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

Walkin' On Sunshine

And it sure feels good! (I have had this post sitting in the draft pile for close to a month, because I hadn't got around to taking pictures...I suck, I know. I'm sorry.)
The floor we put down really is like walking on sunshine! It looks fan-freakin-tastic! And it feels pretty fantastic under your feet. We've been living with the subfloor in there (and the kitchen) for almost a year. Not that you could really call it "living with" since I can count on one hand the amount of times we've even entered the dining room over this past year. Our friend Mitch came over to help us lay it, and he's such a rock star that it only took he and Jason three hours.

We put in an engineered hardwood that had to be brad nailed down, so I was planning for most of one day to put it in, thankfully that wasn't the case. Mostly because Mitch is a rock star, and can bang stuff out in no time, seriously if you're looking for someone to make your house a little prettier he's your man.

Hooray, so pretty! Then since I was a slacker and didn't paint before the floor went down, the room  still wasn't ready, so I had to paint. I love putting new floors down, they can totally and completely change the look of the room. So can paint though...take a look at this bad boy all painted up!

The hutch won't be staying like this, it's going to get a makeover.

Woot woot! It's a far cry from done, but it actually looks like a room now, instead of a dusty hell hole, so I'll take it. The colour looks great with the floor (I still have to do a third coat to even out a few places) and once we put up the base & case and install the picture ledge it'll look even better. We also took off the awning that was over the window about a month ago, and it's crazy how much more light it lets in the room. I'm so glad I finally painted, it's been like a year since I bought the paint, I've taken it to get shaken no less than three times since buying it with the intention to paint, haha. Moving the table in there just proved to me that it's too small for the space, it'll live in there though until we can find a table we like enough to buy, or get around to making one ourselves. But the room looks fantastic, even better than I was picturing.

Some Small Improvements

There have been a few small things taking place here lately, small, but very exciting things! Each big stage we hit in the kitchen is exciting. I remember when the fridge got moved in there, and the stove hooked up, it was like Christmas morning so I promptly cooked a most delicious roast beef. Then came the the instal of the cabinets, and sink, and I was actually able to do dishes, so I celebrated by doing the worlds largest stock pile of dirty dishes. And we were relatively good about keeping up to date with our dishes. The thing that I wanted most of all in there for a while were lights! We had one floor lamp in there that we'd switch between two different outlets depending if we were cooking or washing dishes. I was more than ready for lights, even if it was just the one over the sink. Thankfully I got more than that. (Sorry for the crappy pictures, I still have to use my phone, and it's really hard to get pictures of pot lights haha)

 Hello gorgeous illumination, where have you been all my life. We've had overhead lighting in here for a couple weeks now, and I still get all giddy and smile bigger than is necessary every time I flick them on. You can actually cook at night now, without getting the lamp cord caught in the oven door. Success! As if getting lights up in here wasn't enough excitement for me to handle Jason came home with this bad boy the other day.

 It's my favourite kind of dishwasher...FREE! That's right, that gorgeous beaut that matches the rest of our appliances was free! Jason switched it out at this guys house who got a new one, because this one didn't match the new fridge and stove he got. Jason called me to see if I wanted a free stainless dishwasher, I thought about it for a microsecond, then questioned why he even bothered to ask because what kind of person says no to a free dishwasher. I was thinking we'd take it as a temporary thing until we could get one that would fit better with our appliances. I didn't realize it was only a year old, and was super nice looking at fits in perfectly with his other appliance friends. We've already put two loads through, and he works like a charm. We feel like we're real grown ups now that we have a dishwasher haha.

Moving over a room, to the ever forgotten dining room, We've primed and painted (the top part), and the floor has been scraped clean of all the drywall mud slops and nails and other crud that was there, and it's ready for floor!

The floor is an engineered hardwood from Armstrong that we got from an auction before we even closed on the house, they've got a great reclaimed wood look to them. We're super glad we took every piece out of every box, because there was a ton of variation to them. There was a warmer more reddy/orange tone, and a lighter, blonder tone, then there were darker pieces to each tone. We sorted them into three piles, and decided to use the warmer toned ones in the nursery

It's even pretty in this poorly lit, night time phone picture. It should be going down Wednesday, then hopefully Thursday/Friday - or part of the weekend, will be devoted to putting down the kitchen floor so we can get this final home assessment done. I'm really looking forward to having the floor down in there so we can actually walk in that room without getting drywall dust all over our feet and traipsing it around the house. Just have to get my but in gear to do a few of the projects I've got for in there.

Spring has Sprung & Minor Tweaks

Before monsoon season hit, we were able to get a few things done outside in preparation for the patio, and it was pretty evident that spring had sprung. There were adorable little shoots popping up all over the place, and while I am by no means a gardener, I certainly can get excited about little signs of life growing from the gross, dead looking earth. A number of the bulbs and plants we planted last year in the front garden were coming up.

Aww, look at that cute little sedum guy. Still have to trim the dead stuff...have to wait for it to stop raining for more than five minutes though, which clearly doesn't look like it's going to happen.

 No clue what these little sprouts are...how I labeled things was stick a fork in the ground and trust that my elephant memory would do the rest. Alas, I can't even remember anything we planted in the fall (other than tulips haha)

Speaking of the tulips. The random friends growing in the backyard get more sun so they were a little more advanced. The older teenage siblings if you will.

Those tulips and this (hyacynth I believe) were growing where the myrtle was last year, so I'm not sure how long they were there, if maybe we just never saw them through the myrtle jungle.
 

Or perhaps it was those dastardly squirrels thinking that when I told them to "stay the *@#$ away from my bulbs" I actually meant, "take what you'd like, and disperse at your leisure". Either way, pretty colours should be on their way.


On a completely unrelated note. I thought I'd share the progress made on some dining room features. Remember Octa, the octopus chandelier?

 Well, she got a bit of a makeover...

Woot! She doesn't even look like the same Octa, eh? We're not 100% sure if she'll stay the glossy white, or if she'll change to a matte black, depends how nicely she plays with all the other pieces in the room. Her shades have jumped ship and she'll just sport a fun round filament bulb.
   The other update came in the form of some butt comfort. Here's what our dining chairs looked like before.

Brown with a pink velvety seat cushion. Now, there was nothing particularly wrong with the wood tone, it just didn't really go with the rest of the wood tones that are going to be in the room, we were going to have to re-stain them anyway, so since they needed to be sanded down regardless I decided to go with that I really wanted. And the best part is, my Nana wasn't even really upset that I decided to paint them. Thumbs up for previous owners approval.

 

Cool lines eh? (please disregard all the crap in the background, judging by the patio furniture I'd say this picture was taking about September/October haha)

Wabam! Looky looky...and this is only with primer, haven't even given them their final coats yet, then they'll look all glossy and beautiful.

And a detail shot of the new bum padding.

I love them. Jason thinks they look pretty good too. Not too bad for $7 a chair.

Baby it's Cold in Here

Freezing to be exact. And in the house! Our furnace quit working Monday early morning, and it was supposed to be a fairly easy (and inexpensive) fix. Pft, yeah right, as if something in our house would go according to plan. I was cold all day Monday, but it proves that our insulation job helped a bit, because it only made it down to 15.5 degrees (from 19.5). So we stayed at the Manor (Jason's parents house) Monday night so we didn't freeze our buns off. Tuesday Jason tried to fix it again, and our gas friend determined it was something that, "[he'd] never fn seen this thing before in my life!" Well that was certainly reassuring. We're hoping that he'll be able to find this mystery part at work today, and it won't cost much more than a couple hundred, just to get us through the next couple weeks. Because if the laws of life tell us anything, we'll put a new furnace in and it'll be warm enough we won't have to use it. So for now, we're staying at Jason's parents, so unfortunately we aren't able to work on anything until we get back home.
  
In other news, we need a new table. Two actually, but we'll take it one at a time, try not to be greedy you know. We have a farmhouse style table currently, that's for the dining room, but we're using in the kitchen so we have a place to eat. It's not the table that came with our dining chairs, we love the chairs, especially after their makeover, and we strongly dislike the table. So naturally, the table is what we need to replace. This is pretty much what it looks like (because I forgot to take a picture)

Ours isn't painted, but other than that, this is pretty much our exact table. There's a number of reasons why it's not the table for us. The legs, and table top don't match, and the leaf is different all together. Which isn't really that big of a deal, because I was planning on refinishing it anyway so it went with the other wood tones going in there. It doesn't match the chairs, they're more of a midcentury, curvy, sleek number, while the table is clunky and chunky. Which wouldn't bother some people, but really irritates me. The legs, and hang down are really where this table looses points though. You can't sit at the end of the table without straddling the two posts, which is not only unlady like, but uncomfortable. Even our skinniest of guest couldn't comfortable fit their legs in between the table legs. The lip, or hang down or whatever you want to call it also poses problems with your legs being able to fit under. It also is too small. While the underside is big, the table even with the leaf in only fits about 6 people comfortably (or as comfortable as you can be shoved underneath of it. So we've been on the hunt for something bigger, yet sleeker, that can seat 8 (preferably more) We have a large dining room so we can fit a larger table. We want something that has lower profile legs, that we can fit under, and hopefully something that goes a little better with our chairs.

We like the look of this one from West Elm. The slim lines of the metal legs, the rustic look of the top and it's large, seats 8. While I like the look of it, I'm not really certain it would look right in the dining room with the direction we're going with it.

A great midcentury option

another midcentury option

my favourite option

I like the last one the best, and it would probably be the easiest to DIY, if we could find an old base from a round table and slap on a top, and then we could definitely make sure it's the right size for us. I've been looking on kijiji and thrift stores for a while, as well as scouting out more conventional stores, since that midcentury-modern looks seems to be in right now. All we know is we'd really like a new dining room table to put in the room when we finish it, although we're not in a hurry, because we want to make sure we're able to get the right one.

One of These Things is Not Like The Other

What do an octopus chandelier, (ok so she's not really an octopus, but she's got 8 legs so close enough)

vinyl floor,

beadboard,

a hutch,

and dresser...

all have in common? Well if you took the bead board out of that equation they'd all be second hand - woot woot! But, really it's that they all should be getting some attention next week. We are long overdue on a number of projects, and one of the unexpected perks of going through the adoption process is it's forcing us to finish a number of house related projects, before the judgement lady comes, and gives us a gold star and tells us we can start our kid  shopping. No longer will things sit in the corner of a room, collecting dust, trying to see how much we can balance on top of them. These poor neglected children will finally get to see the light of day, and have their chance to shine. (That's right, I'm talking about you Octa and Hutch - get ready!) Octa and Hutch, will both be getting a nice crisp white makeover, and will both be residing in the dining room (that is if we ever get it paint ready in there)
   As for the vinyl floor and bead board, we're going to get slap happy with those friends, and throw um up (and down) in our master bath, so it doesn't have to look like this anymore!

it's like that hillbilly cousin you're embarrassed to admit you have. I've already painted and changed out the light fixture, so once we do the floor and bead board we can pretty much call this room "done". Or at least liveable until we can tackle the big makeover we have for it a few years down the road.

Lastly, we have the dresser. I've been searching for a low, long dresser for our bedroom since we moved in. I'd been searching kijiji, and pretty much every thrift store within a 75k radius to find one that fit the bill. I wanted either french provincial or midcentury, with at least 6 drawers, solidly built, and preferably something that was under $200. I was beginning to think that what I wanted was like the elusive flying unicorn that Jason swears exist, and was starting to lose hope. Then, he came to me. I asked Jase's mom if she could keep an eye out on the swap shop that she has access to, and a week later she sent me that picture. He's quite handsome isn't he? I will be giving him a hair cut, because we don't want the mirror attached, and a full body makeover.

So that's what my week is shaping out to contain, hopefully I'll get that, and more done, so I'll actually have things to share.
  

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.