Bathroom - 95% done

The bathroom is just about finished. We're enjoying hot showers under our sun tunnel, with pre-heated towels from our warming rack and a warm slate floor underfoot. We've whitewashed and installed our cupboard doors. I've even moved in a few plants!

The last 5% still to do: build in medicine cabinet with surrounding shelf/niche storage above sink. Install mirror on opposite wall over cupboards. Most likely mount a second shower curtain to create more privacy for the "inner" bathroom (shower/toilet). Install hooks for hanging up clothing. I may re-paint the walls a deeper, cooler green that's closer in colour to the mosaic tiles; the Dry Fern is coming across a bit too yellow. And hang some art (fossils, tiles - items unaffected by humidity - not that we have much problem with that since the new fan is very effective).

Compared to the original bathroom, there's not much left. The pedestal sink is the same, and in the same position, although it has new faucet hardware. The replacement window is the same size and position. The room has been extended about 2 feet into the former kitchen space, with the other wall positions remaining the same. The door is the original wood door (laboriously scraped down by Mark, through umpteen layers of paint - thank-you!), although it's been converted to a pocket door. And it's in the original position, which used to be one of my least favourite things about stepping through the front door - the view down the hallway dead-ending at half bathroom/half kitchen doorways. Now you still see the bathroom, but with the nearby kitchen/dining/living space opened up, it's no longer so disheartening.

Below - before:

 

Sink/toilet

 

Broken Jacuzzi tub

 

View from the front door

Below: after!

 

Storage with counter of reclaimed wood (medicine cabinet propped on top), and a glimpse of the sun tunnel over the shower

 

The shower, with curved shower rod and curved mosaic stone curb; storage niche, rainwater shower head and hand-held head - so luxurious...

 

Caroma toilet with integrated sink (water passes through the tap as the tank refills - efficient and handy), plus additional pedestal sink for brushing teeth, etc.

 

View of window (tiled in green mosaic stone) and towel warming rack (loving our toasty towels!)

Nov 03, 2012 - So close!

The reno is so close to being done! Since the stairs went in we've started to migrate upstairs. The last few big things remaining are the gas range hook-up and finalizing the shower. The bulk of the construction equipment has moved out, the floors are uncovered, and we can move in our possessions from the storage container. Now it remains to be seen how much we can clean up and organize before the baby gets here...

Oct 08, 2012: The Renos Continue

Many more things coming together on the reno:

Reclaimed cherry wooden post from Artefacts Salvage & Design in St. Jacobs. It was the header over the door in an 1850s house in Sarnia. Now it holds up our ceiling, since we took out the supporting wall in our conversion to an open concept kitchen/dining/living room design. There'll be another to match it, framing the opening from one side to the other.

Paint in the bedrooms. The base colour is my tried and true favourite, Behr's "Dry Fern" (which I've  used in the apartment on Dufferin, the house on Trinnell, and now here) - a beigey/greenish-yellow that changes quite a bit depending on the light source - it's light and neutral but it's got some kick. The accent wall in our bedroom is California Poppy red. No accent wall for the baby's room, at least not yet. We'll have to see if I channel a colour upon meeting him... The trim is a warmer white than the ceiling paint, and the ceiling paint colour is continued down in the top trim band area - a Not-So-Big-House trick to make the ceilings appear higher than they are.

Installation of the solatube in the shower. Cannot wait to shower under the beaming sunshine...

And I've been testing out paint chips on the front door; I think I've decided on a shade of blue. The beauty of Photoshop means I can sample my tiny paint chip and see what it looks covering the door in its entirety!

Sep 27, 2012: Flooring, tiles, cupboards, etc

Lots of things going in over the last few weeks:

Cork flooring (hallway/kitchen/dining/living rooms): as Thurmon-coloured as we could get it, to disguise the fur... Plus, a friendly surface for baby boy XY to learn to crawl on.

Slate flooring (bathroom, front and back entryways): durable in the areas most likely to get wet and muddy, and possible scratched at (thanks to Thurmon).

Our walk-in shower, with its gorgeous green stone mosaic and fabulous, curved sill, shaped to match the curved shower rod. Stephane, our tile genius from Greening Homes, has created a work of art.

The classic subway tile on the shower walls, which will have a gray/brown grout that highlights the pattern in which they're applied (same tile and treatment for the kitchen backsplash). Also, green mosaic tile in the shower niche shelves and inside the window. Overhead there'll be a sun tunnel (much like a skylight; just picture stepping into a shower drenched in sunlight in the morning!). Oh, and heated floors and towel rack. A rain shower head. The bathroom has really become our miniature spa...

The window sills, made from wood salvaged from the original floor joists taken out during the moving of our staircase - lots of interesting wear and tear marks on them (and if Thurmon spends a lot of time scrabbling about on them a little more wear will fit right in). Note the joint linking two pieces in the longest sill in the living room - thanks to Steven at Greening Homes for suggesting that fun, industrial detail!

Kitchen cupboards (IKEA on the inside; on the outside will be solid wood Shaker-style fronts by Phil), and our new Marvin glass door (far more energy-efficient than the old sliding patio doors). The kitchen now has far more connection to the backyard, the dining and living rooms. Not to mention space to move around!

The trim - simple, finger-jointed pine lumber (which will be painted white), but applied in a more elaborate scheme than usual. Chalk that one up to reading all of Sarah Susanka's "Not so Big House" books - it's the trim that ties everything together...

Sep 03, 2012: Windows!

Our new windows are in, which is very exciting - now we can see when we're inside (with the windows boarded and no lights hooked up it was very dark, except when the contractors were at work and took out the boarding)!

We enlarged the living room window so that it was better suited to the large room - it was previously  the same size as the front bedroom window (a perfectly fine size for the smaller room, but it looked a bit lost in the living room). It also helps balance out the oddly asymmetrical arrangement of the front door, which was just off-center - now the big window makes the design look deliberately asymmetrical. And the best thing of all is the greatly improved energy efficiency - they are pultruded fiberglass frames from InLine Fiberglass, which will be tightly sealed and comfy to sit near in the winter. And in the summer we'll be able to leave the small windows at top open for natural ventilation, without having to worry about rain/intruders getting in.

I've also been toying around with Photoshop mock-ups for how to change the door surround and paint colours to work with the natural pale pink brick and red roof (although when the asphalt shingles hit the end of their lifespan we'll pick a new colour that is easier to work with). I'm trying for something a little more Craftsman/Japanese than the pseudo-Colonial look we've got at the moment. Although I'd like a bright red door it's hard to work that out with the pink brick and red roof, so I'm thinking of softer colours, without any bright white...

Here's another option - eavestroughs/soffit same colour as window & cedar shakes at the gable end (as of Sep 27 these items are actually in the works for real), teal door...

or darker green door...

or more of a slate blue door...

Giant Zucchini

Must keep closer track of how fast the zucchinis are growing...

This one was turned into soup by our neighbours Michelle and Zvi.

July 22, 2012: House & Garden

Home renos continue. Basement staircase removed, giving us some much needed storage space - we can still get upstairs by going outside and through the front door. Not that we have much need to go upstairs - it's certainly not liveable! Some surprises found in the first week of work - floor joists in the bathroom cut through by previous renovations. Ceiling joists over the doorway missing - heaven knows why. Kind of glad our renovations are more than just cosmetic, so that these structural things get uncovered now.

While our house is deconstructing, our garden is blooming. Regularly eating kale, chard, rapini, peas, beans, basil and zucchini, and tomatoes shouldn't be much longer. There are 4 watermelons underway, lots of butternut squash maturing, and our brussels sprouts plants look happy.

July 16, 2012: Renovation underway!

Phase 2 of the renovation is underway! We've been working since the demolition and insulation in March to finalize our plans (making them more realistic - we hope - within our budget), get our permits, and start work with our new contractors, Greening Homes. For the next few months we'll be living in a greatly reduced portion of our basement - probably no more square footage than our apartment in France (although with a considerably larger kitchen). It all feels a bit crowded and crazy, but that will make it all the more spacious when we've got the whole house back to ourselves in the end.

The plan: main floor open concept kitchen/dining room, open to living room, enlarged bathroom, and a new staircase opening up a connection between the basement and main floor. New floors,  windows, lights, cupboards, appliances, bathroom fixtures. Improved energy efficiency! Still lots of shopping to do as the renovation proceeds, but the big picture has become much more solid than it was at the outset.

Below: a view across our basement to what's left of our living space.

Kitchen Cupboards

I loved the kitchen cupboards at my last house - original solid wood from when the house was built in the 1950s, which I painted to freshen then up. I could see the grain of the wood through the paint, which was highlighted by the glaze I put over top.

And now that I'm shopping for cupboards I can't find anything quite like it. I still want light, painted cupboards, but everything is painted so smooth and solid it might as well be made out of plastic. I thought I wanted something simple (it doesn't have to be such high quality wood if it's painted), but it turns out it's not so simple after all.

Below, a Shaker v-groove style of cupboard - I like this look. But painted.

April 10, 2012: Foamed and Waiting

The insulation was sprayed in a couple of weeks ago, the energy audit was done. So now we're just waiting on final drawings to submit for permit. Then wait for permit approval. And schedule the work. It seems like a lot of waiting.

In the meantime, there's plenty of shopping and decision making awaiting us. Windows, cupboards, lighting, etc. It's much more fun to look at photos of these things on the internet, collecting inspiration, then it is to actually schlep around town to pick them out for real. But we're getting there...

Below - our fantastically foamed walls. The blue tape outlines the future enlargement of the window (if you've got a south-facing exposure, take advantage of it!). This will be the large window in the living room.

Feb 23, 2012: Demolition

After 4 days of demolition, there's not much left!

Feb 17, 2012: The Wood

The wood - worth saving? I hope so...

Feb 16, 2012: Storage

Today we had a 20-foot shipping container delivered, so that we can clear out our main floor of all the furniture and boxes that won't fit in the basement.  It fit quite nicely up alongside the house, and Thurmon got to make friends with the truck driver. Just one more step down in the reno process...

Feb 15, 2012: The Plans

We've been mulling over our renovation ideas long enough that the design of the plans we've been tweaking now seem inevitable. It remains to be seen if they'll keep that form once the professionals go over them for cost, code, feasibility, etc, but we're hoping they won't change too much.

The footprint of the house remains the same, compact at approximately 875 square feet, although we hope to add on a sunroom at the back, giving us a bit more space and a better connection to the outdoors. We'll accomplish this as well with larger front porches and back deck. The kitchen, dining room and living room will all become integrated into one open-concept room, to give the illusion of it being larger than it is, as well as creating more actual counter space and storage than currently exists in the very outdated, ramshackle kitchen. The two bedrooms will stay the same size, but with more closets and built-in storage.

Windows will be replace throughout, with a few enlarged/moved, and insulation will be dramatically increased. Between southern sunlight and a central woodstove (the Vermont Bun Baker, in which we'll also be able to bake pizzas!) we may rarely need to turn on the furnace.

One of the biggest changes to the standard bungalow format will be moving the staircase, part of a plan to improve the connection to the (already nicely renovated) basement by making an architecturally interesting vertically focus, topped with clerestory windows for natural light and ventilation. We've even left room for a large planter of bamboo, which can grow from the basement all the way to the top of the clerestory, should it be so inclined. The staircase will be wrapped around with an open-shelving bookcase, keeping reading at the heart of the house (as is only proper).

So, here are the (still somewhat theoretical) plans, overlaid on the actual survey of the current house, and with additional details of ceiling and furniture.

Feb 06, 2012: Reno Work Begins

Today we (and by "we" I mean our friend Phil) started with our renovation work, taking up the maple flooring in the living and dining rooms. We hate to lose our classic, wooden floors, which show the house's history (built late 1940s) and still look pretty decent. So I'm hoping they can be salvaged and re-finished, then used to clad the lowered ceiling alcoves/halls that I have in mind (as I channel Frank Lloyd Wright for my design).

Phil estimates he's been able to get them up with only about 5% lost to splintering, so we've got lots to work with for the next step of sanding. The good thing is that it won't receive any wear after being put on the ceiling, so it doesn't have to be as technically sound as it would for floor use. We'll see how it looks, and whether it will be suitable to re-purpose.

Here's a photo from Houzz that shows an idea of what I'm thinking of:

More photos of the actual work, and our (still somewhat tentative) plans to follow soon!