??????

What we are doing is not remarkable and this certainly is NOT HGTV. This is real life, we have no money and are severely under-employed and we make mistakes. One thing we see on TV and when we were househunting is that money doesn't buy you taste.
We are a little stuck right now waiting for tradesmen to get back to us and if they are good they are busy so we are at their mercy. So we are prepping to paint and that is 90% of the work of painting. Caulking, spackling, taping, sanding. The whole house will be painted upstairs and down so it's a huge amount of prep. We also have started tearing out the floor in the kitchen.
It's all about having the right tool for the job I am finding. We will probably rent an electric chisel thing to rip off the lino and glue. Then get the drum sander to do the rest. I am still pulling for the downstairs kitchen floor to be done as well.
Today we went to Dick's Lumber. Lots of good stuff but very intimidating. We think they are use to dealing with Contractors rather than the General Public. Prices were good but they are not as helpful when it comes to finding things. There was a pink suede tool belt that I was dying to get cause I like to dress pro.
Fake it till ya Make it! I always say.

I walked by the Electra Building the other day and snapped these photos. I love the tile and the look of the building. I heard the suites were really small, like 500 sq feet some of them. The Electra Website

I would love a tile wall like this somewhere in my back yard

bettershelter blog: Low Cost High Impact

bettershelter blog: Low Cost High Impact: "I like these planters from concrete blocks, great DIY project and so cheap."

Better the mistake you can change than the one you have to live with

It's official we are redoing the floors. We made too many mistakes that we can't cover up with more coats of stain. It's not the right product for what we are doing and it's not the right effect. A friend pointed out to me that the floor in the picture is different wood than what we are working with. So we have to come up with a plan B. We are going to talk to a professional about redoing them for us. We are terrified of the cost. We'll find out tomorrow. Needless to say we are pretty bummed out about it. But hey, we'll have a great story to tell everyone about the house. Talking to other renovators they say we'll never be done. I know that but we aren't changing anything major, it's mostly cosmetic, floors and paint upstairs and the basement is getting new electrical and the rental suite is getting insulation a fireproof door and drywall and a new coat of paint, new carpet in the bedroom as well. I think we'll be done phase one by the fall. Moving in to sleep there seems like it may get delayed a few weeks. It's the 17th already.

There are a few design decisions that have to be made probably tomorrow. The new color of the floors and the paint colors for the walls and the kitchen cupboards. I'm so afraid I am going to make the wrong decision. I've made many before especially with paint colors. Usually by choosing mistints to start. I bought a can of Ralph Lauren paint. It was yellow. I hoped it was a beautiful creamy butter yellow but it actually turned out to be this violent acid yellow like French's mustard. I lived with it for years because this was the third color I had tried in the room and I was tired of painting. Peter repainted it for me as a surprise when I was away for a week on tour with a show.  I can apreciate design and I am told I have good taste but I can't design a space and choose colors.

We are admiting defeat. For the redo I was thinking about chocolate brown. My father in law says we should do a honey oak color. Peter is still not sure.

Paris 1975

So tired!

Forgot to mention yesterday we went dumpster dumping (Our demo waste from the basement) and diving. Someone threw out a perfectly good patio suite. We got six chairs and a table. And we also snagged an interior door. I was pricing chairs at home depot today and they start at 30 dollars. While they are not to my taste. I am sure we will use them because I plan on having people over a lot!! Especially to dine al fresco. I can't wait. For years we've not had people over because our place was small and crowded or we were embarassed so we always said we'd like to make you dinner at your place. Now we can return the favour of so many dinners over at our friends. We don't have to worry about our hostile upstairs neighbour getting pissed off if we have loud music or if we're making too much noise. Yay!

Today we mostly worked on the basement suite. We are hoping to rent by July at least. The suite was not bad but we have to redo most of the electrical downstairs and we also found that the ceiling was not insulated and no smoke alarms so we can sound proof and fireproof the ceiling and walls. We also have to replace the doors and build a wall. But we have to finish the upstairs first so we can move in and then move out of Grandma's and the storage spaceby the end of this month. I don't want to leave Grandma's. Everything is better here.

We found a french coin in the ceiling. Perhaps this is was a rec room to start, then redone poorly by the son as a rental suite.

I have pulled about a thousand nails out of this ceiling. Would Mike Holmes hire me after this? I have a feeling that if you are just starting out in this business that this is the job for the apprentices.

Pissed off about the weather. It means that Keaton has to stay at Grandma's and we can't do much in the garden. Going to plant some bamboo in a couple of pots so it will grow high and hide the smoking emphezema man from next door. He smiles at us but otherwise he just coughs and smokes and spits on our lawn.

You can see the fantstic wiring job they did. 

Uhhh what were we thinking????

Watch out Thor! Peter has a hammer too!

See the floor that the bastard was too lazy to glue down. Maaaybe we'll get it tiled while the upstairs kitchen is getting done. At least it will be easy to rip out.

I just wanted you to see some of the nails that we have to take out so the Electrician can work comfortably. Then we will insulate and sound proof and then drywall with the fireproof drywall amd hard wire the smoke alarms. House doesn't have any.

Looking from the downstairs kitchen window to the garden while it was almost sunnny today

This is what I arrived to this morning

Downstairs kitchen demo

Bye bye downstairs bedroom carpet

I remember seeing this when we first toured the house. My Father in Law wonders why we didn't keep the tenants who were friends of the family.

Some of the nice graffiti in the basement suite

Second coat on the livingroom floor

It looks better but still doesn't look like the pictures. Not sure what we should of done. Maybe another coat. Nobody sells the stain here, we'd have to wait a week for them to order it or whip down to Home Depot in Bellingham and get a few more cans. Will it all come together when we varnish? Which varnish would be best for having a dog run all over it? Whatever they have done at my In Law's is what we need cause their floor doesn't show any wear and tear from Pepper.

I'm absolutely Knackered

This actually turned out to be a productive day but now it's about 10:30pm and I can barely sit up to write. So this will be short and sweet.

We went to the Salvage Sale and it was very very busy. I think it was a huge success for them. We got there half an hour after opening and Keaton fell asleep in the car on the way there so only one of us could go in at a time. Unfortunately there was nothing that worked on our house. I was kind of hoping that we would find a cool front door or a fireplace insert but no such luck. So we went to the ReStore and found a pocket door for the downstairs suite. We can leave it there for a week but somehow we have to figure out how to get it home.

When we got to the house Grandma was there and she had bought us some hedging and she was digging away in the back parking spot. She's decided that we can grow potatoes in the back, they'll get enough sun. I started digging a trench so the water could drain into it rather than flood the garage and the rest of the garden. It's really annoying this rain right now because we want to be outside and bring Keaton and the dog and let them hang out in the yard while we work. The vegetables and seeds are almost planted in the back. Soon we can start working the front and improving the curb appeal. I have no idea what to do but Grandma, Thank God is an expert Gardener and she's got a plan. It includes some ornamental grasses and boxwood and japenese maples and some gravel and rocks. Can't wait.

Meanwhile Peter has started to tear out the walls in the downstairs suite plus the ceiling. We have to redo the electrical and possibly relocate the sub panel. When that is down we will insulate with either spray foam or the pink stuff that will be sound proof and then use the fire proof drywall. We are redoing the bathroom. There is a light switch next to the tub and some exposed wiring and pipes. We also need to put a fan in and hardwire some smoke alarms. Exciting huh?

The stain on the floors didn't look that great. So we thought we would do a second coat. So far Peter did the livingroom and it's looking much more like we had hoped it would. I can't wait to see it tomorrow.
I'll post photos later.

How to Shop at Home Depot

This story of a sad dirty little bungalow is now a sad, dirty, PEE STAINED little bungalow. We noticed these stains on the wall on the front door, in the hall, both bedrooms at ankle height and I remembered that the owner's daughter who was living in the house had a flopsy mopsy little toy dog that was probably a boy and was marking his teritory inside the house! Ugh!!! We'll be tsp'ing the walls for sure before we paint.

This is turning into a Home Depot Reno because there is one on the way to the house. It seems we go there everyday or twice a day sometimes. So we have formulated a few tips for shopping there.

Ask where it is, it's faster than trying to find it yourself.

Park near and Enter through the exit because that's where you'll be anyways when you're done

Don't take no for an answer. We asked about VCT tile for our kitchen and the dude said they don't carry it anymore. Then we asked if there is someone who does instillation and again they said no. I even think this was the same location we go to. So today we asked someone else the same question in the flooring department and she led us to what looked like three pallets full of our VCT tile and yes they can order it and yes they can install it. Hah! Take that!

After two days of back breaking work sanding the floors we applied the stain today, the jury is still out on whether it will look good. Tomorrow we have some touch ups and then we'll apply the urethane. Not sure what plan B will be if we decide it doesn't look good. We're just soldiering on.

After this the kitchen floor will be next. I really like the kitchen, the layout and the vintage tile and cupboards. A new floor and new appliances and paint is all we would need. I can live with the appliances for now but a new floor and a good coat of paint will go a long way. We are looking to get some of the old tile beneathe the lino tested for asbestos. If the test is negative we can dispose of everything easily enough. If there is Asbestos, we have to wet it down when we tear it out and then double bag it and label it it Asbestos tile when we take it to the dump and there will be fees obviously.

We are going to have a professional do this with us because of the time crunch and they are insisting on a subfloor and we want it done really welll. It's a good thing we talked to a pro flooring guy because we were going to just lay it on top and that wont work very well. We are still getting quotes. We need about 200 sq ft done and the price is coming in between 6-700 bucks so far.

It's overwhelming all the details, I just have to stay with the job that's infront of me. Tomorrow we are going to the Vancouver Heritage Foundation Salvage Sale. So exciting! I hope we find a front door. They left us with this plastic one that I can't stand!

Thumbs up Reno!

Great place in the kitchen to put Mom's ashes, now she can watch over us

We just swept, too dusty to take a flash photo

Can't remember which room this is

Look what we found in our Rag Box! T Shirt Remnants from H&M

Cracking open another can of Stain in Keaton's Room

Starting the living room Oak floor

I married a hottie

Sacrificed a pair of Tom's Shoes for this job

Stateside

We had to go stateside yesterday to get a few things. We phoned ahead to make sure they were in stock and yes they were except we did have to go to Burlington to pick up one number 3 for our house number. Damn, it made the trip much longer than we had planned. But we did get the three things we came down for.


They had five quarts of the colour stain and we read the can and it said that it wasn't suitable for large areas like floors. The girl in the paint department had no clue and couldn't answer any of our questions. Peter wanted to take the plunge anyway but I wanted to talk to a professional to confirm we could do this. SO I borrowed a phone book and looked up a flooring refinisher and they let me use the phone and I said to the guy,"My Husband and I are trying to refinish our floors and we are at Home Depot and nobody who is working today can answer our questions. Would you mind terribly giving us some advise?" I expained to him that we had fir and oak floors stained two different colors and would it be possible to get them close in color. He said yes but it wouldn't be possible to get an exact match. We asked about the stain and he said that if we knew what we were doing we could use that stain. He told us to apply the stain and wait 48 hours for it to dry otherwise the Urothane would pull the color off. Also we should wet the oak and let it dry to pull up the grain and that would grab the stain. What a nice guy to give us that info. I said if it didn't work out we would call him for sure to fix it. Everyone else at Home Depot was very helpful otherwise.

The reason were doing this whitewash staining on our floors is, Peter found it on The Brick House  which is one of our favorite Design Blogs and she featured a house that had a whitewashed matte stain on their floors. So we found the stain but it had to be ordered in and we had to get going on the sanding. So we threw everything down and jumped in the car, left Keaton with Grandma. We found the stuff we needed was half the price in the US. Seriously, it makes me so mad!!!! Why are things twice the price up here!.

You can see the effect on the floor we are trying to acheive. Check out the Chandelier too! 

Lindsey Adelman You Make It chandelier

Our floors are in progress. Peter let me try the sander and using it is like trying to tame a bumper car gone wild. I wanted to get off of it after 10mins. I'll try using it again tomorrow, I want some of the glory for doing the house too! We were making excellent progress until we kept blowing a fuse with the sander, after we had been using it all dayin the same outlet. So frustrating for Peter because he could of finished almost all the sanding and then be able to return the sander to the rental place. I think it was a sign from God or Dog that it was time to quit for the day and go back to Grandma's to see Keaton and put her to bed. 

Crossing our fingers it will work, he did a few rounds of sanding and the color is coming off but there's still a ways to go.

I also wanted to record some of the garbage I picked up.  A large flower pot full of cigarette butts and cigarette packaging, we have found a total of five little dime bags commonly used for drugs. Hmmmmm. Between the spilled paint and the cigarette butts, Peter and I want to erase all proof of existence of the previous owners. When we were house hunting. We saw houses that were in worse condition than the one we got, but come on!!! It was in our contract of sale to take their shit with them! They cleaned up most of it but really! What's with the huge pile of left over wood? We can't use it because it's weird small sizes, we can't burn it in the fireplace because it's treated with chemicals, and bonus! it was mixed up with cigarette butts and a rat's nest with a mummified dried up rat still in it plus all it's shit. Thank God I wore gloves and a mask!!!!

I've loaded the photos onto iphoto but for some reason they don't show up for uploading. This drives me mad!!! This must be a sign for me to go to bed, we have a big day tomorrow.

On the way home Peter and I were talking about how we have the saddest looking house on the block. Not for much longer! We'll be on the lookout to see which house is the second saddest house on our block to take our place when we are done. Stay tuned!

Samples for Kitchen Floor

Sample Colors

Cleaning up Cigarette Butts

Before Entry Way

Before Sanding the Livingroom

Master Bedroom

Sawdust in the Air

Repairing holes and Nails

Keaton's Room

Vents are taped off

Major change in Color