Christmas 2016
Two years go, we were living like this: Last year, we were living like this: Just a few weeks ago, we were living like this: Over the past year, we’ve…
Master Bedroom Closet Renovation
The major change (or one of the major changes) in our upstairs renovation was the installation of a new closet in the master bedroom. The reason we started this project…
Basement Renovation: Part 3 – Furnace v. Boiler
The only major scope creek that we had during our basement renovation was our decision to change from forced air (a furnace) to radiant heat (via a boiler). We made…
Stair Upgrade: Part 1
We originally planned to hire someone to come and rebuild our stairs – both in the basement and the handrail on the second floor. But as our basement work progressed,…
Reinstalling the Subfloor on the Second Floor
We decided to make our lives a bit more complicated by deciding to change our heating system from forced air to a boiler with rads. Since the pipes need to…
Basement Renovation: Part 2 – Design
We are renovating our basement in two phases. Phase 1 is simply underpinning the basement, replacing all the drains, and building new stairs. The second phase will be finishing the…
Basement Renovation: Part 1 – Hiring Professionals
After investigating a kitchen renovation, we decided to renovate our basement first. The most compelling case for the switch in scope was made by our real estate agent who reassured…
Hallway Closet Renovation
We have a tiny little closet on the second floor and we wanted to turn it into a linen closet. It’s a very narrow but deep space, measuring only 20½”…
Grey Thumb
We’ve so busy trying to get the inside of our house done that the outside of our house looks pretty sad. We’ve also been using this excuse for a good…
Painting the Second Floor
When we painted our living room and dining room, we did a lot of research on the brand of paint to buy and the type of finish. We wrestled with…
India
I generally don’t deviate from renovation-related posts, but Alex and I just spent 2 and a half weeks in India and the trip was too interesting not to share. India…
Drywall Nightmares: Part 3 – Back Bedroom Demolition
We’re now all set up in the master bedroom, so it’s time to deal with the back bedroom. When we went to get the back bedroom walls ready for paint,…
Professional Renovations
Alex and I have been renovation super stars for the last 2 years. We’ve completely transformed the first floor and are working on the second floor of our home and…
Building Access to the Attic: Part 2
Installing the Attic Hatch A couple of months ago we installed our new attic ladder. We then had to install an attic hatch. This was probably the most complicated part…
Replacing Hardwood Upstairs: Part 3 – Subfloor Installation
Once the original subfloor was clean of all its dog hair and dirt debris, we were ready to start installing the subfloor. Shimming Just like last time, we checked to…
Replacing Hardwood Upstairs: Part 2 – Demolition of Back Bedroom and Hallway
Once the master and middle bedrooms had subfloors installed and were painted, we moved into those rooms and started demolishing the hardwood floor in the back bedroom and hallway. Removing…