Sunday, June 12, 2011

Construction Process - Week 4 to 7.5 - amazing what can get done in such a short time!

It as been a busy time since my last post! We are all moved into my parents house and slowly figuring out how our daily lives in the west end are going to work...
We have been visiting the house on a weekly basis and there has been so much progress its crazy!! So here is a recap of the last few weeks:

Week 4 (22 more to go!)
Last week was pretty uneventful. There were only a few beams on the foundation (pics to follow) Forgive me construction workers if this is a significant amount of work - to me, it doesn't look like much. It drives me nuts when someone thinks a sewing project doesn't look like much and expects me to get a 4 hour project done in 1!


Week 5 (21 more to go!)
We had a deja-vue moment - we are driving down our street and as we get to the bridge, Hubby says: "Is that our house?" My reply: "No, that's the neigh....holy sh!* that is our house!!!" We realize this conversation is going to starting the same each week from now until there is no visible change on the outside of the house - LOL.

Like the title says, what a difference a week makes! The first and second floors are up!


Week 6 (20 more to go)
This week, the roof is up and it is actually starting to look like a house! We are really excited and have already started to plan out our backyard. A nice big deck, play structure for the kiddies and i am still holding out hope for a swimming pool.

Week 7 (19 more to go)
We are officially moved out to Kanata! We closed on the old house Friday and went to visit the new place that afternoon. Pleasantly surprised to see the roof is now shingled!! It looks awesome! Now that i don't have the move to worry about, i am starting to worry that they might book our pre-drywall walk through on August 10th at 9am (the same day and time as Baby G will be born -). It will be just my luck. I worried about the same thing the first time around with the semi - and sure enough L came late enough that our PDI was on the day after he was born so Hubs went with my dad and brought back pictures for me to see. Wonderful....

Week 7 and 3 days (18 and a half weeks to go!)
Yep, living in Kanata has reduced us to house stalkers. I am not sure why we even went, as one would think nothing would happen over the weekend and what can they do in one day?? Well, lots apparently - all the windows except the master bedroom room window was in AND we had doors - all except the garage doors.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

POD day!!

Wow its finally here - the day our POD is delivered!! It seemed like a long way away when we first booked it. So far the process has been relatively painless - we called and booked, they confirmed with hubby yesterday that it would arrive today between 8:45 and 11:45 - we didn't even need to be here for the delivery. Yet here I sit, as by true Jen nature, I was up most of the night worried. Yep that's right! Worried that it wouldn't fit in the driveway, worried they would hit the house when they dropped it off, worried that they would hit the neighbour's car etc etc...luckily, my boss is pretty accommodating and i was able to email in that I had to take the morning off to be here. (If you are reading this, thank you.)

So here I sit anxiously waiting - they had better ring the doorbell!!

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Ok, so my worrying was needless. Its a pretty cool system that i needed to see for myself to be comfortable with the process.
I think I may have freaked the delivery driver out as I almost started to cry - we are really leaving. This is the begining of everything that is going to change for us over the next few months....AND I am so not ready!! Hormonal much??!?!

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Construction Process - Week 3 (hopefully only 23 more to go...)

This week, we signed off on our colour choices – I will have to post some pics later as I had everything pulled and put back so efficiently that I forgot to take pictures. We went with black, whites and greys. I think it’s going to look really clean. This is good incentive to keep the house clean too!

I am super excited as I have already begun to think about how to decorate. We inherited a great pair of vases from one of Hubby's Aunts. I am loving the colours in them so i figure i will use it as inspiration for the colour scheme of the main level.

My inspiration vase:

Some fabrics I LOVE:

I have also started a list of projects I’d like to complete for the new place (as if having a baby wasn’t enough!) My Grandma gave me an awesome antique chair that I am going to paint and recover. The plan is to paint the wood white and then find some kind of dark grey print or lush charcoal velvet to cover it with. I picture silver nail heads in there somewhere. I hear the city offers some great upholstery classes so it will be my project!

Here’s a before of the chair:

This is what i hope the chair will become:

This is my dream bed(room):

I have thought of making one like it, but I am not sure that is project I want to tackle. And I have priced out the foam and some fabric and I think in the long run, it might just be less expensive to buy the bed as it is. Hubs likes it too so I think we may just treat ourselves and get it as our anniversary present! I love the look of the room in the picture too, although I don’t think the mirrored side tables are going to work with little ones running around - finger print magnet!! I think we will definitely put some wall paper up on the wall behind our bed as an accent. I am going to wait until we move in to get a “feel” for what I like.

I am still on the hunt for the “perfect” coffee table that I can turn into an ottoman. I am finding out this is no easy task. I am looking for something square, that isn’t going to break the bank (like I am thinking under $40) and it has to have nice looking legs. We are thinking of getting a sectional for the family room so I want something to sit in front that can accommodate feet, and a tray for drinks and snacks (hopefully not at the same time!).

My last thought is on what to do in the eating area. I am thinking of building a banquet to go either along the wall (which I guess would be more like a bench with lots of pillows) or an L shaped one that would go along the breakfast bar (we would kind of block off the breakfast bar) and down the wall. I already have the table (I am going to get my mom and dad’s kitchen table) so its just a matter of figuring out how to build it – whether its from scratch or if I buy some cabinetry from Ikea or something like that. Again, I think that project will have to wait until we are in the house to figure out.

So much to think about…I should really be thinking about packing since the POD arrives in a couple of weeks…oh yes, but this is so much more fun!!

Here are some recent pictures of the house (taken May 28th):

Oh yes, and i forgot to mention this project. I am going to try to take pictures of the trucks that are frequent visitors to our contruction site and blow them up to frame for the boys' rooms. Here's the first one: