5.29.2012

Antiques

When we purchased our new home it had not been lived in for 10years (we didn't know this), we thought it was about two years. The house was in the same family for forty years and some belongings were left in the house. Surprisingly for the fact that it was not lived in for so long, it was kept pretty clean. They had left a few pieces of furniture and lighting that we decided to keep. 


So now the question is what to do with it! They left two solid wood twin beds which I know will come in handy one day when we have kids, and also one will be set up in our "spare" room for now for when guests come over. Branko's parents said they have some small twin mattresses that are fairly new that we can take, which is great!  They also left two sold wood dressers, two wood chairs, a small side table that can hold magazines, and a chandelier. 


Any ideas people??? I've been reading around a lot about refinishing wood and staining them but I have to just wait a bit more until I figure out what the colours in my home will be... but I would love to hear readers opinions and/or any tips on refinishing wood. 

For the chandelier, I've already come across a neat little idea from http://thesweetestdigs.com. She had a similar chandelier left in her home and painted it white, so I am thinking for the small spare bedroom I might paint one of the bed frames white along with the chandelier and add some colour with curtains/wall colour. 

Even though we are still in the beginning stages of our home, I am constantly thinking of design ideas I need to be ready for. This way, when the time comes, I won't be panicking and making rash decisions! 



5.28.2012

Window Love....

What a weekend! Our adventure started off with a drive to Buffalo to pick up our new windows. 8 windows were ordered. New dining room window, New bedroom window, 2 matching fixed windows for the living room, 2 windows for the kitchen, small new window for the small bedroom and 1 new window for the new wash room. 

Home Safe!!!


We ended up getting another $270 off of the windows, they had some slight damage from transportation so we had the option to ship them back for new windows or take them as is. The scratches were minor and you can't even see them when standing far back from the window. In total the new cost of our windows were $2800 that's including the all the taxes(american and Canadian 13%) We really could not beat that price. This will probably be one of the biggest savings decision we made. We ordered the windows from Home Depot in the states, delivered and installed them ourselves. 

I really had some doubts on my capability to move the largest windows. It weighed almost 200 lbs and was not the easiest to handle. Branko just convinced me that I could do it and so off we were. The hurdle to get them down from the trailer was pretty easy but the task to figure out how to get them up the small hill and into the house was a little daunting! Slowly but surely we got all of the windows safely in the house! 





We were able to get the 2 fixed windows installed beside the sliding doors and the one large window in the dining room area on Sunday. 




So here it is, the new window in the dining room! I have never been so excited. One for the fact that one of the large windows was completed and installed, two for how beautiful it looked! We were so excited we grabbed 2 chairs and sat in the dining room. You can now see the entire front yard where as before you could only see the top of the trees. We then went outside to view it from the front yard. From the outside you could really see the difference the new windows are making especially since the old windows are still in on the other side. Please don't mind all the garbage. We will be getting rid of that tonight :)


Here is a view from the inside. 



This week will be another full one, we will finish installing all of the windows. I will definitely be updating you with the new kitchen window pictures later in the week!  




5.25.2012

I'm Alive!!!!......BARELY!

We only had two days in the office this week since we took some extra holidays. Coming to work was more like a rest day considering the amount of work we've done during the five days we had off. We didn't get everything completed on the list but, to be honest I think it was a little unrealistic of us. The heat over the weekend was just crazy. It forced us to stop working from 1-3pm on two of the days because it was so hot! I've crossed off a few things on the list but we needed two extra nights of working to complete anything that is marked completed. Also, our windows did not come in until Thursday, May 24th, which means Friday night after work we are headed to the States to pick up the windows. We really didn't want to lose an entire Saturday or Sunday going to the States and back so we figured it's best we got it out of the way Friday. 


The "To-Do" List: Completion Time Frame May 16th - May23rd


May 16th(old house)
- Install 3 trees on the front lawn
- Rake the dirt even and remove large debris
- Seed the area with grass
- Burn all the wood and stumps
- Check the Truck front end and order the parts for Sunday
 

May 17th(old house):
- Fix the deck
- Spread the triple mix on the front lawn
- Install last 5 trees around the garage on the slope
- Order Siding for the 
garage

May 18th(old house):
-  Finish painting all the outside windows 
-  Work on the Jetta 

May 19th(old house):
- Work on the Jetta
 - Stain the deck 
Move all large car parts to the new house
 - Weed and Mulch the flower beds 

May 20th(old house):
- Finish up the flower beds and the clean up around the house 
- Move more stuff to the new house 
- Move Boss's house and seed the area with grass 

May 21st(new house):
- Pick up the windows - Install 4 windows 

May 22nd(old house):
- Finish installing the windows 
- Finish up the yard 
- Work on the mud room 
- Finish staining all the trim and baseboards 

May 23rd(old house):
- Pick up the siding 
- Wrap the garage 
- Start installing the siding 

May 24th: 
CALL ME TO SEE IF I AM STILL ALIVE :) 



As you can see most of the work completed was all YARD work! Seriously by the end of the five days I was perfectly happy not looking at a flower bed and just weed whacking! 






Can't wait till next week to post an update about the windows being installed! So exciting, really looking forward to seeing the new house change so quickly! 




5.16.2012

(Extra) Long Weekend = To do List Weekend

This weekend is our as we call it "May 2-4" weekend or more formally known as Victoria Day Holiday. Branko and I usually take some extra days off during long weekends. We decided to take Tues(May22nd) and Wed(May 23rd) off because our windows should be in **fingers crossed** by Sunday. This means we can go Monday morning pick up our windows and use Tues and Wed to install them. An even better situation would be if the windows came in early and we could go pick them up on Sunday. 


Last night Branko decided to create a list for everything we need to accomplish for our long weekend. By the time we were done the list I was already tired.  


The "To-Do" List: Completion Time Frame May 16th - May23rd


May 16th(old house)
- Install 3 trees on the front lawn
- Rake the dirt even and remove large debris
- Seed the area with grass
- Burn all the wood and stumps
- Check the Truck front end and order the parts for Sunday
 

May 17th(old house):
- Fix the deck
- Spread the triple mix on the front lawn
- Install last 5 trees around the garage on the slope
- Order Siding for the 
garage

May 18th(old house):
-  Finish painting all the outside windows 
-  Work on the Jetta 

May 19th(old house):
- Work on the Jetta
- Stain the deck
- Move all large car parts to the new house
- Weed and Mulch the flower beds
 

May 20th(old house):
- Finish up the flower beds and the clean up around the house
- Move more stuff to the new house
- Move Boss's house and seed the area with grass 

May 21st(new house):
- Pick up the windows
- Install 4 windows
 

May 22nd(old house):
- Finish installing the windows
- Finish up the yard
- Work on the mud room
- Finish staining all the trim and baseboards 

May 23rd(old house):
- Pick up the siding
- Wrap the garage
- Start installing the siding
 

May 24th: 
- CALL ME TO SEE IF I AM STILL ALIVE :) 


Most of the work to do this weekend will be on the old house since we are going to try and get it up for sale by mid-June. My only saving grace is that our old house and new house are only 5 minutes away from each other. 

On a side note decorating is constantly on my mind. I recently found some other very enthusiastic home renovators(check out http://thesweetestdigs.com/ and  http://ramblingrenovators.blogspot.ca/that I have been following and let me tell you I am really excited about some DIY projects that I will be doing! I need to start planning ahead of time since I do not want to be spending an arm and leg on furniture! For the living room we already know that we want a L shaped couch preferably in a grey tone, fabric material and wide seating. I have been looking around at a couple of stores and already found a few sectionals that I really like that I am willing to spend the money on but for the accenting pieces I would prefer to spend less and maybe work on some DIY projects to tie into our living room setting and the L shaped couch.  On Friday I walked into a Home Outfitters and came across some beautiful leather wing-back type chairs(wish I would have snapped some pictures) I believe they must have been close to $1000 a piece(way out of my budget!!!).

I remember a while ago when I was thinking about furniture I came across a website that sold used hotel furniture. A hotel liquidation type website. 

Insert wing-back chairs and DIY project! 


The website I came across has several types of these chairs! They are just under/around $200 a piece. I would say that is pretty good price! I still have to look into the cost of material and Branko already knows a seamstress that may be able to cover the chairs for us with a material of our choice. (haha yes it is weird that my manly-man husband has a seamstress, but he uses her/him for his cars) 

If you have worked on any reupholstering projects please send me some tips!! 



5.08.2012

It's all in the biceps

Another amazing weekend of hard work added to the books. I am hoping by the end of the this home renovation I am going to have some serious arm muscle ;)  

Plan:

- remove 2 wood beams and replace with 2 steel beams
- remove downstairs sliding door and windows
- insert new French doors and insert 2 windows(re-using the ones from upstairs)
- remove sliding doors from upstairs level and insert new French door 
- clean up the basement and take all garbage to dump
- burn all the junk wood from the new house that has been collected 
- drive to buffalo 1.5 hrs. each way and order windows from Home Depot(yes I know this sounds crazy but we are saving around $2500.00) since we don't pay for gas and drive on vegetable oil it is totally worth it! 

DO YOU THINK WE GOT IT ALL DONE???

READ MORE TO FIND OUT :) 


The beams we were installing were 300lb beams replacing the old sagging wood beams. There were 3 of us. Let me repeat 3 of us....1,2,3 not 4 or 5 like I think we should have had. 


Old Beam 1:



New Beam 1:


Beam 2:



Branko who is 6'3 and very strong, his friend who I believe is 5'9 and pretty strong, and then me(extra help just in case) 5'7 and not so strong(that's an exaggeration...I am pretty strong but not compared to those boys). Attempt 1 failed we couldn't get it above our waists and the height that we needed to reach was about 6'2. Attempt 2 was also a fail and had me in a state of fear where I was sure the beam was going to come crashing down on my head. I'm sure I over exaggerated my fear because I am a worrier but none the less I was almost in tears. Our 3rd attempt was a success. After taking a break to breath and think about a better strategy we finally got that sucker in its place. 



PHEW right we are done!!! 

Not so much....we have one more longer more heavier beam to install. The second beam went much smoother with some pre-game plan ideas, it was up in no time. 

Next up remove the sliding door and windows which was a pretty easy task build a new frame for the door since the old one was rotted out. By 10pm at night Branko and I finally finished up our day. 


A view of the upper level and lower level:



We were able to finish installing the French doors downstairs, remove the windows from upstairs and relocate them to the downstairs spot where we wanted them. These windows were fairly new so we didn't want to just junk them. Since we were ordering all new windows for the upper level we decided that we could re-use those 2 windows for the lower level. The walk-out from the upper deck and the walk-out from the lower level are identical. So we were able to use the windows which was great! $400 in savings! :) 

While the guys were removing the sliding door downstairs I was able to clean out most of the basement. We had at least 2 truck loads of stuff that was left from the previous owners that we needed to clean out. So I kept myself busy piling up the garbage bags and loading up the the truck. 

On Sunday we made our trip to Buffalo with a stop at my parents for breakfast! It was nice to see them chit chat for a bit and then head over the border. We only needed to go to 3 stores(autozone, wal-mart, and home depot). Once we were done at Home Depot around 1pm we headed back home. Another stop at my parents to pick up some stuff(YAY for fresh eggs and brand new tri-pod for my camera) and then home bound. We arrived home around 4:30pm and of course headed over to the new house. We knew we had a few more things we wanted to get done before the weekend was over. We were able to finish burning almost all of the wood, fully installing the windows downstairs and levelling them off properly and also making an action plan for the week ahead of us. I usually get home around 5pm and Branko around 5:30pm. This allows us to eat a quick dinner and head over to the new house for a couple of hours each night. 

Our new windows will be here in 2 weeks time so we have a lot of work we need to get done before they arrive. 

So for the final results:


Plan:

- remove 2 wood beams and replace with 2 steel beams
- remove downstairs sliding door and windows
- insert new French doors and insert 2 windows(re-using the ones from upstairs)
- remove sliding doors from upstairs level and insert new French door 
- clean up the basement and take all garbage to dump (well we finished 1/2 of this job still have about another truck load of garbage)
- burn all the junk wood from the new house that has been collected  (another small fire will be needed tonight to finish this off) being the paranoid person that I am I didn't want to leave the house with the fire burning at all so we stopped to let the fire die down)
- drive to buffalo hrs. each way and order windows from Home Depot(yes I know this sounds crazy but we are saving around $2500.00) since we don't pay for gas and drive on vegetable oil it is totally worth it! 



I am so excited the windows are ordered!!! They are going to be stunning and make such a drastic difference to the house. The 2 week count down is on until they arrive and we get to install them. Until then we plan to remove the rest of the garbage and install the French doors on the upper level. In the next 2 weeks we also plan to remove all of the old windows(6 of them) and frame everything for the new windows. Almost all of the windows are going to be larger so we have to build new frames. We will just put some plastic wrap in the empty spots for now and seal the open windows until the new ones arrive. This way we will be prepared and window installing will be able to be completed in one day! 


On a side note we had a visitor this weekend as well:



She had a field day playing around the creek in our backyard at the old house:

I also did some more organizing with the mason jars I found at our new house:





This weekend is Mother's Day so Sunday will be spent with my little sister and mom. We are taking her to the Cheesecake Factory in Buffalo! 

Looking forward to the week ahead of us and the work we have planned!!