Tuesday, March 29, 2011

End of Day 58

So it's been two whole weeks since I last updated...shame on me!  It has been a busy couple of weeks though...

Last update I posted pics of the new cabinets, with no doors, and showed the new doors to all the rooms, without handles, both of which are done now.  Also, I was begging for lighting advice and was very appreciative of all the responses and opinions people had...it helped!  We did pick a new light fixture but I'll wait until it's up to post pics.  The light fixture for my scrapbook room came in today (yay!!) so hopefully the electrician will be back soon to take care of those things, as well as get the fireplace ready, as that has now been tiled, just waiting for grout.

And talking about tile...that brought the drama queen out of me, let me tell you!  Quite a while ago we went and picked out the backsplash for the kitchen/bathrooms, and since then I've had this picture in my head of what it will look like.  Well, last Friday I came home to a shocker...the backsplash was done (only on one wall thank goodness), but it was not at all what I recall picking!  I mean, the colors and tile were right, but the amount of each color was way off.  Somehow the message got across that we wanted 3 colors,  mostly gray with some beige and a little chocolate in there.  I thought we were going with 4 colors, most of which was to be a very neutral light beige, with the other 3 other colors placed sparingly thru out.  This is not what was on the walls when I got home.  There was so much gray on the walls my jaw just dropped!  Right away I called the flooring place and she said the guy would be right over.  I felt so bad 'cause he showed up with his little boys :(  I had to decide right away whether or not the tile was coming down, so I had him rip out the kitchen.  Meanwhile, I hadn't realized the bathroom was done too, so I go look, and it's all gray.  I cried.  I didn't like it, but I knew I didn't have the heart to make him tear it down too.  It was 6pm, and he had his little boys there.  Plus, it was set already so the drywall would have had to have been redone too, and I was NOT prepared to have to deal with mudding and taping again.  So, the gray tile stays in the bathroom and will go in our little bathroom too.  I don't think it will be a big deal in the end.  The problem with it in the kitchen is that it turned really blue.  If not for that, I would have left it because I do like the pattern he put in, and although I was thinking the backsplash wouldn't be such a statement, I like that using the 3 darker colors instead of a neutral with little hits of color did make it a statement, and I liked it.  In the end, it will be 3 colors, but mostly beige and chocolate with just a little bit of the gray.  Hopefully it turns out good, or I'll just have to suck it up like the bathrooms!

The better side of the coin had us move into our bedroom a couple of nights ago...it's so nice to be up there!  I even took the little table and mirror I was using in the hallway in the basement to get ready in the morning and put it in the bedroom, just because I can't stand to be down there at all!  It won't be long now, that's for sure, although the tile mishap put us behind a bit.  But it will go in next week, and then things upstairs should be pretty much rapped up, and it will be time to celebrate and show off our beautiful house!  For now, you will have to make do with pics though :)


The kitchen still needs the bottom trim and crown molding for the cupboards, backsplash and new electrical outlets.  After that it's complete!  Oh, and the microwave needs to be installed above the stove too...


I should have taken the pics earlier, they are a little dark.



 Rowan chasing the shadows on the wall :)


I am loving the stainless appliances with the dark cupboards.



This mixer cabinet is the coolest thing.  The mixer sits here all nice and tucked away, and then...


...when you want to use it you just guide the shelf up and out and it stays at counter height until you release the lock and then it just drops back into place - much better than lifting this 50lb monster up above my head like I used to have to do!  This handy contraption along with the 8 foot long counter will make for a happy Marsha when baking and canning!


The fireplace tile matches the new kitchen lino perfectly!  I'm still hesitant about this reddish wood laminate, but I keep telling myself that once we have everything in the room, it won't look bad...most of it will be covered up really...



Yay - we are back in our bedroom - it's exciting even if I can't decorate it the way I want to just yet :)    I'm not sure if I'll get a real vanity to replace the home jobby one shown here or not - there will be lots of room in our bathroom, but I've kind of enjoyed having a place to sit and get ready in the morning instead of standing in the bathroom...it looks kind of tight here, but we have the bed over as far as we can so the cabinet maker has room to install the closet on Friday.  I've always envisioned a bench along that wall though, not a vanity - it will take some thought!


This TV will be in the living room eventually, but it's a treat to watch in bed over the little 13 incher we have for the bedroom!  The stand it's on is the bottom of our armoire, but we decided we liked the openness of the room without the top part, so we'll just use the bottom - good storage for blankets and such...


Signs of life coming back to the upstairs in my scrapbook room!


Cam's room is just waiting for his new bed frame.  There won't be much decorating in here as he will stay up here only while the basement is being done, and then he will move into a nice new room down there once that is all complete.

 The door handles...the same pretty much on all the doors, inside and out....


The backsplash that no longer is...I know it doesn't look bad in this pic, but it really is way too much gray that turns blue in this kitchen....





The gray bathroom that I will suck up and learn to love :)  But the beige and/or chocolate would have looked waaay better.





I almost forgot to mention the new kitchen faucet - who'd have thunk I'd be so happy about a faucet?!!

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

End of Day 44

Ok, first of all I need opinions, big time.  Most of the lighting was installed yesterday, and we love all of it...except the dining room chandelier - of course the most important fixture.  I need to know what you think...can we use the same fixture that is in the porch (because we love it), in the dining area?  Check them out...


Love this one...


This one, not so much...can we use the same one as the porch in this dining area??

Now on to the good stuff!!  CABINETS!!!!!  Take a look, I think they are beautiful, perfect, awesome, gorgeous and a whole bunch more!!!!  And that's with no doors on yet!


OMG - I can't tell you how excited I am about these cabinets!!  The layout will be the same as before, with the sink under the window, the dishwasher in the open space on the right and the stove in the open space on the left, with the microwave above....although we see there is no plug in for the microwave anymore...interesting to see if that was planned or not!


The floor is perfect with these cabinets!!!  So glad we splurged a bit for it...


I'm so glad I gave up a chunk of counter for this pantry - it will be well stocked!


If you see this Traci, you will totally get that I stole your idea from your last house in Hinton by putting this wall of cabinets here.  This house is the exact same layout as that one, only you didn't have the opening in this wall.  Great idea!!!  Our garbage can and recycle bins always sat against this wall, so I am super stoked about all that crap being hidden now.


6 bins in 3 cabinets - plenty of room for all the recycling and garbage.  If I find one empty pop can or juice box on what will eventually be my nice, new, CLEAN, counter, I will put the person responsible in one of these bins - be warned!


This is what the doors look like...




Lighting for Cam's room and our bedroom.  I'm going with a blingy, girly one for the scrapbook room, but it isn't in yet...


Lighting for the main bathroom - of course one of the shades had to be broken...another waiting game for a replacement to come in....


Same style, only smaller for our little bathroom.  I'm glad we did something different for the bathrooms - I like these.


Ahh, nice new doors all around.


Love, love, love the french style doors on this hallway closet.


Cam's closet is nowhere near being blue anymore!


The front entry is sooo much brighter!


I'm really liking the new baseboards - very plain and simple, and a good height too.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Day 41

Yay - we bought our new sectional today!  The layout of the living room really relies on us having a sectional, so although I felt a tiny bit guilty buying our 3rd new couch in 7 years (that's a lot isn't it?), it was something that will really pull our ideas for the living room together.

It's such an oddly spaced room, and I think we need to create two seperate areas in the space.  The sectional will create the space for the TV area, and then an area rug and an accent chair or two by the fireplace will create the second space....I hope!  Regardless, buying the sectional was a must so I don't really feel guilty, just excited...it will be here April 8...perfect timing!

The couch color is slightly off, it looks charcoal gray (that's it's name actually) in some lights, and kind of browny in others.  The pillows have a small stripe in them that is a yellowy beige color.  Hopefully it will all look good together with everything else.



So, it's now a few hours after purchasing the couch, and I just got back from purchasing two chairs!  I feel they are important to the space, so back I went to see if I could find something I wanted, and yep, sure did!






This is the main accent chair, but in a totally different pattern that is a chocolate brown with a red and orange and green pattern on it.  It's quite wide and very comfortable.  I even took my shoes off and curled up in it just to make sure!  Eventually I will order a footstool to go with it.  This will be by the fireplace, close to the window.








This is the second chair exactly.  It will be on the other side of the fireplace.  My Auntie crotched me an afghan that I already know will look great draped over it!

Friday, March 11, 2011

End of day 40

Wow, what a great way to end the week!  A new ceiling and new flooring...and they both look great!

The cabinet install didn't start today as planned, but that's ok.  It will begin on Tuesday for sure, and I found out today that the cabinet maker - Alex - has almost everything built, and the install should go fairly quickly, so I'm really pumped for next week...I should have a new kitchen by the end of it!  We have added extra tasks to Alex's list, so overall it will take a bit longer to get our bedroom closet done, as well as another closet or two, but again, that's ok.  We picked out a mantle that we only sorta liked, and it was going to take a while to come in, and also it would have been made of maple, so instead Alex will build it.  This is great because then it will match everything exactly.  Plus, we weren't going to do our little bathroom originally, but now we are, and we weren't going to do Cam's closet, but now we are, so he has those to contend with too.  Lots of work for the cabinet maker...

Monday of next week the new lighting may get installed, as well as the electrical switches and outlets changed out.  The new inside doors, the trim, and the baseboards are supposed to be done too.  It will be nice to see the effect those have on the overall look...I think it will be pretty drastic.  Plus, once those are done, we can move back into our bedroom!  The closet won't be done, or our bathroom I don't think, but the toilet is still in there and at least we could be sleeping up there...I'll take it!

Not much longer now.  I'm hoping the weather is nice this weekend so we can get all the windows washed, which is making me realize that we really are getting close.  Being able to start to clean because the major dirty work is done is a good thing!

I took pics of the new ceiling, but you really can't see anything in them unless you are looking at it full screen, so I didn't post any, but I of course took some of the new flooring!  There's a good story behind this lino first though...

We redid our little bathroom about 2 years ago.  When we went to choose the flooring, I picked out what I wanted, but of course it was the expensive lino, and Kev said no way because we would have to buy a way bigger piece than we needed for that little bathroom.  Well, he had to go to the city soon after and he went to the casino and won, so he called me up and said I could have my lino...yay for me!!!  We knew our main bathroom had to be redone, so we figured we'd save the extra piece for when the time came, completely not knowing we'd be doing a whole home reno eventually!  Anyway, when the time came to pick flooring for this reno, I knew I wanted the same lino (there was a pretty big allowance for flooring in the budget this time!), but I was afraid that because we were going to a different dealer, and because we didn't know the brand or anything, we wouldn't be able to find the same stuff.  We went and looked, but after about 5 minutes realized we could be there for hours, so Kev went and got the extra piece and brought it to the store.  The guy probably spent half an hour going thru the samples while we were going thru tile for the backsplash.  We had finally picked the tile and I was standing looking at our piece thinking it was hopeless when suddenly he yanked a sample out, threw it on top of our piece, and it was a match!  I literally teared up and wanted to hug him!  I was so happy, and now that I see it I love it!  My only concern is that I wonder if our wood laminate floor looks too red next to it...we'll have to see once it's all complete, but right now it's picking at me ever so slightly....


Very neutral carpet in my scrapbook room and our bedroom.





Eventually the sides of the stairs will be carpeted with whatever we pick for carpet in the basement.  Once the upstairs is done and we are moved up, the basement portion of the renos will begin...I don't think that will be near as stressful!


Back porch.


Kitchen.


See what I'm gettin' at here...a little too much red maybe?  Maybe not...hmmm.  Regardless, I love the lino.  The laminate will have to go before the lino does!


Main bathroom.