More tiles!

Totally loving what I saw when I popped in to visit Apartment Therapy today!
Looks familiar :)

The hunt for the bathroom vanity...part deux

The vanity hunt for the upstairs bathroom was frustrating to say the least. There are a lot of ugly vanities out there. Oh and there was that super fun time we accidentally bought the wrong one and had to take it all the way back to Rona. Sigh.

Here's a pic of the ugliest of the ugly.....so far

We're leaning towards this:

Whaddaya think?

Yay and Yuck

Yay: Reno work has started in the basement. The plan is to have a second bathroom, proper laundry room, rec room/guest room and work space in the back. But before any of that can happen, the cement floor needs to be dug up so that the old clay pipes can be replaced with new plastic ones.

Yuck: The beauty of removating an old house is in the surprises. As in, "surprise! The dirt under the cement floor is soaked in oil from a leaky furnace!".  The only thing to be done is to dig it all up and get it out of the house. The whole place smells like oil. Ian and my dad have been digging like crazy and the buckets of oily dirt are collecting in the back yard.

The window saga

A couple months ago, Ian and I took the plunge and bought a real piece of furniture. By "real" I mean something expensive and not second hand or from Ikea. It's like we made a grown up investment (in comfort). We bought the couch at G.H. Johnson's on Dupont and I'd proud to say that it's not only Canadian-made but Toronto-made! Take that 100 mile challenge!

When talking about the new couch with a friend we learned that he too had purchased a couch at Johnson's and this couch did NOT fit through his front door. We had a good giggle about this experience and strongly assured everyone (mostly ourselves) that our large couch would fit right through our front door - no problemo. Well, low and behold...BIG PROBLEMO. No matter how hard they tried, Ian and Dad couldn't fit the darned thing through our front door. By the time I got home from work, the sky was dark, a storm was approaching, the couch was under a tarp on the front lawn and Dad, Ian and Sam were making some serious efforts towards taking off the glass in the front window so they could lift the couch through it. Stripped screws lead to high stress and despite extra careful hands, the outer pane of glass broke just as the sky opened and the rains poured down. But as you can see, the window came out and the couch came in and it's more perfect than I had even imagined.

We were without that second pane for some time and then we got new windows! I can honestly say, I never would have imagined that something like new windows could be so exciting. Not only do they look good but they'll go a long way towards keeping the heating bills down.

 

So now we have gorgeous new windows and a perfect couch that will never leave the house in one piece thanks to our gorgeous new windows.

AND we got the chimney swept so as it gets chilly outside, we can curl up on our new couch in front of a roaring fire. Love!

Return of the Leak

While walking down the hall tonight, I heard the faint sound of a repetitive drip. That's right. The sound of water dripping in my house..AGAIN! Thankfully, the hole in our ceiling that was opened up last time we had a leak has yet to be patched up and Ian was able to climb right up there. I can confidently announce that we have found the true source! We were wrong about the source before but it looks like we've got it this time. Thankfully, the roof is still under warranty and Dad will be calling the roofers tomorrow.

In more awesome news, we just booked a 5 day vacay to New York! Yay! So long leaky roof!

Interior design for dummies

Our house is small so we tried to make design choices that made the house feel as connected and large as possible but also relaxing and cozy. I'm no expert but I figured that if we used natural and complimentary colours on the walls plus warm wood tones throughout, we'd be alright. The plan was for each room to feel like a natural extension of the other so there's no disruption. I had it in my mind that serious design disruption chops the house up into separate areas and makes it seem smaller and messy. I'm sure any design major would shut down my theory in two seconds flat, but in the end, I think I was totally right! That's not to say that I didn't second guess myself many times. Thankfully, apartmenttherapy.com was there to reassure me. An awesome house tour was posted just a few days after we'd settled on our paint colours. The colours are so similar that I was instantly obsessed with clicking through the house tour to reassure myself that our place would look just as good. Boston House Tour. Thanks internet!

Happy House-iversary!

I am happy to report that we have survived one whole year in the house. Yay! Go us!
It hasn't been the easiest road but all limbs are accounted for and the house is indeed still standing. I even spent the day giving her a good clean and tidy. It's hard for me to relax when everything is a mess. Now that the cleaning is done, I can sit back with a cup of tea and enjoy our lovely, lovely home :)