post from last year and I felt myself getting frustrated pretty quickly.  It made me realize that if even I can't find old posts, it's probably nearly impossible for you!  In an effort to make this a little easier in the future, I have reorganized the headings to include photos and links to specific posts under each topic.  This way, you can quickly find and select a specific post you may be searching for.  Not all posts fall under one of these specific categories, but most do.

I'm hoping this makes it easier for you to browse and enjoy our old posts and projects.  We would love to hear what you think of the new organization!  Good?  Bad?  Not seeing what you're looking for?  You just don't care?  Don't be shy!

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We Were Nominated for a Homie!

As you may already know, Fresh Coat of Paint began as a real estate blog, but for the past year, it has evolved into a great hobby and a fun way to keep track of our lives and reno progress and to keep our family and friends in-the-loop.  I think the turning point was when I realized that the only people who want to read about the real estate market day after day are other real estate agents (duh!) and so I decided to just write about my other interests.  As the months passed, I think I became less formal in my writing and now I approach each post as if I were emailing one of my bff's, which makes writing faster and much more relaxing!

While, in the grand scheme of blogging, Fresh Coat of Paint is still a very small blog, my readership has grown over the past year and now I'm averaging over 1,000 pageviews a day... Which is a far cry from when i began and I averaged about 10... which were probably all me and my family!

I have grown to love blogging, although I still sometimes feel surprised (and honoured) that anyone would actually want to read about our average little lives in the new/old house!  I still get excited when someone comments on a post or likes it on Facebook and I honestly get a little shy when someone I know tells me they read my blog all the time!  I think the most surreal moment (until now) for me was when I received a really sweet email from a reader telling me how much she enjoyed reading Fresh Coat of Paint and asking me how Barkley liked the new/old house!  I couldn't get over how awesome it was that someone out there would care enough to ask how Barkley was adjusting!  Awesome, right??

Then, yesterday, I noticed a spike in activity coming from one of my favourite blogs, Apartment Therapy.  It turns out, that one of you was kind enough to nominate me for a "Homie Award" in the "Home Design and Inspiration" category!  Obviously, I don't expect to win against many bigger (and better) blogs but I was thrilled to be included in the list and I had a bit of a Sally Field moment as I called Corey to tell him!

To all my readers, please check out the contest and consider adding a vote/nomination for me here.

And in the interest of sharing the love, please check out some of the other amazing blogs on the list.  Here are a few that I've been browsing today.  The first three are old favourites, but I discovered the rest through The Homies this year.  What are your favourite blogs?

Style by Emily Henderson

A Cup of Jo

House Tweaking

Deuce Cities Hen House

Vivid Hue Home

Victoria Elizabeth Barnes

The Art of Doing Stuff

Yellow Brick Home

Brooklyn Limestone

Old Town Home

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Blog Makeover

It's been a little over one year since I actually began posting to this blog semi-regularly and I finally feel like I've found my voice and blogging style.  Unlike when I began, I now write my posts as quickly as if I were emailing a friend to fill them in on my news and it's just the best feeling!

One thing that has been bothering me, has been my blog template and background, which felt a little heavy and forced with the over-saturated patterned turquoise background and the "hardwood floor" lettering.  While I was thrilled with it when I started blogging, for a long time now I've been wanting something lighter and maybe a little less... busy.  It took me two years in real estate before I had found my groove and needed to redesign my business cards and now I'm thrilled with the way they reflect my personality and convey a little about what makes my work stand out.  I hope I feel the same about this new blog template a year from now.

FYI- For anyone who visited the blog while I was adjusting the widths, there was a good ten minutes where the heading read "Fresh Coat of Pain"... Hilarious!  Now I have the title of my next Halloween or workout post!

I didn't take a screenshot of my old template (oops!), but I have taken screenshots of four of my favourite blogs which have inspired me in my new minimal design.  They also deliver consistently great content, so I suggest checking them out!

A Cup of Jo:

Little Green Notebook:

Style By Emily Henderson:

Young House Love:

And here I am:

What do you think of the new look?  Did it need a "fresh coat of paint"??? See what I did there?  I'm actually pretty proud of myself for figuring out how to change the template without losing all your lovely comments!

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Wait, I Have a Blog?

Hello and thanks for not giving up on me this week.  You're probably wondering where I've been but it has just been one of those crazy weeks that I sometimes have when the real estate market is busy in the spring and fall.  For the past few days, each time I sat down to compose a post, I wouldn't know where to begin and I would end up working instead.

Luckily, the writer's block is over and I am back and ready to update you (if any of you are still reading) on our news over the past week.

First of all, Corey has just started working for a new electrical company on a pretty high-profile site.  He's excited and he's doing some really cool stuff but any change is tiring, so he's been wiped by the time he gets home at the end of the day.

Friendly has left us to live with an amazing "forever" family.  They have a cat and a little girl and, while it was hard to say goodbye, we think Friendly is being lavished with attention!  As for Barkley: Let's just say, he liked Friendly but he seems pretty happy to be an "only child" once again.  He loves not having to share his toys or his treats. 

We Okay, Corey installed our sliding closet doors!  Now that there's a little space, we have moved the tub (top photo) into the future nursery (Is it weird that we call it that?) so we can prep for our bathroom demolition extravaganza.  BATHROOM DEMOLITION EXTRAVAGANZA... Imagine that I said that in a booming monster truck announcer voice.  Or don't... you could also just forget I said that.... Which is probably the better option.  Anyway, we'd like to paint the tub at some point, but it weighs over 200lbs so I'll probably have to spray paint it where it is.  Corey and my brother have made it pretty clear that they're not going to be carrying it up and down the stairs a million times, so I'm trying to keep the moving to a minimum.  I think I'm going to have to "Dexter" the room (If you don't watch the show, I mean that I'll cover it in plastic.) and just paint it right where it sits.

 

We enjoyed our annual Halloween date night at Canada's Wonderland for Halloween Haunt.  ...Unfortunately, it wasn't up to snuff this year and two of the three new attractions were not yet open.  It was disappointing.  We had to explain the situation to a teenage manager when we politely asked for our money back.  It was pretty awkward explaining how serious we are about both Fun-derland AND Halloween, and having to flash our seasons passes like we were some sort of dorky VIPs.  I actually began with the line "We're not angry, just disappointed."  He looked at us skeptically (probably because we were the only adults there) before refunding our money and having us escorted off the premises.  Talk about a walk of shame!

And finally, the real reason this blog has been silent: I fell down the stairs!  Yup, I knew this would happen eventually and I totally missed the top step and tumbled the whole way down.  I dropped my cell phone near the top so I couldn't even call anyone for help.  Luckily, I wasn't seriously hurt... but I'm very sore and had to stay in bed the next day, so I've been catching up on work.  I'm still limping around a little but I'm just telling people that I sprained my back twerking. 

Oh well, we're adding a new banister to our list of things to do in the new/old house.  It was a painful but relatively harmless lesson.

I'll post pics of our new closet soon and we're pumped to start the real work on the bathroom!

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200 Posts: Highlights

Well folks, this is my 200th post!  Not bad, considering I only began blogging regularly in January.  So many of you have been so supportive in your emails and comments, and I notice that it's not just friends following along anymore so I sincerely welcome those of you who don't know me in real life. 

I marked my 100th post with a special post highlighting some of the more interesting moments on my blog.

For my 200th post, I thought it would be fun to share something "behind the scenes" from some of my more popular posts.  As this blog progresses, it has certainly become more casual and real.  One of my oldest friends who lives out of town told me the other day that when she reads my posts, she feels like she's having a conversation with me and she even finds herself mumbling things like, "Shut up, Taylor!  You are insane." 

...Not that I want you all to think that!  I just thought it would be fun to let you guys know what was going on when I wrote some of these.

Remember when Corey proposed?  This was such a personal post and I totally loved sharing it... minus a few details, which I'm keeping private.  The funny thing is that, while the proposal was a huge surprise, it was a bit of a last minute plan for Corey. 

I should start by telling you that Corey hates keeping secrets from me.  I always get my birthday presents early because he just can't wait to see the look on my face!  So when my mom called him to let him know the ring had arrived at her house (He wouldn't have it delivered here because I can't be trusted!) Corey had picked it up and proposed within 24 hours!  After waiting nearly seven years, I suppose he couldn't wait any longer. :)

Remember the houndstooth wood backing, that we used to cover the ugliness behind our old fireplace insert?  Well this was actually a bit of a flop in my mind!  I played it cool in my post, because I honestly do like the end result and I think it looks great with out floors... but I accidentally applied the stain a little thicker than I had intended and I lost all the wood grain.  It still bugs me when I look at it.

I remember buying these fabulous sliding closet doors at the Ikea Midnight Madness Sale!  Well, that was three months ago and our fab new doors have been collecting dust in our third bedroom since we brought them home.  The good news is that Corey's been spending his time off constructing a frame so I'm optimistic that I'll be posting about them soon!

Now that it's chilly outside, I miss our camping weekends!  I was so excited to share some fun pictures of one of our trips with you guys.  Camping is one of our favourite hobbies, and we love camp and camping so much, that we've decided to incorporate it as a minor theme of our wedding!

Remember our bedside lamps?  Well, Corey was working on the wiring (I was out with clients) during the worst storm and flood that Toronto has seen in years!  I was so worried about him that night and it took me several hours to get home, since roads were flooded and traffic lights were out.  To make matters worse, phone reception wasn't very good and Corey and I lost touch for hours at a time.  Meanwhile, Corey had turned off all the power to do the electrical work when our neighbourhood lost electricity so he couldn't test the lights until about 11:00.  Talk about a disaster DIY.

I regret my little Farrow and Ball experiment just the teeniest bit, because other (less expensive) paint brands are now ruined for both of us.  We love the Farrow and Ball colours so much that I've even chosen a (very non-traditional) colour for our future nursery.

Our living room painting weekend was so exhausting that we actually took a break from working on the house once it was finished.  We totally underestimated the room, but it was filled with edges and corners and painting all the surfaces of the bookshelves probably tripled out time.  Just thinking about it makes my head spin!  Our biggest regret was not moving out that darn coffee table first... that and not drinking more wine while we painted!

During a recent Friday Reading post, I thought about buying my bridal bouquet from Etsy.  At the time, I had my eye on the pretty ivory and red version, because I had always dreamed of being married in the fall.

But I'm a practical gal, and I prefer not to tie the knot during such a busy time of year in real estate, so I'm thinking of changing my colour scheme to my signature (just look at the background of my blog) blues and greens.  What do you think?

Our prepping for Halloween post is a great example of what happens when I forget that thousands of people read my blog each month and they probably don't know that I'm a HUGE dork.  Well, now you do!  To make matters worse, Corey and I have been sitting outside with our fog machine and strobe light to "practice" since it's too early to actually decorate.  We're just so excited!!  My mom is definitely cringing right now! ;)

 

Thanks to all my readers for your encouragement.  Your comments, emails and messages keep me blogging!  Is there anything in particular you'd like to see in the next hundred posts?  More cowbell?  If you' don't get that joke, here's the explanation.  

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