Happy Anniversary!!!

It's been a whole year!!! We received the keys for this place a year ago today. What I remember about that day was the overwhelming need to keep repeating Oh My God.... and the amount of work we would be needing to do in order to make this house our home. 

Well, we're by no means finished but we've really come a long way in a year. There's been a tremendous amount of work completed, started and waiting to be finished. Right now it's little jobs... do they ever get completed???? We've lived through many stages of construction and I can remember painting every single wall, piece of trim, corner, and baseboard. It's been a labour of love and hate at certain times. But in the end it's been worth it. 

What I've learned:

1. I'm a perfectionist with certain things but not with others. 

2. I like getting jobs accomplished.

3. I can only live with a mess for so long and then it's time to git'r done. 

4. Living out of boxes isn't fun. 

5. I love my physio therapist.

6. I can do way more construction than I thought I could, although the table saw still scares me.

7. I'm an EXCELLENT painter.

8. Darcy and I make a good team and we do work well together, after we get past the....well you know what I'm talking about.

9. You can live without an oven, stove top, microwave but not all at the same time and never without a kitchen sink. 

10. Sometimes the most stressful moves, are the ones worth the most. 

11. My work ethic comes from my parents, thank you for that. 

Here's a peek at what a before and after of our living room and outside. Apologies for the darkness inside but it's all I've got. 

Ignore the boxes and half door on the cabinet. I was playing with an app. 

Again, all I can say is OMG! OMG! What a difference a year and some hard work can make. 

We would love to hear your comments, if you have any to share, write away. 

OMG! OMG! and our Accomplishments

That's all we could say the first day we got the keys to the house. We walked around outside, taking pictures and then inside. OMG! Were the only words to describe what I was feeling that day. Well, I think I was really OVERWHELMED with the amount of projects we had to get done. 

The house was in rough shape. We've worked weekends and even some evenings. 

Yesterday we tackled a flower bed. We'd decided we would work on one each weekend, well for the weekends we could work on them. We do both work very full time jobs at times. 

Here's what we accomplished this weekend and then I've got some before and after pictures to show you as well. 

First thing in the am. We were trimming the excess branches  on the bottom.
Privacy is great but  this is over growth. 

The finished product. We're quite happy with it. Please ignore our hillbilly dog area.
We're not sure what we're going to do with it. Oh it's an eye sore. 

You won't believe these before and after photos. I think I stared at them for over an hour last night. Marvelling at the amount of work we've done.

Accomplishments

What a great weekend! We went to see Fleetwood Mac on Friday night in Calgary, they were as good as you'd think they would be. Classic Rock Band. I am so glad we drove down to see them. We just about skipped out and stayed at home. The weather was so good, we just wanted to be home to get some things accomplished. 

We decided to make the trip to Edmonton go farer and we headed home instead of staying to visit with family. As much as I wanted to visit, I also needed to be home to get some jobs accomplished. 

One of those jobs is our lawn. It is a sad, sad, sad sight. I think lawn is an understatement, it's more like a patch of dried dirt and dandelion. We are the eye sore of this neighbourhood. We're working on it but it's slow going. 

We drove home Saturday and arrived late but that didn't stop us on Sunday. We divided and conquered two major jobs that needed completing. Darcy worked on the railing on our front porch and I worked on over seeding the lawn. Both were big jobs. 

I think this photo gives you a pretty good idea of what the front porch and the lawn looked like on our first day. 

Oh my! It was in very rough shape. 

This was taken a week ago as our roof was being replaced. The cedar shakes smell delightful when it rains. 

You can see by the next two photos how badly the lawn needs to be attended too. 

This was today as Darcy was building the railings. It's just about done. 

I've over seeded the lawn with dirt, peat moss, sand and seed. Now we just need to water, water, water or maybe some rain would help our cause. 

The front porch all painted and ready to enjoy. I can't wait to sit out here during the summer months and read and maybe even have myself a margarita.  

I think I'm in love. 

The not complete but looking WAY BETTER photo. 

Here are the before and current photos again. 

Before

During/Current

Beautiful Day

It is FINALLY a beautiful day here I Grande Prairie. No wind and sunny sky. This is what I got to wake up to today. I love having flowers by my bed. Waking up to these lovelies helps to brighten your day and lift your spirits.
Do any of you put flowers by your bed?

Done Like Dinner

It has been a very busy and productive weekend. We completed the baseboards in the kitchen and hung up our new blinds. We needed to wait to do this because the inside window frames needed to be painted. It was worth the wait. 

Here's what the window and wall looked like when we moved in. 

Hideous I know. Here's during and what the finished area looks like now. 

It's calming and done. Another area crossed off our large list. It's sure come a long way from the day we got it. 

Flowers Everywhere!

Can we talk procrastination or what??? Today, I'm the biggest procrastinator you will find. I just don't want to get these math report card comments done. Instead, I went shopping for flowers. Yes, you read that correctly. For some reason, I'm addicted to having fresh flowers around me. Perhaps it's the anticipation of spring coming or finally having our lives get back to some sense of normalcy. Fresh flowers are perking up my spirits. 

So instead of sitting at the computer and writing report card comments, I'm writing a quick post to share some of the little vignette's (I love this word) I've created with my fresh flowers. 

Yes, you are seeing a tin can being used as a flower vase. I don't have anything small enough, so I figured why not use this. I cleaned it out as best I could. I think spray painting it white will make it look even better or maybe a bright orange or yellow. No spray painting today since the wind is blowing like it does in the Wizard of Oz. 

I love waking up to fresh flowers by my bed. They are some of the left overs from the Daisy's I bought last week. The bouquet was just too big so I separated them and put them around the house. A large bouquet can go a long way. Nobody said you had to keep them together. These flowers last a long time. Tulips, not so much. 

Drat!!! I just noticed my lamp shade is crooked. I guess I'm not as detailed orientated as I thought, I'll get better. I love tulips!!! 

Anyone else have favourite flowers they like to buy themselves at this time of the year? The flowers just seem to help put a smile on my face when I look at them.  Spring is on it's way!

I know I promised to show you the kitchen but it's not 100% finished and with Teacher's Convention, report cards, and going away to Edmonton last weekend there just hasn't been time. 

I'm getting to it I promise. 

Enjoy the vignettes'...

Oh and our hallway flooring just got completed today. It's so exciting around here. I'll have before and after photos soon. Just keep coming back. 

April 

Pleats Are In Again

Hanging our curtains became an all weekend affair. Who would have thought a weekend would have been spent hanging 4 panels of IKEA curtains. We went to hang our new curtains on Friday night and soon realized we didn't want them to be hung with the clips like I had originally intended. Darcy won out on this and I'm glad he fought for the solution we came up with. We made our weekly pilgrimage to Home Depot on Friday night looking for rings and a solution to how to hang the curtains without the clips. 

We came up with using pleat hooks and the rings. At the time we didn't realize this was a common way to hang curtains and it would result in pleats. Da... After we got home we realized the pleat hooks we bought were not the right ones. They have a butterfly wing on each side and it wouldn't fit inside of the slots of the curtains. We searched all over GP finally finding them at Fabricland. If you are looking for anything related to curtains, drapes, rods or accessories head to Fabricland. We hit the jack pot. 

This will create a single pleat, double or triple pleat. These 2 videos helped to show me how to create the pleats and the different options for IKEA curtains. I love Google and You Tube for helping to come to decisions about how to do stuff. 

We chose to hang the curtain rod close to the ceiling because our ceilings are low. It helps to give the room a feeling of being higher than they really are. This site gives some great advice on how to far to place the curtains from the window frame. 

Fred Gonsowski Garden Home - The Right Way to Hang Curtains and Drapes

As Darcy was installing the rods, I went to work creating several different configurations and finally coming to this final product. It was 8 spaces, hook, 8 spaces and hook to create a single pleat. I tried double pleat and smaller pleats but it didn't quite look right. Pulling out and redoing 50 pleats can take it's toll on your fingers. Mine are killing me as I'm typing. 

We decided to hang the rod brackets 8 inches from the trim and the rod extended another foot past the bracket. We needed to do this because we used 4 panels and we wanted to have light coming in. 

 

Here is the final product. They just need to be hemmed and ironed. I'll tackle that this week. 

I've loved these curtains for years. I'm so happy with the way they've turned out. Darcy keeps saying I could look else where but what he doesn't realize is these were my inspiration for this room looking this way. It's calming and serene. Just what I need after a long day at work. 

We've Come A Long Way Baby

I've got so much to share but I wanted to update you on the new living room arrangement. It's not finished, mainly because we still have our double ovens sitting in the their. Oh I wish they would get installed but we've got to wait until the beginning of March when D's cousin can come up. 

The living room has been in many different states depending on what we were demolishing or repairing or painting. It's a large room but it's got this wall which extends into the space. I would have loved to have taken this wall/closet out and made the room a large rectangle but budget, wiring, heating/cooling vents and ceiling repairs prevented us from taking it out. Plus, it's my cleaning/storage/pantry closet now. 

Here's what the room looked like before we moved in. 

Yucky Hey!!!

Here's how it looked at various stages of renovations

Pre-hardwood flooring

After hardwood was installed and we could have some furniture to sit on. 

Here's the 75% finished room. 

My apologies for the terrible photos. I'm still learning how to use my camera and the light in the room isn't great. We're still trying to figure this part out as to the best places to have lamps and such. We would love pot lights, maybe when the electrician visits in March. Obviously, there needs to be some styling going on and it will come, but for now I think this is the arrangement we'll be going with. We need a different coffee table, some pictures up and the right side of the room is cluttered with double ovens, dog crates and dog beds. I'm confident it will get cleaned up, at least that's what I keep telling myself. One day!!!! I put up our curtains this weekend so my hope is to get that post done sometime this week, if you're interested please come back and visit. 

April