Yes before I get anymore phone calls or e-mails I know I'm exceedingly slow on writing up this post (three months). So what goes on around here in three months well....
April 2015 the month of money
Before stain and endless coats of poly
April turned out to be the most frustrating of the renovation (as proven by my blogging absence). It wasn't exhausting or even heart wrenching it was just calling ourselves out and putting on a couple new roofs that we never planned for nor budgeted for. We had our buddy Jim do the work, and damn did he do a good job, but double damn it still set us back. Other finishes have been happening around here too. Things like staining the bathroom and bedroom doors and other miscellaneous tedious things. The counters went onto the cabinets in April as well and all the hardware, plumbing and a couple fixtures went up. Things are finding their place more and more everyday.
After
My pretty sink (the colour is truffle if anyone cares)
Putting the new (extremely fancy) sink into the new countertops was one of the most nerve racking moments I've had during this impossible renovation task. I chose to go all out and buy the granite sink because it's so pretty. Holy shit it wasn't that big when I picked it out. See those little white dots those are the knock outs for your taps or whatever you decide to add onto the sink. The way you make those holes is to hold a dowel on them and smash it with a hammer.... it says in the instructions that no matter if you follow them, if you break it it is not the sinks fault.... well shit. Luckily for us Jeremy is a super genious with a hammer so we are good.
May 2015 the month of lost time and that feeling of helplessness you just can't shake
May was just a black hole. Working for real money really blows. Jeremy got swamped by seeding and left the majority of the bathroom (almost the last room!) in my hands. Now I'm not adverse to a chunk of demo but as anyone who has ever read this blog before may remember the layers here are just phenomenally incomprehensible. Layers of plywood, lino, blown in insulation, ship lap, batting insulation, drywall, extra walls, and built in cabinets. Add the thickest layer of nails (I'm not joking I had a layer of nails) as thick as my wrist (that is an exaggeration) and yeah it was super fun. Now I could be just a little disillusioned with demolition.... OK fine I'm just tired of it all. But with that in mind it did get done.
Finished Roof of the Studio
Here is a clean photo of the kitchen
Although we have had a rough month I am loving the new kitchen. When we first installed the cabinets and doors we did have one really big problem, they were pink. Not bright pink but just pink enough to make you look twice. After a long deliberation we decided that pink wasn't the end of the world and if it really got to us we could just wait for summer and paint them. So we bit the bullet and put the counters on. Once the counters were there it's like the cosmos came together and my cabinets didn't even have an iota of pink. I know it's there but luckily enough no one else seems to see it.... If you do I really don't want to hear about it.
Missing from the above photo is my new custom built (by Jeremy) island countertop.
June 2015 just another month to loose the mind
So that brings me to June, another black hole if I don't say so myself (and I do). It has only just begun but now with the rebuild in full swing I'm hoping we start to feel that high of accomplishment. It just keeps looming everyday as I step over more boxes and more building supplies just to get in the fridge I can't help but feel the desire to just break for the boarder.
The bathroom progress although slow is coming on daily now. We have all of our materials so hopefully we can stop bleeding money (for a while at least). With mudding and taping drywall around the corner I should really wrap this gigantic update up and get at it.
Well, as February carries us closer to the ever elusive Spring, our spirits are bolstered by some fairly serious progress towards civility. Jeremy took a long and probably arduous trip to Edmonton at the end of January to pick up the second half of our kitchen cabinets. Where upon he was also under instruction to pick-up (if he could...) a door, lights, tile, and all sorts of hoopla. With many phone calls and photo e-mails and about 16 hours of shopping he made it home with all the essentials... he managed to cram 1500lbs of tile into the back seat of his truck!
I am very impressed by his tenacity, as I could only have handled about 3 hours at most. Thanks to Jeremy's cousin's hubby Rob in Edmonton for being an awesome interior-decorating wingman, hanging out in Tile and Lighting stores with Jeremy for an entire (very long) Saturday!
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I know I have been more than vocal about my kitchen floors (it still hurts). Cutting them out was extremely hard, I have trouble envisioning the completed project without them.
Unbelievable, that this is only one area.
It has taken us so long to get up to the resurfacing of the renovation because of all the things that go on behind the scenes, or walls in this case. Things like puzzling through the literal rats nest of wires that existed in the basement. To properly give an idea of what I'm talking about, imagine NEVER tripping a breaker when the fridge, microwave, toaster, and truck block heater (at -40C) are all on the same circuit. A disaster waiting to happen indeed.
Jeremy, with his OCD in overdrive, has remedied the situation, rewiring the entire house and bringing it into the proper century and up to code to boot.
In Progress...
I have been desperately trying to get the drywall done (motivation being my biggest opponent), and with Jeremy at my back the entire time asking if I'm done yet it has been a rough go. Luckily my mother came for a visit and helped to drive the project forward... until we had a beer or two.... Oh well, I don't get to see her enough as it is, so to hell with renos for a while. Life can't come to a halt... well, a complete halt anyhow. We did end up getting the drywall sanding done, yelling across the house with the shop vac going. A good visit all in all.
Under the disaster of a hardwood floor there was shiplap. More than enough strength to support my new beautiful tiles, once Jeremy glues and screws a plywood subfloor on to it. I am really happy with the huge variation in the tiles and I think the cupboards are going to work really well.
So:
Complete Painting (pick a colour... Ugh)
Lay Tile and Grout
Build Cabinets
Install Cabinets
All the other little crap in between.
Photo just doesn't do them justice...
So that is were we stand with all of our excuses. Ever re-frame an entire wall to move a door over by one inch?... Its ridiculous and oh so vital. Crawl into a space where no human should go to pass wires through a tiny hole you can't really see? Cry with a prybar and a hammer in your hand (don't answer that)? But as the days get longer we get more and more done. Its only a matter of time (4 weeks) before.... well who knows.
Yes before I get anymore phone calls or e-mails I know I'm exceedingly slow on writing up this post (three months). So what goes on around here in three months well.... 
