The Slowest Demolition in History

As of right now our bathroom renovation is sort of at a standstill. I've mentioned before, Philip is really busy with drama and so the gutting of the bathroom has taken a back seat. We have, however, achieved some progress and so I'll catch you up.

I'm not sure that we've ever even shared a before picture of this room. So here's a close up at what we were getting ourselves into:

Photo from before we moved in, courtesy of the realtor.

The highlights of this room were the floor with its gold sparkles, and the ivory and chocolate swirl plastic tiles. That's all gone now, and so you can use this picture as a reference when we reveal what we've accomplished.
 
We started by having a plumber come and do some work because this bathroom actually had no water shut offs, and so since we knew it would be a long project, and because it's a good thing to have, a plumber came and set up shut offs for us. After that, we removed the toilet, sink, and bathtub. Then we ripped out walls.

What's left to do:

• Take down the ceiling: For some reason we just haven't done this yet. It gets so dusty when we start, and I don't like doing it really because it takes me way longer than it would take Philip just because I'm not really a power tool user and I'm not that strong. 
• Take down the exterior wall: This wall needs to be done at the same time that we re insulate so we don't get super energy inefficient. 
• Reconfigure Plumbing
• Install bathtub
• Electrical
• Drywall
• Paint - we talked about yellow before...I'm also contemplating black. I'm shocking these days, you never know what could happen.
• Flooring
• Reinstall everything

I have no idea how long this is going to take us, but we're just trying not to burn ourselves out with everything that's going on lately, so we're taking our time. Hopefully one day we can go to the bathroom upstairs again though. Anyone else at a standstill with a major project?

Sorry Neighbours

Our neighbours are about to lose a great view. We officially ordered living room blinds this week after hemming and hawing for quite a while. 

We were delayed primarily because of the cost. Blinds are really expensive. We started out with a quote from Home Depot that seemed really high so we decided to wait a little longer. Then for Christmas we got some Christmas money that we thought we'd really like to dedicate towards something specific like blinds. 

Our blind quest continued. We decided to get a quote from a local blind company that we thought might be cheaper, but they came in at almost double the price of Home Depot. The other thing that pushed us towards the big box store was that we had some gift cards for Home Depot from our credit card points which made it a substantially better deal to go with Home Depot.

If you aren't familiar with cellular blinds, they're fabric blinds that are made up of little "cells" - you can get single or double celled (we went with single as double is more expensive and better for heat savings which we aren't as worried about as we have a brand new hvac system and windows). Here's an idea of what they might look like:

At first I wasn't a huge cellular blinds person, but after seeing them more and more I've definitely become hooked. I especially like the top-down/bottom-up feature which I think will be especially handy in our living room.

The blinds we went with are cellular's, white in color, and we were able to upgrade to include the top down/bottom up feature, and they'll be cordless. I can't wait to see them! It's really hard to tell in the samples how see-through they'll be and what they'll look like in the window. We'll definitely post pictures!

We ordered the blinds and they should be here in a couple of weeks! Yay to no more fish bowl!

What We're Looking Forward To

Last week, we asked what you're looking forward to most in 2013. Obviously there's probably some broader answers out there than the poll allowed, so feel free to add those in the comments. 

Here's a glance at what we're looking forward to most over the next 51 weeks or so. 

1. Enjoying a full summer with a backyard.

Last year we moved into the house at the end of August and mostly only had time for yard maintenance and some clean-up at the end of the outdoor season. We're looking forward to getting settled in our back yard, hosting lots of BBQs and bon fires, and starting up some gardening (that might be hopeful...I'm a plant killer). Philip also told me to share that he is looking forward to not wearing long underwear every day and to eating cookie dough ice cream. 

2. Investors Group Field

Our local Canadian Football League team is getting a new home and, by the looks of it, it's going to be night and day from the old one. Watching the Blue Bombers with this view, not having to walk around an endlessly-spiralling ramp  to get to our seats, not having to pee in a trough, and a lot more leg room are just a few of the amenities we're eagerly anticipating come late June (this one came from Philip - don't worry, in Canada women do not pee in a trough). 

Got to admit, I'm most looking forward to no more ramp to walk up, and no more squishy bench. 

3. Celebrating 2 years of marriage.

With marriages falling apart so easily these days, I feel so blessed to have a husband that I love and am looking forward to celebrating our 2 year anniversary. It isn't long, but marriage is hard and so every anniversary is a great time to remind ourselves of that. Last August we went to Chicago to celebrate, so we'll see what we end up doing this year!

4. Heading to Ontario. 

I was born in Ontario, and still have a large number of loved ones there, so we're hoping to get out to Ontario at some point this year for a visit. The planning has just started on that one so we'll have to see how it pans out! 

5. Getting settled in our home.

This continues off of number 2, with the hope that we can start to live more permanently here and be content with the work we've finished. It's not likely that we'll get to finish our kitchen any time soon so we'd like to just get settled in and used to what we have here already. Then we can slowly work away at things as we have the financial means. 

6. The unexpected.

In just 3 short years we've met, dated, become engaged, married, renovated a condo, moved to our house, and a lot of other exciting milestones and events too! We're looking forward to whatever 2013 has in store, because I'm sure that some of it we haven't planned for. 

7. Turning 24 & 28.

Although my husband looks ridiculously youthful, he's on the older end of this one. I'm looking forward to turning 24 and celebrating his 28th birthday. Especially with our new DIY skills, I've already started putting some thought into what kind of project I might be able to whip up for this May. 

8. Having only one wedding to attend (crossing our fingers - sorry to our friends who get a less than pleasant response if they get engaged soon)

Last year we had 5 weddings, the year before 10, and the year before 6. 2013 has only 1, and we could not be happier. We've loved celebrating love for the past few years, but I'm looking forward to just enjoying one wedding this year and celebrating wholeheartedly with really good friends. 

9. Having some free time?

According to our to-do list, we actually have nothing scheduled this Fall, so if things stay that way we'll have some time off. Also hoping for a vacation or two, so that will be wonderful. 

10. Learning more new things. 

It's been very exciting learning how to do some home improvement projects, learning to be better at being married and domesticated. I'm excited to see the things we learn this year, as the past couple of years should have earned us a University degree in new experiences. 

Extra Bedroom

So along with the bathroom renovation that is heavily delayed but sort of in progress, we're planning to also complete the extra bedroom, which means when we're done the bedroom and bathroom the back of our house is "done". 

We don't really need the extra bedroom right now, but we figured we'd do it at the same time so we don't have an unusable room, and because some of the tasks just make sense to do at the same time.

One of those is drywalling the ceiling. In the master bedroom and office, we patched the air conditioning vent holes ourselves, but this bedroom has popcorn ceilings and so we decided a thin drywall ceiling over top will be easier and look better in the end than patching the circle shaped hole and then emulating some kind of popcorn effect over top of it. 

Since we'll be drywalling the bathroom, we figured we may as well do the third bedroom at the same time.

As this room doesn't really have a function, we'll be putting our guest bed in it, and a vanity desk I have, but we don't really anticipate any guests. All of our immediate family lives in the city, and so no one is really coming to visit over night...but if they do...we're ready. The other eventual function for this room will be a residence for future offspring. 

We wanted the color to be something that would work for all of those possible functions: guests, boy room, girl room. This way we won't have to repaint it anytime soon. Right now we're leaning towards a shade of mint - although by the time we're done the trend will probably be done too. I'm already totally digging 2013's Emerald...we'll have to see where we bring that into the house. 

Here are some mint shades we're currently crushing on, any other ideas? We're definitely open minded to other colors, this just seemed gender neutral enough and guest friendly, as well as just being a color we both really like. 

Definitely enjoying the blue/green of this fresh mint. This is also going to sound dumb, but if it has mint in the title, it is automatically in the favourites column. 

This is more of a pale green shade, but it definitely also tickles my fancy. I would like to bring green into the color palette, as we've already used primarily blue in our bedroom and office. It's nice to stay with some coordinating colors, but I'd really like to expand the horizons to some other colors that complement the blues we've already used.

Which is your favourite? Any other colors you'd suggest? I'd like something cheerful, but not too loud...and something we could definitely accessorize for a certain gendered child when the time comes.

Anyone else picking out paint colors right now? Using the mint trend anywhere in your house? Don't forget to answer the poll before tomorrow!