Bathroom Face-Lift

When we first moved in, the teeny 8' x 6' bathroom was high on the list of rooms to update. I say 'update' vs. 'reno' because we're not at the point where we're bringing in the sledgehammer and tearing down walls (sledgehammer = reno).


This is the only respectable bathroom in the house. The other bathroom is in the basement and is quite scary. It has been deemed 'Finnegan's bathroom' and has been outfitted with his litter box. Finally our cat has some privacy, a substantial upgrade from his previous bathroom which had been located under my desk in our apartment.....


So, we have 1 teeny bathroom that needed some work. The main thing we had to work with was the very blue tub, toilet and sink - these are staying until we have the time and money to reno. These pieces are actually kinda cool - the sink is especially neat albeit very tiny. The sink size offsets 'big blue' which is an exceptional throne, made way before the concept of 'water efficiency' had been considered.

Perhaps most striking was the 'stone' tile flooring. Don't be fooled by the 'realness' of the stone - it's actually a vinyl tile!  I'm a nature lover, but this is ridiculous. It's very random and doesn't go with anything except the brick wall outside the window.  It's gotta go.


I learned from our neighbours and the previous owner that the wall tiles used to be pink with a grey border.  I guess they had all the tiles painted black and white in an effort to update the bathroom. I didn't know you could paint over tile, but I'm ever so glad they did because it looks great, and the tiles are in good condition.


The other consideration is the lack of natural light in the bathroom. Grant and I were spoiled in our last bathroom (apartment) because we had a huge window that allowed tonnes of light in. I'm including a picture of that bathroom below because it was the nicest apartment bathroom I've ever known (and I kind of miss it). I'm totally a white bathroom person - nothings says clean and sanitary like white.

So maybe I won't have my dream bathroom any time soon. But that's ok. It's fun to see what one can do with a small, dark bathroom with a huge blue toilet, without 'renovating'.


First, we attacked the floor. We found a very inexpensive black and white vinyl tile to overlay on top of the stone. I would have preferred a smaller pattern, but this is all we could find. What an instant difference!

Next was the paint. The walls were painted an off-white, which when juxtaposed against the white tile made it look yellowish. I covered all the walls and ceiling in a white paint to match the tile. In small rooms I always paint the ceiling the same colour as the walls. This makes the room feel bigger.  But the room was looking a little too white, so to pack some punch, I painted the window frame and sill black. The window had to be scraped first, which revealed a rainbow of previous colours, including purple, pink, grey and tan. I love discovering the colour-history of rooms.

Finnegan 'helping' with the painting.

Add a new light, a cotton shower curtain cover, a new temporary (aka. cheap) tub facet (the old was very cool but leaked incessantly), some artwork and a stain-glassed window frame and we've got an updated bathroom!

Calling in the Troops

I took a week (almost) off work to make some headway on some of the house projects that had been nipping at my heels. These are the projects that every time I walk by, I can hear a little voice is saying, "paint me", "trim me", "cut me down". Ok, I made up the last one - like any tree/shrub would actually volunteer to be cut down.


Is this the way life will be from now on? Taking 'vacation' to work on the house?  Little voices coming from all nooks and crannies? Oh dear....


My parents came up for a few days to help me get some 'labour intensive' projects done.  The list included:

• removing the big dead vine/bush in the backyard corner
• trimming low-hanging/dead tree branches
• taking out the cherry tree (diseased and unsightly)
• power-washing the front porch
• painting as many rooms as possible

It was a productive few days, that's for sure. Instead of describing it via text, I'll use photos to do the talking.


Outside work.....

Cutting down the cherry tree in the front yard. You can tell who the 'site supervisor' is.

Finnegan saying good bye to the Cherry Tree. 

                  

And now for inside the house....

Above and below: Prep and painting the living room.

Getting the bedroom ready.... Good bye beige!

When everything is done, I'll do some before and afters.... after all, that's the most exciting part, and as HGTV has mastered, the only reason people stick around to watch 30 minutes of renovation.

Green Dreams - Part I

My favourite thing about living in a house (as I believe I have mentioned earlier) is having a frontyard AND a backyard.  This is a significant improvement from the apartment I spent the last 6 years in.


For years, I've been cutting out pictures of yards and gardens that I love.  Now it's time to make that dream a reality.  First things first though, need some garden tools. It was such an exciting day when Grant and I went to the garden store to buy garden tools - 31 years old and never owned a rake!  It was a dreamy day!!  


We had made a list, but that list flew out the window once I was allowed to go into Lee Valley. (Prior, I did not allow myself to go in there - I heard I would love it too much, which would cause serious storage problems for an apartment girl).   The rumours were correct - Lee Valley was made for me. My new favourite place.  Bought some hand clippers,  hand saw and a manual push lawnmower - had to seriously restrain myself. Everything else we got at RONA, thanks to a lovely giftcard from E & B.


Up to that point, our yard looked like a total jungle - grass was long, trees were overgrown and things were of a general un-tidiness. So, Grant was eager to get our new lawnmower into action. Here he is posing for me (isn't there some kind of right-of-passage for a man with a lawnmower? I had to document this).


From the picture on the left, it doesn't really look like we need a lawnmower (at least  on that half of the front yard - note the lack of grass).  But the other half of the yard needed a haircut.


Here are a few shots of the virgin backyard - untouched by anyone up to this point (except for that pile of twigs and leaves that I made with my NEW RAKE). A good reference point for things to come....

Making Messes

So, we purchased an old house - just over 100 years old. We wanted something with character, something we could fix up and put our own stamp on. We also wanted to live in the city, which means 'completely renovated' + 'character' + 'nice neighbourhood' wasn't in the financial cards.


The first renovation came early.  Our house was largely (despite the home inspection report) knob and tube wiring. We needed to bring the electrical to code so we could be insured.  Some of the wiring on the main floor was borderline fine (ie. grounded but not wired correctly), but almost all of the second floor was not.  It's easy to see why - you actually need to open up the walls to re-wire the second floor. Minor reno, right?

Some of the 'apparently fine' wiring

in the kitchen. You can see the knob

and tube (black wiring) that was capped

and cut out.

If anyone has ever dealt with plaster walls, they'll know what a total mess cutting through plaster is.  Not one room in our house was unscathed (no worries - Montauk was safely hiding under its plastic sheet).  In addition, we had little bits of plaster rubbing on the previously buffed wooden floors - made some nice scratches for which I gave Grant a lot of heck for.


It took Grant about 3-4 weeks of 'after work' work to get things all straightened out and properly installed. In the meantime, all my plans for indoor beautification was basically put on hold. I was relegated to outdoor work, which is not really a bad thing. (More on that to come...)

Above: Tools everywhere!!


Left: Cutting holes in the curve of the ceiling
(yikes! How will we patch that up!!). Note the
few 'tester' holes to find the wires.  It's was bit
of a guessing game to find where the wires
were running.  No rhyme or reason.

Holes where Grant was cutting above - filled 
and sanded!

Once the wiring was complete and to code, Grant had to patch up all the holes. Not an easy job considering no wall in this house is straight, and he'd never done this before. The holes in the curve of the ceiling were the most difficult (right). However, the sanding of the plaster patches was the worst!! Dust everywhere!! (As an aside, we had a 3 month old baby coming to stay for the weekend with his parents two days after the photos below were taken. I was freaking out a little bit - too dusty for newborn babies!!!!).

We tried to minimize the spread of dust in rooms with small holes by taping Grant into a confined space while sanding (kind of looks like an alien in a pod). Although you can't tell from the photo, he IS wearing a safety mask and googles (Grant is very into safety). It worked fairly well, as you can tell from the cleanliness of the floors.


It took a good 2 days afterwords to clean all the plaster dust that had spread to every crevice.  Some good relationship building moments there. Made it clean in time for Henry (baby).


Overall, rewiring a house is not the most fun project a new homeowner can undertake.  I was so glad this 'minor project' was over.  It now means that our house is more electrically safe than before, and more importantly, that I can start painting, and start making this place look fabulous.

Montauk.

Some of you who know me well are aware of the fact that I've been drooling over Montauk sofas for a while (about 3 years).  I  had it planned out for years - I was going to get the 'Julian' sofa in the 1015 Natural Linen fabric.  The people at the Montauk store knew me well, that "girl who's gonna buy a sofa, just once she gets a house".  Grant and I would go and visit our future sofa every time we were in that part of town.


We saved for this expense for a long time. I'm not a new furniture kind of person - 99% of the things we have are either a hand-me down (beautiful hand-me-downs, though) or a reclaimed/salvaged pieces from the Salvation Army. We also have a few road-side picks (props to Idalia). But this was one thing I was not willing to compromise on. I was going to have a Montauk.


So, even before the ink had dried on the real-estate papers, we headed to Montauk to order our sofa.  It was one of those surreal days - days I only dreamt about. We marched in, went to the counter and very matter-of-factly said, "I'll take 1 of those and a little friend to go along" (the little friend was a single 'Wingback' chair).


(Actually, it didn't happen exactly like that.... we played the whole "we're unsure if we're going to get anything..." customer,  hummed and hawed. Can't show your hand...even though they kinda knew me by name by then.)


Grant, being the salesman he is, got us a sweet deal on the 2, which is just a reminder that everything is negotiable.  A lot negotiable. Even if they say it isn't.

A few weeks later, the truck rolled up. Again, a surreal moment. However, they forgot to deliver the single wingback chair, so that was going to come later.  But my dream sofa was here.


It was well covered in plastic. Since Grant was making an ultimate mess in the house with the re-wiring (more on that in another blog), I thought it best to leave it covered until the mess was done.


But I couldn't wait that long. On moving day, we removed the plastic.  I needed to lay upon the lap of luxury that is Montauk..... (sigh)  ;)


Dream come true.

March, April and May showers bring me flowers (and dessert)

My favourite thing about being a homeowner is having a yard.... ok, having laundry, a dishwasher and a 6 burner stove is great too.... but none compare to the yard.  


When we first saw the place in March, the yard was brown and dead - not so impressive. By the time the house became 'ours' there were ferns popping out everywhere and oodles of plants to identify. This is heaven for a girl that spend an entire summer wandering around the city of Hamilton with a waterbottle and her GPS unit, identifying and recording the health and status city trees while getting chased off front lawns by unruly dogs and/or Italian grandmothers. 


However, I wholeheartedly admit that the state of my front yard is a little embarrassing. A huge black umbrella of a Crimson King Norway Maple (hence the lack of grass anywhere in the front), a half dead cherry tree, 2 random rhubarb shrubs right smack in the middle of our entranceway (more on that later), and one very unknown tree/shrub.  The only redeeming quality of the front yard is the lovely White Pine right against the porch. The Smoke Bush is ok too. 


I have big plans for you, front yard. And it will involve a chain saw. But I thought it would probably not be the best thing to move in and serenade my neighbours with the ring of a chainsaw the very first day.... gives the wrong impression... That day is coming though.


In the meantime, I made a pie out of the rhubarb (might as well eat it away). A first on 2 fronts: 
1) the first pie I ever made; 
2) the first time I harvested something 'from the land' (from 'my' land). 


I feel a bit like a farmer. It feels good.

First World Problem

Grant and I went on our first public transportation day-adventure in downtown Toronto on Saturday. There were 2 highlights from this trip:

1) World Naked Bike Ride Day was on. 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sniderscion/5823293434/

Nothing like sitting in Fresh having a Dragon Bowl for lunch and looking up to see this. Bon appetit! 

2) Herman Miller chair guy.

We walked into one of the fancy-pants design furniture stores on King b/c they were having a sale on chairs that I love. We went to the back and started sampling the office chairs. There was another guy there about 30 minutes ahead of us doing the exact same thing - except he was actually considering a purchase (we were just dreaming).  He gave us the low-down on every chair, and had it narrowed down to 2 or 3.  Big choice though - do you spend $2500 on the absolutely awesome chair, or $2000 on the very comfortable chair, or $1500 on the good enough chair, but not as good as the other 2 (I mean, come on, you've come this far....what's another $1000 for  perfection?). The intensity!! The pressure of such a big decision!! Heaven forbid you make the WRONG decision and drop $2000 on a chair and get home and realize you'd make the wrong choice!! WHAT TO DO??

Then he muttered the BEST thing I've heard in a long time... "First-World problem, First-World problem."  What a clarifying moment. Yes, deciding which ridiculously expensive chair to buy was indeed a First-World problem. 

So, this is my new thing. When the pressure to buy expensive house stuff is on, don't let it get to you - just breath and think, "First-World problem".  That should give it some perspective.

Little City Syndrome

So, some background first.


Grant and I just bought our first house. And it happens to be in Toronto. This is a big deal for me on 2 fronts:
1) It's my first house.
2) It's in a big city.


Having grown up in a small city (yes, Chatham is a city!), I still have little city syndrome, even though we've lived in Oakville (25 minutes away) for the past 6 years. I still prefer that Grant drives downtown so I can ogle at the big buildings and the important people walking out of them.


So, it's an exciting time in my life, and I thought it would be a good time to document my experiences moving to 'the big smoke' and being a first-time homeowner. Normally, things are not as exciting all at once. Must take advantage of this - hence, this blog.

Land-Line Girl

I didn't wake up this morning thinking I was going to start a blog.  I always thought it wasn't me.... I planned on being one of those people who 'didn't go there' - who didn't feel the need to be like every other 12-39 year old who's addicted to social media.  Hell - I hate updating my Facebook profile, and I don't even have a cellphone.


Wait.


That's a lie. I do have one, but it's an old flip phone that I only use for 'emergency purposes' (aka Pay-As-You-Go, aka, I-Never-Use-It). And if I need it, most of the time the battery is dead b/c I forget I even have it. So, I would say that I don't have a cell phone - not the way that 'normal' people do. I am a land-line girl.


Ok, so the land-line girl is starting a blog... a bit of an oxymoron (but not ironic - let's not go there yet).  I guess I finally realized that I can participate in social media without becoming a social media crackhead.  I sit in front of a computer all day anyway. Might as well have a little fun with it.