Saturday, May 29, 2010

Behold the Magic of the Guru!

We have our dear Tilley back!  It was a long wait, but well worth it.

First, let us revisit the sad and pathetic condition in which we dropped her off at the guru's home....


Cream of Blah and peeling off the walls - not very cozy or plush in my opinion....


But now....

In this one you can see a copper horn that Pat had made a long while back and left at the guru's home.  The guru repurposed it into a decorative way to hide the wires going to the top cupboards.
Yes, you are seeing it correctly - upholstered wainscotting - the man is brilliant!

The colour is actually called Oxford Oxblood and it looks like distressed leather, like an antique men's club chair.
The pièce de résistance! Part of the Steampunk Canada logo is forever a part of our Tilley...I almost cried!
Here we have put in the new handles, the current curtains and the cushions.  The newly painted cooktop matches wonderfully with the copper horn.
And one last picture with cushions, curtains and the guru's fabulous work!

We highly recommend Brad McDonald for any interior upholstery work.  He listened to what we wanted and added his creative flair.  Make sure you have lots of time to leave it with him, but it's well worth the wait!

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Teaser.....

We will be picking up Tilley from the guru tomorrow....yes you heard right....tomorrow!

The first part (and a big one) will be done.  We will be one step closer to our steampunk dream trailer for two.

You can trust that there will be many photos posted when we have her back in our hot little hands.

Not being able to wait on buying luxury items for her (read us), we bought a feather bed.  It squishes into a zippered case that will fit nicely under one of the benches.  At night, after we set up the bed and bench cushions, the feather bed will go on top of those and under the sheets to give us a cozy, soft, luxurious sleep....aaaahhhh I can just imagine it now......Oh, sorry about that....

The big reveal will happen in the next day or two... until then a little ditty (on film ) from Tilley

http://www.nme.com/video/Vesta Tilley doing Burlington Bertie

Monday, May 17, 2010

Inspiration!

This past weekend we attended the Steampunk World's Fair.  While there we were able to meet Jake von Slatt and tour his steampunked bus.  It was a great place to get ideas for Tilley. 

Here are a few things we liked the most

We liked his shelves.  There are many books we would like to take for reading on rainy days.

We liked the embellishments.  Making the space cozy and rich with pillows, trims and Victorian style pieces like the clock and globe.

Lastly, while we most definitely have no space for a bathroom, we liked the homey feel of the space and the wonderful lighting fixtures.

For a more detailed account of Jake's project, go here Jake's School Bus Conversion

We hope to have Tilley back from the guru in about 2 weeks.  Once we have her back we can finally take our design ideas out of our heads and start putting them into reality.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

The Waiting Game

You know that anxious feeling you get when you have ordered something special online, or it's the night before Christmas, or your parents just promised to drive out on Saturday to get you your very own puppy, well that is how I have been feeling.  It has been a few weeks now since we dropped off Tilley at the guru's house to have her interior done and we are still waiting.  We know the demolition is done, we know the wiring and the leaks have been dealt with, we know the material has arrived and we know that he is working steadily on making her perfect.  What we don't know is when she'll be ready.  It's making me crazy!  Not postal crazy mind you, but cranky, anxious, want to call him every day and ask "Is she done yet?" "Is she done yet?" crazy.  It's not a pretty picture.

So to try and tame my impatient beast I decided to start thinking ahead to when we have Tilley back home. I like to do something I call imaginary retail therapy.  How does that work?  Well...as Inigo Montoya would say  "Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up".  It is very much like window shopping, but with a plan in mind and more information gathering.

There are things we know we will need for Tilley after her makeover.  Practical things like storage boxes, dishes, cutlery and so on and so on...   The easiest way to do imaginary retail therapy is online.  You can easily Google items of interest and see what pretties magically appear.  Like these lovely storage solutions:

 Or how about...



Restoration Hardware storage solution      A little pricey, but so beautiful.


The other thing I have been searching for are plates (dishes in general) that are non-breakable and practical, but fit with the steampunk look.  This is a little harder. I would like to get melamine or similar but not in crazy summer colours like bright orange or lime green - not that I don't love these colours but not for Tilley.

This I do love!



  The Bongenre website is amazing!  Bongenre Elegant Melamine  Who knew you could purchase such lovely melamine dishware. 

So to conclude - the therapy continues (with a little occasional dark chocolate thrown in) to help me relax until our Tilley is home again.