One Year Ago - and the electrician's still aren't done

Nov 20, 2008

Andreas is at home today, with the electrician. They are still completing outstanding items - note we've been back living in the house for 4 months...

There was a light in the stairs that was 'always on' We unscrewed the light bulb in the mean time. There were several other items, that we lived without with no hardship. There was also a delay as we had to move some outlets & light boxed ~ luckily Andreas knows a little about this and we didn't incur extra costs.

It's hard to determine where "exactly" the plug above the bathroom sink should be when you are staring at a blank wall! We were off by a few inches in most cases, so we ended up with plugs behind mirrors and things like that. Nothing too serious.

It snowed last night as well...here is the house just about one year ago ( technically the 03 December) and from today

Banner Day

August 14, 2008

This is a banner day at the Elmsdale Estates... the Stucco is not only completely finished but all of the scaffolding has been taken down and removed off site!

Of course, it was not finished on Monday...big surprise. However, it is now complete.

We can hardly believe it. We are now able to see all four sides of the house without obstruction and can wander into the backyard at will, without clambering over the scaffolds. Woo-hoo! Of course, that means we have now barely any more excuse as to why the backyard looks as scary as it does.

Tomorrow - aluminum, outdoor caulking & eavestroughs!

How long can STUCCO take?

It's August 11th. The stucco first started more than SIX months ago.

Supposedly, they will finish today. Yes Today. I'll believe it when I see it!

We've had a couple of pigeon families living in our eaves and late at night, when Andreas is in the middle bedroom/office working, he will suddenly see several sets of beady little raccoon eyes staring through the window at him...they've adopted the scaffolding as their through-way.

The last few weeks the stucco people have been here off and on, been rained out (a lot) and be threatened by my neighbour to hurry the hell up as she is waiting to get her roof redone but the scaffolding is in the way.

Cement board being installed on this one side for 'fire code' reasons


The drawing of the stucco design (after they lost the first set)


The office window and raccoon highway


The detail on the back master bedroom window


Lianne in the jungle/backyard inspecting the work


Around the front door being worked on

Dad's Help Much Appreciated

Dad came to stay for a couple of days and we put him to work!

Painting the cold room floor & then installing the wall to wall storage shelves


Exclaiming loudly how nice our brand new counters are (he was here when they were installed)


Putting cabinets back into the master


Did we mention the heavy lifting? Pulling the stove out.



Testing out the new local fish & chip joint


We liked it too

COUNTERS!

July 31, 2008

Woweee, zoweee! Our counters have arrived. The main kitchen island, the master bath and the upstairs guest bath. We couldn't be more excited...except that we can't use the new sinks until the plumber hooks us up. He's here today and even though feeling under the weather he is willing to work all day today and all day tomorrow (Saturday). Yay! One more thing off 'the list'.

Here is a whack of shots of the counters being installed.

KITCHEN (before)


Granite for Kitchen arriving & being carried in.


Granite being dry fit on island (note Andreas supervising)


Cutting the hole for the soap dispenser


The finished product (that is an in-counter compost bin)


GUEST BATH (before and after)


MASTER BATH (before and after)

Help! So much stuff!

July 23rd, 2008

With a little help from family and friends, over the last couple of weekes we've managed to take some boxes from the piles...and make more piles other places.

Rediscovering your 'stuff' after almost a year with out it is both fun and a curse!

Thanks to Erin, Goodwill is that much richer!

Thanks to Donna, who sat diligently day after day on the basement and sorted Andreas' stuff from his things. There is still a long way to go but at least the office phone list from 1987 found it's way to the recycle bin. :)

This is what our dining room/living room looked like after Hurricane Erin came through


This stack is waiting until later (in the upstairs hall)

Donna amongst the boxes. Brave woman!

DIY Soapstone Part 2

July 19, 2008

While we wait for our granite on the kitchen island and other parts of the house, we tackle the soapstone that has been waiting in our garage since we picked it up.

The royal "we" of course, as I watched and offered opinions - as well as looked up the instructions for this type of thing.

Using the cutting skills of our carpenter friend Lewis and the tips from the soapstone people there are now two handsome pieces of soapstone fit to the counter on either side of the stove.

It looks harder than in these pictures and took several hours of careful measuring, remeasuring and adjusting before commiting to a cut. However it was well worth the effort. Next on the list is to sand and polish these two hunks of rock.

Not sure when that will get done but it's "on the list". Really it is.

Here is one of the slabs set up for cutting



Lewis and the saw - with a masonary blade.

Dry fit...looks pretty good!

Close up of the left side

Living like Gypsies

July 16th, 2008

Since the granite/soapstone counters are not installed yet we actually have no sinks either. We are laughing but with irriation as all the bathrooms have none of all the right things you need.

One bathroom has a toilet with bathtub for hands & teeth washing but cannot be used for showering. That one has no light so can only be used during daylight hours. One bathroom has toilet, lights, and mirror; no sink and the bathtub taps are really awkward to reach. It's shower is also out of commission. Another bathroom has a great shower, but no sink or mirror.

Needless to say, one of Andreas' first jobs was to install a temporary kitchen sink. It works well with the melamine shelving that is being put to use as counter top.

Our builder keeps asking when the counters will be ready (a couple of weeks) and then he rolls his eyes and shrugs "So you will live like gypsies for a while".

Lights! or maybe not

July 12th, 2008.

The first night was a laugh...with some of the electrical wonkyness we went to bed dead tired only to discover not a single light in the master bedroom worked. After 20 minutes of switching breakers on and off and yelling through two floors, Andreas had a flash of inspiration. He came upstairs, switched on the middle bedroom light switch (there is no actual light in there at the moment) and voila! the master pot lights were now functioning.

Thank goodness the electricians are here today!

Move-in Completed

Thursday July 10th, 2008...

New bed, more boxes...we sleep at the Estates tonight!

Here are some shots of the moving action..the truck, the workers, the boxes...

Move-in Stage I complete!

Tuesday July 8th, 2008

We paid movers this time to empty 2 storage lockers. They were really great, took care and are all very personable even after the 10th hour. http://www.tendertouchmoving.com

Locker full

Getting there

Almost empty!
Elvis loading the truck


Wayne wrapping up a dresser

Truck being unloaded at the Estates

We still have a third locker plus the contents of the house where we live to move. Some of that will happen on Thursday.

Then Where Do We Put Everything??

This week at Elmsdale

June 30th - July 7th

Hardwood floors finished
Venthood installed over stove
Unpacking the dishwasher
We've got lights! Well, sort of.
Granite decisions reversed and now we added soapstone. DIY soapstone, that is.
Closet Organizers, Cleaning Ladies and Testing out the Tub

Clean? What you mean clean?

July 6, 2008

First I had to vacuum before the hardwood finishing, and now the builder tells me that 'no' he never cleans his houses for people to move in to. Grrrrrrrr. Andreas made a big stink about it on our behalf so we ended up with a $10/hr cleaning 'helper'. She was very nice and considering the control freak in me, it probably was for the better!

After we cleaned everything from top to bottom, I asked Andreas if it was possible to see the master bath tub in action. We purchased it way back in November and it's been installed since January! Although our electrical is not quite complete he did wire it up for me and we filled it up part way. It's very cool - you can't turn the bubbles on until the water is at an appropriate level, and it has that chromatherapy option. I was dying to try it out however, despite the warm summer day it was still just a little too cold to hop on in. We have not yet got a hot water tank.

Here I am watching the bubbles and the lights



One Toe Only! Note the temp of the water 63F or 17C - it may not sound cold, but it was!

Closet Organizing

Friday July 4, 2008

Lianne has been on a mission to find a closet organizer. After several pre-trips and then a whole afternoon at IKEA and Lowes, she finally came home with some pieces. Not the whole closet, but it's a start.



Here she is starting the install...with my help of course.



Then taking a break in the future location our bed.



The finished piece, 'custom fit' to the small bulkhead in the closet. There's another one to go on top.

DIY...Soapstone!

Thursday July 3, 2008

After much discussion, and seeing several articles on the ease of DIY installation we decided to swap out the granite beside the stove for soapstone! Not that it was hard, we haven't even ordered the granite yet. Soapstone is a softer stone, often used for carving. The soapstone for countertops actually comes from Brazil and is harder than that. It never needs to be sealed and

"Unlike granite, marble, quartz or man-made composite surfaces, a soapstone countertop is chemically neutral, which makes it non-porous and virtually impervious to all types of products that may stain other surfaces. There’s no need to worry about spilt wine, olive oil, Soya sauce or a myriad of other culprits that will permeate many natural stones commonly used for countertops."

It is also highly heat resistant (used for fireplaces, wood stoves, etc) which is the main reason I like it.

We ventured to places I've never been...Uxbridge area to a soapstone place. I had contacted a few to find out if they sell small slabs and this one was the only one who replied back, and the closest to us. They are wonderful people and were very patient with us. We went out to their stone yard and looked at a bunch of small slabs. The large slabs are just as big as a granite slab & they will not sell those to random DIY-ers. It's too dangerous.

The stone yard


Our piece in it's raw or natural state. It's called Classic Original and is actually not available any more as the supply has run out.



How it will look once we treat it with mineral oil



Loading it up into the car



So there we were, taking home our two new small slabs and were very excited! So excited that we figured, what the heck, we should be ordering our granite as well. Since we had sourced out the granite slab last week at a different importer, we knew from the fabricator that the price would change as we were not using his granite. This is to be expected so we went over to his shop with our new plan that now included soapstone! It wasn't going to work out price-wise although he did try very hard. We did a lot of discussion and after about 3 hours went a different route with the granite. Out with the Giallo Ornamentale and in with Ghiblee. The name is not as exotic sounding but here is a picture of the new kitchen island granite, and the soapstone will be opposite the island on either side of the stove. We did also order our bathroom vanities - so the master bath will be in Giallo Ornamentale - the fabricator's slab worked for that room - and the guest bath will have a white hanstone countertop (quartz).



Oh yes, DIY soapstone is about 1/3 the price of fabiricated soapstone & about 1/2 the price of fabricated granite. "Fabricated" means slab plus cutting, finishing & installation.