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Our homes are made up of lots of working parts — bedrooms, redecorated kitchens, upgraded baths, ogle-worthy renos, ticks and tricks for cleaning and organizing, and real home tours all live here to represent the spaces of your Offbeat Home.

I kicked my closet-kitchen up a notch with a black wall

I painted my kitchen nook the other day! My mini-kitchen-in-a-nook started out looking…a little dull.

So to brighten up my kitchen and make it pop as its on space in my apartment, I painted it black. Black: new hot color for kitchens?

Paul’s red bus in New Zealand

Our friend Paul recently finished his bus renovation — turning a former school bus into a little one-man-one-dog wintertime road house. Come see his rig, his dog, and the cozy wood stove in his simply-made tiny home.

How to make an awesome custom piñata

The fella and I decided we wanted to have an Awesome Wedding Piñata. Sadly, the options at the party store did nothing for either of us, and the usual "Coat a balloon in papier-mache!" method didn't seem likely to render a suitably Awesome result.

So I mashed together a few different online tutorials, and I now share the magic! 13 steps of magic!

A fully-pimped Star Wars room in a penthouse

Curbed ran a little highlight of an almost-$6-million-dollar apartment in Manhattan with three bedrooms — one of which is a fully pimped ode to Star Wars. This thing comes complete with full wall-and-ceiling starscapes, a large model of the Millenium Falcon, and shockingly-cute accessories that make the whole place look chic, not at all weird.

Make skull art with bookcases

This is the work of James Hopkins’, who is a sculptor. I realize this is a piece of his art work, but it inspires me to go play around with my bookshelves to see what sort of subtle icons I could invoke…

Our lovely decade-spanning “Little Big House”

Beretta Fleur is finally showing us the space where she hosts ALL her perfectly-hosted parties. And it’s wood-paneled and has built-in rock hot tubs and a lovely bar and let’s all go to there for a party!

A bright and brilliant ornately-painted ceiling

This is the ORIGINAL ceiling in the Naniboujou Lodge’s Great Room — it’s almost 100 years old and has never been repainted. Granted, it is in northern Minnesota, so it’s not like the place is heavy on the direct sunbeams.

My guy works for the circus, so we live in an RV and travel to a new place every week

This is the first time in my adult life that I’m not renting my space, and it’s thrilling to demolish and tinker to my heart’s content. For now, this is home, and I really love it. It’s cozy and frankly, bigger than our shoebox in Toronto. How about that?