back into it

i feel as though i am becoming a bad blogger yet again. i have been super busy with school and housewarming/ birthday party planning and prep that i haven't exactly had time to blog. so i guess this will be a catch up entry.

since the majority of the wall painting is done,  most of what we have accomplished lately has been little stuff like decorating, painting trim and doors, putting up curtins etc. oddly enough it has made a huge difference. i was shocked by the impact a couple coats of fresh white paint on the cabinets made to the kitchen; it instantly made the room, which is already filled with a ton of natural light, even brighter. instead of buying new hardware for the kitchen (since the handles were not going back on in their previous forest green glory) we decided to spray paint the original handles with a metallic silver paint. at first i was a little nervous about the colour choice of silver over black but i think we made the right decision; although everyone says that every room needs a touch of black, i personally think that since the room is so light and airy black hardware would have looked too harsh and out of place - the black coffee maker, tea kettle, toaster over etc are enough. anyways, the kitchen is starting to look really nice.

after almost a week of our neighbours being able to seriously spy on us we finally decided to put up curtains. unfortunately, we had to go and buy them; we thought we may be able to wash and reuse the ones the the previous owner left since they such good quality but unfortunately after numerous washes they still looked yellow and smelt smokey so we resorted to my go to - ikea. i wanted something that would give us some privacy while still letting a ton of light in. since i don't love blinds, i chose these...

view from the kitchen

the beautiful flowers jesse bought me

after we painted the cabinets we also painted the banisters with a fresh coat of white (yes, that means there is officially zero forest green left on my main floor) as well as the closet doors. before, the flower handles on the front closet doors were a dated gold colour so we also painted the handles with the metallic silver spray paint and i think that made a world of difference.

we got this blue and grey rug at superstore and i really love it.

also, one of the new additions to our house that i love are the house plants. i am currently taking bets on how long it will take me to kill them, but i am determined to enjoy them while they are alive. i got one for the kitcken and two for the front entrance as well as a welcome sign.

this is called a "wandering jew" - how politically incorrect haha i bought it because it was purple!

view from the front foyer

so... since it was my birthday last week we decided to have a few people over on saturday. we didn't expect to get any house warming gifts this weekend since we are still planning on having an actual housewarming party with all our friends, family and family friends later on when we have accomplished more but our generous friends spoilt us once again.

cuisinart knives from josh and linsey

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they are incredibly sharp - i already sliced my thumb cutting peppers.

crate&barrel nesting bowls from chris and del

crate&barrel serving dishes also from chris and dell

we also got a ton of wine and a couple gift cards and gift baskets. as we have already said a ton of times, we have awesome friends and family.

so things are coming together. i think the next major project is going to be changing the light fixtures and switches... yet another huge job...

living room

so i keep telling everyone that the only room in my house i dont love is the living room since all of our furniture is currently second hand and a little worse for wear but it will have to do until i get my tax return. this is the last year that i will be getting all my taxes back (one of the many perks of being a university student) so i figure i might as well put this last bit of money to good use and buy living room furniture that i really love that will hopefully last us a while. i know i should not complain because there are tons of people out there that dont even have living room furniture but honestly, i dont think its too much to dream about a chair without holes in the arms? is it? maybe...

thankfully the blanket my sister got me for my birthday matches the sofa we have almost perfectly.
it honestly makes the sofa look 1000Xs better. 

this picture is strategically taken from an angle that hides the yellow stain on the bottom of the sofa haha

i love these candle holders.
i got them at value village for 99 cents each.
according to the sticker they are blow glass from italy - doubtful. 

yes, i definitely should wipe down the fireplace 

i think that the wood looks awesome white - it does need one more coat though

* at the moment we have about 6 apple cinnamon candles burning, so delicious and cozy.

pretty fabulous

yesterday,  for the first time since we took possession, i came home from work to a clean front entrance; the tsp buckets, paint containers, roller trays, rags, various sanding and puttying tools and the miscellaneous mess were all gone. my floor was as clean as we will get it until we replace it. i was beyond excited. it actually felt like a home rather than a renovation project. even more impressive was the clean kitchen, put away dishes and fresh flowers awaiting me on the table. i don't think he realizes they are outside flowers that need to go in a pot. incredibly hilarious and equally cute.

i think i will wait a few days to break it to him that these don't exactly belong on the kitchen table...

bedrooms

finally, i have time to upload some photos! here are pictures of the master bedroom and guest bedroom! i wish i had pictures of the master bathroom and the walk-in closet but they are not exactly worth showing in their current state - we haven't really gotten to the point of recleaning our bathroom and reorganizing our closets to a state that i feel worthy of photo documentation. i am hoping i will be able to upload them later this week some time but until then, these will have to do!

personally, although i know i am completely biased, i do love how both rooms turned out. in my opinion the headboard, night tables and overall decor of the master bedroom turned out exactly how i hoped; it is cozy, masculine and feminine all at once. also, since the majority of the guest bedroom, such as the duvet cover, sheets, bed, curtains etc, came straight from my previous room at my parents house, i already knew i was going to love it - i don't think there was much anxiety there. thank you, mama jones, for fully furnishing my original bedroom/current guest bedroom. i am very, very happy with these two rooms.

master bedroom:

i clearly should iron my covers but, lets be real, i have not had time yet

i am hoping to purchase a funky mirror in the future to go over the his and her dressers

my dresser

jesse's dresser

* i love how my dresser has nice, girly things on top and jesse's has nothing, yet, when i attempted to put something on it he immediately objected, informing me it was "his" dresser and i couldn't put my "girly crap" on it.  obviously canadian tire money and various ratty lists and receipts are manly enough to reside on "his" dresser haha

guest bedroom:

this room is almost completely ikea 

i am not sure those curtains do much but they sure are pretty.

furnace and food

today is my birthday. this morning, since i was a horrible student and decided against attempting to survive the -30 degree weather and traffic in order to attend my 8 am class, i slept in and when i finally got up, i woke up to a freezing cold house. yesterday, jesse bought one of those electronic furnace regulators and while he was attempting to install it (only to give up when he realized the instructions were virtually useless since the wiring on our current thermostat is from the late 70's) he seemed to have accidentally turned off the furnace completely, and since we were sleeping soundly under the extra warm covers we got from my parents for christmas, we never noticed. since neither of us are exactly electronically advanced, after about a half hour of trial, error and intense shivering, jesse finally agreed to call his dad to come over and help us out. thank goodness kevin knows a thing or two about electronics; between him and jesse they got the furnace up and running, as well as set up the new regulator (or whatever you call it) in less than an hour. none the less, it was a cold start to my birthday.

while all of this was going on i offered to make breakfast. first i thought i would make bacon and eggs only to realize we had bacon but not eggs. then i figured i could make oatmeal but i shortly realized i had no brown sugar or cinnamon. then i thought i would make bacon and tomato sandwiches only to realize, again, that i was lacking two of the main ingredients, tomato and mayo. finally, we settled for grapes, bacon and life cereal. it is absolutely insane to me that we have probably spent close to $500 on groceries and are still lacking major ingredients for simple meals. i guess we will have to go and do another grocery shop yet again.

i am beginning to feel like we have hit a bit of a stand still with the house progress since we have so little time now that work has started up again for jesse and school for myself. hopefully friday afternoon i will  be able to get what i need done for this weekend. jesse did accomplish a lot of little things yesterday, like the furnace regulator and some other errands, but i personally feel incredibly unproductive. i am hoping that is okay to feel unproductive on your birthday...

bathroom

we have been so busy trying to finish up the painting before my reading week was over that i have been majorly neglecting taking pictures of the progress.

here is a teaser: the guest bathroom:

* i love it. the shower curtain is from urban outfitters.

painting, cleaning, moving

from the lack of entries over the weekend i am sure it is pretty obvious that we have been very busy. friday we finished almost all the painting of the walls, minus the kitchen. i know i have said this a million times before but 2500 sq feet is so much bigger than you originally think; regardless, the walls are done. now, all we have left to do is touch up the ceilings, the baseboards, the door frames, the window frames, reseal the cedar ceiling (yes, it already is bleeding through), repaint the cedar ceiling, put back all the light fixtures and switch plates and move everything in. for some reason i think i subconsciously believed that once the painting was done we were finished for a while. i was subconsciously wrong. although the new paint on the walls makes it livable to me, we still have sooooo much to do.

on friday the furnace people came and on saturday the carpets were cleaned; i can not believe how much of a difference that made in the tobacco smell. the furnace lady seemed pretty disgusted by the state of our furnace filters and ducts; apparently they were beyond brown from tobacco. she suggested that we send some expensive chemical deodorizer but since we were already payin her about 2x's as much as we had expected, we are going to wait and see how well the basic cleaning works before we resort to that. i think i was most impressed by how quick the carpet cleaner man was. he whizzed about wearing his little plastic bootie covers, sprinkling all 2000 sq feet of carpet with cleaner and deodorizer using his cute cleaning hose then sucking away all the smoke smells. i was surprised by how expensive the furnace cleaning was (over 300 dollars) and how inexpensive the carpet cleaning was (under 500 dollars for almost 2000 sq feet of carpet cleaning with a deodorizer). he was in and out in less than an hour. my major advice from this experience is as follows: never smoke in your house - its incredibly expensive to get the smell out.

 our amazing friends and families helped us move in. it was definitely weird seeing a completely empty room where your bedroom used to be. thankfully, our friends and families were more than helpful when it came to lugging our lives from old home to new home, regardless of how many trips it took. today i do feel sad though. i know that i will always be allowed to go back to my parents home when ever i want, but it is weird to think i do not have a room of my own. although duncan moved out about 4 years ago, his room is still relatively intact. he has a room in his saskatoon house and a room at my parents. my room will become vicky's room in a matter of days, she is already picking out paint. for some reason, this makes me sad. i am happy that she finally gets a bigger room, but i am sad i no longer have a place of my own at my parents. i'm sure this will get less weird as time passes, but right now, it makes me kind of sad.

our first night in the house was definitely eventful. we ended up accomplishing a lot; we set up our bedroom, our closet, the guest bedroom, the living room, half of my office and jesse's computer room. the only major issue we had was the internet connection. jesse spent a good 3 hours on hold with shaw trying to get the wireless internet working with his pc. my mac didnt seem to have an issue at all though.... mac 1, pc 0? (there is definitely an on going mac vs pc battle in our household). apparently, after spending hours on hold and talking to various computer people, it turns out that the cable guy simply screwed up during the installation. i think that it is all getting sorted out today, but i am not completely sure.

the only other weird thing that happened was that wendy, the voice of the honeywell security system that the previous owner so kindly left installed for us, decided to take vengeance on jesse for removing her door sensors by declaring that the "front door [was] open" all night, every hour, on the hour, repeatedly. since i am the lightest sleeper in the world, wendy kept me up all night and i had a horrible first sleep in the house. jesse, who could sleep through WWIII, didn't seem to hear wendy as she constantly warned us against non existence inturders all night, informed me he had a wonderful sleep.

when i left for work and school this morning i left jesse with one single job before he goes back to work tomorrow. call honeywell and kill wendy - i've had enough of her.