Checking the List (Our Six Month House-iversary)

Can you believe it's been a little over six months since we moved from the condo to our new/old house?  How time flies!  We've been working hard and I'll admit that some weeks it was a challenge to work long days and then come home to work on projects for the house.  I wanted to take a step back to look at how far we've come.  We still have a long way to go, but the progress motivates us!

Remember the day we moved in?  It was one of the most tiring days I can remember, but I'm glad that I took some "before" pictures so that we can now track our progress.  After the first two months, we were already making headway and I walked around the house with a camera to record it.

This time, I'd like to go back to some of the things that I wrote soon after our move.  This is an excerpt from an early "to do" list and it has already been updated once in red.  My current update will be written in bold and to make it easier still (or more complicated... I can't decide whether it's better or worse this way) I will highlight everything I have cut and paste from past posts:

Initial "To Do" List:

Corey will need to update some of the electrical work. Not a glamorous task but necessary and important.  Still a priority according to our insurance company.  This will be done in the next few weeks!

And I am happy to say that the major updates are all complete!  Sure, we still have work to do and new fixtures to add, but the knob and tube is gone!  I'm glad to check this off our list.

We discovered original hardwood underneath the laminate and carpet. Who has two thumbs and is excited to use a floor sander? This girl! (I say with my thumbs pointing at my chest.) Corey is skeptical but I'm going to attempt this project on my own. I'm still not sure whether I want a dark, light or natural stain. Our current condo has light floors but the dark dog fur really stands out against it. Feel free to weigh in.  Yes, we found hardwood in the closets... then, when we ripped the downstairs floor we just found regular sub floor under the laminate.  But then we found hardwood under THAT!  We're diving down the rabbit hole in terms of flooring and hoping to have all the hardwood exposed by the end of the day!  We are going to have the hardwood professionally refinished, as I mentioned in my last post.

We are so glad we had our floors professionally finished.  We did take on the initial work ourselves... which turned our to be quite a chore.  One night, we were up until after 3 am still removing nails from the subfloor, but it was worth the effort.

The upstairs bathroom is wheelchair accessible. (Actually, the entire house is and we plan to donate the wheelchair lift and stairlift.) We had considered just finishing the shower nicely but decided we wanted a tub. I found a fabulous clawfoot on Craigslist which was being sold by a couple in Trinity Bellwoods who were also refinishing a 1926 house. They had an extra clawfoot tub and I just couldn't resist. It seemed so perfect finding a tub from the year our house was built! It will need to be painted but I already have some ideas.  This is still a priority, but floors come first so that we can start to move our furniture and boxes out of the basement and begin to unpack

While we've made some progress on the bathroom, we're not as far along as we'd like to be.  I think we may start the real work over the weekend.  Until then, we have a new vanity, but our tub is living in the third bedroom.

We have a lovely front porch which we would love to enclose to create a mudroom. It would give us some storage for coats (the house does not have a coat closet) and I think we may have finally found a home for our church pew which currently resides in our dining room.  Hahaha.  We may need to take our time budgeting (time and money) for this one!

As we had thought, the porch is low on our list of priorities.  We have added a light, but that's probably all we've done.  I think there's still a mudroom in our future, but for now, we have created storage space and a welcoming entrance in our front hallway.  Corey has also reminded me that we actually did end up moving our church pew to the porch!

The back yard is begging for a new fence and some trees. We want to plant some trees right away so we can enjoy some shade in a few years. Our priority right now is cleaning all the garbage, debris, broken glass, exposed nails and sheet metal from the yard.  A fence is still a priority but once the yard is safe, Barkley can enjoy it.  The existing fence isn't great but we know Barkley won't try to jump it so we'll just supervise him outside. 

We are living with the old chain-link fence (which is sturdier than we had thought) for now, but we have made our yard a little more attractive and hospitable than it was when we first moved in.  The top picture gives you an idea of the work we have done so far.  I suppose we'll progress a little further next year.  We did plant cedars along the chain fence, which provide a little privacy on that side.  Those of you who have been following along will also know that Corey cut down those giant trees in the middle of the yard!

Since I'm not budgeting for a kitchen renovation just yet, I'm thinking of purchasing a lovely hutch (A friend and client of mine is selling one and she was sweet enough to offer it to me. She said it could use a "fresh coat of paint" :) ) and painting it white. It would offer me some extra storage as well as a chance to display some of my pretty dishes. The existing cabinets seem to be in good condition (although not my taste) so I'm thinking of painting them white and changing the hardware for now.  The beautiful hutch is here (thanks Janet!) and once I moved the fridge and positioned the hutch, our kitchen started to appear larger.  I actually think it's slightly larger than our condo kitchen.  There is no painting going on here just yet though.

I have yet to paint the hutch, but we are using it as storage for now.  I'm counting it as a check anyway, since I may not ever paint it and I'm pretty proud of the fact that we've already added a dishwasher and replaced the fridge.  The kitchen is actually farther along than I thought it would be at this point!

Add to this list:  I actually wrote this before the move and have since modified in red...

• Have a company install central air.  I don't know why I left this major change out of the last post, except that we're not doing it ourselves.  We have hired a company and they will likely start next weekend.  Unfortunately, most of the duct work in the house is not going to be usable so this will cost more $$$ than we thought and likely take at least a week to complete.

It took just under a week, and did end up costing a pretty penny.  Still, on cold fall nights like this, we're very glad to have done it!

• Create a closet for the master bedroom.  We're going to do this as affordably as possible for now.

I smiled when I read this one, since we just finished our master bedroom closet!  I can't believe we lived without a proper closet for nearly six months.  We must be troopers!

• Install wall-mounted bedside lighting.  Soon.

I wasn't kidding when I said "soon".  I just checked and I believe Corey installed these during the July storm.  I still need to do some patching around the switch plate, which I expect to do before I paint.  Check!

• Create built-ins for the living room.  Soon

This was another item that made me smile.  It was such a HUGE project but we are still thrilled with the result and it was even featured on Apartment Therapy!

• Find or build a garden shed for Corey.  Maybe next year.  This is not a place to spend money at the moment and we discovered a very functional crawl space under the family room, which will give us storage for gardening tools for now.

This item just wasn't a priority for this year.  I think we may shop for one next spring... or fall...

Overall, we're thrilled with the progress we've made to date.  What better way to celebrate our six month house-iversary than to look back and breath a sigh of relief.  It is really happening!  Just a little more hard work...

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Tyrion Banister

Guys, I'm a little embarrassed to say that it happened again.  That's right, folks... Despite being very careful the past few weeks, on Halloween night I found myself tumbling down the stairs... again! 

It must be an inner ear thing or something because no matter how careful I think I'm being, this seems to happen:

In fact, I think it's safe to say that this is almost EXACTLY what happened.

I'm not seriously hurt and I know it's a little funny, so I give you permission to have a chuckle at my expense.  I've been clumsy since I was a child, so this isn't new to me.

On this particular occasion, Corey was on the porch setting up for Halloween and Barkley slept right through my little accident.  I had hoped he would rush to my side to help me up, but greyhounds are lazy and I was out of luck.

Corey thinks a proper banister will help protect me, since the old model is attached to the wall along one side and can't be gripped properly.  I may have preferred replacing the stairs with a slide, but I suppose this was a more practical idea.

Which brings me to the title of this post.  It's punny, right?  In all honesty, I tried to enjoy Game of Thrones but I never really became immersed in it.  I blame the fact that Corey initially sold me on the series by claiming it was historical fiction.  (Although he claims this isn't true and will deny it to the end.) I actually watched several episodes thinking that the dragons were symbolic and that "Winter is coming" was a metaphor for a philosophy of saving for harsh times ahead.  Seriously, imagine my confusion and disbelief when there were ACTUAL dragons hatching!  Now, I enjoy the fantasy genre as much as the next gal, but I need to mentally prepare for it.  The harsh introduction to fantasy elements ruined the series for me!  ...But I digress...

Corey began by removing the old banister.  We were worried it would be challenging but it was screwed in and he managed to remove it with a screwdriver and crowbar.

We found a little surprise underneath.  Corey scraped it off, patched the wall, and now we're ready to touch up the paint.

We decided the new railing would go on the right side of the stairs so that we could mount it securely to the wall, instead of just mounting it against the banister posts at the top of the stairs.

We chose a height based on what would be comfortable for me but still relatively easy for a child to reach, and Corey measured and marked the wall.

Corey enlisted my help to draw a chalk line.  I HATE chalk, so I wore gloves, but the process is pretty neat.  Basically, we each held an end of chalk covered string against one of the marks Corey made on the wall...

... And Corey snaps the string leaving a blue line of chalk on the wall.

Is this cool, or am I easily amused?

Next, Corey mounted the railing.  We had chosen hemlock wood (which is what our dining room table is made of) and gold coloured hardware.

Corey insisted on mounting the new railing on the same day he removed the old one... for my safety.  :)  At this point, it was functional but not very attractive.  We debated between painting it white to match our stairs, or staining it Jacobean to match our hardwood floors.

By the way, I know the lighting is brutal in some of these pictures.  I'm still considering the type of fixture I want to light our staircase.

We also needed to sand the rough edges and I got to play with the power sander outside.  I'm not afraid to admit that it was pretty darn fun!

In the end, we decided to try staining it first.  We figured we could always paint it as a last resort.  When we had the floors sanded and stained, Mr. Sandless left us some extra stain.  I gave it two coats.

The grain is actually quite lovely and we think we made the right choice.  While we still need to touch up paint on the left side, but we think our new banister ties our staircase in with the rest of the house.

What do you think?  Ideally, it would have been about a foot longer, but it will certainly do the trick for now!

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Halloween Recap

 

Today's post is short, but Corey and I have some fun posts planned for the next week.  Stay tuned... I've been busy with clients and I've managed to injure myself (it's only minor) yet again!

 

We hope you all had a great Halloween!  We enjoyed our first Halloween in our new/old house and the kids seemed to love the candy and toys... Especially the toys!

 

It was a miserable night, so we gave out coffee to the parents.  We figure one day, we'll have kids and people will do the same for us.    :)

 

It was hard to get good video because it was so dark, but here's a brief clip.  You can see the strobe light and a bit of the fog... Unfortunately, you can barely see Maurice!  Still, the kids loved it and kept trying to scoop up the fog!

 



We're going to try to do a little more each year, but this is a good start.  Most people in our neighbourhood seem to be pretty moderate or minimal Halloween decorators, so we still stood out.  We just think it's so much more fun for the kids if there are a couple of really awesome houses.  One little boy told me our house was the best he'd ever seen.  It totally made our night!

We were also smart enough to clean up right away, so we're enjoying a holiday decorating reprieve until after Remembrance Day... Which is when I think it's appropriate to begin decorating for Christmas. 

How was your Halloween?

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