Kitchen and Laundry Cabinets

I suppose the title of this post is self explanatory.  After weeks of the kitchen cabinets taking up a ton of space upstairs they have been installed into our kitchen!  My lovely father-in-law came out to help my contractors.  Good thing as with some of the pieces it took two to hold and one to screw it into place.

We are still waiting for the countertops for the kitchen but even without I think the cabinets look great!

If you have ever shopped for cabinets of any kind, I'm sure you also had a moment of "Really?!!  They want how much for cabinets?!!"  We have a very large laundry room and have wanted proper cabinets in there too.  My lovely husband William was checking out the buy/sell websites Kijiji and Used Regina and found people who were reno-ing their kitchen and were selling their old cabinets.  For $100 (really just priced to get people to move them out of their condo) we got a ton of cabinets that ended up looking not half bad!

We were also lucky that the countertop was in good condition so for a great price we have everything set up for laundry cabinets! 

Upstairs Hallway

If you have been keeping up with my blog you will know that not only are we renovating the basement but also the hallway from the front door down to the door leading into the basement suit.  We have tin ceilings that we have wanted to try to keep as close to original as possible.  We were a little worried since there was some missing in the foyer with the church bells. 

You can see under the access to the attic there was about 3 feet of tin trim missing.

Rick never ceases to amaze me.  He explained that he could just climb into the area that we kept with a lower ceiling and take some of the trim from there.

When he came out he had pulled off more than enough trim to work with.  I tried to help with the cleaning and bending the trim to what we needed but really, Rick gets all the credit for how fantastic this ended up looking.  If you don't point it out to people there is no way anyone would see it was ever missing.

The next issue was what to do with how badly the paint was pealing from large portions of the ceiling.

We really liked the look of the gray but since the ceiling was already painted white at the front door, we would paint this ceiling white too.  First we needed to scrape off the flakey paint.

Once that was done the painting could begin.

We also decided to freshen up the ceiling at the front door.

Once the ceilings were done, we began to work on the walls and windowsills.

All the guys tease me because I always seem to take pictures of them up on ladders.  William finally got me back. 

I really enjoy the last picture.  It is a good contrast of how small I look compared to how big the church actually is!  I am procrastinating with this blog post as I should be working on some thesis work.  The plan is I will pick William up and we are heading out tonight right after work.  We are hoping to have the painting officially finished tonight.  We really only have one more coat of paint in the windowsill on the right in the picture, and scraping paint off the windows in the other two.  From there, this weekend is going to be all about sanding and refinishing the hardwood.  THEN we can finally put up the chandeliers.  Soon!  I will have completed pictures soon!

Bathroom Mosaic

There are a ton of new homes being built in Regina.  All very big and beautiful, but all to me have that cookie cutter feel to them.  Since we are renovating a church into a home, I really wanted to not only keep the integrity of the church as best as we could, but also make it very much our own.  My parents have a fantastic mosaic in the tile floor of their porch.  I have admired it ever since it was put in.  I spoke to my contractors many months ago to see if this was something we could also do.  Allan had described what he had done in the past and Rick gave me a crash coarse in how to not only tile, but how to tile a mosaic.  So, for months I have been shopping for colored ceramic tiles.  Much more difficult than I had hoped for.  Nobody really wants crazy colors in their homes it seems.  I did my best and was able to find enough to give me the effect I was looking for.

I initially wanted to have the mosaic in multiple areas of the bathroom that linked/connected like a path.  Since we were over three weeks behind schedule Rick and I decided that it was just going to be too much work for that.  We spent time discussing what and where it would work.  The final shape and space was to be the backsplash of the jet tub.  As you walk in it is what your eye is drawn to, so we decided to make it the official focal point of the bathroom.

We cut white tile to make a border, and decided to create a shape that mirrored the shape of the framing of the tub.

Rick had almost completed the tiling of the shower and walls of the bathroom so I decided I wanted to try to complete the mosaic over the weekend so I was out of his way for the tiling of the floor.

It was a little slow going at first while I broke the tile and got the hang of how much glue to place on each piece of tile.  I began the process close to the end of the day on the Friday so this was where I left it that Friday.

The end of day two I ran out of the glue so had to stop.  It was frustrating but it was getting late and I didn't feel like driving into Regina then back to Indian Head.  I left it as it was and got an early start the next day.

And after a very long day it was FINALLY finished.

I really wanted to have some red tiles placed within the mosaic but no such luck finding red tile.  I had to settle on a reddish grout.  I searched EVERYWHERE for a bright red grout.  The only place I could find some was a Rona BUT they had to order it and it was going to take at least three weeks to come in.  No go.  Thank goodness my dad had some reddish grout that he was going to use on the tile around his fireplace but ended deciding against it.  He gave it to me. EXCELLENT!  Not as bright as I was hoping for but it ended up being perfect.

I'll save the final pictures for when I post the finished bathroom.  I am very happy with how my mosaic turned out! 

Paint. FINALLY!

When we still had hope that the drywall was going to be finished on time, I had organized my family for a painting party.  It had worked out perfectly.  My brother who works shifts was off the whole weekend and my other brother who is in a band did not have a gig.  The lovely ladies in their lives were both free and my parents did not have plans.  PERFECT!  Then it needed to be cancelled.  The following weekend we lost a couple of people but still had the majority of the party still in.  Then it was cancelled... again.  As you know we then needed to deal with the drywall ourselves.  By the time we were ready to paint everyone was busy.  We had a few offers from friends, but we needed to get the painting done asap and that weekend was fantastic weather.  So, we ended up having a painting party for two.  Because we were so behind we decided to just pick two colours and run with them instead of changing it up in each room.

Living room/Dining room

 

Kitchen

Bedroom

Bathroom

We decided on the colours because we not only like them, but their names seemed perfect.  The green is "sanctuary" and the purple is "divine wine".  The colour we have for the upstairs hallway is "cathedral gray".  We are going to try to get that painted this coming weekend.  If anyone is interested in coming out and lending a hand you are more than welcome! ;)

My Small Town aka Trying to Stay Positive

I decided to start this blog of our church reno as a sort of diary of our experiences and to share with my friends and family who live far away.  As with most things in life you ride a roller coaster of sorts and experience ups and downs.  I am emotionally having a dip in the ride and needed to remind myself of how far we have come in this adventure and how excited I am (somewhere in here) to move to such a beautiful little town.

When we were at a stand still waiting for the mud on the drywall to dry we decided to have a little drive around our new town.  For anyone who is interested here is a link to the town website.  Indian Head  It has all sorts of history and pictures (and explains where the town name comes from).

Here are just a few pictures from our little drive.

Growing up in Saskatchewan I have heard multiple times the joke "UH the PRARIES?!!! There is just NOTHING to look at!"  I think this proves they can be pretty photogenic as these were taken with just my phone.

We even caught the town parade the day after.

I am excited to move to a community that has done nothing but make us feel welcome and to have multiple neighbors that have already invited us into their homes, offering their help in any way we need.  It's the reno itself that is sucking the excitement out of me.  Today I ended up needing to drive out to the church to deal with some issues, come back in and return/exchange some stuff, then drive around looking for coloured grout that apparently we are the only ones interested in as it would have taken three weeks after it was ordered.  With it being needed tomorrow that was just not going to work.

Sorry everyone, this post was really just for me.  Home stretch Victoria!  Stay positive!!!