Popular Renovations Chronicle _ Year 2023

Over a month since my last post and we even completed yet another orbit of the sun!  Wishing you all a very healthy, peaceful, happy and wealthy new year!  May this New Year, a Rabbit one, be fluffy and cute and with only little turds! 🐇

The main work has been completed, a little before Christmas.  Is it done?  No, there are many (small) issues to be fixed yet.  But the bulk of it all is complete and after cleaning (again!) and putting lots of things away, we can now use our brand new and oh so beautiful kitchen.  The work that was done is beyond our expectations.

This was the kitchen the day we were moving in:

This is the kitchen, post renovations:

Can you see the difference?  Night and day, really!!  We have more cabinets, a bigger island, quartz, and now we can cook and store our shit away!

The other room where we had major work done was the main bathroom:

Haven't taken a bath yet in the new tub, but I will say that having a toilet back on the top floor is very, very nice and oh so practical!  Especially in the middle of the night!

Tomorrow some wallpapering is schedule to happen for the entrance and the water room... As for the last issues Dog knows when those will be addressed, I'm not holding my breath on those, but I will withhold final payment. 😉 

I think they were off still last week, so I'm hoping to hear from them this coming week, if not then they will hear from me!  We were supposed to have a man come in during the Holidays to fix part of the flooring in the basement, but he never called or anything.  Either he forgot or just didn't want to come back.  Since it was "extra" I'm not upset as we also needed the time off to crash, clean and unpack (again!) at our pace.  It was nice not to have to get up freakin' early to open the door to workers banging their way through the house.  The day we removed that blue carpet clingy thingy they had put all over the ground floor and stairs felt so darn good.  Even if the (original) floor is damaged (marks, dings, etc. did I mention animals lived here before?!) it was nice to actually walk from one floor to the other without hearing the crunching of little pieces of dirt, wall or whatever else and this even if we'd vacuumed.  I don't think I ever vacuumed in my life as much as I've done in this house so far!  Washing the floors, walls even (that fuckin' dust of demolition, sanding and wood cutting gets on everything and goes everywhere!) and actually having them stay "clean" for more than a weekend has been nice!  

We were/are both tired not to say exhausted from it all.  Managing our stress and life was/is a bit much at times, but we managed to keep it together.  We are thankful for how everything went overall because it wasn't a small job.  We basically had work in every room but one.  We love the designer's vision and how he made everything coherent from his choice of colors and textures.  We like how he respected our style and work with that.  We love the painter's work and how he repainted (the bathroom completely!) and other areas without bitching about it or overcharging us... We were lucky with the amazing contractor we had and his team (plumber and electrician).  Those men and one gal were super nice, efficient and did nice work all the while remaining helpful.

The one woman was the electrician.  That is her on top of the ladder in the stairs while installing the light fixture in the staircase, after one man tipped over and fell (nothing broken, thankfully)...  That gal was fearless. She got shit done.  She managed to pass wires in the basement's ceiling from one corner to the other side of the house without making any new holes!  It may seem like it's not much, but it not only save time from not having to redo gyprock on  the ceiling (then plaster, sanding, etc.), but the amount of dust we were spared from... that was no joke!  For that I'm VERY grateful!

I actually moved back to my office last Tuesday, to Hubby's delight.  We really don't share well! I'm slowly getting settled in my new space.  I'm setup as far as work is concerned, but for my craft I'm still working on it.  All in due time.  No rush, at least not for that!

So there you have it, the latest news on our Popular Renovations Chronicle!  

Take care, stay safe and watch out for morons!

They're everywhere! 

 

 

Day Toomany - Popular Renovations Chronicle

 Twelve days since my last post... time just flies when having fun or not, it keeps on going.  Construction being what it is, whatever traces are left from the pandemic and add to that our impatience to get things done, we find ourselves frustrated, tired and VERY short fused... mostly with each other.  I had been told renovations can be hard on a couple, and I can now confirm that is true.  Granted I start with barely any fuse on a good day, so adding stress and all this shit and well, things do get heated at times.  Moving on.

People have been bugging me (yeah bugging!) about how long it is taking me to unpack, to get things organized and since I don't control much into this whole process except how often I write checks or transfer funds really, it has been taking its toll on me.  Anyone who (has the pleasure to) knows me, knows that I'm organized and like things in their place.  This experience has been anything but...  Yes we have to keep our eyes on the prize.  We will have a beautiful home once it all done, but in the meantime it's a big fuckin' mess, really.

That being said, I do see that things are nice, what is done is beautiful, but with big projects like this we are bound to have things go wrong, like missing pieces, wrong measurements, etc.  Besides the bookcase in the basement and my office, things are not completed.  Here are some pictures to give you an idea...

Our walkin closet in the entry way, is missing a top on some drawer, no biggy.  Still managed to fill it out and have all our shoes, boots, etc. in one spot and by the front door!

Then on to the kitchen... We had chosen a quartz top which we were told was backordered, soooo we selected another one and it's not coming in before December 16th... so our kitchen, water room and bathroom have no counters... which means no sink nor faucets... The plumber was kind enough to 'lend' us an old sink and faucet on a piece of plywood so that we don't have to use the garage's sink when brushing our teeth or washing our hands or even doing the dishes...

As you can see, I've been unpacking anyway, storing things away and trying to figure out where things will go...  But no counter top means no workspace to prepare food or to stack things on while emptying a box... Fun I tell you!

In our bedroom the walkin is done, but also missing a pole, so still have clothes in Hubby's office, until I can hang the longer garments.

To think that starting on Monday, the painter is coming back to finish painting the basement and all the closets, that I will have to empty, again, I feel like rolling myself into a ball in a corner, suck on my thumb and cry a little... La madame est fatiguée!

At least my office is done, well mostly, the electrician still has to install some lighting underneath the top cabinets, and now I have the pleasure to unpack it all.  Between work and craft, there is a LOT of shit... 

But it will be so pretty and so organized once all set up, can't wait to get back to my crafts!  Work well... it is that, work! ;-)

And lastly our most damaged room, after the kitchen, our bathroom; still bath less and toilet less - but thank Dog we can shower - is in serious need of a complete repaint job...

So after the quartz has been installed (mid-December if everything goes well!), the contractor will come back to install the backsplash in the kitchen, finish up little things here and there, have the plumber come back to install all the sinks, faucets, tub and toilet and the electrician to install lights in the bathroom, kitchen, office and finish up the connection of every electrical outlets now being wires in a hole on different walls... and that does not even include the carpenter's visit to finish what was left unfinished because of missing pieces... or the gal to install the wall paper...  Yep things are progressing nicely!  ...just saying!

Day Eleven - Popular Renovations Chronicle

I think I'm too tired to do my daily report... things are moving along.  I see the progress and just now I finished vacuuming part of the ground floor because there was just too much saw dust for us at the moment...  This guy is a real fuckin' messy worker... and he's like a virus spreading around the whole freaking house...  I have my doubts he will be all done by end of day tomorrow... but time will tell...

Here is what our kitchen looks like at the moment...

I (I should say we, really!) will have so much storage!!! (doing a butt happy dance in my chair)  and part of my new and improved office... it will give me so much more space to create!

There is still lots to do, so many little adjustments... before everything is mounted and done... and I'm not even talking about the guys having to return to finish the tiling in the kitchen, re-installing our appliances... and me washing and FINALLY unpacking boxes!  

I'm hoping to be done before Christmas... 😟😫😭