And onto the next project...

After finishing the kitchen, we took a few months off. Then in March we started the planning for our major bathroom overhaul. I still can't believe that I have been living without a shower for more than a year!

We invited a few local contractors in to quote the job. While we liked both the Fabinex team and the Case's group, our timing requirements led us to choose Rob and the team at Case renovations. They suggested all the work could be done in about 2 weeks. We're now entering week 4, and are hopeful it will be wrapped up mid-week.

For background, our little house has 1 bathroom, on the second floor. It is surprisingly large, and appears to have been a bedroom at one time. During the demolition processed, we deduced that the bathroom was built out (providing full ceiling height rather than the angled roof line sometime in the mid 1930's. It might have been used as a bedroom at that time, since it had full built in closets and shelves. Here's the before shots:

Lucky for Jon, there was a chimney hidden behind the sink, running from the second floor up into the attic. Did he ever get dirty removing that thing, brick by brick!

From Reno Project - Bathroom

Our plan is to make the room smaller by adding a wall where the closet cabinets had been, and making a bedroom and hall closet out of the extra space. During the demolition phase, we uncovered multiple layers of old linoleum, multiple layers of wallpaper, curious plumbing choices (over the baseboards?) and funky wiring. We even found a newspaper from 1936 in the walls. I feel for the Case guys (Kim and Mitchell) who had to remove 3 walls' worth of lathe & plaster.

Jon found a clawfoot bathtub online, that we then sanded, painted black on the outside, and re-glazed, so we've designed the space around it to look pretty old-fashioned. With black and white ceramic tile flooring, an older style pedestal sink and matching toilet, the only new piece in the room will be the separate shower. I think it'll be worth it, even if it doesn't quite match!

Check out these shots of the work in progress. Oh! I should mention that we're also changing the front bedroom during this project. We've knocked out the little half-height closet and the main wall, and added a door off the hall. Along with a fairly deep closet, this room will soon be our master bedroom. I can hardly wait to be posting the "After" pictures!

Reno Project - Bathroom

Pictures of our Kitchen!

One year later... and we're back at my parents' house while the bathroom gets completely re-done. Since we haven't updated this blog in many months, here's a short run-down of our work since November:

Kitchen reno:
- Removed 2 walls, water heater, and replaced window with sliding glass door
- Filled in old door
- Installed cork floor
- Had custom island and cabinets made and installed
- Put in all new stainless appliances - fridge, wall oven, cooktop, dishwasher and microwave
- Tiled back-splash with white subway tile
- Painted the kitchen and living area


Follow this link to our Picasa pictures of the Kitchen (taken during our bathroom reno!):

Reno Project - Kitchen

Sod, deck, fence... and the party moves inside!

Clearly it's been a long, long time since our last post. It's not that we haven't made progress, but instead it's because we've been so busy with renovations (and getting married) that we haven't taken a minute to share our milestones with this web audience.

Here's the rapid summary of what we've done in the past 3 months:

- a new electrical panel was installed in the basement
- sod was laid and our yard took root
- Jon's dad and friends built a deck off our kitchen into the yard
- Jon and dad Happy (not kidding, that's what everyone calls him) built a tall, gorgeous fence around the yard and stained/painted it
- got a new, working fridge!
- hung dry wall on every inch of the main level and the stairs to our new basement
- designed our kitchen and ordered the cabinets, cork flooring, counter-tops and appliances
- demolished our existing kitchen cabinets, counter and sink
- wired the kitchen for the aforementioned appliances

The relocation/basement portion of our endeavor is now as finished as it's going to get for the next year or more. Onto the next stage!

By far the biggest sense of accomplishment from the past 3 months came from the construction of our fence. Choosing the height, style, lattice, post caps, was one thing. Digging the post holes was another thing entirely. After the beating our property took from the house relocation, with all the heaving equipment that was in and out, the ground was rock hard and not willing to acquiesce to our shovels and picks. We ended up renting a post hole digger, but even that took some serious sweat and 3 grown men to operate. Add in the effort to get everything square and even, plus an overly demanding spouse who decided that the stain wasn't the right color AFTER it had been applied to an entire 20 ft side, and then insisted that the lattice frame HAD to be white (and thus removed from where it had been nailed in, in order to be painted and re-installed) - it was a long, hard piece of work.

It was all worth it though, because we now have a gorgeous, dark brown and sharp white fence that affords us great privacy from the walking trail, and more importantly keeps our adventurous basset hound Arrow out of trouble.


As you may have guessed from the summary above, we've already moved on to some interior work. First we needed to fix up the areas that were exposed from the removal of a few walls and the creation of the basement stairs. Unfortunately, in a very old house, nothing is square. So Jon and Hap experienced more fun and frustration working to get dry wall hung in every shape and size you can imagine.

Tomorrow we're heading to Australia for a belated Honeymoon. While we're gone a contractor will be crackfilling the entire downstairs. When we get back, all efforts will be focused on the kitchen. My next post will introduce our kitchen reno with the "Before" images, the post-demo images, and hopefully by Xmas time, the "After" shots! As always, our Picasa site holds many more photos the sod, fence building and more. Thanks for reading!

Leaps and Bounds

It's been nearly a month since our last post, so these pictures will look quite foreign to some. The good news is that the contracted portion of our reno's is 99% complete! We've got an electrician coming in next week to move our panel and make some wiring adjustments (due to the walls we removed), but the house is essentially ready to move into clean and touch up mode! Umm...after the wedding.

Reno Project - Inside peak

To give you the quick summary, over the past month we completed the siding, tore out an inside closet to make the legal width for a staircase into our new basement, connected the interior plumbing to the city service, cut out and installed a sliding door and new front door, re-routed the plumbing from the 2nd floor to the basement to allow for the removal of the kitchen wall, took the wall out, levelled the yard loosely with topsoil, built the front steps and cleared the debris.

Tomorrow we're getting sod delivered and Jon's friends are arriving to help us lay it into our new yard. We can't wait to replace our brown views with a lovely lawn.

With functional plumbing and temporary electricity, we were able to spend a night in the house last weekend. It was glorious to sleep in our own bed again. But since the stove and fridge have been disconnected and the main floor is quite covered in construction dust, we've reluctantly chosen to wait until the electrical has been sorted out to make the final move back in.

What's next you ask? Dry walling the interior, installing a fence around the property, bringing in a new fridge, building a kitchen island, installing all new cabinets and countertops, striping and painting the living room, a full bathroom renovation, moving the upstairs wall, building in a closet......