Our First Design Job: Nutrifoods Market
October 11, 2011
How was your Canadian Thanksgiving weekend? We had a great time with friends around the fire on Friday night for Brad’s birthday and woke up on Sunday to some exciting news…my house was featured on the front page of Etsy! A big thank you to Christine Domanic for including our home in her Get the Look Decor series! I submitted the photos to the Flickr pool months and months ago so it was a big surprise when she contacted me just over a week ago with the interview. I’ve got a lot of projects like painting and new flooring in the works for later this fall, but it was a great reminder of all of the things that we already love about our home. Otherwise, the rest of the long weekend was very relaxed, as the kids were somewhat quarantined with a contagious virus that’s been hanging around. Thankfully, they’re all feeling fine so we were at least able to escape the house and go for a couple of walks as well as working on our version of a thankful tree and doing some baking. We had to miss out on one family dinner to avoid passing germs on to young cousins but did get our fill of turkey at my parents’ house yesterday…yummm!
We’ve been hinting at a project that we’ve been working on behind the scenes for several months now but, getting a tad distracted by Fieldstone to take any photos ourselves, we asked the talented Jayme Lang to take some for us. In the midst of our market planning, the Bakerview EcoDairy asked Rachel and I to design a bistro inspired eating space inside the Nutrifoods Market on their property. We had a great space to work with… lofty ceiling, good colour scheme with rustic and industrial touches… so all we had to do was decide on seating, tables and a layout that would work within the grocery setting. The tricky bit was getting it all ready on a tight budget and an even tighter timeline, in time for Fieldstone Vintage Market….
The EcoDairy also invited us to start selling our vintage treasures within the Market, which we very happily agreed to do! Months earlier, after our Spring market, Josh Lindstrom of Tack Woodwork and Design contacted us to tell us about his furniture made out of reclaimed wood. We couldn’t forget his beautiful work and immediately contacted Josh and asked him to create 8 custom tables for our bistro space. We couldn’t be happier with what he came up with for us! The tables are constructed of locally reclaimed fir and white oak and we love the unique look of the two-toned wood and how they really bring the other colours of the market together. To stay within budget, we sourced the bases for the round tables ourselves and even used antique iron sewing bases for two of the tables. The barrel base is a bit of a long story…
All photos by Jayme Anne Photography.
The chairs were a little trickier. We knew we wanted them to be industrial looking and we wanted an assortment of different styles but that turned out to be a difficult combination to find within our timeframe. Thankfully, we found 8 Tolix-inspired chairs on clearance at our local Homesense and came upon another industrial wholesaler in Vancouver who had 24 metal chairs in two different styles that we fell in love with…
My handsome hubby welded the bars for the shelving units that we’ll be using to display our wares on and he and Rachel’s husband worked hard putting them together and sanding them the night before set-up. Nutrifoods Market already had a children’s corner and, being moms, we all agreed that of course we would keep it where it was! We simply added a table and an assortment of children’s chairs that we collected in our travels. The table was a little DIY project made from a maple dining table found at our local thrift store for $26. We had Brad cut the legs down to child’s height and cut out a hole in the centre big enough for a vintage enamel bowl. Then, we sanded and primed the wood before painting it with 2 coats of chalkboard paint. Voila! It’s already been put to great use…
All photos by Jayme Anne Photography.
All photos by Jayme Anne Photography for Birch + Bird.
Besides having a fantastic selection of organic and gluten free groceries, Vitala milk products, fresh produce and a deli, Nutrifoods Market makes delicious sandwiches (we’ve sampled most kinds over the last several months!) as well as soups and baked goods. They also serve Starbucks coffee and the new bistro is the perfect place to have lunch and visit with your friends…don’t forget to pop by the petting zoo and the Learning Centre on your next visit there. Our children must have sampled every flavour of their Vitala ice cream by this time too…so good! No, this is not a sponsored post for Nutrifoods…we just have a few really great reasons to love it there!
