So we’re almost ready to move back into the house! A ton of stuff have happend over the last few weeks and I haven’t had the time to keep up with this blog. Just over two weeks ago our first daughter Josephine as born. She and the mother is doing great but as new parents we’re still amazed how much time it takes to care for an infant. But it is a lot of fun too!
While Chantal and I have been busy our builders have made great progress. I’ve only been able to take a few pictures of their progress. Take a look below for pictures from the last few weeks. As of today almost all the painting is done; the floors have been stained black but need clear-coating; the kitchen is in and functional (by tonight) but will need finishing work; the top floor is basically completely finished (including shower); and the master bedroom done as well. The one room that is lagging is the master shower. The vanity we bought is delayed, the glass shower wall on order, the shower head running late and the bath tub faucet still missing. Oh well! We can use the 3rd floor shower for now…
There is a lot of progress on all fronts for the house. We plan to move into the house on September 1st (even if some work will continue afterwards). Nick is doing a great job coordinating all builders and we’re making great progress. By now all the floors are installed and the painters have started their work (I have no pictures yet).
The goal for next week is to install the kitchen (!) paint the 1st and 3rd floors and hopefully finish most of the bathrooms (apart from backordered stuff). The hot-water/heating system is also going in next week. The week after that the goal is to finish painting and also staining of the floors and then there are a few days left for finishing work before we move in.
The scariest part is that I trust in Nick and his ability to get this done.
Below are some recent pics of the floors in the different rooms
Over the last few days they have started to install the hardwood floor on the top and first floor. Our hardwood floors are white oak but we will stain them medium dark with a stain called “special walnut”. We’re installing medium width floors on the 1st and 3rd floor but a wider plank on the main floor. Can’t wait for the main floor to go in. Hopefully before the end of this week.
We have also picked colors for the house. Took about 4 sample tries for each color. We will go with mostly white walls (well ok the color is called shoreline from benjamin more and is slightly grey) with a couple of accent walls to add some interest. The TV wall on the main floor will be stone gray, a color that matched the cabinets we’ve picked. All the bathrooms will be much lighter cement gray. The bay windows of Josephine’s room will be a warm cedar green. Apart from that the rest of the house will stay white.
For the garden level apartment we picked a soft beige with a little character and will do an offset wall in a darker beige as well.
It will be interesting to see how it turns out. I hope the start painting next week and we should start in the kitchen at that time as well.
There has been so much happening behind the scenes once again. Chantal and I made an effort to get ahead of the curve and get most every thing ordered and decisions made. Hopefully over the next few weeks things will trickle in and get done. At the moment the tilers have arrived and started working. They have all ready finished the travertine floors in the entrance, kitchen and our half bath. They have also started tiling our 3rd floor bathroom as well as the rental shower. It’s all looking good, can’t wait for them to start on the master bath. Both Chantal and I are exited about the tile choices there, and stones have been picked up and are ready to be installed.
Apart from tiling, work continues on electrical, plumbing and floor boards. Our oak hardwood floors have been delivered. The wide planks on the main floor will look great!. The floor should be installed over the next week or so.
Was over at the house Friday and they had made good progress on our Garden Level apartment. The apartment is starting to look nice! It was also 85F (30C) outside and muggy but the downstairs apartment was easily 8-10F (4-5C) cooler and comfortable. Seems like all that foam sprayed i the (thick) walls helps, as does the 2″ foam insulation under the floor. This apartment shouldn’t need an air conditioner and should also stay warm during the winter. It really gets a boost from being next to the basement that always stays around 65F (18C)
Having lived in many apartments with limited storage I’m happy with how much closet space we found for this one. There are two large closets in the bedroom, a third closet in the hallway to the shower and yet a fourth separate closet for the washer and drier. The shower is also reasonably sized. I think this apartment will become very liveable and I’m exited to see it take shape. We have tried to stay away from buying the cheapest home-depot apartment grade materials so I think the rooms will look great! Can’t wait to see the kitchen go up! Once the electricity is finished I will take more pictures of the shower and hallway.
So this is the last post bringing us up to yesterday afternoon. All of the skim coating is finished for the our part of the house. I think they will finish the garden level apartment today. Next week they will start putting in floors (!) and start to finish the electrical work etc. It will be interesting to see!
The house feels so bright and airy now that we have walls up that are bright. We will of-course paint the walls later but will keep most of the walls neutral. Each room feels really airy and the main floor has so much natural daylight without the sun glaring in. I think this will turn out to be a great house after all!
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So the foam only took a couple of days after which it was time for the blue boards. The blue boards are the first step of getting inside walls up before a veneer skim coat is used. I found a decent article over at Bob Vila’s site explaining it. The blue boards where done in a couple of days (including the garden level apartment) and these are the results. The house actually felt quite small after they put these up as the blue color is quite dark. Still with the inside walls up this is starting to feel more like a house and I like how each room turned out as no room feels small.
In the next series of pictures I will show what it looks like after then skim coat is put up. It’s starting to look like a house!
Progress on the house is faster then my ability to upload. A lot have happened on the house and more will happen over the next few weeks. We’re planning on having hardwood floors installed next week! So this is a first attempt to catch up. About a week ago we reached a milestone in that we were ready for insulation. The whole house where quickly sprayed with high density foam over two days. These are the pictures I had time to snap.
Next post will talk about blue boards, the first step for inside walls and then we can look at the skim coat to roughly finish the inside walls; at which point our house is starting to look like a house. So stay tuned.
Now that we finally have our windows there is once again a lot of progress being made. I’ve been able to snap picture of most of it but I have been slow posting, so this is the first of a couple of posts to try to catch up.
Over the last couple of weeks things have been happening in parallel. The outside hardie planks have started to go up and at same time we have finally started on opening up the brick walls to make room for large windows in our Garden Level Rental apartment.
Take a look below for the progress…
I am impressed with how fast the windows are installed and the fact that they seem to fit (knock on wood!). Around 1.45 pm they had 4-6 windows installed and by the time they left at 4.30 pm they had several more! These windows makes the house look like a house and it should also allow us to make great progress on all fronts over the next few weeks. Can’t wait!
