The Last of the Horsey Wallpaper

Neigh! This is the final reminder of some bad wallpaper boarder choices (and the paint colour, 'Pepto Chic', isn't too far behind.)

Winter

The View From a Bedroom Window

Here's what it looks like with the new window in place in the bedroom that faces the ravine. It makes me feel like I'm in a treehouse!

The 'After' Floorplans

It took a few drafts and sketches (and standing in the house with our hands on our hips) to come up with the new floorplans for the main and second floor of the house.

Main floor:

The big difference in this new plan is the kitchen -- it's being made larger (the old, tiny galley kitchen before was pretty sad). The original family room had a horrible flow and wasn't really working for us. Placing a long and large kitchen island in that area makes much more sense, and we'll have seating at the island so you can take in the view out the new set of glass doors.

Second floor:

This floor had the most changes with shifting both the bedroom closets and the linen closet to their new home. The main bath was extended, and the original walk-in closet made smaller (I'd rather have a bigger bathroom than closet!). One thing you can't see in this plan is a small area of extra storage leading from the master bedroom in between the two dormer windows -- a nice bonus for unused space.

We also replaced the windows in the bathroom and bedroom next to it with larger ones, and boarded over the walk-in closet window (who needs a window in there?). And the master now has two windows instead of one -- and the new one faces out to the duck pond.*

*Minor note here: Apparently it's the start of mating season, so it's a bit of an R-rated view out that window right now. Dirty ducks.

The 'Before' Floorplans

It seems that I've missed filling all of you in on the actual layout of the house...a must when you're envisioning what it's like (and not slogging through it every day like us).

Here's the main floor:

This floor is home to a poorly laid out kitchen area, with an odd family room placement at the end. There's a glass sliding door that leads out to the rotting deck, but you can overlook it by staring out at the ravine view instead. (The yellow window I highlighted is actually a bay window shape, and not straight as shown above.)

The second floor:

Three bedrooms are up on the second floor. The walk-in closet off the master was originally home to a teetering wall of dog crates (smelly!). The closet situation in the two smaller bedrooms are not so great -- too long and a mishmash of shelves were inside.

Tomorrow I'll post our new plans, so you can see our grand ideas!

An Arch in the Bathroom

I saw this photo:

And there's going to be an arch in our main bathroom! I think it's going to add a bit of interest to the room. (There's also going to be a recessed light in the middle of the curve for a little extra BAM! while you shower.)

The Giant Spoon

(This lovely find will eventually have a home in the kitchen.)

The Banned Building

See that hulking bunch of timber and shingles in the mist? Well it's been red-flagged by the city we live in because the previous owners built it without a permit.

It's built of odds and ends (including tree stumps holding up one side). No wonder it's been marked as a big no-no with the city.

We have until the end of May to take it down and dispose of it. There are a few options available to us for the removal, and I'm rooting for the one that costs us the least money and time.

Everywhere a Duck Duck

Two Options for the Main Bathroom

I've been playing around with some tile choices for the main bathroom for a while, and I've finally put together a couple of sample boards to see if my picks work. I'm stuck between two floor tile choices -- but still open to ideas.

(Bonus points go to those who can choose the option with the tile that Trevor doesn't like!)

Our Big Decision

Stairs to the basement in scarier times.

We took some time recently to evaluate our budget (aka - the gaping black hole) and have made the decision to prioritize what needs to be finished in the house. It looks a little something like this:

• We're not finishing the basement (at least not right away). This was a bit of a sock to the gut because basement reno's can be quite disturbing to the rest of a finished house -- exhibit A:

(From our old house.)

We're going to take a few lessons we learned from that and order things like flooring and doors so that when we do have room in the budget and time to complete it, things won't look inconsistent with the rest of the house.

Hopefully this gives us a bit more wiggle room in the budget to get more important rooms completed in the other two levels of the house. *fingers crossed*