Before and After :: Living Room

Living Room

Before

This photo is from the original listing and has the previous owner's stuff. But it will give the idea.

We painted and added curtains. The panels are just brown and from Ikea. I do have a creative touch I would like to add, but that will wait.

Before and After :: Kitchen Floor

Kitchen

These pictures of the kitchen are from the listing. The old owners stuff. But you get the idea of the before.

Then you may remember the updates we did when we first moved in. Mostly new paint.

Before

We pulled everything apart (at what seems like the same time - note the toilet in the kitchen from the bathroom flooring). We reinstalled the toilet and sink and then started on the floor one Monday.
I thought for a long time that we would tile. We brought home samples of Dura-Ceramic and I asked your opinion on what looked the best. We brought home samples of other tile as well. But I think I put off the decision because I really didn't want tile. It's cold and hard and the tile we had in the last apartment was terrible. It has left a bad taste in my mouth. It was always dirty and stained terribly. So we decided on hard wood. I couldn't be happier with it. It is an engineered wood, so it should work well in the kitchen. It is designed to stand up to water better than solid wood and is treated with a polymer top coat to protect from scratches.

The first row.

You can see all of the dishes from the China Cabinet all over the counter. Renovation is messy work.

Glamorous picture. Me in pajama pants and knee pads, recycling bins on the counter and Christmas tree in the background with all the boxes of wood laid out.

Charlie didn't seem to mind all the commotion. He really wanted to help, he had his nose in everything.

Here is Logan returned from the basement. We had set up the mitre saw downstairs because the temperature had dropped and it was too cold outside (like the tile saw on the deck several days earlier). He kept track of his trips, I think it was 104 round trips.

After

Before the new baseboards

Complete
I love the new baseboards.

Before and After :: Powder Room

Powder Room

In preparation for Christmas we did a number of home renovations. One of the first places we have really conquered (more than just paint) was the main floor powder room.

Before

You may remember what it looked for before. 10 year old lino, stained wood crown molding as a chair rail, wood toilet seat, toilet paper holder and towel bar.

We decided to tile. 16"x16" porcelain tile. Logan put down the mortar and I laid the tile.

After 24 hours of jumping from the kitchen to the living room Logan did the grout.
The toilet and the sink were in the kitchen for what felt like forever. We even had Dan stay over night for a job interview with the new fixtures in the kitchen.

After 48 hours we sealed it and the floor was done.

After the floor was ready we started painting. I figured that with the dark colour already on the bottom we should probably do two different colours again. The bottom colour is two shades darker than the brown colour in the kitchen.

The top colour is the same as the brown in the kitchen.

Here it is finished. New towel holders, new faucet, nice chair rail.

I think it looks great. On the wall is the candle holder from the gift exchange.

Christmas Exchange

On the 15th we hosted our 2nd annual Christmas exchange. It was also the warm up to Christmas as we hosted 12 people for dinner.

Jason, (Charlie), Stef, Craig

Tyler, Jen, Logan

Jason, Megan, Jonathan

Raveigh

Cris

And myself

We did pot luck, I supplied the roast and everyone else brought the fixings. The food was delicious, the mood was festive and Charlie wore his Santa Hat.

We had a gift auction that was very tame this time around. Logan, the game hater, picked the only game in the pile.

And I walked away with a gift that we put in. A fun geometric, wall mounted candle holder. It was a coveted item as it was stolen three times. It stayed here and is now hung in our newly renovated bathroom.

One of the gifts (the other that we put in) was Twister. We had a rousing game.

Winter Weather

Yesterday winter really began. It was wild. Stef and I were out Christmas Shopping and it was snowing like crazy. There were winter storm warnings on the radio, "10-15 cm of snow". There was quite the snow drift in front of our door when we returned.

Logan worked at 5:00 and I had a show. So I dropped Logan off at work at about 4:15 and hit the Deerfoot. From Country Hills Blvd to Beddington (the very next ramp), it was regular winter driving. Not that bad, just snowy. That is where the driving ended. I didn't move faster than 20km the whole trip. The road was packed with people just rolling along. I was pretty relaxed, I had left myself an hour and a half to make my 25 minute drive. I started to get a bit angry when the three lane Deerfoot suddenly had four lanes. Okay, no one really knows where the lines are. But then the taxi pulled out of the "fourth" lane and created his own lane. That is when my temper started to rise.

I had to be at work at 5:30. At 5:28 I pulled off the Deerfoot onto Memorial and came to a stop. A solid stop for the first time my whole trip. It took me over 20 minutes to make it off the ramp. At this point I was attempting to call the theatre and let them know. Well, my phone rang busy and said "network busy". Great.

I finally pulled into the parking lot at 6:18. Two hours after I set out. Nearly an hour late.

A house upside down

As the days tick away toward Christmas we add more decorations and more cheer. I know that I haven't posted pictures of the newly painted living room. But that may not happen for a few more days. Everything is a bit upside down and a mess and we continue to spruce up the house.

We couldn't put up the Christmas Tree until we had painted. Now that that is done we moved onto Christmas in the living room. Tree first.

I picked up a barrel of ornaments from Michael's of red, green and silver. I love my cylinder vases and the ways it can change for the season.

We have had the outside Christmas lights up since Nov 1. We thought that with the weather still being nice we should take advantage.

You may have noticed the amount of snow in this picture. Sunday we had a bit of a blizzard. I believe we racked up somewhere between 5 and 10 cm of snow. It was quite the day.

Charlie enjoyed the snow. We let him out onto the untouched blanket on the deck.
He seems to like the snow. You may not be able to tell.