The big update

{Photo taken while on a swing at the park close to our house. We had been booted out for a showing.}

You might have noticed that I haven't been around for a while. (Although you've probably figured it out from my twitter updates!) We sold our house quickly -- less than 10 days! Thankfully we can move on from keeping the house in a museum-like state now; keeping up with that was exhausting.

We have until September 3rd to find a new house and move. We've seen countless houses in two weeks: everything from places that have every sort of easement possible (natural gas, petroleum, big power lines...), to houses under flight paths, too close to freeways/highways, crazy sloping hills, grow-op's (scary), and a place where a guy was shot (but lived, woo hoo?). It's been a completely mixed bag of houses. You'd think that we were searching for the perfect house, when really we're just looking for a place that needs a whole lot of love (read through the lines: a ton of reno's) on a larger piece of land.

At the moment we've put an offer in on a place that we both like -- wait, the only place we like at all. I'm not going to say too much about it now as we're having it inspected next Tuesday afternoon and our subjects are supposed to be removed by July 3rd. If that all goes according to plan I'll have more details then!

{Another photo from the swing. I like it so much I might look into having it printed on canvas!}

Before and after: The main floor bathroom

Here's the official unveiling of the bathroom on the main floor.  It's just a small half bath, but it originally sported lino, a large mirror glued to the wall, and a horrible light we affectionately nicknamed 'the baguette'*.  We ripped all that out, but kept things that still were in good shape like the vanity and countertop, and the toilet and sink.  The faucet, light fixture, knobs, towel bar, toilet roll holder, mirror and moulding were updated.  With some crafty thinking, we didn't break the bank on this one (yay!).  

The existing countertop isn't horrible, although some yellow gerbera daisies help.

Good budget tips: We found a mirror for $40 (Homesense) and sprayed the frame white; we used a very moderately-priced tile for the main squares and highlighted the edge with the more expensive glass tile (I think the total floor cost was $140).

More of a 'during' shot rather than a 'before', but hey, you get the idea.

*There's still a 'baguette' in the house, in another bathroom we didn't go too crazy on.  More on that beauty later.

I spy

The 'for sale' sign on a post arrived yesterday, high enough now that you can see it (the other one was temporary).  Of course, I snuck behind the peep-hole to watch it being installed.

Before and after: The dining/living room

This is one area of the house that's sustained a lot of abuse and clutter.  It's also one of the most travelled-through parts of the house, which was made even more difficult when it resembled a storage locker.  We've had office furniture moved into it, tile storage, moulding and sawhorses...not once have we been able to use it to live or dine in, until now!*

*And believe me, it's still in shock.

A dining room?  For real?  *blink blink*

No more squeezing our way through construction clutter, I can do twirls in here now!

Watch out now, here come the before photos (they scare me):

Oh, sad days -- burgundy days.

Balloon window treatments, in burgundy, naturally.  Why look, there's a whack of moulding too!

And all of the office furniture/clutter awaiting a new home...somewhere.

Big before and after: The entryway

Light, bright, just right!

Ah yes, I'm going through memory lane looking at all our before photos at the moment.  This installment is dedicated to our entryway.  Just a short while ago it was burgundy, thanks to Trevor's hands and ideas.  And then I came along and changed it.  Sure, we lived with the burgundy for a while, but it was really oppressive and, well...burgundy.  A coat of primer and two coats of paint later (and moulding, and flooring...) and it's a brighter, lighter entryway.

Bur-gun-dy.  'Nuff said.

Entryway vignette

Just a little preview of what I've photographed over the past few days (there will be more to come -- promise!).  The pale yellow gerberas make it all work and that tall silver thing is a kaleidoscope, just in case you're wondering!

Oodles of flowers

I picked up a load of flowers today to add to areas throughout the house.  I first picked a colour palette of white, green, yellow and a little red, and then browsed around the florist (bonus: Thursdays are 15% off customer appreciation days!).  I ended up selecting these:

A small perk

Now that the house is almost ready for staging (still a few touch-up's to get to, *shhh* those will be fixed on the weekend!) there's a little more time to do other things around here...like make homemade mint chocolate chip ice cream*.

Ohhhhh yeahhhhh.

*Okay, so it's really 'ice skim milk'.  I didn't have cream on hand, and it's stinkin' hot around these parts right now.  It still tastes good though!

One house for sale, coming up!

Above is a shot from a walk (okay, a 'snoop') through the neighbourhood.  We've got those crazy cottonwood fluffies all over the place, and sometimes it looks like it's snowing.

We did a major clean-out and organize this past week/weekend.  Our realtor came by on Sunday and we signed all the papers for listing our house (the house will be listed June 8th).  

This week we're spending our time cleaning and sorting things a little more and catching little things (um, forgot to silicone the bottom of a toilet, whoops!).  I'll be staging rooms this week and photographing them, so look forward to some good before and afters coming up!