Monday 7 January 2013

Another Year Over

Another year over, and a new one in full swing already. I've already crossed a bunch of things off my to-do list which is good! So I decided to make some house related resolutions for 2013, in order to help further motivate us in this year. So, here's 10 things that we've discussed and plan/hope to have happen this year.

 1. FINISH THE DANG KITCHEN.
        I can't pretend to be happy that this is still on our list of things to do for this year, but sadly it is :(.


We still have to do the floor, eating nook, install a few more base cabinets, and the uppers, all the electrical, plus all the little finishing touches like kick plates, and trim and what have you.

2. Re-do the main floor bathroom...making it bigger and better
          This was on our to-do list for 2012, but obviously we didn't even come close. We did manage to accomplish some minor updates though - like a new toilet and paint. (although the ceiling is still pink, I should probably do something about that)


But we need to tear down a wall, and upgrade pretty much everything in there, and we're pretty sure we'll probably run into some mold issues, so we'll see how that goes. I'm excited to tackle this project and make the bathroom all spiffy and good for a family bigger than 2.

3.  Tackle the back bedroom (affectionately called the blue room).

        This is the room that we intended on having as the nursery. Since we've run into some fertility issues, we're not sure if it'll ever be a nursery, nursery, but it will definitely be the coolest kid bedroom around, regardless of how old a whipper-snapper we get. There's not much structurally we plan on doing in here, but a bigger closet, and for sure new flooring are on the list. I'm oddly excited to pop this bad boy out!

4.  Living room. Un-pop that ceiling, and lay some lovely new floor.
         This was also something we'd at least start this year, but alas, did not. We have to scrape the ugly popcorn ceiling, because we both hate it, we also need to replace (as well as reinforce) the floor. I mentioned before that we're thinking a dark vinyl tile since there's two entry points, and it's super durable, and since the kitchen floor is pretty dark it'll flow nicely. Obviously it'd be nice if we could completely finish the room (ie, paint and new couch, TV set up, entry established, storage, etc) but I'm trying this new thing this year, it's called "being realistic". So I'll be happy with just a proper ceiling and new floors.

5. Master suite. Finish bedroom and bathroom
       This shouldn't take too long, since they've both been stuck in the "almost done" phase for a while now. Bedroom only needs a few tweaks, and the bathroom basically just needs some beadboard. This one shouldn't be too hard to cross off our list.

6.  Laundry...move it or lose it.
        Well, not lose it, but definitely move it. Downstairs. Yes downstairs, heaven forbid it not be on the same floor. We currently have to lug it down stairs to do it, so what's another 7 stairs? Plus, we've both grown up having laundry in the basement, and it doesn't bother us at all...gives my lazy butt a bit of a workout.

The laundry has to move downstairs to make way for that bathroom (and 2nd bedroom) expansion.

7. Brick, hooouuuse. (c'mon, sing it!)
         We need to brick over the old front door that we took out almost a year ago, and since we're most likely moving (or possibly taking out completely) a window at the back of the house, we'll need to re-brick that as well.

8. The garage. Umm...if you could even call it that!?
         This is like the big ugly mole on the guy from the Austin Powers movie, something that is gross, and just keeps growing. It's terrible, I don't even like to look at it. Can't even go in there. Must do something about it. The door doesn't work properly, and the floor is dirt & exceptionally uneven. Neither of us are overly fussy about parking the car in there, and we'd both prefer to use it as a sort of workshop. But at this point, I'd just settle for clean!

9.  Backyard. It's time to tame that jungle.
        Ok, so it's not really a jungle so much, but we do need to get rid of the giant ugly bush guy to make way for the great patio flame and whole patio revamp (that I talked about here).

This is probably one we're most excited about getting to. We love cooking and eating outside, and did it a lot this year, so we can't wait to do it on matching sets, and we can't wait to have a lounge area where we can get together with friends and sit on a comfy couch and sit around the fire.

10. The long forgotten dining room!
         When I'm thinking about things I still have to do to the house, for some reason the dining room always slips my mind, maybe because of the fact it's tucked away in the back corner of the house where we don't often go. But more likely it's caused by the fact that it's been sitting in the same embarrassingly unfinished state for the past year.
It's like that weight you slowly gain, you hope that if you ignore it, it'll just get better on it's own, when it fact, it just slowly builds, then WHAM a few years later you're 60lbs heavier, and even your fat clothes don't fit.


Thar she be, 10 things that we can hopefully tackle, and hopefully I can show you in 2013. We also have a number of smaller little things that we'll be doing as well. I plan on being a munch better home owner this year, and actually accomplishing things. This will be the year of doing, instead of the year of putting off.  

Saturday 5 January 2013

Over The Sink & Through The Window

Since we're making progress in the kitchen, I thought I'd take the time to discuss the lighting situation in the kitchen. Before, the entire space was lit with an old, off centred, and odd angled, florescent light, a ceiling fan, and one little globe light (if you could even call it that)


Here's what it looked like when we moved in. Man, look how tiny that kitchen was! (The pictures seriously don't to it justice, I should've taken a picture of me standing in it for reference) Don't you just love the pinkish sort of glow that's reflecting back in that little nook from the wallpaper?


 It's hard to believe that's what the kitchen used to look like...with carpet! Even the empty space we have is an improvement over that. Now that walls have been removed, paint has gone up and cabinets are (mostly) installed we can get our electrician (aka: cousin Adam) to come back and change things up in the lighting department for us. Our table and benches will be in the corner roughly where the old closet & hutch were, and benches will go all the way across the window, so we'll be moving the lighting from the fan over so we can hang a pendant over the table (instead of in front of the fridge). We're going to swap out the old globe light (that broke during demo anyway) with a pot light, and we'll be adding 5 more pot lights spaced throughout evenly. We bought those ages ago, and if memory serves have a stainless face plate. It'll be so nice to have electricity working in this room again...right now we have an old floor lamp plugged into the one working outlet, and since it gets middle of the night dark at about 4 in the bloody afternoon it gets a little difficult to work in the evening. 
  And over the sink (which is staying in the same spot it was before) we'll be hanging a pendant. I flip flopped on what I wanted there more than anything else so far. Which seems a little weird. First I flip flopped between pendant or pot light. Then once I decided on a pendant it was back and forth between various different lights. I had originally DIYed something.

  I started with a flower pot from Ikea...


Spray painted it red, drilled a hole through the bottom and strung it on a pendant cord, then held it up trying to get an idea of what it'd look like. 

It looks cute red, but the scale just wasn't right, and I wasn't 100% happy with it. I figured it was mostly due to the fact that it wasn't up and I couldn't fully appreciate it.  Then during one of my weekly ReStore perusals I found it. THE light. I'm on the lookout for a decent looking chandelier that I can revamp for the dining room, so I always make a beeline for the lighting area - like a pregnant lady for the pickles. They didn't have a chandy that stuck my fancy, but I spotted something just as good, and some slid over and scooped it up faster than a bat outta hell (not that I know for certain how fast they are - but I hear they're pretty darn speedy)




Ain't she a beaut! It's a cracked glass, bulb shaped pendant with stainless plates. And it's considerably bigger than the little pot, so it will be able to hold it's own above the hefty sink.


Here's a little comparison...


Woot woot! I got it for  $20! I've tried to find similar ones online or in store, and the cheapest comparable one I saw was $90 (or there was a $60 plastic version from Home Depot). I can't wait to get it up, it's going to make the coolest light shadows.
  Yay for the ReStore, now if only I can find the chandy, dressers, desk, and chair I'm looking for too haha.