We had a counter...briefly

Our lovely organic white Caesarstone counter was installed last week Friday...and uninstalled on Wednesday.

To start, the installers showed up late due to another job running overtime. Instead of 12pm or so, they showed up closer to 3:30pm. Looking at the profile, the two pieces of counter that needed to be seamed together were not the same thickness. I pointed this out to one of the installers who said that he had noticed it and would have brought it to my attention. He said that if they had been able to show up at 12pm as planned, he would have taken the thicker piece back to the shop and had it sized correctly. As it was, it was easier to install and glue the two pieces then have someone come to grind down the thicker piece in place, or so he said. I wished I'd listened to my inner voice that said this was not a good idea. The installers were incredible nice and friendly and took a lot of care leveling the counter before gluing it in place, which we appreciated. The part we weren't happy about was the dark colour of the seam. It was darker than the counter and not very well done, to our eyes at least. That was just the start of our problems.

Another team was sent to fix the thickness problem and that's when we learned that we should have sent the pieces back to shop instead of going ahead with the installation. Their solution was to just grind down the edge and smooth it. This meant one part of the counter would be one thickness, then slope down to the other thickness. We told them this was unacceptable, not only because it looked bad but that the thicker counter rubbed against the drawers because the edge was sitting lower. We were told that there wasn't any way to grind it down along the length of the counter evenly. At the end of it all, they had to come back to take the counter out, which meant cutting the seam and prying the pieces loose. They left quite a mess behind when they removed it and put a couple small scratches in our cabinets. I don't think the scratches will show once the counter is put back, though. The second installation attempt will be tomorrow. We're crossing our fingers and hoping for the best...

Bathroom's almost done too

At this point, it's a draw as to whether the bathroom or the kitchen will be finished first. The kitchen counter is installed but no pictures yet since we're not completely happy with the installation and need the installers to come back and fix some problems.The kitchen window will be installed by the end of the week then we wait for K to come back finish trimming it out. The pantry doors are still out of stock (any one surprised?) and we've decided that the stainless steel-look plinths from Ikea are really cheap and crappy. It's basically particleboard cover with a piece of foil that will scratch easily so we've decided not to use it. Instead, K says he can get actual sheets of stainless steel cut to size and installed. It'll be more durable and look much better, plus it's not wildly expensive. We're sold on the idea.

The bathroom is almost done. The tub/shower tile is up. The original tile was a glossy white subway tile which we liked so we stuck with it. The only change we made here was to install it in a vertical subway pattern instead of the usual horizontal. It looks fabulous! It heightens the room by drawing your eye upwards. Plus it picks up and carries the pattern from the floor, giving and nice, cohesive look, I think.

Still needs grout but looking good!

Tiles with grout and the bold look of Kohler

While the guys have been concentrating on the main floor, I've been picking away at getting the laundry area finished off. We put in a little storage are with a counter for folding clothes and I love it. It's nice to have a high, flat surface to fold on. I was using the bed for fold but it's a pretty low bed so my back was getting sore from bending over. We'll be posting some pictures of the laundry area as soon as it's completed (it's still missing some hardware) but for now, here's a photo of me assembling a door with a drawer attachment.

The ugly corner gets a makeover

The ugly corner isn't so ugly anymore. K & B have framed it out and covered it with some spare cover panels that match our cabinets. It's a big improvement over what was there before. After the kitchen's done, we'll be posting the before and after photos. I'm so used to seeing what it's like now that sometimes I forget what was there before. I mentioned to R that we should take some of the before photos that he's taken, print them up as gritty black and whites, and hang them in the kitchen for art. I think it would be really cool to have the old decorating the new.

 

 

In the other parts of the house, K & B have been steadily patching and prepping the walls for painting. As they move from room to room, we've been shifting boxes to make way for them. Now, most of the boxes are in the basement. Who needs a gym when you can get your exercise by endlessly shifting large, heavy boxes?

Our basement full of boxes

Someday, we hope to have everything unpacked and put away, but not today.

We have a kitchen...almost

Renovating a kitchen has taught us a number of things, one being that endless trips to Ikea to exchange and/or return cabinets are a necessary evil. For me, Ikea used to be a rare treat since I didn't get to go very often (as a non-driver, I depended on tagging along with friends who were going so trips were few and far between). In the last month, we've been to Ikea so many times that the mere mention of the name causes R to whimper and quiver in fear. I've resorted to bribing him with a frozen yogurt cone (or 10) to get him to go. This worked until one day, he went to get yogurt while I waited to return some items. R returned, irritated and empty-handed. What happened? The frozen yogurt machine was broken. Uh oh. Sorry, honey.

I think they were serving A322 when we showed up

Despite it all, the kitchen is coming together nicely. The cabinets are up, the appliances are in, and now we're just waiting for the counter top to be installed. After that, hook up the drain and faucet, get the dishwasher installed and we're cooking!

Lots of storage space

I must have had B adjust the height of these at least three times

Checking out the new cabinets

Marking the panels sides that we want to face out

Making more notes for K & B

Admiring the new pantry. Oooooo!

We have light!

And more light!

The new range and microwave

Kitchen update

The kitchen is moving along. K & B have updated the wiring and added some outlets for the new range location. Moving the range meant having to run a new dedicated line from the circuit box, located in the basement, under the front kitchen window. Unfortunately, the joists run crosswise, meaning more work.

The wall to the left has been insulated. Since it's an old bungalow, none of the walls are insulated and we find this wall to be very cold when the wind blows. K & B also built it out a few inches, meaning we lose a few inches of width in the kitchen. As we've been discovering, the walls in this house (and pretty much all old houses) aren't straight. The corner of the kitchen, where the head space for the stairs is located, isn't square. A big problem if your corner cabinet has to be located here so to square it up, we give up an inch or two of floor space. That's fine; it's a fairly wide kitchen.

The walls were a dark mustard yellow colour which really made the space seem small and dark. I'm happy to say the yellow is now gone and white primer is in its place. Already, it seems more roomy. Our final colour choice was a warm gray from Benjamin Moore, called Gray Mist. It'll pick up the subtle gray bits in the counter top we've chosen and contrast nicely with the cabinets.

K suggested cutting a tall, narrow window in the wall between the kitchen and the entry area. I'm amazed at how such a little thing has given this area a much more open feel.

Last but not least, the tile floor is in! Yay! It still needs to be grouted and we're short some tiles for the entry area (our fault; we're still learning how to use a tape measure) but we're happy with the results so far. The extra tile should be here next week and we'll post more pictures of the final product then.

Miscellaneous bits

Back tracking a bit, here's a photo of R's temporary office while the basement was being done. The smaller iMac is mine since this is my temporary office (the study is being used for catch-all storage room). The larger iMac is R's. Looks like we're ready for a game of Battleship.

R has since moved back down to the basement so I have my temp office to myself again, minus Kevin and Bryan when they're here working on the house.

Here's a picture of our new travel mascot. He has yet to be named. We've been wanting something that's small and light to take on our trips with us, and this little guy fits perfectly. We're planning to photograph him in different locales and put together a travel blog. I found him at the One of a Kind Craft Show and my friend Lynda bought him as a birthday present for me. He's really adorable and I love his wide-eyed surprised look. If you have a name suggestion for him, let us know.

Finally, here's the baby blanket I've been working on since last summer. It's a gift for R's co-worker who's currently on maternity leave. The baby was born last October and I just finished it a few days ago. It would have been done sooner but selling the condos and moving got in the way. I'm really happy with the results. I may need to make one for myself, in a larger size.

Almost there

The main bath is almost done. The light fixture is in and the new vanity is up minus the drawers since the plumbing still has to be connected. After that, the new window gets installed (we have to wait until next week for that) and the tile can go in the tub area. We're sticking with a simple white subway tile there for a nice, clean look.

It's gone!

Renovating an old house is a little like excavating an archeological site. You never know what you're going to find, how layers there will be and how far down it goes. The kitchen demolition went off without a hitch. I wanted to be home to take part but there was too much going on at work. R was home, though, and got to swing a hammer and destroy some stuff. Very satisfying for him.

Before the kitchen was gutted, we noticed that we had a regular mouse visitor in our sink cabinet. How do we know? There were chew marks on the garbage bag and little bits of chewed plastic around the garbage bin. One morning, I went to open the bin to throw out some garbage and came eye to eye with a cute little brown mouse sitting on top of the garbage. It was a toss up as to who was more surprised. We admired him, even as we evicted him from the house (he was really cute!). I don't think he understood he was being evicted, though, since he was back a couple nights later. Now that the kitchen is gone, our running joke is that he poked his head up, looking for the garbage bin and thought "What the...! Where's my garbage?"

Bryan demolishing our kitchen

Off to the dump!

So what did we learn from gutting the kitchen? Kevin found a few layers of door framing around the two doorways into the kitchen. There was the original door frame that was put in when the house was built and then a couple more nailed on top of it. He was able to reclaim a few inches of doorway. There was, again, some questionable wiring in the walls and ceiling but the real bonus was the discovery of asbestos vinyl floor tiles. Lucky for us (or should I say Kevin and Bryan?), the vinyl tiles were glued to a plywood sub floor that was very loose so they pulled it up and disposed of it. No more asbestos!

The asbestos vinyl floor tiles

Day 1

Day 2

Warm tiles

Since we have so many renos going at once, Kevin brought his cousin, Bryan, in to help out. Things are moving along and while the kitchen is undergoing its transformation (stay tuned!), the main bath is coming together nicely. The floor tile we chose is 12"x24", in a dark mocha colour, with a subtle, variegated stripe running through it. The colour name is 'chocolate'. That can't get any more perfect as we're big chocolate fans. A heated floor was installed under the tile and now the floor is nice and warm on our bare feet.

Wiring for the heated floor control panel

Deciding on the layout

The finished floor! (Yes, it needs cleaning)

Auto-destruct in 60 minutes. There will be no further audio warning.

The kitchen reno is about to begin. We're gutting the whole kitchen down to the studs and rebuilding it but first, some pictures of what it looks like now.

The stupid corner

The other side of the wall with the fridge is the stairway leading down to the basement. It's a small house, so the headroom for the stairs cuts into the kitchen space. It's hidden in the corner base cabinet where the microwave sits. That's a lot of prime storage space gone. Oh well, we'll make do. The fridge is currently where our new dual fuel range will go and the fridge will go in the corner where the old range is now.

The fridge's new home

The counter is one of my least favourite features. It's a tiled counter with wood trim. Kevin asked me what I thought of the counter when he first came to look at the job. I told him it was breeding ground for bacteria. Not only is the grout difficult to keep clean (coffee stains it easily and only comes off with lots of scrubbing) but the tiles have a semi-rough surface, also difficult to keep clean. When we first moved in, it took me a couple hours to scrub down the counter. Then R came up from the basement with a box that had been sitting on the floor of a moving van. He went to put it on my clean counter. I think I scared him when I yelled "No! Don't put that on the counter, I just cleaned it!". Sorry, honey.

The tiled counter, with my favourite mug

Being a bungalow with ducts running under the floor, the bulkheads are empty wasted space so we're having them ripped out for taller wall cabinets. We're also planning to extend the counter to the far wall with the window. Originally, this was used by the previous owner as a little eat-in area with a small table for two. We decided we'd rather have more storage space. The slate floor is also going. On the surface, it looks nice but it's not very well installed and I had a slate floor in my last place. I'll admit it's a great look but it's another hard-to-clean surface. The irregular surface was great at chewing up my floor mop. I'm looking forward to having some nice, flat floor tiles.

Our cabinets are here!

For our cabinets, we went with Ikea. We like the look and the price. I can't wait until they're in.

We have a big soaker tub...

...in a tiny bathroom. We didn't realize exactly how big the tub was when we bought it. Yes, we did measure it and the space, but sometimes things are larger in real life. I think the tub is deeper than the one I had at the condo. Either way, we love the clean, minimal lines of it and the depth is good for those post-massage, epsom salt baths (ahhhh!). It'll be a cozy bathroom. R wasn't crazy about the tubs with all the wavy decorations on the front (there are lots of those and I have to agree, they're not the most attractive) so we were happy to find this one.

Good insulation makes for warm walls!

The new soaker tub and dual flush toilet

The toilet's a bit close to the tub but there's a floor joist to the left of it so that's as far over as it can go. The only other option is to have it on the other side of the joist but that cuts into the vanity area and creates other problems.

The corner for the vanity

If walls could speak...

...I wonder what ours would say.

We've been hoping that our main bath would be getting its makeover soon and this week was the week. Yay! On the surface, there was nothing terribly wrong with the bath, except that it wasn't our style, the window was aluminum which had seen better days (and tended to collect water in the track), the bath tub was tiny, not a huge amount of storage and the overall feel of the room was drafty and cold. At first glance, the tile floor had a nice vintage feel to it but the installation job, on closer inspection, was poorly done. Hmmm, on second thought, there was a lot terribly wrong with it.

The original bathroom

One of the reasons the bathroom was cold and drafty was the old aluminum window. Since all the main floor windows were the same vintage (and drafty), replacing them with new, energy efficient ones was our top priority, especially since it's the middle of winter right now and we're cold! We were told it would be better to pull out the tile to put in the new window, so we told Kevin to go ahead and gut the whole bathroom. He did and found all sorts of surprises. There were loose wires, bad electrical boxes, lots of excess pipes, improper support beams, crappy insulation (which was another reason why the bathroom was cold), and a beehive. Yes, there was a beehive but sadly, no honey. Lucky for us, it's the middle of winter and there were no actual bees in residence. An added bonus was that the whole thing, along with the sill, was a block of ice. Apparently water was leaking in from the shower and getting in behind the wall.

Lurking behind the walls...

...is a beehive...

...and some questionable DIY

All the questionable stuff is being removed and cleaned up. Here's how it looks now:

 

No more beehive
(sorry, bees, you'll have to find another home)

A nice, clean starting point for the new bathroom