Triage From Home » house

Yes I’m Still Here…

Helen — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 18:40:59 +0000

…just lost the blogging bug for a while. All summer we’ve been buried in a mess around here due to our kitchen renovation. I try not to complain because I’ve been waiting for this new kitchen ever since we bought the house in January 2005. The kitchen was the least-desirable part of the house, but everything else ticked the boxes on our list so we decided to buy with the intention of imminent kitchen demolition. Well, one thing turned into another and we did lots of other renos first: we had the downstairs bathroom gutted and rebuilt almost right away, then we replaced all the windows and doors in the house and replaced the furnace and installed bathroom extraction fans upstairs. We upgraded he attic insulation, changed out most of the interior doors…well the list goes on and on.
So, this summer we got the chance to start the kitchen. I’ve been planning and plotting my new kitchen for YEARS, so it was really exciting to see it come to life. Here are a couple of photos I took back in 2005 when we had just moved in. You can still see boxes lying around from the move, but it shows the ridiculous layout of the room.

Just to the right in this photo is the rest of a very large (23′ x 17′) room, so the kitchen itself is closed into this very small corner by the wall and the peninsula. It is a crazy design, but I guess kitchens were built only as work areas back in 1980. Too bad only one person can work in there at one time. It was a constant frustration for us. You want to see me going insane? Making Christmas Dinner in here! Ugh!!

In the next photo you can see the peninsula with the bulkhead or…what is this called?…soffit? above it. I think there were originally cabinets attached there. Wow, can’t imagine how closed-in the kitchen must have felt when they were still there! Don’t you love the old-newspaper-looking wallpaper? (because oh yes, we want to draw attention to these useless empty soffits along the ceiling- pfft!)

So, I spent years planning and designing what I dreamed of having in this room. Ikea has an online planner that lets you lay out cabinets and appliances to get a feel for how things would fit and how it would look. I tried a few different combinations, but I knew I wanted an open kitchen with a huge island. This is the basic idea I had:

It’s hard to see in the ‘before’ photos, but the original kitchen had a pocket door opening on the wall where the stove is in this plan (into the dining room), and another one where the wide doorway is shown here farther along that wall (leading into the hallway). We decided to take out both pocket doors (they no longer functioned anyway) and make one wider opening instead.

Over the years, we made a few changes to try to make it a bit more comfortable. We changed the light fixtures, painted over the wallpaper and the walls, and changed out the ugly old light switches and plugs. We replaced the old stove and fridge at different times when they died on us. This is how the room looked the night before ‘demo day’. Of course, it’s empty because we had packed everything away already.

In this next photo, you can see that our contractor had already taken out the small pocket door and widened the opening. This was to make it easier to unload the furniture before demo.

On the wall to the right in this next photo, you can see one of the three windows along this wall. It’s a very bright room with lots of natural light. (and little Molly who always seems to get into the photos) but this was in the evening with not much light for photos.

Finally- DEMO DAY! Here’s me taking a few (pathetic) swings at the hated bulkhead/soffit box-thingy over the peninsula. It was nice to get the chance to wreck that thing finally:-)

Here’s how the room looked after the first day of hammering, ripping and sawing. The huge hole in the wall is where the other pocket door was removed. This has become a solid wall, as later photos will show. The dining room became our makeshift kitchen area, but at this point it was a disaster area too.

Next came the electrical work, so lots of drywall was torn out, and the new section of wall was framed in. You can see where the ceiling is being cut up to put in the new pot lights.

By Day 4, all of the flooring had been torn up. We were conflicted about taking out all of the hardwood floor, but we couldn’t come up with a good way of saving it without having an odd transition into the kitchen area and we didn’t want to try to match the wood since it has yellowed quite a bit from light exposure, and there were areas where the finish had worn off (under my office chair from the casters- guilty!) We decided to go with cork for the whole room, which of course added more $$ to the job…like everything does!

By Day 11, we had new drywall all over the place and things were looking much cleaner.

Day 16 and we have a new sub floor and the footings for the base cabinets are being installed.

Base cabinets and the island!

Day 28 was pretty exciting- granite countertops! Oh my gosh the island looks MASSIVE!

Then we had a visit from the plumber and we’re back to having running water. We had a filtered water tap and a soap dispenser added too. We love our new pull out sprayer faucet and the new sinks!

Subway tile backsplash with glass tile accent strip. I agonized over the grout colour and finally decided on Delorean Gray. It turned out exactly like I wanted:-) Just enough colour to show the pattern but not too graphic.

The new cork floors! I love the pattern- it’s impossible to see crumbs:-) We decided to go ahead and replace our foyer flooring at the same time. Renovations are like a virus, once you get started they keep spreading!

Foyer Before: Ugly, damaged parquet floor:

Foyer after: Lovely cork, yeay! It feels so good on the feet too.

Here’s where we are today (Day- oh sheesh, let me count- yep, it’s Day 58!) We have some of the cabinet doors and our garbage and recycling pull-outs are installed. The crown moldings are up (but not yet painted) and we are still waiting for the island cabinet doors, the cabinet and drawer handles, the glass fronted cabinet doors and glass shelving, the baseboards and a fresh coat of paint on the walls, the painter to finish the ceiling, the electrician to install the ceiling lights…then I get to decide about window coverings.

Along this set of base cabinets there are two which we decided to change to drawers. Base cabinets drive me crazy- I can never find anything wayyy in the back of them. The drawers are built but not yet switched out.

The upper cabinets on either side of the sink will have glass fronted doors, glass shelves and interior lighting. We decided on a cross-hatch patterned glass to disguise the cabinet contents a bit.

The hood fan still has the protective paper on it and it still needs the cover for the chimney pipe. Stuff is all over the counters because we aren’t using the cabinets yet. Hate the mess but we are LOVING the kitchen already!

Later today I think we are getting the cherry doors installed on the island and all of the cabinet handles put on. At that point I think I will feel safe enough to start bringing everything back in and organizing the cabinets. We’re on the home stretch- more photos to come soon!

If you’re like me and you want to see all the nitty-gritty details and lots more photos, I’ve been photo blogging the whole renovation since we started in a set on Flickr. You can check it out by clicking HERE There’s an option there to watch them as a slideshow but then you don’t get to see my rivetingly interesting written commentary

Comments welcome!

Back to Work After Time Off

Helen — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 00:46:49 +0000

I’ve had some vacation time from work this past month. It’s been nice doing what I want whenever I want to do it, but I was actually quite bored at times. I had thought about painting the rec room (it’s also my office area) but the painting bug really hasn’t hit me yet. I have to be in the mood for it and ready to commit to a few days of steady prep-and-paint. I’m just not there quite yet.

Actually, with this heat wave we’ve been having it’s been difficult to get anything substantial done. Yesterday I finally decided to try to get the garage a bit organized.Since we had the massive garage sale for the Weekend to End Breast Cancer back in March, the poor garage has never been the same. Stuff was just getting piled up all over the place. So, yesterday I got one side pretty much sorted out, but the back wall and the other side still need serious attention. I’ll get out there again as soon as I get my energy back.

We weren’t able to manage any time away together this summer. Jon was busy with school assignments and a project (paid!) he is working on for someone. He went to the Mission Folk Festival by himself (he goes every year but I’m not really interested) and I went with my sister Sue for a couple of nights of girl time in Seattle. We had such a good time together- lots of talking, shopping and laughing. I forgot how much fun she is to be around. I guess we are usually wrapped up in our lives and responsibilities and we just don’t get to enjoy that side of ourselves much. It was great. We plan to make it a regular thing!

I must get some new photos up of my tomato plants. I’m even getting some peppers on my red pepper plant now. It’s so much fun to see them developing. Everyday I’m out there admiring them like they’re my little babies:-)

The Laundry Room- Loads of Fun

Helen — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 15:47:00 +0000

It’s funny what kinds of things get me excited:-) My sweet and smart husband built these shelves and work surface (bracket system is Antonius from Ikea) for our laundry room. Check out the fold-down drying rack above the sink. Ikea ROCKS! The shelves he cut and finished himself so we could do custom sizes. We just bought the new machines from Sears, after our 30+ year old existing dryer stopped working. The laundry sink is quite new too. The old one was falling off its broken legs when we moved in. Looking at these before and after photos you can see that pretty much everything has been replaced. The back door was replaced when we changed all the windows and doors in ’05. Jon put an electronic combination lock on it so the kids don’t have to worry about forgetting their keys. (trouble is- they tell all their friends the combination!) All we need now is the new floor, but I promised I wouldn’t go there just yet…

I painted the room Cabbage Patch green a few months ago and I love it. Don’t you just love paint names? Sometimes I think the colour names influence my choices. My living room paint is Warm Muffin and my dining room is Ryegrass. The only one I think I didn’t like the name of was the bathroom– Candlewax…reminds me of earwax- eww!
Anyway, I digress…now it’s time to find some nice storage boxes and open bins to use on the shelves to make it look all tidy and Ikea-Catalogue-ish.

Update: High praise came from my 16 year old son Devon, who said “hey, the laundry room actually looks like a laundry room now”

I Should Have Gone Back To Bed

Helen — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 01:50:00 +0000

Ohhh yesterday was a real winner for me. Our upstairs toilet was running really slowly, so I tried using the plunger on it. That wasn’t helping, so I went for the big guns and dug out the toilet snake (we have teenagers- our toilets get plugged alot!)
As I’m looking down, trying to get the end of the snake through the toilet something flies past my face, and CRASH! The handle of the snake had bumped against a heavy crystal vase that was on the window sill. The vase came down and landed on the lid of the toilet tank. Both the vase and the tank lid shattered all over the floor. I think I was just having an emotional morning for some reason…I just walked into the bedroom, sat down on the bed and started crying.

What a mess!
(then I got the camera and took a picture of the disaster so I could blog about it of course!)

Looking back on it today, it must have been quite comical to see. Especially when my daughter came upstairs and I was showing it to her and I picked up a piece of the broken porcelain off the back of the toilet tank and cut my finger on it! The day certainly didn’t start out well.
Of course, it could have been alot worse. This could have happened after we’d renovated the bathroom. Luckily it was the old toilet with the giant tank that we want to get rid of anyway. We just weren’t planning on replacing it NOW.

The day did eventually get better. We went downtown to the Taboo Naughty But Nice Sex Show which was lots of fun. We made a few excellent purchases and saw some crazy stuff. It’s a 4-day event, so next year we’ll make sure to go during the day and not on a Saturday night. It was so crowded it was hard to see the shows and no chance at all of getting a seat for any of the seminars. I was thinking that the vendors must have done incredible sales though. There was a woman there who was selling handmade corsets and period clothing. Jon asked her if she’d spent the whole year sewing to get ready for this show and she said yes. Her work was pretty amazing. Her shop is called Felix & Kitty She tied me up into a corset and WOW– I can see now why women used to wear them. They give you a defined waist and it actually feels really comfortable. My sore back stopped hurting too! I’m not sure I could wear one all day long though.

Fingers crossed for Graham

Helen — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 20:31:00 +0000

Graham, my brother, got up at 5:00 this morning to go and wait in line for the opportunity purchase a new townhouse. It’s a huge development here in Delta that has been in the works for years. Apparently, it’s the last big parcel of privately-owned land that was left for development in Delta. I have my fingers crossed for him, as he tells me there are hundreds of people there now. Some folks even camped out ovenight! That’s really amazing in this down-turned real estate market. I suppose all the media hype has worked for them. I hope he makes the best choice for him. Would be fun to go visit and swim in the pool next Summer (hmm, not sure when the pool and other amenities are going to be finished actually) This is the first phase of the townhouses that are selling. Just 25 for sale today and he thinks he’s about #15 in line….

This is the place:
www.sunstonecommunity.com

Foyer changes so far

Helen — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 18:06:00 +0000

First photo here was taken during one of our visits prior to buying the house. You can’t really tell here, but the foyer walls are wallpapered in with a very ugly (though subtle) chevron pattern. When I see ugly wallpaper I just itch to tear it down. As you can see, I eventually did so! We had to get our odd Greek painter guy in to help us finish the upper parts of the walls and to fix the wall under the wallpaper. (it had been patched really badly) I wish I had a full photo of the hilarious light fixture that was hanging here. You can just see the last bulb of it in the first photo. It consisted of 4 or 5 brass round bulbs with bare bulbs sticking out of the bottoms, hanging at different levels. Yikes– we got rid of that when we had the ceilings painted (the painter helped Jon hang the new fixture you can see here)
The wall paint is called Sable Sands. It’s sort of a brownish green I think. At the top of the stairs, the wall around the doorway is Ryegrass, which extends from the dining room to the left. The other wall is the rest of the hallway, which I painted with Manilla Tan. I think they all look pretty nice together.
you can also see what a big difference the new front door and sidelights makes. We hung a mirror over the window that looks into the living room. It just looked like it should have a mirror there. We still aren’t sure what to do with the other side of the window in the living room. Would like to close it up somehow eventually so we can use that wall for our big screen TV (someday!)
We also want to change out these chunky stair rails and spindles. We’d love to do black iron rungs with stained wooden handrails. We got a quote from a railing place once, but to do the railings here and also across the dining room overlook was going to cost around $3-4K, so we’re living with it for now.
Another ‘someday’ for this area is a new tile floor. This parquet floor is in rough shape near the doorway, and I’ve never liked this look. Something else for the ‘to do’ list….

Living room updates

Helen — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 17:52:00 +0000

Here’s the living room before we bought the house, and then after I stripped the wallpaper (yeah, I know it doesn’t look like wallpaper-why did they bother?) painted the walls (Warm Muffin) got our new couches (ordered from Inspiration Furniture and waited 6 months for them!) We also had new custom-fitted fireplace doors installed, hung new drapes, and added wood blinds. Eventually we’d like to get rid of the 1980′s-dusty-rose carpeting and go hardwood or some other hard surface flooring. Perhaps an area rug (but at least one of the dogs thinks carpets are grass for some reason….hmmm) This room is probably my favorite room because (other than the carpet) it feels finished. At first we thought about installing a gas insert for the fireplace, but we actually really enjoy having real wood fires in the Winter. This room doesn’t have great insulation, so it ends up getting pretty chilly in here.

Downstairs bathroom…well, at least we like it now!

Helen — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 17:28:00 +0000

Here’s some before and after shots of our downstairs bathroom. When we bought the house, this little bathroom was so dark, dingy and YUCK that we didn’t even notice it had a shower stall in it, behind a wall next to the sink. We hired a design/contractor team to completely gut the room and start over. I can’t even bear to tell you how much this all cost in the end. It turned out lovely, but there were many mistakes made along the way. (they installed the wrong size shower door and enclosure and it had to all be redone) It was a very painful process! Anyway…turns out the kids use that bathroom and we are stuck using the old upstairs bathrooms. We should have known better than to use all white tiles and grout. It’s a real pain to keep clean, but at least we have a nice guest bathroom when anyone comes to stay. The shower stall is huge! Hard to take pictures because the room is quite small though. Favorite feature: Low-flow Toto toilet with a soft-close seat!

Endless home renos

Helen — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 16:17:00 +0000

This first photo is how our house looked just before we bought it back in Jan 2005. It was built in 1980 and very little work seems to have been done since then! It’s a great neighbourhood, but there are still so many things we would love to change. Unfortunately, finances are such that anything other than painting and needed repairs aren’t likely to be getting done any time soon. To make me feel better, I like to remember everything we’ve done to it in the past nearly-4 years. I took lots of before and after shots, but had nowhere to post them, so maybe I’ll start here.
One of the first projects we took on was taking part in the Home Smart program through BC Hydro and Teresen Gas. We had our home’s energy efficiency tested, then certain upgrades were recommended. We replaced all of the old aluminum framed windows and patio doors with double vinyl, and replaced the exterior doors, added weather stripping, caulked around the fireplaces, doubled the insulation in the attic and crawlspace, bought a new higher-efficiency furnace and installed bathroom fans. The new windows and doors made a huge difference in the look of the house, inside and out- and are much better for security (anti-shatter glass, UV protection, etc)
The second photo was taken after this work was done. We also bought wood blinds for the big front windows and took out some of the big plantings in the front garden. The last photo I took today. We had the exterior painted last summer and we are so happy with the colour change. It’s called Tuscan Hillside. (I like paint chip colour names and I usually remember them!) Our neighbours said it looks like a new house! We also had the gutter downspouts replaced which doesn’t show here, but looks so much better. The old ones were peeling and falling apart.

You can see our little Pink Dogwood tree near the end of the driveway. This was a wedding gift from my mom that we planted Summer 2005. I hope to see it grow tall and covered with blossoms one day. For now, it gets about 20 flowers in the spring.