Building Our Dream Home

Landscaping

2007-09-06T08:47:00.001-03:00

Well, we finally bit the bullet and started on some landscaping. After living here for 2 years we thought it was time! We had a side section of our yard that wasn't cleared and was mostly full of alders. I will try and find a picture when I have more time. Yesterday the excavator started and by the time I got home at lunch time most of the bushes were gone. Here's what it looks like this morning!

Slow and steady!

2007-08-20T13:44:00.000-03:00

That pretty much sums up our progress on the house since Nathan has been born. Lately we've been able to get a bit more done as Nathan's been going to bed earlier in the evenings and is getting into a better routine during the day.

Today I finally got a coat of paint on our closet. It's kind of depressing painting walls white, as there isn't much of a difference between the primer and the finished product. Oh well, I know it's done. Tonight we'll move our dressers in there with our temporary racks and then we're set to install the closet doors. Yay!

Peter has been diligently working on our kitchen cupboards. Until a month or so ago I had one drawer (unfinished) on sliders that didn't work. The upper cupboards also had no finish on them. Right now here is where we stand (please forgive the picture colouring - I'm not very good with this SLR camera):

I now have eight drawers. Six of them are completely varathaned and filled with stuff. The other two are filled but will need to be taken out and finished at some point. The first set of sliders we bought were terrible, so we've replaced 6 of the sliders so far with better ones. In the above picture you can see that Peter has made some fronts for the drawers. All the fronts are now stained and two of them are all varathaned as well. They will look so nice once they're attached! We bought brushed nickel drawer pulls.

Here is our upper cupboards all cleaned out with 2 coats of stain on the face frames. We still obviously need shelves in the ones on the left. Also, on the left-hand end of the run of cupboards Peter made and installed his first raised panel (essentially a cupboard door that is fixed in place). I really can't wait to get the varathane on these cupboards so I can put stuff back. My kitchen table and counters are full!

Peter has the doors for this cabinet (under the sink) all made, but they have to be sanded, stained, and finished before we can attach the hinges and install them. It's such a long process! Peter has a goal to have all the bottom drawers and doors on before Nathan starts crawling (for obvious reasons).

So, next on the docket will be to varathane the upper cupboards, install our closet doors, varathane the drawer fronts and install them. Peter also has a few more cupboard doors on the go. It's so nice to see progress again!

What ... a post??

2007-07-25T21:40:00.000-03:00

It must be a miracle. Well, in case you don't read my other blog, Baby M arrived (Nathan) on May 20th (read about it here). So, as you can imagine, work on the house has slowed considerably.

One thing we have done since Nathan was born is to get some more drawers installed in the kitchen. None of our drawers were sliding very well and we weren't sure if it was our workmanship or the sliders. We bought another type of slider and it totally fixed the problem - yay! So, we're slowly replacing the 'old' ones with the new ones. Peter recently cut out three drawer fronts and finishing them will be the next project.

Shortly after Nathan was born Peter's Dad came up and finishing crack-filling our bedroom closet. We finally got around to sanding and priming it in the past few days. This morning it looked like this (after Peter sanded it and I washed the walls):

And here it is after a coat of primer. A big difference!

The goal for this room is to get it painted (white) and the move in two portable hanging racks along with our dressers. Then we'll put the doors on (they've been in our back entryway for months) and leave it alone until we have time to design a nice organizer. That could be a couple of years, so once the doors are one we'll consider this project completed for now. I can't wait!

Closing Time

2007-04-05T15:32:00.001-03:00

So ... what have we been up to in the last while since I posted? As you can imagine, we're still so excited that we are finally finished enough to get the mortgage. There's been a flurry of activity in the last week and a half getting papers all together and signing everything. We've both met with our lawyer and the banker (twice). After all that running around - today is our official closing date! I feel like we are entering the world of the grown ups after playing around with this line of credit stuff for too long.

According to the bank we should receive our last cheque from them by Monday, and our first actual mortgage payments start in two weeks. I am so glad we got this all straightened out before Baby M is due to arrive.

Other than that, not too much house-related has been happening. We seem to have lost our motivation ;) Peter is actually hard at work building Baby M's crib so the rest of the house projects have been pushed aside for a while. This weekend my goal is to finish caulking the trim in the nursery. Then all that's left will be to paint the trim and wash the floor and the room will be good to go. Not any too soon, either, considering June is coming very quickly!

A Banner Day!

2007-02-23T07:44:00.000-04:00

As you know, we had our appraisal yesterday at 5 and .... we passed! The appraiser said we're over 95% done and that she'll make sure she gets it to the 97% we need for the mortgage. I can't believe how excited I am about this. I was ready to run over and hug her when she said this would be her last visit!

She also said that her initial appraised value of the house was missing lots of upgrades, such as the garage, radiant heat, wood stove, built-in appliances, etc ... so as long as the bank requests it she will do up another appraisal to give us a better idea of what the house is worth as built.

Not too much else going on with the house ... just had to share the awesome news. A long process will hopefully end in the next few weeks with the signing of some mortgage papers!

Peter and I are busy all night tonight, and tomorrow afternoon and evening. I'm hoping to get the last two window cases painted tomorrow morning but that's all I have planned for the weekend :) We don't want to get too slack now that we don't have the financial motivation to finish the house, but I think the impending arrival of Baby M will help with that.

We got the call ...

2007-02-22T13:07:00.001-04:00

**ETA: Appraisal is tonight at 5 ... eeks!

When we got home last night there was a message on the machine that the assessment should be done by the end of the week. Peter called the bank back this morning to arrange an appointment but hasn't heard anything yet. I'll update when we have a time.

In case anyone's interested, I've been slowly going back and adding posts from when we first started building in the 2005 archives. We originally had these at a different url until they decided to stop having free service. Enjoy!

We have slightly slowed down this past week, but we've still accomplished quite a bit. Since my last post, Peter has finished the trim downstairs (pictures will be forthcoming when I get a chance). I managed to finish caulking almost 4 windows (1/4 of the total - yay ... I guess). I have continued with the house clean-up and things are starting to look pretty good. Peter installed most of the trim in the orange room - he needs some strong help to move the desk before he can finish the baseboard along one wall. He also installed the window trim in our bedroom, the nursery, hallway, and laundry room. Wow - he's really flying!

We're still missing trim in our bedroom and bathroom (other than the windows), the laundry room, and the yellow (guest) room. Actually, the half-bath still needs trim, too. Other than that all the trim is on. Peter still has 2 closet doors to install (our bedroom and guest room) before he's finished with doors forever. I'm sure he'll shed a tear on that day ... not ... lol. He's really not a fan of hanging doors.

I will keep you posted on the appraisal.

Encouragement ...

2007-02-13T12:50:00.000-04:00

I was reading through last year's posts the other day and came across a list I had made just after the assessor left last time. Here is the post. Here is the list along with updated comments about what we've actually accomplished since that time - I feel much better after seeing all the things checked off!

Big Items Left to Finish (As of August 18, 2006)

Urethane on stairs (Not really done, but not noticeable)
Hang drywall in third spare room (Done)
Hang drywall in back closet (Done)
Hang, paint and install doorknob on door to half-bath (Not painted, but done otherwise)
Crack-fill, prime, and paint third spare room and second spare room closet (Third bedroom done, second closet not done)
Crack-fill, prime, and paint master closet (Have a few coats of crack-fill on it)
Crack-fill, prime, and paint back hallway (Done)
Finish laying and grouting tile in kitchen (Done)
Build and install pantry and oven cupboards (Done)
Build and install upper cupboards (Done)
Build and install shelves and drawers in kitchen cupboards and master vanity
Build window returns (Done)
Install trim throughout (About half done)

Not too shabby!

Last night we didn't get anything done on the house. Tonight Peter is planning to install the rest of the baseboard on the main floor and possibly do another bedroom upstairs. I think I'm back to caulking and painting trim ... probably won't be any progress pictures from that, it's slow going!

The little things ...

2007-02-12T07:07:00.000-04:00

We made more progress on our list this weekend :) Friday night Peter wanted to get the drawer together that he started a few weeks ago before his router bit broke (very strange occurrence, apparently). He had already planed the boards and had the jig set up, so he didn't want to leave it any longer. So ... he got the above drawer all glued together and left it to dry overnight. He then finished hanging the door and the closet door in the nursery. I got a first coat of paint on the wall in our bedroom. Unfortunately, when I got up Saturday I could see that it needed another coat.

Saturday Peter finished the trim in the hallway (the door on the far right is the nursery door and obviously needs a coat of paint) :

He also trimmed out the inside of the nursery, including the doors and baseboards. Now we're just missing window trim and this room will be ready to start setting up!

Lastly, Peter put the baseboards on in the living room - having them on really finishes off the room (also notice that all the windowsills are white now instead of brown) :

Saturday I got the second coat of paint on the wall in our bedroom - it looks much better now. In the process I figured out how to take our wall sconces down and clean them. Very good to know. After that I spent the rest of the day unpacking and organizing the orange room ... tada!

As a bonus I also got the other guest room (yellow) all cleaned up and organized. It's so nice to not have rooms I'd be embarrassed for people to see! After our long day we just crashed on Saturday night, so the construction mess from setting up the chop saw and air nailer in the house is still there. I have a free night tonight so my goal is to get that all cleaned up :)

Details, Details

2007-02-07T17:55:00.000-04:00

Work continues at a furious pace as we anxiously await a call from the appraiser to schedule the walk-through. I was looking over our list and it is definitely possible to finish by the end of the weekend. We may also have some of the things checked off our "unfinished" list. I am going to scratch item 4 off the "to finish" list (painting the nursery closet) as you honestly can't tell it's not painted, and there are other things to be done that will make a bigger difference - like painting the marred wall in our bedroom (the white crack-fill really stands out on the raspberry-coloured walls!)

Last night was a productive night. Peter got the door to the electrical room installed along with most of the trim for that door (check off part of number 3 from "to finish") and almost finished installing the closet door in the nursery (from the "unfinished" list!).

I painted the first coat on two more windows in the living room. I only have 4 more to go - 2 upstairs and 2 on the main floor. I also did a bit of touch-up crack-filling on one wall in our bedroom that I had to repaint anyway.

For tonight, I'm not sure what Peter's planning on working on (although I know he has lots to choose from). I'm planning to prime the wall in our bedroom and paint the last two windows on the main floor.

At lunch I headed to the hardware store to pick up covers for our air exchanger pipes (details, details) along with our last interior door (for the nursery) and the door for our closet. The doors should be delivered tomorrow.

Peter has been doing an awesome job on the trim - I can't believe how quickly it's going!

One last detail. Peter's Dad gave us some money for Christmas, with which we decided to purchase a nice mirror for the master bath. The one we'd been using just wasn't cutting it - even I had to bend over to see in it as it was just resting on the counter. Now we have a beautiful 3' x 5' mirror hanging over our vanity - it makes the whole room look so much bigger. The one we were using in our bathroom I will install in the main floor half-bath.

Our friend, Trevor, is also buying our leftover hardwood flooring from us today - yay for extra cash *and* more space in the electrical room :)

I will try to get some pictures tonight!

Apologies

2007-02-06T07:57:00.000-04:00

My apologies if this page is loading slowly for you - I didn't realize there was a problem until Peter pointed it out to me. I will shrink the pictures when I get a chance and that should speed things up ...

Busy little bees

2007-02-04T21:08:00.000-04:00

Peter and I had a fairly productive weekend on the house. Knowing the possibility of a mortgage is just around the corner has served as great motivation for the last week. Peter worked all weekend on installing door trim and baseboards. Here are three shots of his progress:

I spent Friday night painting some more window trim. I got a first coat on three more windows. I have 6 left, total. We also realized that I should repaint one of the walls in our bedroom. It got pretty banged up when we installed the hardwood. The dents have been crack-filled, but I will prime and paint that wall this week. It *should* (fingers crossed) only need one coat. On Saturday I continued with my quest for organization. Here are the same two shots as before.

I think we're making progress. Unfortunately we still can't check any items off our list, but we've made progress on at least 3 of them!

Channeling my inner Martha ...

2007-01-30T21:44:00.000-04:00

Yay for progress. We can check off half of item 1 on our list from the previous post. Peter and I spent the evening building this:

So ... my next job is to translate this:

... into organizational bliss on our closet shelves. I'll be sure and post the after pictures! lol. I feel like I'm on a TLC show!

Frantic and Frenzied

2007-01-30T16:55:00.000-04:00

Well, we knew this day was coming ... the bank called today and it's time for another visit from our friendly appraiser.

For those who aren't aware, while we're building the house, the bank requires an independent appraiser to visit the site every three months to ensure that work is progressing. This appraiser is also the one who holds our fate in our hands - she determines when we've hit the magical "milestones", at which points the bank releases a certain percentage of our construction loan to us. The milestones were explained to us as such: Draw 1 occurs when the house is basically weather-tight (i.e. roof on and windows and doors in); Draw 2 occurs when the drywalling is (basically) complete; and Draw 3 occurs when the house is 97% complete.

To date we've received Draws 1 & 2 and are anxiously working toward that magical Draw 3. Draw 3 is magical because once it is received we can convert our construction loan into an honest-to-goodness mortgage! Most people would not be as excited about signing mortgage papers, but after basically carrying around a huge line of credit for 18 months, we are more than ready to get those papers signed and settle into a fairly predictable repayment schedule.

The appraiser last visited us in August (I know - the bank has been lenient on the 3 months thing, which we appreciate). At that time she said we were 93% complete ... so close! After that report, the bank (have we mentioned we're big fans of our bank?? CIBC in case anyone's wondering) actually gave us a little "advance" on Draw 3, so the amount we're waiting to get from them isn't significant, it's the mortgage itself we want to get settled. Anyway, at that point we had not fully completed the hardwood. The kitchen area was not tiled. Many of our cupboards were not yet built or installed (no upper cupboards or the tall unit with the oven). We had no trim in the house, and I don't believe the downstairs bath had a door. The nursery was not crack-filled or painted.

Peter asked the bank if we could have another 2 weeks before the appraiser comes. In those 2 weeks we hope to:

Finish the shelves in the office closet and clean up that room and the yellow bedroom!! I know this doesn't really make the house more finished, but it will certainly make a better impression.
Finish installing and get at least a coat of paint on all the window casing and trim.
Install the door to the electrical room and finish trim downstairs (interior door and baseboards left).
Paint the nursery closet (it's primed and will be painted white, so it won't make a big difference - just nice to get it out of the way)

If we can do that, when the appraiser comes we will have the following things unfinished:

Drawers and cupboard doors in kitchen.
Bar counter - this one is a biggie I think, as it's one of the first things you see when you come in the door.
Two closets not painted (one basically crack-filled, one not).
Closet doors not installed in bedrooms.
Shadow-striping and chair rail in upstairs hallway (I don't think this one is a big deal, since those things are optional).
Door and baseboard trim throughout upstairs.

What do you think?? Do we have a chance? At least knowing that we have a deadline of two weeks should give us some motivation!

Panels and painting and trim, oh my!

2007-01-23T19:09:00.000-04:00

Wow - 2 posts in a week. Don't die of shock!

In my last post I forgot to mention that Peter built his first raised panel over the Christmas break! It looks so professional - he should go into business. It still needs to be sanded and stained.

Saturday Peter and I went to pick up our piano. However, I did manage to paint the nursery as well. I bought the paint a long time ago and was a bit concerned it wouldn't be appropriate for Baby M's room. I am very pleased with the colour, though!

Other than painting the nursery we didn't get much done this weekend. Last night Peter got a second coat of crack-fill on the master bedroom closet. He also measured and calculated what we needed to trim the rest of the house. Today he picked up the rest of the trim that we need at Home Depot at lunch. When I came home, this is what I found:

Looks like we have our work cut out for us!

Finally an update!

2007-01-19T17:54:00.000-04:00

I'm finally ready to sit down and give an update on house progress over the past few months, including a few pictures :)

So ... let's see. The last update was showing the window trim on the main floor. I am still plodding away at caulking and painting those. It seems to take forever for each window, but it looks so good when it's (almost) done:

Peter has also built the returns (sills) for all the upstairs windows. The window in our bathroom is installed with the trim and caulked with one coat of paint. Two other windows have a coat of paint on the returns but are not installed with the trim yet. There is no hurry to get them installed as I'm still working on the downstairs ones.

Over the holidays Peter built and installed the rest of the kitchen cupboards, along with our microwave / vent hood combo (notice the pregnant belly sticking out there!):

Also over the holidays Peter installed the trim around the exterior days. They still need to have their corners finished, be caulked, and painted, but they look pretty smart just as they are:

The final thing we've been working on is the nursery! Yay! I don't have any pictures yet, but Peter has finished crack-filling the room and I got the primer on this week. The goal for the weekend is to get the ceiling painted and the first coat on the walls. I would also like to get two more windows caulked. We'll see.

Have a great weekend!

Quick note ...

2007-01-05T12:40:00.000-04:00

Happy New Year!

Sorry for the lack of posts! There has been lots of progress on the house thanks to Peter over the last 6 weeks or so. He got the rest of our cupboards on the wall, installed our microwave / vent hood combo thing, is currently building the window returns for upstairs, and finished crack-filling the nursery ... Good thing, since we're going to need that room in about 5 months! We are expecting our first little one on June 9th. We are very excited!

As a result of this turn of events I have started a blog just to blather on about whatever comes into my head, which is most often cross-stitch, baby stuff, flylady / housekeeping stuff, and to do lists. Anyway, if you're interested in those mundane things you can pop over to here.

I will try and take some pictures of Peter's progress over the weekend and put them up.

GO CANADA GO!!!

No time for talk ...

2006-11-05T21:31:00.000-04:00

... just pictures of Peter's progress over the last week :)

Getting back into it...

2006-10-13T12:55:00.000-03:00

Unfortunately we've been pretty busy the past few weeks, leaving little time for the house (or anything else!) Although we're still pretty busy in the next couple of weeks, I *really* want the downstairs trim finished by mid-November, so I'm posting our plans on here for the world to see ;)

My short-term goal is the finish tiling the kitchen. It's half done and I should be able to finish it with one more day of work. Peter's short-term goal is the finish crack-filling the back hallway. So ... here's the schedule for the next week or so:

Saturday, October 14th

Angela - tile rest of kitchen with help from Marsha

Tuesday, October 17th

Angela - grout kitchen and two remaining tiles in upstairs bath
Peter - coat of crack-fill in back hallway

Wednesday, October 18th

Peter - coat of crack-fill in back hallway

Saturday, October 21st

Peter - finish crack-filling hallway, build router table (needed for trim)
Angela - cut out extra insulation around windows downstairs, measure for downstairs trim

If (and that's a big if) we can get that stuff done next week, which is a very busy week for us, we will be in good shape for finishing the trim on time.

Oh yeah, I've been "tagged" by Katie
So ...
5 Weird Things about myself ...

I eat all kinds of things I really don't like because I know they're good for me (by all kinds I mean things like bananas, yogurt, etc ...really normal stuff for most people)
I'm a devoted follower of Flylady , so much so that some family members think it's a cult!
I hate my food to touch, too!
I'm not that fond of chocolate.
I used to make Peter go to the movie theatre and buy their popcorn just so I could have some while we watched a movie at home ;) What a great guy!

That's all for today!

Long time ...

2006-10-04T11:20:00.000-03:00

Long time no update! Peter posted some pictures of our new cupboards (and my oven! yippee!) last week, but other than that I've been pretty slack with keeping up to date. Unfortunately, over the next few weeks there won't be much work accomplished - Peter's pretty tied up with other commitments.

Last weekend I managed to lay over half the remaining tile. Once I get the rest of that laid (next Saturday, the 14th) we will have all our flooring finished! That will be a huge item off our to-do list. We also spent some time last week hanging most of the remaining drywall. We still had a couple of closets to do, of which we finished 1.5 - not sure why we didn't finish it all at once! Hopefully we'll have time to finish that in the next week as well. Peter began crack-filling the hallway by the back door last week. That's the last spot on the main floor that isn't painted. It will be great to get that finished!

Our short-term goal is to get the downstairs trim on (which means we'll be pretty much done downstairs) by mid-November - in time to decorate for Christmas! I'm so excited to get to really decorate for Christmas this year. Last year we had a tree and that was about it. Oh yeah, and the outside lights! This year my big decorating "purchase" is going to be some greenery garland to do the handrail on our stairs. Mom always does that with ribbon and lights and it looks soooooo pretty. Anyone have any ideas on where I can get somewhat real looking greenery without paying an arm and a leg??

That's about all that's going on around here. I've started making up my Christmas list (gifts to give, not get ;) ) and I only have 1.5 total gifts left to figure out. Not too shabby! Now to start actually buying some of them. I have two major shopping trips planned in the next month, so I should be able to put a big dent in my shopping by the end of October. Then November is decorating and Christmas cards, and December will be for relaxing and baking in my *new* oven! Have I mentioned how much I love my oven??

Oooo yes ... don't forget that Monday starts the official Christmas-music-listening season for anyone interested ;) I come by my Christmas excitement honestly ... right, Mom?

Until next time ...

More Cupboards

2006-09-23T17:38:00.000-03:00

Well, we finally finished some more cupboards, and have them attached to the wall. Oh ... ya, and more more thing .... we can now use our OVEN !!!!! mmmmm cookies mmmmmmm :-)

Tiling Tips

2006-08-24T07:12:00.000-03:00

I think I've figured out the problem I described here with the tiles lifting up. I believe it happens when the mortar has a higher spot in the middle than on the corners. The lifting always started as a hollow sound when you knock on one corner. Sometimes when spreading the mortar a high ridge can form between two passes with the trowel (similar to when you're shoveling your driveway ...). Sometimes this ridge will hold a corner of the tile up. Now that I've figured out what was causing it I can hopefully prevent it in the future.

Other tips I've learned while laying around 750 sq. feet of tile (only 150 left to go!):

Mix more mortar than you think ... mixing mortar is one of the most time-consuming aspects of laying the tile. I always kick myself when I only mix enough for 4 or 5 tiles.
After you lay the tiles, try and go over the grout lines (that don't have grout yet) with a wet cloth to clean them out as much as possible before the mortar dries. This saves so much time if you're messy like me.
A guy I met who is doing his apprenticeship to lay flooring of all types said the best way to know if the mortar is the right consistency is to lay a tile, lift it, and check the bottom of the tile. I think he said somewhere around 80% of the tile should have mortar stuck to it. The method I use now is: when I'm mixing it with the drill and the drill hole mostly retains its shape when I pull it out of the mortar I know it's about right.
Pay more for the good gloves :) Pick a set of clothes to tile in and expect that you will throw them out when you're finished. Likewise with the rags.
Make sure to change water often when grouting - it really does save time in the long run. I always go back to the start after grouting and just shape the grout lines and scrub off the harder grout on the top of the tiles. Then the next day I'll go for a second wash and start working on the haze.
The best thing I've found for shaping grout lines is dollar store sponges :) The ones sold in the home improvement stores aren't flexible enough to get the grout lines right (or at least that's what I've found).
A good score and snap saw is worth its weight in gold. I think tile nippers would have been helpful, but we don't have any.

Anyone else have any good tips for laying ceramic tile?

On Saturday I got all the tile behind the stairs laid (yay!). Last night I got it grouted and washed it once. Tomorrow night my goal is to wash it a second time and get the laminate finished to meet the tile. I can't wait until that's done!

Peter has been working on the pantry and oven cupboard. Despite running into several glitches (we won't talk about those ;) ) he's ready to bring it into the house. He's going to build the section over the fridge in place as well as attach the face frame to the boxes. It will be too hard to move after it's all together.

I'll try and get some pictures - I think we've done lots of flooring since the last ones.

The monster list ...

2006-08-18T17:05:00.000-03:00

Big Items Left to Finish

Urethane on stairs
Hang drywall in third spare room
Hang drywall in back closet
Hang, paint and install doorknob on door to half-bath
Crack-fill, prime, and paint third spare room and second spare room closet
Crack-fill, prime, and paint master closet
Crack-fill, prime, and paint back hallway
Finish laying and grouting tile in kitchen
Build and install pantry and oven cupboards
Build and install upper cupboards
Build and install shelves and drawers in kitchen cupboards and master vanity
Build window returns
Install trim throughout

This is just a reminder for myself about what our "short-list" looks like for the next couple of months. Anything not on this list is just gravy. Things like telephone jacks, cable jacks, fixing little things that aren't quite the way we want them...

90 Percent!

2006-08-16T07:55:00.000-03:00

Just a quick post before work starts for the day :)

The assessor came out last week at the bank's request to get an update on what we had finished. We knew going in that we didn't have the 98% done that was needed in order to get our third and final draw of money. The assessor echoed that sentiment as she was leaving, which was fine.

When we got back from vacation on Monday there was a message on Peter's phone at work that she had set us at 90% complete and the bank was offering to release 2/3 of the remaining money. I'm so excited! It was totally unexpected but will be very nice to pay down the line of credit.

Other than that good news, things around the house have been moving very slowly. It doesn't look like we'll get to do much more until Saturday this week due to various commitments. Last week I tiled the rest of the entryway (yay!) - it's waiting for grout along with a small section of tiles by the stove. I guess I'd better get some more grout. I'm going to try and get those two sections grouted before Saturday and then spend Saturday laying the tile behind the stairs. Peter is working on the face frame for the pantry and oven cupboards - the unit looks so nice even without them!

Paint Transition

2006-08-05T00:05:00.000-03:00

I ran across a question from someone on the www.houseblogs.net forums about a way to transition paint colours between two rooms that share a common wall. Since we dealt with this issue last fall I thought I'd post a few pictures of the "finished" product. Please disregard the mess - we're still spending more time building than we are organizing and it shows!

The door in the first two pictures is the same ... it's impossible to get the whole wall in one shot...

I

Frustration

2006-08-04T08:09:00.000-03:00

We managed to put a good night's work into the house last night. We cut the bottoms off the two doors, Peter put the wall up, and I started to clean the mortar off the tiles in front of the wood stove.

I got about halfway done the tiles when I noticed that one of them was cracked ... very strange. I figured I'd have to take that tile up, remove the mortar, and retile it on the weekend. Well ... once I got that tile up I noticed that the tile next to it was loose ... this spiraled into 6 loose tiles and more on their way. Has anyone ever had this problem or have any ideas on what's causing this? We laid it in the late fall, when the concrete was cold and before we turned the radiant heat on. I thought maybe we weren't mixing the thinset properly. I found some places online that said if the thinset is too wet or dry this can happen (they sound hollow when you knock on them). However, I don't think I've changed anything and all the tiles I've laid recently have been fine. Anyway, we got the 6 tiles up, we're just going to grout over a few others that we should probably lift (I figure it's not much more work to take them up after grout than it is now), and we're really hoping the rest of the tiles are good and solidly stuck. Our other thought on why this happened is that we didn't grout it right away...

So ... I didn't quite get all the tiles cleaned and ready for grout, but that's ok, because I'll spend Saturday replacing the tiles we took up as well as laying some more in the entryway. I'll probably lay some more tiles on Monday and then grout everything on Tuesday.

Enjoy your long weekend all you NBers!

Weekly Schedule

2006-08-03T12:15:00.000-03:00

I was reading back over some older posts and I am completely amazed at what we managed to accomplish in an evening. I think this was due in part to having a plan posted so that we had to be accountable if we decided to just sit on our butts and do nothing instead of what was on the list ...

So here is our plan for the next few days:

Thursday

Cut bottom off doors to master bath and office (they are too long now that the hardwood is in place). Hang doors
Clean mortar off tiles by stove. Get ready for grout.
Paint 1 coat on door to master bath.
Finish framing closet in back hall.

Saturday

Lay tiles we removed and some in entryway.
Hang remaining drywall in spare room and back hall. That's all for drywall - yay!
Cut remaining panels for pantry and oven cupboards.
Start putting together boxes for pantry and oven cupboards.

Monday

Lay more tile.
Put together boxes for pantry and oven cupboards.

Tuesday

Grout tile.
Work on face frames for pantry and oven cupboards.

I have purposely made these goals very attainable so we can feel a sense of accomplishment by actually completing our list ;) Maybe we'll even be able to exceed our expectations!

Back in the groove

2006-08-01T07:25:00.000-03:00

After a few unproductive weeks, Peter and I are ready to get back in the groove of finishing up the house. I've noticed we tend to cycle like that and I think it's necessary for our sanity!

We did manage to finish up the hardwood last week (yippee!) and we also cut out some of the panels for the pantry and oven cupboards before we ran out of plywood. We have an order in for 3 more sheets that will hopefully come sometime this week. We took some time on Saturday to clean up the garage and move the remaining plywood from the kitchen to the garage.

This week our focus turns to tiling downstairs and finishing up the pantry and wall oven cupboards. If the wood doesn't arrive on time I may be able to convince Peter to do some crack-filling. We shall see ...

Tomorrow night I plan on cleaning off some of our tiles that were never grouted in the kitchen (they were hiding under the plywood). I think just getting the mortar off will take all night. We laid these tiles before we got into the habit of keeping it neat in order to avoid the painstaking hours cleaning the mortar off the tiles ;) Thursday night the plan is to actually grout those tiles, and then on Saturday I'll get back to laying tile in the entryway. We're on vacation next week and will have several full days to work on the house - look for progress pics!

Eye Candy

2006-07-16T16:09:00.000-03:00

Getting the flooring laid in our bedroom has allowed me to see the potential for finishing this house someday - what a difference! I love how bright our room is.

Our schedule for this week is sort of up in the air, but the goal is to finish all the hardwood by Friday night. We only have one complete room and a few end rows in other rooms to finish.

As for after the hardwood is finished, our focus will turn to our next big project - finishing the flooring downstairs. Not one I'm looking forward to, but it is the last really large "quality of life" project we have to undertake.

While I'm tiling downstairs Peter is going to build a closet organizer for the closet in the office and then get to work building the pantry and oven cupboards for the kitchen.

One day at a time ...

Flooring pics :)

2006-07-03T20:40:00.000-03:00

Here are some pictures of our work over the long weekend!

Let's be realistic ...

2006-06-27T09:51:00.000-03:00

So ... now that all of you who have actually laid hardwood before have had a good laugh at the progress we expected to make during our first attempt at installation, we'll revise our goals to more closely model reality.

What actually happened on the weekend was we got almost 2 sides of the hallway (our hallway is shaped like a U) done, we painted the front wall in the hallway, and burned some scrap lumber.

So ... our new schedule looks like:

Tuesday: Peter - finish laying hardwood on first two sides of hallway along with a few rows into the office and guest room. Angela - teach a friend how to lay tile.

Wednesday: Worship team practice. Possibly lay some hardwood once we get home.

Thursday: Lay hardwood in guest room.

Friday: Lay hardwood in office (finish guest room first if not completed).

Saturday: Hang door in master bath. Lay hardwood in office. Lay remaining tile in master bath and laundry room (just a few tile - maybe 10 total).

Monday (yay - holiday!): Grout tiles laid on Saturday and tub surround. Lay hardwood on third side of hallway.

Hopefully this schedule is reasonable. I'll let you know ;)

The Finished Product!

2006-06-22T23:07:00.000-03:00

Aren't they purty?

What a great night we had. As you can see below, Peter got started laying hardwood while I got the first coat of paint on the guest room.

I realized that we were getting much more done when I was posting our schedule every week, so here's our hopes for the week:

Friday: Lay hardwood in hall. Second coat on guest bedroom.
Paint coat on front wall in hallway.

Saturday: Lay hardwood in guest room. Second coat on
front wall in hallway. Clean up :)

Wednesday: Hang door to master bath. Lay remaining tiles in
laundry and master bath.

Thursday: Lay hardwood in office. Work on tiling downstairs.

Friday: Lay hardwood in hallway. Work on tiling downstairs.

Saturday: Lay hardwood in master bedroom. Work on tiling
downstairs.

Monday: Lay hardwood in master bedroom. Work on tiling
downstairs.

I'm a happy girl... :)

2006-06-20T23:08:00.000-03:00

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves!

The Stairs ... With Treads!

2006-06-19T22:26:00.000-03:00

Wow - what a day! When we came home this afternoon after work the stair guy (we should really find out his name!) had all the risers and treads on the stairs. It looks so nice!

There's not much else to say ... I'm enjoying having real stairs :)

The Stairs ... Before

2006-06-18T23:07:00.000-03:00

Here is a picture of the stairs before the stair company started work on them ... as well as a picture of our balusters that we've come to know pretty well as we applied two coats of polyurethane to them.

The batteries on our camera died this weekend, but I'll try and get some pictures as soon as we get them replaced of how the work is progressing.

I'm getting sleepy ...

2006-06-08T08:02:00.000-03:00

We are definitely not used to working as hard or long on the house as we did last night (unlike in the early days!), and my bleary eyes this morning are evidence of this fact. We got the wood for the stairs on Tuesday night, and after we got home at 9:30 we worked until 11 getting stands made for the balusters and sawhorses.

Last night we got right to work after supper finishing the pieces for the stairs. It's very easy to do, and you can sit and listen to tv or music while you do it, but it's very time-consuming. We worked until 1 a.m. and managed to get a coat of poly on: 86 balusters (yes, I was keeping track! - only 18 left), all 15 treads top and under the nosings, the nosing around the top of the stairs, half of the skirt boards, and all the handrail (except a couple of small S-turn pieces). As we had to get up at 5 this morning we decided we should head to bed at that point. Tonight's plan is to get the first coat on everything we didn't get done last night and then sand what we finished last night so it's ready for a second coat. Hopefully we can get a bit more sleep tonight, too. I don't think I'll make it tomorrow otherwise!

It is very interesting to maneuver downstairs through all the stair pieces as they dry - I'll try and get a picture tonight!

Finally!

2006-06-05T20:40:00.000-03:00

You may remember a few weeks ago, when I actually kept this blog up-to-date, that I mentioned that a guy was coming to tile our tub
surround. Well … that guy ended up not working out (Mom always said if I can’t say anything nice … ;) ) so we finally got someone else to come
out today. This guy was a bit more expensive, so to save a bit of money we decided we would grout it ourselves.

You may also remember that I said our wood stairs place said we would get the pieces for our stairs in “lots of time” to get them finished before they come to install them next Monday, June 12th … Well, we finally called today after not hearing from them for a few weeks, and apparently “lots of time” translates to 6 days. Do they realize that we have day jobs?? Anyway, if anyone reading this is really bored, we’ll have about 100 balusters at our house tomorrow to get three coats of poly on before next Monday … ? Or, if balusters aren’t your style, can we interest you in some handrail, nosing, or treads? lol. After tonight that will obviously be our focus for the next week.

We have done a minimal amount of work on the house as of late for some reason. I finally got the guest bedroom primed on Saturday. We also got 4 coats of varathane on our bed and put the mattress back in its rightful place last night. Our bedroom looks so much bigger without two queen-sized beds set up!

A friend at church loaned us his pneumatic flooring nailer the other day, so we’ll have that to get started right away on the hardwood floor once the stairs are in. Exciting!

Disappointed but busy

2006-05-22T11:17:00.000-03:00

Well, none of our contractors have come through for us this week, but we won't talk about that right now ;) I'm not such a happy girl about all of that. In spite of that, I've managed to lay about 80 sq. feet of tile in the past couple of days and I'm pretty happy with how it's turning out. I'm just getting ready to grout, but thought I'd put up a few pictures of what it looks like now.

It never rains but it pours

2006-05-18T07:18:00.000-03:00

This is true both literally and figuratively around here lately ;)

After several stalled weeks on house progress we've had a flurry of activity yesterday and today. Yesterday we booked the company to do our hardwood stairs. We decided to finish them ourselves after seeing the exorbitant cost of labour to have someone else do it. Wish us luck! The installers will be putting the stairs in from June 12th - 19th, which means we will have to get two coats of polyurethane on them before that. We haven't heard when we'll be getting the pieces yet, but the guy who we talked to said we would get them in "lots of time." I'll let you know how much time in days that works out to ;)

In addition, our electrician called yesterday to say he's ready to come finish up the electrical work. Last night I spent an hour or so making sure we had everything well-marked for him as we won't be able to be there. Hopefully when we go home all the lights that are currently in boxes on the floor will be hung (in the right spots)! We're looking forward to being able to use the rest of the outlets in our bedroom and bathroom :)

Last night we also had an electrician out to get measurements for a quote on putting power to the garage. He should be ready to perform the work early next week. Yay!

And finally, the guy who's going to tile our tub surround is coming over tomorrow to do that. That will be very exciting. Peter has to get the plywood screwed on the surround tonight in order for everything to go smoothly tomorrow.

Whew! See - lots of progress, although not much work being done on our part! We did move quite a bit more out to the garage last night, and I did lots of clean-up inside the house. We moved the kitchen table over to where it will eventually sit for good - it looks so nice! It also looks really empty in front of the wood stove. We don't have any of the furniture we want to put there eventually yet so we'll have to figure something out there :)

That's about it for us. I'll let you know how everything goes over the next couple days (maybe even some pictures :) )

Checking things off ...

2006-05-11T12:59:00.000-03:00

Last night we actually had a good night of working on the house. Tuesday night wasn't so great for me. Peter got his crack-filling done that night, but all I managed to do was get the second coat of paint on the office door. I find it hard after having a break from working on the house to get back into the mindset of working after supper ;0)

Last night we were both moving quickly. Peter got another coat of crack-fill on the guest bedroom and it's really coming along. I washed the grout haze off the tiles in the back hallway (finally!) and got the second coat of paint on the top half of the hallway.

On the docket for tonight - get the doorknob on the office door, hang the half-bath door, clean out third bedroom. Those are the "must-do's" for tonight. Other things I'd like to get done include: hang drywall in third bedroom closet, paint bottom half of hallway, another coat of crack-fill on guest bedroom. Obviously we can't accomplish all of that tonight!

The reason I'm focusing on the third bedroom is that Peter has tomorrow off of work and he's going to spend his vacation day crack-filling (what a good man!). We don't want him to run out of rooms to crack-fill so I'm going to make sure that third bedroom is ready to get a first coat tomorrow (at least the main part of the room if not the closet as well).

Nothing much has been happening that we can take pictures of lately ... sorry! lol

Weekly schedule ...

2006-05-09T16:13:00.000-03:00

Our weekly goals are quite lofty this week after the dismal progress over the last couple of weeks.

Tuesday, May 9

Crack-fill 1 coat in guest room
Paint second coat on office door
Paint second coat on top half of hallway
Wash more grout haze off tiles in back hallway

Wednesday, May 10

Crack-fill guest room
Clean out third bedroom
Hang drywall in third bedroom
Paint second coat on bottom half of hallway

Thursday, May 11

Crack-fill guest room
Crack-fill third bedroom
Install doorknob on office door
Clean remaining grout haze off tiles in back hallway
Sand the bed in preparation for varathaning

Friday, May 12

Crack-fill guest room
Crack-fill third bedroom

Saturday, May 12

Varathane (first coat) bed
Hang door to half-bath
Move tools to garage (yippee!)

We finally got our taxes back, so we’re in the midst of scheduling the electrician to come out and put power to the garage along with finishing up inside the house. There are still a few things that aren’t ready to be done yet, but we can finish those up later. I can’t wait to have my light over my sink, as well as the lights in the master bath on a switch! Currently we have to go down and switch the breaker on and off every morning ;) Getting the tools out of the house will be a huge improvement in being able to get (and keep) things cleaned up.

Another day, another paint colour

2006-05-08T21:48:00.000-03:00

Here is our main hallway / landing area upstairs with one coat of each colour on the wall :

I'm quite happy with the way it turned out, although it's not even close to what I had envisioned in my head. I did the top colour first and definitely wasn't convinced with just that colour, however when I added the lower colour tonight it started to grow on me.

I'll post our weekly schedule tomorrow - time to watch 24!

I'm impressed ...

2006-05-04T07:29:00.000-03:00

I logged in this morning to check our goals for the week and see how we're doing, and realized that we're doing quite well! Tuesday night we hung the rest of the drywall in the guest / front bedroom and I made a first draft of a list of things for the electrician to finish up.

Last night I grouted the floor in the back hallway and painted the ceiling in the upstairs hallway. Tonight the plan is for Peter to get the first coat of crack-fill on the guest bedroom while I get the first coat of paint on the upstairs hallway walls. I'm so excited - we're doing a chair rail and shadow striping, so lots of fun!

Peter also lined up a locksmith to come out and fix the handle on our front door (anyone who's ever tried to open our front door knows what I mean!) and install the lock and handle on the garage. Guess what that means ... we can start moving tools! I'm so excited. Now if our tax return would just come back so that we can get the power hooked up out there!

Weekly Plan

2006-05-02T07:56:00.000-03:00

I tried to post this yesterday but was getting errors from Blogger - seems to be a common occurrence lately :(

So .. this will be a short post as I have to get to work in 5 minutes.

Last week we didn't get anything done on the house unfortunately. This week we're still pretty busy with non-house-related stuff, but we'll try and make good progress during the time we do have. So, our goals for this week are:

Hang rest of drywall in guest room
Get a good start on crack-filling guest room
Grout floor in back hallway
Paint hallway (ceiling and walls)
Make list of things for electrician to finish up

We should get started on our list tonight :)

Weekly Schedule

2006-05-01T16:40:00.001-03:00

As much as I would like to catch up after not doing anything last week, it doesn't look like that will happen this week either. We should be able to make some progress, but not as much as we could with a completely free week and weekend ... Our goals for this week are:

Hang remaining drywall in guest room (front bedroom with two windows).
Get a good start on crack-filling guest room.
Grout flooring in back hallway.
Paint upstairs hallway.
Hang door to half-bath? (maybe)

Ugh. It seems like so little when I type it out ;) Hopefully we can at least get that much done.

Weekly Schedule

2006-05-01T16:40:00.000-03:00

Hang remaining drywall in guest room (front bedroom with two windows).
Get a good start on crack-filling guest room.
Grout flooring in back hallway.
Paint upstairs hallway.
Hang door to half-bath? (maybe)

Ugh. It seems like so little when I type it out ;) Hopefully we can at least get that much done.

The Masterpiece

2006-04-25T22:30:00.000-03:00

A long time ago on the blog I mentioned that Peter and his friend Bob were building us a four-poster bed. Well, tonight was the night that Bob brought it over and they set it up in our room. It exceeds all my expectations - it's beautiful! Take a look ...

Ch-ch-ch-changes

2006-04-24T09:12:00.000-03:00

Despite being away for part of this weekend we managed to accomplish quite a bit with the time that we did have. Friday night Peter sanded the upstairs hallway / landing area while I laid the rest of the tile in the back hallway downstairs. Now that hallway just needs grout and it will be all set for flooring!

Saturday morning we got up bright and early and washed down the walls in the hallway. Peter drilled the holes for the pipes in the vanity, set it in place, and Derrick came over and helped him get the countertop attached. While they were busy there I primed the upstairs hallway - what a difference that made! Peter also got out and split some of our firewood - a good excuse to spend some time outside in the sun :)

This week is pretty much a write-off as far as housework is concerned so I won't really post a weekly plan. Our goals for the week are:

Call the plumber and get them to hook up everything that's left :)
Touch-up crack-fill in the hallway. There's very little to do here - mostly nail holes that aren't quite filled in.
Reprime the crack-filled areas
Paint the ceiling in the hallway
Hang the rest of the drywall in the front spare room
Get a first coat of crack-fill on the front bedroom
Grout back hallway

We'll see how we make out.

Busy night

2006-04-21T07:40:00.000-03:00

Well, we had a busy night last night. Peter got the last major coat of crack-fill on the hallway upstairs while I cleaned out the back hallway and tiled over half of it! I was amazed at how quickly they went down since I didn't start actually laying them until around 8. Here is the back hallway when I finished last night. I should be able to lay the rest of the tiles (including the closet) tonight and grout next week - yippee! Notice our trim piece is in place ;) There's a rubber cover that goes to cover the edges of the laminate and tile that we'll put down once I'm done grouting. When I was measuring out last night to make sure we had enough tile (we hadn't originally planned to tile this hallway with those tile) I thought we were 2 tile short! Thankfully I found another box, so we should be good to go tonight.

I have a (bad) picture of the back bedroom / office with the paint on:
When I took the picture last night at 11 I thought it looked more close to reality than it does. Oh well, at least you can see that it's all painted and our desk is set up :)

And a few more pics - these are of the master bath - can't wait until it's finished!

This weekend we are hoping the hallway will get primed, and as I said I'm going to finish tiling the back hallway. Peter is going to get a start on crack-filling the guest room (one in front with two windows). Our time is very limited in the next few weeks, so we have to make the most of every minute!

Oh yeah - our Benjamin Moore store is having the sale on paint so I'm heading up there to pick up the rest of the paint at lunch - yay!

Our first "trim" pieces

2006-04-20T13:04:00.000-03:00

No, we didn't go pick up stuff for window or door casings or trim. At lunch we went to Maritime Flooring and picked up all the trim that will be needed to transition between flooring types in the house. Hopefully I'll get to make use of some of it tonight - I plan on laying some more of the tile in the back hallway.

For those of you paying attention - I know flooring's not on the plan, but I'm waiting for Peter to finish crack-filling the hallway and want to make myself useful ;) Hopefully he'll finish up the hallway early tomorrow night and we can start priming / painting. I heard on the radio yesterday that some Benjamin Moore stores are having a buy 1, get 1 1/2 off sale, so I have to check and see if our local store is participating. If they are I'll go pick up the rest of the paint that we need!

We were a little curious to see how much one of our neighbours is selling his split-entry house for (same total sq. ft. as our house) and he's looking for $220k! I was really surprised since we're not in the city. We'll see how long it takes to sell :)

Weekly plan :)

2006-04-18T07:17:00.000-03:00

I've had a few comments from people I saw over the weekend that they missed the weekly plan last week - who knew?! In spite of not posting a weekly plan, we did have one and got quite a bit accomplished. We got the back bedroom all painted and almost the rest of the crack-filling in the hallway done. We also got the front bedroom cleaned out, and the frame built and attached for the vanity. We still need to attach the countertop and drill the holes for the pipes in the vanity before we're ready for the plumber to come back, but it shouldn't be too long. We also got our first quote for doing the stairs - a bit of a shocker but it could have been worse. We're going to get a few more quotes before we settle on someone to do the work.

We have pictures, but they're still on the camera - sorry!

Our evenings aren't completely free this week (in case you're wondering why we have such small goals ;) ) So ... our weekly plan is:

Tuesday:

Finish clearing out back hallway
Break up some mortar where tiles pulled up in kitchen

Thursday:

Crack-fill hallway (last bit)
Begin installing shelving in back bedroom closet (yippee!)
Drill holes in vanity for pipes

Friday:

Sand, wash, and prime hallway
Continue installing shelving in back bedroom closet
Move clothes into back bedroom closet

Saturday

Paint hallway - haven't completely decided on plan for this area yet
Begin crack-filling guest room (front bedroom with two windows)
Begin clearing junk out of second front bedroom

There you have it! If you're looking for us you know where we'll be :)

Weekly plan ...

2006-04-04T07:17:00.000-03:00

Last week was a write-off as far as housework goes, as Peter and I were preparing to lead worship at a youth retreat over the weekend. Everything went well with that and we're now back to full steam ahead on the house. As a result of that, last night was very productive. Peter spent the evening leveling the tub surround and cutting and attaching exterior grade plywood around the lip of where the tub will sit. I primed the master bath (what a difference!) and put the second coat of varathane on the vanity. We also picked up the vanity countertop yesterday. Needless to say we fell into bed exhausted last night.

Our plan for the week is as follows:

Tuesday

Fix uneven spots in master bath (they really show up after a coat of primer, and since we're using semi-gloss paint we want everything really flat)
Varathane vanity (last coat)
Build base for vanity
Crack-fill in back bedroom

Wednesday

Crack-fill back bedroom

Thursday

Paint master bathroom
Sand back bedroom (?)

Friday

Wash walls in back bedroom
Crack-fill hallway
Clear out back hallway

Saturday

Prime back bedroom
Paint ceiling in back bedroom if no patching needed
Paint walls in back bedroom if no patching needed
Crack-fill hallway

As always, this schedule is subject to change when reality sets in ;)

Love at first sight!

2006-03-24T06:31:00.000-04:00

Isn't that a beautiful sight :)

As you can see, the plumbers made it out to hook up our kitchen sink and dishwasher yesterday. Peter did an awesome job trying his hand at electrical work, and got the dishwasher running smoothly. It did a great job on it's first load. Now I just have to get some detergent - I'm using the little sample pack that comes with the dishwasher.

Dad made it last night after a little mix-up at the bus terminal. We managed to keep missing each other for a few minutes after the bus arrived - long enough for me to call home and tell Peter he wasn't on the bus. All was well in the end and Dad got a good coat of crack-fill on the master bath. He's hopeful that once it's sanded it won't need any more coats. That would be wonderful.

Peter finished fixing our mistake on the master vanity, so it's full steam ahead tonight on that.

Waiting with bated breath ...

2006-03-23T13:07:00.000-04:00

I'm sure everyone's waiting anxiously to hear about our lovely plumbing that was installed yesterday. Unfortunately, you'll have to wait a little longer :( The plumbers did come yesterday and do some work but didn't actually perform the final connections to the sink / bathroom / dishwasher.

However, one thing we did notice is that there is no pipe in the half-bath for the incoming water to the toilet - a fairly major oversight I think! Peter was talking to them today and they're still not exactly sure how they're going to take care of that, but they do have one possible solution that doesn't involve ripping out my newly-painted wall. The situation is complicated by the fact that the most logical place to run the pipe would be through an outside wall, which is a big 'no-no' in plumbing apparently.

And now for the good news: I have it on good authority (Peter's) that he saw the water actually running and draining in my kitchen sink when he went out to take a look at lunch. So ... looks like I'll have new pictures later on tonight! Peter's going to try his hand at a bit of electrical work to finish hooking up the dishwasher when he gets home so I'll let you know how that goes as well. My Dad is arriving tonight to rest and put his feet up (at least, that's what he told me this morning!) - actually, I think he's going to be doing some crack-filling over the next couple of days, for which we're very grateful.

Getting there ...

2006-03-21T07:41:00.000-04:00

Sorry this picture is so dark. This is what Peter spent his evening working on last night - the wall that goes underneath our bar counter eventually. This wall will hold all the plumbing for our sink and dishwasher, so it needs to be in place by tomorrow - I can't believe the plumbers are coming tomorrow! He spent most of the evening building it, and will level it tonight. Having the wall in place really helps me to see what it will eventually look like - it looks great :)

This is where I spent my evening - on my hands and knees like Cinderella ;) I prepped and grouted the floor in the half-bath last night. It's hard to tell, but the walls have been painted - the same colour as the front wall in our living room for anyone who's actually been there. As you can see by the nice patina-like haze on the tiles I have some more washing to do tonight before the plumbers come (have I mentioned they're coming tomorrow? lol). I also have to get another coat of paint on the walls. All in all I have an "easy" night tonight. I guess I still have to clean out the dishwasher - I've been storing my clean dishes inside to keep them out of the dust. I want to make sure the kitchen area is all cleaned up before the plumbers come.

I also want to say a big "Thank You!" to Dale from church. He came over yesterday while we were at work and chopped all our firewood that we had sitting in 8' lengths! I have no idea how quantities of wood are measured - but we really appreciate the help. Thank you so much! Not much of it has to be split as it is mostly from smaller trees, so now I'll be stacking as soon as we can find the time.

Time to get to work and watch the clock tick away the hours until we have plumbing in the kitchen ...

Weekly plan & BIG NEWS!!!!

2006-03-20T12:19:00.000-04:00

Yep, I'm shouting ;) We found out on Friday that the plumber is going to come hook up our kitchen sink, dishwasher, half bath, and master bath shower this Wednesday! I am so excited. These last few weeks have seen such a difference in our living habits just from having a countertop and stove, so running water on the main level is going to be amazing :) So ... if all goes according to plan I'll be shining my sink (see Flylady) on Wednesday night. Yippee! Watch out Noonan Bible study girls - I might be a bit giddy on Wednesday!

Unfortunately, the reason the plumber is coming out early is because we need to do some modifications to the tub surround in our bedroom. We didn't account for putting tile underneath the lip of the tub when we built it, so now we have to have the plumber unhook the tub, re-do the surround, then have the plumber come back and finish all the plumbing (master bath sinks, toilet, and tub). The good thing about this is we've decided to hire someone to come tile the tub surround, so he's coming this Thursday.

As a result of all these developments, our plans for the week have been modified significantly ;) So ... here are our plans for the week:

Monday
- Build the wall to support bar-height countertop behind kitchen counter (it is going to contain all the pipes for the kitchen in it, so needs to be in place by Wednesday)
- Grout the floor in the half-bath

Tuesday
- Paint (second coat) walls in half-bath
- Wash floor in half-bath
- Level wall for bar-height counter

Wednesday
- Plumber comes to hook stuff up!
- Remove tub from surround and rebuild surround to correct height. Remember to leave access holes for plumber to reconnect the tub ;)

Thursday
- Plumbers finish work for now
- Attach face frame to vanity and stain
- Clear out back hallway and back bedroom

Friday
- Stain vanity (coat 2)
- Crack-fill master bath, back hallway, and back bedroom
- Hang door to half-bath
- Paint door to half-bath

Saturday
- Varathane vanity (coats 1 & 2)
- Crack-fill master bath (hopefully that will do it ...), back hallway, and back bedroom
- Install doorknob on door to half-bath
- Hang remaining drywall upstairs

So, if you're looking for us, you know where we'll be!

Weekly plan updates ...

2006-03-16T11:56:00.000-04:00

In case you haven't noticed - I keep updating the weekly plan post below to reflect reality ;)

We're behind already ...

2006-03-14T23:29:00.000-04:00

Well, it's 11:30 and I'm going to have to concede defeat. We didn't accomplish everything on our list for tonight. I was only able to lay half the tile for the half-bath (kind of fitting don't you think!) and Peter got interrupted by phone woes so didn't get the boards planed for the face frames (although he did start cutting them to length). So, we're going to be playing catch-up for the rest of the week!

Here's a picture of the bathroom floor as it looks right now. This was the closest colour-wise of the three I took.

Weekly plan

2006-03-14T12:30:00.000-04:00

It's that time again - time to figure out our "schedule" for the next week. We've seen lots of progress in the last week, so it's pretty easy to stay motivated right now! We need to capitalize on that ;)

Our short-term goal is to have the house ready for the plumber by March 25th. Here is the list of what's left to finish for that goal:

Paint half-bath ceiling
Paint half-bath walls (2 coats)
Lay floor in half-bath
Grout floor in half-bath
Finish crack-filling master bath
Joint and plane boards for master bath vanity face frame
Attach face frame to master bath vanity
Stain vanity (2 coats)
Varathane vanity (2 coats)
Prime master bath
Paint ceiling in master bath
Paint walls in master bath (may only need 1 coat as it's white over white primer)
Install master bath vanity

Whew! Alright, so our first steps will be ...

Tuesday:

Lay tile in half-bath
Crack-fill master bath
Plane boards for face frame

Wednesday:

Plane boards for face frame

Thursday:

Lay rest of tile in half-bath

Friday:

Paint half-bath (ceiling and walls)
Put together face frame
Attach face frame to vanity
Stain vanity (coat 1)

Saturday:

Paint half-bath walls
Prep and grout floor in half-bath
Crack-fill master bath
Stain vanity (coat 2)

I think that should put us on a good course for finishing on time. We shall see how closely we stick to that schedule!

And, as you can see, I'm starting to customize some links and trackers at right. It's about time!

We have a stove!!!

2006-03-12T23:25:00.000-04:00

Yippee! This was a great weekend. Peter put the finishing touches on the crack-fill for the half-bath,

we got the first coat of crack-fill on the master bath, our stove was hooked up,

we cut out the hole for the kitchen sink,

and we assembled the vanity for the master bath.

Finally ...

2006-03-09T10:09:00.000-04:00

Some pictures of our newly-installed countertop (and finished cupboards)!

Yay!

Coming soon ...

2006-03-06T12:06:00.000-04:00

... to a kitchen near you ... countertop :) We talked with our friend Derrick yesterday and we've scheduled his help on the countertop installation for Wednesday night. Wednesday ... as in two days from now. So ... what do we have left to finish before then? We have one more coat of varathane (tonight) and the installation of the drawer slides (tomorrow night). Hopefully we can get it done.

We have pictures of the cupboards thus far, but we can't seem to capture the colour of the stain very well. Maybe I'll still post a few tonight. We're very happy with how the stain turned out as well as the way all three colours (stained wood, natural wood, and countertop) look.

So, the plans for this week (I think this is the only reason I keep blogging - to keep track of my To Do list!) are:

Monday: varathane on cupboards (last coat)
Tuesday: install drawer cleats and slides
Wednesday: install countertop (yay!!)
Thursday: call electrician to set up time for stove installation ;)
finish crack-filling half-bath
wash master bath floor (still one more rinse of grout)
Friday: Sand crack-fill in half bath
Prime half-bath
Crack-fill master bath
Saturday: Crack-fill master bath
Paint ceiling in half bath
Paint walls in half bath (one coat)

And, if we can follow the schedule I've set up we should have the master bathroom finished (including the vanity, which we're building) by March 25th. The race is on to get the plumbing all hooked up by the end of the month!

Plain old update

2006-02-27T07:43:00.000-04:00

I realized I hadn't updated in a while, and although I have pictures, they haven't made it from the camera to the computer, so they will come later.

A week ago Thursday we received our countertop - all cut and ready. Unfortunately we weren't ready, so we're still waiting to install it. Last week the evenings were kind of a write-off. This past weekend was pretty good though. We finished sanding the cupboards and got the first coat of stain on the face frames. It looks so good (and so different)! I'll post the pictures I took as soon as I remember :)

This week the plan is to finish the cupboards (1 more coat of stain and at least 3 coats of varathane). Hopefully by next week we'll install the countertop. I absolutely can't wait to have a stove - I'm lining up my stir-fry and pasta recipes that we haven't been able to eat for 6 months! After the countertop is installed we'll finish the bathrooms so that we can get the rest of our plumbing hooked up - probably within the next month or so. Another big milestone :) Once those things are all hooked up we just have to finish the walls and lay flooring as major projects and then we'll be mostly finished. Getting closer every day :)

Another one bites the dust ...

2006-02-13T13:02:00.000-04:00

... another weekend, that is!

Peter and I crashed on Friday night, which was unfortunate but we were both really tired and needing a break. I think it was a good thing because we ended up being very productive on Saturday. We put the last back on the cupboards (the sink cupboard). Peter tried out his new air nailer and what a difference - we saved at least an hour on that one cupboard!

In addition to putting the back on the cupboard, we hung the last remaining sheets of drywall in our master bath (the last green sheets for the whole house - yay!), Peter crack-filled the downstairs bathroom, and I grouted the floor in the master bathroom. Not bad for a day's work!

We still have lots to do before we can install the countertop, which is the next big thing. We need to put the finish on the cupboards and install the drawer slides. At this point we have lots to choose from each night we get to work. This isn't always a good thing, as sanding the cupboards is the last thing I want to do! Hopefully Peter is more motivated than me in that department.

We are busy most evenings this week, so I probably won't have much progress to report until next week.

The week that wasn't ...

2006-02-10T07:37:00.000-04:00

For those of you who haven't heard yet, Peter kidnapped me for a much-needed weekend of relaxation last weekend :) Unfortunately, it seems to have stalled my motivation for working on the house!

This week Peter put another two coats of crack-fill on the half-bathroom downstairs while I did .... nothing! So, our plans for this weekend will look very similar to last weekend. The goals are:

Finish hanging drywall in master bath.
Attach last two backs to cupboards.
Sand cupboards
Stain face frames
Crack-fill as much as possible

The countertop arrives at the shop on Tuesday, after which they have to cut it to fit the measurements we gave them. We'd like to have the cupboards finished (i.e. stained and varathaned and the drawer slides installed before it's installed, so we're going to be busy early next week. Our priorities for the next while will be:

Varathane cupboards (3 coats)
Install drawer slides
Cut hole in countertop for stove.
Install countertop.
Lay tile in half-bath
Finish crack-filling bathrooms
Prime bathrooms
Paint bathrooms
Grout floor in bathrooms

Then, and only then, can we get our kitchen plumbing hooked up! I guess that should be motivation enough ;)

My kitchen!

2006-01-31T21:55:00.000-04:00

If you want pictures, talk to Pete

2006-01-31T14:26:00.000-04:00

As you can see, Peter posted some fairly recent pictures of our cupboard progress last night. It's even changed since those pictures were taken, as we now have our dishwasher in place and the sink cupboard beside it (the dishwasher sits beside the part of the cupboard that is stained, and the sink cupboard sits on the other side of that).

I went and picked out the countertop today and ordered it, while Peter met with a carpenter who's going to install it for us. He'll do all the corners and cutting out which will be great. He also said he can put the seam (grrr for 12' lengths) in the stove section so that there's only a small length of seam on the backsplash and at the very front. So ... our countertop should be in the store around Feb. 14th - how romantic ;) with installation to follow sometime after that. Now we'll be scrambling to get everything else finished.

Lest you think we've been idle, last night Peter finished the cupboard with the sink, and I laid the rest of the tiles in the master bathroom. Not bad for an evening's work, and we still had time to watch 24 before heading to bed.

The rest of the evenings this week are busy, so Friday is the next time we'll be able to work on the house. So, the goals for the weekend are:

Grout the master bathroom
Hang remaining drywall in master bath
Crack-fill one coat on each bathroom
Lay tile in half-bath (??)

In order to do this, since obviously you can't hang drywall or crack-fill in a room that has recently had its floor worked on, we will try to: Friday night hang drywall and crack-fill one coat on ceilings of each room. Saturday morning we will crack-fill walls in half-bath. Saturday afternoon we will: crack-fill walls in master bath and lay tiles in half bath. As soon as crack-filling is done in master bath we can grout those tiles. We'll see how well that schedule sticks ;)

2006-01-30T21:42:00.000-04:00

So we have all of our cupboards in place and are awaiting a quote for a counter top. As you can see, Ange is very happy. Our cats are also enjoying the cupboards. Shver is testing out her balance in the picture above.

2006-01-30T21:19:00.000-04:00

We learned the hard way that it is far better to scrape the excess glue away then try to sand it off latter

A productive night

2006-01-25T13:01:00.000-04:00

Last night was a housework night, and we almost completed our list - that's a miracle in itself! I finished cutting most of the rest of the tile for the master bathroom (the last few will have to wait until we have the door in place), Peter put together the last major piece of face frames, and we attached one more back onto the cabinets. Tonight we're busy, so our next chance to work is tomorrow night.

Let's see ... the goals for tomorrow night will be:

Attach the last back to the second corner cabinet section.
Attach that section to its base.
Build the base for under the sink cabinet.
Put together the last face frame section (for the first corner cabinet) and attach
Lightly sand the first corner cabinet
Sand the second corner cabinet

We'll see how we make out. I went to take some pictures and realized there really isn't much to show. Hopefully soon we'll have some new flooring and the cabinets will all be in place (and some of them stained) so I can get some more interesting pictures.

On a more upbeat note ...

2006-01-23T07:31:00.000-04:00

I didn't like looking at the title of my last post when I logged on. It seemed like too much of a downer!

Another weekend has passed, and we did well with keeping on track. Friday night we had a minor setback, as one of the boxes had warped a bit, and wouldn't pull together with the screws we had been planning on using. So ... what do you do when all else fails? Use lots of glue of course! Peter spread glue over the whole side of the cupboard and then we clamped them together overnight (it seems to have worked ...). Peter also jointed and planed several more boards for the face frames on Friday night while I cut out the two tiles to go around the toilet pipe in the main bath. They look pretty good if I do say so myself!

Saturday we got another back on a corner cabinet, we finished planing the boards for the face frames, put together another set of face frames, and I sanded the glue off one of the corner cupboards.

I was looking back over our goals for January and we'd better pick up the pace! They're still possible, so it would be great if we could accomplish them. Tonight and Wednesday we're busy, but the rest of the evenings and weekend should be good to go.

My goals for the week:
- Finish assembling the base cabinets including face frames.
- Finish laying tile in master bath
- Finish sanding and staining corner cupboards
- Post some pictures ;)

Will it ever end?

2006-01-18T12:31:00.000-04:00

I had a time of discouragement yesterday, where I started feeling like this construction process is never going to end. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, these feelings of hopelessness aren't much fun. I'm mostly over that today and anxious to get back to work :)

Last weekend Peter routed the backs of the cabinet boxes in order to easily install the backs (not cut out yet - that will be this weekend). I spent some time cutting some of the more ... interesting ... tile squares that need to go in our bathroom. These are the tiles around the pipes. Thanks to Dad for the use of his wet saw - I'm a pro now for when you want to lay some tile in your house. I still have a few more tiles to cut, and hopefully I'll get them laid shortly. It will be nice to finish the flooring in another room of the house.

Peter and I are both busy tonight. Tomorrow night will be devoted to cutting out the back panels for the cupboards. Friday night I'm busy for a couple of hours, but we should hopefully be able to get the backs done by the end of the evening. Then on Saturday we're back to the jointer / planer combo (otherwise known as major sawdust creators!) to get the wood ready for the last few face frames.

I know I've been saying this for a while, but it really does look like we'll be ready to order the countertop early next week ;) My time estimates haven't been that wrong, it's just that we needed to have the cabinets closer to "finished" than I thought we did in order to take measurements for the countertop. So ... by this time next week we should be talking countertop colours, and then the mad dash to finish (stain and varnish) the cupboards is on to beat the arrival of the countertop (takes 2 weeks from order to delivery).

Picture update

2006-01-04T20:30:00.000-04:00

I gave Peter a new camera for Christmas, and this is a picture he took overlooking our backyard Christmas morning. Talk about picturesque!

The two pictures above are our kitchen cabinets as they stand right now. The picture on the left shows the part of the cupboards that will jut out into the room, facing the front of the house. It will house my kitchen sink and a bank of drawers. I can't wait!

The picture on the right shows an overview of the rest of the base cabinets. Peter is working on the face frames at the table. We should get most of them attached by the end of the weekend.

This is one picture of our entranceway floor after it's been grouted and cleaned :) Blogger seems to have eaten my next picture, so I'll have to put that in a separat post. You can also kind of see that the floor past the entryway is grouted and cleaned as well - that's 15 hours (at least) on my hands and knees!

I feel like I'm living in a barn!

2006-01-03T07:20:00.000-04:00

Peter has been using his jointer and planer to create the face frames for the cupboards over the past few days - man do they create sawdust! We've probably cleaned up 5 big garbage bags full in the last 2 days, and that's not all of it!

Sorry about the lack of updating, but there really wasn't much progress in December - Christmas stuff got in the way. The last week has been great, though. Peter finished up the boxes for the base cabinets, and I cleaned and grouted most of the rest of the tile we have laid downstairs - very exciting! It still needs to be washed a few times before it's picture-ready, but I'll get one when it is. Oh, and I also finished insulating around the windows and doors.

Our first Christmas in the new house was really nice. We drove past our apartment the other day, and it seems like a lifetime ago that we were there! On New Year's Eve I was remembering that last year at this time we were getting ready to start clearing the lot - what a change! It's pretty cool when I think of it that way. It's so easy to get bogged down in the slow progress of each day. Our New Year's resolution ... to finish the house of course ;)

Our goals for this week are:

Finish grouting tile downstairs (whatever is laid)
Have base cabinets put together (i.e. face frame and bottom frame attached)

If we can get that done we'll be in good shape.

Our goals for the month are:

Finish tiling master bathroom
Tile half-bath downstairs
Finish cupboards
Order countertop

Guess I'd better get off the computer and back to housework! lol

Two Miracles!

2005-12-12T11:40:00.000-04:00

Well ... I don't know if they really qualify, but over the weekend I managed to lay the last few tiles in the entryway pattern. I know that it was on my list of things to do a really long time ago, but it's actually done now (for the record, there were 5 tiles to lay - not 3 - that really explains the delay don't you think? lol). Also, on Saturday my parents and grandparents (and sister!) were up and cleaned all the excess mortar off the tiles - one step closer to grouting. Thanks guys!

While we were working on that (and some while I was napping ... shhh!) Peter put together our third cabinet box. Technically there are 7 boxes, but we're now all finished one run with an attached corner cabinet and we have one run (with a corner cabinet) left, so I'm saying we're half done those as well. The miracle in this is that we're actually progressing at a rate similar to what I thought we could - one box a day (when we actually work on this house). At this rate we should have the bottom cabinets boxed in by the end of the week and we'll be able to order our countertop - yippee! I'm assuming there will be a delay because of Christmas, but regardless we should have a countertop installed and, depending on how quickly we work on the other stuff, a working kitchen by the end of January :) I can hardly wait!

This week the goal is to finish the cabinets and get the entryway grouted. Lofty goals, but doable!

Merry Christmas :)

One down ... Six to go!

2005-12-06T14:42:00.000-04:00

Peter was home sick yesterday, and I had a meeting last night, so no progress on the house. However, over the weekend we did manage to get one box together, and at present it is sitting on its frame in the correct location in our kitchen – it looks so pretty! I’ll have to take a picture and post it. Putting the first box together was a little frustrating – it took about 3 hours, but each one should go faster than that, and hopefully it will be less frustrating now that we have an idea of what we’re doing!

Tonight we work on the second box. Once we get that done (which should be tonight …) we’ll have the whole run of cupboards along the side wall done except the corners – not too shabby. We’ll still have the two corner cupboards to do, one small cupboard beside the dishwasher, the cupboard under the sink, and one more basic cupboard at the end of the island part of the U. Then it’s off to the countertop store and then a two-week “wait,” during which we’ll be busy sanding, staining, and finishing the cupboards, and laying tile in the remaining two bathrooms – sounds like we’ll be really bored! Lol

I called to get some quotes for putting in a subpanel in the garage today, and most of them were in the same ballpark except one, that was about half all the rest. It makes me quite suspicious, but it would be great if we could just pay that much! We’ll have to look into it some more.

Sorry I've been so quiet!

2005-11-30T07:56:00.000-04:00

Just haven't been that interested in blogging in general lately.

However, I should keep up to date as much as possible. The past few days I've spent a while grabbing all my posts off the old site and saving them to my hard drive. Time will tell whether they ever get put back online. I wouldn't hold my breath at the moment!

Peter and I have made an itty bitty bit of progress on the cupboards, although we realized on Saturday that we had made a fairly major mistake in cutting the side pieces. After some advice from Derrick, we were ready to move on last night. So, last night we started and made the frame for one section of cupboards. However, we built it wrong, so it's back to the drawing board tonight. We should be able to rebuild it properly tonight without too much problem. Hopefully we'll also come close to getting the box together. Peter gets to try out all kinds of new toys now that we're cabinet-makers! lol

We got word from the siding guy that he will finish the garage for free, which is wonderful. We're so thankful for that! We did get the rest of the Christmas lights up on the weekend - can't wait until tomorrow night to turn them on!

The view from our bedroom this morning ...

2005-11-24T08:25:00.000-04:00

Funny story from last night

2005-11-22T12:38:00.000-04:00

Peter and I had just finished cutting the 11 side panels for the lower cupboards. We started to look at how tall they were (31") and started thinking that maybe they were way too short. We cut them so that the countertop will be 36" above the floor - standard kitchen counter height, or so we'd read. So, we pull out the tape measure and hold it to 36". Hmmmm ... that seems really low. So, we were getting a little anxious, and the only consolation we had was that the books we had said that 36" was a standard height for a countertop. We were still eager to come to work this morning and check that, yes, kitchen countertops are really that low.

Didn't want to forget our momentary anxiety!

Confession time ....

2005-11-22T12:10:00.000-04:00

So, despite having a long weekend, I did not accomplish what I wanted to on Friday night. *gasp* I have a good excuse, though, at least for not doing it on Friday night. Friday after work, Peter dropped me off at home and headed back into work. I diligently measured and cut the tile for the entryway, then spent 45 minutes scraping off the excess mortar that didn't quite get removed when I cleaned up last time. Then I went outside to get the buckets that we use for mixing the mortar .... and I thought .... where is the drill? We need the drill to mix the mortar, and it was ... in the car .... with Peter at work. *sigh* So, I couldn't actually lay the tiles, although I did get a fair amount of prep done. I could have done them any of the other days this weekend, but I didn't - no excuse there.

I did get as many windows and doors as possible insulated on Friday night (I ran out of foam), so that was great.

Saturday we put some more siding on the garage, although we were missing some special trim pieces so didn't get finished. We're going to try and pay the guy we bought the siding from to finish it. It's just too cold. Peter also put some of our Christmas lights up! It is our first Christmas with outdoor lights - I'm so excited! We'll have to get the rest of them up this weekend in time for December 1st :)

Last night was the most exciting of all the stuff we got done on the weekend. We finally took the plunge and cut out all the side panels for the kitchen cabinets. We also got measurements for the bottoms, and Peter put together his new jointer (needed for making the frames). Thursday night we'll hopefully get the bottoms cut, and Friday night we'll start the frame that the bottom cabinets sit on. Things don't seem quite as scary now that we've started. Looks like by next week we'll be getting ready to assemble!

Keeping myself accountable ...

2005-11-18T11:07:00.000-04:00

So ... motivation has been lacking this week toward getting work done on the house! Since Peter's not home tonight and it would be really easy to plunk myeslf on the couch and not get anything done, I thought I'd post my goals for tonight and then I'll have to check in next week to say whether they were accomplished or not.

One goal for this evening is to (finally) put the last 3 tiles in the middle of the entryway. Yes, I've been languishing for over a week on putting three tiles in! I'll hopefully have enough mortar mixed to put in a few more outside the border, but I'm only requiring myself to get those three tiles set.

The second and last goal is to clean out around the windows and doors and spray the foam insulation in them. I don't mind putting the insulation in at all - it's sucking out all the sawdust first that's less fun. I want to get as many done as I can with the 4 cans of foam I have.

That's it for tonight. The quicker I can get those two things done, the quicker I can plunk myself on the couch and veg.

Tomorrow the plan is to completely finish siding the garage (déjà vu!) and get the knobs and locks on a couple of doors. If we have time we'd like to get the Christmas lights up on the eaves as well, but we'll see ;)

Keep me accountable! I'll let you know how I made out on Monday.

Nothing to report

2005-11-17T18:33:00.000-04:00

Work on the house has been non-existent for the past few evenings. We are getting really burned out again (hmmm ... these episodes seem to be getting closer and closer together! lol) and Peter's been working lots of overtime. So ... we've decided that we'll finish the garage (and hopefully get the Christmas lights up!) on the weekend and start the cupboards with a vengeance on Monday night. Wish us luck!

Garage :)

2005-11-16T12:34:00.000-04:00

We got home last night to a garage with a nice big white door on the front :) We quickly noticed, however, that there was no handle / lock on the outside of the door. After trying to figure out how we were going to get in (we had nailed a board across the side door to keep it from blowing) we checked the side door and the installers had actually unboarded it. Turns out the lock is on the inside of the garage door, which is something I've never seen before. It's kind of neat, as it's harder for people to break in that way, but Peter doesn't like it right now, as it's really dark when he goes in the garage.

Other than that, no house-progress last night (although I did clean up some of the kitchen!). I had great plans, but none of them came to be as I got quite side-tracked with my cross-stitching.

Tonight is craft night, and I'm pretty sure Peter is coming in here to work, so no progress again tonight. Today the electrician is supposed to go out and hook up the thermostat for the radiant heating - hopefully soon we'll have a little more control over the temperature in the house! lol

sigh

2005-11-15T12:44:00.000-04:00

My previous blog-hosting site has decided they're not going to be in the blog business anymore, so I will be transferring all my previous stuff from there (http://peteandange.myblogsite.com) over to here. I have until November 30th to do the switch, so please be patient :)

Sorry about the change.

Interior decorating

2005-06-06T16:48:00.001-03:00

This is definitely too early to be thinking about this stuff, but I've been contemplating colours today for the rooms in the house.

I already have our bedroom / bath picked out. We always promised ourselves that when we moved into a house we would decorate our bedroom first, since it always seems so 'blah' in the apartments. So, our bedroom will be a raspberry colour with lots of white accents ... hmmm ... sounds like the outside of the house. Oh well!

Peter is in the process of making us a four-poster bed with one of the other men from our church (this was started before we realized we were going to build - Peter's not really that much of a glutton for punishment!). The whole master bath will be white (with little splashes of raspberry colour ...), and we bought a tile that is mostly white with little silver patterns running through it for the floor of the bathroom and around the tub. So, I think I can do that room pretty easily.

I'm having the hardest time deciding on a colour for the kitchen. I had originally thought a sage green colour, but now I'm thinking that it may not look great with the cupboards (which will be a cherry stain). I'm not really sure about that yet, and since this is our first attempt at painting / decorating an entire house, suggestions are welcome! The tiles are a very neutral colour, so they will match pretty much anything.

The living room I'm thinking of doing in that mustard yellow colour, but again, that's subject to change! It definitely wouldn't match our current furniture, but I'm ok with that, as the furniture is almost 20 years old. Some day we'll be able to get new stuff to match the decor of the house!

Anyway, I'll be enlisting the help of my interior design-savvy friends and family members to try and make wise choices on decorating schemes. Once everything's painted we're going to focus on one room at a time until they're all decorated the way we like - starting with the bedroom of course. So - if anyone comes for a visit within the first little while after we move in - you'll have to come see the bedroom - it may be the only room in the house that's coordinated!

Anyway, back to the real world of studding walls for tonight! Hopefully we can get completely finished upstairs tonight. Peter met with the electrician at the house today, so I'll find out how that went tonight as well.

Current photos

2005-05-10T22:30:00.000-03:00

Starting the first floor ...

2005-05-10T16:50:00.000-03:00

Sorry there aren’t any pics yet – I thought I burned them to a cd last night so I could upload them at work, but when I got to work this morning there weren’t any pictures on the cd.

Today is Day 2 of full-time framing on the house. I’m hoping that by the time I get there we will have the four walls of the bottom storey up. Last night we managed to stand the front wall and frame the back wall. When I was there at lunch today they had the frame for one of the side walls done, so I assume they finished the second one this afternoon. Now comes the slow (but very important) job of anchoring the walls to the concrete floor. Peter rented a concrete drill this afternoon, so that’s probably what we’ll be working on all night.

These days are just flying by with no time for anything else! We got home around 9:30 last night and by the time I had organized the pictures from the last week it was 11 and way too late to be up. We got up this morning at 5:30 to do some car shuffling before work.

Nan & Gramps came up today to bring food and a picnic table. Gramps’ trailor also came in very handy because we had to pick up a few more pieces of wood to finish the bottom floor today. Gramps also worked on checking for leaks in the connectors of the heat pipe – very helpful as we wanted to be sure we weren’t losing pressure from leaks in the foundation :)

It was really neat last night to see the wall go up – I could see where the kitchen, entry, and living room will be. The only surprise was the height of two of the windows in the living room. They’re a bit higher than I expected, but I figure that will make it easy to put furniture (maybe the piano?) against that wall. The downstairs is so open that wall space is precious! Anyway, it was really neat to see everything start to come together. I imagine it will be even more so tonight.

Thanks again to all the people who are helping out – we really appreciate it!

Finally some pics!

2005-05-09T16:58:00.000-03:00

Before the news - there are a few new pictures on the site - I think the only new ones so far are in the 04-24-2005 folder, but now that I know how to get them down to size I'll add some more tonight. Stay tuned ... **ETA - this is no longer relevant. See the Flickr site for house photos.

On to the news ...

We have a foundation :) The concrete was all poured on Friday, and except for one long crack in the middle (eeks! Oh well, everyone told us to expect it, but it’s still very distressing) it looks really good. There wasn’t much to do over the weekend, as God did the work for us by sending rain to keep the concrete wet. The slower it dries, the stronger the concrete.

Today is the first full-time day of framing, so I’m anxious to see how it’s going. The day apparently got off to a rough start, with Kent’s bringing an old version of the lumber order, so that slowed things down a bit as they had to wait to get the correct stuff. Peter said at lunch time that they wouldn’t have all the walls for the first floor up today, but I’m inferring from that that at least there should be something standing, which is very exciting!

Things are moving very quickly now, so it’s even more important to keep up with this journal. I really don’t want to look back and be unable to remember the process, and the daily ups and downs that went along with it.

Last night Peter and I were up until after midnight working on diagrams of the walls of the first floor. Hopefully they have come in handy today; allowing the carpenters (Peter, his Dad, and my Dad) to just measure and cut instead of figuring out all the measurements at the site. Peter said he’s going to tell me they were useful whether they were or not since we stayed up so late working on them! We were up at 5:30 to get Peter to the lot and me to work on time. I think we’ll all crash tonight!

Pouring today!

2005-05-06T08:22:00.000-03:00

Well, in about an hour the concrete should start to be poured for our slab. Needless to say, we're very excited. Tom, Dad, and Peter worked all day yesterday laying the in-floor heating pipes - it looks really good. Now if we can just manage to avoid puncturing one when we put up the walls!

I have all kinds of new pictures. I'm hoping to get them posted over the weekend.

Concrete ... coming soon!

2005-05-05T18:06:00.000-03:00

So, lots of news on the home front this week. We (finally) got our financing straightened out early this week, which was definitely an answer to prayer. Maybe God is trying to teach us patience through this whole endeavour?

Tom helped us build the forms last week, and last Saturday Dad, Jeremy, Peter, and I braced the forms and tried to get enough sand in the middle (underneath the middle of the slab). With all the wet weather lately, it was a chore to keep the sand dry enough to be useful, but we were finally finished with it a few nights ago.

Tuesday night we compacted the sand and laid down the insulating foam which will (hopefully) keep our heating bills lower in the winter.

Yesterday Tom and Debbie came up and tied the rebar (a really tough job – lots of bending and sore hands) together to form the mesh around the footing. Today Peter, Tom, and Dad are laying the in-floor heat pipe and tomorrow we pour. Yippee! Seems like a long time to get here, but it will be worth it when we walk on our warm floor next winter.

Monday is the day we start framing officially, so if you can keep us and everyone else who is up in your prayers that would be great. We really don’t want any injuries during this process, and it would be nice to stay somewhat on schedule. If all goes well, in a little over 2 weeks we should have a roof on and windows and doors installed J We should also be ready to receive our first draw of money, which will enable us to pay off all the debt we’re incurring. Overall, it should be a very full next few weeks.

I’ll try to keep updated as much as possible.

Keeping up to date

2005-04-26T07:27:00.000-03:00

It's been harder than I thought it would be to keep this journal up-to-date. All I talk about is house-building, but I don't often take time to sit down and write out what's going on. However, I do want a record when we're all done and what it was like, so I'll keep on trying to keep this as up-to-date as possible.

This weekend was exciting as Peter and I picked out and ordered or bought almost all of our flooring. That's some big decisions out of the way, and it's nice to get them done now and not have to worry about it when we're in the middle of framing the house.

Every time I come to write these entries I can't think of what to say! Anyway, on Sunday Mom, Dad, Emily, Nan, Gramps, Grammy, and Grampy all came up for a visit and to see the lot. They also brought lots of home-baked goodies - thanks! Peter's been very neglected lately . Dad helped Peter put a vapour barrier down that goes under the foundation.

Last night we went out and fixed the vapour barrier that had gotten mussed from the little bulldozer driving over it. We also raked out some sand that goes under the middle of the pad. Today we should get the rest of the sand, level that out, and Tom is going to build as much of the forms that hold the concrete as possible. NBPower is also supposed to come hook up the temporary power today. Hopefully they do, since Tom needs it to build the forms.

Our proposed schedule for the next week includes having the plumber out tomorrow or Thursday to put in the rough plumbing that goes in the concrete, put in the rebar and wire mesh by the weekend, then possibly next Wednesday lay the pipes for in-floor heating. Next Thursday we hope to pour the slab One thing we hadn't given much thought to was the fact that the plumber needs to know where the well is going, so we have to get in touch with the guy who's drilling the well and see when he can come up and do it.

I'm off to add a bunch of pictures. I'm writing this at work (we have to come in really early on Tuesdays) so the uploading is much faster here:) **ETA - for all our house pictures, visit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/peteandange/

We need how much rock ??!!

2005-04-21T18:02:00.000-03:00

There are currently about 20 loads of rock on the lot, and we need another 10 at least to get the house above the grade of the septic field and driveway. However, after that the rock is done :)

Tom (Peter's Dad), Peter, and I have spent lots of time this week walking a compactor back and forth across the loads of crushed rock. There are a few pics posted in the picture section.

We found a good deal on laminate flooring last night at Kent's, so I'm going to check out a few more places and if I don't see anything better we'll probably order that before it's all gone. It's hard to believe that it's time to start lining that stuff up!

Not too much else exciting happening. Lots of phone time lately, lining everything up to happen. For someone who doesn't like calling people she doesn't know, I'm definitely out of my comfort zone! Oh well, it's good for me :)

Gotta run!

What it looks like after 4 loads of rock

2005-04-20T17:37:00.000-03:00

Just a small update on the lot. The above link** shows the lot after 4 loads of rock, 8 loads of sand, and a septic tank. You can ignore the 1100 lb compactor that is ... well .... resting peacefully in the corner of the picture. It is not stuck in the mud ... really.

**ETA: This piece of evidence seems to have disappeared in the transition from the old blog site to this one. Instead, enjoy some pictures of us running the compactor.

Update

2005-04-18T21:43:00.000-03:00

Well, I thought it was probably a good time for an update. We are still working on financing, although things are looking up (we think). We should know by the end of the week for sure.

Things in other areas are moving right along. Our excavator / septic contractor dug the hole for the foundation and put the septic tank in place today. Tomorrow he's bringing in the rest of the rock that will have to go under the concrete pad, since we're building on a slab. We arranged to have the concrete, rebar, joists, and trusses delivered according to our proposed building schedule. If everything goes well, we should be framing the house the second and third weeks in May. Yippee!!

Discouraged

2005-04-14T20:37:00.000-03:00

The last couple of days have been rather discouraging as we've been trying to get financing, and while we had been led to believe that it would be no problem, a huge problem is what it's been. So, we've been doing a lot of praying (especially me for an attitude check - I'm very prone to pity parties) and contacting different financial institutions (thanks to our friends at those institutions!). I know that it's all in God's plan, but not sure what that plan is leading towards right now. I wasn't even going to post until it all got resolved, but it's good to have a balanced perspective on the whole experience - not just the parts that went as planned.

On an up note - our 8-year-old Tercel (Slammin' Salmon) passed her inspection with flying colours this week, so that was definitely an answer to prayer. We would definitely recommend a Toyota to anyone - ours has been superb!

So, not much to update on the house for today. Hopefully happier news in the future.

We have an address!

2005-04-12T16:20:00.000-03:00

I finally got our address from the 911 people. She was very concerned originally that we would be number 14, but our driveway comes after that for number 15 (very strange - I didn't think it mattered since we're on opposite sides of the road!) I have to call now and get our blue house numbers and our postal code.

We just got a revised quote from the plumber. His price more than doubled and we didn't add anything to the house, so that's a little sketchy. That's Peter's domain, so he'll be checking that out.

That's all the news for now. I'll be posting often, as this will be a great resource when I go to do my scrapbooking! Hey ... I could just cut and paste :)

Here's where it all begins

2005-04-12T13:51:00.000-03:00

Peter had a wonderful idea that we should keep an online journal tracking our progress through this adventure called building a house. Since I have a bit more free time (hehe) I thought I would be the one to try and keep it up to date. Plus it's always fun to recap what's going on in your life.

So ... on to house details.

Yesterday was the day we officially "broke ground" on the house. The excavator came in and removed most of the stumps and moved our driveway and culvert to the higher portion of the land. We also met with the bank, which was nerve-wracking - it's always scary asking someone for money. We had a little glitch there since I'm still in my original 6-month probation period at my job, but we're praying that everything will be approved. We should find out by tomorrow or Thursday at the latest. After that it *should* be smooth sailing.

We were going to bring in some rock for the driveway, dig the hole for the foundation, and bring in rock for under the slab today, but since it's snowing (eeks!) we had to put a halt to that. Hopefully by tomorrow we can get back to work (and by we - I mean Peter's dad - he's helping us out alot by supervising at the lot during the day when we can't be there).

Since this is my first post, I'm going to try and keep it relatively short (I tend to be long-winded) and I'm going now to try and post some pictures I took yesterday. Wish me luck!