choices

It has been big decision time at the new General 54.

Walls:

We chose the wall paint (my go-to CC-130) and the ceiling paint (Hague Blue).

I love the creamy white with the blue of the ceiling. The ceiling colour changes depending on the light, ranging from blue grey to navy to stormy-ocean blue. And the ivory is buttery without being too yellow.

As for the exterior I wanted something like this:

 The exterior of Frankie’s 17.

And so another classic Annika colour pick: my trusty Onyx

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It looks classic and cool and will look even better once the purple is all gone on the bottom cement bit and the signage is in.

Floors:

We were having a hard time finalizing which design to go with for the stencil on the floor. A painter we met with recommended a larger pattern to save costs which sort of threw a wrench in my small, intricate design dream of a stencilled floor. Then Jen (owner of the General and clothing designer) found this great print on line:

  I love the Art Deco print and I think it will look really pretty on the floor. Flowers but not girly.

We are thinking Westcott Navy (it’s grey) below for the over-all floor colour with the Fort Pierce Green on top for the stencil:

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Or maybe a dark blue on top of the grey? Not sure. We may have to do some tests. But I think the base colour is gorgeous.

Lighting:

One of my favourite things to choose in a space is the lighting. It adds character and depth to the space. It can be just the thing to turn a nice space into a spectacular space. So even if your budget is limited don’t forget money in the budget for lighting. It is often the last thing people consider but it really is transformative and can make a room sing. I went to Lambert et Fils last week and fell deeply in love with these lights:

They are Art Deco (again!) style milk glass. Gorgeous on their own but so extra gorgeous all lined up as displayed in the store. My idea was to recreate this look for the General over the big merchandise table that will be in the shop’s front/middle area. I chose eight of these and they will hang in two rows of four at the same height. It will be just the wow factor (yuk, I can’t believe I just wrote that) I wanted when you walk in to the store. For the changing rooms I chose two of these bullet shaped ones:

And over the cash Samuel Lambert will make us something like this:

A little hard to read in the picture but it’s a long horizontal rod with two bulbs at either end. He is making it to measure so that it fits perfectly above our cash area. Can’t wait to see it!

Also, Sam is wiring 5 of these lights that Jen had bought at the flea market a while ago:

We just need to clean them and paint them. I’ll go look at colours for them today. Missing in the lighting is something for the exterior, something to go over the office area and maybe something for the window displays. So some work left to do in lighting world but the big, statement lighting is chosen and I love it all!

I’m really excited by the direction the General is heading in. I think it will be pretty great. I need a few more ideas to manifest themselves but we are totally on track.

Mondays:

In the dreary, cold winter months, I had a fantasy of what summer would be like once my baby girl was in daycare full time. This past Monday morning my fantasy came true.The hubby and I dropped the kids off together, went for coffee together, came home, cuddled, and read the paper.Then he went to the gym and I did laundry (NOT part of the fantasy but my reality). We met up again an hour later and ditched it all to go to the pool. We ate sandwiches and chatted and laughed and swam: exactly what we used to do in the summertime pre babies. It was heaven. It was only for a short time but it was heaven. Mondays are his only day off during the week and the last four have been eaten up by holidays (which means kids are home from school) or other commitments. This was our first nothing-to-do-except-for-a-few-little-things-day in forever. In the hustle and bustle of family and work and the everyday stresses, it’s sometimes easy to forget that the person you’ve chosen to live all these things with is your best friend and that you really enjoy spending time with each other. It is so hard for us to get a chance to talk to each other-our kids take up so much of the chatter and once they are asleep, we are usually too tired to really connect. Which is why days like this are as precious as gold.

Then we picked the kids up from daycare and took them to the movies to beat the heat. Pretty darn fun. Even though the 20 month-old was waaaaaaayyyyyyy too young to sit through the movie and spent much of the movie running up and down the aisles in bare feet natch (she refused to put them back on-pick your battles). I was looking over at the three loves of my life stuffing their faces with popcorn and it made me so super happy. We capped the movie off with a few rounds on the “structure”  as my son calls it (playground), and then dinner at our favourite Indian restaurant. This day was what summer in the city should be. Heaven.

xa