Productive Sunday

Hello my bloggy friends!  I'm so impressed that I'm blogging on a fairly consistent basis - meaning it didn't take me 5 months to do this post after my last one. All good.

Yesterday was pretty productive - took my daughter to church after a 9 month hiatus and built a storage bench that I've had for 2 years!  I know, I know......  Anyhoo, here's a piccy.

I'm going to make a cushion for it with this fabric

 It's left over fabric from my sofa being recovered - I love it!  So cheery and fun!  I'll find a nice runner or rug to add in the foyer later. 

I was going to be super ambitious and build my kitchen cart but my hands were too sore after turning 50 screws for the bench.  Tomorrow night's project!

Thanks to my mom for passing on the pic below of the exterior of my house from the listing photos

I'm happy with the progress from above to pics from last post.

I've chatted about the house an awful lot - mainly because I'm obsessed with nesting and fixing it up to where I want it to be.  A great diversion so I don't have to think about the fact that I don't have my daughter every day - something that would break my heart if I thought about it too much.

But a great part of the move is the people I've met.  I'm ready to share on the blog that I've moved to Spencerville, a lovely historic village south of Ottawa on the South Nation river.  It's quite artsy and the people are very friendly.  I love that I can walk anywhere in town.

I've made a fantastic friend who's become very dear to me, Rhonda. She's single and of my vintage AND lives across the street.  We get along like a house on fire and have fun hanging out.  She's introduced me to her lovely sister, brother in law and baby niece as well as some of their friends. Alicia from Crowder House (check out her blog - hilarious - that's how I met her) has become a friend as well and her significant other has too.  She has introduced me to some other lovely people too. I feel very at home here - I love the sense of community.

I must confess that I feel like I belong here in the village and in this home - more than anywhere else I've lived save where I lived with my mom and step-dad Garth and sister Maureen.  That is saying along if you knew how many places I've lived in and different areas.

I've also never wanted to or nested like I am.  The only other time was when I was pregnant with Aislinn and getting her room ready.

All in all, a good thing. I believe we are where we're supposed to be when we are supposed to be there. 

Before kitchen pics in the next post - apologies - I know I said it would be this post but my kitchen is too messy to take a pic right now. :-)

A tantot mes amis!

Still Alive - Lamest. Blogger. Ever.

Wow - talk about leaving you hanging!  Like I said, lamest blogger ever.  I'll work on that.

Speaking of working on that, round one of major-ass renos are done.  This would include:

• 22 new windows (and yet not all are done yet)
• New roofs on the garage and family room addition
• New roof on front of house
• New front of house (ground floor porch with supporting cast, enclosed front porch with supporting case and of course, 2nd story enclosed porch with supporting trusses and the like)
• New propane furnace and ducting to 2nd floor
• New propane hot water tank
• New steel I-beam in basement with jack posts = no more sagging floors = awesome
• New jack posts on 100 year old beam
• New wiring throughout house (old wiring was original knob and tube = fire hazard)
• Ducts cleaned
• Small leaks fixed
• New garage door with opener beyotches!
• New person door to garage
• New Arts and Crafts lights flanking new front door with 2/3 window = awesome (again, I know)
• New garage light above door = being able to see in the dark = major coolness

I think that's it - not too exciting cosmetically except for the facelift on the front of the house - curb appeal has majorly improved.

Let's see, my Mom (shout out here) has been great with helping me rip out the nasty (we'll just leave it at that m'kay?) carpet from upstairs, the cat-pissy smelling (not courtesy of my boyz btw and thankyouverymuch) and demo'd the wall in the basement.  We've also ripped out the suspended ceiling (won't tell  you what showered down while demoing..), removed skanky trim and most of the first layer of paneling in the basement.  It doesn't smell nearly as much - in fact, barely notice anything - either that or I'm just used to it.

Change of plans - kitchen was going to be one of the last rooms to be done but has moved up the list to being the first.  Why you ask?  Well, let's see - the first incident was finding a shredded mouse hanging out of a hole beside the junk drawer (fess up - we ALL have one in our kitchens) - that was before I'd had my coffee one Sunday morning.  I can't get the blood out of the horrid wallpaper and peeled off what I could.  On the good news side, I'm developing a stomach of steel living out here.

Next, was going to get my oven mitts out of said junk drawer to find chewed holes in them and mouse turds everywhere.  Threw the oven mitts out and haven't opened the drawer since. Now I'd like to mention that this drawer is isolated from the others by my dishwasher.

Now and then I see the cats sitting on the counter and staring down or at the wall beside - freaks me out because I KNOW the little bastards are in there somewhere.....

The cats are great mousers and bless their hearts, they do their jobs.  I keep telling myself that every time I come across (or nearly step on) a corpse.  Again, stomach of steel - just call me Superwoman.

The last straw was taking out my wooden spoon from the utensils drawer at the polar opposite end of the run of counters of the mouse loo and finding a turd on it.  That was it.

I purchased my new kitchen and countertops this past week (this is what gets me excited now people - would somebody please shoot me or introduce me to a great guy?).  The cabinets arrive Thursday.  We'll talk about that later.  I will post before shots and after shots and you can guess where the kitchen came from.  Oh the fun and the mystery!

Now I'm going to attempt to upload some photos - I know you're waiting with bated breath.

These are some of the in-progress photos of the front. The following pictures show you the finished facade and how I did it up for the holidays.

I'm not done the front yet - got to figure out how to add some colour in there.... stay tuned.

Well, done for tonight.  BTW - loading up pics = easy and I should have done this sooner.  Ah well - before kitchen pics coming up in the next post.

Until then, I leave you with this quote from a country song (yes, I like country music)
" God is great, beer is good and people are crazy."