A bunch of ugly images but you get the idea!

Its been a few days..........or a couple of weeks since my last post and I ask myself why?  Well maybe its because all the things going on at the house lately are all what I would call...........well..........frankly they're boring and ugly.  So much plumbing and electrical work is being done and I know that its all essential but the results are not so visible.  There has to be a life lesson on patience in there somewhere!!!

So if you were to walk in the house right now, particularly in the suite downstairs where everything is new, you might see such scenes as this

Watch out for those wires.............dont worry I dont think they're live!!

Or if you look up at the ceiling you might see this

To me its just a complicated missmash!  But I'm forever grateful I have a skilled husband that knows what he's doing.  This complicated missmash will probably ensure that right above this ceiling I will be able to relax in my soaker tub with candles lit all around me, not because the lights dont work but because I chose the ambiance of candle light!  Hmm maybe I need to request a dimmer switch for some mood lighting!  Good idea.  I think so.

The other thing I see as a visible sign of progress is some holes in the ceiling upstairs.  These holes are intensional of course, for pot lights.

Sometimes little bursts of colour appear out of nowhere in the shape and form of the lovely Sophia.  Glad to see those reflectors on her jacket work!

Yup that's Phil holding her up.  I'm taking the picture from the living room and he's standing on the stairs.  If you can tell behind all that junk, thats a half wall that separates the stairs from the living area.  It used to be a full wall but we broke it down to let some more light in.

Sophia with her famous grin helping Daddy out.

Oh and here's all the snow we've been having.  The rain is currently washing it all away.  Oh well it was nice while it lasted.

Good riddance to you wallpaper

I didnt have class on Thursday morning and Phil's parents were off work too so while they looked after Sophia for the morning I jumped at the chance to get my hands on this reno project in some sort of way.  Our day started the way most days start for Phil..........a trip to Home Depot.  Phil is in the throws of framing so here he is loading some lumber into the truck.

We also headed to the tool rental department for a wall-paper steamer.............my favourite.  Having grown up in Scotland, I'm all to familiar with wallpaper.  My Mum and I spent many an hour steaming wallpaper off the walls.  Ah..............memories.  So with some experience under my belt, I set out to rid the house of any trace of wallpaper.  Thankfully there were only four walls - feature walls, I might add!!
Want some of this?

No?  I didnt think so!

So I did a bit of this.

And some cheese for the camera!

But I wont take all the credit because after lunch I switched places with Chris (my mother-in-law) and she kept stripping that nasty wallpaper.  But I didnt mind, cause I got to hang out with this angel who by-the-way has recently taken a keen interest in looking through my make-up bag.  Yesterday morning I found her under the dining room table applying blusher like a pro!

Colour colour on the wall, which is the greatest of them all?

Picking paint colours is an interesting process.  I mean, a room can look totally different when you paint it another colour.  And the fact that we have a whole house to paint means we have a lot of choices to make. Its a lot of fun but sometimes I wish we could afford an interior designer to give us a little guidance.  Probably not going to happen, so here's hoping we make some good choices.  One choice we will make is using Benjamin Moore paint.  Phil highly recommends it.  Having had to work with a variety of brands of paint in the past, depending on what his clients chose, Phil cant recommend Benjamin Moore enough.  He says its so good that if done well, you almost only need one good coat of it so even if it feels like you are spending slightly more in the first place, you're really not cause you dont need to use as much.  Once in a while Phil recalls the time he had to do seven coats of this bright reddish pink coloured paint in someones bedroom cause it was a cheap brand that just didnt work well.  I'm pretty sure he was sick of the colour by the time he was done.  Needless to say, we'll never have a hot pink bedroom.  No worries...........its not really my style.

Here's my hubby pondering over Benjamin Moore's 'Historical Collection'.  I think we've found a few winners here!

Demo Heaven

So we got the house last Friday and demolition started on Saturday!  On Saturday morning we had an energy audit done on the house.  The hope is that once we are done the renovations which include things like new insulation and windows then the guy will come back and do another energy audit and proof of our house being more energy efficient will help us to get some energy grants that the government offers.  Great!!!

So Phil has been busy pulling off trim, pulling up floors, and breaking down walls.  For example, what once looked like this

now looks like this

And now we get to do some dump runs!!!

Notice the red box in the foreground?  Yeah I got Phil an early birthday present so the he can groove to some tunes while he works.  Its a good heavy duty jobsite ghetto blaster and you can even hook up your ipod and store it inside!  Phil can be found working to the soothing sounds of Coldplay or 'shakin his thang' to some random hip hop on the radio!  Oh and let me tell you, when I arrived at the house this morning, there was country music playing on the radio.  Seriously what is this world coming to?

But for now let me leave you with a couple of pics of our cute little love bug