A roof over our heads

One of the very first projects on the agenda for our new house was our roof. It had a few issues.


The first issue was that the shingles were old and wearing and needed to be replaced. Simple enough. The second issue was that the roof sagged a bit over the garage. (The garage was an addition and was built with homemade rafters that obviously were not as sturdy as manufactured ones). The third issue was that it was boring! But luckily we were able to find a fix for all of those things!

So first of all was to fix the structural things. Luckily, our inspector told us that the garage was still structurally sound and that it looked like the garage would not continue to sag. A cosmetic fix was all that would be needed. Great news! Next on the agenda was to hire a contractor who could add some interest to the contour of the roof. My husband came up with the idea of the peak and we hired a friend of ours to put it up and to also fix the spot over the garage. We were really excited how it turned out! It adds so much to the house and just looks great!


So now that the bones were in place, we could start shingling. We chose to do the roof ourselves (like pretty much everything else in the house). My husband’s cousin, who roofs for a living, was able to come help us. We also had lots of help from our family and neighbors.



We somehow chose one of the hottest days of the year so we definitely owe everyone who came to help. It took us a day and a half but now it looks awesome! After pictures to come!

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Demo!!

Well, we are all moved in and mostly settled but before I show you current pictures, I need to bring you up to speed on all that has happened. I didn’t take a ton of pictures during the whole renovation process because, lets face it, I was working! This reno process has seriously been brutal! I don’t know if we would do it again if given the choice. But, man am I happy with how things turned out!

Onto the goods!

All of these pictures were taken one week after we took possession. It’s amazing how quick you can make changes with demo. I almost typed its amazing how quick demo goes but then I remembered that it felt like we were doing demo for-ev-er. If you need some before pictures to reference, check out this post.
So at this point we had ripped out almost all of the carpet and stripped most of the wallpaper.

We also knocked a huge hole in the wall. We took out the door to the basement and opened up the half wall to the stairways. We have a huge basement and I really wanted to utilize it, not for it to be this dark, dingy place. I think it really helps it join the floors together and help it to feel like living space. This was kind of a big project but now that it is completed, I’m so happy we did it!


And, speaking of big projects, we totally gutted our kitchen…


…and our bathrooms.


It was really nice to not have to live here so we could go ahead and just demo everything at once. Although, it was a little inconvenient to not have a toilet while we were there working. Luckily my sister lives about a block and a half away!


The bedrooms eventually got stripped of their flooring and carpet too. I don’t have pictures of the bare bones of the house but to give you the gist of it, here is a run down of all the demo that we did:

• tore out all of the flooring in the main floor (including all of the linoleum and subfloors under it)
• stripped wallpaper in pretty much every room in the house
• completely gutted the kitchen, including removing some of the drywall, since we discovered lots of it needed to be rewired
• tore down the door to the basement and half of the wall beside the stairs
• completely gutted (down to studs in some places) both bathrooms

Demo was a lot of work! And the thing I hated most about it was that the harder you worked, the more mess you made. It just seemed like a never ending cycle. But luckily, once the demo was done, we got to start putting things back together! That part is a little more rewarding!

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We bought a house!!!

It’s a beauty, I tell you! We took possession on September 2. The past two and a half weeks have consisted mainly of one thing – demolition. But before I get into any of that, I’d like to show you around a little! As you can see from the outside, it is a ranch style modular home, complete with awesome bay windows of the ‘80s. Gotta love that! It is also a “wonderful” light peach color. It also comes complete with old curling shingles and a nifty wheelchair ramp. Needless to say, we were a little underwhelmed when we first pulled up to view it.

Here is the view from the front door. Straight ahead is the kitchen (obviously), to the right is the living room and to the left is the hallway.
The view of the living room from the entryway. I bet you are jealous of our wallpaper and curtains. It’s ok to admit it. To the left there is the dining room.

This is the dining room. To the left of it is back into the kitchen and straight ahead is our lovely sunroom. More pics of that in a minute!

Here is the view from the living room, looking back toward the entryway.

Another view of those gorgeous curtains from the dining room.

Our strange little sunroom.

Hopefully one day we figure out something useful to do with this room. In Alberta, we get a lot more cold weather than warm so we’ll have to see how useable it will be in the fall and winter.



So here is our fantastic kitchen. The cabinets were actually in not too bad shape but there were definitely some things that weren’t working for us…

… like this. I love the idea of having a desk in the kitchen but not when it compromises so much useable counter space. Plus that bulkhead is just nasty and fake!




This is the view from the dining room through the kitchen. That little half door is a huge pantry. Off to the right is the laundry nook and the stairs to the basement.

Here you can see the laundry nook and the door to the basement.

Coming full circle, here we are at the front door again.

Just a plain old hallway with some giant mirrors at the end and some handy railings all the way down it.

Here is our main bathroom. Nothing too exciting to see in here. Which is kinda the problem.


Here is the first bedroom. It’s a little on the small side, but in my opinion kids don’t need a huge space so it will work just fine. And luckily it came equipped with some linoleum and exercise bars. Just what every kids’ room needs!

Although Landon looks pretty pleased with it!

Here is our lovely master bedroom. This is the view from the hallway.

The master actually used to be two smaller bedrooms so it is quite large. We are excited to have a nice little sitting area in our room too.

Just another angle of that lovely blue carpet!

And last, but not least, is our ensuite. Isn’t it lovely??
So there you have it. Our house in all it’s 80s glory. An spoiler alert – there is not one room in the house that still looks the same. Awesome eh? Although looking at these pictures, I kind of just miss having flooring and a toilet!

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Packing

I thought I’d share a little bit of what we did to ensure all of our stuff arrives to it’s destination in good condition. Although, now I’m worried I’m jinxing myself since our things have only taken a little ride across town to a storage unit. And that’s basically nothing compared to the 3500 km trek we’ll be taking in a few weeks. I guess I’ll just have to call myself a liar then if anything gets broken!

First things first – I started packing more than a month before we moved. I know that may seem a little excessive to some people but I’ll tell you one big thing I’ve learned since becoming a parent – don’t try to rush things!

Case in point: Before having kids, I would plan grocery shopping for the hour in between when I got off work and when we had dinner. That included getting ready, driving, shopping, driving, unloading and putting away. When my oldest came along, I had to remember to give myself an extra half hour to make sure his diaper was clean, the diaper bag was packed just in case, and to baby talk to him as I walked the aisles. Now that I have two little munchkins, I just plan for the whole morning. This accounts for finding shoes, packing cheerios, water and fruit snacks so they don’t go crazy the second I sit them in the cart, coaxing them to get in the car and dealing with the tears once they realize we aren’t going for a walk to the park, picking up my list after my youngest throws it on the floor a hundred times, telling them we are not buying candy two dozen times, breaking up a few fights in the cart, and then making them lunch before I can put all of the groceries away because they are starving!!

Wow. Sorry for the tangent. And the run on sentences.  Back to business!

Anyways, I figured if I was going to handle all of this extra work on my own in addition to all of the regular things I do, I was going to need a lot of time to keep myself and my children sane. (In case you were wondering, I do have an incredibly supportive and helpful husband who just so happens to have a job that requires a lot of time and travel in May and June. Which didn’t leave him a lot of time at home, period, let alone to pack.)

The first thing I did was cleared out our basement. It was only about half finished down there and we basically used it for watching TV and as my husband’s “office.” So we packed away the big screen and brought our little TV up to the main floor so we wouldn’t need the basement anymore for living space. Then I started going through all the stuff that was down there.  I went through every box that was down there already – baby & maternity clothes, a box of keepsakes, picture frames and décor items, out of rotation toys. Stuff like that. I started boxing things up for good and also created an area in the storage room for things to sell at a garage sale. I also listed almost all of the basement furniture on Kijiji since we didn’t want to take it with us and well, any extra cash helps!

 

Then we just started stacking things! It was really nice to have all of the ‘ready to go’ boxes out of the way so we weren’t living in total chaos.


One thing I wanted to be sure of is that I could find anything I needed. Since we are not immediately moving into a new house, it will be essential to discern what boxes need to be unpacked and which can just go straight to storage for the next few months. Since many of the boxes are used and have lots written on them, I decided the easiest way to label them would be just a plain sheet of paper and some packing tape. Every single box has a big label like this. Hopefully they will last for the whole journey – hubby had some doubts about that. I guess we’ll see.

Well, this post is getting pretty long so check back soon to see our secret weapon for packing all of our furniture!!

 

 

Ok, just kidding. I have one more thing to say. The best thing we ever did was to let my in-laws take the kids for the last few days before we moved. That way we had no distractions when it was actually crunch time, especially while loading the trucks!

Ok. Now I really am done. See ya soon!

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Moving tips: Get Organized!

Well, it is officially official! The money is in our account and we are no longer homeowners. I’m just a little sad but we’re trying to look forward to the great things ahead!  So far this has been the least stressful move we’ve had, despite being the biggest by far. I’ve done my fair share of packing and moving in the past few years and like to think I’ve learned at least a thing or two. To me, the most important part of moving is the organization. There’s nothing worse than arriving at your new house only to be tearing apart box after box looking for a can opener or the remote control. Or missing a payment on your credit card because you forgot to advise them of your new address. Or staying up all night the week of your move just to get it all done. Or… well, let’s face it, when you are moving, there are so many things that could go wrong. And most likely something will. But as long as you are in control of the situation, you can take each setback in stride. We got through the first half of the move with minimal stress – and I’m sure it is all due to the fact that I am organized!

 

 

It all started when Jen started talking about her Household Binder. I was super excited about the idea but initially put it off, thinking it would be best to create a binder once we were settled into our new home. Then it dawned on me that the move was one of the main reasons I needed a binder. How else was I going to keep track of all the things I had to do to prepare for and during our move? So I started putting together a binder and just added a “Moving” section. It is mostly just blank lined paper for making lists and plans and I added a pocket divider to hold any moving receipts or important papers.

Then came the fun part. I had to decide what it is that needed to be organized. And for me, there were three main areas of focus.

1. Budget: Moving can be expensive! Especially if you are moving long distance and/or buying or selling a house. But even if you are just moving across the street, it is still important to write down exactly what you expect to spend. I just made a quick little list of all of our anticipated expenses. I made sure to include things like packing materials, rental equipment, moving companies, storage, travel expenses (gas, meals, hotels), and closing costs.

2. Change of address (and discontinuation of services): About 2 months before we moved, I started taking note of every single piece of mail that we received. I just created a simple list of every one of those companies. Then, since I do receive many bills online, I went through every bill that I pay in a month and listed those companies too. This is when you start freaking out because you have a list a mile long. But the process was relatively painless. I just started making a phone call or two each day until I had every company on my list crossed off. I found that this worked well since some companies require more notice than others. For instance, some magazines are printed and labeled a month or two in advance so it could take up to two months for an address change to come into effect. Also, many utility and cable companies require 30 days notice for discontinuation of services. Banks, credit cards, schools, work, government, insurance etc. don’t usually require as much notice so they were left to the bottom of my list.

3. Getting us (and our stuff) from point A to point B: For us this was kind of huge since we are moving across the country. And cross country moves can be really, really expensive! I called around to a bunch of different moving companies for quotes but all of them were ridiculously out of our price range. In the end we decided to rent a U-Haul and make the 4 day drive ourselves. **Now I just have to insert a disclaimer here. We are in no way fans of U-Haul. Yeah, you read that right. We have booked two one-way rentals with them before and both have been disasters. So why are we doing it again??? Because the stress and problems that could occur in that one week are nothing compared to saving three, four, or five thousand dollars. So we’ve just mentally prepared ourselves for things to not go as planned and not set any strict timelines, just in case.

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Packing

Anyone know if there is a way to just skip over the next few months?? We begun packing this week and I’m already sick of it! We have only 27 days until we have to hand over the keys to our house. And how on earth do we have this much stuff?? I am in no way a hoarder and we don’t shop a ton so I have no idea how we have all of these things. Luckily, I have no problem getting rid of things I haven’t used in years. (Wedding gifts that are still unused? Goodbye!).

Unfortunately, in addition to all the useless things we’ve been storing, there is so much other stuff that we use frequently or will need in the future. Why do babies need so many gadgets? I’m so tempted to just get rid of our baby stuff and buy new when we have another kid just so I don’t have to store all those awkwardly shaped things. But we all know how expensive baby stuff is so I’ll probably continue to hang on to it.

One other thing I’m realizing is that much of the things that I’m now saying goodbye to are things we received from other people that I didn’t necessarily need or love but thought we should take just because it was free. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful here because there are many generous gifts we’ve received from friends and family members over the years that we absolutely love and use all the time. But I’m beginning to realize that if I don’t love it, I won’t use it. And then I’ll just end up storing it for a few years until I realize that I didn’t need it in the first place and finally get rid of it. I think my new rule should be that I can’t bring it home unless it is something I’d be willing to spend money on. In some ways it is a blessing that we are moving into a small 2 bedroom apartment because I simply cannot afford to keep stuff.

But as much as there is left to do, I’ve already taped up a few boxes and every time I do, we get closer and closer to getting it all done. Here’s to a month of hopefully minimal chaos! I’ll breath again in July when have arrived in Alberta with all of our things!

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Rewind: Outside Update

 

One of the last things we did for our house was to update the exterior. It all started when we replaced the Master bedroom window (the upstairs window in the picture below.)

It is difficult to tell in the pictures but all of the green trim around our house was really peeling and flaking. Our original plan was to sand it down a bit and then just repaint it. But things aren’t quite so easy. As my husband and a friend were ripping out the window, they took a closer look at those boards and found that they were in fact rotting away. So a mere paint job progressed into replacing all of the boards and then painting. That’s a lot of work!

That’s when we started to consider installing vinyl siding. We also realized at this time that our soffits and fascia could use some help too. So we got a couple quotes and approached our neighbors, who were totally on board.

Then came the hard part – picking the colors. As you can see, we were stuck with a really awful color of brick. Seriously, who uses pink brick on a house?? It’s only saving grace was that there was a fair amount of gray in the brick too, which is a color I love for exteriors. The other part of our dilemma was the roof that we had just replaced about a year before. We chose a medium brown color because that was what was there before and we really weren’t even considering changing the other colors of the house. So that is what we had to work with – pink/gray brick and a brown roof.

After much debate and a major oh-no-what-have-we-done freak out when the installation started, I’m happy to say that we are more than pleased with the finished results.

We decided to go with a grey siding, white soffits, and dark brown fascia and eaves. We also had the color matched some dark brown paint and just painted our garage doors. We are so pleased with the modern updates and now instead our house being one of the most run down looking on the street, we are definitely the most modern looking. It’s amazing the transformation that can happen in a week. The other advantage was that we gained ventilation in the attic, which was sorely needed.

So while we didn’t touch a single thing during this outside transformation process (except our checkbook), we are proud of the finished product and think it was definitely money well spent!

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