2.25.2013

Running out of gas....



I had that moment this weekend where I felt like I was running out of gas. I had too much on the go. I was irritable and my mind was constantly thinking about what I had to do the next hour of that day. 

 Many times when I feel like this I search a bunch of quotes and am quickly reminded that I can do this. One foot in front of the other. The end goal is near. 


The good thing throughout all of this is that Branko and I are still having fun. 


We laugh every day


Most people think we are insane. 

"You are doing what....renovating 2 home at the same time while working full time jobs" 

We hear it often. 


We keep on going. 



Some days I feel like this:







We work day and night. By this I mean wake up time is normally 4:45am, work all day drive home and then work in the addition till about 8pm. 



I will leave you with this...




Next week I will have an awesome #additiondeadline update. 

This week is a big one. 








2.22.2013

Where we are at....Addition Deadline Update

Our addition deadline is April 15th. 

That gives us....



52 days 


to complete:



Plumbing
Sanding/Taping Drywall
Painting addition area
Tile in the bathroom 
Siding on the entire house
New hardwood floors throughout entire house
Update kitchen - spray paint existing kitchen
Install new sink and counter tops
Purchase all new appliances 
Yard work around addition 


I'm probably missing some small details but in grand scheme of things that is the major work that must get done.  We are taking an entire week off at the end of March to help us out with timing. 



Next week I hope to have a great update with pictures of the addition including all of the completed drywall and plumbing. 

2.11.2013

Snow Day

Like almost everybody else out there that lived in an area hit by the snow storm I decided to stay home. 

My drive home Thurs. night looked like this(this was roughly around 4pm):



Snow days sure don't mean what they used to when you grow up and become an adult! Playing  in the snow and baking all day was certainly not an option. I got to work early in the morning since I had already been up. Cleaned the house and started my painting. If you  caught my previous post you know I have to paint all of the trim white. I honestly thought I would have this done much quicker but I really lack the patience to work on it straight for 8hrs. Thankfully staying home Friday allowed me to catch up and I now have only 1 bedroom left to finish. 

Here is a look at my car early in the morning...



As I watched the snow fall and more by the hour....



Digging it out was no easy task but these cars are like monsters! We actually just cleaned the snow off the top and the door access and drove it out! 

Later on in the day I decided to walk over to the neighbour's for a quick visit...snow up to me knees. 





We managed to get a lot done around the house this weekend and feel like #additiondeadline is still on track! 

As usual we headed to Home Depot Saturday night after a full days work. We normally do this so that we don't loose any precious daylight work time. 

Branko advised me we needed extra plumbing supplies and since our truck was buried in the snow we had to take my car. 

(truth be told there will be a good picture at the end of this explanation!) 

Funny enough I don't think we planned out this trip very well. I thought he only needed 1 - 12ft plumbing pipe when in fact he needed 6! Ummmmm how are we going to fit those in the car! 

We didn't bring any warm gloves or hats and here is the proof at how silly we looked...I'm sure we laughed the entire way home while freezing our butts off! 



Funny facts:

- Branko hates wearing hoods. 
- He's wearing my girly blue glove because he had to hold onto the pipes, if you look closely you can see them sticking out his window. 
- The fact that he was wearing my glove was enough to make me laugh just knowing how manly man he is! 

- And out of all of this he still has a can of coke in his hand. 

Oh the memories! I'm glad I got this shot it will go down in the record books. 

Hope everybody had a great snowy weekend! For all of you renovators out there please feel free to share some funny "how I got my supplies home" stories! 


2.04.2013

Project Electrical


Initially Branko and I were going to run all of the wires(Branko learned from his Dad). When he told his dad his plans for the weekend he offered to come and help him get this job done(best father-in-law ever and best mother-in-law she sent food!). I'm sure we could have done the work it would have just taken us 3 times longer. 


So.......lets back up and fully explain what had to be done. 

- Run all wiring in the new addition part of the house. 
- Connect new wiring to the old house
- Cut the floor out in the kitchen running across the old portion into the bedroom where the electrical panel resides. 
- Run wires through the joices(old part of the house) 
- Cut plywood to cover the hardwood floors we pulled out until we install new flooring
- Fix pipe leak from the dishwasher 

The start of it all:


The floor was cut out without too much trouble and the wiring was pulled. Branko's dad helped him pull most of the wiring and I helped with the last 2 yellow wires and 1 red one. :




Let me tell you...not as easy as it looks(pic taken before all wires pulled) - I stood on this side of the wall and would feed the wire from here and Branko was on the other side of the wall pulling the wire. Because the wire was cold it made it very difficult at times(as in I was using my entire body strength to pull the wire):


The panel that will be replaced:




This entire job took 2 days. The first day was pulling all of the wire in the new addition and the 2nd day(11:30am-3pm) was pulling the wire into the old house. We figured including material this entire job would have cost around $6000-$7000. 

We paid roughly around $1000 for material and labour was done ourselves. 

I was also able to get more coats of paints on the hallway doors and small bedroom and Branko fixed a pipe leak(that we sort of knew) we had from some funky smells we were getting over the summer. 

Next up....project plumbing! That cut out in the floor is going to be the same place we run the plumbing pipes to connect with the old house. 


Hope everybody had a great weekend!