Progress: Project Flooring

Another month, another blog post. I thought that I would have an easier time blogging of late, but life is just very busy. I'm working away at my day job and unfortunately that means that "free time" at night is spent on projects for the house, regular day to day chores, and sleeping. Oh, and some planning for the little human that will be joining us in the coming months. Until then....

Things are happening on the flooring front!! As part of our 2013 goals one of the longshots was re-doing flooring at least on the main floor. Why not do it when I'm 8 months pregnant? ;) Better than post baby, that I know FOR SURE. If you follow me on Instagram or Twitter you know some of the progress that was made this weekend (if you don't follow me, then you should, I am able to update those easier than updating the ol blog!).

All weekend the Mr worked away on the project (help from friends for demo day was greatly appreciated). My specialty was doing puzzles with plywood  measurements to ensure we got the most our of each sheet!

Here is the demo:

The living room and dining room demo was "easy" according to the guys - the trouble came in the hallway where there was hardwood on top of linoleum on top of plywood on top of another linoleum on top of plywood on top of floor planks. Yikes (they didn't get a chance to take a photo of that beauty).

The second demo photo shows some of the debris and mess caused by demo...which all fell through the floor plank cracks into our basement onto this:

Thank god I had some foresight and threw plastic over the china/crystal and a drop cloth over the dining chairs on Saturday morning before demo started. We still have a hell of a mess to clean up in and over other things, but at least some of it was spared and I don't think there is any damage (fingers crossed....). The day didn't finish without any damage though...the Mr. had to get a couple of stitches after getting caught in the face with a plank / nail during demo! He's OK and stitched up following a 3 hour wait at the hospital on Saturday night (I plucked some of the many many nails from the floor while he was getting stitched up...he pushed through the rest of the day so he could finish the demo before going to the hospital!).

Day 2 was picking up the plywood from our friends at Home Depot:

 Yes, I did get to drive that puppy around and it was great. The rest of the day was the Mr. and I pulling out some more nails, measuring, cutting, and laying plywood.

Monday was spent screwing in the plywood and doing some final measurements and cuts. It's amazing how much better it looks already!

If you have seen my house tour, you know that on our main floor we had the hallway blocked off with drywall and beatiful 80's glass blocks. We covered up this side of it with a dresser and mirror, and while that was nice for extra storage we are liking the airy feel of the house opened up, so I think we're going to keep the hallway!

Hardwood installers come later this week...can't wait to see it all done! We will be tiling the entry way and the kitchen with a dark gray tile...more on that to come (anyone know a good tiler / baseboard installer who isn't crazy busy into September??)

2013 Goal Update

Since we're in July and now officially halfway through 2013, I thought I would check in on my Big Hairy Audacious goals that I set in January.  Yes, wayyyy back in January (doesn't it feel like ages ago?). Here's an update on my goals:

1. Finish the Living Room
Status: hmmmm not so different from January. I had big pillow goals, and my mom made fantastic pillow covers....however I (or my pregnancy brain) gave her the wrong dimensions. I needed 2 18x18 and 2 20x20 and I asked for 2 18x18 and 2 16x16. Woops. No wonder there was so much extra fabric left over. Does anyone need 16x16 navy and white pillow covers? Oh, and we are STILL SEARCHING for a coffee table that is "airy" but not glass.

2. Flooring
Status: This is HAPPENING, we ordered the floor yesterday. And it has to happen in August so it's done pre-baby. We decided to only re-do the flooring on the main floor, but it will be great to have consistent flooring throughout the main floor (currently we have carpet, bad quality cherry hardwood, and peach tile. Do you see why we don't love it?). We want to go with a medium stain on the hardwood and I love seeing grain so we are looking for oak floors. I still want tile for the entry way and the kitchen (I like the practicality of tile over hardwood), so I'm on the look out for options. I was thinking charcoal tile in a 3x12 to mimic hardwood planks, the colour along these lines, but with darker grout:

 via

The only thing I am not sure of is if every little water drop will show on the charcoal tile (and thereby drive me crazy). Thoughts?

3. Bathroom Reno
Status: DONE!! This one actually happened, and it was a big one (you can see the full reveal here). We've even hung a towel bar and towel hooks since I did my reveal. We couldn't love this bathroom more. I would say this was the biggest "reno" that we've done in the house, and adding 20" to the bathroom was the smartest move we could have done. I love how everything turned out and am still amazed and how airy it feels (and how the 20" we stole from the guest room pretty much makes NO difference over there, and every difference in the bathroom).

4. First Sundays
Status: This was my plan for the first Sunday of every month, to ensure it didn't include running around to Costco or doing a million errands. It worked pretty well the first few months, but then as it got nicer outside we got busier, and we had some projects on the go so it's fizzled.

One goal that we didn't list at the time was Project Baby. Consider this Goal #5, with the least wiggle room out of all the goals. I'll do another post about how we're fairing in that regard and what progress we've made on the baby room (hint: not much).

How are your 2013 goals coming along? Do you check in with them part way through the year, or is it more of a new year's resolution that gets lost by the time summer comes around? I hope everyone is coping (or loving??) this heat that is finally here - it's summer folks :)

Weekend Recap

Ahhh summer weekends. I think this weekend (in Toronto) was one of the best of the year, if not THE best so far (hopefully it's like this every weekend from here on in). It was beautiful, sunny, hot, clear skies...in other words: perfect. We hosted a BBQ for 12 on Saturday night - beautiful night, and great friends to catch up with. We served grilled chicken, Israeli cous cous greek salad, roasted eggplant dish (Imam Biyaldi), hummus and veggies, cupcakes and watermelon. Yumm. I don't know how some of you manage to capture the table all set, with the food laid out...I took some quick shots with my phone before anyone arrived, but after that it was all about eating and visiting.

 How was your summer weekend?

A couple of weeks in St Lucia...

I'm back...well I have been for a week, but you know what the first week back at work from vacation is like :) Make it a short week and it's both good and bad...

Anyhoo we got back from our vacation to St Lucia on June 29th, and then enjoyed a few BBQ's on the Canada Day long weekend - great way to come home!

Our first week in St Lucia was cloudy and rainy...it bummed us out quite a bit and we seriously considered coming home a week early...but an extra week in St Lucia is better than a week doing stay-cation at home chores anyday, so we stuck to our original plan. Good thing we did as the sun came out and it gave us a chance to re-do everything we did under cloud/rain the first week!
 

Our backyard for the first week - we shared a 3 BR villa with friends and their 1.5 year old daughter, it was great! Usually went to the "big" pool but nice to look at this view over breakfast.

A small bay in the Atlantic on our resort the first week

View from a hike (nature walk) near our first villa

The famous pitons...in the clouds the first week...and the same view in the sun below (SOOO much better the 2nd week!)

It poured rain the first time we went...we tried to make the most of it by doing some snorkeling, but generally we were dying for some sun! The second time we went we climbed the "Gros Piton" - well they only let me go halfway (I guess they don't want people having babies at the top of the hike) but the Mr went up the full way.

We also went to Pigeon Island which is a beautiful national park with a couple of small but gorgeous beaches, and a couple of mini-hikes.

 We went back to this beach on our last day - it's small but so quiet, and on the caribbean side so the water is super refreshing!

 The right side is the Caribbean, and the left is the Atlantic

 

 A view of the "hike" / nature walk on pigeon island

If you're thinking of St Lucia as a destination I would say go if you're a beach person, but a week is likely enough. We thought there would be more to do, and more accessible things to do on our own as opposed to excursions, but we still found some great places to explore. We didn't do the all inclusive as that's not really our thing, but instead we stayed in a couple of villas which are more our style. We did their weekly "jump up" which is a big street party on Friday night - lots of GREAT street food and fun to go for a few hours.

Now we're back to the grind, but it's great to be back for the heart of the summer!

Off the clock

In less than 24 hours we will be on vacation...can't wait for some time away to relax, refresh, and have fun!

There will be some of this:

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Some snorkle...

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And some of this...

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Replace this with pastier white skin, and a pregnant belly and you'll have me!

See you once I'm back!

Bathroom Reveal!

Yes folks, it's time for the goods...

About a week ago (or two? honestly time is flying and I'm pretty sure May only lasted a day or two, so you can't rely on me for accruate time estimates) - our bathroom became functional! If you follow on twitter / instagram you know that we were waiting for glass to be installed at the end of the shower. Sort of important for us to (a) have a shower curtain and (b) actually be able to use the shower!  Well, it got installed and my first shower in there was glorious (and continues to be).

Here's the final product:

If you remember (I don't want to remember), this is what it looked like before:

Lovely peach-brown floor tile, 5' wide in all its glory. Check out my previous posts for demo, and progress here and here.

Those 20" that we moved the wall into the guest room REALLY pay off, don't you think?

And now, more pretty...

The shower feels amazing - so big and light filled with the glass at one end, and the tile all the way to the ceiling (or maybe it was the fact that we were starting to get used to our basement bathroom...where the shower head is mounted only about 5'5" high!)

We still have some functional / style elements to add (like a towel rack - can someone please tell me where to get a chrome, multi-arm swiveling towel rack??), but overall the big work in the bathroom is over and we are back in business! 

Sources:

Tile (floor and wall tile): The Tile Store

Vanity, faucets, tub, tub fixtures (excluding shower head): Tubs

Mirrors, lighting: Lowes

Shower head, toilet paper holder: Home Depot

Shower curtain: Home Outfitters

Paint: Benjamin Moore PaperWhite (OC-55)