What to do this weekend...

Someone asked us this last night and we both came up with blanks. Complete blanks. Our weekends have been filled with reno's for the past two months, and I don't think we know what to do with ourselves. I think we're going to head off to Ikea tonight and take a look at some frames (we...well I, bought some art on allposters.com -- but ran it past Trevor before I bought them) and test out a sofabed there. Tomorrow we're having dinner and going to Yuk Yuk's with friends downtown, now there's a treat! And the rest of the days...they'll probably just blend together. (Although Trevor wants to wash his car, some hillbilly truck on Chilliwack was flinging some sort of oil out the back while on the freeway...gross.)

Here's a reno update as well: The boarding of the drywall is going to be all done today! Yay! It's on to taping and sanding and all that good stuff next week. I'm hoping that we'll be able to start putting the primer up by next weekend, paint the week following and then hit flooring around the 17th. Trevor might even be able to take a few days off for a flooring extravaganza!

Uh-chicka-uh-chicka-uh-chicka!

Guess what's on SALE this weekend!!!!

Woot!!!!

It's days like this that aren't so bad...

It's always nice to wake up to a sunny day. And especially nice when you haven't had much of a summer and been in the bowels (lol) of your house, slogging away. I got up and let the drywallers in at 8am (wow...punctual) and saw that everything looked like it needed a drink outside. So out I went, in the nice warm morning sun to water the plants (dodging the army of garbage bags and scrap wood in the backyard). And I took a minute to just take it all in. Ahhhhhhhhhh. It felt good.

After about half an hour I was back inside and getting to work, but I stepped out around 11am to do some errands and grab some lunch. Ever since then it's been a quiet and calm day. Well, quiet because Trevor's done some funny wiring with the phone line and I didn't realize that the phone was dead for half of the day. Okay, here's where I insert Trevor defending himself:

Me (calling from my cell): 'The phone line is dead! I didn't realize it until lunchtime!'

Trevor: 'Whoops! I was wondering why I couldn't get through. I'll have to fix that.'

Me: 'Ummm, yeah. I have no phone here!'

Trevor: (laughing) 'Sorry Ker, we'll go down to Home Depot and pick up that new panel* tonight.'

Me: (sigh) 'Okay.'

*Now here's where it all gets interesting and complex. The 'man panel' is, according to Trevor, too smart for the wiring in our house. We need a dumber panel. One that doesn't take multiple lines or something.

So we're off to Home Depot again tonight!

I'm sending a box out marked COD for my new brain.

I think our house is a reflection of my head right now. Sure it looks like a house from the outside, but look closer and you will see that it's cluttered, disorganized...a small chaos. I realized this morning that my car insurance payment got bounced in my account. With all that's going on and the fact that all my organization is out the window, I'm surprised that's the smallest thing I've missed. Just another thing to remember to do now (should remember, I've written it on my hand). I never thought that this reno would challenge me in the brain so much -- no matter how many lists get written, we inevitably lose the list (or it gets absorbed into the house as I now say). I have to warn Trevor not to dump his work stuff on the kitchen counter and keep it all together in one clear place. (Good thing too, went to have a glass of water yesterday and dumped most of it on the counter.)

I think I'm hitting my multitasking breaking point, among other things. We've been working late nights for a while now and the past two nights have been brutal. We're exhausted, but keep on going knowing that we've got deadlines to meet. We're crabby and irritable, and short with each other. I can't imagine going through something like this with someone you dislike, it's an emotional roller coaster. (Plus it would be quite easy to hide a body in the wall studs if you were so inclined...haha! And no, I have not thought of doing that to you Trevor.)

There are some things that make me laugh (now, not at the time). Like telling Trevor that he's not in a 'rational state of mind' when he was smashing out a piece of wood to raise an electrical box. Hmmmm...not the best time to tell him that, seeing as he was holding a blunt object. *laugh*

But I think we are getting over the hump now. The drywallers are in and working as I type. I love the sound of drills and hammering (well, not the really LOUD hammering) and knowing that it's not me or Trevor who's down there. I love knowing that we just need to tinker down there a bit during the week and not have marathon sessions that go until 1am. And I especially love knowing that we're on to paint and flooring after this. There is a light at the end of the tunnel!

Paint, glorious paint!

Finally! I get to think about buying paint. Here's the selections that I've made. (It's taken me a month to decide, and many ripped out magazine pages.)
This is for the media/bedroom. The darker green (*ahem* celery, will be on an accent wall):This is for the laundry room, and possibly the storage room (something a bit bright and cheery). I still have to check this against the flooring we have, but will most likely work.)This is for the bathroom. Trevor's comment: 'Turtledove?' and a look like I am crazy.And this is for MY OFFICE. And the hallways. *sigh* Love it!

Now to wait and see if there's a paint sale at the Home Depot for the long weekend!

My living...er storage room

Cathy, you may want to avert your eyes for this.

The BIG update / "Don't laugh at safety!"

Well, it's officially drywall week. We're still running to finish a few nitpicky things, but will be done as of this evening (oh please oh please!).

First, a weekend update: Saturday was just insane. Not only are we on a deadline at home, but we're on one at our old office. A cleaner is being brought into the old office on Monday, so we had to make sure that all of our stuff was out (desk, bookcase, boxes...general crap), and that what needed to be painted was painted. So five trips back and forth from the office to the house (some things BARELY fit, the desk was one). And back and forth to Home Depot as well that day (once for returns...over $400 of returns!!!). I was pretty bummed that we missed Cynthia and Mike's BBQ, I would have preferred having fun over what we did that day. Not much of a choice though, when you're under the gun and schedule of drywallers.

Sunday was more prep and finishing. We worked in the future media/bedroom finishing some sound insulation in the ceiling and putting in boxes for the in-wall speakers that Trevor is drooling over. One incident that day: while I was putting insulation in the ceiling, I decided to remove my safety glasses because with my mask on it was blowing insulation chunks into my eyes. Well, the next bit of insulation I put in just happened to dump a bunch of shards on to my face, and my eyes. One eye really got it bad, with a big shard stuck in it. Trevor was Mr. Safety and was hauling me up the stairs to the eye wash station (kitchen sink). After dunking my head in water, and with no luck, Trevor grabbed a a water bottle and attempted to rinse my eye with it (that's where I started to giggle - strange as it was - with something being aimed at your eyeball it's like 'noooo, don't do that *wink blink tense up* augh, augh, aughhhhh ha ha ha ha augh aughhhhhh!' and Trevor said "Don't laugh at safety!"). After about half an hour, nothing was working and I had a really sore red eye and Trevor was thinking that we might have to take me to the emergency room to get a eye wash/flush. I wanted to try longer to get it out, and after ten minutes of running my eye under running tap water...miracle! It was gone! *ahhhhh* relief. And with that all over with it was back to normal, but it took me a while to get back to touching insulation.

I also took some photos of the basement this weekend to show off our progress. It may not look like much, but wow, it's been a whole lot of work just to get to this point.

BEFORE:NOW:
BEFORE:NOW:

Woot!

Drywall here we come!

Insult-ation

Well, we failed our insulation inspection yesterday. Booooooo. Well, the sheet says 'rejected' but it's still the same thing. (And I decided against holding the inspector hostage in the basement, although I did try to schmooze him a bit!) So, again, we were up late last night fixing the small blips that we missed (although there's contradicting reports there...he checked fire stops again - which we were also approved for under the framing inspector - and made us do really nitpicky things like shove mineral wool up little holes... And we had to put in the bathroom fan duct (who knew that was under insulation???). At least everything went smoothly last night, and we weren't cranky like the night before. The inspector is booked again for today.

And drywall delivery doesn't come today after all. The delivery guy is really busy with 9 other loads so we've been shifted to the back of the line. We're only having 83 sheets delivered (which will seem like a lot at the time I think).

We also went and saw the chiropractor yesterday for our monthly crap-n-snap specials. Much needed this time (even though I was already there last week for a gimpy neck). The chiropractor told me that I was 'extremely tight'. Go figure, wonder why? lol (Although I should have said, 'and what about my back?' AHAHAH!)

New travels coming!

In our cloud of renovating, we have a silver lining. We've booked two cruises (one this year, one in the spring next year). Talk about something to look forward to. I'm calling our December vacation a re-do of our summer, seeing as we haven't had one.

I have to share. Here's the itineraries that we have for the 7-day Western Caribbean cruise that we got a smokin' deal on:
And here's the itinerary for the 14-day (14 day!?!?! woo hoo!!!) Mediterranean cruise in May:

Can I start the countdown now?

Insulation, the final frontier

This pretty much sums up our insulation experience. We were up past midnight last night to get the walls insulated for the inspection we have booked for today. So both of us are tired (I'm cranky). This inspector better approve our work or I may end up holding him hostage in the basement until he does -- I'm in that sort of mood.

If all goes well, we're getting drywall delivered either tomorrow or Saturday (haven't been told which yet). Monday should be when all the fun starts here with the drywall installation and taping. Joy! We get to sit back and relax for a week and a half. We're very excited about that.

And on to day 3 in the new "office"

It still feels very odd working from the house. Maybe it will take until I have a proper office downstairs to go to until it feels right. I'm missing my organization -- BADLY. I used to have an Ikea filing cabinet that I used all the time, and now I have a banker's box to replace it (and nowhere handy to put it). The kitchen table (whoops 'desk') has an extension of a computer box so I can have a little more room to put things like pens and papers on. Not ideal.

But the work doesn't disappear just because I'm at home. Even though I'm in the same room as the tv and fridge, they haven't really been distractions. (But I'm looking outside at a plant that desperately needs water right now and will have to go out and water it after this...guilt!)

The basement is still going. We've got a bit of a rush on at the moment as we need to have an insulation inspection booked for tomorrow (and the insulation still needs to be finished!). It's going relatively quickly though, and the pink stuff is nowhere NEAR as itchy as the fire stop stuff (blegh). Then the drywall is being delivered either Friday or Saturday, and will be put up on Monday, and taped the rest of the week. Hurrah! We're looking at having almost a week and a half off from working in the basement! That's when I'll take some time to pick out paint colours (and hopefully score a paint sale at Home Depot around the long weekend).

First day in the new "office"

I am now officially working from the kitchen table, which I suppose is a bit of an improvement for a few reasons: 1) I've cleared off the table, so there's room on it -- no more crap!; 2) I have a view of the garden, flowers, etc. instead of a parking lot and stinky cars; 3) I have a fridge that works here; 4) It's CLEAN. No more fine layers of black dust settling on things.

One thing that is a bit of a pain is the fact that the kitchen table is round, so my arms hurt a bit after working all day today. Not exactly ergonomic! I have a lot of things in boxes and a printer that I need to hook up some how, so we'll see how that all goes.

We did have two inspections happen today - framing and plumbing. Both APPROVED! So on to the horrible task of putting up insulation. I can feel my face getting itchy already. And the Telus guy was here and hooked up the office line. Haven't figured out how that all works yet, but it's just another thing on the list to do.

Just another weekend

Or at least I wish it were. Friday was spent working in the office packing and repairing things until late, and then Trevor was on damage control for a while with some work stuff that came up. Long story short...long night.

Saturday was filled with moving and planning. We had some help (via the in-laws) moving out the air hockey table from the basement and transporting it to my sister-in-law's much larger house for storage (until we get more room in a new house ourselves). The dining room set was also moved out (well, I moved part of it out the night before, just to get some space...ahhhh....space). Good riddance to that I say! I did not care for the style of it at all (think dated bamboo and glass look). Blegh. So now there's a blank space of carpet just waiting to be filled with a makeshift office for a month. Hope I don't have any run-ins with the lowered light fixture there...I've managed to just avoid it on quite a few occasions. I think it might be out to get me good one day.

We also hit the Home Depot AGAIN yesterday. But we bought taps and bath fixtures, which was kind of fun. Or at least different. But of course, another $400 hit in the wallet for plumbing and whatnot.

And today...well today I'm sitting in the office waiting to get motivated to pack up my computer and sand some walls where we've done some patching. Then cram it all in my car and hope there's a spot out front of the house to bring it all in!

Tomorrow is the first day working at home. There's also a framing inspection, plumbing inspection and Telus guy coming to hook things up. It won't be a dull day, that's for sure.

But there is one silver lining coming our way -- we've decided on a Mediterranean cruise that we want to take in May. There's a sale on next weekend and we're going to put our deposit down on it. *Excitement!*

Oh electrical...

Good news for us! As of 15 minutes ago our electrical inspection is done and over! APPROVED!!!!!

This is a step in the right direction for sure. It's our first thumbs up from an inspector, which means we've only got a framing inspection, plumbing and insulation inspections to go until we can get the drywall in! All of those inspections are going to take place on Monday, which is my first official day of working at home (if you can call it a house right now, more like storage locker), and the very first day for the new name of the company to kick in.

Here's the new logo!

I spent almost a year dabbling here and there trying to figure out where to go and what to do with this logo. It started as something very different from what it is now. Isn't it always the case that you're the pickiest and most critical when it comes to your own things? I finally knew that this logo was the one when I designed it on a Thursday and slept on it over the weekend and came back and still liked it. So far, so good!

Things continue to be very busy around here. Trevor and I did a large vinyl decal installation yesterday (well, maybe more Trevor than me, he's pretty good at the more 'delicate' parts of installing) on the back of a compressor on wheels. Kind of like a box on a trailer. But it was hot out and the sun would hit us right in the eyes while we were trying to get this thing finished. But we did it, and glad that it's over. Now to invoice that puppy out! LOL Today I'm out downtown for an 11am meeting with a potential new client (amazing how things like that come around at a time like this!). Hopefully things will go well, but it will sure make for a busy start to the fall.

And it's more moving as usual. I'd like to have everything out of here by the end of day tomorrow, but we'll see about that. I also have the weekend if needed. The challenge is figuring out where to PUT everything that I take home. But we're moving the air hockey table out of the basement (via popping the window out) and getting rid of our (crappy) dining room set to make way for my desk to be there.

If this is you, you might have a problem...

It's that time of year again, when those big spikey weeds pop out little berries that stain everything from your hands to bird's poop. Yes, it's blackberry season, also the time of year where you will see people who are a few slices short of a loaf throw themselves into these big, thorny clumps of berry-wielding weeds either for sport or for ...? Well, I don't quite know, nor do I understand.

Case in point: We were driving through Abbotsford yesterday afternoon and there on a busy road was a car pulled over to the shoulder (although not a big shoulder, cars had to weave around them a bit), while a man and a woman picked blackberries. And not just standing there taking the ones they could reach either -- the man had thrown an aluminum ladder into the bush and was balancing on it...all for a little berry.*
* Side note here: Trevor gave these people a little 'toot toot!' with the horn while driving by. A sort of 'hello, crazy people!'. It was pretty funny. :)

This just seems to drive me nuts every year. It's not so much the ones that just pick them here and there while on their way to another destination. It's the ones who make these bushes their destination. Are they just cheap? In it for the thrill? Looking for something to do?

Maybe I'm just bitter. LOL

Inspection season is here

We had our first inspection yesterday, for framing. It was fairly uneventful, the guy showed up at 11am and spent around 4 minutes in the basement. Everything is good except for the vapour barrier that we had put up behind the framed walls. For some reason it doesn't need to be there...the concrete needs to 'breathe'. So we were told to remove it. Hmmmm...says I. What stops the mold from growing on the insulation then? We had a hard time wrapping our heads around that one, but if they say it has to go, well then it's going to go. (But we'll hold them to it in case someone changes their mind...or mold starts to grow in a year...)

The plastic was all removed last night, in about half an hour. A lot easier to take down than put up, isn't that always the case? We're not ticked off about having to take it out (even though it's a waste of money) -- if it gets us the signature on the dotted line we're happy!

Up next is the electrical inspection tomorrow (and the 2nd framing inspection). I hope these guys come early in the day, I have so much going on at work at the moment it's a little hairy. Here I am trying to move, work on ongoing projects, taking on new ones, schmoozing a new client (with a meeting downtown on Thursday to boot) -- all while everything at home is a disaster.

Busy? Neverrr....

Even though it's Zellers, I love this ad!

(But it still won't make me go there to buy anything!)

Insulation, no thanks

I worked on insulation last night in the basement (or fire stop, which is still insulation, just a fancy type that takes a while to burn), and man, is that stuff ITCHY. You start to sweat and the little bits stick to you, which makes you want to scratch, and scratch, and scratch. The worst part for me was my face. Ugh. I have to finish a bit more of it tonight, and then it will be on to the big fluffy pink stuff once the framing inspection gets approved.

Speaking of inspections, the Langley Township office neglected to tell us that they don't do electrical inspections anymore. So we had to panic and go find out who does. Well, it goes through the province now, and we were lucky that they give out permits on the same day you go in. But it still costs $208. Another $208! *sigh* I can begin to understand why people don't bother to get permits and just do their reno's on the sly. If we were putting in a suite downstairs there would be even more hoops to jump through. At least at the end of the day we will be all registered and on the books for our reno's.

At the end of the day yesterday:

Moving in...gradually

Well, Lulu has started to make herself at home on the round red chair that used to be in the (other) office. She will be my new coworker I think. lol

Here's the update on the basement: We're getting two inspections this week, one for framing and the other for electrical. We were at Home Depot (AGAIN) last night to pick up some fire stop (insulation) and spent the rest of the night getting itchy and sweaty (well, that was Trevor's department) while shoving it in the walls. The fire stop has to be put in --according to Langley building codes-- around the outside tops of the framing, so that in the case of a fire it will provide a bit of a block before the fire spreads to another floor of the house. Essentially, it gives anyone in the house another 10-15 minutes to get out.

And the other big plans in the works: The bedroom that is in the basement has now been upgraded to a media room. Meaning: super duper sound system is going in (insert manly grunt of technology here), and a new tv somewhere down the line as well (purchasing at poorhouse electronics I'm guessing). There's also a PANEL. Yes, a manly PANEL of TECHNOLOGY as well. To the average eye it looks like a box in the wall with a door (almost a glorified locker really), but no, this houses the TECHNOLOGY and all things HIGH TECH. It will hold all of the internet thingies, the phone thingies, the tv thingies and probably other thingies as well. It is the hub of the house now (wait, I thought that was the kitchen). Or it will be.

I can't wait until it's drywall time!!! That's hopefully happening around the 23rd. *Excitement!*

Kermit was in my backyard!

Over the weekend I was watering the garden and I saw this little thing twitch on a pot I was watering! It was a frog! I was very excited (but still thought, if this thing jumps on me I will crap my pants), so I ran inside and grabbed the camera.

Now that I have your attention...

I thought I'd be smart and post a picture of moving boxes, but when I googled it, this came up and won over the boring cardboard type. Apparently it's supposed to look like it's moving...somehow.

Back to the task at hand! Moving is still coming along at a hit and miss pace. Sometimes I get up the energy to blow through 8 boxes, and other times it's like *sigh* boxes. I'll be packing up more today.

The weekend was pretty fun. Well, the end half of it, not so much the beginning. We took Friday off to get more of a head start on some basement stuff (Trevor mostly) and I started a mega spot cleaning through the house, so we could at least live in something that resembles one. Saturday was more of the same, but we had dinner made for us by some friends out in Abbotsford. Sunday started on a crappy note, with me snapping my neck out of alignment and getting a funny crick for the rest of the weekend (and it's still here today). But we had Mike and Cynthia come over and spend the day doing electrical fun things (Mike) and the girls went out shopping (of course!). We had dim sum for lunch (next time, Pink Pearl!...or other!) and Mike and Trevor shared some 'beef tenders' (aka - 'gross slimey things'). The jury is still out on what these are. I've looked them up on google and wikipedia and have come up with nothing. I'll look it up in my dim sum book tonight.

We also went and saw the Bourne movie that's out. Same old, same old. Smash, smash, who am I?, honk, beep, smash, run run run, the end. But we did get to have the extra bonus of seeing the movie at a shady theatre in Guildford (Surrey). And an even better bonus of witnessing Mike's 'rapping' talents to Run DMC. Tricky, tricky, tricky, tricky, ungh!

On Monday we had the Merrimans back again, Mike to tackle electrical stuff again, and Cynthia, to tackle the Ikea with moi. I was a bit disappointed that Ikea didn't have more of their new stuff in yet (especially since I got the new 2008 catalogue on Friday!!!). Oh darn, I guess that's another trip!

And today, well I'd like to press the rewind button and go back to Thursday when I could have avoided having milk leak out of the small office fridge and proceed to harden/get sticky/stink like a cow bum in here this morning. It was nasty and took me an hour of cleaning and scrubbing to get it all under control. And I still have a strawberry candle burning over on a table to try and mask the smell a bit. Yuck. I'm sure I'll find a few more surprises where I've missed and it still stinks.