My name is Breanna and I'm the designer behind the accessories brand Scout & Catalogue. Eight months ago my boyfriend and I moved to Toronto from Mexico and have settled into a big character apartment in Parkdale. Since we arrived with only what could fit in our car, our place is still fairly empty, but we are slowly managing to fill it with new and used items and (after reviewing these photos) apparently a whole lot of chairs...
The studio is where we both spend the most time - I've somehow managed to take over 99% of the space, leaving my boyfriend with only a teeny corner - and it is almost always a bit of a mess. I like to refer to it as a 'working studio' to justify the disorder. It's the biggest room in the house and I always feel lucky that I have so much dedicated space for Scout & Catalogue.
I found this metal shelf on the side of our street, cleaned off the cobwebs and hauled it inside to our upstairs hallway. It's still waiting to get casters on the bottom - one of the many projects on our to-do list. I change what is on it all the time - currently I've grouped together some natural items I've collected in my travels, a small brass giraffe and a framed silk-screened mustache print made years ago by my very talented friend Ngaire Leach - she certainly saw that trend coming.
Normally bathrooms don't end up in house tours but I spend an inordinate amount of time bent over our bathtub dyeing scarves so I thought I would show you the photogenic corner of it. Everything else in the room is a little rough around the edges (it's a rental) but there is a skylight which makes for a pretty amazing bath time.
We found four of these chairs at the Goodwill for $1.50 each - they are currently being used to fill awkward spaces which, as we live in an old house that has been split into 3 apartments, our place seems to have a lot of. Our bed is still right on the floor - soon we'll build a frame for it and maybe even spring for a dresser. Exciting stuff!
We found this wooden ironing board at the Goodwill (a common theme throughout our house) and it's currently employed as a bookshelf.
An apartment is never complete without industrial carpeting - especially when it's old and pulling up around the edges. Thankfully our very shy cat 'Mouse' came along to distract you from it. This is the stairway from the main floor to the top floor of our place and a prime example of our apartments tendency for 'awkward spaces'. You will notice we've remedied the situation with another chair. The photo is of my boyfriends mother from the 70's and is one of our favourite possessions.
This picnic table is one of my favourite pieces in the house. My boyfriend found it for free on Craigslist and then fixed it up and painted it black. It holds tons of people and always gets lots of compliments. The Mexican flags we brought back from our time down there - these white ones are normally used to denote a wedding.
We bought this large hand carved wooden bowl in the Mexican town San Miguel de Allende - such a gorgeous place that everyone should put on their travel itinerary. The dolls were purchased down there as well although they were made in the Chiapas - the most southern state in Mexico. The wooden tools were my great-grandfathers - a carpenter who brought them with him when he emigrated to Canada from England.
Not surprisingly I've tried to cover up the absence of a sofa with more chairs! Our coffee table is a vintage Coleman cooler topped with our favourite board game - Scrabble. The snakes are another little item from Mexico - we love their wooden children's toys.
