Backyard Renovations: Final Touches
Our backyard renovation was so painful, right from the start. Thanks to a terrible contractor, everything was really delayed and I ended up doing a lot of it in pieces,…
Home Depot
Backyard Swing
When I was looking for backyard inspiration, I really loved the look of cedar post archways, especially contrasting against a black fence. I then saw a few examples where these…
Backyard Renovation: Floating Deck (Phase 6)
Phase 6 was supposed to be the final step in our backyard renovation plan. Our garage was supposed to be done in early May and I’d have all summer to…
Basement Family Room: TV Wall
With the drywall up and the walls painted, we knew that we had to do something interesting for our TV wall because it was just one giant white wall. I…
Basement Renovation: New Windows
We have 4 basement windows and 3 of them were completely boarded up. Now that we’re renovating the basement, we wanted to have some natural light and get new windows.…
Basement Family Room Renovation: Framing, Drywalling and Painting – Part 2
Last winter we finished the first half of the basement family room because I was returning to work after my maternity leave and I needed a relatively clean space to…
Building a Planter Box
Little by little, we’ve been trying to make our backyard a bit nicer. While perusing the internet at all hours of the night, I came across a really nice planter…
Basement Bathroom Renovation: Tiling
Months into my basement bathroom reno, I was finally ready to tile. The walls were up, plumbing and electrical were in, and waterproofing was done. Materials and Tools My original…
Basement Bedroom Renovation: Framing, Drywall and Painting
Once the back of the basement was clear of our crap, it was time to start framing the back half of the basement. The hardest part of the basic framing…
Kitchen Renovation: Part 11 – Finishing Touches
Given how massive this project was, many of the tasks that are usually major milestones in a project seemed small in comparison. Painting One of the first finishing touches was…
Load-Bearing Wall: Part 5 – Removing the Wall!
I’ve had a hate-hate relationship with the wall in our dining room since we moved in. Even though we managed to make it slightly less ugly, my issue was with…
Backyard Upgrade
Our backyard has never been great. When we first moved in, it was a clean but unattractive gravel pit. The previous owner had 2 large dogs, so having grass never…
Christmas 2017
For the first time since we bought our house, this Christmas seasons wasn’t filled with frantically finishing major construction! We got back from our epic parental leave trip just a…
Wooden Baby Gym
Now that we have a baby, we’re doing less construction. But my natural inkling to build stuff is still strong so when I was looking for a non-ugly baby gym,…
Baby Bookshelf
When shopping for nursery furniture, I fell in love with Oeuf’s mini library. The only problem is that I really couldn’t justify the $895 price tag. Especially for something that…
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…
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…
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…
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 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…
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…
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…
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 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 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)…
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…
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;…