We Have...

A home!

Here's the tour:

Le grande foyer. Okay, my french sucks.
This is the entrance and I wouldn't call it grand but it does the job. Not much to it. It's where you enter and exit the house. You can't tell in this picture but the door needs staining yet.

The view from the entrance into the great room. I took these pictures at the worst time of day, when the light was streaming in, so it's bit overexposed. Things are also a bit messy thanks to my little tornado named Sierra. Seriously, she is a tornado, as I clean up there's a new mess behind me - constantly! Anway, the couches are new - Italian Leather (finger pushing my nose into the air) and we are very happy with them. We went with quality because of how we know they will be treated. They even arrived on the day the store predicted back in December! Shock of all shocks.
The lack of separation between the living room and kitchen is different for me, everything feels close. I certainly am not unhappy with it it's just taking some getting used to.

The eating area.
It is bathed in beautiful morning sunlight which is exactly what I hoped for. The table and chairs don't match the rest of the house but I have one toddler and will likely have more so investing money into an expensive table that matches is probably like throwing money away. We had friends who bought a new dining room set and their toddler proceeded to pound an eating utensil into the top and add his own decoration to the finish.

My kitchen. I absolutely love this kitchen. I love the space, the arrangement, the colour - and the exciting part - all my stuff is neatly put away and I have tons of empty space!! This means I can buy more stuff - right?
The counter to the left is wonderfully large and awesome for cooking, and of course collecting clutter.
See the wine rack on the top left? Only three of those spaces are actually holding wine. It needs to be filled, an empty wine rack simply won't due. So I'm having a house warming party where everyone has to bring a bottle of wine. Is that selfish? I'll even serve crackers and cheese and fruit and attempt to be high class? I think I'll do it no matter if it's selfish or not. You're all invited by the way.
Oh and my grandma, who's become extremly opinionated and outspoken now that she's in her 80's, strongly hates the black appliances. I'm certain she believes anything black is of the devil. (She also hates my cat)


The hallway. By far my favourite part of the house. (Sense sarcasm now.) It shows what the doors are like anyway.

The green room. AKA - office. Trevor has this thing with interesting shades of green for his offices, our past two offices were subjected the same paint fate. But you know, I like it. This particular shade, if accented right, could even pass as a baby's room? (Insert opinion here and NO I'm not pregnant.) We just bought a fabulous desk at Costco but are waiting until Trevor's parents are gone (they arrive later today for six days) to set it up because it will not leave room for the bed. Oh, and do you like the nice pile of paper garbage I left for you all to see?

Our little princess's room. Cribs are ghastly bits of furniture to place in a room and we arranged this room five times before Trevor and I were mutually happy.

Trevor's and my haven. We can scarcely contain ourselves over the excitement of the size of our room. We can actually arrange the furniture in several different ways! Our previous bedrooms were all like jig-saw

puzzles where each furniture piece had only one possible spot and one angle in that spot.

The ensuite air-jet tub. The bubbles that thing produces are incredible! Lay back, hang on, and prepare to get water everywhere. Reading a book is a delicate task with the jets running but what can I say, my tub talents are amazing.
More about our bathroom: to left of the tub is a door and through that is a little room that is exclusively for the toilet. This was an insistence of mine. My toilet activities are private and I wanted the rest of the bathroom usable when such toilet activities are necessary. Hence, toilet house (as we have affectionately termed it). Directly across from the tub is the counter with his and her's sinks, another brilliant luxury. We have no mirrors yet but that's unimportant, who really wants to look at themselves anyway?

Last but not least: the master closet. It's not an easy thing to take a picture of a closet but imagine the left size as big as the right with a 6 level shoe rack behind the door. This closet is a woman's dream! Like the kitchen, everything is neatly put away and there is still tons of room. I sense shopping....who wants to come?

There you have it.
Well, I've not shown you the main bathroom, a bathroom is a bathroom but if you really want to see it let me know, or the basement. The basement is a maze of everything I didn't want upstairs and only at the drywall stage so it's not very exciting either, then again I did take a picture of our hallway didn't I? It's next winter's project.
This is the fruit of six months of stress and hair pulling. I'm lucky I'm not bald after this ordeal. We are truly and extremely happy with our home. It is everything we wanted. There is still lots to do but we're in. I can't wait to add the personal touches like candles (I can hear Trevor jumping up and down with glee at this one), other decorative bits, curtains, photos, and art work. That's the fun stuff and I want to take time and enjoy finding the perfect things.

One question that I know people want to ask me but are too polite to do so is:
"How in the world did you afford that house with you only working two days a week and Trevor only substitute teaching?"

I will answer that one soon.

I'm serious about the house warming party and the wine, it will be in early March we hope. If any of you are in Southern Alberta, Canada - let me know!

Can I hang on to this enthusiam for the next 18 years?

We can barely run water in the sink anymore and Sierra's got a stool pushed over and her sleeves up and she's ready to wash dishes. She's so enthusiastic with her washing that we've taken to removing her clothes for the activity. It's a bit awkward to get the dishes clean but Sierra has so much fun we always give in.

Mixed

Last week was a weird sort of week and today has begun promising to be similar.
1. My parents were in Mexico so we had the house to ourselves. It was a nice preview of life back on our own. I was a little worried about how Sierra would transition but after this week I think she'll be fine. She actually played better by herself than she has in a long time; she had to because there was no one to entertain her!
2. Trevor spent every free possible moment at our house working on the hardwood floor. This meant that I felt like a single parent. I was very much alone for the first time in a very long time. It was nice - "surreal, but nice."
The hardwood is looking great and worth the absence of a husband and should be completed today!
3. We started the week with balmy +16 C and ended with -20 C as a high.
4. People and situations everywhere were just plain odd. I had a patient at my job who came in with some concerns about the vision through her new glasses. She brought a wooden spoon along in order to keep one eye covered while repeatedly explaining what she was/was not seeing. I've been in the industry for ten years and this was a first. It was very difficult for us staff to contain ourselves and had a good laugh when the patient left.
5. I've started diligently working out again for the past three weeks and I managed to gain a pound last week!!! I thought I was eating okay to go with the working out but apparently not good enough. Grrrr.

P.S. Moving day is still scheduled for Saturday!!!!

Do(ug)h!

Being a curious and ever learning toddler, Sierra insists on "howping" with everything we do now. Today it was with baking cookies. It is very difficult to hold a 22lb child and attempt to put cookie dough on a pan. (Sierra won't sit on the counter - she stands up which makes me nervous and therefore I don't allow it anymore) So I had the bright idea to take things to her level, the floor. It was during this time that she first experienced the decadence of cookie dough.

Stirring like mommy.

Tentatively tasting.

Enthusiastically eating!

Relaxing and enjoying the end procduct!

A Sneak Peak

We had a really productive Saturday again and I'm getting very excited as everything is coming together. You'll get more revealing pictures in a few weeks!

Enjoy these for now.

The cabinets

The counter top

The floor in the kitchen and bathrooms

The red wall

The master bedroom (before final paint)

The ensuite tile

The office/spare room

Sierra's room

The doors.

The floor

19 Days...

It's late and I'm wishing for my bed but I'm waiting for Trevor to get home from working at the house and there's nothing even remotely worth my while to watch on TV.
It's 19 days until our move in date and they will be the busiest, most hard working days of this entire venture. We can do it if we work tirelessly on the house every possible minute - hence Trevor still there at 10:30 P.M. - and nothing else goes wrong.
(Knock on wood - I hope I haven't ruined everything by saying that!)

After two major meltdowns last week, one completely sleepless night, and a good talk with Trevor I think I'm okay. The end is so near I'm already planning how I'll arrange my kitchen! I suppose you could say there might even be a glimmer of excitement. It helped that we had a very productive Saturday with a new sense of teamwork and resolve to get this thing done.

I've pretty much selected my window coverings - a lovely pale, off white, woven fabric with a light tan thread throughout in Roman shade's for the main area. Basic, room darkening roller blinds that I'll dress up with curtains for the bedrooms. The price astounds me but I don't really like anything else.

The closet shelving people came today and oh, the possibilities! I've got this awesome walk-in closet that lends itself to oodles of great organizational possibilities. After living in chaos for over six months the idea of organizing sounds heavenly!

We hired a painter and she starts tomorrow. The lino is in and looks pretty good. The cabinets are all in and I LOVE them! The window and door trim is all on and painted and looks as good as we had hoped.

19 days folks! If you don't hear much from me - that's why.

As a break, Trevor, Sierra, and I also had a little family outing yesterday. We went swimming, then for fries and ice cream at McDonald's. It was a great little reconnect for the three of us.

A Story

One upon a time Trevor and Carla hired a company to insulate, hang the drywall, mud and tape the walls, and texture the ceiling of their new house. This particular company was selected based on their competitive price and good reputation.
The insulation goes in and the drywall goes up lickety split.
"All right, looking good," Trevor and Carla say to each other in the middle of November.
Next, the mudding and taping are completed and the ceiling is textured.
The ceiling looks like it was the guy's first day on the job. Head drywall guy is difficult to reach but after a number of attempts we do. Head drywall guy agrees that the ceiling looks bad. The original crew for that job disappeared so crew #2 comes in to redo the ceiling and finish sanding the walls. Delayed a two weeks with all this.
Head drywall guy then says, "yeah, my guys are done, go ahead and paint.
So Trevor and I put primer on all the walls of our house. As is customary, we then get drywall guy to get his workers back to repair any missed marks and holes in the wall. He says, "they're coming in two days."
They don't show up. We call again.
"Yeah, excuse, excuse, they'll be there tomorrow."
This time they show up and are there for a short while and declare themselves done.
Nope, they didn't sand. Some more phone calls to reach head drywall guy and after a few more days they sand.
Head drywall guy says, "You are cleared to continue painting."
The first coat goes on. Many, many more imperfections appear with the paint. How did they miss them? They apparantly went around a scrutinized the walls with a 200 Watt bulb!
Hmmmm. Trevor and I are quite annoyed and since we feel like we've been pestering head drywall guy a lot we proceed to repair some of the large ones ourselves; it is also over Christmas. Coat #2 goes on over many of the walls.
Finally, Trevor talks to head drywall guy and expresses our dissatisfaction with the repair work. Head drywall guy gets irritated that we didn't call him but sends crew #3 to the house. They patch up the walls in approximately 100 more spots. This of course takes more time.
With delay after delay and phone call after phone call Trevor's anger is mounting. Trevor finally snaps. The most patient accomodating man you'll ever meet has reached his limit. He lets head drywall guy hear about it. Head drywall guy attempts excuses with no success and finally offers the use of his painter for two days to make up for the situation.
"Okay, that's reasonable and it helps us out with the time factor," we say and feel better.
The painters are scheduled to come Monday. Monday arrives - no painter. On Tuesday Trevor gets a phone call from head drywall guy who says, "My painter refuses to do it because it's so poorly done thus far, you really shouldn't have painted so soon. Anyway, we can do your basement or garage if you want. "
Trevor replies, "You're the one who told us we could paint. I'll have to talk with my wife but the garage or basement really does't help us out."
Trevor and Carla talk and agree that it's time to fire head drywall guy and his crews. They aren't completely finished but Trevor and Carla are tired of dealing with him. Trevor speaks with head drywall guy and head drywall guy was also about to terminate the job so no more drywall guy. They have yet to meet and discuss the terms of settling the bill.
Trevor and Carla are now behind because there is a lot of work left in regards to painting that was not in the plans. Carla met with a professional painter this morning who has no problem with what was painted so far. Carla is awaiting a quote to see if this is a viable option.
Carla had a breakdown last night; she is completely done. She has no more in her to keep at this house in order to get in by January 31. It's not just the saga with the head drywall guy, it's everything combined that finally peaked for her. She feels like she's irritable and on edge and not nice these days and doesn't like it. All she wants is a break. Carla wants to be able to not think, talk, or do, house for a little while. She wants some family time with just Trevor and Sierra. Since Trevor has staunchly refused the option of pushing back the move in date this is not possible.
Carla doesn't know how she will go on.
She will though.
She has to.
At least Trevor and Carla are happy with the appearance of the house so far.

Not happily ever after.

The End.