B is for Balenciaga

hen I travelled through France in 2008 for my belated honeymoon (I got married in 2006), one of my biggest regrets was not buying something special to remember my trip by. Don't get me wrong, I bought small things here and there, but not something that was extravagant. There were 2 things that I almost bought and didn't during my trip and those were a Longchamp Le Pliage tote and a Balenciaga City bag. 

When I was in Nice, France almost every other girl carried a Longchamp tote. I didn't know at the time what it was because in the city where I live nobody carried them. I was going back and forth whether I should buy it or not and ended up not buying it. On the plane ride home, a couple sitting in front of us had a Longchamp shopping bag and I regretted it right away. I couldn't stop thinking about it so when I was visiting Montreal last February for work I made a pit stop to Ogilvy, a high-end department store, and bought my first Longchamp Le Pliage tote. 

As for the Balenciaga, I made it my goal to stop by the Balenciaga store in Cannes, France while we were there. We don't have a free standing Balenciaga store in the city where I live so I just wanted to check it out. I wasn't planning on buying a bag because I knew they were super expensive. However, my husband almost bought it for me that day. He kept nudging me to try on the colour that I wanted, but I decided that it was too expensive and we left empty-handed. What a mistake! Because we all know that once you start having kids and buy a house, owning a luxury designer item goes down the priority list pretty rapidly. So long story short, buy it while you can and if you can. Of course, you have to still live by your means…

Now, I had a bit of money that I had gotten as a push present after having my 2nd. I knew I wanted to use that to put towards a designer purse. My husband had a boys trip to Las Vegas last week and I decided that it was the perfect time to use that money. I had to still save up a little bit more to buy the purse that I really wanted, but my husband was nice enough to just get it for me.

I was debating between 2 brands, but in the end Balenciaga won. Finally my 2008 regret was no longer! 

I gave my husband a detailed list with the different options (just in case they didn't have one in stock) so that he would be well-prepared when buying my purse. I based my colour choices of the Balenciaga bags from their official website and what they had listed in stock. I decided to just go with the regular hardware because I think it is classic and it will go with everything. I detest the giant hardware (the G21. It is discontinued now. Thank goodness!) because I think it looks gaudy and tacky. The mini Giant hardware (the G12) is ok, but again, I wanted the regular antique brass hardware. And the G12's are more expensive.

My first choice- Balenciaga City in Glycine.
This was a S/S 2012 colour. After looking at all the purses in my closet I realized
I didn't have a purple colour and I LOVE purple.

My second choice- Balenciaga City in Jacinthe.
This was a F/W 2012 colour. I thought this colour would go well with a lot of things in my
closet because it almost looked like a denim colour.

My third choice- Balenciaga City in Parme.
I think this was a F/W 2011 colour. This colour leans on the pink side, but it is also neutral
enough that it would go with a lot of colours in my closet.

My fourth choice- Balenciaga City in Rose Bonbon.
This is the S/S 2013 colour. I normally wouldn't get a pink purse, but I thought this would
be a fun idea for spring/summer. 

My fifth choice- Balenciaga City in Black.
Classic and I don't have any black bags in my collection. However, I wanted to get a
colourful Balenciaga bag because that's what they are know for- their fantastic array of
colours. I can get a basic black in a cheaper bag…

My other choice from a different brand was the Louis Vuitton Speedy 30 Bandouliere.
I know I already talked about this when I posted about my LV Key Pouch here, but I
didn't actually try this on in person (they didn't have the 30 size in stock when I went
to the store a couple of weeks ago) so I wasn't sure how it would look on my frame.
My husband said he went and saw this purse in person, but he hates the Damier Ebene print.
I don't know why because I bought him a Damier Ebene print wallet and he still uses it to
this day. Maybe he hates this print on girls? 

So what bag did I get and what colour???

I got the Balenciaga City in Jacinthe! They didn't have the Glycine. My husband said
he saw Rose Bonbon and Black and whatever other colours that they had in the store,
but he said this was the nicest one. I'm a little bit mad because the colour that they had
online was completely different from the true colour of Jacinthe. Jacinthe is more of a
purple-ish blue. Online it shows up as a blue. I still love it though because I love my
purples. So I suggest that you see the colours in person before purchasing it online.
The Purse Forum is also a great resource to check out. Not just for Balenciaga bags.
Oh, and lovebbags.com is also a great Balenciaga bag resource site.

And here is the back.

The famous stitching on the handles of Balenciaga purses.

The bag closes with 2 zipper pulls.
The difference (other than the hardware) between the Classic-style and the Giant-style are
that the Classics have the leather tassels while the Giants do not.

You can tell the real from the fakes by the rivets. Real Balenciaga bags (post 2004) should
have notches at the top and bottom.

Another indication is the bale. Authentic Balenciaga bags should have rounded bales
instead of square bales.

The stitching on the tag at the top running across should be BLACK while the stitching
on the sides of the tag and the bottom should be the colour of your Balenciaga bag.

You can tell the season of your Balenciaga bag by the letter after the number on the tag.
In my case the letter is 'K'. That means it is from F/W (Fall/Winter) 2012. You can find
out in more detail what season your bag is here.

I believe Balenciaga bags now come with 2 little pockets (2012 models).
I don't think previous models had that… They used to only have the zip pocket.

All the tags that came with the bag as well as the leather colour swatch.

The sales associate also put in a sample of the new Balenciaga fragrance.

I would have been happy with this one bag, but my husband surprised me with another purse- a Longchamp LM Metal Shoulder Tote.

My other Longchamp purse is the large Le Pliage in Duck Blue.
This one is the medium size and it is a coated canvas with leather accents. The bag
has the LM (Longchamp Maroquinerie, or in English 'small leather goods from Longchamp')
logo throughout.

The back.
Unlike the Le Pliage, this cannot be folded up into a compact size.

Close-up of the leather closure.

Modèle Déposé, which is on every Longchamp bags means 'Registered design'.

The zipper pull.

The inside is lined with a brown-coloured fabric.
My Le Pliage is white on the inside and it isn't lined with fabric. It shows a lot
of marks so I'm glad this one is not white and is a fabric lining.

I'm still too sick to do any OOTD shots of me with my new purses, but I will once I feel better.

Basement reveal… finally!

e finished our basement reno back in May (has it been that long already??) and I've been meaning to blog about the process every day, but midway through the process I got busy with life and now it's the end of November…
We are still not done with decorating, but I would like to share with you what our basement is looking like now. As soon as I make additional changes I will update later on. Warning: this post is photo heavy.

This is the doorway into our basement.

I decided to add a gallery wall going down to the basement with family photos
and my travel photos. I got the frames from Ikea. The frames are RIBBA frames and they
were around $20/each. I got the photos printed at Costco at 12" x 12". 

View from down in the basement.

This is the view going down to the basement. I have one 3-year old and a 4-month
old so that is why we wanted to finish our basement. We really wanted a play area
for the kids. However, we wanted to section parts of the basement for our
entertainment area, an office for my husband and a spare bedroom.

You can see we used a sectional to divide the entertainment space from the kids'
play area.

And this is another view of the other side of the basement.

Another angle.

We got our contractor to build us a built-in shelving unit so that I could display
some knick knacks.

I love displaying things around my house. You can say it's a passion of mine.

A close-up of the shelves.

I love my owls. They are from West Elm. The yellow lacquered box is also from
West Elm and I have pretty shells sitting on top of it that I brought back from the beaches
of Cuba.

Here's my washroom. Excuse the step stool and the red toilet seat. It's for my
preschooler ;-)

My bathroom vanity. You can see me in the reflection!

I love my bathroom shower. We chose subway tiles and the contractor put in sliding
glass doors.

My contractor also put in a built-in nook to put our shampoos/conditioner.

We have a huge shower head. It's hard to capture in this photo, but I absolutely love it.

I want to put frames up in the bathroom later on. 

And here is our spare bedroom. My in-laws stayed in here while they were visiting.
We couldn't afford a headboard so that'll come later on (I think).

Here's the spare bedroom closet. It had double doors as you can see and it's a pretty
decent size.

I plan on putting a console table along that wall with a round mirror above it.
I've been eyeing some pieces at Chatelet Home. They refurbish vintage furnitures and
many of their stock are French-inspired.

Another look.

There's a little window in the room so it does get some light during the day.

Looking into our entertainment area. The French doors lead into the office.
You can see how bright our basement is because we have a lot of pot lights.

I try to keep this area free of any toys.

On the other side of the built-in shelves, the contractor put a shelf area for us to, again,
display stuff. Initially he was going to put the dry wall all the way up, but we asked
him to do it only half-way. The pipes that controls the water temperature in the house
is under the shelf area.

I made my own terrariums and I bought the sand-blasted manzanita branch at
Home Sense (a discount home goods store here in Canada) for $39.99.
I have seen these exact ones at flower shops for over $150!

Close-up of my terrariums.
I bought the vase at Home Sense for like $5 and I used fake succulents and my
mini mushrooms that I had lying around. The black sand was purchased at
Michaels. I saw a terrarium that was already made at a home goods store for $200.
I took a picture of it and made something similar for a fraction of that price.

Here's my other one. I used green mushrooms instead.

Close-up of my manzanita branch.

Besides the leather sectional and the white, rectangular pillow everything here was
relatively cheap. The rug, one-seater, pillows were purchased from Home Sense and
the side table, shelf, frames were purchased from Ikea. We wanted to invest in a good
leather sofa so that's where most of the budget went for the furniture.

I love collecting pretty things because you never know when you need to display
pretty things around your house. 

Close-up of the shelves.

I always save pretty boxes because they make great display pieces.

My fake orchid from Ikea.
I love me some real flowers, but I wanted something that would last forever…
I have real flowers in other parts of the house.

My dog, Rosco, wanted to make a cameo :-)

The back of this white chair has tufting, but you can't see it with this pillow over it. I wish
the pillow was more of a rectangular shape so that we can see the detail on the
chair, but oh well…

View of the other side of the basement. That's where the bathroom and spare
bedroom is. We wanted the bathroom close to the bedroom so that it would be
convenient for our guest.

Our new flat screen TV. It's a Samsung Smart TV.

Here is my husband's office. It's still pretty bare. He needs a new laptop and some
desk accessories.

I put a gallery wall up in his office.

My father-in-law painted the stork painting. It's personally not my style (a little too old-
school for me) so I hung a gallery wall incorporating other pictures, illustrations and
even a little mirror to bring the focus off that one painting.

My daughter and son (dressed up as a dragon for Halloween).

I get a lot of illustrator's prints from work so I saved a few and brought them home
to hang.

My husband's office has a ladder to display all his soccer trophies. I wanted to spray
paint them all a glossy, navy blue so that they would look cohesive together,
but he wouldn't let me. I think the gold looks so tacky…

His office has the fuse box and the contractor hid it nicely with cabinet doors.

Here it is closed.

His office also has a doorway leading into our cold room. Initially we weren't planning
on finishing it, but then we changed our mind. We got the contractor to extend the
flooring and put up dry wall so that we could use it as a storage room.

We have our golf clubs and tools in here.

We also got a chest freezer as our refrigerator freezer is tiny!
I also store some of my son's old clothes in here as well as his old toys. I'm saving
the clothes for my sisters just in case they have a boy.

I forgot to show you the stairway leading up to the main floor.
The door to the left leads into our furnace room and the door the right leads into an
extra storage room.

Here is the extra storage room. We also got this finished. The back extends further
onto the left so it's actually a big space. We store our Christmas decorations and some
non-perishable foods in here.

And this is our furnace room. We didn't finish this room as there's no need for it to be
finished. We store our vacuum and sports gears in here as well as cleaning supplies.

Here's our snowboards. I miss snowboarding! Once my daughter is a little older I plan
on hitting the slopes.