Blogger Showhome House & Home Event

I attended the Blogger Showhome House & Home event tonight.  What a blast it was!  We got to tour the showhome, meet the people involved in creating it, and ask questions. 
The house is a modern take on a traditional Ontario farmhouse and hit all the right notes in my mind.  It is a lovely house and really should be seen in person to be fully appreciated.  Tickets are on sale now to tour the house and it is open for viewing starting on Saturday (you can find out details about ordering tickets here).  Not only is touring the house a treat for you, but all the proceeds go to the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre to help conquer cancer in our lifetime.

I don't want to give away everything about the house so I thought I would show you a few take-away ideas I saw while touring the house and my favourite room.  
1) Make your pathways from rectangular stones separated by grass.  The pathways looked like modern stepping stones.  

Even the patio was done this way.  This could totally work around most homes and would be much easier to do than laying a solid stone pathway or patio (well not having done either - I assume it would be anyway).

2)  Decorate the dining room table with a series of bowls, vases, and bottles in a unified colour palette   I've done my homework and counted the containers for you - all it takes is three white vases, seven blue glass bottles, three low blue bowls, and an assortment of eight pottery vases in a variety of patterns and shapes and sizes.  Definitely doable!

3) Add some stripes.  In the basement a variety of stripes added interest to the TV room.  There was an interesting patterned rug with red, green, and beige stripes, as well as a black-and-white patterned throw on the chair, 

and painted striped sticks in a vase in the corner.  I love this!  I'm so going to steal borrow this idea myself and paint some stripey sticks for our house.

4) Use a large wicker container as a bedside table.  The ones used in the house were a lovely mix of a modern form and traditional material.

And as for my favourite room in the house - it would have to be the study.  I loved the cheerful colours on the chair, the sofa, and the throw cushions.  And I loved the tall stack of wood on either side of the fireplace.  And I loved the round table that was so simple, yet so elegantly constructed.

There were several Toronto area bloggers that I chatted with.  I was also excited to meet many of the well known faces from the pages of the Canadian House and Home magazine.  I particularly enjoyed chatting with Lisa from the blog Wicked & Weird and Margot Austin, the Editor of Special Issues for Canadian House & Home (you can find her blog here).  
I featured Margot's kitchen awhile back on one of my WISH Wednesday posts (which you can see here) and I've obsessed over her house that was featured recently in the magazine.  It is a perfectly decorated tiny jewel of a house and it is just what I would love to have (well that and a country place).  We had fun chatting about design and the showhome and the maritimes and lots of things. 

Being a good blogger, I thought to ask Margot what her favourite parts of the house were and she wanted to give me a list of ten things.  Given that my brain can't hold that much information without pen and paper, she restricted herself to three things.  So here they are ... drum roll ...
First, she liked how the house is the perfect blend of traditional and modern.  The outside being more traditional - like a farmhouse that has had additions built onto it - yet when you step in the door you are immediately drawn to all the openness and light and modern clean lines.  As you move from room to room you are struck by the balance between the modern and traditional elements.
Second, the marble island in the kitchen (not the best photo of it, but you can see it in the background in the photo below).

Third, the AGA stove (I was rather agog at this as well as I had never seen one in real life before).

I had to agree with her on all three counts.  
It is a wonderful house - decorated thoughtfully and beautifully.  I would encourage anyone who lives in the Toronto area to buy a ticket and go and tour the house.  And for those of you who live too far to see the house, you can see more photos here.