In the last little bit, we have started making more improvements on the house, and purchasing more accessories! For example, last weekend we bought a beautiful gas grill at The Home Depot and got it connected to our gas two days later. We have already had several meals cooked on the barbecue and expect many more. It is a really nice grill, with side burners, a temperature gauge and a rotisserie. As it is nearing the end of summer, all the grills were on sale so we were able to get a nicer one than we’d planned. Sometimes waiting has advantages! We took some photos of our grill, so we’ll link soon!
In addition to getting the grill hooked up, we finally got our stove hooked up too last weekend. What a change to be able to bake and use the stove top! It cooks so fast! I cannot believe we lived for 8 months without a proper stove or oven. The things you get used to…
We have also had some fixes to our kitchen. The Calders came this week and retreated the butcher block so it looks even better now. They also replaced the glass in the cabinets to the ribbed glass which we love. We will take more pictures and post. It isn’t easy because we destoyed our digital camera on our canoeing trip and are using the video camera to take stills. We’ll get there.
Anyway, my parents are coming today and they will see our house for the first time. It sure looks different from when we bought it!
We are very excited because yesterday we saw our kitchen and learned it will be installed on Thursday. It looks really good so far, and it hasn’t been stained yet, so we are very eager to see the finished result IN OUR HOUSE!! Finally! We will have a kitchen! Although after the cabinets are installed, we still need a sink, dishwasher, hood vent for the gas stove, and gas line hook-up. Not to dwell on all that has to be done before we can USE our kitchen, but that’s the list.  Now we know what we’re doing next weekend. Unpacking our kitchen boxes, and we have lots of them!
We took some photos yesterday of the cabinetry in its raw form, and Brian will post a link soon.
Today I was woken up early by a call from New Canadians who had a delivery of 15 boxes of hardwood outside the door at 7:30am as well as call from The Brick about 10 minutes later who said they were coming between between 1 and 3 with our new JennAir Stove.
The hardwood was left on the sidewalk so first thing in the morning I was moving all the boxes inside and opening them up so they can get site conditioned. There’s still a lot to do, but we’ve got them warming up. At around 10 Fred arrived and we worked the corner and bump that we fixed up the night before. It was a challenging few rows of woodlaying, but the wood seems to be going down well with no breaks or squeeking.
After we had that down we did some grouting on the back slate tiles we laid last week. It’s all looking good.
Before Fred left we moved the couch to the back of the house around the side and in the back door. It’s now in the main back area and we have somewhat of a living room!
This morning we got delivery of some tiles and flooring we ordered over the weekend. It’ll be nice to see some progress on the floor of the main room.
Fred has been doing a lot of little bits and pieces on the second floor finishing up trim work as well as bullnoses for stairs and such.
John, (HVAC) is coming over on Friday to get some more first floor heating going. It has been so brutally cold out and our main floor has been hovering around 13-14C. We also don’t want to install the hardwood floors without getting the main room up to temperature so the planks don’t shrink.
We’ve heard from Ed Calder and he’s building away at our kitchen and needs some sizes for our stove and dishwasher. We’ve found a few things we like at The Brick but are checking out this place called BuyDirect tonight, which is a club type thing where you can buy direct from the manufacturer. We’ll see how that goes.
We got a writeup today in the globeandmail.com: Real Estate section. It’s about house blogging in general and we’re one of the examples. The reporter, Dave LeBlanc called a few weeks ago to ask us whether we wanted to talk about our blog and we said that it was fine. There’s even a picture in the newspaper version, but it doesn’t seem to be online. It’s quite a good article. It’s funny it mentions one of the previous posts about our plumber. Check his reviews on Homestars.ca.
On the house front Fred said he was going over today to drop off some tools and maybe do a little trim on the second floor. I think this weekend we may look for stoves and dishwashers so we can pass off the size of them to Ed Calder who is making the kitchen.
Yesterday was a good day to stay home and work on the house. It was pouring rain outside, so we took on a few projects indoors, including painting the 2nd floor hallway, which we almost finished except we ran out of paint. It looks good, though, especially the area that has hardwood in it! We also painted the trim around the doors in the bathroom, so that looks more finished. Probably the biggest project of the day was installing the washer and dryer. We only had to make 2 trips to the hardware store for all the parts we needed, and Brian and I (mostly Brian, like you even need me to say that!) got the job done. We did a few loads of laundry and it was lovely. The washer and dryer are stacked nicely and working well. They are from Frigidaire and we are happy with them. We even had some time yesterday to have lunch at If Lounge (awesome cheap breakfast and full bar), watch some football (exciting ending to the Seattle/Dallas game. So glad Dallas lost) and try out our huge bathtub. Very cool day.
This morning we wait for Rogers cable. They were supposed to come yesterday, but they called our home phone, which wasn’t set up, and the call forwarding was on wrong, so we missed them. Our cable is working somewhat, but many of the channels, especially the High Def ones, aren’t coming in at all, so they need to fix it. Frank came over so he and Brian are fixing some of the plumbing, putting cold water into the main floor washroom and drilling in the kitchen where the dishwasher and sink will go.
So, lots of progress. The rain has stopped so we plan to get out of the house today too.
We’ve been so busy we’ve hardly had a chance to post blog entries. We’re actually going to move on Saturday having booked a cargo van for the day. So we have one more full day to get the master bedroom and bathroom ready to move in.
We’ll do a separate post for today’s activities, but we’ll start with yesterday.
We started the day by finishing staining the second floor doors, then moved on to the third floor and cleaned up a lot of dust, with lots of shopvaccing. We then primed one of the bedrooms, the bathroom, and the hall.
On the way home we stopped by The Brick and found a few appliances. We got a really nice Kitchenaid refrigerator, the floor model, as well as a nice washer and dryer set. The fridge is going to be delivered on Friday, and the washer and dryer next Tuesday.
When we got home we also packed a bunch of boxes and filled the car full so when we left in the morning we had a load to take to the house. It was a tiring day and we were exhausted by the end of it.
We have pictures up to yesterday on the website now here.
Yes, it’s true. We have to be out of our apartment by Sunday. So this means we must move into the house this weekend. Lots still to do.
Yesterday we had more help from Alex. Wish she lived here cause she is a big help! We primed the first floor and the remainder of the second, stained the bedroom doors, and did some ceiling paint. We had to stop because we used up the ceiling paint and went to Home Depot. Home Depot was having a sale on appliances (BOXING DAY SALE!!!!!) but they were all the really low end ones, the type that was in our place when we bought it, only from 20 years ago.
Brian arranged for us to rent a cargo van for Saturday so the clock is ticking!
More work to do today, including finishing painting the 2nd floor, staining the other side of the doors, getting some trim, and unloading all the boxes that are in our car. So much to do, so little time!
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