I painted the foyer! What next?

Lesson learned: Builder paint is garbage and holds up to nothing. The entrance to the home sure takes a beating between hands on the wall, banging from coming in with shopping bags and the hurried nature of coming inside while trying to keep the cats in where they belong (much to their chagrin). So, lovely husband decided he had enough and was going to paint it! It took him the whole long weekend to do. Those 10 foot ceilings and lots of edges sure eat up your time. I won't lie. I sat there and watched. ooops.

We chose "Deer Granite" from Benjamin moore to tie in with our brown floor tiles, yet not be a dark chocolate brown colour. I should have probably taken a picture at night because the backlighting from the front door throws off the true representation of the colour. Regardless, here are a few photos.





Poor hubby was so tired from all that painting that he swore he wasn't painting again for a very long time. With that in mind, we both knew that we had one more project to go before we can take a renovation hiatus. This room:



The floor plan would call it, "Bedroom Three". We call it Hubby's office. Except he's been evicted, carted all his stuff to the basement, and the walls will be painted blue or pink sometime between now and February :) Yep. We are having a baby :) So, as I mentioned before, please forgive me for the lack of posting. I've been rather sick for the last little while.

The only thing in the room right now is this rocking horse, lovingly handmade for hubby as a child by his now-deceased grandfather. He was so happy to go rescue it from his parents' basement and put it in the nursery.



We are also pondering building the raised portion of our deck this fall, but we'll see if that actually materializes. Between fencing, deck, interlocking part of the driveway, and a freaking child, next summer promises to be very busy for this homeowning couple!

Outside!

Haven't updated in a while. Sorry. :( I have a good excuse... trust me :)

Anyway, here are some photos of our exterior! It is all done! (except for a poor non-existing parging job on our front step that I am still fighting to get finished properly...)

Outside! So pretty. All the rain we've had has really made our grass grow nicely.


My midget tree! It is actually a very old hydrangea bush that has been trimmed like a tree. I love it. It is only in this spot temporarily though until our tree from the city comes. We were supposed to have one this spring, but somehow they missed us because of a computer error. Regardless, we are getting one from them in the fall now. Since we had a giant hole dug I had to find something to fill it, so thus the midget tree. Beats the ugly spruce tree that we were supposed to get. Eww!


We were supposed to get an ugly spruce tree like this one:


The Hackberry bush that is planted beside my porch. Too bad it's already kind of dead looking :(

Good bye, baby-shit brown!!!

Our door was unpainted when we took possession of the house as we moved in the middle of the winter. Winter is not exactly a great time to be exterior painting :) The colour we were to get with our exterior package is called "Burley Wood." We came home one day to this (pardon the quality, the photo was taken with my blackberry):



A few days later they came back to finish, as we had to be home at the time. It turned out like this:

Yup, looks like what you'd find in a baby's diaper. Trust me, this photo does the colour justice. It looks much worse in full sun and in person.



So, we went and bought some new paint and re-painted it with "Forest Teal" - that's more like it!! As much as I love the other terra-cotta brick colours, at least our neutral grey allows us to use very bold colours on the door.







And, handy hubby also organized our garage and installed some shelving and hangy things. Hurray!

The thorn in my side.

We love our house. Really, we love everything about it... with a few exceptions. All homes, whether they are 1 month old, or 100 years old will have problems. When building a home new, of course there will be deficiencies, and some things will be overlooked. In our case, it has been our flooring.

On my part, I wish we would have just upgraded our carpeting right away rather than plan to rip it up and do it ourselves. The standard carpet that was installed is garbage. And I found a cigarette butt under a corner that the cat had pulled back (thanks kitty!). Not cool. At a service appointment to tidy up the installation job the installer tried to tell me that it is "good" carpet, 36oz nylon... Well, maybe my standards are too high. As well, we chose a light cream colour. We have two black cats. Between the wear, the lint/fur that shows up, it always looks dirty and worn. Massive fail, Katherine! What were you thinking???

On the flooring installers part, my hardwood has been no end of grief. This is what we moved in to, which was fixed 6 weeks after move in.


This is what has been a problem since the day we moved in, and we have been fighting through one means or another to have it fixed. This is simply unacceptable and when I look at this (and trip over it every morning) it detracts from the love I have for my home. I won't even get into all the details about the poor conduct of the company, nor will I even mention their name, but this condition of our hardwood just makes me sad.

This stair nosing actually wobbles under your feet. You can see it move.


Lovely wood filler. Not.


High quality workmanship.


It's a shame, really. It is scheduled to finally be fixed on June 24th. 5 months after we first identified the problem... (And 4 hardwood service appointments later, but that is a story for another day :) )

Outside.

Grass makes the outdoors a lot more enjoyable. It also cuts down on the amount of dust flying everywhere!





Driveway will be paved in a few weeks... Then, we will get to painting the front door and garage door.

Powder Room!

Trying to make the most out of the weekend, we attempted a little powder room reno. How hard could it be to decorate a little 4x4 room? Why not inject some life and colour into it? Enter wallpaper.

I learned a little something this past weekend from this project:
1. I like wallpaper.
2. I don't like it enough to ever install it again.
3. I am not patient.

All that said, here is our little powder room!

We added the light fixture, towel ring, TP holder and mirror ourselves and frosted the window with a film (after finding out that they switched our windows and this one doesn't open when it should. Our hall one opens though, I think I'd actually prefer that one to open, but I digress).

Would you believe that I can't find a "before" picture right now? So you'll have to settle for this: Beige and boring, that's all there is to it.


to this! Definitely not beige, and definitely not boring - more like psychedelic!

Kitchen Reveal

Long overdue, but, here is the piece de resistance of the house... My beautiful Kitchen!

Let's walk you through the progress...

From framing of the floor joists


To the first wall


To adding a pantry


And a breakfast nook


And plumbing and ventilation


And drywall!


And paint!


Cabinets!


Lighting


And flooring!


To the PDI



To... ... ... My ... .... ... Beautiful... ... ... DREAM KITCHEN!!!

There is pretty much nothing standard in this kitchen.

What we upgraded with the builder
Shaker cabinets in birch
Chocolate stain
shaker front drawers to match the cabinet doors
42" uppers
added bulkhead along stove wall to make the kitchen symmetrical
24" deep fridge upper and panel on side
brushed nickel potlights
rough in for pendant lights
lighting valance (this was an oopsie so we got it for free)
two banks of pot drawers (one on each side of the stove)
custom pantry cabinets
glass door cabinets with puck lights
shelving at custom height for coffee makers

What we did ourselves
added LED under cabinet lighting
added pendant lights
granite counters with undermount sink
Single hole pull out faucet.
stone tile backsplash
stainless steel hood fan
Bought fridge, stove and dishwasher (you can see past posts for details)
Pull out rack for dishcloths
Swing out garbage can
Bought nook table and bar stools

Voila!














There's still several little things that the builder still has to fix, but I won't even point them out to you and you won't notice. :) We are very happy with all our choices - both material and colours. Love the gas range, love the hardwood floor in the kitchen, love the layout, love the open concept!

Snow?.... Rain?

This happy homeowner took a little break from her house and went to CUBA! Si! Great trip... but who the hell ordered this snow/rain storm the day after I get back?

Also, we arrived home to our stupid patio door almost overflowing water into our kitchen again. Grr. This time I called the window company directly. They sent someone over this afternoon who solved the problem in 5 minutes flat. The problem? The exterior track drain holes were never drilled open on installation. OOOPS. This could have been solved by someone simply checking the details when they were done the job. Ah well.

Urbanfail can have fun with that bill for the service call, cause it is being sent directly to them for payment. And yay, my kitchen is no longer in imminent danger of flooding!

Speaking of the kitchen... Today the final touches were put on the kitchen! Finally! The last final thing... Only two months after we moved in, of course.

Stay tuned. I promise to finally post pictures :)

I know... I'm bad

I haven't updated in forever. And the kitchen is very done. I should probably post some pics of that...Love the house and most of the things about it... not all, but most. :)

In the meantime, here is evidence that I am actually alive and well and homemaking!

I made cupcakes!

Ensuite Reveal!

The ensuite is our first completely redecorated room.

We went from this:


to this...


to this...


to this...


to this...



TO THIS!












What were standard selections
48x60 soaker tub


faucets/shower hardware




floor/tub deck tile


handles on vanity


36x48 shower


laminate countertop


What we upgraded with the builder
Extra keyless bulb to have one above each sink


Added another sink to vanity
(no picture! lol)
Bank of drawers in the vanity and Stain on vanity/medicine cabinet (I have no progress pictures of these because they weren't actually installed until a month after we moved in.
Swinging frameless shower doors (as seen in previous photo)

What we did ourselves
Installed Matching robe hooks, toilet paper holder, towel bars




New light fixtures


Installed three Framed mirrors above sinks and tub (see other photos)

A new vent cover because the ugly brown one clashed with our white tile.


Painted room in a new colour and added glass tile border around tub and shower


We're quite thrilled with how it all turned out, It took two weekends of work. The first weekend to paint and install the hardware, then the kitchen company came to install the vanity doors and drawers the following week (yes, this should have been done before move in), then the following weekend we did the glass tile border. We could have done the glass tile the same weekend but it hadn't arrived from the supplier yet.

Next stop: Kitchen!! We've done *some* work in here, but hopefully by next weekend we'll have some new photos to reveal for that room

First "designed" room

I know! It's been a while. Needless to say, I've been busy??

In August, I had pondered some decorating ideas for the Ensuite

My husband asked me if I would like a gift certificate to the spa for Valentine's Day. I said "Nah, I'd rather have the ensuite painted!" So, true to the spa idea, we are doing up the ensuite this weekend in kind of a "spa" theme.

I bought paint: Benjamin Moore's Puritan Grey. It has very slight green undertones that match the listello tile perfectly.


I ordered tiles for the listello border. They will arrive on Wednesday.


I have two robe hooks, two towel bars, and a toilet paper holder from Moen's Iso Collection


Because of the odd layout with our vanity, I couldn't find framed mirrors that I liked and were the right size. I decided just to buy frameless beveled mirrors.

PLUS our drawers, doors and medicine cabinet will be arriving on February 19th. About time!

And of course, you've all seen the ensuite (and the hubby! This is the only picture I've got handy!)


In other news, I bought an Acer laptop in October/Novemberish and it has died on me. Yes, it is only 3 months old, but it has died. Enough! I should have just bought the MacBook like I wanted to. Stupid Cheap Me!! I gave the laptop to hubby and said if he can fix it, he can have it, because it was his frugality that made me buy the Acer instead of the Mac

MOVED IN!

Moved In!!!!! Overall it went pretty well. Here are the highlights:

+Got the keys at 12:51pm, left work at 2:00 and was at the house at 2:40.
-Had to spend 5 minutes tracking down the tradesperson who was parked in my driveway so that I could pull in.
-10 minutes later a trade rang the doorbell and said “You have to move your car” Pardon!? It's my driveway!! “we are going to shovel the roof” Oh, fine, I'll just pull it into the garage. This is when I realized they gave me the wrong keys for my garage lock. I drove to the sales centre to tell them and they delivered the proper ones within an hour to the house. Ok! Now we're in business!
We had pizza and wine in front of the fireplace on our first night. We moved a few car loads over including our air mattress so we could get the heck out of the inlaws' house!
+PDI stuff was... kinda.. complete.
-We still have an open concept vanity in the ensuite, still a few drywall touchups to do, but overall the house is in great shape.
+We hired Gerry's Moving in Ottawa for our move. It took about 5 hours – BEST $550 I EVER SPENT. They were very nice, didn't damage anything and kept the dirt to a minimum. Would definitely recommend and hire again (but I'm never moving again!!)
- When the moving truck arrived, I had to go to the construction trailer and have the foreman make trades move their vehicles which were completely blocking not only our driveway but the road. Oh well, it was done quickly!
+Bell (#$^!#$^@!... i'll get to that) hooked up our phone on Friday even though they said they were coming Saturday. No worries, we were home so I was happy to have the phone connected a day earier.
+Saturday we had our new furniture delivered from La-Z-Boy who were 30 minutes late as well, but the furniture is awesome. I love it. A Sofa and a Chair and a half.
+We had many visitors on Saturday stopping in to say hello (and they always managed to arrive at the exact same time as a delivery). Also had a beautiful gift basket sent over from a colleague of mine.
+Also had appliances delivered from Sears! Love them! Almost had to stack the washer/dryer because our gas line was sticking out way too far, but we solved that problem... All installed except for the dishwasher. LOVE my steam washer and dryer and so glad I coughed up the dough for a counter depth fridge.
+ The railing people also showed up on Saturday to touch up nicks in our wood railings. Nice guy – company based in Montreal and they come here twice a week and can come back if we find any more dents and it's not to our liking.
- Saturday BellTV comes to install our dish. BELL - @$^% ~#$ ^!$%& 5&$@&%!!!!!!!!GRRRRR... The installer refuses to install our dish unless we go buy a “Dish Pro” and a new LMB. Uh, sorry, we have a structured media panel in the basement so you can use that and not your dishpro thing (which - Bell doesn't recommend by the way) and you are supposed to provide us with an LMB. He then proceeded to make sarcastic remarks that we shouldn't have finished our basement then and it's our fault it's not going to work properly and that we just need to go to his “Buddy's store around the corner [L-tronix on Eagleson] and buy the part, but I think we're out so you'll have to find one on the internet. It's gonna cost you $100”. I was fuming. I called Bell and expressed my displeasure and disgust with the conduct of the installer. They agreed that it was unacceptable and offered to send another installer over and to give us 30% off our service for 12 months. I said it wasn't worth it. Rogers is coming on Wednesday and we will now have Cable. So, if you are looking for an HDPVR for Bell I have one for sale!! ha! Unfortunately we still have to keep Bell home phone to keep our local ISP unless we pay for a dryloop. Oh well.
+Granite Shop was here to template and do an estimate this morning.
+Bar stools and ottomans will arrive via UPS today.
- I ordered a natural wood blind from Sears. They sent me electric blue metal! eek!
- Nowhere near done unpacking, but it's keeping me busy!! Yahoo!!!!