Buying on a budget

When renovating a home the most important thing we learned is that you need to keep your eyes and ears open at all times for sales at home building stores. 

Home Depot is our closest outlet for purchasing our materials to build our addition. So in that case we keep a close eye on the flyer for hardwood sales, appliances and special sales on such things as insulation. 

This will be us soon! 

(http://girluntitled-pomo.blogspot.ca/2011/06/pinterestlike-that-big-ball-of-pink.html)

Home Depot had a sale that ended yesterday where you buy 4 bags of PINK insulation and you get 1 free. 

You know what that means! We ended up getting 7 bags free and saved almost $450. It did take us 2 trips into town since we could only fit so much into our work truck, but since we drive on Vegetable oil it didn't really matter and we saved in the end. 

Next up is #projectelectrical to be done this weekend! 

Home addition deadline is on track.  

Project Fireplace

In the process of building an addition, the old portion of the house needed some updating with new flooring, fresh white paint on all the windows and new baseboards....we knew the fireplace needed an update as well. 

 We had 2 choice with the fireplace. Re-face it with an updated stone or paint it. 

The more cost saving idea was to paint the fireplace. After much research and looking at tons of pictures on pinterest I decided that a nice coat of white paint will really make the  difference that we wanted to achieve. 

There were many stages in painting the fireplace like giving it a good scrub with water and vinegar, priming it and spray painting the fan covers white. 

Stage 1: Prime your heart out. Painting the brick part was pretty easy it was getting in between the bricks that was a pain. 

Stage 2: Be on the safe side and put up 2 coats of primer and then 1 coat of nice white semi-gloss paint. 

Stage 3: Mount TV on the fireplace. 

There are still a few small details we need to complete. Some portions still need to be painted around the base of the fireplace but that won't be done till we rip out the floor, the moulding around the fireplace is being replaced, the baseboards and flooring are all being changed, and I need to buy a nice shelf of some sort to put beside the fireplace for the TV box. Unfortunately it does not fit on top of the mantel. Since the final pictures were taken at night time you really don't get to see the natural day light like in the first before picture. Once we put the house back on the market we will have more updated photos. 

Now time for some relaxing:

It's the small things...

In the midst of building the addition to the old home we also have to do some re-arranging in the old part of the house with the furniture. 

Currently we have 2 coffee tables sitting in the living room. One table was being used as a TV stand and the other was being used simply as a coffee table. We have this lounge chair(we call it the shrink chair) and also a console table. Take note - see all the cherry red. 

You can see all of my fancy arrows in the above picture. The plan is to paint the fireplace(#projectfireplace) is coming soon and almost complete! Mount the TV above the fireplace, get rid of the TV stand in the corner and also move the console table and the shrink chair. 

Facing opposite of the living room is the dining room. Since the dining room is being moved to the new part of the house we removed the dining table last night and the shrink chair. All gone to the new home for storage. The console table has been moved in-place of the dining table under the mirror(we may remove that entirely as well once we put the house back on the market) 

Here is a sneak peek of what it is starting to look like! 

Hopefully tomorrow or in a couple of days I will be ready with my full project fireplace update and pictures of the entire space. 

Until then...Happy Renovating! 



PS: we certainly didn't just move furniture around this weekend....Branko finished all of the walls and the ceiling in the addition and I painted some more. Tonight we have somebody coming to talk about installing the new furnace and getting rid of the baseboard heating system. 

Working in the Cold

It was inevitable that "real" winter would come and we would be working on our addition in the cold. 

(http://www.toonpool.com/cartoons/cold%20fusion%20eskimoes_39560)

Mentally though I just wasn't prepared. 

The month of December and early January was so good to us, it allowed us to build our addition and gave just enough time for Branko to finish the shingles on the roof before the below freezing temps hit. 

Branko says it's mind over matter - ummmm not when my fingers are freezing. My brain just doesn't work. I'm pretty sure he is not human because he could be outside in the cold for 4-5 hrs. straight. 

I will survive....the shingles are done and some interior walls have been put up. I will have a better update next week. I promise. When the temps allow me to be outside long enough to take some good pictures. 

If you are working out in this frigid weather pointers are welcome below ;) 

Quick update on the addition!

It's exactly 1 month to the day that we started digging  for the new addition to our old home. You can read about that big decision here.  

And this is where we stand today:

The shingles should be done by this weekend and yes there are 2 windows under that wrap! 

 In one month including us working daily at our full time jobs and Christmas we were able to accomplish so much more then we could ever imagine. 

We had very minimal help, most of the work was done in the evenings and weekends. Branko and I actually put that wrap up Sunday night at 8pm. 

These boots were my lifesavers because we were standing in muck up to our ankles!! 

(http://pinterest.com/pin/118430665171814390/)

Next week is going to be a great update! Shingles and a clean-up scheduled for the weekend! :)

The Driveway - Old Home

I had no plans on writing today but then Branko sent me a picture that he found on his computer. 

I was totally shocked and amazed at how far we have come with the driveway and front yard of our old home. 

This picture is not the greatest...but you get the idea. 

and NOW

We trimmed the bottom line of all of the trees on the left, we raked and raked and I think I wanted to murder the rake before we were done. On the right side we cut down about 45 trees (ourselves) and burned them all in that front yard(our neighbours thought we were insane) then we seeded that entire right side. 

Let me tell you landscaping is hard work in mid summer heat! 

My newest mantra:

(http://pinterest.com/pin/118430665172957103/)

Have a great weekend everybody and work hard! 

White Paint

My latest best friend. 

My amazing husband god bless him decided to stain all of the wood window frames and door frames in the old house cherry red stain. 

That is the half wall between the kitchen and living room which he stained as well. 

He never got around to finishing them so before we put the place up for sale last year I stained the rest(against my wishes). 

Since we decided to make the house bigger (you can about that here) we I have to paint everything white now. 

In total that's 1 gigantic window, 6 smaller windows, 8 door frames and the wall. 

Once we lay down new floors and new white baseboards everything will flow nicely. The new Ikea white kitchen will help this wall not look so obvious. 

A small addition update as well:  

The framing is done and the plywood has been put up on the sides and the roof. Hopefully this weekend we will get the shingles started.

 That will lead to a more exciting post next week! 

In 17 days

You probably thought I was going to write that in 17 days I'm going on some amazing trip!!!!!!!!! 

(http://www.homeadore.com/2012/12/27/luxurious-costa-brava-property/)

BIG FAT WISHFUL THINKING FOR ME! 

In 17 days we did this.....

 If you are totally confused and wondering what the hell is going on here, that is our first home/old home that we didn't sell last year(I can say that now!). You can read about our big decision here .

Time line:

Nov 21st - Dec 7th - We figured out the layout for the new space, had engineer stamp our drawing and acquired proper permits from the town. 

 Dec 15th and Dec 16th - Footings were dug by Branko himself(he rented a machine thingy to do this)

Dec 17th - The concrete was poured for the footings.  

Dec 19th - The slab was poured for the floor.  

Dec 20th - Dec 23rd - All of the wood was ordered and delivered to build the roof and walls. 

Dec 24th - Dec 25th - We spent these days with our family. Christmas Eve with Branko`s family and Christmas Day with my family.  

Dec 26th - Was going to be a shopping day in Buffalo, but Branko had a very bad cold that got even worse on Christmas eve. We stayed home and he partialy rested.  

Dec 27th(my birthday!) - Dec 31st -  We built and put up all of the exterior walls, figured out how to attach the new roof to the old roof, built the sub floor, finished most of the roof, and put up plywood sheets on the exterior walls. 

We had snow which was super crappy because we had to be constantly doing this:

It`s very slippery walking on this but I survived. :) 

  

  

 The current home is 950 sq ft, 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom. We are adding 650 sq ft, 2 bedrooms, bathroom, moving the laundry room and dining room.

We also plan on updating the heating system from baseboard electric heat to propane, order a new kitchen from Ikea, replace the counter tops, and change all of the flooring so that both sides of the house match. 

Goal end time: April 1st, 2013 and have the house back on the market no later then April 15th, 2013. 

 

Welcome 2013 -  My only resolution for this year is to survive! :)  

All kidding aside we are actually having fun and looking forward to see how this house is going to change, we are excited to get back to our new dream home and possibly go on a real vacation at the end of the year. 

Do you have any big plans for 2013....I like plans better then resolutions!