Plumbing - CHECK!

I needed to work from home today, which was pretty lucky, since I was around when Guy the plasterer stopped by, plus the plumber also paid us a visit to finish off the last of the details for the reno-in-law plumbing...

Still need a mirror, medicine cabinet, shower glass, light fixture and finishing paint/silicone touch up. But other than that, it's DONE!

Stairs!

We're actually spending some time on our home! Marc's golfing buddy, Pierre, has been working on building our stairs. And today's the big day that we dismantled the rough temporary stairs that we've been living with for over a year!



We found bamboo stair treads and a nosing for the edge of the stairs at Rona, but we'll need to stain and varnish them to work well with the rest of the flooring. I'm not quite sure what you'd call our style, I call it cozy industrial. Mixing raw steel elements with the warmth of natural materials.



Here's a little slideshow with the work in progress:

Don't have flash? View the album.

There's still the railings to install, but no idea when that's going to happen! Stay tuned for the final pics (I'm guessing April - will be interesting to see how close my guesstimate is!)

The BIG Catch Up (and Reno-in-law)

I'm not disciplined enough to keep a blog up to date! 2011 was a big year for work work, plus we also took on the demo and reno of Marc's parents apartment. Needless to say, we've not made the progress we'd have liked on our own home. But looking back, we still managed to keep things moving in the right direction. My in-law reno deserves a blog of it's own, as you can see that the extent of the work... Interestingly, in the before pictures, I don't think that the place looks that bad. You'll just have to trust us that the reno was absolutely necessary (and no - that's not parquet flooring that we are in process of replacing - that's plastic sticky faux tiles with parquet printed on them - mmmm, bet you're jealous).

Don't have flash? View the album.

The posts between May 2011 and January 2012 have been written in retrospect. It gives you an idea of what we've been up to with our free time in our little "just two weeks" project. Enjoy...

Feeling Radiant

Our neighbours find the radiator transport team quite hilarious. It's true, I'm sure they are if it doesn't involve your own home. It was yet another major milestone to receive the radiators back in October after their sandblasting and re-painting. But bringing these huge and heavy pieces of cast iron back into the house was no easy task. After much swearing in French, and several dents in our lovely new flooring, they did finally make it in.

Today, the plumbing company was able to hook them up to our gas heating system (also used to heat the water for our radiant floors in the basement).

It's probably worth a reminder of the before picture...


And now we have lovely working radiators, no peeling paint, all in one lovely consistent shade of silver:

From White to Black

While the old white outside railings of our house were getting de-rusted, primed and painted a traditional shiny black (courtesy of student painters), the ground floor and inside of our home was undergoing a transformation, getting plastered professionally. (Reading that last phrase back to myself makes for a very suitable double entendre for getting though this ongoing project!) Our plastering man, Guy, made up for all out little foibles from when we installed the drywall. He did an amazing job, so we used him again for the in-law reno.

Once the plastering was complete, I started helping out with some of the painting, but Marc surged ahead and ended up almost single handedly painting the place over the course of several evenings after work, while I got stuck at the office. We've gone completely white for now. I completely lack inspiration for color and am just so happy to have a clean house with real walls. I have got to apply for one of those design shows like Color Confidential or the like... Need design help!

The finishing touch came with selecting the door and window trims. Marc got to use his favorite cutting saw to make perfect 45° cuts. And then I finally got a go at the painting with semi-gloss white trims. You'd think after all this I'd have taken a ton of pics. But, no! The end of 2011 barely allowed for any breathing room outside of work work. So you'll just have to wait for photos...

Flooring: Done - 2

We're finally there! It took both child and retired labour, but everyone seemed to enjoy the results. It's all done except for 2 planks (the transition between the 2 rooms). I'm sure we'll even get the detail of them finished one day...



It was a big day of work:

In the Corner

While we've been working on the parent-in-law reno, this has allowed us to finally move the unsightly black sewage pipe from the middle of the kitchen ceiling to the corner. One tiny step closer to finishing our kitchen!