Where are we now?

Well, we are moving along nicely! We have... sanded the popcorn ceiling off on the main level of the house, started adding the moldings around doors and windows, started sanding the steps up to the second floor, bought new doors and door knobs for the bedrooms, bought a very cool old door for the half bath downstairs and purchased a new light for the front of the house (you'll all be warmly welcomed now!) ;-).  Not much was done in December, so we are playing catch up now for our estimated May move-in date.  Tenants will be out first week of March. 

Door to the basement.

 

When dad was in town, he drew the lighting plan on the walls in the living room! The electrician is coming on Thursday, yipppeee, recessed lighting!

Kitchen floors, fixing holes in floor, scraping chimney, lugging rubbish and stripping paint!

Stripping paint off the banister!

Builders Bum!! Sorry Rofo, I had to!

Kitchen lano ripped up...now the daunting task  of scraping the floor (see above!) ;-)

Fixing holes with new fir flooring.

Sanded Floors

So while I was at a course this last weekend, Rofo was on his hands and knees with 4 different sanders.  Needless to say, he is very sore today....but....we have some nice fir floors now! Rofo and Graham realized it was much harder work than anticipated because of the 7 layers to get through (4 layers of lino, 1 layer of tar stuff, 2 layers of paint).  The kitchen still needs to get done...but I think we have to gove Graham a weekend off, he's been working a month straight!

 

 

ACTUAL Renovations begin....

It's all getting exciting....
1) We've replaced our roof (with skylights!), which apparently should have been done 20yrs ago!

2) We've moved the basement door out of the kitchen and into the main floor hallway!
3) We've torn down walls and lifted up the lino on the main floor to expose the original fir floors which we will refinish.

Graham & Rolf in the area between the living room & dining room.

Kitchen view to front door

 

Entrance Hallway

Dining Room To Be

 

Every weekend going forward there will be a project until we move in in April/May of 2010.
Light is shining through now...not so dark and we can picture what it will be like, very fun.

Some of the house plans and 'before' shots....

Fall Update

Nothing much has changed other than the fact that our water main burst.... we weren't sure if it was our responsibility or the cities....but since it was 2 inches into our plot, it was ours!

Our street was flooded but luckily the house was spared the deluge! We ended up phoning a few plumbers who quoted $3000+ for digging up the garden and laying the new pipe!!!

However, a good local plumber recommended by the city allowed me to negotiate! - "Ok, mate have you got tools - and we'll do it ourselves!!" . He obliged and sprayed the ground where we had to dig at least 4 foot down and 2 feet across. Back breaking put it took only 3 hours and so it was done! More imporatntly it saved us $1,800!

We now have a lovely new pipe into the house!!!

Contractors

Lately, we've been meeting with a lot of contractors and some are charging $200 psf! It makes you want to fly a group up from some foreclosed filled town in the US! We have some other options which is great....don't think they will all come in at that price, however, we don't want a bunch of cowboys either. The latest thinking is that if it is so expensive right now, perhaps we fix the 2 main floors so that Rolf and I can enjoy it, then when prices go down, we build out the basement and the attic as originally planned. We are leaning more towards this as we are craving a bit more space and are tired of all the sirens here.....even though, we love this condo still!!!