~Kitchen Reveal!~

So this is the almost final look of the kitchen…we have few things left to do; namely grouting the backsplash.  The grout we chose is a very neutral color that will blend and not alter the look so it will look almost the same when it’s done.  We also have to finish the hall pantry and install the new door and trim it.  But all that is about 4-6 hours work so we’ll tackle it after our summer fun is done!

In order for you to get the real feel of the transformation you need to remember what we had…so here is the old first:

Old Kitchen VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Pink countertops, brass hardware, narrow 70’s white flat panel cabinets…Yuck!

So here is the NEW kitchen…I’m in LOVE!

New Kitchen VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Some of my favourite things in this kitchen are:

My Lazy Susan in the corner cabinets.  This one stores all my Epicure Spices on the top level and pots and pans on the bottom with baking trays underneath.  It uses the room that this cabinet offers to the max!  On the other corner I’m installing one as well and it will house appliances and baking goods.  Without the lazy susan this cabinets have a lot of wasted space.

 

Love my pot and pan drawers and coffee/drink centre.  This is all new in the kitchen.  In the old kitchen there had been no upper cabinets on this wall and a tiny desk had been on the bottom.  It was wasted space!  Now all my drink mixes, coffees, cups, glasses, jugs etc. are kept in the upper cabinet, my Cuisinart Keurig and coffee pods are on the counter and the pot and pan drawers are full of my Tupperware.  The Tupperware is still a mess (whose Tupperware drawer isn’t?) but it holds it all in and they don’t attack me when I open it.

  Love our new sink!  We splurged and bought a Blanco Silgranit sink in a beige color.  We had bought this faucet and used it in the old kitchen but it loos so much better in this kitchen!!!

 

 

 

 

I love that Randy built our countertops himself…from scratch!  They look awesome and in no way can you tell they weren’t done by a pro. 

 

 

There is a huge WOW factor when you walk in and see the kitchen, especially if you’ve been here before and seen the old one.  I’m so proud of how it turned out and the fact that we did it ourselves. 

We are almost done the house renovations.  We have to finish the bathrooms, install new carpet, the two new windows, install new siding and re-do the walks at the front and back of the house.  Then of course touch up painting, trim and finishing touches.  The goal is to have everything done by the end of September.  Randy is going to take a week off to work on the house and finish up some projects, that should speed things along.  So I’ll try to keep the blog updated with the progress!

~Kitchen Renovation–Last stages–Tiling the Backsplash~

It’s been done for over a month now but I’m finally having a chance to post some pictures of the last of the work we did to the kitchen.  We still have to grout the backsplash and run some trim on the cabinets but it is looking amazing!!!

Here are pictures of the day that Randy and I tiled the backsplash:

The Backsplash tile we picked out is a gorgeous mix of slate and glass tile with neutral colors with a splash of blue in it.  It gives the kitchen a contemporary feel and lightens the room overall. 

I still can’t get over how easy it is to tile on your own!  It adds such a transformation to any area and can be relatively inexpensive!  We found this amazing tile shop in Edmonton just off 170th Street that has a great selection and unbeatable prices.  I think the name is The Tile Shoppe.  Anyhow, we were able to get this backsplash tile for $5.99 a square foot!  When we were shopping around initially we had seen this exact tile elsewhere for $21.99 a square foot.  We have since bought all the tile for our house there, the service is great and prices are phenomenal! 

Anyhow I digress…coming up next is pictures of the whole kitchen in the almost finished stage.  We have about 4 hours of work left to finish it for good but we’ve been enjoying the summer!

~ I am a Handy Woman!~

I did a California patch all by myself on Friday!  We had a hole from the back doorknob and I was mudding and taping and wanted it fixed at the same time.  So I took what I learned on a Nate Berkus show and fixed it up myself!  I did a ‘California Patch’  I had never heard of it before his show and it is super easy to do!
I forgot to take a picture of the hole before but it was round…you cut it into a square and measure it.

Then you measure it out on a piece of drywall slightly bigger than you need.  I left 2 inches all around mine…

Then you cut around the square, break off the excess but peel it off leaving the paper all around your square.  Then you dry fit your square to make sure it fits in the hole.

Once you have a snug fit you add mud around the outside of the hole…

Then put your patch in, pressing it in firmly to make sure it’s even with the wall.  Press your paper all around to ensure it sticks well to hold the patch.

Apparently at this point you are supposed to let it dry…I did not.  I covered the entire patch with a layer of mud and smoothed out all the bumps and ripples.

And VOILA!  A easy and secure patch without any tape or fussing around!
So proud of myself for doing it all myself!  I got all the mudding done at the same time and now I need to start sanding and re-mudding again so I can paint hopefully next weekend.  It’s coming together though!  So excited for it to be done!

~Working on Some Curb Appeal~

We’ve been in this house for 3 years this summer and it’s hard to believe that I haven’t done more work on the front appearance of the house.  I hate, hate, hate railroad ties in landscaping and the flowerbeds were just flat, non-dimensional rectangular areas of dirt.

So I set out to just plant my flat, non-dimensional rectangular area of dirt last weekend and ended up having a bit of a temper tantrum…I wanted the railroad ties gone and I wanted more out of my flowerbed.  So Randy and I discussed what we could do.  First of all we decided that we need to build new stairs…our old ones are starting to disintegrate. Where the mail lady steps up every day it is completely crumbling off.

Steps VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

So that project is upcoming.  We need to borrow a bobcat to pull off the old stairs and get rid of them and then a weekend to build the new stairs.  I’m hoping we can do it towards the end of June.  We are able to plan out the rest of the front better though knowing that we are doing that.

So then I told Randy that the railroad ties had to go or I was going…that spurned a couple of hours of hard physical labor….and 500lbs of railroad ties to the dump later we had none left in our yard and I was a satisfied wife.  I know you are thinking “Why did you pull out those spikes to the sky made from stinky oil covered hunks of wood”  I’m sorry if it upsets you…just not my thing!  I even recall when we first saw the house I told Randy “Those have to go” Here we are 3 years later and I finally get it done!

Railroad Tie Removal VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

So then I decided that the flat, non-dimensional rectangular area of dirt did not work for me anymore.  With the railroad ties gone the raised bed portion of the flowerbed was gone…it is pictured in the right side of this picture as it was before we pulled out the tie.  It just grew weeds and got no sun anyhow so it was no good to me.  Plus it was a tie…seriously…who decorates with ties?  Unless you work for CN it is a bit too much!

Old Flowerbed VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

I also had to think of how the heck I was going to deal with this:

Dandelion patch VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

This is the ghetto flowerbed to the right side of my front door.  It has a couple lilies in it that I got from Randy’s Mom last year that are coming in nice but the star of the show really is the dandelion.  As a matter of fact it stars in quite a bit of my yard…2 huge containers of roundup later I figured I had won the battle…or did I?  It is a week now since I sprayed the roundup…the dandelions are still alive and kicking…WTF?  I seriously have Chernobyl Dandelions…but that project will have to wait…I have $200 of flowers to plant…

So after the ties were gone and the excess dirt moved around I decided that the terrible roman path behind the house needed to come out…I hate the jagged, uneven rock path so much!  It is a total hazard.  Ethan has wiped out on it so many times I couldn’t even count.  So I had my strong, handsome hubby use my weak, broken wheelbarrow and haul up about 600lbs of stone from behind the house to put in front of the house.  The strong, handsome husband made it…the wheelbarrow did not and I got my stone from the back brought up to the front to use for my flowerbed! 

So it took me some time to decide on how I was going to use the rocks to add interest to my flowerbed and I finally decided to make a tiered pile of rocks and plant close to it to have the plants add to the rocks.  I don’t know if I’m done with it yet…I have one more flowerbed to do and I may add a couple more of the stones to the bed…I have lots!  I did get all my plants in (most of them are now perennials) and laid a really nice rubber mulch over top.  I like how it looks a lot better now.  I deliberately put nothing close to the stairs also because when we put in the new ones they will be destroyed.

New Flowerbed VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

We are also planning on pulling out the walk and putting down a stone pathway.  It will extend wider at the driveway and move out a bit from the current path in order to be in line with the new stairs.  It won’t be happening very soon…those stones are really expensive!  So right now I just put two planters in the space that the walk will go.  I want to do my back path and I’m reusing the stone pads from the front in the back so I will have to do it at some point this summer because the back path needs to be done before winter. 

I am also putting in another flowerbed, just a small one where the ugly poky railroad ties were.  The ground was raised there and we were going to leave it and build a retaining wall for it but it was going to be expensive and not really add much to the appearance.  So I started to cut back the bank and try to level out the lawn.  Two hours into the project I decided that it would make a cute little flowerbed.  So that is the project for today…more stone from the back (I really have a lot of it!) and another trip to the flower store if needed and I will have a new flowerbed!  It won’t be the full shape as pictured here;  the stone pathway will flare out here,  so it will be a kidney kind of shape. 

Future Flowerbed VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

I also attacked the dandelion bed yesterday…grrrr!  I cleared out all the weeds…pulling up a root system that was almost half an inch in diameter of dandelion runners.  That was hard, dirty, crappy work!  I took all the sod I had cut out from the area in the picture above and laid it up against the house at the far end of the bed.  Once the new stairs are in place I will be building a new flowerbed in this area.  For now I rough-guessed where it will be and planted grass in the other half of the bed.  Today I am buying a couple of shrubs to plant just around the corner of this bed.  They will provide cover for our deck and hopefully give us a privacy screen down the road.  Randy is also going to grab me a water barrel today for this corner drain.  It never works right and floods that whole area so I saw some nice ones at Costco and he’s going to but it and install it today.  For now I am leaving it with just the perennial lilies that are there and hoping for nice green grass to sprout up quickly in the rest of the area.

Former Dandelion Patch VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

I am continuing to fight the dandelions…roundup didn’t work so I bought a Fiskars weed puller and have been diligently pulling them up.  I used it so much yesterday that it got jammed full of dirt and wouldn’t work anymore so I gave up on it for now…more weed pulling to come I’m sure!  I’m debating on stripping all the sod in the back yard and re-doing the whole thing…the dandelions have completely taken over.  But I told Randy for this year I will pull, pull, pull and re-seed and fertilize and see what happens.  If it’s the same next year it’s gone!  I may even hire it out…that’s hard work!

There is lots of hard physical work being done out there…and lots more to come. We are putting in the two new windows in the front bedrooms and re-siding the house this year as well…we are really amping up the curb appeal of the house! Randy and I don’t do anything half-measure remember…I’ll be so excited to see it done!  All this while the kitchen and bath renos are going on inside the house…more to come on that!

~Kitchen Renovation–Part 1~

Well first things first when you renovate a kitchen…the old one has to come out first.  Then you need to fix anything you knew needed fixing.  Then you deal with the surprise things that you weren’t expecting…they are always there.  Then you make a change to a plan that causes more work….it goes the same for us every time!  So here is the beginning of our latest renovation project:  The Kitchen.

Kitchen Before VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

The gut out…

Kitchen Reno Prep VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

 

		The Beginnings of a New Kitchen VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

 

We worked out tails off this weekend…we started Friday night, clearing out the cabinets and building the new ones.  We worked till midnight that night after working all day.  Saturday we started early and worked straight through until 3am…yikes!  Ethan left on Saturday and went out to The Smiths’ farm to hang out with them while we worked.  He had fun and was out of our way.  Sunday was another day of work, we went from 10am till 4pm before heading out to The Smith’s to grab Ethan.

We had a couple of surprises while tearing down…nothing that was a deal stopper though.  The funniest was this:

~Kitchen Renovation–Part 1~ VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

This is the way the previous owners tried to fix the whole in the picture.  About 5 pounds of drywall compound in the wall.  The hole is where the door knob from the back door connects to the wall…as you can see it connects quite solidly.  Right after we moved in the hole was there and we thought Ethan had kicked the door hard and created the hole…I guess we didn’t do it, we just discovered a bad fix.

We had very little problems, except that one of our cabinets came in white instead of maple.  We had to reorder it and so now we are waiting for it to come in so we can finish the upper run and install the Over the range microwave.  It’s a couple of weeks till it comes in…thankfully the bottom cabinets were all there and we were able to install them.  Next we moved on to constructing the countertops…Randy made them from scratch for our kitchen.  Coming up in Part 2…

~How Does Our Garden Grow?~

Well I have a budding gardener on my hands…he has been badgering me all week to “plant the seeds”.  We had picked out all the seeds for our vegetable garden last weekend and he was anxious to see them grow.  I am growing an Organic garden, using only organic soil and seeds this year.  Plus creating a new ‘hanging garden’ space so I can plant more.

We had to start of course with preparing the beds…picking weeds, adding some new soil, spreading around some fertilizer…Ethan patiently helped with all this work.  I ended up running around trying to find some specific fertilizer for the lawn and didn’t get around to the garden.  We had a yummy supper outside on the deck (first of the season!) and I was resigned to the fact that the garden would probably have to wait until Monday…well not Ethan!  After his last bite of food he was ready to ‘plant the seeds’.  So off we went. 

First he helped with our new ‘hanging garden’.  Randy had gotten it set up but Ethan and I had to add the dirt.  Our ‘hanging garden’ is made out of simple rain gutters and we planted lettuce, spinach and basil in them.

~How Does Our Garden Grow?~ VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Then we moved on to the garden bed.  We had to rake it to level it and then we started planting.  We planted:  peas, corn, swiss chard, carrots, radishes, beets, tomatoes, and butter crunch lettuce.  I taught Ethan how to space the seeds apart and how to cover them up to put the seeds ‘to bed’.  He was very careful to make sure they were covered up nice and cozy.  Then we gave it a good watering before calling it a night.

~How Does Our Garden Grow?~ VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Here’s to a bountiful garden this year!  Last year was a good one so I’m expecting nothing different.  Also I’m excited to see how the ‘hanging garden’ does…We are also planting potatoes…vertically.  I need some straw and chicken wire and we’re going to grow some potatoes without a garden bed to plant them in.  I’ll add pictures when we get it built.  It’s a project for another day!

I’m so excited to grow with Ethan, I remember planting gardens as a kid and working in them and being so excited to see things grow.  Not to mention I know that Ethan eats more vegetables when he gets to pick them, whether its in the store or in our garden.  At least coming from our garden I know what to expect!

I also spent a lot of time and money on our lawn yesterday.  We have a bountiful crop of dandelions already…arrgghh!  So I went the Round-up route again.  I did a good dose of Round Up throughout the yard and we’re following up with a Organic Bio Weed and Feed product and some good grass seed.  I hope I can win the battle of the dandelion this year!  We’re also  calling a tree company to come out and take a look at our Weeping Birch.  It’s slowly dying and we’ve been told it might have bugs.  I love that tree so much I would be heartbroken if we lost it.  So I’m hoping to save it.  I don’t know squat about trees so I’m calling in the pros to help.  None of my other trees are suffering so I’m hoping it isn’t bugs. Randy did trim it quite a bit last year so I’m half wondering if the shock killed it.  I also haven’t ever fertilized them but I don’t know that it would cause that.  We’ll see, hopefully Greenblade can help me out!

We’ve got some big plans for the front yard this year.  We’re tearing out the cement steps (the bottom one is disintegrating) and building some wooden stairs and making them a bit wider then the old ones.  Then the flower bed to the right of the stairs is getting shrunk in size and I’m going to plant a shrub right beside the stairs and a half circle flower bed around it.  We’re also planting some shrubs along the side of the deck to get some coverage so you can’t see underneath and to add something to that corner.  The railroad ties are being pulled out all over and a new paving stone path and retaining wall will be put in.  Randy wants to put a kidney shaped flowerbed in at the base of the driveway around the little tree that is there but I don’t know if that will happen.  The back path is being re-done as well and I’m removing the crappy stone pathway and putting in just a cement pathway.  We’re siding the house this year and replacing the last of the windows in the front of the house so overall the house is getting a massive face lift on the outside. 

If only I can kill those damn dandelions…

~A Long Few Weeks~

Long time no blog again for me…it’s been a long month.  Since we lost the baby our world has tilted and gone insane.  I think keeping busy is a coping mechanism.  Our kitchen arrived and in a marathon weekend renovation we ripped out and installed all new cabinets (a whole post on the renovation coming up soon).  We worked on it starting Friday night until 12am, 10am – 3am on the Saturday and 10am-4pm on Sunday.  We were bagged.

The next weekend we built and installed the new countertops on the Friday night and on Saturday finished it.  We drove to Moberly Lake that afternoon with friends to pick out our lake lot for the summer.  We liked the campground, it’s not fancy at all but it will do the job!  I’m not sure if our friends are going with us though.  Sunday was Mother’s Day and we went to a brunch at a local hotel with our friends the Smith’s.  After that instead of sitting with my feet up like I thought I would for Mother’s Day I started cleaning and cleaned the house for 5 hours…2 weeks of renovations wreaked havoc on the joint!

Every day of the week we ran doing things after work….now it’s the long weekend.  I had to work Saturday and I spent a couple of hours helping customers but then headed to the back and BBQ’d for like 6 hours for the staff.  They appreciated it so much…they could pop back and grab a burger or a polish sausage, have a bottle of water or munch on some veggies and fruit.  I even bought ice cream treats and cookies.  It was a great morale boost and I was so happy to do it for my staff. 

Today is Sunday and today we tile the kitchen floors and I’m hoping to put in my gardens.  Plus I have to get all the laundry done otherwise we will have to go outside and around the house to get it because we’re tiling the area to get to the basement and won’t be able to walk on it for 24 hours.  Monday is grouting day and then we are going to relax…

Randy is doing his molding job again at the Home Depot.  They are paying him the same rate as he makes for his day job so he couldn’t turn it down.  So that adds a level of craziness to his life.  Plus he is trying to study for the last part of his 3rd year challenge for his apprenticeship.  He heads to Edmonton June 9th to write the tests and do the practicals.  I have gotten behind with my course as well and need to get spending some extra time working on it to catch up.  I still want to get it down by July so I’ve got some serious make up time to do.  I’m still on the first Assignment so I have 2 more to complete before I write my final.  There will be a little busy working going on to get that caught up!

We really want to get all this hard work done by July so we can just enjoy the summer without having to work our tail off…keep posted, pictures of progress are surely to be posted soon!

~Bathroom Makeover~

When we bought our house the bathroom was simply done in white. We replaced the toilet but did nothing else in the year and a half that we lived here.  For some strange reason the previous owners chose to put in a almond colored tub and surround.  They are new and in good condition so we aren’t wanting to do too much to them.

Long story short I got sick and tired of our shower curtain etc. the other day and when we were in Edmonton at Christmas we stopped in at Ikea and bought a new shower curtain.  It is white with some vine like flowers in grey going up it.  Really nice, but when I put it up the bathroom looked awful!  Too much white!  I decided that it was time to add something to the bathroom.

Just that day when I dropped Ethan off at daycare I noticed that Aimie had repainted her kitchen.  I fell in LOVE with the color and knew it would be perfect for the bathroom!  She gave me the name and off to work I went and picked it up while I had a spare minute (a perk of working at Home Depot!) 

That weekend I painted two walls in the bathroom, changed out the towels on the towel bar and put in some new accents to dress it up.  The result?  I LOVE it!  While the stupid almond tub does not go with the bathroom, I keep the shower curtain closed anyhow so it doesn’t matter very much.  Randy is going to tile the floor and the surround this summer so I will be able to make it meld together better anyhow. 

So without further ado…pictures of the new bathroom!  I still want something to go above the towel bar on the wall.  I’m trying to think of something I can cut out of vinyl that will look good there, if you have any ideas drop me a comment!  The paint color is Elephant Skin by Behr; the pictures don’t show the true color of the grey, it is a bit darker then it appears here.

~Bathroom Makeover~ VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

I put some green stems in a simple vase and put a small fountain I bought around Christmas on the counter.  The picture above the toilet is of a fishing village that I took in Black & White when we were in Mexico.  I went with turquoise and grey towels for the towel bar and love the combination!

I love my bathroom so much now that  I want to hang out in it!  It is so peaceful and relaxing!  Best part was that it cost under $75 for everything!

~Attic Insulation~

We spent a couple of hours last weekend taking care of keeping ourselves warm and cozy this winter by blowing insulation into our attic.  Originally we booked a company to come and do it for us at a cost of $1200.  Then the week before they were scheduled to come The Home Depot put the insulation onto its’ New Lower Price program and offered a 20% rebate in Home Depot Gift cards with a free machine rental.  So I did the math and it saved us $525 in cash and we’ll get $180 in gift cards back.  It wasn’t rocket science to me to cancel the company and do it ourselves.

I will admit to being nervous about the mess and it being a hard thing to do but in the end I was very wrong!  It didn’t make much of a mess (I put the machine in my living room instead of putting it outside) and it was pretty easy to do as well.  Randy went into the attic and I pushed the bales into the machine from below.  In less then 2 hours we had the work done!  Here are the pictures!

Attic Insulation VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL