Move. That. Tree!

We have lived in this house for 3 1/2 years now and in that time I've done a lot of projects. I've taken the deck off the back of the house (read about it here), I've updated the kitchen and the bathroom (read about it here and here), renovated the whole basement (read about it here) plus dozens of other projects. I've never tried anything when I was 9 months pregnant though. Last night I had a sudden burst of energy and since my husband was home and cleaning stuff up around outside, I decided to do something that has been on my "wish list" for a while. Cut down a tree and bush at the front of our house.

The front of our house has looked like this for years:

There was a random Manitoba Maple (I don't know what you call it in the U.S.) that was growing up out of a scraggly bush. It blocked part of the driveway and the walkway into the house and just looked terrible.

Here it is from another angle:

The tree was growing nice and straight and tall. Just in the worst place possible.

I set up my sawzall and got to work. There was no way I could've cut it down with an axe. There were too many parts of the bush. I basically cut it down piece by piece. My husband dragged away pieces of the brush as I cut them off and in about 45 minutes I was done. I don't know what I put it off so long.

Here are the afters:

Now you can actually see the front of the house! There is still a bit of work to be done with pulling up the root system so I can plant grass there, but that can wait for another day when I have some more energy. In the meantime, every time I look out the front windows, it looks so much more bare! And clean!

And because we all like the dramatic side-by-sides:

What have you been up to lately? Any big projects that you've finally tackled?

Let There Be Bathroom Light

Sometimes I think that our home renovations will never get finished. At least for my basement, and deck, and pretty much every part of this house. Part of the problem is that I have two toddlers and it's hard to get things done, and the other part of the problem is that my husband is rarely home to be able to do those things for me.

My bathroom has been a storage room for a year now. Kind of depressing.

It's a little frustrating but I know it's a part of life, right??

Over the weekend, we did get a few things done. We were wandering around Home Depot (love that place!!) and found a deal on bathroom wall sconces that we couldn't pass up. All the way to the checkout and home, my husband joked about how we would set the box in the unfinished bathroom and in about a year or so, he would have time to get them up. I joked along thinking to myself that it was probably more true than not.

We got home and later that afternoon, my husband surprised me by taking them out of the box and installing them for me!

No one is more surprised about this than me and I think they look fantastic!

They look a little off in this picture, but I promise they are straight!

That is one less thing on our to-do list. Here's what the rest of it looks like:

- find a mirror
- install the sink, countertop, and faucets, and hardware on the cabinet
- install the toilet
- touch up the paint on the walls
- finish putting the trim up
- install a drop ceiling and pot lights

So really, there are more things on the list than we've accomplished. But in my mind, every little bit helps!

Have you finished any little home renos lately? Tell us about them!

First Impressions

Doing something with my front entryway has been on my list for a while. 3 years to be exact. Since it is the absolute first thing you see when you come in my house, I wanted it to be clean and fresh and organized. The original owners had put some vinyl down that maybe was attractive (or just cheap!) in its day, but just wasn't cutting it anymore. It was starting to rip in the corners and no matter how I scrubbed, it looked dirty all the time.

When we had bought the tile for our basement renovation, my husband made sure that we got enough for the front entry as well. Smart thinking right? Well it was smart, but unfortunately, it sat in our garage for over a year.

Over the weekend, Heidi's husband Jesse graciously stepped in and offered to tile the rest of the floor for me. He. Is. Awesome.

Gavin, Bella, & Sienna making sure that Jesse's doing his job.

He ended up doing the whole thing in just a few hours. Talented, right?

I'd have to say that it changes the whole look of that area. It's still waiting to be grouted, but it still looks fantastic.

The view from the top of the stairs.

You can definitely tell where the trim is missing in this picture. But it just looks so pretty!

Step one for that area is complete. Here is what the rest of my list looks like for that area:

- tile the floor
- repaint the trim
- paint the walls
- put new treads on the stairs to the basement
- find a new ceiling fan

A few of these things will have to wait till the spring when it's a bit warmer around here, but I'm hoping to tackle a few of them before the end of February. We'll have to see how it goes. In the meantime, I'm going to be gazing at the floor in adoration.

{DIY} Coffee Bar

If you have ever had to bake on your stove, had no room for clean or dirty dishes on your kitchen counter, let alone leaving your coffee maker on the counter, you will love what I'm going to show you. 

On Monday, Melody showed you some amazing family pictures that our sister Sara took for them (she took these ones too. Call her if you are local and want some family pictures!). Sara also got married this past summer and she and her husband moved into a tiny rental house. Cute, but tiny, with little kitchen counter space.  

The kitchen did have a space that had nothing in it. The previous owners used it for a small eating area, but Sara and Aaron decided to put their dining room table somewhere else. So that left an awkward space in the kitchen. 

They decided to use the space to build a small coffee bar with storage below.
(Have you noticed that designated coffee spaces are really popular right now?) 

Our dad owns a kitchen cabinet company, and these cabinets were leftover from a kitchen reno. In other words: free! 

Aaron took the doors off the cabinets and sanded down everything before painting the doors and trim with latex paint in Espresso.

With the counter top, Aaron rounded the edges of 2x6's* and glued them together. He then took a belt sander to boards and stained the boards before putting a glossy varnish on top. 
*update: Aaron actually cut off the rounded edges of the 2x6's. Since I'm not a  carpenter, I didn't know the difference. Oops!* 

After accessorizing the space with bars and hooks from IKEA for their mugs and different types of tea (Sara loves her tea), the coffee bar was open for business!

I love the transformation from those old cabinets to this beautiful, much needed counter space!

What's your favourite part of this great DIY project? Can you believe that the handles on the cabinets look completely different, although they are the same? 

C'est Fini!

Translation: our bathroom is finally finished! There are two minor details that still need wrapping up - a new shower rod and taps for the sink, but we can live without those being updated until the funds are back in town. 

Before I show you pictures, I do have to apologize on the lighting. Not our new fixture, but the lighting of the pictures. It's kinda gloomy here today, but I couldn't wait any longer to show you the final product! 

We kept the same shower curtain and it works great. I haven't seen any others that have caught my eye, so I probably won't change it. Like, I said before, we are going to look for a new curtain rod though, since this one has edges that the hooks catch onto and then you can't pull the curtain across without a lot of tugging. 

We did get new fixtures for the shower and I love them. The shower head is large and similar to a rain shower fixture, without all the extra plumbing hassle. I frosted the windows with stick on film that we bought from Home Depot. Not too shabby for peel and stick. 

We found a really good deal on shelves and after being worried that they might be too much for the space, we both decided that we really liked them. They add some much needed storage to our tiny bathroom and a place for little decorative items too. 

I filled two plain black frames with some pretty scrapbooking paper and pulled out of our linen closet the pretty containers that I knew someday would be on display again. 

If you look in the mirror, you can see the opposite wall where we hung four hooks for towels. Now they don't have to be draped over our bedroom door to dry! Everyone has a place for their own towel.

And now the best part, before and after pictures!

We are so happy with it being done. Now we can actually enjoy having a clean space as we get ready in the mornings. No more worrying about mold issues or cracked tile. Everything is clean and fresh. 

Happy Friday! 

Renovation News...

If you have ever done a renovation at home, you understand that things usually don't go according to plan. We had planned on having the bathroom all ripped out on the Friday night of the long weekend and then Jesse would have Saturday and Sunday to repair walls, lay down the tile and then he could grout on Monday. Easy peasy. 

And then this little girl was born on the Thursday night before the long weekend.

Faith's new little girl, Eve! Jesse really wanted to visit her in the hospital after he was done work on Friday night, so we brought them supper and enjoyed snuggling our new niece.

There is nothing better than snuggling a newborn right? That meant though that the bathroom demolition plan was a bit delayed, but that was okay. There was time to catch up. But little did we know how bad things were underneath the surface. (You can read here about the mold and all the other problems that caused our plans to be delayed)

So, as of right now, we have been able to use our bathtub (yay!) and can see ourselves in the mirror to make sure there is nothing stuck in our teeth and can look upon our nicely painted walls, but there is no use of the shower yet and the floor is covered with tools and grout buckets. 

When I look at my bathroom though and all the beautiful tile work that my husband has worked late into the night on, I get so proud of him! I never get to see his work that he does for other people, so now that I'm able to see the perfect lined up tile and the nice grout lines, I can understand why people love what he does so much. He has done a beautiful job and is so excited about it! (Sappiness is over. Sorry.)

Tonight he plans to grout the shower and then {hopefully} we can start getting our bathroom back in order...and decorated! 

In other news, another small renovation is in the works.

We are all so excited about this new little arrival coming sometime in February! 

I'm sure in the future Melody will be writing about different DIY baby things and I'll be sharing my favourite children's bedrooms and all that other fun stuff. :)

Happy Wednesday everyone! 

Real Life

I would love to show you pictures of our finished bathroom; sparkling tile and freshly painted walls. But I can't. Because it's not done yet. 

Real life reno problems hit when Jesse and my brother started ripping out the shower and found mold everywhere. 

 (sorry for the really bad quality)

We can't say that we were surprised with the mold, because we knew that it was there. It just took longer than expected to tear everything down, clean, and start repairing everything again. 

The floor also needed a lot of help, because after the tile was ripped up, they found a small patch of mold underneath a section of the tile. Jesse had to deal with that and then lay down new subfloor to get things back up to par.

He kept trucking along though and by Sunday evening, Jesse had the floor tiled and grouted and the shower prepped for tile.

 (Tiled, but not grouted yet)

We could see the vision! Slowly. 

Monday was the holiday, so Jesse worked on the wall that held the toilet and sink so that we could at least use that part of the bathroom. 

 He's speedy. 

Yay! A working toilet and sink! And one beautifully tiled wall.

The light fixture was also installed and I {LOVE} it! 

So as it stands today, our bathroom looks like this: 

As you can see, there are no showers or even baths being taken at our house right now...I may be knocking on one of my sisters' doors later on today with some soap and a towel. 

The shower isn't even grouted yet and I love it already. Jesse always tells clients that if you love it when it isn't grouted, you will love it ten times more when it is grouted. 

That is our real life reno. Slowly, but surely it's coming along!

How about you? Have you ever done a renovation where unwanted surprises kept popping up? The fun part of this reno is keeping Gavin out of the mess and tools that are lining the hallway upstairs...Yup. Fun. :) 

And the Countdown is On

Well, the tile is officially waiting in our basement for this weekend when Jesse and one of my younger brothers can install it. Jesse brought it home last night and we decided on a pattern that we both loved. 

I didn't take a picture of it when it was lying on the table (of course), but this is the very similar layout:

{source} 

Now that we have the tile, my next job was to go and buy a mirror so that Jesse would know how high to tile from the top of the sink to the bottom of the mirror. 

So last night, Gavin and I (Jesse was busy) went out to get a mirror. We first tried Home Sense, but no luck. Winners (which is the same company as Home Sense) was right across the street, so that was our next stop. 

And success!

 (I just propped it up on the faucet)

Because the bathroom space is not large...actually it's really, really tiny, I knew I wanted an oval mirror so that we could still see ourselves as we got ready in the morning, but wouldn't overpower the space. 

 

(Gavin's favourite past time: throwing the extra toilet paper out of the basket) 

Here is the purchases checklist as it stands: 

1. Tile 
2. Curved shower curtain rod
3. Mirror
4. Hooks for towels
5. Light fixture
6. Shower head fixture 
7. Paint 

We did pick up a light on Saturday afternoon! 

Of course there is all the not-fun, but necessary stuff, like drywall, grout, mud, etc. I'm leaving that up to Jesse to get though, because he's the professional after all. :)

We're excited to see things come together after all our planning and dreaming since we moved in two years ago. I'm not really excited about the toilet and shower being unavailable to use for the whole weekend though...

Bathroom Details

Yesterday I shared the exciting news that we finally get to renovate our bathroom. We've been living in less then desirable conditions in our bathroom. No matter how much I clean and scrub, I still can't get over the broken tiles, mold, and drywall that is missing by the bathtub. 

We've purchased our tile and it just needs to be picked up from the store. We decided to go the subway tile route, but instead of plain subway tile, it has a beveled edge. Ooo fancy.

The tile is going to go along the bottom half of the bathroom walls and continue into the shower. A piece of chair rail tile is going to finish off the top edge in the main part of the bathroom. 

A while ago, my parents renovated their basement and put in a bathroom downstairs. They had some floor tile leftover so we'll be using that for our floor. Cost: free!

Next up is lights: Gavin and I went window shopping at one of the big box stores to price out light fixtures and to see what was available. These are the two contenders that we need to decide on. I'm leaning towards the one in the middle, especially since it is cheaper at $55.00 and the other one is $69.00 (give and take a few pennies). 

So those are our plans so far. I still need to decide on paint and hooks, towel holders, fun stuff like that. These are some of the pictures that inspired these decisions. Remember, like always, don't pin from this post. Click the link and go to the website. 

 Birch and Lily, 320 Sycamore, Holly Mathis Interiors

The Lettered Cottage, source unknown, Houzz

To say I'm excited is putting it lightly. Jesse will be ripping out everything next Friday if everything goes well. It's a long weekend here, so it's the best time. That also means we won't have a shower for a few days, but hopefully we can get the toilet in sooner than later. :S 

Happy weekend!