Moving update and a few of my Pet Peeves

Reno Hunk (the name my significant other has chosen for himself) is moving the remainder of our belongings from apartment to house today. Why has this taken so long??? Sunday was a zero productivity day, we went out the night before and got home in the wee hours of the morning. This was a stupid decision but there was a huge need to blow off some steam. This week we have been paying for it as things are down to the wire with moving...which makes me stressed and has made me an evil girlfriend complete with numerous temper tantrums and episodes of extreme bad attitude directed at Reno Hunk...sorry love.

I really do love our house but I have two pet peeves that are monopolizing my thoughts:

1). Our Laundry Room is best described as totally yucky. The floor is chipped up linoleum, there are no baseboards, the wall is half done in drywall and the exposed part of the wall is packed with about 5 years of dryer lint....I'm hoping its just dryer lint...and the plumbing is sketchy. Having a tough time finding a plumber so when our new appliances arrive next week I will hook them up and wish for the best. The laundry room is on the second floor which I know can be an issue in an older home....will it shake the whole house??  Into the yucky laundry room will go the new washer and dryer that we purchased...they will be beautiful. My plan for the laundry room will be to lay ceramic tile on the floor, put in a new tub and cupboards, drywall, baseboards and I will splurge on some pretty backsplash. This project is a bit lower on the priority list but I would be happy if it could be done by January. I just can't wait to do laundry in my own house after living in a triplex with shared laundry that was always in use.

2). Storage: Our house is about 100 years old so I know closet space in older homes be an issue. In this house it is a huge issue. We have a storage closet in our foyer, the dining room (slotted for wine storage) and two of the upstairs bedrooms have a closet. Unfortunately I can't use any of these closets. The previous owners took all of the shelves and rods (who does this??). The one remaining hanging rod is in my daughter's bedroom but it is not easy to get to. Her closet is over an old staircase so in the morning I have to climb up into the closet to find something to wear. The main upstairs bathroom only has a pedestal sink and the laundry room cupboards are being ripped down. Basically I have no where to put any of our stuff. We were up until midnight last night moving our dresser upstairs. I went through Reno Hunk's wardrobe one by one and had him make a decision on which items to keep and which to donate...apparently now I'm supposed to do the same with my clothes (avoiding that as long as I can). Our summer gear has been packed up and is ready to be stored in the basement. The storage issue will need to be in the top 10 priorities...asap...like this weekend.

Ready to Move In

I just heard from Renochick that she loves to unpack.... umm do I have the place for her!  So far I have been running over loads of items and just placing them anywhere that I can find empty floors.  Luckily we are moving from a smaller apartment to the house so everything should fit easily.

Today I ordered my Dewalt DCK988X Drill / Impact Kit with a hard case (the new model gives you a bag instead) and also a Porter and Cable Floor Nailer.  My brother has a Brad nailer and air compressor which he is lending to me so that will save me some cash from buying my own.

Well time for me to pack up another load as we still have to move all the big stuff to the house.

Goodbye Apartment Hello House

This weekend we will be moving the rest of our belongings from the apartment to our new house. I secretly love moving, the packing and unpacking always yields stuff that I forgot I had...can't wait to see what treasures have been in storage for over a year.  Moving to a new place gives a new sense of perspective and some fresh energy. I just hope that nothing important gets broken. We have already moved a large portion of our belongings so I expect that we will be done by Saturday afternoon. This way we can check out the Supercrawl which is a art and music event in Hamilton.

My First Post...Finally

Life can certainly throw some curveballs and we have had our share of them lately. Why is it that everything always happens at once???  The house got bumped down on the priority list but it’s time for us to really get to work and get things done. I am super excited about the changes that we can make and realize that making this place home will use up a large chunk of our money and time. The electrical work gets started on Monday and then we can finally move in. This will give us some much needed time as we are currently spending too many hours travelling between our current apartment and the new house. I have so many thoughts floating around in my head so this weekend the priority will be to get organized with a game plan and finally get some pics of this house posted. Since we are both financial types we will be keeping a detailed account of our budget vs. actual expenses….and our budget will be tight so creative and inexpensive solutions will be key. Tonight’s agenda includes some tool and light fixture shopping....and hopefully a nice big glass of wine to end the day….

Windows

Well the quote came in from the HD guys on the windows.  We got a 15% off sale plus we hit another 15% off sale from the installation company.  My hope was for a quote in the 7.5k range but instead it is coming in at 9.5k for the white double hung windows in most locations.  Our dining room area will have crank-out windows and our infamous plexi-glass window will as well on the 2nd floor.

So lots of time for us to get the pictures of the current situation up on this site before the windows get changed out in November.

How so little can be done in a week

Start it off with kids going back to school.  Nuff said.

Electrical Estimate

We searched on the Homestars website for a company to do our electrical work.  Not sure how the female slacker poster on my team decided to pick these guys but no complaints!  We decided to go with Defender Electric (seems to be tied to Lopinski Electric who have good knob and tube reviews) and so far the work to get us the estimate has been good.  The price came in a little higher than we had hoped (as always!) at $3.6k.  They better find a way to get us to give them a good review on the site under the new brand name.

So tomorrow we probably book a time to get them in to fix up the electrical work and install the hardwired fire alarms on all 4 levels.  I will feel much safer with the kids around after that is done.

Slow posting

Well things are starting to get cleaned up so our "Before" photos don't look too horrible!  Filled up the back of my truck with two loads of just junk and ready for the next load! 

I had to remove carpets on the main and 2nd floor and the underpad showed signs of staining from cat urine.  The smell was horrible and I still have to go back and scrape off the parts where it was glued to the subfloor. 

I did get a dehumidifier into the house and tomorrow I will get the hose setup so it can run non-stop for the next few weeks just getting the basement into order.

Managed to get some free tiles and a bit of hardwood from my parents since they have spare stuff just lying around the basement.  Why do parents always store all sorts of stuff that they don't actually need?

We are making some big changes in the magnitude of the changes to the kitchen.  Right now there are cabinets and an island which we were going to toss and start over.  Now we think that we can salvage everything and only make a small change to allow for our monster fridge.  We did get great appliances so they will be the focal points for the kitchen.  Now all we need to find is doors for the upper cabinets and a way to remove an old window from what was once the back of the house.  Currently there is a two room addition that is need of some serious support and needs to be jacked up to make it level.

Time to check for estimates for the electrical work....