Weekends in November

Slowly our list of things to do before December is diminishing. This month we made progress in small areas, mostly in the way of decorating. It has been a busy month with a few long Saturdays and even evenings of painting, nailing and gluing. The most recent additions to our house have been a rug, three counter stools and our brand new 100-year-old coat hook and key hook. We are looking forward to getting our very own washing machine delivered to us on Wednesday. It has been a long 4 months of doing our laundry at friend's homes and the local laundry mat.
As always, pictures will tell it all.

Finishing the bathroom. We repainted the bathroom leaving only one wall yellow. The colour was just too much, so we went with something a little more neutral. Steve was busy last week putting up the towel rods.

Creating a coat hook. After looking for a few weeks for just the perfect coat hook, it dawned on us that we should just make our own. On Saturday we tidied up the shed and retrieved two 100-year-old window frames that we had removed from our house last Spring. I cleaned them up, sanded them down and Steve drilled in the hooks.  We are pretty pleased with the results.

Our new stools are finally here. We are so excited to be using our peninsula to it's fullest potential. We also finished the trim around the bottom of the peninsula. It is looking so much better.

 Finally, our living room rug and shelf. We are beginning to collect items to furnish our house. It's slow, but coming along nicely. The next item on the agenda is to order some couches that actually match.

Stay tuned as the stair guy, Bryan, stops by this week to finish our stairs! We are both looking forward to that.

Making Cabinets

On Sunday, De and I went to the house after church to start installing the wall cabinets that we had built on Saturday. We found our "plumb line" and then tried our best to make things square in this old house. It took most of the afternoon to fix the wall cabinets as they were delays to drive to Home Depot to get clamps, our neighbour invited us for hot dogs on the bbq and we spent a bit of time preening (head-scratching).

In the evening, Deona put all of the base cabinets together while I shimmed and leveled them. The house gargoyles/gnomes/leprechauns/ghosts were acting up. The table saw frequently tripped a breaker that it's been operating on with no issues for the past few months.

At 12:30am, we decided to pack it in with two cabinets left to level and shim and the toe kicks yet to install.

Enjoy the photos!

The Garden Door

It took a while, but it's in. Take a look....

Up on the Roof

Over the last week we, I mean Steve, has been up on the roof. First it was to remove the different items littering our roof and the second time was to replace the shingles on the back part of the house.

Tim was here this weekend. The two guys worked hard to first take down the back greenhouse...or whatever it was. Then they stripped the roof of its 5 layers of shingles and re-shingled it. 

Drywalling

It is taking a lot longer to drywall than we expected. The main problem is that our house is not straight. Being a 100 year old home has caused some walls and floors to shift. It sure has been an adventure.

Progress Update

It's time to post some more pictures.

As mentioned before, Steve and I managed to find and buy a few new pieces of furniture. We needed to bring them home and since our apartment is so small, we needed to get rid of some furniture before we could move the new stuff in. Joc, Tim and Jeff, you might feel your heart tug a little as you look at this next picture. I was sad at first too, but it also felt good to push this old beast of a couch over the edge.

A few weeks ago, we had two good friends, Rachel and Joel, come to help out. Let me tell you, having people help really lifts our spirits. Rachel, worked hard at knocking the plaster off the brick post while Joel carefully nailed boards in the attic.

 

Steve and I have been working tirelessly on the insulation. We are almost ready for drywall.... It took an incredible long time. Note to self: next time spend the big bucks and get foam insulation. Just this past week, we finished installing most of the windows. We only have 1 left to do, but plan to wait a bit on that one. 

Steve also successfully build his first set of stairs. I am pretty impressed with his workmanship. They are already installed in our basement and will soon be painted a funky blue colour...just because we can. 

Wow, what a mess!

Stair master!

 

Insulation Sensation!

After receiving our outrageous heating bill, we thought our place needed a little insulating. It was my first time working with fiberglass insulation, that is if you don't count when I was five and built a fort with the pink flamingo stuff in my dad's shop. Since then, fiberglass insulation has not gotten any less itchy. The whole process hasn't been too painful. Steve told me the worst part would be taping the vapor barrier. It turns out it's not that bad. Maybe Steve just sucks at taping :) The difficulty has been creating a vapor barrier through the ceiling/second floor joists. On a more positive note, a year ago I would have had no idea what my last sentence meant. I am learning a lot.
Below are a few pictures of what the main floor looked like right before we put the plastic up. Our next steps are to complete the plastic part and then get the attic finished. We have a little work left to do upstairs before we can get the attic properly sealed up. We hope to start the drywall process this weekend! Then, we plan to hire someone to do the taping, mudding and sanding. Following that, we begin my favourite part, PAINTING!! If only I could make a decision on paint colours...