Listy McGhee

Since our last assessment got pushed back yet again (this time it wasn't our fault) we have more time to get rooms actually finished. (Well at least get finishes done, even if the rooms won't be completely done.) So I did what comes naturally for a crazy person, and wrote out about 6 different lists of what we have to do before that time. So here's the list of what we're hoping going to get done by July 21.

 BLUE ROOM

o   Clean out

o   Rip up carpet

o   Remove wallpaper

o   Paint

o   Install floor

o   Cut out bigger closet

o   Make closet doors

o   Get dresser for change table

o   Upholster chair

DINING ROOM

o   3^rd coat of paint

o   get picture ledge up and painted

o   picture moulds

o   base/window and door casing

o   pick up buffet

o   get electrical sorted out

o   Install Octa

o   Finish hutch project

KITCHEN

o   Case and base

o   Make sure all outlets and switches are in working order

o   Mud holes

o   Touch up paint

o   Bottle storage shelf

o   Coffee/tea shelf

o   Open shelving by stove

o   Finish toe kick

o   Counters on peninsula cabinets

BEIGE ROOM/LAUNDRY

o   Tidy

o   Remove  electrical wires

o   Cut out “step”

o   Organize closet

  (how is it I still have no pictures of our living room?!)

LIVING ROOM

o   Get rid of shower

o   Take out built-in

o   Move TV

o   Get rid of couches

o   Bring brown couch over

o   Put switches at doors

o   Organize

o   Pick up chest for shoe storage

UPSTAIRS

o   Finish painting hall

o   Base in bath

o   Shelf in bath

o   Curtains (dye & install)

o   Paint closet

o   Install closet organizer

o   Put up canvas in bathroom

o   Art in hallway

Master Bath Progress

So, in case you haven't noticed, we have a little bit of a problem when it comes to finishing a project. We're great starters, we have started a number of projects, both big and small, but have yet to call one officially done. And I'm here to say...that we still aren't ready to call one done haha. The master bathroom has been easier to hide than the rest of the massive demo projects we've begun, so we weren't really focusing on it. OK, lets be honest, we haven't really been focusing on any project. We're like Dory, only without all the bright colours. Here's what the master bathroom looked like when we did our final walk-through before we pulled the trigger and bought the house...

Not bad really, the pinky/beige countertop and wall paper isn't really our cup of tea. But apparently it was the grown son's cup of tea, because it turns out he was the one who lived up there, not the little old lady. He obviously liked peachy colouring because literally everything up there was painted that. Because we're planning on making the bathroom up here considerably larger and more spa like, I was content to just live with it until then - or make some smaller changes. I was thinking of painting the tile (because it was also a pinky white), as well as the countertop (and possibly the floor if we couldn't find anything cheap) But then Jason did this...

Okay, so technically he didn't do this, my sister Meredith and I did...but he was the catalyst. He apparently heard me say I wanted to take the tile down - which certainly sounds like, "I think I'll paint the tile." right? Right? I guess it does, because one night he took it upon himself to see how easily the tile would come off. Not very easily. He broke about three trying to get one off, so then I was left with the option to try and match the tile and replace the few broken ones, or rip them all down and redo the bathroom. (Clearly he forced my hand, I had to redo it) So, I enlisted the help of Mer and she went to town on all those pink tile. Over a number of months we took off all the tile and the wallpaper. Then it stayed like that for many, many more months, before I finally got frustrated enough to do something about it. (That and all the Rona gift cards we got for Christmas)

Wabam! Looks considerably different eh? The floor is the awesome vinyl I talk about here, that I picked up from the ReStore for only $20! It looks fantastic, and it actually kind of feels like real wood, and the seams are hardly visible at all. You can also buy it from Home Depot if you're looking for something similar. We bought the beadboard from Rona with our gift cards. Since I was planning on painting it anyway, we went for the cheaper plain unprimed stuff rather than the white ready to go stuff. It was seriously like half price. Jase cut them, and I nailed them up. Then I filled the holes and caulked the seams, and attempted to paint.

I say attempted only because it was a major pain in the pituitary to paint this mother. I tried rolling it on with a super nappy roller, but that didn't really work, it didn't get in the crevices very nicely. (You can sort of see my first attempt to the left of the vanity) So then I had to try plan B. I used a paint brush to brush in all the crevices first, then went over with the roller. (I haven't photographed that yet) I still had to finger smooth down some of the lines where extra paint built up. But this beadboard takes the paint so nicely. I didn't prime it, and only had to do two coats and it looks pretty fantastic if I do say so myself. I painted the top half of the wall "Moody Blue" By Sherwin Willaims, colour matched to the Dulux Kitchen & Bath brand. Lets disregard my abysmal cutting job, I had intentions of painting the ceiling, but I ran out of paint. I usually use the Xpert brand of the Dulux paint, it's our favourite, but I thought I'd give the Kitchen & Bath a try, and it covered terribly. It's all splotchy, and streaky, I thought it was maybe the roller, but even the parts where I used a paintbrush look bad. I talked to the people there and they're giving me a new can (this time I'll stick with the Xpert), so I'll have to repaint the walls (and I'll do the ceiling at that time). I also painted the vanity black, and spray painted all the hinges and knobs silver. I also swapped out the uncovered heinous fluorescent light for something a bit more appealing (even if it has to be on the wall crooked). And because I know everyone is as big a fan of lists as I am here's where we stand:

• take down tile & wallpaper
• remove baseboard heater
• remove trim
• paint vanity & hardware
• lay floor
• install beadboard
• paint (walls and beadboard)
• change light
• install ledge & hooks
• paint countertop 
• change out faucet (and possibly sink too)
• change outlets/covers
• hang art

I count four things left on that list (and since we're only going to replace the faucet/sink if Jase can snag them for (preferably) free) really there's only three things. WAHOO! 

Big Backyard Dreams

Since the weather has been nicer and we’ve been spending more and more time outside, BBQing and puttering, and what not, we’ve been thinking more and more about what we’d like to do with the back yard. Remember back from this post, where I showed a bunch of eye candy, and some rough ideas of what we wanted...well now that it’s hotter, the weeds are attacking us with a vengeance, my love for all things backyard pretty has been renewed. Our driveway (which turns into our “patio”) is bricked; now, not only are the bricks ugly, but they’re being overrun with weeds, and we just can’t keep up with them. I have a few plans kickin’ around inside my head that I wish we could do out back, but we both decided that we’d wait until our second spring/summer here before we do anything too major. That way we have time to figure out exactly everything we want and need, and what a good size will be.

   Then something happened that sort of jump started our plans. We won this!

After winning this bad boy from Mike & Steph's stag & doe (donated by Patio Palace) we legitimately had to start thinking about the back patio. We won a natural gas "Patio Flame" which is basically a fire pit that no one can yell at us for having because it's a controlled flame. Since it's natural gas, we have to run a dedicated line for it, so we need to know exactly where we want it so we can have the line run. Here's what the yard looks like now...

A back yard shot from the side of the house 

Again from the side of the house, this is about where the patio would span.

Overgrown myrtle and clematis...you can almost see a basement window trying to peek out in the middle of the jungle.

From the other side of the house. You may notice the pile of bricks leaning up against the garage that we still need to stack back out along the front garden boarder...someday.

We need to remove that giant bush...which is pretty much where the fire pit will go. It's a monster, it probably has an almost 5ft diameter. So we're going to have to do some digging, and some pulling with the truck to get it out. Our lawn is already filled with holes, so what's one more gigantic one eh?

 

I know you're all jealous of our amazing "patio eating" set up, it's pretty pimpin' I'm not gonna lie! You may also be jealous of all the weeds, and this picture doesn't even show how many there really are. 
   So now we've got our thinking caps on, for all the amazing things we could/can do with the back patio. There are a few things that are must have's for us, and the rest is just fun "make it look pretty" 
The things we have to have are pretty simple:
   1. No more brick - we'll keep the bricks on the driveway portion for now, until we figure out what we want to do to the drive.  
   2. An eating area (enough to sit at least 8) - which will probably go roughly where our pathetic one is now
   3. A "conversation" area, or just more of a loungy area - that's where we'll be putting the patio flame
   4. A designated "cooking" area, most likely close to the eating area - because in the future we plan to upgrade to a natural gas BBQ, and it's                   just easier to plan for it now, than try to figure out where to put it in the future.


Those are pretty much our only stipulations at this point, I'm sure as we get the ball rollin' there will be more that crop up. But for now, our goal to spruce things up is to rip out that bohemouth bush & put the patio flame in, and power wash the bricks to clean them up (which will hopefully also help get rid of the weeds). I heard that baking soda is supposed to work well for killing weeds because of it's pH level...so we'll have to give that a try, see how it pans out. 
  Here's my "had-way-too-much-fun-screwing-around" computer rendition of what it'll look like when all is planned, said and done.

Isn't it just so pretty! Hooray, I know it's going to be a while before it actually looks like this, but it's exciting to just look at this, plus it helps me get a good idea of what a good size is. (this is 9ft by 29ft) It looks like maybe 11ft would be a bit better, no?

Some Dining Room Changes

You may remember when I talked about my ideas for the dining room, from back in December, well we can totally erase that from our memory haha. Not a lot of it is actually going to stick around. I like the look, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized it just isn't really us. (Well me, since Jason could care less about anything to do with decorating). From the beginning I wanted something bold, and fun, yet with some formality & traditionality (yeah, that's a word) to it. I wanted a deep, saturated colour on the walls, so I decided I would just do it. Go with my gut, and go for the fun colour. So without further ado, may I present to you the colour choice for the dining room....

It's called purple parakeet (in case you didn't see), it's another by Benjamin Moore. It's deeper in person, and not so grey...it's pretty great, and I can't wait to get it up on the walls. Another aspect we're wanting to add is moulding on the walls, which will make it feel a bit more formal. Here's some pretty's from around town.

 (from bhg)

 holy amazing ceiling batman! (from here)

(from here)

(from houzz)

(from here)

As for what our intentions are, the third picture  is probably to closest to what we're thinking in terms of moulding, some wider ones mixed in with some thinner ones. The last picture is a similar set up to what we're thinking, going about 3/4 up the wall with the moulding, (which will be purple) then capping them with a little shelfy-thing, then the upper blank walls - as well as all the trim & the baseboards - will be a crisp white.

On the ledge/shelf we plan on putting a bunch of pictures and some painting, and probably still a mirror in fun arrangements, similar to some of these...

(from houzz)

(from here)

 

(from here)

 So there's a happy little update on what we're planning for the dining room. I can't wait to get started. All Jason has to do is one more sand job and I can finally start priming. We still have to pick out/up the moulding so we can affix it to the wall before we paint. I plan on reupholstering the chairs (as well as the other things that need to be done to it) this week (if I can't get in the room to prime) Hopefully the guy who was supposed to finish the kitchen for us will get back and finish it so we can get a move on there too! Our new goal is to have both rooms to a done enough point by August 31st so we can have our open house (finally) in the beginning of September.

Different Strokes

Lets preface this post with hooray, we have internet back, so I can be up dating more frequently!!!

We have been ferociously trying to cross as many things as we can off our to do list, because it is so gratifying to physically cross something off a list! Not to mention it helps with big projects if you break things down into smaller, more manageable tasks. Helps to stop me from becoming a giant crazy person, and makes Jason happy…and it really helps keep us on track. Let’s take a look at what we’ve been able to check off at the almost four month mark:

Kitchen:

• ·      Rip out old cabinets & sink (donate to Habitat Re-Store) although we weren’t able to donate anything because they were custom built-in’s.
• ·      Rip out nasty carpet & lick ‘n’ stick (as Jase affectionately refers to it
• ·      Bust out the closet (that was previously the entry closet from old living room)
• ·      Remove the built in (donate) and take down the random 3ft wall again we weren’t really able to donate it because the doors had to be destroyed in order for it to come out
• ·      Replace insulation in outside wall we took out the old (and blackened) pink insulation, and doubled our R-rating from 7 to 15, by using the Rock-sol insulation. 
• ·      Frame up old closet & laundry room entry
• ·      Replace drywall on outside walls I found my new calling in screwing the boards up!
• ·      Add/move electrical outlets and lighting we moved a few outlets around, and figured out what sort of lighting we want (mainly just pot lights)...in order to get all the other moving/replacing done, we've got to get cabinets up.
• ·      Plumbing rough-ins Jase swapped out the old copper piping in the kitchen with ABS, and also discovered that they had the washer and kitchen sink draining tied into the same (too small) feed…which would explain the draining problems we’d seen.
• ·      Fix the steps into living room (extending kitchen floor – making it just two steps) 
• ·      Template out the cabinets (and go buy them before Jan 22) bought them on the 14^th, for almost $1,000 under budget, and got our hardware on sale, and thanks to the “cash back”, for free.
• ·      Take back wall to be even with pantry
• ·      Replace windows (if can afford)
• ·      Remove wallpaper Thanks Mer, for your help with that…it went a lot quicker with the two of us
• ·      Install new – floors, cabinets, counters, appliances, “breakfast nook”, etc
• ·      Paint (Benjamin Moore – Storm)
• ·      Tile behind stove 
• ·      Template & make countertops (black concrete with broken glass)
• ·      Put up picture wall behind seating area
• ·      Make  pendant light for over table
• ·      Get 4 bar stools for peninsula
• ·      Get chairs for table area (we’ve decided to splurge a bit on the chairs - )
• ·      Make table & benches for eat-in area

 Dining Room:

• ·      Rip out carpet
• ·      Reinsulate the two outside walls (re-drywall) again we doubled the R-rating on two walls here.
• ·      Replace window (if in the budget)
• ·      Move overhead light to middle of the room
• ·      Paint 
• install decorative moulding/trim to "formalize" the room
• ·      Refinish table and hutch to match
• ·      Refinish, reinforce and reupholster chairs
• ·      Make artwork and put up shelves
• ·      Make “bar” area
• ·      Install flooring  (Armstong “natural-antique” engineered hardwood)

Bedroom #2 (aka: Nursery):

• ·      Rip up carpet
• ·      Tear down wall in closet (using the linen closet)
• ·      Close off linen closet from hallway
• ·      Paint walls
• ·      Paint ceiling
• ·      Make and paint new doors for closet (to take up all of that wall)
• ·      Replace window (when able to afford)
• ·      Lay new flooring
• ·      Get and paint crib, & dresser for change table
• ·      Make bedding & other linens
• ·      Make light fixture

Bathroom

• ·      Take out vanity, toilet, tub
• ·      Rip off tile
• ·      Rip up linoleum
• ·      Take out wall between bedroom (eliminating the bedroom closet)
• ·      Build vanity
• ·      Pick out floor tile (mono flora in “white”)
• ·      Pick out shower tile (glass subway tiles in blues/greens)
• ·      Take out window (that was previously in bedroom)
• ·      Frame up new wall
• ·      Drywall new wall
• ·      Lay floor
• ·      Put in new tub, toilet & vanity put in a new toilet that the wholesalers gave us cheap to test out. It is comparable to the Cadet 3, and so far it’s been great. Although, we did discover that the floors are WAY out, so you’re sitting on a bit of a slant now haha
• ·      Tile shower area
• ·      Build storage towers

Bedroom #1:

• ·      Tear down wall between laundry room (before kitchen is completed, so we can close off the door from the kitchen) so far we just have a door sized opening
• ·      Rip up carpet & linoleum stuff (from laundry room)
• ·      Build closet (using small laundry closet at starting point)
• ·      Take out window (add a second one if possible)
• ·      Add another wall (that will be the new wall between the bathroom)
• ·      Paint (possibly Ben Moore – “dragonfly”)
• ·      Install new flooring (a medium brown)

Living room:

• ·      Remove built in & random 3ft wall
• ·      Rip up carpet (also rip it off the stairs)
• ·      Scrape stucco from the ceiling (and up staircase)
• ·      Figure out what’s going on with the messed up bouncy plywood floor – and obviously fix it
• ·      Properly insulate the floor & walls
• ·      Replace windows (the larger one first)
• ·      Build half wall to define entry space
• ·      Paint (Benjamin Moore “old prairie” & “wythe blue”)
• ·      Tile entryway area (black penny rounds?)
• ·      Lay flooring in living area (dark brown – possibly vinyl tile?)
• ·      Paint & reupholster “bench” for entryway
• ·      Figure out & install hooks for coats along with more storage
• ·      Refinish stairs & railings
• ·      Replace front/back doors
• ·      Put up new trim

Master area (phase 1):

    Bath:

• ·      Take off wallpaper
• ·      Take down tiles again, thanks Mer for the help….she was seriously a monster when it came to taking down those tiles.
• ·      Add forced air vents
• ·      Remove old baseboard heaters
• ·      Replace vanity, mirror & lighting
• ·      Put up bead board (to cover glue from tiles)
• ·      Paint walls (Benjamin Moore “stratton blue”
• ·      Paint floor (either hexagonal or penny-round style)
• ·      Put up new trim
• ·      Add some shelving (above toilet)

   Bedroom

• ·      Add forced air vents we have the ducts run to the bedroom, so we have a large gaping whole at the bottom of the wall, Brad still needs to get his butt into the attic to finish running the lines haha.
• ·      Remove old baseboard heaters
• ·      Raise closet rods (seriously they’re like 5ft from the ground!)
• ·      Paint dressers
• ·      Build or buy (cheap) my night table
• ·      Make pendant lamp
• ·      Paint table lamp bases & replace shades
• ·      Paint walls (MSL “cement gray”)
• ·      Stencil wall (MSL “anvil”)
• ·      Replace hardware on dressers & closet doors
• ·      Replace trim
• ·      Take out old air-conditioner & fix window
• ·      GET A NEW BED (which unfortunately probably won’t happen for a while)
• ·      Build & install floating shelf above bed

So we’ve made some progress on the house to home front, and so far we’re coming in well under budget which makes my heart sing quite a bit, especially since being laid off from a great paying job, and having to move to a minimum wage job money is tight, so anywhere we can save some coin is excellent. 

   During those beautiful warm weeks we had in March we crossed "get rid of the crap from the front of the house" off the list, hopefully if the weather ever warms up again we can cross a few more off the outside to-do list.