Mud Room Improvement

A few weeks ago, we went to Anna Mae's for lunch. In the entryway, they have a bunch of knickknacks for sale. When I saw this shelf, I thought it would be perfect for the mud room. It fit the theme and we need something with hooks. I love it! Thanks to Ian and Uncle Drew for putting it up. 

[Couple notes... It's really hard to get a good picture in a space so small! Also, the space to the right of the Algonquin Park sign is empty at the moment. There is a frame that I want to create with badges from the park. More to come...]

Dining Room Transformation

This post is 5 months late. January and February were spent enjoying the remaining Mat Leave time with Emma. March was spent with my family and celebrating Emma's birthday before heading back to work. April was the start of our illnesses, plus a trip to California. May was the worst month we've had in a really long time. June is all about getting back to normal! So yes.. this post is 5 months but.. better late than never? :) 

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For Christmas, I requested a storage solution for our board games that didn't include the entertainment center cabinets. This led to a long debate between Ian and I about our future house plans. We were allocating a gaming space in the basement.. but how far away was the renovation? Probably too far away to justify waiting on gaming storage.

We planned our house around having a dining room. Not many people have one these days.. we wanted one because my family comes to visit and we'd like to eat around a table (when we aren't going out to a restaurant!). Plus I think it's nice to have a big table handy... for me I can use it for crafting. It's helped "stage" big excursions. I can spread out around the holidays and get a bunch of wrapping done. But outside these uses, the room wasn't used often. I floated the idea of turning it into our gaming room. It can still be used as a dining/crafting/staging/wrapping room... but now we have a great space for tabletop gaming.

I'm lucky I have a brother-in-law who doesn't like outstanding projects.... Here's Drew in his jammies after he put it together. [blurry] :)

Putting it in the space.. [you can tell how late this post is just by the mini Christmas tree..]

Ian rehanging the Tree artwork. Something is slightly wrong with the left canvas.......

Here it is filled with games. We have added many more to our collection... but still need to keep some of the bottom rows empty due to DestructoBot-5000.

Finally, a view of the whole room - best view I could get. Since this picture was taken, Ian and my brother-in-law added a plug to put a TV above the shelving unit. This way I can easily put on music or a football game while we play.... or dwarven mining music if we're playing Rockwell... :)

I'm posting this now... because this weekend is our first BOARDGAME WEEKEND EXTRAVAGANZA that we've had in a really long time. :D

Painting Update

Everyone has been asking me if the nursery is done. They usually add "...knowing you it is completely finished, stocked and ready!" I've had to hang my head in shame and say that no, it's not even close to being done. That changed this week! We planned to lump the nursery painting with a few other rooms and get it all done at once. It's now complete!

Mud Room - Before (bad lighting)

 

Mud Room - After

 

 

Powder Room - Before

 

 

Powder Room - After

 

 

Hallways including Stairway and Loft - Before

 

 

Hallways - After

 

 

And the best of all... Nursery - Before

 

 

Nursery - After

 

 

Pictures are bad and don't do the colors or paint job justice.. But it looks really good in person and we are very happy. One step closer! :)

 

Garden Lighting: Yes/No?

When the backyard was first completed and our patio furniture was set up, I sat outside at night and thought that some lighting out in the yard would be nice. Most lights that I could find looked cheap and I couldn't bring myself to buy them. But there was a set from Costco that I liked and they recently came back in stock. Ian was always on the fence about any garden lights so it was mainly me driving it. I put them in the ground a couple weeks ago and am still adjusting to the change. I think because Canada wants to just skip over spring and the plants haven't filled out yet, the lights look out of place. Maybe when dogwoods and bushes come back it won't be so... stark? They give off a pretty natural light instead of the typical blue solar light. It's growing on me. This is a bad angle picture... they are pretty evenly spaced out.

...and a close up of them. Yes/No? I'll try to get a daytime picture at some point.

DO ALL THE THINGS

Let's face the facts. There is no football. Ians get bored when there is no football or non-spring training baseball. We live in a house that is mostly a blank canvas. At some point an Ian will wake up in the middle of winter and say... "we must DO ALL THE THINGS". 

It is the job of a Brittany to just let it happen. That is exactly what I did! Ian woke up last Sunday and decided it was the day he was going to do every project ever. He put up curtain rods, hung the drapes, drilled holes in the entertainment center and planned out future projects. He was busy most of the day... and for a majority of the time I just walked behind him cleaning up. The following pictures are the results. On a side note, trying to take pictures of windows in the winter is hard as hell. The blinding snow confused my little point and shoot. I can't wait to get a real camera that can handle such shots!

We put up the same rod and drapes in the living room and dinette. We started to switch out the lampshades for the Ikea ones... just to add a little pattern to the room.

The dining room turned out very nice. It was really hard to imagine drapes in any of the rooms but the dining room actually looks finished! It's not and needs about 3k in decor... but that's besides the point! :) 

Again, photographing the windows was really hard... lights on? lights off? day? night? Here's the dining room with the lights on. It's so pretty!

While he had the drill out, he made the holes in the entertainment center - one for the digital picture frame and remote control charging base and then a couple air holes for the side that heats up when the doors are closed. Big thanks to Ian "The Tool Man" Matheson. He said he has a lot of "project inertia". It takes him awhile to get off the ground but once he gets going there's no stopping him. Personally, I can't wait for spring... and crazy project Ian. :)

Landscaping Day 19: What 99% Looks Like

We got word today that our landscapers should be wrapped up by tomorrow. They laid out a selection of mulch for us to choose from. They will do that and tie up any loose ends. 

The dark side of the picture to the left is a line of boxwoods. On the right up against the fence is some hydrangeas. In the back corner there are dogwoods and hostas. Near the wrought iron is a few grasses. 

View of the side yard. Boxwoods up against the house. This section is very wet from yesterday because water drains through here. We are going to put in a rain barrel next to the faucet this weekend.

View of the outer side yard. Grass was put in and they added Astilbe Visions in Red near the trees. The Astilbe looks to be the wrong color - it should be red but the plumes seems to fuschia pink. The landscaper is going to check on it.

Front yard is done as well. They put grasses in the river rock and Chicago Apache Daylillies around the tree. (Our little tree looks so puny compared to the new trees!)

Another view of the house. Now it's just a lot of watering and cleaning. This weekend we're going to sweep off the patio and clean the dirt away from the windows and screens. The waterfall started to have an algae issue because it hadn't been run in a couple days. I think I'll look into a treatment for it in case it gets worse. For now we can just squirt off the rocks and it should be fine.

Landscaping Day 17: Jogs!

Here is a video update of our landscaping. There are minor tasks left for the fence and stone guys. The next step is plants and then sod! :] (Excuse the audio on the video.. it was kinda windy! :P)

Landscaping Day 16: Front Yard Time

Yesterday the landscapers started on the front yard. Unfortunately so did the next door neighbours. ><

Starting on the outside fence...

View of the side where a gate will go.

View of the wrought iron. I love it!

Front yard work! The tree has been moved and raised. There will be daylillies around it. The corner will be filled with river rock and grasses. :]

Sad part... the neighbour next door started working on the stuff between our houses. I thought that it would be river rock on either side of a single strip of mulch. Instead.. well.. yeah...

I've had enough trouble with neighbours... I think Ian and I are going to give them this one. When the grasses go in you probably won't notice the striping...... /sigh Blegh.

Landscaping Day 15: So Close!

There was lots of progress made yesterday! For the first time, we could get a clear picture of what the finished product will look like. We're very happy minus the threat of a lawsuit. It starting to feel worth all the crap. :] Here's what is left to do.

They've enclosed the patio except the section of lattice work that needs to be popped in. The waterfall's liner needs to be cut and finished off in stone. The patio edge next to the waterfall needs to have the filler stuff put in as well. The extra pieces of flagstone have really confused us... I don't think it's "done" in a sense of layout/flow. I love the direction it is going though.

Looking towards the back left corner. They've put the cedar posts in and one post of wrought iron. We noticed the safety cones and giant rock next to it. Putting two and two together... They must have been digging down for a post and run into it. There is a big hole where the safety cones are, covered with rebar and wood. I suspect today will focus on filling the hole in and continuing on.

Looking back towards the house... When the neighbour behind us put up his deck, our backyard felt very small. We were expecting this because we live in a new subdivision. It helps to have a corner lot but I thought the backyard would feel tiny and closed in. I am happy with the landscaping we chose because it feel so big now. The patio is huge and there will be space for a "lounge" area and a dining area. The wrought iron of the fence will hopefully make it feel open but with privacy.

The absolute best part... Ian and I were eating in the dinette. I was running the waterfall and I turned to look back at it. A bunch of birds flew out of it and up onto the fence. A couple of them flew back down and stood on the flagstone with the water running over their feet. Ladies and gentlemen... we have a giant bird bath. Awesome. :>

Landscaping Day 14: Rainy Day - Boo

The landscapers couldn't get much done on Monday. They made some spraypaint marks on the ground and started up on the fence again. But the rain came shortly after they arrived. Bummer.

*Note the ladder left on Bad Neighbour B's "land". Hehe. :]

View from the back corner of the side yard.

Landscaping Day 13: A Good Fence Makes Good Neighbours

The title of this post is what our next door neighbour said to us when we first discussed a fence. He has been anything but a good neighbour and has also recruited the person behind him in his bitter campaign. We are trying to not let this hurt the fantastic experience we have been having with creating a beautiful backyard. Today we moved one step closer when Heritage began to install the fence panels. Just having 1 1/2 panels up has made a world of difference. When that side is fully enclosed and the angry phone calls to our landscapers stop, Ian and I will really start to enjoy it.

Privacy

Privacy. It's a simple thing. I didn't really value it THAT much until last week. I discovered last week that people can care so much about sticks of wood that they are willing to ruin any relationship. I discovered this week that people can care so much about a couple of inches of land, that it overshadows the birth of a baby. I guess I have a different perspective on life than these petty people. It's a fence. Not that big of a deal.

Anyway, I'm happy for the bit of privacy we now have. We can shut out the bad neighbours and enjoy our lovely piece of property.

Landscaping Day 12: Stalking Landscapers

I worked from home today. Which means for the first time, I was able to stalk our landscapers. :) It also means that I was home when I got the "I have bad news for you" phone call from the landscaping company. More neighbour crap. I don't understand people. I really don't. The bad neighbour next door went to the neighbour directly behind him and wrongly convinced him that one of our posts was on his property. We have done our due diligence. Before today I didn't want to go outside because it was such an awkward situation. After today, I'M PISSED OFF. Do these people have nothing better to do? How about checking your facts before causing issues? Hell.. how about coming to the damn door to talk about it with me directly instead of bothering my hard working landscapers? Grow a pair and ring the doorbell. I was sitting right there in my office looking straight at the idiot. There's no way he didn't see me. Then I could have told him he should take a second and look at his Surveyor's Property Report. I have mine right here along with the fact that I paid for a land survey. He has a dinky little property and the post is not on his land. I'm done being nice.

*breath*

On with the good stuff! They made a lot of progress with the waterfall today.. and I think we almost have the final layout! The water flows out of the top down onto 2 flagstones. The rest is a little bubbly creek. I think it will be beautiful once the water clears up. I can't wait to be sitting out there.

EVERYTHING is covered in the dust from them cutting the stones. I think I'm most excited to see the stonework when it's back to its true color. When water is flowing over the flagstones, they are a nice dark gray. I love it!

Landscaping Day 11: Let The Water Flow!

We raced home on Wednesday... and found a coiled up plug coming from the waterfall..... :) It's about half way done.. and I love it!

View from the back corner of the property.

And finally.. a video!