Bathroom renovation - complete (almost)

This update is a bit late, but we finally finished the bathroom renovations in time for all our company to arrive. In fact, Peter's even done quite a bit of work on the downstairs bedroom, but that's for another post.

During the last update, we had the walls primed, the shower half-installed, and no sink or toilet. Since then we have installed a sink and toilet, painted the walls, and finished installing the floor. Voila!

Here is a list of what's left on the bathroom. I would really like to get these items checked off as soon as possible:

1. Doorknob (bought but not yet installed)
2. Touch up paint on trim
3. Last few tiles by door (waiting to hear from flooring expert whether we should wait until laminate is laid in hallway)
4. Mirror (still need to purchase)
5. Install towel racks and toilet paper holder (bought but not yet installed)
   

Bathroom renovation - plumbing, electrical, and drywall complete

I didn't realize it had been so long since a renovation update! We gutted the downstairs bathroom completely, and Peter spent many hours becoming familiar with how to fix up plumbing and electrical. While he was working on the downstairs bathroom he decided to add an outlet to the upstairs bathroom (neither bathroom had an outlet when we moved in). What a great hubby! It is wonderful to be able to dry and straighten my hair in the bathroom now.

Once Peter got the plumbing and electrical downstairs straightened away (he installed a new fan, outlet, and switch for a light that used to be on a pull cord) a friend came over and they installed the drywall. After about a week for crack-filling, Peter was able to prime the room yesterday and painted the ceiling tonight. It is finally starting to come together! Today I painted the door and the trim before we install them. It is really nice to be doing one room at a time and be able to do things at a more leisurely pace. Painting trim before installation is something we regretted not doing at our previous house. Hopefully it will make touch-ups after installation go much more quickly.

The pictures don't look like much at this point but I'll post them anyway.




I can't wait to get some paint on the walls (still have to decide on a colour) and get the rest of the fixtures installed :)

As for the next task on our list - we will be tackling the downstairs bedroom. The plan is to create a walk-in closet by combining the super-narrow closet with a tiny (and useless) storage room. We will replace the paneling with drywall, install new trim, lights, and eventually flooring (but that will be done when we do the rest of the basement). We'd like to have the bedroom and bathroom completed before the baby arrives ... that date is getting closer!

ETA: I just realized I haven't posted a picture of the floor. Peter tiled and grouted the floor. It looks great!

Downstairs - before

Due to the shelves I spoke of here, we were able to reorganize the main areas of our downstairs this week. Getting all those boxes out of the main living area meant I was able to tidy everything up, vacuum, and now it's suitable for the kids to play in. It has basically doubled the amount of space the kids have to play in and I find they're getting bored less now that they have access to this space and the toys that are in it. Since the weather has been so bad the past few weeks it's great that they can amuse themselves indoors.

Here is a picture from the bottom of the stairs looking ahead and to the left:

Isn't the carpet lovely?? That's on our list to be replaced, as is the ceiling and paneling on the walls. Since that will obviously take a while, I've decided to try and keep the space as livable as possible until we get to this section.

Here's a view from the same spot looking ahead and to the right:

The door at the far end of the picture is to my cold room (which I love!) and if you look closely past the first post you can see into the bedroom. The bedroom has lovely carpet like the family room except it's green :) If I turned right from this picture and went towards the other end of the house I would hit the bathroom (that still looks as it did here).

And here is a picture if I turn left at the bottom of the stairs and look back toward the other side of the house:

At the very far end on the left of this picture you can see a door. That is the door to our laundry room. The piles of things at the end are the rest of the boxes that have to be unpacked from the move, some stuff for the garbage, and some for the salvation army.

Overall the downstairs is laid out pretty well for our uses, it just needs some major updating.

The plan right now is to rip out the rest of the ceiling next. The wiring down here is very bizarre and we want to get a good picture of everything so we can fix it properly. Then we will finish the bathroom and I'm not sure where we're going from there. Probably walls and then floor, but probably not all at once.

Kettle chips, cookies, and progress :)

Peter is just finishing up his two days off and I feel like we got something accomplished while he was off. He finished the shelves we were working on last week, and having them allowed us to clean up a lot of the downstairs.


With another hour or two of tidying / unpacking it will be a great play room for the kids (it will be even better once we've replaced the paneling with drywall and replaced the orange and brown carpet with laminate :) ).

Tonight I decided to make some cookies I haven't made in a while. The recipe is from my friend Sunshine ... hopefully she doesn't mind if I post it.

They are called Crunchy Crisp Cookies and here is the recipe:

1 cup butter
1 1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 1/4 cup oatmeal
1 cup coconut (next time I will use a bit less - I'm not a coconut fan)
1 1/2 cups flour (next time I will try another 1/4 cup. I find when using butter instead of margarine the cookies are a bit 'greasier')
1 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt

I cream the butter and sugar together, add the egg, then all the dry ingredients. I tried using 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour this time and can't notice the difference. I really like these cookies - I think it's the brown sugar :) Cook at 350 degrees F for about 12 minutes.

And more cooking (this actually happened before the cookies):

I had a 'craving' for Saint John Alehouse's loaded kettle chips today so I decided to try making them myself. I sliced potatoes as thinly as I could, then shook them in a ziploc bag with a mixture of 2 Tbsp melted butter and 2 Tbsp olive oil (approximately). I arranged them in one layer on a cookie sheet and sprinkled them liberally with salt. I cooked them at 425 degrees F for about 30 minutes. Next time I will try 400 degrees F as some of the 'chips' burned.

After they were cooked (I flipped them after 20 minutes and removed the ones that were already done), I sprinkled them with cheddar cheese, green onions, and crumbled bacon. Put the plate with everything back in the oven at 325 degrees F to melt the cheese and served with sour cream. Sorry no pictures - they were gone pretty quickly :)

I was very impressed with how closely these imitated the ones from the Alehouse. They were way too much work to have very often, though!

Well, I must go console Peter since Montreal just lost ...

Weekly Round-up

Since everyone was healthy, this week was much better than last week. I also implemented a new daily schedule for the kids this week. So far it is working out well. Hannah's independent play time is improving, the kids enjoy sibling playtime, and I love that I get to spend one-on-one time with Nathan during learning time. Our days have gone very smoothly so far both with Peter's day and night shifts. I haven't even had to do much tweaking yet ... although I may shorten Hannah's morning nap at some point.

Due in part to this post on a blog I read, I have been in an organizing mood for the past week or so. I bought some totes when we were in Regina on Monday and have put them to good use. I still need many more, but I was able to organize Hannah's closet and under our bathroom sink. To help with my goal of being more organized, Peter is building me over 60 feet of shelving in our laundry room. The room is large, but had no shelves in it at all! It did have an old cupboard of some sort, but it was quite useless. Today we took that out, added two 12' shelves over the washer, and Peter is in the middle of making 4 10' shelves on the other side of the room. Here is the room as it looks tonight:

Hopefully the shelves will hold our million boxes of kid clothes. I can't believe how quickly they multiply!

A few weeks ago we picked up our new living room furniture but I have neglected to take and post pictures of it. I love our new recliner sofa. It is so comfy!



(Happy, Mom? ... Pictures of the house :) )

Goals:
Still doing well keeping the kitchen clean at night. I noticed this week that the two times I didn't clean up before bed I did it first thing in the morning, while the kids ate breakfast. This is a definite improvement.

The schedule really helped me to do reading and learning time with Nathan and Hannah. It's great to have it slotted into our day so I don't get busy doing other things and forget.

I did about half of the daily tasks this week. I started out well, but got off track toward the end of the week. I will continue to work on that this week.

Hmmm ... for this week I would like to see how little money I can spend! lol. We're not planning any trips to the city this week so I have no reason to spend much. I'll probably need to pick up a few miscellaneous groceries at the co-op, but that should be it.

Bathroom renovation - planning and preparing

Here is what our downstairs bathroom looked like a few weeks ago ...

... and that is what it still looks like today. Despite a lack of visible progress, we have done some preparations for putting this room back together. Last week Peter met with a plumber who told us we can buy a shower with the drain in a place that will fit with our floor. As a result, we don't have to move the pipes into the ceiling. This means we don't have to pay a plumber to come in and do anything. Money saved is always good!

Yesterday we headed (with the new truck!) to Regina to pick up fixtures for the bathroom. We bought a shower, vanity, faucets for both of those, tile, fan, and a few other miscellaneous items.

The next step in the plan is to fix the electrical. When we moved in, there was no outlet in the bathroom (just one in the light over the sink). The light over the sink and the fan each had their own switch, but the light by the shower was on a pull cord. Peter's plan is to put the light by the shower on the same circuit as the fan so that they are turned on and off together. Then he will put in a GFCI breaker and outlet for the bathroom, and of course install the new fan. Once the insides are in order we can start putting things back together.

There seem to be so many steps between now and a finished room, but the bathroom will be by far the most complicated renovation we do. Once it's done the rest should go more quickly.

Renovations - Day 1

When we looked at this house, we knew that the basement needed a lot of work. The bathroom was absolutely disgusting and we planned to completely re-do it as our first step toward a usable basement. Today we got started. We had some grand ideas to turn the fixtures around and combine a storage room with the bathroom to make it bigger. Here are a few pictures of what the looked like this morning (the shower was sooooo gross!)


Would you want to shower in that? Plus, the shower was super short. We were curious as to why ...

After half a day of ripping out fixtures and paneling, the bathroom now looks like this ...

Much better :) Now we can start to figure out how we're going to put it back together. Because of those drain pipes in the wall that go through the concrete, our idea of combining the bathroom with the storage area won't work, but the bathroom is still an ok size.

Another glitch we have to sort out is that the people who originally plumbed the bathroom decided that instead of putting pipes through the floor joists they would simply run them under the floor joists and lower the ceiling in the bathroom. We would like those pipes moved up.

The last concern (so far) is that we think the drain for the shower is too close to the corner to fit a regular shower. The original shower was up off the floor and had an S-shaped piece of pipe to move the drain to the right place. We have heard that the drain may be in the correct place for a tub, which is fine with us. There is space in the room for a tub to be put in instead of a shower, so if that would work we'll do that. If not, we're open to suggestions!

One last picture of Daddy and his little helper ...

Next step is to contact a plumber to see what they can tell us about moving pipes around ...