A discount in my shop

stacy reynaud

While I'm working on designing the Shop Bijou Living website I've added a few items to my little Bijou Living Etsy store. To show you my gratitude for hanging out with Bijou Living, I'm offering a 20% rebate for my chums. The rebate will be issued by me via Paypal after the purchase and is valid on the product, not the shipping. It cannot be applied to my current Facebook promotion.

Here's what you do:

1. Go to my shop
2. Add the item to your cart
3. Add the note - bijoulivingblog - in the note to seller box 
4. Select payment method
5. Submit order

Thanks again for your support!

Hemingway Tree House Residence | Piece of West Van Significant Architecture For Sale

Noted as a secondary building in the Survey of Significant West Vancouver Architecture, the Hemingway Tree House is now on the market SOLD for 1.6 million. Three storeys of 1977 architectural bliss! The home is a hop, skip and a jump away from the iconic 1966 Staples Residence. The home is hard to see from the road but take a drive by anyway - watch out for all the demolition going on though.

all images © Robert Crowe

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Tip of the Week - How to Naturally Scent a Room

 

stacy reynaud

Harvest your lavender before it goes brown and woody. 

Hang it upside down to dry for about a week.

Remove dried bits by running your hand in the opposite direction of the growth (top to bottom).

Place the lavender a jar and save for sprinkling on your carpets before you vacuum.

Keep the opened jar in your laundry closet to keep it smelling good.

You can also burn lavender in your fire but put it in the middle of the sandwich of wood you're burning so it doesn't spark out of the fireplace.

stacy reynaud

Another West Vancouver Home Demolition

I'll be the first to admit I've been lagging on these architecture posts - two reasons:

1. I'm just so p*ssed I don't even want to snap photos.
2. There are so many in West Vancouver I can't keep up! Seriously. Go down Marine Drive past 25th and it's like a bloomin' construction zone.

I have been saving cuttings from the newspapers about the needless rezoning of property and demolition of our West Coast heritage - the North Shore News and the Outlook have been doing a fabulous job writing stories and publishing letters. A few folks have spoken out in council meetings but apparently demolition permits are more important and garner more value than heritage.

stacy reynaud

Douglas Coupland - remember our chat at the Harmony Arts Festival? Come on - take a stand - and I mean something more than an interview in a local documentary, (that wasn't really about Vancouver anyway).

A couple weeks ago I went to a yard sale in which the house had a for sale sign out front with a big sold slapped on it. You know what that means in West Vancouver, bye bye house. I befriended the owners - a lovely elderly couple who weren't even thinking of selling their home until a realtor knocked on their door saying she had sold the neighbour's house and the buyers wanted theirs too. That's right - they bought the two houses - and both houses are going to be torn down. Sick, eh. Now we have realtors intimidating elderly folks into selling their homes!

It was hard to snap photos of the front of the house as there were so many large trees - which will also be torn down.

Here are a few from the inside. It was built in the 50s, is two storeys and pretty much all original - as you'll see by the washroom. A very clean, sturdy and sound house. What a loss.

 stacy reynaud

I bought this wicker lounge from them. They brought it back from the Philippines, where they had lived for 19 years. The gentleman of the house was a senior manager for a heavy metal mining company there.

Top photo is of Gordon Smith's note card before his speech at the Harmony Arts Festival in 2011. Take a read of it.

My Favourite Fall Comfort Food

stacy reynaud

I was at my doctor the other day getting lectured on the importance of eating. You see, I'm one of those eat to live not live to eat types. Most of the time I actually forget to eat and then it's too late - I'm hangry. Relate? Anyway, the good Doc said, 'Stace, even if you eat the same thing all the time just eat.' When she said that, I heard that Gates of Heaven sound. Thank you Doctor. Now can I have a Doctor's note for that please?

Thanks to my public servant holidays, I have the summers off and thus, have the apartment and meal time regimes to myself. My summer noms consist of:

1. peanut butter and banana rice cakes or roll ups
2. avocados
3. soda water
4. Tropix smoothies from the Anchor Eatery
5. iced coffee 
6. almonds and dried cranberries
7. Yves veggie dogs (piggies in a blanket because I roll them in a wrap)
8. boozicles

stacy reynaud

Quite a high fat diet now that I look at it in black and white. Oh well, as they say, 'It's good fat.'

Once Fall kicks around I find comfort in chowing down strictly on:

1. coconut oil baked yam fries
2. hot almond milk with matcha
3. mashed ginger yams
4. hot almond milk with black strap molasses
5. Papier mâché - aka plain oatmeal
6. stove popped coconut oil, agave and cayenne popcorn
7. cold-pressed juice - I like my juice room temperature and don't do smoothies in the Fall/Winter because they're too cold.

Hey, are you on Instagram? I finally am and you can find me here.

Our Scent | Inclusive | Exclusive

I met this woman years ago and she was wearing a really nice scent so I asked her what it was; she replied that it was an essential oil blend. Further inquiry yielded it was her 'own blend', and it was 'private'. Pft, well then. She was weird anyway - and had a haunted basement.

Remember what happened to Jean-Baptiste Grenouille - the protagonist of Patrick Suskind's Perfume: The Story of a Murderer? If you haven't read the book just go to the library and read the last chapter - (I call that technique, How to be Successful in Earning Your History Degree. For shame!).

Anyway, as you know, I'm a huge fan of Le Labo so the appropriate first stop for me on a recent trip to Los Angeles was 8385 West 3rd. I tell you, the last time I had been that excited was in 1978 at the Flintsones Amusement Park.  I was greeted by two gorgeous gals who thought my Vancouver accent was 'cute' (?). My mission was to get a bottle of Musc 25, the LA exclusive scent - which you can only buy online once a year. Well, for Ms. ADHD here, the store was just too much! Thankfully, I was reminded that I'd only traveled with carry on luggage and therefore couldn't bring any liquid over 3 ounces with us on the plane. I opted for the Musc 25 perfume oil and a handful of samples for loved ones. It took everything to hold me back from also buying the Oud 27, Patchouli 24 and Santal 33. Oh well, they have free shipping so there's always online.

Now that I'm back home, (and venturing out into society), people are asking me what scent I'm wearing. Usually, I wear amber resin, or essential oils of cedar and patchouli - which are pretty hard to carry off and folks don't have the wherewithal to scope them out. Where am I going with this post? Where do you think?

So, let's all smell the same - to save ourselves from the fate of Grenouille! It's City Exclusive time online at Le Labo again!