April started with a reno in our bedroom. I forgot to take the before photo, but I do have a picture of this area on the day we moved in 13 years ago.  There were 2 mirrored closets & a make up area in the middle, which we smashed out that first day to put up a wardrobe to hold more clothes. 

That was pretty much how it stayed, aside from a couple coats of paint over the years.  Then, kind of out of nowhere, we had the opportunity to have a guy demo the area so we seized on it. 

I did manage a quick photo right before the demo with the mirrors off the closet and the clothes out -

The plaster partitions made for quite the mess!

We also had a popcorn ceiling so we had that scraped clean too - 

When the dust had finally settled we had this -

In the meantime, I went to IKEA and picked out a PAX closet system, had all 32 boxes delivered to the house and then started building it with the help of my trusty sidekick. I totally forgot what it's like to build IKEA furniture with a cat around.

Time to put them up -

And now, the before (without the mirror doors) - 

And after - 

Voila! What a difference this PAX wardrobe makes!

So clean and pretty and there's tons of space - 

Now that we have a new wardrobe, I need to go out and get a new wardrobe for it. ;)

Do you have a PAX system? Do you love it as much as we do?

In between cleaning, purging, sorting and building, we managed to go see a tribute to The Band, with Levon Helm's daughter, Amy Helm, Corb Lund and Matt Andersen. What a great show! I have to say though, if Matt Andersen is ever in your neck of the woods, go see him. His voice is unbelievable, especially live, he'll give you chills.

And a night out at The Citadel to see, Peter and the Star Catcher, a spin on Peter Pan. They had such clever ways to use the stage and props.

In April we also introduced the family dog, Sheila to Mickey. We were rather nervous about this meeting and by we, I mean me. 

I thought Sheila would chase Mickey around and terrorize him, but it was kind of the other way around. Mickey wanted to play (note the tapping on Sheila's butt) and Sheila wanted us to rescue her from the diabolical kitty - ha!  

They have had a few visits since, and they're almost at the point where they ignore each other, but Mickey still tap, tap, taps at first. :)

I took an embarrassing amount of photos of Mickey this month, mostly sleeping because he changes it up all the time - 

I could go on...

The Easter Bunny came again! He knows that beer and chocolate are the way to my heart.

And we had another special visitor, a Spruce Grouse was picking away at the dirt in our front garden the other day. Though it's hard to make out, it is a rather strange site to see in the suburbs.

But most importantly, this April, Judy came back from Phoenix and we have been working on lots of new jewels!  

So take a gander around the web shop & if you haven't liked and followed us on our Facebook Page, The Bead Tree (link at the bottom right of the front page) for our latest news, you might miss out on items like this owly bracelet - 

Snatched up on The Bead Tree Facebook page before I could put it up for sale here.

Happy Spring friends! Hope your days are filled with sunshine.