Basically Done!

So, we've now got our place on the market. Hopefully we'll sell it quick, and for what we want, so we can move on the the next step: an actual house with a yard and garage and everything!

Here's a couple photos of the finished kitchen and bathroom. you've seen these essentially, but this is how it looks for MLS...

Practially finished!

We are very close to being done now. This weekend we painted our living room and the last wall in the bedroom. We only have 1 wall left in the entire condo that needs to be painted and we'll be finished! AWWWW YEAH! We should have closet doors around mid-August. That pretty much just leaves the really tiny details left: We still need to paint our baseboards, and there are a few power outlets that need to be replaced. That's pretty much it.

hurray!

Last month of work... maybe?

We're so very close to being finished. We have the hallway painted, the dining room painted, and most of the baseboards glued down. The bathtub is being refinished this friday, our closets are being measured for closet doors, and the blinds for the windows are in production and should be hear next week. So hopefully we'll be totally finished by the end of June. Just in time for summer! Yay!

The light at the end of the tunnel...

We are VERY close to the end of our long renovation journey. It's hard to believe how far we've come and every time I look back at the pictures I am just amazed at all of the work we have done. When we ripped out the kitchen I was nervous and scared at how we would cope without the most important room in the house; but we managed. And then when we realized that we had no other time to put the floors in except for New Years, I don't think either of us felt ready but we did what we needed to do and got it done. I really am soooo happy that all of the major renovations are complete! There's nothing that I dislike more than being in a state of restlessness and partiality.

So what's left, you ask? Paint, closet doors, window coverings and refinishing the tub! It's nice when your to-do list fits on one hand:)

Kitchen Backsplash!!!

We finally have a finished kitchen! Last week we put up our gorgeous backsplash, and it really finishes off the kitchen...icing on the cake!

Photo Gallery Updated!

I have finally updated our Picasa web gallery for our renovations! I added the kitchen and some floor photos.

Currently we are re-vamping the second closet in our bedroom and soon will be doing the same for our hallway closets.

More work... :>

Now that all our floors are finished we have started getting going on the rest of the work that needs to be done. Today, I'm painting the empty closets so we can install the new closet system in there. Organization FTW! When we sell I think one of the nice selling features is the ridiculous amounts of storage space for a condo this size. We're setting it up so the space is used as efficiently as possible with the rubbermaid Configurations closet system. it's a cheap, versatile system and has already made our large closet in the bedroom so much better.

Once the closets are done we'll be installing the baseboards. That'll probably be spread over a few days. After that... well, it's just closet doors and paint and we'll be finished. Oh, and the kitchen backsplash, which i'll probably do in a few weeks.

I'm guessing we'll be completely finished before the end of April. AWESOME!

Bye-Bye Carpet:)

We set ourselves a goal for January, and that goal was to get the floors done. Well, we reached it! They look fabulous and we don't EVER have to look at that nasty orange/brown/rust-coloured carpet again!

It was such an overwhelming task to look at, but once we got started we realized just how easy it was to install. The hardest part of it was removing the carpet when we still had all of the furniture in here. If we had no furniture then it would have gone so much faster.

Our February goal is going to be installing the baseboards and at least purchasing the tile for the kitchen backsplash. Oh, and I hope to update the gallery because that hasn't been done for a LONG time!

Floors!

This is Deb posting as Nick since I have forgotten my log in information...regardless...we have floors (well, sort of)!

We had no idea of when we were going to install them and about 2 weeks before Christmas we realized that we had no other time to install them except for the time we took off for New Years. January 1, 2009 we started, and we hope to complete this (at least the main portion of it) today.

On Thursday we didn't do too much except for ripping up some carpet and the underlay. It was disgusting and I never want carpet again! On every piece we ripped up there were stains from liquids (pets, drinks, water) and I can only imagine what kind of bacteria was on that...YUCK! We removed the hallway carpet and underlay and then scraped the glue from the concrete, and since the hallway is a heavy traffic area, there was a lot of glue and shredded underlay!

On Friday we got some help from Nick's step-father and we removed a lot more carpet and put down the new underlay for the laminate. We (they) started the hallway which was the most difficult area because a lot of cuts were needed. Later that night, Nick and I removed the remainder of the carpet and prepared the area for the next day.

So today has been full of cutting laminate and laying the floor. Apart from finishing off the hallway it has been pretty smooth sailing. It looks fantastic and I can't wait to put the furniture back to where it belongs (most likely we'll be doing that tonight).

We will be doing the bedroom in a few weeks but it shouldn't take very long to do.

Almost Christmas...

Well... it's 2 weeks until christmas, and I still have not updated anything.

Deb and I haven't done anything to the place since the summer... we've been very lazy about it. But that'll soon change.

In January, we are going to be purchasing our new flooring. We haven't made the firm decision yet, but it'll either be a dark brown oak engineered floor, or it'll be a very dark high quality laminate. The Laminate is cheaper, but I hate laminate... so we'll see. It also might be too dark.

We're also going to be getting the tiles for the kitchen backsplash around the same time. So that'll be the final step in getting the kitchen finished.

Lastly, we will be getting our new kitchen table and chairs... yay! finally we'll have somewhere to sit and eat dinner. Right now, we eat at our coffee table. I think I have an even worse hunch back now because of it.

2 months

it's been 2 months since my last post. Sorry to say, there's nothing new to report. Well, that's not totally true. We've finished paying for the Kitchen, so now they can't repossess it! :P Hopefully we'll be getting the carpet ripped out in January or February and we'll be putting in engineered hardwood floors. That'll make the place look so much better!

As requested

Before:


After:

Finally...

We haven't done much in the way of reno work since we had the kitchen finished. Yesterday, however, I decided it was time to get something done.

We've had our microwave sitting in a box in the dining area for weeks now. It was sitting there because I had to install a receptacle in the cabinet before I could get the microwave in there. The electrician was supposed to do this, but it seems the electrician we hired was a cursing curse word. I had to do some playing around to get it in there, and it is definitely not to code, but it works and it's safe.

After I got that done, it was time to get the microwave up. First i had to drill a couple holes in the upper cabinet, then some holes in the wall. This was interesting. The microwave requires is mounted with a bracket that screws to the wall, then the microwave slides onto this bracket. The instructions say that when you put the bracket on the wall, it needs at least 2 screws through a stud. Unfortunately, the stud in our wall didn't line up with the holes in the bracket, so I had to go out to Home Depot and pick up a drill bit that would go through metal. I come back, drill the holes, and then realize that the instructions called for 3/8" holes. I had bought a 3/16" drill bit. D'oh! So then I take a look at the screws they provided. These screws were too small for the holes I drilled, so why did the instructions call for even larger holes?? stupid. Anyway, I have metal studs, and no screws that would work in a hole the size I made, so I went BACK to Home Depot, picked up metal screws that were sized right for a 3/16" hole, came back, put them in and it was perfect. The rest of the mounting of the bracket was using 4 toggle bolts in drywall. I then slid the microwave up onto the bracket, screwed bolts into the top through the upper cabinet, and I now have a microwave. Hurray!

It looks nice in the kitchen now. Everything is complete except for the backsplash. It's going to be hard to sell this place when the time comes.

Pictures!

So, Here's what the kitchen looks like now that we have some granite installed. The sink, backsplash and under-cabinet lighting still needs to be installed, but that'll have to wait until we return from Mexico.

Countertops Pt. 2

AS I TYPE, our granite is being installed. It looks super nice.

Countertops

I just got a call from our cabinet maker (who also arranged the counters with a granite company) that the granite guys would like to install the counters on friday this week. That's pretty sweet.

I've got all the appliances where they belong now, so with the countertops coming friday we'll pretty much have everything complete, except the backsplash (which I'll probably do next month) and the drains for the sink.

OMG New cabinets!

Yay, it's all done! and damn does it look good. Here's a picture



And this is the tile we will most likely use for the backsplash:

More cabinets...

So I got home tonight hoping to see a finished kitchen. Instead I saw something else... SAWDUST! On EVERYTHING! Now, I'm not stupid. I figured there's be some sawdust from the cutting that needed to be done. But seriously, the guy could've at least TRIED to cover up some things with the tarp he had.

Colour me annoyed.

Also, it looks like all he did today was the trim pieces... the doors are not installed. WTF! Does it really take THAT long to do the trim? It doesn't even look right... you can see the seams and nail holes, so he had better be filling those in tomorrow when he comes to attach the doors.

It's still a nice kitchen, but I'm annoyed that it's still not finished. I want my home back! I have no room to move around, literally! Right now I'm sitting in bed because I can't use the living room. I have furniture piled on top of furniture just so we could make room for the cabinets to come in.

This weekend will be one hell of a clean-up weekend

Cabinets

Yesterday was a busy day. At about 8:30am I took a drive out to the Abbotsford/Sumas border (and, in fact, crossed it) to pick up our sink and faucet. This took a few hours because when I got there the faucet was the only item that had arrived. I called UPS and found out that the sink was on a truck out for delivery. I decided to take a chance that it would arrive soon, so I went and grabbed some breakfast. when I was done I drove over to the place where the stuff was shipped. It turns out that the UPS truck had JUST ARRIVED, so I was able to pick the sink up right off the truck. I'm glad I decided to stick around.

During this time, Deb was at home with the cabinet installer, making sure things went well. By the end of the day, the cabinet boxes had been installed and there was a huge mess of sawdust everywhere. Today the installer is coming back to do the doors and trim pieces and hopefully clean up a lot of that sawdust.

I'll try to post pics tonight

Finally

YAY!!! We finally painted the bathroom! It's... white. We chose white because There's already so much colour in the green tile, and since it's such a small room, we didn't want to overwhelm the space. So the walls are white, and we'll put up some nice artwork to make them a little less bare. It looks so nice now that it's all done.