Still in mid renovation. The walls are down. The floors are peeled back, and the original ones are exposed. We are living in a state of civilized chaos. The demolition proved to be some what of an excavation. Many layers of paint and wallpaper, a doll arm, 1980′s baseball cards, and a lot of 100 year old dirt, dust and rubble.
The wall with the bookshelf was was actually a doorway from way back when. You could see the roughed out frame of the old doorway trim from behind the drywall. As you can see in the next photo that wall is now gone.
Tonight’s art crawl will feature a super cool exhibit called Zoo at Loose Canon Gallery. I’m plugging this exhibit not only because Steve has work in this show, but also because there are some sickeningly talented artists that are part of the show too.
Jacqui and Jamie hanging the signage for Zoo at Loose Canon Gallery.
Jacqui Oakley and Jamie Lawson are the curators of this show, and are also unbelievably amazing artists, whose work will be exhibited in this show.
Here’s a little sample of some of their work.
Jonah & The Whale -Jamie Lawson
Image from: jamielawsondesign.com
woodpecker illustration -Jacqui Oakley
Image from: jacquioakley.com This link will take you Jacqui’s website, where she details some of her processes in doing this beautiful illustration (so much work to do behind the scenes!)
*Loose Canon Gallery, 150 James St. north, Hamilton
Last weekend we visited the Aberfoyle Antique market on a hot and gorgeous summer day. For the small price of $2 per person we were granted access to more antiques than you could ever dream of. There were some good bargains, while some vendors were looking to fetch a pretty penny. We bought some old postcards to add to our growing collection, a steel grate that we will use as our cold air return floor grate (we were happy for the find because old grates are hard to come by), and two steel outdoor chairs that I love.
We picked up these 2 metal chairs for $35 each for our backyard. I love their seafoam bluey green colour.
The Aberfoyle market is open every Sunday 8am-4pm, starting generally from the last Sunday of April to the last Sunday of October, rain or shine.
July 1st is our official 2 year mark of being Hamiltonians. After the Canada Day fireworks at Bayfront Park we went to This Ain’t Hollywood to check-out the sounds of the one and only Lee Fields and his 7 piece funk/soul band The Expressions.
The show was fantastic. Lee Fields has clearly been around a while, although this was the first I had heard of him. His voice is phenomenal, and I would even be so bold as to say he rivals the funk and soul classic Mr. James Brown.
*This Ain’t Hollywood, 345 James St. North, Hamilton, 905.529.9500
This weekend I had my ultimate Korean bbq dream come true. My friend Vern had suggested a Korean bbq themed backyard party at our place. Such a good idea!
I made Japanese gyoza dumplings of 3 varieties (chive, dill, & garlic scapes). I picked the herbs right from our garden to complement the ground pork, chopped cabbage, and crushed garlic gyoza mixture.
I gathered this year’s first home grown bouquet for a table centrepiece. I threw in some fresh mint, lavender, and even some little yellow blossoms that came from our bok choys (they’ve already shooted and started running hence the blossoms). So far I’m loving the early summer harvest of fresh flowers, & delicious herbs.
Here’s mine and Vern’s combined spread of a mixture of Japanese homemade tsukemono and Korean pickles and sides, plus the pan fried gyoza, fresh cold tofu with grated ginger, green onions, and soy sauce (super refreshing). The table was already ram-packed, and the bbq’d meat was still to come!
Vern brought Kalbi short ribs, that she marinated Korean style for 2 days. I put together Japanese yakitori chicken sticks, marinated over night in a reduced version of soy sauce, sugar, mirin, and sake. I saved the left over marinade to glaze on top while bbq’ing.
Fresh picked lettuce from the garden to wrap meat in, after dipping in sauces and adding kimchee or pickles.
Homegrown lettuce with samgyupsal (bbq'd pork belly), dipped in a savoury sesame oil sauce, with kimchee, and baby sugared dried anchovies.
Dessert black sesame ice-cream with garden fresh mint, strawberries and condensed milk.
Construction worker, when will it be done? Will it ever be done?
This song by The Golden Dogs expresses how I feel about renovations. Will it ever be done?
The first time I saw The Golden Dogs was by chance at the most energy packed, amazing show ever for NXNE at the Horseshoe about 5 years ago. The crowd went ape shit when they pounced into a cover of Paul McCartney’s Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five, which I might add is one super stellar song to cover.
Someone once told me that the song Construction Worker was about the construction that was going on with the streetcar tracks in Toronto at the time at either College or Dundas. It makes all the more sense, as there is still always streetcar track construction going on.
Nearly 2 years ago we started renovating our 100 something year old Victorian row house. And just last week we started demoing the main floor. More pictures to come soon.
Sometimes when I get into something like picking plaster off a wall, I get right into it. This was me still in my office clothes chipping away at the shared interior wall by the stairs. We exposed the bricks going all the way up the stairs. It was an extremely messy, dusty and asthma attack worthy process.
New staircase put in. We cheaped out and got the carpet grade stairs made from pine. But we stained, painted and finished them, and they look great! Still need to finish the landing piece, but we’re waiting until we figure out what we’re doing with the floors first. So long extremely dangerous original staircase!
Recently I went to a Victorian tea bridal shower; a nice twist to what can sometimes predictably be a lengthy present opening, women only, sandwich munching bridal shower. Well there were sandwiches, and lots of women, but for some reason a tea party can make everything just seem so much more fun! It was a great occasion to don extravagant hats, pretty gloves, and other appropriate tea time attire.
Each guest brought a vintage tea cup and saucer, with a little story. At the end of the party the bride to be gets to take home an eclectic variety of tea cups and saucers that each have a unique story or memory.
With the summer patio season here I’ve been finding myself regularly frequenting The Ship trying out their delicious menu eats (gator bites, fish tacos, northern exposure burger) and sampling some of their refreshing beers à la pint all in the comforts of their patio.
There was a short time when only the bar menu was offered on the patio, but with some recent pairing down of their menu you can now eat your burger, drink a pint or two and sit outside until your hearts content.
