Exposing Brick
One of the walls in our bedroom is uneven because the chimney juts out. It’s also in an awkward spot because we want to put our bed against that wall,…
Christmas 2015
Last Christmas we had just finished our first floor renovation and were finally able to relax in our home. Upstairs was a different story, however. We had a decent set-up…
Drywall Nightmares: Part 2 – The “Professionals”
Once we finished our demo work, it was time to find a drywaller. We learned a very valuable lesson: Drywallers are not the most reliable tradespeople. We had three separate…
Building Access to the Attic: Part 1
We are fortunate enough to have a pretty kick-ass attic space. It’s totally not usable right now; it’s dirty and there’s no insulation (not that the rest of our house…
Replacing Hardwood Upstairs: Part 1 – Master and Middle Bedroom Demolition
The upstairs floors were generally in better shape than they were downstairs. There were, however, a few problem areas that looked like they fell victim to water damage. Given how…
Drywall Nightmares: Part 1 – Master and Middle Bedroom Demolition
Before we could start painting, we had some drywalling to do. We wanted a new wall flush with the exposed brick, we wanted a closet opening that would fit an…
Renovating the Second Floor: Let the Fun Begin!
It’s been almost a year since we completed our living room/dining room renovation. We finally have a social life again, we can relax in the evenings and on weekends and…
First Floor Reveal
It’s been a year since we bought our house and a lot has changed. We’ve replaced our electrical wiring, fixed our fireplace, replaced our hardwood floor, painted the walls, installed…
Does DIYing Really Save You Money?
Through the good and the bad of DIY renovations, Alex and I have been motivated by the fact that doing things ourselves is saving us butt-loads. I mean, BUTT-LOADS. But…
Replacing Baseboards: Part 2 – Installation
Once our baseboards were cut, we had to paint them. We first made sure to number each baseboard so we knew exactly where it belonged! Painting We sanded each baseboard…
Fauxdenza
Now that Alex and I are done most of our major construction projects, we are working on updating some of our furniture – particularly those old Ikea pieces that we’re…
How to Sew Door and Window Draft Stoppers
Our doors and windows are extremely drafty. We’ve managed to stop some of the draft with that ugly shrink wrap stuff, which is fine for our un-renovated and already-ugly upstairs.…
Vestibule Tile Installation
Our front door has a small vestibule. It was originally covered in tile, but when we replaced our hardwood floor we took this nasty blue tile out. We opted to…
How to Winterize
Now that winter is coming, we had time to think about all the other things that needed to be done around the house. Particularly to prepare for winter. As new…
Christmas 2014
It’s hard to get into the Christmas spirit when your living room consists of a couple of plastic-wrapped chairs covered in drywall dust. Our first bit of festive cheer began…
Replacing Hardwood: Part 8 – Sanding and Finishing
Alex and I are tired. Over the last few months, we poured concrete, tore up our floors, built a wall and installed new flooring. With winter definitely here, we were…
Painting the First Floor
Once the subfloor was installed and the load-bearing wall was finished, it was time to paint! Choosing a Paint Brand There are a lot of paints to choose from: Benjamin…
Load-Bearing Wall: Part 4 – Drywalling and Pot Lights
This wall has made me both hope for a beautiful future together and wish harm upon it. These days, it’s the latter. Actually, if the stupid thing wasn’t holding up…
Replacing Hardwood: Part 6 – Subfloor
Replacing Hardwood (Part 6): Subfloor Now that our floor is good and shimmed (referred to in our house as the sub-subfloor), it’s time to work on the subfloor. The subfloor…
Load-Bearing Wall: Part 3 – Replacing Ducts
We currently have a duct running up our load-bearing wall that goes to the centre bedroom. After thinking about this for a while, we decided to keep the duct in…
Load-Bearing Wall: Part 2 – Demolition
I have (mostly) made my peace with the fact that our ugly little wall cannot be removed. But I refuse to let this wall totally win. When I’m done with…
Load-Bearing Walls: Part 1
Replacing our hardwood floor seemed like a simple idea. We would tear up the old floor, put down a new subfloor, install the new floor, and stain the thing. It…
How to Make Authentic Tomato Sauce
Everyone once in a while we take a break from the craziness of our house reno to do something fun. Today we traveled to Port Hope to make tomato sauce…
Replacing Hardwood: Part 5 – Shimming
After yet another trip to Home Depot with an AutoShare cargo van, we think we have everything we need to start (and hopefully finish) the subfloor. Our house isn’t level,…
Fireplace Renovation: Part 8 – Fixing the Brick
Now that the hearth is done, we still have to address the missing brick in the fireplace. We had a couple of people come and look at what could be…
Fireplace Renovation: Part 7 – Finishing the Hearth
On Sunday we (mostly) successfully poured our concrete hearth. It was quite the feat – both in mind and body. Here’s what it looked like when all was said and…
Fireplace Renovation: Part 6 – Pouring a Concrete Hearth
Our mold was ready and we were excited. The day we were working towards was finally here! Today we mixed and poured our concrete. Prep To prep the area, we…
Fireplace Renovation: Part 5 – Building a Concrete Hearth Mold
Alex’s mom is visiting this weekend, but we stole a few hours for ourselves and made some serious progress. In the couple of hours we had before dinner on Saturday,…
Fireplace Renovation: Part 4 – Fixing the Backerboard
This week we installed the backerboard and I had a bit of trouble with the cement grout. But, with that in the past, we were ready to build a mold…
Fireplace Renovation: Part 3 – Installing Backerboard
Just when we think we’ve got it all figured out, we realized that we haven’t. Our grand plan was to patch the fireplace and pour the concrete (for our hearth)…
Fireplace Renovation: Part 2 – Preparing the Floor
We’ve been stalled on our reno work for a while because we’ve been trying to figure out what to do next. Our concrete hearth idea is complicated for newbies, and…
Replacing Hardwood: Part 4 – Leveling the Floor
I feel like I’ve read every article and seen every video on installing hardwood flooring. The most common advice I see if that the finished floor is only as good…
Carless and Renovating
Alex and I are both urban planners (by training, anyways), and we love to hate on the irresponsible suburbanization of North American cities, especially with regard to how car-dependent we’ve…
Fireplace Renovation: Part 1 – Demolition
I realized tonight that every single thing we’ve done to the house so far – the electrical, the hardwood – has only made the house look worse. We haven’t actually…
Fireplace Renovation: Inspiration
It all started with the floor. We tore up the old hardwood and with it came the stone in front of the fireplace (also know as the hearth). No problem,…
Black Thumb
Improvements inside the house aren’t going so well, so I decided to venture outside and see what I could do about our front lawn situation. There were a lot of…
Under Attack
We seem to have finally won the battle against the raccoon living in our garage. For now. But now we have a new problem: squirrels. Squirrels are relatively cute creatures;…
Replacing Hardwood: Part 1 – Hardwood 101
It’s been a while since my last post. I haven’t had much to write about because we haven’t made much progress, even though all we do is work on the…
Moving Day!
It’s been a tough couple of weeks, but moving day is finally here! The apartment was in pretty good shape by Thursday night. Almost everything was packed and we only…
How to build a wall: Part 2
We’re getting there. It’s not pretty, but we’re getting there… We’ve been working for about a week straight, and we’re getting cranky about it. We let dad take Friday night…
How to build a wall: Part 1
Once the washer and dryer were put back together, I started a new project: building a wall. Our bedroom is quite large, but has a slightly awkward layout: the doors,…
How to fit 27″ appliances down 25″ stairs
There’s lots going on right now and we’re all working on different things. Dad and Alex are going strong on the electrical and I’m picking up other random projects that…
Rewiring a House: Part 2
The real work began this weekend. Service Upgrade We had our electrician show up and do the service upgrade this week. This was a small job that is separate from…
Rewiring a House: Part 1
Before the weekend we started the first step in the electrical work: tearing down the basement ceiling. I use the term ‘ceiling’ lightly here. Our ceiling was comprised mostly of…
Closing time
Closing is an interesting time. It’s supposed to be full of hope and excitement. Our was full of stress. But (spoiler alert), it all worked out. What to do before…
Mortgages
Mortgages are stressful. They are one of the most important contracts you’re ever going to sign and you really have no one looking out for you except yourself. Pre-Approval First…
It’s all over!
Today was crazy. CRAZY. Home Inspection This morning we headed over to the house for the home inspection. Our home inspector, Scott, took us through the entire house and patiently…
Appraisals and Financing
One of the common conditions in an offer is financing. I always thought that the financing condition was only based on getting a mortgage. Since we had been pre-approved, I…
So much drama…
The roller coaster ride continues… This morning we got a call from the bank. CMHC wants to do an appraisal. The problem is that our offer expires tomorrow at 9pm…
Offer Accepted!
Today our agent called and asked what we wanted to do. We reluctantly suggested that we offer slightly more than our original offer. It wasn’t as much as she wanted,…
Waiting… again…
At this point, it’s a waiting game. A game that is killing me… The weekend has now passed and there are still no other offers. The seller is now willing…
Relisted
Today the selling agent re-listed the house for more than the original price… Jerk. And she’s having another open house. Except she didn’t post it on the public site, much…
:@
For anyone who knows icq or msn emoticons, the title of this post is a huge spoiler alert. Last night was bid night. We left work early and met our…
How does buying a house work?
The Toronto real estate market is insane. If you’ve read the news lately, there are many examples of insane bidding wars that lead to inflated prices and more speculation. So…
So. much. stress.
So we’re making an offer. It’s been a very busy two days. Monday Monday night we went back for another visit. We brought my dad, our agent, and a good…
Could it be?!
Today we went to see the Parkdale house. This beautiful, character-filled home is priced right and seems to be flying under the radar. We might actually have a chance! Alex…
Hopeful finds!
Alex and I were supposed to go to Ottawa this weekend to visit friends, but had to cancel last minute due to some baby sleep training. Don’t know what sleep…
Real Estate Agents
Looking at MLS was fun. Deciding whether or not it made sense to buy was less fun, but involved a lot of math and spreadsheets (which is fun). Once we…
What $800k gets you in Toronto
Alex and I have seen between 10 and 15 houses now. Some great, some not so great. But all consistently overpriced and out of our reach. In Toronto, this is…
Searching for a House
I’ve been looking at MLS listings well before we decided to buy a house. Once we decided to buy, though, my search frequency increased exponentially. I starting looking at the…