Carradice Bike Bureau Review

I've now had the Carradice Bike Bureau for a while and thought it was about time for a review. Overall I think it's a great bag which hits the mark for my uses.

I was basically looking for a pannier that would function well off the bike as a shoulder bag, plus look good. I also needed it to hold a fair bit of stuff.

Mine is actually a second from the factory store in England (a friend brought it back for me - thanks Graham!) so it doesn't have the laptop sleeve, but I was intending to use my own anyway.

Firstly, the looks:

Off the bike, you peel back the uppermost flap (which then covers the hardware) and it reveals a pretty classic looking satchel. The Leather straps are yellow-y and great quality. What's really nice is that they are decorative - you use clip-locks to do the actual closing - much easier! I wish the nylon shoulder strap had a leather pad on it, but it looks fine.

Under the main flap there is this zipper pocket, plus a pocket right behind it, presumably for a U lock as it fits mine well. It does, however, depend on how much you put in the zippered compartment. If you've loaded it up with your Constanza-wallet, keys and phone, then your lock won't fit in. This brings us onto the size.

It's humongous. Deceivingly so. It's very hard to capture, but here is a helmet in the bag. I could easily stash four big helmets in here with no worries. There is a drawstring thingy at the top of the satchel which also means you can overstuff. The leather straps on the flap can be adjusted to assist the overstuffing.

The fabric is very stiff waxed canvas and all of the thinner nylon parts have some sort of waterproofing applied to them. It all seems very sturdy.

Here's the hardware. Note that it is on an angle to avoid heel-strike. It's a big, big pannier and I have big feet. I've never hit it with my heel. Each bag is side-specific, so if you're buying a pair, be aware (I'm a poet). The system of attachments is very simple to use. I don't know if I'm doing it 'correctly' but it works fine and fast. There's probably some way to do it with one hand in a single movement but I haven't quite figured that one out yet!

Overall, this is a really great pannier. It's huge and would be great for work, school, shopping etc. It's a bit of a behemoth to carry as a bag, but it's a big bag. It holds a lot of stuff. I totally recommend getting one!

Spot The Stuva

Once and a while it is funny to check the stats to see how people end up on this blog. One of the top Google searches is for IKEA Stuva (bizarre, I know), hence one of the more popular posts is the Stuva review I posted a while back when I was purchasing it for Henry's toys. It is easy to see why this modular system is popular, its simple design can be used in modern interiors with white doors for adult spaces or colourful doors for children's rooms. Here are a few of my favourite uses of Stuva lately in interior photos:

Flex Inredning

Hemlikt

Interiors Originals

Divaani Blogit

So Leb' Ich

Ikea Livet Hemma

I still love ours in Henry's room, if you are wondering. They are durable and wipe-able for little hands too! My only regret is not putting more wall mounted units instead of taking up floor space with the bench, however, those are the toys the kids use the most because of the accessibility.

Renovation ADD, not the prettiest post

So this weekend was a beautiful weekend, and I was ready to escape my unfinished home to go to IKEA, when we stepped back and realized we should focus on what needs to be done at home instead. Some of you DIY-addicts may empathize when I tell you we have a TON of unfinished, partly finished, and mostly finished projects in our home. One way we have avoided burnout is by rotating projects (not for everyone, I know!). So instead of accumulating more "solutions" to disguise the problems in our home, we decided to "yawn" stay home and finish one. Our upstairs floor was always a wreck, and when I came across a deal for engineered hardwood for 99 cents a square foot, it was decided we would do the entire upstairs the same. Holly's room was a gross, pee stained carpet, with un-salvageable hardwood underneath. Henry's was just as bad:

Yes, there were areas that were ducktaped. Holly's room was done the week we moved in (a year ago) because we could not handle the smell. There were other problems with Henry's room, I have shown you bits and pieces, but most of the time it could not keep clean because nothing had a proper place. I would love to be able to make it simple to clean like the playroom. Most of his toys were stored in this lovely piece:

 It was huge and bulky; and his dresser in the corner? Let me just say that was not the easiest spot to get to after laundry. So this weekend we finished the floors and threw that ugly, bulky wardrobe to the curb:

We are left with this, not bad. Note: for those of you considering engineered flooring with a click-lock system (floating floors); please reconsider. They were hell to put in. Always finicky, they would unlock in certain places and we would be left with gaps. Nicks and scratches were SO visible and the floor would chip from the tools (which was unfair because sometimes you had to use brute force to get it to stay together). Ah well, lesson learned. Good old fashioned nailed down floors in the next house for me.
So on to the next problem; this one I could use some help with. Henry loves the new (cleaner) look in his room, however, he forgets that most of his stuff is piled in Mom and Dad's room:

 

Yikes! The problem is, no closets upstairs and the stuff left in Henry's room is bulky and can not fit in an expedit nicely like in the playroom. And Henry's "design plan", while well thought-out, was a little out of scale:

So, heres my question folks: Since an expedit is out of the question, and IKEA is what I can afford for this project, what do I do to hide large toys like fire trucks, GI Joe tanks, and Captain Rex Helmets? These are the two options I can think of:

IKEA

A couple of these, side by side? Or go completely open:

Walmart

What do you think? any other ideas? I prefer closed storage but am open in this case to anything...

Viking Stand Mixer Review

I blogged about my heart wrenching mixer decision (KitchenAid vs Viking) here, and eventually decided on the Viking 5 Qt model.

I chose the grey colour, which is a fairly dark gunmetal colour. I don't know why they call it "stainless grey" because it doesn't resemble stainless steel at all and the bits that are stainless steel are common among all the colours.

I was using a KitchenAid Heavy Duty before this and I have to admit that the Viking is far superior. Rather than a bowl lift, there is a tilt head and the bowl clamps in very securely. One of the things I really didn't like about the KA was the way the bowl sat on the brackets. The handle of the Viking bowl is also very ergonomic.

Probably the most notable difference with the Viking is the shape of the tools. The paddle isn't flat (it's slightly twisted) and the dough hook is entirely different to the KA one. One presumes this is to mix the contents more thoroughly. They twist in very easily. So easily that we wondered if they were actually in!

So far I have tested the beast out with a few things: a double batch of Banana Bread (perfect), Peanut Butter Cookies (also perfect, plus I didn't even soften the butter - I just threw it in cold and it creamed it perfectly!), mashed potatoes (my first time using a mixer for this - also great), cupcakes and buttercream (perfect!) egg whites (perfect, easy though not as fast as I had anticipated) and a couple of 2 loaf batches of bread (bread flour and ww flour totalling 8 cups). The motor definitely wasn't strained when kneading the bread, however the tilt head popped up a couple of times which is apparently a failsafe to preven the gears from stripping if your dough is too stiff. The second batch was a little looser than the first and it wasn't a problem (only did it once).

The funky shaped tools are really good. I think that they incorporate ingredients MUCH more quickly than the KitchenAid. I especially love that you can just chuck them in the dishwasher (they are stainless steel), something which irritated me about the KitchenAid HD (which uses aluminium). There is also a flange at the top of each tool, presumably to prevent batter/crud from getting up into the motor. Seems to work fine. I also find I have to scrape the bowl down less frequently than with the KA.

As for noise, which seems to be a common complaint, I have not been worried by it. It's less noisy than a food processor by far.

Thumbs up, Viking.

Eames Rocker Reproduction Review

I had been coveting an Eames Rocker (RAR) for quite some time but just couldn't justify the $500 ($479 plus shipping) price tag from DWR. Many of the reproductions were barely any cheaper and didn't seem worth it.

And then I came across Wire Home Furnishing in Vancouver. A repro RAR for $149CAD?!? Count me in!

Then came the guilt about buying a rip off. I have to admit that I soul searched for quite a long time before taking the plunge. What eventually swayed me is that the current Herman Miller Eames Shell chairs are quite different from the originals anyway (polypropylene vs. fibreglass), so it's just a licensing of the name, really. Ideally, I'd like to get some real vintage chairs, but they will have to wait.

The chair arrived in two pieces and I had to screw the base on using a supplied hex key. This was the only time where the chair's more humble origins were evident. The screw holes weren't perfectly even looking between the four holes and the brackets on the base were slightly wonky looking up close. This didn't affect function, though. The quality of the rest of the chair - the shell, base and runners are excellent.

Overall, I am delighted with it. And so is my 2 year old.