Today I want to introduce you to a new blog favorite of mine, KITKA design toronto and to share a few images of their gorgeous cottage remodel. (Click here for more pictures!) I don’t know what I love the most about this cottage – the white floors and walls, the high ceiling, the use of plywood or all the great furniture and details! (Maybe the plywood, it looks really amazing.) I think that if I ever had a cottage like this I would never want to leave it!

But enough gushing already, I’ll let John and Juli tell you more about themselves:

“We are John & Juli, and we live in Toronto Ontario. Back in January we decided to share our collective obsession with design by starting on our blog KITKA. We wanted to create a design blog from a Toronto perspective, featuring local design shops, architecture, andl vintage finds. With the renovation of our inherited cottage, however, our Scandinavian influences became very apparent, from design aesthetics to furniture to nic nacks.

We spent the summer renovating Juli’s parent’s old Georgian Bay cottage. Since we had a minuscule budget we had to do a lot of the work ourselves. That meant removing the old linoleum floors, refinishing and painting the old hardwood, tearing down walls, building a kitchen, and keeping the rest minimal.”

Thank you so much John and Juli for inviting us in and sharing about your amazing project!

All images by Kitka design toronto.

Ps. Alison from Lipstick on Your Teeth featured our home on her blog yesterday. Thanks Alison!

Here’s lovely inspiration from photographer Amanda Prior’s portfolio. I love the earth tones and the styling in these images. And how great is that sofa upholstered in different black and white Ikea fabrics?! I LOVE it.

It’s the Midsummer this weekend which means it’s a 3 day weekend over here in Finland so I’ll take a little blogging break too, I see you again next week. Have a lovely weekend and fun and safe Midsummer’s Eve celebrations!

(Images from Amanda Prior Photography)

It has been a busy week so far, not much time to take pictures or to blog, but I wanted to share with you these lovely images from LivingEtc. I love our new home but I already have dreams and plans for our next home (you know, in ten years or something, I don’t want to leave our lovely home any time soon!) and one of these is to have a really nice dining area in the kitchen and also have a separate dining room. Our kitchen, like all the rooms in our home, is quite small so you can just about fit a table that seats 4 in there, but in the future I’d love a long lovely table that everyone could gather around to. What about you – if you could change one thing about your home or add one room, what would it be? I would add a dining room for sure!

(All images from LivingEtc)

I love to see inside other people’s homes – especially real homes, ones not overly styled for a professional photo shoot, homes you can find at Apartment Therapy’s House tours, Design*Sponge’s Sneak Peeks and on Flickr. I though I’d share a few images of my recent favorite, Erin and Melanie’s lovely home featured on AT. And speaking of house tours, the lovely Ana at Rearranged Design posted a house tour (+ interview) of our new home yesterday. Check it our here.

(All images from Erin and Melanie’s house tour at Apartment Therapy)

While my decorating style is far from minimalistic I do tend to gravitate to simple and clean lines and calm and airy spaces. Maybe part of it is that we Finns usually shy away from too fussy things and like to keep things simple, and part is obviously the fact that I love the style, but also there’s that little part that is scared of using too many patterns and colors and things. I adore spaces like these beautifully photographed by Hallie Burton – they are filled with things but are far away from being fussy. I always admire people who can decorate like this, with so many interesting details but still keeping the over all look serene. I worry that if I tried to decorate like this it would only look cluttered and messy, that I wouldn’t be able to find just the right balance this style needs. Also I worry that in the end I would get tired of the look easily. But still, I think there is something special to this style and I’d love to learn more about it. We’re thinking about making the upstairs hallway into a little “gallery space” for art, photographs etc, so maybe that’s the perfect place to start practising!

(All images by Hallie Burton)

Now that summer is finally here (the weather here has been amazingly warm and sunny for mid-May) many Finnish people’s thoughts turn to summer cottages, especially ones by the sea or a lake. And is there really a nicer place to spend sunny summer days than by the water? I love the clean simple look of this small summer house featured in Sköna Hem magazine. The big glass doors open up the small space into the nature around it and the white walls, floors and ceilings make everything look so light and airy. This is definitely my kind of summer cottage!

(All images from Sköna Hem)

Lovely photography by Pia Ulin, I absolutely adore these black and white interiors. I probably couldn’t decorate my own house only with black and white (and wood) but I really admire those who do and with so much style. What about you, how do you feel about decorating with black? Just a couple of years ago I didn’t have anything black in my home and didn’t think I ever would, but once we bought the lovely black chairs from Ikea we’ve been adding more black color into our decorating ever since.

(All images by Pia Ulin)

Looking through LivingEtc’s image gallery, these bedrooms caught my eye. All have white simple bedding, it’s so easy to add a little bit of color or patterned textiles to it and still keep the overall look very peaceful.

Happy Friday everyone, see you next week!

(All images from LivingEtc)

Oh my! How much do I wish our kitchen was big enough for a bench like that? I’ve always wanted to have one in the kitchen but not many apartments have kitchens big enough for that. I absolutely adore these two images from Sköna Hem, what delicious colors and patterns!

(Images from Sköna Hem)

Oh my! I love this home in Bolig Magasinet! It would be very hard to go wrong with those high ceilings and the exposed beams but rest of the home is equally amazing. I especially love the kitchen and the little fire place.

(Images from Bolig Magasinet)