Attic conversions = vaulted ceilings!

Seeing this picture made me wonder if we could remove the attic from our (future) second floor and have vaulted ceilings like this house. I did a little google research, and it's possible -- just some insulation and venting needed, drywall as well and -- oh yeah, a whole lot of demolition. But look at what's possible!

*Please note the fabulous use of GREEN as well!

via Apartment Therapy

Winner winner

I'm a little late on the drawing for the giveaway...but here's the results:

Mrs_Merriman, come and claim your book! :)

The bedroom

Our bedroom was one of the first rooms we tackled in the reno. It used to be beige, with a long black shelf over top of the bed, and no bed frame. Very bachelor-chic. (And then I came along and threw the bachelorhood out the window.) The best part about this room is that it's budget-friendly: the entire wall of drapes are from Ikea, as are the tables and bed frame (so many people have this bed frame!). The dressers are from Trevor's childhood bedroom, and we splurged on the glass lamps (Urban Barn).

I love the red gerberas against the wall colour.

Calm blue ocean artwork...they fool me into thinking I have a fancy view.

A little greenery goes a long way, and some photos from our trip to Europe last October. (Oh, and that white blobby thing is an oversized porcelain diamond shape.)

How about a giveaway?

Packing is now underway in the house, and as I go I'm going to have a few giveaways along the way. First up -- 'Getting Organized' by Stephanie Winston. Seeing as I won't need this book any time soon (we're talking months here), I figure it won't be missed, and my boxes will be one book lighter (Trevor thanks you).

Rules for entering: Inspire or horrify me with your tale of organization, or lack of -- either will give me hope in the coming months (and I'm going to need it...coming up in future posts I'll shock you with the mess we have facing us at the new house).

Winner will be chosen Monday July 13th via a random number generator.

And so it begins...

We bought a house.

It's been a bit of a crazy ride getting everything sorted out the past few weeks (hence the lack of posting), but we signed our names on the dotted line yesterday and ponied up the cash for a deposit for our little piece of the world. Okay...maybe it's not so little. I should start by telling you what our initial requirements were:

- We wanted a fixer-upper on a larger piece of property (1-2 flat-ish acres), in the city we live in now (my big requirement), far away from the freeway (we're done hearing the cars whoosh by where we live now), oh, and within our budget. As you can see, nothing really overly picky or specific because with a little (or a lot) of work we can change things.

What we bought:

- A fixer-upper all right. This place is only 21 years old but has been seriously neglected. But, structurally everything is great -- so a big sigh of relief there. It needs a new roof, and a ton of cleanup (and a lot of other things).

- It's um, big. Like, bigger than the initial big we were thinking. 5 acres big. (We're going to become farmers. Seriously: farming = tax benefits! Farming of what has still to be decided, but options are hedge cedars, honeybees, hay...)

- It's in the city we currently live in (YAY!).

- It's far, far, FAR away from the freeway, and on a quiet road.

- It's in our budget. We negotiated a good price. leaving us money to fix the place up.

Here's more of the photos from the listing:

Yes, there's a pond. Yes, we have ducks. (cool!)

Horses not included. We're not that rural...yet.

Little bit of the garden.

A lot more of the garden. (Wait, at this point do I still call it 'garden'?)

Another view of the house. At this perspective it's a lot less scary and run down looking.

Stay tuned, things are going to get really interesting around here. (August 19th we get possession.)

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.