A fantastic contest that you shouldn’t enter…

That’s right — there’s a FANTASTIC contest going on right now over at Kitchen and Residential Design. But don’t enter it. Really. I mean, who needs a $3,200 (yes, that’s $3,200) gift certificate from Metallo Arts?? To put towards a new custom range hood or a zinc countertop or a pewter countertop. And 10 hours of design time with kitchen, bath, and residential designer Paul Anater — worth an additional $1,300, for a total grand prize valued at $4,500.

OK, I’ll tell you who needs it — ME!!!! I have PINKY OAK cabinets and LAMINATE countertops and a stove with two measly burners and a light fixture that a friend said looks like a coffin. Hubby thinks the kitchen is just fine as it is, thank you very much, and refuses to make any changes. Well, if I win this contest, I’m gettin’ me a brand new kitchen!! Because you know how these things work… a new range hood leads to a new range leads to a new fridge (well, no, I like my fridge, it can stay), leads to a new countertop leads to… you get the picture!!!

So please, DON’T enter this contest. Because if you don’t enter, I’ll have a way better chance of winning. Yay, me!!! And because you won’t be entering the contest, there’s no need for you to know about the rules…

• Write or put together a presentation on your fantasy kitchen (however you interpret and express that). You can use words, pictures, a slide show… the more creative, the better.
• E-mail your presentation to p.anater@gmail.com by midnight on April 2, 2009.
• Contest is open to everybody — designers, bloggers, reporters, and regular Joes or Janes.

And you definitely DO NOT want to go to Kitchen and Residential Design to read the full contest details and rules. That would be a waste of your valuable time because you DO NOT want to enter this contest. Right?? :-)

For full contest details, check out:

Kitchen and Residential Design

Hooked on… delicious doors!

Kelly @ JAX Decor & Design

Thanks to Julia at Hooked on Houses for getting me Hooked on Fridays!! I had so much fun with my post about circles last week, that I just had to do it again!!

This week, I’m hooked on delicious doors (like the ones in the pic above, from All Things Cool). So, put on your shoes and let’s take a walk around the neighbourhood and check out some unique and welcoming front doors :-)

When we were in Luxembourg over the Christmas holidays in 2007, I saw this front door:

And so began my obsession with doors! I love the colour and the graphic lines of this blue one. The hardware is nice too :-)

Walking west from Luxembourg City, I spotted some other doors that I liked. Check out this glossy black door with the black iron fence beside the walkway…

Beautiful wood door and another nice black iron fence:

I was really struck by the whole porch area here rather than just the door. Love the metal work with the circles above the landing and the large oval window. Imagine colourful flowers blooming in the urns on each side of the stairs…

A pretty gray door…

And one more Luxembourg door — love the metal detailing on both the door and the oval window above it…

Now, if you’re a regular reader of our blog, you’ve probably caught on to the fact that I love colour!! So, my hooked on delicious doors post wouldn’t be complete without pics of some colourful front doors!! I had to really try hard to cut down the number of fabulous doors that I found on the Net. Sometimes Google is TOO good at finding what you’re looking for!! So this is just a small sampling of the doors I found. If you want to see more, just go to Google Image Search and type in the name of your favourite colour + doors.

So here we have some Irish doors in Kilkenny…

corbis.com

And a pink Irish door…

Green doors on a blue house…

flickr.com

And an orange door accented with green trim. Even the house numbers are colourful!!

flickr.com

The red flowers look fantastic with the bright yellow door…

mydeco.com

A turquoise door on an orange adobe house in Tucson — gorgeous landscaping!!

realestateintucson.com

Two purple doors for the price of one!! Lovely curved gate at the end of the walkway…

flickr.com

I’m not usually a fan of plain white front doors… but when your house is electric pink, I guess a white door is OK :-)

flickr.com

A white door is also made more colourful when it’s surrounded by beautiful flowers…

home.com

How’s this for some super-duper delicious door colour?!

photo.net

And not exactly a door, but how could you not feel welcome seeing this bright blue gate left open for you to walk right on in?? :-)

pbase.com

	As for my front door… it was white when we moved in. The following summer, I painted it BM Super Nova, a dark purple. I made the mistake of using oil paint. Don’t use oil paint on an exterior door, because it doesn’t “breathe” like latex paint and ends up cracking. Then you have to sand the flaky paint off and prime before you can repaint with latex. Ugh!!!
	So anyway, the next colour I painted the door was Sico Nunavut, a dark chocolate brown (I also painted all our interior doors Nunavut, which you can see here). And this time, I painted the white trim as well.
	Last summer, I decided to paint the door again – CIL Street Lamp Black, which is actually blue (or at least looks blue on our south-facing door). Excuse the green painter’s tape!! I like the new colour… but last fall, new people moved into the house next to ours. Not only did they paint the entire house the same colours as our house, but they got a new blue front door too. Grrrrrr… so, this summer I’ll be painting the door AGAIN. Probably a dark purple again, like BM Jester.

Well, time to close the door on this post and say goodbye… but walk on over to Hooked on Houses to check out what everyone else is hooked on this Friday :-)

“Follow your bliss”

Kelly @ JAX Decor & Design

I read this quote on Patricia Gray’s blog. It’s by Joseph Campbell. The complete quote is:

My general formula for my students is “Follow your bliss.” Find where it is, and don’t be afraid to follow it.

Last night, I popped into Beddingtons and got to talking with the lady at the cash. I can’t quite remember how the topic came up (my brain is a sieve!!), but she told me the story of a friend’s daughter, Cheryl Smith. Cheryl was working at the International Air Transport Association in Montreal, but her real love was web design. She didn’t have any formal training or education in web design — she just loved web design.

I can’t remember all the details of the story (again, that sieve brain problem, plus I was running late for step dance class). But through a series of events, Cheryl ended up designing the web site for and working with amazing Canadian fiddler, Natalie MacMaster. Which led to her designing web sites for other people (including other musicians). Which led to her moving to the East Coast. Which led to her creating OutFront Productions Inc. Which culminated in her becoming an award–winning Graphic Designer: (Image to the left from Natalie MacMaster’s web site)

• 2002 International Association of Webmasters and Designers “Golden Web Award for Design”
• 2005 Junior Chamber of Commerce “Young Entrepreneur of the Year”
• 2005 & 2006 East Coast Music Awards (ECMA) “Graphic Designer of the Year”
• 2009 Nominated for ECMA “Graphic Designer of the Year” and “Website of the Year”

Cheryl followed her bliss, and has achieved amazing success. Yay, Cheryl!!

So today, I’m even more inspired to follow my bliss and start my own home decorating business. To be honest, I’m really not sure how to go about it. I have an officially registered company — JAX Decor & Design — and a potential logo designed by a Graphic Design friend:

I also have a bright pink binder I bought at Staples to keep all my paperwork and projects in :-) Hubby is currently working on installing a ceiling and lighting in my home office. And I’m decorating a good friend’s guest bedroom. I’m kind of at a loss after that…

Like Cheryl, I don’t have any formal training or education in interior decorating. But it’s my absolute greatest love and passion. Well, after my family and my dogs :-) I think about decorating ALL THE TIME. I spend as much time as I can reading decorating blogs and checking out designer web sites and reading decorating books and magazines and watching decorating shows on TV. Decorating is what I want to do more than anything…

It’s time to stop the “wanting” and start the “doing”… look out bliss, here I come!!

See more of Cheryl’s work here:

OutFront Productions Inc. Portfolio

Sexy furniture from qerat… Ooooh-la-la!!!

Kelly @ JAX Decor & Design

I recently discovered qerat, one of Patricia Gray’s Top 10 New Interior Design Blogs.
OOOOH-LA-LA. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such fabulous and creative wood furniture before!! And the wood… the gorgeous, smooth, supple, exotic wood… I just want to run my hands all over it and feel its silky smoothness!!!

Tareq is the principle of qerat (located in Amman, Jordan), and he also writes the blog. You can read an interview with Tareq at Meade Design Group to learn more about this amazing and talented designer.

These are some of my favourite qerat/Tareq pieces (all pics from qerat).

Apostrophe Table

Tareq came upon the inspiration for this table completely by accident. He meant to make the title of an article he was writing bold with a larger font, but instead he mistakenly clicked another work that happened to have an apostrophe in it. He kept enlarging the apostrophe, and realized that the beautiful and fluid shape of the apostrophe was a table design in the making!!

Exclamation Table

Inspired by—what else—the exclamation mark!! Which just happens to be my favourite punctuation mark :-) It’s made out of natural Ebony & Macassar. Is it wrong to have erotic thoughts about a table?? Because these sexy, curvy lines are just BEGGING me to caress them!!!

Haji Bookcase

This is one funky bookcase!! It’s made from ebonized and natural oak and has thick glass shelves that extend past the sides of the bookcase. Mount this baby on the wall and pile on the books!!

4 Curves Bed

The headboard is made from four concave natural wenge squares. Each square is 1 meter x 1 meter and the total height is 2.40 meters — that’s one big headboard!!

Libra Console

If you read last week’s Hooked On… Circles post, you know that ICIRCLES. And now you know that wood furniture with curvy lines turns me on… so do I really need to tell you how much I ADORE this super-sexy, curvy console table?! Hot, hot, HOT!!!!! 8-)

Whew!!! After all that swooning, I need to sit down and pull myself together!!!! Maybe on this sleek chair from the Marlene Collection…

…or perhaps the Connie chaise :-)

Check Out The Competition!!

by Victoria @ Edin Interiors

I can never get enough of beautiful kitchens! :-)

To be honest I hadn’t planned on writing about kitchens in this post, especially so soon after showcasing the remodel of my condo’s kitchen, but today I received an e-newsletter – HGTV Pro Newsletter – highlighting the kitchen & bathroom finalists for the 2009 National Kitchen & Bath Association's (NKBA) annual design competition. As I was looking through the photos of these beautiful spaces I knew that I had to share some with you!

First, a little background… there were 679 entries in the NKBA’s competition, representing 10 different categories – categories like Powder Room, Small Bathroom, Medium Bathroom (etc.), Small Kitchen, Medium Kitchen (etc.). In the end 37 finalists were named, all vying for individual cash prises adding up to $100,000.

With 10 prize categories to chose from, which category and photos should I share with you? Considering my self-professed love of kitchens, this was an easy choice!

Medium Kitchens

(click on photo to go to the Designer’s website)

If you’d like to see more fabulous kitchens, or some lovely bathrooms, head over to the HGTV Pro website and check out more of the NKBA’s finalists. I plan on exploring the websites of these designer finalists, searching out inspiration for future projects – why don’t you do the same!

Jelly Bean Row

Kelly @ JAX Decor & Design

My hubby and I are addicted to Gourmet Sour Jelly Beans from WalMart. We could polish off a bag of them in one sitting — actually, I think we have!! Seriously, these are the best jelly beans EVER!! Hubby says they remind him of Rockets. Mmmm, Rockets!!

I have a little sour jelly bean ritual that I follow: I take a handful of sour jelly beans. I eat the orange & purple ones first, then the red & yellow ones, and then the blue & green ones. And I have to eat them two at a time. Preferably not two of the same colour. I think I have a mild case of jelly bean OCD!! ;-)

These particular Gourmet Sour Jelly Beans are made in Mississauga, Ontario and seem to only be sold at WalMart in Canada. We’ve never seen them at WalMart in the US. Imagine that, exclusive Canadian jelly beans!! Gourmet ones, even!! And that’s my clever (or not-so-clever!!) segue to another exclusive Canadian jelly bean…

Jelly Bean Row

Jelly Bean Row is in downtown St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador. It’s an area with wonderfully colourful houses — colourful like a bag of jelly beans :-) Many of the homes in Jelly Bean Row are Victorian heritage homes.

Let’s go for a little tour of Jelly Bean Row… as you can see, the architecture on this street isn’t fancy. Really, this is just a line of row houses. But don’t the bright colours give them great character?? :-)

Same houses from the other end of the street… the red car fits into the neighbourhood nicely :-)

Hard work walking up these hills!!

There’s a green house next to a yellow house…

And a green house between a yellow house and a blue house…

A bright red house beside a bright orange house…

And a bright blue house with orange trim… (photo by Geoff Meeker)

There’s the blue & orange house again, along with its colourful neighbours…

There’s a bright blue house with white trim and pretty window detailing…

Check out the cool Jelly Bean Row mailbox on this blue house :-) (Photo by Geoff Meeker)

One more street to walk down before the sun sets…

And that’s the end of our tour of Jelly Bean Row. Hope these colourful homes in St. John’s brighten up your Tuesday :-)

For more information on Jelly Bean Row and to see more photos by Geoff Meeker, check out:

Jelly Bean Row

To learn more about St. John’s, check out the city’s web site:

City of St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador

To see more of Kim Goodyear’s beautiful photography, check out her blog:

Kim Goodyear — Newfoundland photographer