· We have great friends (March 2005 )

While Kirsten was out...

· Who da man? (March 2005 )

This weekend, we finally got our new over-the-range microwave. We originally found it at Trail Appliances, in their clearance/floor model section. Essentially, it was a floor model that was missing some parts. Other than that, it was a great deal - $130 off the regular price. As it turns out, Trail is one hell of a good company, and won't actually sell you the product until they order the parts in... so we basically were going to get a brand new microwave, with full warranty and all the benefits of buying it brand new... at a discount. When we went in to pick it up on Saturday, however, we gopt a great surprise. Turns out that the guy we were dealing with took a look at the parts that came in, and didn't like the look of them. So he gave us a brand new model for the same price. Now, in order to install the microwave, we had to move an electrical box about a foot up the wall from where it was. OTR microwaves plug in just like any other microwave; unfortunately, range hoods (which is what the microwave was replacing) are wired direct. The plan was to use the existing electrical box as a juction box, and have a new plugin about a foot above it. Originally, we were going to our favourite electricians to come in and do it for us. However, with my recent success in replacing and adding two new switch boxes in the basement for the new wall, Kirsten and I decided that I should try my hand at it first. Long story short, the new plugin went in, and a couple of hours later so did the new microwave. It's freakin' fantastically nice and cooks WAY better than our old one (which, near the end, was making troubling GRRRRRRRRRRRRUNKCAKUNK noises) Hail to the king, baby....

· A room of one's own (March 2005 )

Dad came up this weekend to help us build a new wall downstairs......

· The kitchen... (March 2005 )

Here's a picture of the 'new' kitchen. Click on the image to go to flickr, where I've added some notes. .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: center; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } kitchennew, originally uploaded by staticred. BTW, note to Pam - you should switch from Fotolog to Flickr - it's a much nicer service....

· Remember... (February 2005 )

I want you to remember this photo of the kitchen, because in a few days I'll be posting pictures of the new, improved, snazzy kitchen we now have. .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } kitchen1, originally uploaded by staticred. This is the old kitchen (updated this entry to use Flickr, so you can see some notes on the photo)....

· "Poor people don't get new kitchens" (January 2005 )

We worked on the kitchen this weekend...

· In other news.... (August 2004 )

They actually were crack monkeys.

· Frustrating Weekend (July 2004 )

One thing after another!

· And other things done this weekend (June 2004 )

Other things I did this weekend.

· Tinkering (June 2004 )

Yesterday was the day of things not working.

· Pictures from the deckathon (May 2004 )

Pictures from the weekend build

· Since you asked... (May 2004 )

Here's a photo of the ceiling being painted. Note the yellow-hued patina of the old ceiling and the white brilliance of the new. Also, here's a shot of the wainscot in the staircase. Some new photos in photoredux too....

· A personal note to those we've ignored... (May 2004 )

Yes, we're ignoring you... but not for the reasons you think.

· Super bonus extra entry (March 2004 )

cute dog.

· A diversion ()

More stuff done on the house! With pictures!

· She's growing up! (February 2004 )

Oh my... the "little dog" grew!

· Now, with pictures! (February 2004 )

Here's some pictures of our weekend activities...

· Damn the illusion of motion! ()

What we did on the weekend...

· *zzzzzzzzzzz* (February 2004 )

dog with an alarm clock, and other household oddities.

· Dog training (February 2004 )

Teaching an old dog a new trick...

· What a busy week! (January 2004 )

Things to do this week.

· Another addition to the family... (January 2004 )

Or how Cayce ("case") came to be in our family.

· Edmonton Consumer Alert (December 2003 )

DO NOT USE A-DRAIN AID!

· The pink and teal are gone! (November 2003 )

The Pink and The Teal are GONE, and the bathroom has the first coat of paint on the walls. Life is good. We've painted the living room in Shortgrass Prairie, and now it looks nothing like this photo (though the color is close): We're going to bring the Shortgrass Prairie colour up onto the ceiling to hide the sin of the teal that was there before, as well as a bit of a warp in the ceiling that the dark colour on the walls will no doubt accentuate. In the bathroom, we painted the wainscoting a mahogany brown color, and the wall above it "wheat bread", which is a bready-yellow brown. We're likely going to take that colour into the dining room / kirsten's office to work as a bit of an accent. It makes me happy to see these colours up on the walls instead of the gawdawful pink and teal. Probably happier than it should. :)...

· The bathroom (November 2003 )

The bathroom is done. We still have to paint the walls, but the bulk of the bathroom is done. Last night, Kirsten and I recaulked a bad part of the tub surround, installed the last of the wainscoting, and installed the new pedestal sink. There were a couple of plumbing snafus with the sink (new drain was 1 1/4" pipe, where drain going into the wall was 1 1/2" pipe), but overall the entire process was pretty painless. We also installed trim for the window in the shower. There's no way any water's getting in to damage THAT puppy. I'll have some pictures in the next week or so... I just picked up some film for my little Minolta rangefinder, so I'll try and get off a shot or two of the finished product. In other news, Kirsten and I are taking off to Saskatchewan tomorrow afternoon for a research trip until Monday night. We're taking along her laptop with us, but unless I can find a wireless access point in Saskatoon that I can connect to, you won't be hearing from us until then....

· What a weekend! (November 2003 )

Oi, what a weekend. We spent all weekend working on the bathroom and STILL haven't finished! On Friday night, I came home and finished putting the backer board around the tub in the main bathroom. The jury was still out on whether to get a tub surround, or to tile. In the meantime, Kirsten had rented a wallpaper steamer, and rid the house of most of the ugly, 1989 wallpaper (we still have to remove it from the kitchen and the stairwell). On Saturday, at the hardware store, we decided to put in a tub surround; Kirsten was a little wary of doing tile because the walls weren't perfectly square, and we wanted it to be done sooner rather than later. The sales guy also nudged us in the direction of the tub surround, saying it would be easier and cheaper over all. So we picked up an 80" tub surround to meet the ceiling and cover the sins of homeowners past. We also took a trip to End of the Roll to see what we could find in the way of floor covering for the room. Throughout the house, we have "renter's special" lino - cheap stuff that tracks dirt and just looks crappy. We decided that if we could find something inexpensive to replace it, we would. And we did find something that we liked there... and we got it for a steal. It's a "natural stone" pattern in earth-tones. It's mixed browns, coppers, greens and terracottas - it looks much, much better than what was there. The End of the Roll had just received a big shipment of remainders, but they weren't priced. So, they decided that for Saturday, at least, anything that wasn't marked was 99c per square foot. And the stuff we liked wasn't marked. When we got to the counter, one of the other salespeople told us that he'd just ordered that pattern in, and it was $3.86 per square foot. Score our team! We got home and started putting the tub surround in. It was not, in fact, easier to install the tub surround. Our problem is that we have a window in our shower. You'll remember it from the window install pictures a few days ago. This means we had to cut a hole out of the tub surround for the window, so we wouldn't cover the damned thing up. :) I must have dry-fitted that piece 20 times before it was all good to go. We struggled with the tub surround for the better part of the afternoon and into the night, before we had the back, right-hand side and right-hand corner piece in place. On Sunday, we woke up early, finished up the tub surround, and pulled the toilet and pedestal sink out of the bathroom to prepare for the new lino. Then, we put down the lino without any incident, and trimmed it in place to the right size for the bathroom. Before gluing it down, however, we had to run to the hardware store yet again to rent a floor roller, some trim for the window in the shower, and a new vent cover for the bathroom. And that's when the last and final piece of our bathroom renovation appeared. Kirsten hates the sink in the bathroom - and I can't say I blame her. It's this big, grey, oval, shallow pedestal sink that's pretty much useless and space-consuming. It's a total pain in the ass to keep clean and really imposes itself on the room. We found a new pedestal sink at the hardware store that we both really liked for $58. (well, we also found one that we really liked for over $400 too). Of course, that also meant getting a new toilet, since having a white sink, a white tub and a grey toilet was kind of stupid. And, of course, a new faucet for the sink (Home Depot has a really nice house brand that is really inexpensive; we got a very nice faucet for $85 which compared looks-wise to a Moen that was $140 on clearance). We couldn't install the toilet or sink last night, because we needed to give the lino some time to cure and seal before putting that weight on it. So that's what I get to do tonight when I get back home from work. We're also going to be putting wainscoting into the bathroom as a finishing touch, which we're going to paint a dark mahogany-brown or a dark green. I'm really looking forward to seeing everything come together, and I'll have some sort of pictures for you all when it's there....

· The Window install (November 2003 )

OK, so I finally got the pictures off the camera. Here are some photos from the Window install. The old window, in all its non-energy efficient, drafty, water-retaining splendour. Me, halfway through the window installation. Yes, it's snowing. Yes, I'm cold as hell. And the final product - a nice new window!...

· Ed Siffledeen (November 2003 )

Do not, I repeat, do not use Ed Siffledeen as your realtor if you live in Edmonton and you want to buy or sell a house. I know I've complained about him before, but the events of the last day really were the icing on the cake. When we bought the house, we had negotiated a credit from the seller to be given back to use after closing to help pay for deficiencies in the house (the foundation, etc); the idea was - and it was Ed's suggestion, which he strongly pushed - that we have liquid cash to help pay for the repairs. Kirsten felt that there was something fishy about it, but Ed constantly assured us that it was perfectly legitimate, and done all the time, and that there would be no problems at all. We decided to trust him, since he'd been working hard for us to get the seller to lower the price. We went forward, at his strong urging, to the mortgage broker with all the paperwork, the lawyer talked with the mortgage company, and everything was "going fine". Ed constantly assured us that we shouldn't worry about anything, it was done all the time, and there wouldn't be a problem. There was a problem. A big problem. Yesterday, we almost lost the house and all the money we've put into it so far, because it wasn't fine. Ed Siffledeen did the paperwork wrong, and instead of putting the seller credit in the statement of adjustments - where it was perfectly legal and proper, he adjusted the purchase price of the home to a lower figure after we'd gone to the bank. Which put us extremely close to having committed mortgage fraud, according to our lawyer. In fact, the only thing that had stopped it from being mortgage fraud was that the bank refused to allow the seller credit, and instead put those funds towards the home's equity. However - and this is the part that nearly cost us the house - we had to pay an additional $5900 YESTERDAY, in order to not forfeit the sale. So, essentially, Ed Siffledeen's error cost us $5900 out of our pockets (though we are not losing money - we get it back when we sell the house). So let me just repeat. If you are in the Edmonton area, do not use Ed Siffledeen....

· Update on the broken house (November 2003 )

Still no pictures - we're getting a new cable jack installed on Wednesday, and I'll update then... One of our many projects in this house is to refinish the main floor bathroom. Yesterday, we started by ripping out the tub surround, to see how much damage there was from the previous owner (who'd let the thing leak for over 3 months). The damage wasn't near as bad as it could have been: we did have to take off 2' of drywall and plaster to get to the wood underneath (2' is a nice safe height to take off), but the wood was relatively solid and only damp in a couple of places - such as under the window. And that segues nicely into the other project we did yesterday - the window. The old storm window in the bathroom is centered in the wall of the shower. And, of course, being an old window, it was collecting water and sending it down into the walls. So, we had to replace it. And since we have the bathroom in a "definitely renovating now" state, this was the time to do it. So we called a few places, and found a casement window that was about the right size for $180. So, at 3pm, we boogied over to the window store and picked it up. We'd actually initially planned to put the window in today, but the temperature was expected to drop sharply. Rather than freeze our butts off *more*, we decided, at 5pm, to start. It took awhile to get the old window out - after all, it'd been there for 50-some years. But eventually, we got most of it out. As it turned out, we needed to keep the sides of the old frame to allow for the smaller new window, and had to saw out the bottom of the old frame to allow for the larger height. Five and a half hours later, we had completed installing the new window. It looks sweet. We still need to put on the finishing touches, but that'll have to wait until we install a new tub surround (or tile, which is where I'm currently leaning toward). It's good to know that we can handle replacing windows on our own. Many of the places we called had $500 installation charges for windows - only one place quoted us less, and that was still $120. I want to replace quite a few of the other windows - there are still 9 storm windows on the main and upper levels, and 4 in the basement (that I'll likely never replace). Next step: replacing the gyproc in the shower with cement backer board, then tiling/putting in tub surround, tiling floor, and painting. We're going to go with a 12" tile floor in the bathroom, a dark red paint, and possibly wainscotting. Pictures of the before/after will be taken for certain....

· Ugh. (October 2003 )

Welcome to the "House" category... So, since we talked last, we've done the following to the house:Put in weeping tile and sealed the foundation. No major cracks found (and no structural problems). We'd highly recommend Kuyper's if you need weeping tile in Edmonton. They're great people, FAST and leave the yard looking clean when they're done. They also treat their workers extremely well (paid lunches, coffee breaks, etc). Replaced the furnace. The furnace that was in the house was a 35 year old Flamemaster. We now - thanks to nepotism - have a nice high-efficiency Keep-Right furnace, running at 92% efficiency. Ripped down the ugly wallpaper in the downstairs living, bath, and dining rooms. Replaced the light fixture in the upstairs walk-in closet. Replaced the main plumbing stack. This was a completely unexpected expense; the previous owner obviously knew about it, but it wasn't disclosed. We woke up Thursday morning to sewage in the laundry room downstairs. Ripped out the subfloor in the basement bedroom. It should never have been put in there in the first place, and had suffered water damage. Ripped out most of the back deck. Sadly, we had to for the foundation guys. We're rebuilding it (differently) in the new year. Replaced the clothesline in the back yard. Clotheslines are nifty and fun. The final thing we've done is actually quite a contentious issue. One of the conditions of the house purchase, that was written into the contract, was that a leaky faucet in the main floor bathroom was to be repaired. It was supposed to be done immediately, but the seller decided not to do it until we took off conditions. After we moved in, one of the first things we noticed was that the faucet was - surprise, surprise - still dripping (though not as much). The handle had simply been tightened as much as possible to reduce the leak. Our realtor, Ed Siffledeen, had already been ignoring us after having taken off conditions, and has basically taken the seller's side, saying that the faucet was fixed. After a little bit of coersion, he has agreed to talk to the seller one more time, this time with a receipt showing work done. It's not as though $250 (the cost of the repair) is going to go a long way towards the total cost of fixing the home up. At this point, it's the principle of the matter. Something was supposed to be fixed before we took possession, and it wasn't. If we were really concerned about going for money, we'd be hounding the guy about the main stack. If the seller doesn't give us the money for the repair, we'll have to sue him. Which is so much fun. As a separate issue with the realtor himself, many of his claims have fallen through. When we made an offer on the house, there was a "rebate" rider offered by the seller to be given after the possession date; we were a bit wary of the idea, but Ed told us over and over again that it wasn't an issue, that it was done all the time, and not to worry about it. No surprise in retrospect, there of course was a problem with it, because it wasn't communicated to the seller's lawyers, who wrote the deal up such that the rebate was taken off the purchase price (which is bad news from a mortgage perspective). He also swore left right and center that he'd get us his "special contractors" for roofing and heating to give us a deal. To date, we've heard nothing from his "special people" and all requests for their names so we can call them ourselves are met with "don't worry about it... I'll call them for you." I "reminded" him again today in the midst of yelling at him that he'd promised us these guys, but I highly doubt anything will come of it. I realize that much of this is just realtor bullshit. Despite the fact he is working dual agency on this house (representing both the seller and us), he just hasn't done a great job of looking after our interests. He did get us a good price on the house -- but I truly feel that it wasn't for our benefit, but for his own (since he often repeated that he didn't want to be relisting the house in the new year). In non-aggravating house news, the house is starting to be more livable... most of the boxes are unpacked, and we've set the furniture up where it's ultimately going to live. Once I get my camera back (I have to send it in for warranty), I'll take a tour of the place and post some photos for those of you who haven't seen it yet. Everyone's welcome to stop by and take a look at the place, but we send the warning that you may have to work on something if you do come by. :)...