First Reno

C'est finis

2008-03-31T10:03:00.016-04:00

We're still waiting to hear if we passed the rental appraisal, but we're pretty much done phase 1 of the renos. There are a couple things that need attention - we haven't thrown out the mirrored doors as the resort may want them, so they're still in the bedroom, there are some outlets still to change and we have a couple pictures to put up. Phase 2 will be a complete overhaul of the bathroom, new kitchen counter, backsplash and cupboards, bedroom ceiling.

And with a few final touches:
Here are the befores and afters:

Foyer

Bedroom closet

We celebrated the finishing (and also arleen's bday) as well:

And that's it! We'll mount the tv and get rid of the tv table, and probably paint the coffee table black and antique it. A lot of things like that, and bringing up some new furniture, we can do while it's on the rental program and use the place on a free night.

We're really happy to be done before summer, because we look over the golf course and the lake and it would be rather depressing to be cooped up doing work while watching everyone else having fun outside. We'll probably add some new pics and video next week after a couple more things are added and update the rental info.

Big thanks to: Grant for his design help, advice and inspiration; Tomas for his help in removing the carpet and hanging the light (too bad it took you 6 hours to get home in the snow!); Don for helping to stock the bookshelves with a variety of interesting reads; Arleen for the great "lucky" frog and wooden propeller clock; and Dave for his great work with the foyer wall, potlights and closet doors.

The Home Stretch

2008-03-24T23:13:00.018-04:00

Several weekends of blizzards this winter has put us a month behind schedule. So we were pretty excited this past weekend thinking we were in the home stretch with just a few easy jobs to do. But of course, it didn't work out that way.

We didn't even get a picture of the crown moulding and beadboard in the kitchen where the fluorescent lights used to be because the lack of straight edges and 90 degree corners was maddening. Needless to say, no one was in a mood to take pictures of it at the time. But I do have an in-between pic with the potlights around:

Kitchen lights before:

Kitchen lights in-between (pic is flipped as it was taken on mac):

We have new black hardware and painted the old brass door hinges to match. Jay's installing the door catcher things here:

After I painted the quarter round, Jay measured, cut and put it down all along the baseboards and dapped the nail holes:And remember our big plans for a stone wall in the foyer? It finally happened. Over the plywood that covered the hole that Dave made to make room for the fridge that didn't fit, we put up concrete board, and also reinforced the plywood so it could hold up hundreds of pounds of stone:The stones were a lot more difficult to put up than I thought. They're individual, cultured stone that you lay one at a time and you have to try and make it look random while stacking them as tightly as possible. So it's like putting a puzzle together but none of the pieces fit. 2 solid days of working at this: Frustrated, I even had Jay outside cutting some tiles because I needed some custom sizes:

So the foyer before:And foyer after (colours are a little bright due to the flash):

And Jay did an excellent job on the flooring throughout. Here are just a couple pics:

Hallway looking to the living room before: After:

Showing a bit of the foyer wall before:

After:

Looking into the bedroom before:

After:

You can see the crown moulding and beadboard on the kitchen ceiling in this pic. What you can't see is all the dap that Jay used to fill all the gaps. Jay also changed all the light switches and outlets from brass to white. We still have to decorate, put up more pictures, clean, but we should be done next weekend. Bathroom and kitchen still need work, but that will be phase 2.

No updates

2008-03-17T11:16:00.004-04:00

No real updates this week. Last week we were snowed in, but we got the flooring done this past weekend. No pics though as it's covered with stuff while we're moving things around. Several trips done to Home Depot. Seems we're always having to go back. Quarter round, poly filla, moulding, hardware, more poly filla. That's about it.

Here I am at HD sawing. It was a fairly exciting weekend.

Flooring

2008-03-03T21:30:00.005-05:00

One of the last things to do is take out that horrible pink carpet and lay down the laminate floor. Our friend Tomas was around and helped take out the carpet strips - not a fun job.

Looks better already, right?

And yes, our budget only allowed for laminate flooring as opposed to hardwood, but i think it will still be okay. jay set up the table saw outside on the balcony and handled all the exacting measuring and cutting which i find exhausting. Good thing we like doing different things - makes a good team.

And now we find the place is starting to look habitable again. The laminate looks much better against the slate:There are still many things to do, and the flooring isn't even completed yet, but we're getting there! And here's a short video of the flooring process:

Closet

2008-02-26T21:36:00.003-05:00

Much to the chagrin of my female friends who demanded we keep the large mirrored doors, lest they have no way of making themselves presentable, we removed them and replaced them with real doors. You have to admit, it looks a lot more cottage-y than mirrors with brown metal trim. We're going with black hardware and black pulls.

Winter pics

2008-02-25T22:32:00.004-05:00

Just thought I'd post a few winter pics from over the weekend. I wish there was time to enjoy the winter sports in all that snow. Lots of cross country skiers and snowshoers out and about. There apparently was a big dentist convention there this past weekend.

The Lantern

2008-02-24T20:45:00.003-05:00

Jay and our friend, Tomas, attempt to install a light in the living room.

Appliances - a bump in the road

2008-02-18T21:30:00.007-05:00

In all those flipping shows, there's always some unexpected problems that arise. For us, our first hiccup was when we put in the appliances which, for the most part, looked great:
When we ordered the appliances from Home Depot, we knew the exact widths and heights we needed. What we didn't check, was the depth:
We discovered the old fridge was counter-depth, about 25 inches, and our new fridge was 32 inches, so it stuck out into the doorway. It wasn't the worst thing in the world, but it really cut into the kitchen entrance, and noticeably dominated the kitchen. We could pay over 3K for a counter-depth, but we decided to call the resort's property manager, who also does contract work, to see if he could knock out the wall to bring the fridge back a few inches. Thanks to him, this problem was quickly resolved:

Here, you see the hole that was cut out between the foyer and kitchen to provide space for the fridge. While you see the back of the fridge now in the foyer, this will later be covered by plywood and a stone wall.
Now the fridge looks much better in the kitchen:You might also notice the wood trim on the melamine cupboards are black. Grant suggested we antique them until we get around to changing them - they do look a lot better.

Cupboards before:

Cupboards after:

Foyer & The Joys of Slate Tiles

2008-02-04T21:43:00.000-05:00

The next job we tackled was the foyer. It was boring and bland with porcelain tiles and white walls:
Here, Jay discusses what he'd like to do:

First item on the list was removing the tiles which we removed from the both the foyer and kitchen. The tiles themselves weren't too difficult but scraping the mortar was terrible. We won't do this again without power tools.

Jay had the job of measuring the tile cuts - an exacting job that I don't really like. So I was left wearing a plastic bag and freezing on the balcony cutting the tiles with a wet saw. It's pretty laughable but this is our reality in all its bare-bones form.

There's a lot of work that goes in to dealing with slate. You have to wash them, cut them, wash the cut ones again, lay them, wash them, seal them, seal them again, grout them, wash and wash and wash again to get the grout off, and then maybe apply another coat of sealer/colour enhancer.

Kitchen floor before:

Kitchen floor after:

Foyer before:

Foyer after:

Crown Moulding

2008-01-31T23:43:00.000-05:00

We took Grant's advice on the crown moulding so we had to repaint some of the wall, decide on the moulding, measure, mark, level, cut...
What was difficult was getting the angles cut just right since the ceiling wasn't at a 45 degree angle.

But once that was finally done, we were able to nail up the moulding. The detail really makes a difference along with lowering the high 12' ceiling.

Before:

After:Before:

After:

Interior Design Consult

2008-01-31T10:33:00.000-05:00

While Jay and I do have some good ideas about design (we like to think so anyway), we decided to call on an expert who just happens to be a good friend of ours. If you'd like a peek into what the design planning process has been like, watch our discussion on where to place the crown moulding:

'The Reading Nook'

2008-01-28T10:28:00.000-05:00

The favourite place to be is near what we call "The Reading Nook" which has a nice area to sit and look out the window near the heater (nice on a cold snowy day). It wasn't much before:

So we decided to panel the back and cut shelves to fit. We got some basic cottage country (read: cheap) panels, primed them and cut them. Without a proper table saw, this presented a challenge:

With some fancy custom cuts by Jay for the outlets, we glued and nailed them up, painted, got the shelves up and started filling them out (we're currently accepting donations of old, classic hardcovers - we won't read them; it's all about appearances).

Before:After:

Before:

After:

Why the Home Depot Paint Department Hates Me

2008-01-24T16:09:00.000-05:00

While jay was busy sanding the ceiling, I wanted to paint over the pink walls in the bedroom. We really liked our friend, Grant's colours so he gave me the names - Classic Ivory and Traditional Tan - and I went to Home Depot.

Now, the only problem with the brand new Home Depot in Huntsville is that it's employed with brand new people who know less about what they're selling than we do. Our detailed questions didn't help. And now I'm sure the paint department has a picture of me behind the desk saying "Avoid this #$@% Torontonian".

The new paint woman looked a little scared when I handed her the paint names I wanted and told her that she should be able to retrieve them from the master palette in her computer. She looked at me as if to say, "We have a computer?". I'm sure she sighed with relief when I suggested the colours might be Benjamin Moore. More than happy to get rid of me, she gave me directions and I go to Benjamin Moore. Although, by this time, it was nearly whiteout conditions so I was a little tense. The Benny Moore woman looked in their computer and tells me the colours are Home Depot. So back to Home Depot I went.

The paint woman, delighted to see me again, called for some assistance and the colours were eventually found in their computer. But without samples or paint chips, I didn't want to order anything without seeing it first. So they generously mixed up 2 gallons of paint and said if I didn't like them, I wouldn't have to pay for them. The traditional tan looked like mint green and the classic ivory looked beige. They said they were from an older collection. So then I grab a hundred paint chips from the display, go home and Jay and I pick new colours for the bedroom and main living area. What should have taken 15 minutes took 3 hours, but I finally got around to painting that day and I think it turned out well. Camel back for the bedroom:

And Mushroom Cap for the rest:
Kitchen before:

Kitchen after:
It's amazing what just a little paint can do. Of course, after a consult with Grant, our designer friend, we ended up having to repaint some of it, but that's another story...

And, regardless of not knowing everything about their store, I really can't say enough good things about the Home Depot people. So friendly, so courteous - I think more Huntsville employees shook my hand than Toronto employees have even bothered to make eye contact with me.

Removing stipple off the ceiling

2008-01-22T12:47:00.001-05:00

The goal is to get the place on the rental program asap, so we'll probably leave some work until later on. We may flip it in the high season if we can get a good enough price.

The first thing we needed to do was get the popcorn stipple ceiling off. It was only after we did this project that we saw one of those reno shows where they suggested to only use a professional to do this. Now I know why.

It's actually not that bad once you get the hang of it. The biggest problem is the mess - it's basically raining mud. But there are several steps to this so if anyone reading this is going to tackle this on your own, be prepared for a major time investment.

Step 1: Wet and scrape the ceiling

Step 2: Sand with a vacuum sander

Step 3: Patch and re-sand

Step 4: Clean ceiling

Step 5: Prime

Step 6: Paint
Step 7: This step is only done if you didn't do a good enough job of removing the stipple in the first place, in which case, after you paint, you'll notice spots bubbling up as the remaining stipple gets wet so you have to re-sand, re-patch, and re-paint. Re-diculous!

And did I mention the mess?

1st viewing

2008-01-22T09:24:00.000-05:00

Here's our 750 sq ft vacation condo. It's the first day we went up after taking possession so we wanted to do a walkthrough before we started tearing the place apart. We spent the first few days just wondering what we were going to do. If you have any suggestions, feel free to comment.

And here's a pic from the outside. The top floor is ours and that window is the bedroom:

This is the view from the living room.

Here's a summer and autumn view from a friend's who has a similar place in another section of the resort.