Pumpkin head, highballs and other things spicy

Our first Halloween in the house and someone wasn't too happy about playing dress up :(

Because our friends Neal and Kelly were in for a visit from Saskatoon, we decided to give them the royal treatment and take a break from the renos. On Friday, we had a few drinks and then headed out for tapas and drinks and while I worked on Saturday, Mudder, Neal and Kelly brushed up on their wine touring skills and Mudder added to our wine inventory. That night, we went to a Halloween party.

MacGruber! and any guesses on Neal's costume? The letters on his cheeks are B-O-O-K

There were shooter girls, sca-a-a-ry good food and, well, cereal killers ...

On Sunday, we stocked up on candy for second time (we ate most of the first bunch already) for the dozens of trick or treaters were expecting. We got 10 :/ And now we've got about 40 bars and 20 bags of chips leftover (BRB) 19 bags of chips.

Our electrician has been able to get the bulk of the wiring done in the kitchen and has our closet lights mounted. I got quite a bit of mudding done in the bedrooms but we won't be able to finish the drywalling until the electrical is finished.

We stopped into Home Depot today and found some glass tile that isn't 20 bucks a square foot and we're settling on a kitchen sink and taps. In the afternoon we bought this creme-white leather sofa and chair that Mudder's been pining about since she first saw it last week. I think we're going to stop by a lighting store on Monday and ask if they can send someone to the house to consult us with the type of lights we should get and I'm hoping to do some more mudding.

Mudding and taping is like icing a cake BUT finding studs in 12-foot drywall? Well ...

My l'il Mudder (*As I'll refer to her in this post) has, I feel, discovered a new calling. After a quick, "how to apply drywall tape and mud 101" Mudder plunged her spreader into the mud and smeared a generous layer across her first seam. Meanwhile, I was busy measuring and cutting drywall to finish up the closet in "The Office."


We've discovered that drywall needn't be the Goliath task it seemed. While mudder - ever the glassy-eyed optimist - joked about taking up another career, I'm just focusing on taking it one step at a time, and keeping the cursing to a minimum.

Mudder's drywalling speed improved dramatically when she began taping and mudding the second closet and as you can see from her expression, she's having a blast...

Handyman Al stopped helped us hang sheets of 12 feet x 4 feet drywall on our bedroom ceiling. In spite of having to trim about a half inch from the first sheet before we could inch it into place, the process went quite well. It's not for the weak of body but as Al and I held the sheet in place (with help from some heavy-duty, super-glue) Mudder fired in the screws. Unfortunately the studs we'd marked so carefully weren't lining up. When that happens, you get this (see below). And that's going to be a bee-itch for Mudder to tape :)

I've been splitting my time before and after work chiselling the lino from the floor, still hoping we won't need to install new sub-flooring. It seems each time we ask someone about the remnants on our floor, we get a different answer: 1) "Instead of trying to lift off the linoleum I think it'd be easiest to put in a new sub." 2) "I wouldn't worry too much about the uneven spots, you can use floor leveller to fix that." 3) ..."I'd be careful using that leveller. It's not cheap and you can end up spending a lot of money on it (as much a new sub-floor? Doubt it) I've heard it's pretty hard to nail through that stuff."

I've got about another eight feet of scraping left and I'll be done the hallway. I'll let you know what we decide to do about the glue used to affix the tiles in the living room but I've got a hunch how that'll turn out. Wish me luck!

Hanging around for Thanksgiving

We chose Thanksgiving as the day to begin putting up our drywall thanks mostly to a guy we'll call "helpful Al" who loaned up his tools, his time and his experience hanging drywall.


It's definitely not as easy as it looks but by the time we drilled in our 100th drywall screw and all the measuring and cutting leading up to it, we were beginning to get the "hang" of things. I'm quite satisfied with how far we got today, with two of the four closets nearly complete and about nine hours of drywall to our credit so that's worth :) about!


Also, it was scratch & save at Rona on Saturday and we managed to get granite tiles for our bathroom at %60 off and the stone for our fireplace & all of our drywall materials for %10 off!



You'll notice from the pics my daughter came to spend the weekend with us and got to spend part of her Saturday at Rona picking out tile, stone and drywall supplies. Call it her initiation into home renos 101.

Well who says you can't have a Thanksgiving dinner without a kitchen? Not me.....I will do anything for turkey! I managed to make stuffing, mashed potatoes and veg & cook the turkey on the on the BBQ! It was pretty good and I even have enough leftover for turkey pot pies and soup!
As for the drywall day it was a good day in learning and I must say that, although I missed my family and friends this holiday, it was well worth learning a new trade!

Hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving!

Slip, Sliding Away and Dust in the Wind, er ... house

Sunday was one of those days which began with great anticipation, and concluded like the ending of just about any Steven Segal movie, anti-climactic and no payoff for the amount of time investmented.

We rented a couple of machines (not shown) and planned to strip the remaining layer of laminate from our kitchen and sand off the cement left from the wonderful tiles checkering the living room and hallway. After a slight delay in getting started and nearly three hours of piercing loud and horrendously dusty work, the progress was slow-going (also not shown).

Sooo, it looks like we might have to lay down subfloor before we lay our hardwood because our floor may be too uneven ... *Surprise* followed by expletive of your choice ...

I did manage to salvage the day by doing some small, tidy-up work, removing a few brackets and some wood trim from the stairway.

It was with the stairway in mind, we decided to demolish the wall that runs alongside the upstairs and divides the living room. Now, we've begun to look at railings and balusters (or, as I call 'em, "ballbusters") to replace that wall.

On Monday,I met with our electrician to discuss the plans for our lights and outlets. He had some good suggestions and, once we get the framing for the drywall completed we'll be getting wired. (nice).

If we keep chipping away we might actually be upstairs before Christmas which would be great! I know my two girls would love that, and that's what counts :)

Clear House/ Clear Head

A few weeks ago a nice contractor came by and gave us some good tips on what to do when you are a first time "reno-er". He said the first thing you need to do is clear the junk out in order to gain perspective on what you WANT to get done vs. what you NEED to get done. So this is what we did. We tore down and piled materials and this past Saturday, with kudos to our friend Tom, we unloaded 4 industrial sized bins at the dump! Sounds like fun, its not but it had to be done and I can say that it really clears your head!

So at long last we are now at the stage of putting instead oftearning out and it feels great.....other than having to make a thousand decisions on kitchen designs, paint colous, ceiling.....etc. Speaking of celings, did you know that the white stucco ceilings are out of date? Apparently painted ceilings are all the rage....so guess what we are doing? We have the lucky job of standing on a ladder and scrapping off the bumps, then wiping off the stucco. SO NOT A FUN JOB! It took husband 45 mins to scrape and 3 hours to wipe off the stucco. My turn is next as we have 2 more rooms to do!

*On Monday we got a second window estimate and we decided we're going to get rid of the bay window in the kitchen and replace it with a regular window, pluswe're adding a second window in the dining room area so we can overlook the backyard while we're eating. With the price of windows hopefully the view will enhance the taste of the food.

Must run but I will leave you with a question, what are your thoughts on concrete countertops?

Home wrreckerr!

After pummeling the kitchen cupboards and taking up the laminate we got to the fun part this week--that pesky laminate that was tucked underneath a couple layers of flooring.

Dad was here over the weekend, so, like any loving son, I put him to work.

As I peeled away the layers, I cursed those homeowners before us that were too lazy to take up the old laminate, including this beautiful yellow-flaked design (circa 1960's I'm guessing)

Pretty!

I spent the better part of an hour with sledge and chisel in a feeble and unsatisfying attempt to peel away the final laminate layer. After hacking off about one square foot I called a Home Hardware and asked how they do it. A nice guy named Jeremy (sp) told me they use a machine called an "Eddy" (presumably short for "Fast Eddy) to get tough flooring up. Note to self: call Westminster rentals ...

We moved the messy and massive heap o wood scraps into the dining room so I could begin chipping away the tile from the living room (who the *#^! lays tile in the living room)? I made a lot of headway this a.m. and got the tile up throughout the LR and into the hallway so things are looking good.

Meanwhile wifey's been busy checking out kitch designs and quotes. We've got 4 quotes and we've got it narrowed down to 3. If I told you who the finalists were I'd have to kill you.

On Saturday, I've got a friend coming over with a large bin and we're going to load all of this crap and haul it to the dump. Then I can rent Eddy and tackle that floor.

I'd love to keep writing but alas, I've got a tub filled with post-dinner dishes that beckons. Tra-la-la.

The Money Pit

Now that we have moved in and settled into our basement "suite" I feel as though everywhere I turn, something is breaking, leaking or creaking. I feel like Shelley Long in the movie, The Money Pit. The more we tear down, the more problems seem to arise. Is this where we are headed? I sure hope not! As Scott and I just passed our 1 Year Anniversary. I hope our movie ending is not like Shelly Long and Tom Hank's ending.

To date, since we have moved in, we have had to replace our washer and dryer (they are quite lovely and I actually look forward to laundry day), fix the pool, have been told to replace all of windows and door, which came with a $14,000 quote, and I'm pretty sure our house is infested with bugs and spiders! Our darling fixer-upper-has turned into 1 BIG problem. And if 1 more person says the word potential I am going to scream. Potential is great when you don't own it, trust me! Oh well, this potential is ours and we will have to learn to love it....or list it. Have you seen that show?

From the Husband's prespective, I agree these "surprises" and higher-than-we'd-imagined quotes" for the work we need doing have been worrisome and more unsettling than anticipated. It's easy to let it weigh you down especially when our dream of moving upstairs by Christmas has rapidly begun to slip away. Now we're looking ahead to 2011. Cheers!
I'm trying hard to keep a positive perspective in spite of the obstacles in our path and I'm hoping that we'll be able to do some of the work ourselves, be patient, do what we can afford, and just trust that in the words of a well-known red neck name Larry, we'll be able to "git 'er done."

On a more happy note, check out the pictures our pretty new washer and dryer!