Turkey, Elves and Presents!

Happy Holidays! I can't believe we are at the end of 2007. This has been such a busy year for us. Truthfully, I'm glad most of the reno's are over. The hard part is done. Phew. I hope 2008 is much less labor intestive.

We cooked our first turkey this year. It turned out great. Check out how golden brown that thing is!


We had lots of elves around the house this year. Maybe that is why we both got so spoiled with gifts this year. I think I got more presents than when I was a kid! Thank you everyone :)





Casey even finished the un-finishable puzzle!! I had to take a picture for photographic evidence!! I think it's been at least 4 years since someone has been able to put it together.


Paul was really good at finding all the comfortable spots in the house:





I'm SO close to posting bathroom pictures. Just waiting on the vanity doors to come.

Happy New Year everyone!!

Bad Blogger!

Yes, I have been a bad blogger. Hopefully I can get caught up this weekend with everything that has been going on.

The bathrooms are coming along, looks like we will just squeek in our Xmas target. Keep your fingers crossed.

We have had a toilet for a week now and I'm once again a happy person. Plus, our jet tub is working. I have been suffering for almost a year without one. Those who know me well, know I am a daily tub girl. Perhaps that's why I was so moody all this time....hmmmm.

We have started Christmas decorating, including the dogs who have a Santa and Elf outfit. Lights on the outside of the house are this weekends project. Neither of us have done it before.

It's full swing party season, we boycotted the company parties, but have still been busy with lots of other ones. Including the Chmilar and Associates Xmas party which was last weekend. The company was great, food was awesome and Santa even came. What more can you ask for?

Pics to come soon!

Not yet

Still no toilet, Still no plumber. Contractors are not good at returning messages. But, pics soon of the tiling. It's pretty much done!

All I want for Christams...

is a toilet on the main floor. Is that so much to ask for? I'm really getting annoyed with having to go to the basement to pee in the middle of the night. It sucks. Please Santa, I've been really good this year!

We had a busy weekend. Jim, Margaret, Baba, Donna and Ian came over for dinner on Sat. It was our first official dinner party in the new and improved house. Brent made is best ribs ever, and they were extra tasty. Baba's dog Cece got a little crazy in our back yard and came in looking like this (he's usually white):



Kristina and I made some Cranberry Orange relish on Sunday to give out as Christmas gifts. Then Brent and I headed out to Dolly and Marvin's farm for supper. It was so fun! I'm mad at myself for not bringing my camera. They have so many neat things out there. We took a ride on the dune buggy which was hilarous!

The bathrooms are well underway. We are having issues with the jet tub. It leaks and the repair man managed to make it worse instead of better. Hopefully that gets resolved this week. The vanities should go in this week too! Here are the latest main bath pictures:

The tiler did this in one day! The ceiling will be tiled as well:



Close up detail of the mosaic on the side:



Floor:

A week on my own

I LOVE the one weekend of the year when clocks get set back an hour, and this was it! Every minute of extra sleep counts. I fully make the most of it.

Brent left for Edmonton this evening, he is gone until Friday night. He's doing some training for work so I'm on my own. The house is eerily quiet when he's gone. I'm very thankful for the dogs (especially Winston) since he alerts me of any strange noises at night, and sounds a lot bigger than he really is when he's barking at the door. I triple check the doors, and scary movies are a definite no for the next few nights.

I don't know when I became such a scardey cat. I lived on my own for long enough and was never like this.

He also just happened to leave right when snow shovelling is necessary. Hmmmmmmm.

I'm back!

I've had pics to post for so long, I just have been a bad blogger. It's been a busy few weeks!

Hello to Jacqueline in Europe :) Hope you are having a great trip and eating lots of cheese and drinking lots of wine!

Here are the final pics of the new (and much improved) kitchen backsplash and the fireplace.

Before:



After:






The Fireplace Before:


And After! We are on the hunt for the perfect firescreen...


The bathrooms are underway as well. Drywall should be done Thursday at the latest, and tile is starting on Sat. Fri night will be spent priming the walls...oh weekends are just so wild arn't they!

A tub in the living room...how cool!



Current state of the bathrooms, this is the main bath, the ensuite is disasterous, so I'll keep it hidden:

Division D Champions

This weekend was Brent's flag football team (The Generals) semi-final and final games. They won both games and are the Division D Champions. Way to go Generals! Next week they play the divison C champions.

Brent plays both offense and defense. He LOVES it. They team played really well and it was really fun football to watch.

Number 10 from the sidelines


In an offensive huddle



The defense in action (Brent's brother Brandon)


Brent and Nnamdi after the semi-final win


The 2007 Division D Champs!

Phew!

My last blog entry and stress rant last night was due to a super high plumbing quote. It turns out Melinda (the interior designer) misread the quote, and it actually INCLUDED all of the bathroom fixtures. Talk about relief!

We had dinner on Sunday night at Aunt Eileen and Uncle Barry's place. It was so tasty. Thank you so much for having us over! They have been renovating their house and every time we go over there I get ideas. It's dangerous :) I wish I brought my camera.

On a different note, I have started running again. I thought I'd post it on here because if I tell people , then I'm more likely to stick to it. I go Mondays at lunch with a co-worker who is training for a triathalon. Then I'm trying to make it out 2 more times during the week on my own. Wish me luck!

I thought this was supposed to be easy

Warning: Potential stress vent below

We hired a designer to project manage our bathroom renos, since we wanted a break from renovating ourselves. I guess you could say I was our project manager for the kitchen/main floor reno. I just didn't know it. She's doing a great job, but here are a few things I have learned about using a designer:

1. I think trades see that you have used a designer, and jack up their prices because they think you can afford the big bucks. I actually thought we might save some money by going with her, since she gets discounts. Yeah...that was delusional.

2. You still have to approve everything, and it's still stressful. Especially if you are a control freak like me who hates feeling out of the loop.

3. It takes longer. You can't just do it, like you do when you are DIY. It feels like there are a zillion extra steps to everything.

I am hoping, now that work is supposed to start this week, that it is easy. I hope I don't have to deal with the problems (oh yes, there will be problems) and that she will take all that off my shoulders. After all, that IS what she is there for.

Perhaps I am just too involved, I'm going to try and take a step back and let her handle it.

Geologists are not good at math

That is a pretty general statement, but if you ask a geologist, most of the time it's true. I am a prime example it.

We are having our fireplace, backspash and back landing tiled. I measured everything, and triple checked my measurements. I ordered the tile, and everything was great, or so I thought. The tiler started working, and low and behold I needed an extra box of the fireplace tile. So, I ordered an extra box. While I was at it, I remeasured the back landing, and decided to order an extra box of that tile too. (Trying to be proactive).

That extra tile came in, and the tiler continued working away. Today, I find out we need another box of each one! Now, I admit, my math is bad, but wow...I must have been way off. I even factored in 10% for waste. I guess I chose the right profession if I'm this bad at math. I should have gotten my dad (an engineer) to confirm my measurements!

So, the moral of the story is, the tiling is not done yet. I'll post pictures as soon as it is!

(On a side note, I think tilers must be bad at math too. The one that did our first bathroom tile quote must have miscalculated by a few decimal places. I hope it was a mistake!)

Cory, Jason, Jason, Cory, Greg

Talk about confusion, it seems every guy we are working with on the house is Greg, Cory or Jason.

The bathroom cabinet guy is Jason, the owner of the tile company is Corrie. Corrie happens to have a worker named Jason who is installing the backspash at our house right now (yay). The guy who is doing our glass is Cory, he is also the captain of Brent's ex-hockey team. Brent couldn't get on that team this year, but he was able to get on another team, thanks to a different friend named Cory. The plumber is Greg, who went to highschool with Brent. However, he doesn't do ductwork, so we had to hire another plumber to vent our stove, his name was Greg too.

PHEW.

Bathroom Color Schemes

Here are the samples for the bathrooms. They are going to be so nice!

Main Bath:

-Background tile is for the floor and tub surround
- From left to right, limestone for countertop, mosaic tile for backspash and wall detail, cabinet color sample and paint color.




Ensuite Bath:

- Background tile is for walls, floor and most of shower surround
- left to right: cabinet stain color, mosaic tile for shower base and bench and vanity backsplash, paint color


The grey on the left, is the concrete color for the countertop. It's on a fireplace in the showroom:

bathroom shopping

First a quick and happy update about the kitchen. The installers are coming to finish the job on Monday. FINALLY!!!

Ok, onto the bathroom news...

I met Melinda (the interior designer in charge of our bathroom reno) at the bathroom fixture store today. We picked out everything. It was so fun. We continued to demo the bathrooms tonight, and got most of the work done. I think all that is left to go is the tub in the ensuite.

Warning, photo overload!!

Main Bathroom Stuff

Undermount sink that will be going in a limestone countertop:


Sink Faucet:



Tub Faucet, it's a jet tub, I just have to choose how many jets I want still:


Ensuite Bathroom Stuff

Sink, will be going on a concrete countertop:


Sink Faucet:


The tub in the ensuite is being removed, and we are replacing it with a shower only, that will fill the entire footprint of the old tub. There will be a bench on one side of the shower, and this shower system on the other side:


It has 4 body sprays, and the shower head can spray like a rain shower head (my favorite) or strong direct spray (brent's favorite):




Here's Brent working on removing the old drywall. This view is inside the main bath, looking directly through to the ensuite, where he is:


As usual, Winston supervised and Paul hid under the bed because of the loud noise:

Girl power

We had 2 new additions to our girls night last night. Kristina and Dionne came over with their little girls, Lily and Samantha. Here they are chillin on the couch.

Prune Yogourt

I reached for a yogourt this morning, and the only flavor left was prune. I didn't even know they made prune yogourt. Actually they snuck it in in a multi pack with the good flavors like Peach and Strawberry. How cruel!

We heard some news about our MIA contractor from my co-worker who was having him reno a few bathrooms. Turns out the contractor had some personal problems to deal with. I guess he is going to be returning to work on the bathrooms. We on the other hand have not heard from him. I mailed him a letter last week asking him to respond by Sept 10th. If we don't hear from him, I'll assume he's not coming back. I wonder if that means we get to keep his fancy miter saw and air compressor that is in our garage?

The bathrooms should get started the first week of October. Brent and I have to demo them this weekend (including all drywall and the ceiling!) They are mostly gutted already so it should be a quick job. The goal is to have them done by Christmas.

Fantasy Football season starts tonight. It's my 3rd year playing and I don't have that great of a track record. I'm learning a lot though, and it's pretty fun. Here's hoping for a great season. Go PULVERIZERS GO!!

Jasper

We went to Jasper for our anniversary. It was so beautiful and we got some much needed R&R. We stayed in a little bungalow on Patricia lake. I highly reccommend staying at Patricia Lake Bungalows if you ever head to Jasper, but book early, they were full every night. The scenery there is so breathtaking. We went hiking, white water rafting, ate a fancy meal at the Fairmont Jasper hotel, and did some canoeing on the lake. It was perfect, and best of all, we still have 5 days off.

THANK YOU to Jacqueline for babysitting the boys while we were gone!!! We really appreciate it.

Our cute little bungalow:



Canoeing on the lake:


Angel Glacier and a glacial lake at Mt. Edith Cavell:


Surfing!:



Athabasca Falls:


Rafting:


Friendly Wildlife:





Columbia Icefields:

No longer Newlyweds

We did it! We had an incredible first year of marriage and even survived renovating!!!!I really have been amazed at how much of a handyman Brent is. Plus, he makes me laugh constantly through what a lot of people would find a very stressful time. I really am a lucky girl.

We are off on a surprise trip this weekend for our 1st anniversary. I'm taking Brent somewhere for the week. I'd post where, but he might check the blog and it would spoil the surprise. All I'll say is that it is somewhere he has never been before.

Some pictures from our wedding, Aug 26, 2006:














And Ellen even wore a dress and was such a good sport all day: