A little post with big news!

Hello, my sweet, wonderful friends! How are each of you as February wraps up? It's hard to believe that more than a month has whipped past since my last blog post here (for which I really cannot thank you all enough for your incredibly caring, supportive comments on). And - at the risk of veering into broken record territory - though this site remains very much on hiatus, I simply had to share some excellent news here with all of you.

As many of you know, Tony and I have been searching, ceaselessly, high and low for the past two months trying to find longer term housing (as our current digs were only temporary - especially since the lovely homeowners may convert it to an AirBnb soon and major renos on both floors have been underway for the last two months, whilst we were living here, to make the house even lovelier and more contemporary looking).

To say that this was one of the hardest and most stressful tasks of our entire lives would not be a stretch. The housing (especially rental) market around these parts is abysmal at best and laughable at worst. Think staggering high prices (even for shared accommodations; which was not something we were looking for at all), tons of competition for the few places that surface, homes that were/are often in deplorable condition, and a serious shortage of properties that accept pets.

Around the clock throughout all of January and very nearly the entire month of February, we searched, contacted listings, viewed homes, applied, and continually expanded our search radius as far as nine hours away from Penticton. With each passing day, our stress level rose and our already taxed nerves grew more frayed.

In the end though, mercifully, we didn't have to go anywhere near that far afield. As February started to draw to a close, we were elated and beyond thankful to have been approved and selected by the owners of a beautiful two-story home in the nearby community of Okanagan Falls and couldn't say "yes" quickly enough to their rentership offer.

This house was our favourite of all those we saw and the one we most hoped to be selected for. It checks off our major needs (including having a fenced backyard for our dog, Annie, to utilize), is in a safe, quiet neighbourhood, and is owned by really nice people who live right here in the Southern Okanagan, too.

Our new little community, Okanagan Falls (aka, OK Falls), is a spot that has appeared here in some of my outfit shoots over the years (such as this one from 2013), and which I've always enjoyed spending time in.

We're both delighted to be so close (just twenty minutes away) to Penticton (where we were living at the time of the fire) still and moreover to have a great new roof over our heads. As well as, we hope and pray, the ability to finally stop feeling like we're in a state of topsy-turvy flux and uncertainty (regarding housing) after what happened to us last October.

{Our boxes are packed, we've got a small team of friends and family to help, and tomorrow we'll be hopping from one side of Skaha Lake to the other when we move into our terrific new abode in Okanagan Falls. I truly cannon wait! Mid-century moving day photo image source.}


I've had to move houses really quickly a few other times in my life, but less than a week to pack, switch over services (utilities, internet, etc), get a new PO box, and scads of related things is definitely a new record for the fastest I've ever changed homes and we've not had a moment to even stop and catch our breath since signing our new lease.

I'm certainly not complaining though - far from it! This house (I don't have a photo of it yet, but will try to post one on my social media in the near future) is just perfect for us and we can't begin to convey how incredibly grateful we are for it (just as we were to have our temporary home in Kaleden over the winter months).

It is my sincere hope that once we're settled in and unpacked, I can finally allow myself some time to properly rest, recoup, recover, grieve (further), and get a better handle on where my health, life and very future itself are at this stage.

On the exact same day that we signed our new lease, our old house (the one that was destroyed by the fire) was finally demolished (they'd needed milder temps in order to safely do so). Some might see that simply as a coincidence, but to me it much more than just that and stands as the absolute perfect symbol of one chapter in our lives ending and another beginning.

None of knows what the future holds in store for us, but quite literally tomorrow, I know that we'll be moving into our new house and - even though my health is in shambles right now and I've rarely been more exhausted on every level than I presently am - I simply can't stop smiling and thinking positive thoughts about the life that we'll create and live in Okanagan Falls.

Absence makes the (blogger's) heart grow fonder

There comes a point - generally around the seven day mark - when, after having not blogged (let alone been on the computer one iota), a gal begins to pine for the internet. At first, after a day or two, or perhaps three, of not flicking on one her monitor, she feels almost as though a sense of freedom has permeated her universe. Days four and five are often ripe with events, findings, and thoughts which suddenly - as if out of the blue - feel as though they would make for the most inspired and delightful of posts.

Come the sixth and seventh days - and beyond - a longing sets in. Yes, there is solace and relaxation in the fact that one gets to unwind (or, perhaps more literally, unplug) for a spell, but then that itch, that yearning which resides in every writer's soul to put thought down on paper (virtual or real world) swims to the surface and leaps from the still waters like a hyperactive dolphin arching towards the heavens.

Or at least, this is how it is - always - for me. No matter the reason, intentionally chosen or thrust upon me, when I'm on a brief hiatus from the realm of blogging and being online, I feel that way. And when I do, I find my passion for blogging is suddenly, captivatingly, renewed (even if I didn't feel like it was waning in the slightest in the first place). A point which I rather adore experiencing.

Life, since we last chatted, dear friends, has been a massive whirlwind of activity, and yet also powerfully serene at times as well. The latter point, no doubt, comes from laying down each night under my mother's roof, at home after so many - too many - years on the long, engrained road of life.

Our new dwelling, gorgeous and begging to be filled with belongings and newly crafted memories, sits patiently still, as do my husband and I, while we await (a tad longer still) the arrival of our worldly goods, on a large truck that has to cross the great, massive width that is Canada.

{In the very near future it will be time to start the great unpacking - from boxes, bags, totes, you name it! Charmingly fun 1950s image via the Life magazine archives.}

I, however, simply had to find a computer, steal a moment (amidst days spent eating gluten-free s'mores for lunch and catching up on reading the many books I'd not had time to read over the past four months, as life became ever more devoted to our move), and pop in to say a cheerful hello from a (peacefully snowy) corner of British Columbia – as well as to thank everyone who left beautiful, encouraging comments on my last post. I adored logging in and feeling positively warm and fuzzy as I read them this evening.

Soon our belongings will arrive, followed by much unpacking, and then a return to the usual ebb and flow of life. Only (s0 much) better.

Happiest, sweetest wishes for an amazing March to you each. We'll connect again soon. ♥

British Columbia bound!

Fans of Canadian folk music may recall Gordon Lightfoot's classic 1970s song, Alberta Bound. It's something of an anthem for those headed to the land of open prairie skies, and its lyrics have been wafting through my mind for the last few days, as we've buzzed around like busy bees in preparation for our cross country move this week.

This time around though, our journey does not lead us to Alberta. Instead, as many of you know from my recent posts here, come late tomorrow evening, my husband and I will be touching down on British Columbia soil, ready to call Canada's most westerly province home (once again for me, first time for the mister).

The past several weeks have been ones of immense activity, planning, energy, fortitude, and a little bit of good old fashioned luck. Elbow grease, packing tape, and lengthy lists have abound, as has the enthusiasm that one could practically see hovering in the air around our place.

By this time tomorrow (assuming all goes as planned - and goodness, it better, our schedule for Thursday is so astronomically tight it makes a Victorian corset look like a muumuu!) the movers will be here, loading all of our earthly belongings (save for those in our suitcases) on to their large truck.

Somewhere, we're told, between 7 and 14 days after that, our household contents will reach us in beautiful British Columbia, and it is at that point that my husband and I will take up residency in our new home.

{Long haul moving, a service which this 1940s Canadian moving company offered, is on the agenda for us this week as we trek - by air! - across the breadth of Canada from Ontario to British Columbia. Image via the Saskatchewan Council for Archives and Archivists.}

In the meantime, we'll be staying with some of my relatives who live in the same town, and thus I suspect that this will be my last post for the next little while. If circumstances permit, I may post during the next two weeks, but if not, I'll do so once we've settled into our new abode and have the good ol' interwebs hooked up once more.

I want to thank you all sincerely for you wonderful support, encouragement, and positive words over the past couple of months, as we've been preparing night and day for the move. They’re really helped to keep my batteries charged during this endlessly hectic period.

It is with great eagerness that I look forward to blogging next from my home province, and sharing in the joys of living in B.C with all of you.

Know that I'll miss you dearly, and that with all my heart, I'm wishing each of you every bit as much joy in your own life as I'm experiencing in mine right now. ♥

Less than two weeks to go until the big day!

Over the past several years there have been quite a few dates, known often weeks or even months in advance, that I was anything but eager about. Many were the sort of days that you try in vain to stare at the calendar and hope will somehow magically vanish before your eyes.

While I'm not certainly not saying every day was cringe worthy, it's been a rather long time since I was bursting at the seams with excitement and anticipation over a date's arrival. Our moving day, February 23rd, is just such a date – and I’m elated about that point.

Though it's fraught with things that I'm concerned about (our schedule that day is so astronomically tightly packed, you couldn't squeeze a pin into it anywhere if you tried!), such as the fact that our darling cat, Stella, will be flying on an airplane for the first time, the joy and eagerness that is accompanying this move go a long way towards pacifying such concerns.

The fact that my husband and I experiencing this move together, that we can comfort one another when worries crop up or lend a helping hand when the other person grows exhausted from packing or planning, is an important blessing unto itself, too.

As we cross more and more dates off of February's calendar this year, I know that these last few days (before the move) will likely be the busiest we've faced over the past couple of months.

{A sweetly charming vintage calendar page from February 1954 featuring an illustrated Victorian era couple. Image via cindyiscrafty on Flickr.}

 

I'll be posting here whenever I can, and (fear not!) certainly won't hop provinces without (very temporarily) saying goodbye to all of you. Your support and enthusiasm about this wonderful step in my life has really helped give me energy and comfort during this hectic, exciting time in my life.

I hope that your Sunday and Valentine's week ahead is one of loveliness and felicity, and that you'll join me, sweet dears, in continuing to count down the days until I get to once again call beautiful British Columbia home.

Totally psyched to have a basement of our own

Basements, as a general subject, might not be the kind of thing that reeves up most people's engines - at least not in the way that a dazzling kitchen, freshly renovated powder room, or stunning garden might.

I admit, as a whole they're usually not my absolute favourite corner of most homes (in part because the largest spider - if it wasn't a tarantula it was darn near close - I ever saw was in a basement when I was a little girl), but that certainly isn't to say that I dislike them either.

So long as they're dry, well ventilated and properly finished, basements can be fantastic places. Thus is not the case for all underground portions of homes though.

Prior to moving into our current apartment, my husband and I lived in a rather dark, nearly window-less basement (the tiny windows that were there had bars on them, which yes, I know is illegal - we didn't put them on, the homeowner did long before we moved in) for over two years. It was, to say the least, a less than wonderful experience.

When we moved into that kind of environment, we did so believing that we would only be there for a few months (max!). Little did we know that events would play out in our lives that would end up keeping us there for much longer than anticipated. When the time came at long last to move, we wanted to get as far away from dank, depressing basements as was humanly possible, and so our house hunting lead us to a high rise apartment.

This home, while far from perfect either (oh the horror stories about this building I could tell you!), was a huge improvement over our previous abode here in Toronto, and for all it's shortcomings, it has served us pretty well for the past three and half years.

Now though, as many of you know, that time has come for us to move once more. Not just from this apartment building, but from Ontario. We're headed to my home province of British Columbia and to a house, that at long last, isn't just one floor.

Finally, in a charming condo, my husband and I are going to have two floors and a basement all to ourselves. This point, as you might imagine, makes me more than a little giddy!

The basement in our new place isn't massive, but it's not super tiny either. It has plenty of room for me to create a dedicated craft space, as well areas for storage, and a washer and dryer (after years of not having laundry facilities in our home, I'm beyond thrilled about that!!!).

Though the paint (and floor colours) are not the same, and there are some other differences in certain respects (there won’t be all the woodworking and DIY equipment, for example), over all our new basement (as I've seen it in photos and videos), looks a fair bit like the 1940s one pictured below.

{Industrious and attractive, this wonderful basement from 1947 is bursting with creative possibilities and plenty of space for everyone in the household to partake in their favourite hobbies, much as our new basement will allow us to do as well. Image via saltycotton on Flickr.}

To me moving into a house with a basement, the rest of which is also ours to occupy is symbolic of how we've come over the years. Are we moving into a mansion? Goodness, no, but as I sit here now, a little over a month from our moving date, I can't help but feel like this new home is every bit as significant and meaningful as if we were.

So, dear new house basement, I look forward to our impending meeting and the fact that you are the foundation upon which our whole home - and much of our home life - will be built.

Hunting for really good clothes hangers

Did you know that in the US alone, since the late 1800s, clothes hangers have been awarded over 200 different patents? Neither did I until I started researching this everyday workhorse of the wardrobe world, but it turns out they have - and many more designs have existed around the world for ages (some sources cite Thomas Jefferson as having invented a forerunner of the modern wooden hanger).

For as long as humans have worn clothing (unless everything they had was carried on their person at all times), we've needed places in which to store our duds. From chests of draws to towering wardrobes, footlockers to suitcases, clothing - which gives us so much and asks so little in return - always needs someplace to live when not being worn.

At some point (I suspect fairly early on), modern man (or woman!) came up with the idea of a closet, and the rest, as they say, is history. Few of us these days are without at least one closet in our homes, and most have several. Some closets are designed solely for shelves, but most intended for clothing have a bar (or multiple bars) on which we lovingly dangle our wardrobes.

The closet that I have at present is, to say the least, on the pocket sized side of things! From the bar to the shelve to the space on the floor, I've carefully crammed as much into that itsy-bitsy bit of space as I can - which is all the more reason why I'm thrilled about the fact that our new house is going to have a larger (slightly walk-in!) closet.

While I won't be giving a Hollywood starlet a run for her money in the closet department anytime soon, I'll joyfully take any increase in clothes storage space I can get - especially because I've already got more clothes, shoes, and accessories than my current closet can house.

One thing I picked up on ages ago is that, generally speaking, the less bulky your hangers, the more you're able to comfortably fit onto one closet bar. At the moment we're using a mixture of wood and plastic hangers, most of which were picked up from Walmart, Zellers or Canadian Tire. They're perfectly fine hangers, but most of them could be a little thinner, if you ask me.

{While I don't want to contradict myself, if I could find a stash of super cute 1950s plastic hangers like these darling children's ones, I might just be willing to give up some closet bar space for them Image via galessa's plastics on Flickr.}

 

I've also grown rather fond of the idea of all of my hangers looking unified and completely matchy-matchy (in a nod to said starlet's closet, which - at least the ones I've seen in magazines - often tend to have rows of perfectly matching hangers). As such I thought it was high time I started testing the waters in terms of what's out there on the hanger front.

Unfortunately, living in Canada, we don't have the abundance or array or organizational, department, or big box stores that the fine folks in the States do from which to shop for hangers, but there are still some options. That said, on top of the three chains mentioned above, there are handful of spots at which to find hangers including (but not limited to) Winners, Ikea, Home Sense, and Bed, Bath & Beyond. Based on my online research last week, the latter has the largest selection, hands down.

As much as I love frilly, girly, padded hangers (think back to those floral print ones that were all the rage in the 80s and 90s), if you’re aiming to save closet bar space, they are not the best choice for your primary hanger (though it's a good idea to usually have a few padded ones on hand for particularly delicate or otherwise special garments that you might not want to rest on plastic, flocked, or wood hangers).

Instead, when space is at a premium, you'll probably want to go with slim line or ultra hangers, which are generally made from plastic (that's often covered in a soft flocking to help hold garments in place). It's these svelte little sweeties that I'm thinking may very well be what my closet (in both it's current and future state) is longing for.

Before plunking down any cold, hard cash on new hangers though, I'm thoroughly curious to know what kind all of you use (and/or love the most) in your closet.

As I know many of yours are too, the bulk of my wardrobe is comprised of vintage pieces, so I'd never opt for metal or anything with the potential to harm my clothes. I need to keep my budget in mind, but am ok with paying a little more if the quality is really top top-notch.

So, my lovelies, please let me know what sort hangers you adore most. I’ll be here, hanger-ing out for your replies , and will let you know which ones I decide to go with in a future post .

Well we're moving on up

Or to be more accurate, we're technically moving down - to the ground floor that is. Oh, and in another city. In different a province.

That's right, sweet dears, for the inaugural Chronically Vintage post of 2012, I come bearing (what is for my family and I) extremely good news! In a matter of weeks, my husband and I will be leaving Toronto and heading to my home province of British Columbia.

The decision to make this move is a very multi-faceted one that was not, by any stretch of the imagination, reached lightly. For the last few weeks, the mister and I have debated, planned, and endlessly discussed the pros and cons of leaving Toronto, and ultimately decided that moving is the right thing for us at this point in our lives.

There is - as cross country moves by their very nature to involve - much work to be done between now and when we leave Ontario at the end of February, but that's more than okay, because I can't remember the last time we were looking so forward to a major life change.

{Moving nearly always entails a lot of work, planning and a dollop of luck, but it's worth it in the end if you get to end up someplace you love, as we'll be doing when we head out to B.C. in a few weeks. Charming 1940s moving day themed beer ad via paul.malon on Flickr.}

 

For the time being, things around these blogging parts will be much the same. With last year's Vintage 365 behind us, posts will likely appear here two to three (or more) times a week, right up until the final days that I'm in Toronto, and then they'll pick up again once we're settled into our new place in B.C. (it will take our furniture and belongings a couple of weeks to arrive on the moving truck, so I may be MIA around then, but I'll let you all know for sure as those days draw nearer and I better know how things are going to unfold).

So, while (in an admittedly retro nod) the Jeffersons we're moving on up, we're moving on down from our little high rise apartment to a ground floor condo, in a beautiful town, in my favourite Canadian province, and that really is a piece of the pie, in our books!