No Pain(t), No Gain

Well, we're in the thick of it now. 

We decided to take on the chore of painting the entire house ourselves. We got some absolutely ridiculous quotes and just couldn't justify forking out that much money for something we're capable of doing on our own. 

Thankfully we have been SUPER fortunate to have great friends and family to come help. It doesn't hurt that they're actually excellent painters! 

A special shout out goes to Tracy for tackling both girls' rooms. They were the trickiest rooms in the house thanks to the turquoise ceiling and the wall paint colour that is just a touch off from the primer colour. But they turned out great and look professionally done!

We are so appreciative of all the help! 

So far we have used 20 gallons of primer, 6 gallons of ceiling paint and 3 gallons of wall colour. The ceilings are all done and we just have the walls left in all rooms except for the bedrooms. We're getting closer!

Hopefully we can get the trim and doors painted early this week so our finish carpenter can get started. 

Doors all ready to be painted dark gray. 

Everyone is super sore and achy from hours and hours of painting. We'll all be glad when this part is over!

Our tiling is all finished. It turned out so well. 

Main bath floor and tub surround. 

Ensuite shower. 

We had someone come out to measure for glass doors this week too. They should be installed in the next 2 weeks. 

Our garage doors should be getting installed Monday. I can't wait to see how the front of the house looks without plywood for garage doors! 

I wish our hardwood was ready... That's the only thing holding us up right now. As long as they're 100% ready to be installed by February 17th, we should be fine. Our installer is scheduled to come from the 18th-22nd. Fingers crossed! 

Wooden want anything else!

Our hardwood floors are in the kiln! Well half of them! They'll be there for at least a week, maybe even 2 depending on the moisture content. 

I went to see them while they are drying. I already love them!

The flooring manufacturer is going to make us up a few samples out of these pieces here

Once they're dry, they'll be tongue and grooved and ready for install!  We plan to do a very light sanding. We want to keep as much of the age spots and patina as possible, and then finish with a clear coating to protect them. 

The other half of our floors are here:

Still on the barn! They'll be coming down next week and going into the kiln too. I love the idea of using reclaimed wood. I am by no means a treehugger, I throw the occasional pop can into the garbage, oops! But I do have a fascination and love for old things. I am amazed at the construction and level of detail given the lack of modern technology. 

We had a few big beams milled into flooring too... Here are some of the pieces. There's a few pieces of cedar mixed in there that aren't ours. 

Anyway... That's the update on our floors. I plan to go watch/help and take pictures of the actual milling and tongue and grooving process. More on that later!

  

Interior/exterior update

I struggled to come up with a catchy title for this one...

The house is coming along! 

The siding is 2/3 done... 

All those shakes we stained are up too

I'm so glad we went for real cedar. The colours are amazing. We plan to stain the timbers a bit darker in the spring. We used the same stain for both, but they're two different species so we were expecting to have to redo it. We just wanted them stained and protected for the winter.  

Our back timbers SHOULD be up in the next few days. But I've been saying that for weeks it seems...

On the inside, all the mudding and sanding of drywall is done. So once we clean all the dust off the ceiling and walls, we'll be ready for primer and paint! 

Jake bought a sprayer so hopefully it will move things along faster! We want to paint our basement ceiling/floor trusses black eventually so it will definitely be needed for that!  I found this picture on Houzz and we both love the idea. 

On to even more exciting progress... We have some floors and tub/shower surround up!

This is our mudroom floor. We bought these tiles for $0.30/tile at Home Depot. We decided to lay them on a diagonal/diamond pattern to make them more interesting and I'm pretty happy with them!

Our ensuite shower so far...

I love this little alcove! I feel like I'll need to buy some fancy shampoo now. 

The floor in our main bathroom turned out so well. We absolutely love it. Now we're considering using the same, only black, for our basement laundry room. But that's a DIY project for down the road. 

I'm excited for it all to be grouted. Our installer said he'll be done by Wednesday. Yay!

Stairway to... The laundry room!

Our stairs are in!!! Yay! Finally we don't have to climb up and down a ladder that barely reached the top! Totally safe :)

Our stairs were made by the same guy who's doing our kitchen and bathroom cabinetry and fire place mantel. So far, I'm really impressed!

We went with rustic hickory treads and we'll be painting the risers black. It's all unfinished now and we'll need to stain/oil and paint them ourselves. 

It's hard to see because they're all protected, but there is lots of colour variation in the wood, which I love!

You can see how giant these stairs are... He installed them by himself! That's right, just 1 guy. I was there, but I was almost afraid to watch!!

Our basement is going to be unfinished for a while, except for the laundry room, but we faked it because the staircase is open. There's drywall all the way down, and along the wall directly in front of the stairs. 

We'll put a piece of carpet down there for now and nobody will ever know! Except for anyone who reads this blog and anyone who comes over :)

The outside is progressing well too!

The drywall will be 100% done tomorrow and our flooring installer is starting the tile work at the end of the week.

Jake and his Dad worked hard all day today to get our floors ready for tile. 

Our trim is being delivered on Friday so we can start painting it. Doors will be delivered the following Friday and we'll hopefully start painting early next week!!  

I can't believe we're painting already! Woohoo! The end is in sight!

Stress and Siding... Not related.

What should I start with? Stress? Might as well... Because it will likely be throughout this post anyway!

Things are starting to get really stressful as we near the end. If I thought it was stressful before, I had no idea what I was heading into! 

Our drywall is all hung and the taper worked all weekend and is almost finished as well. The house is really starting to look good! (Trying to maintain a positive attitude :) )

When we decided to build this house ourselves, we never really thought about all the little things we'd actually end up doing BY ourselves.  When it came time to hanging drywall, there were all these little spots that needed blocking and strapping so they had something to actually attach the drywall to. Our framer had done a pretty good job of getting most spots, but not all of them. So we attempted to do things on our own. Keep in mind, we work the exact same schedule, and it's the WORST possible schedule for accomplishing anything. 

We had to work on these small projects between our 3 night shifts with little sleep, little patience, little skills and lots of grumpiness. 

We didn't get it all done. So areas were drywalled, and yesterday was spent taking the drywall down in these areas... Ugh. Thankfully it's just the garage that we didn't get time to finish, but it still annoys the hell out of me that we didn't get it done. So now, we are going to have to buy new drywall, hang it ourselves, tape and mud it ourselves. After paying for professionals. But not before we add more support for the garage door brackets behind the drywalled areas. And hopefully we get this done before our garage doors arrive this week. Oh have I mentioned that our schedule this week is days Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we're off (but I have the girls so I can only be available between 9:30-3) and then we work Friday, Saturday and Sunday days followed by Monday and Tuesday nights. Right. Plenty of time. 

Have I also mentioned that my house has now sold and we need to be out of here by February 11th? So add packing/storing an entire house in that schedule too. $&@!#!!!!! If you see me, and I have no hair, it's because I pulled it all out. That could be true about my eyelashes too... They seem to be the first to go when I'm stressed. 

We are also painting our new house during this time. That should only take a few hours, right? It's about all I've got left, once I give up sleeping and eating for 3 weeks. Annnnnd I should probably move onto siding now, because I'm getting chest pain thinking about everything that has to happen with no time to do it in! 

Siding... It's up! Not all of it, but I'd say 1/3 of it. And I LOVE it!! 

We are using James Hardie fiber cement siding. The body of the house is called Iron Gray. I know what you're thinking, it should be called Iron Blue! I agree, but I love it all the same :)

The trim around the windows and doors is also James Hardie and it's called Cobblestone. I am so happy we went with it over a stark white. 

I have no idea when they plan on being finished with the siding. They're super nice (and funny) guys. But they don't move very quickly! It's also been bitter cold most days so I don't blame them. They've been at the soffits, fascia and siding for 2 weeks now... at this rate they should be done around May 2-4. ;)

I guess I should get off my butt and start packing... I've taken all the pictures off of my walls, but that's about it! Maybe I should get a job with the siding guys! My hours would be better... 

Clean Up in every aisle!

Our house is soooooo full of garbage!! 

We have not been diligent in cleaning things up as we go along. That's usually because the dump trailer always seems to be full and trapped in by 100 vehicles. 

And now it's actually frozen to the ground. So much for that!

Just a bit of garbage laying around...

So we got a dumpster to finish the job! Guess what we're doing this weekend? :)

There it is! Time to fill it! I took out a bunch of garbage from the main floor today and swept out the master bath and master bedroom. Only a few more rooms to go! Too bad you couldn't return Tim Hortons cups like you can return beer bottles... 

Now accepting applications for cleaners and painters. Will pay in baked goods! :)

It's almost time to decorate!!

Our goal when we first decided to move was to find space. Jake wanted space for a detached garage/workshop. I didn't want to move into a smaller house than what I'm in now. And I didn't want to move into a step down just for more grass either. I love my current house. I built it (with a builder) and I picked everything the way I wanted it. I made upgrades, and after 2.5 years, I wouldn't change a thing. Our neighbours are by far THE BEST. I can't even put it into words how great this neighborhood is. From day one, we've been included in beer pong nights, Halloween and New Years parties, Fires and BBQs. You need help with something? Or borrow a tool? Someone on this street would be willing to help you out in a heart beat, if not sooner! Our kids play together... And sometimes go missing at each other's houses (sorry!!).  They spoil us by letting the dog out in the middle of the night while we're at work. Where else can you get this?!  I moved into a town where I knew practically no one, and it became home. I've actually never felt more at home as I have here. I'm really going to miss it!!

Anyway... Where was I going with this post?! :)

When we started looking at houses way back when, I could imagine how I'd renovate and decorate it almost immediately after walking through the door. I was excited to decorate!!

With this house, I have spent so much time focusing on the bones, that I've spent very little time thinking about all the finishing touches!  Can you believe that I don't even know where to put my couch?! Eek! This is so not like me. 

We've narrowed down paint colours. We're using Benjamin Moore Chantilly Lace for all trim. It's the same colour as our kitchen perimeter cabinets. 

Our walls will be Benjamin Moore Barely There. It's an off white with a grayish tinge. That's right, every single wall in the house will be the same colour. Sounds boring... But just wait :)

We picked a fairly plain door and thanks to Houzz, I'm feeling adventurous and am painting them Benjamin Moore Raccoon Fur. 

Our doors are called Maddison by Jeldwen. They have a very plain, yet retro look to me. 

Wide awake on Sunday night at 2am (thanks to a snow plow!) I bought our first "decorations" for the house. 

Since our bedrooms are all going to have hardwood flooring I wanted to get some large area rugs. But 8x10 rugs are expensive!

I have an 8x10 rug in my house now that I bought online from Urban Outfitters and it was $200. I thought that was as cheap as I was ever going to find one so I went to that site again. I hit the jackpot!! I got 3 8x10 rugs for $212!! Amazing!

The girls rooms will be painted the same colour as every other room, but their ceiling is going to be painted Benjamin Moore Jamaican Aqua. 

Ta-da! Finally some excitement!

And they both got the same 8x10 rug. 

 

For $50!!! I wanted to wake Jake up I was so excited!!

I'm going to paint a couple of chandeliers a really bright turquoise as well and their beds will be painted either bright yellow or bright peach/pink. 

Tatum in her new room!

Rylan in hers!

The 3rd rug I bought is gold/burnt yellow. I haven't decided if it should go in the great room to add some colour with my black couch or in our room. 

$100!! If you need rugs, go now!! 

Our room will have a black iron bed... Eventually. It was a kijiji find and it's currently green!  And the inspiration for our room is a wool Hudson's Bay Pointe Blanket. 

Our bedrooms are almost taken care of... Now to get my mind working on the rest of the house!