Let The Painting Begin

As you can probably tell by the title of the post we are ready for paint.Our contractor will be there in the morning to clean up and then after that we can start to paint.

This gets us one step closer to moving back into the house.There are a lot of little things that still need to be done.Even though the painting is about to start,I still think we will be out of the house a few more weeks at least.

Our floor guy is coming tomorrow night and is going to help paint to get things going along a little faster, as he wants to start putting the floors in this week-end.I really don't see that happening, but maybe a few late nights of painting and who knows.I know I am just not going to get my hopes up on the floor part starting this week-end just yet.I am just thankful the painting is starting. 

We had not planned on getting our floor guy to help with the painting, as we are trying to keep the costs down.But I think it would be just too hard with us trying to do it with the two kids.One of whom is a baby and keeps us pretty busy on his own.So we decided to bring in some extra help to get this done faster.

We will worry about how we are going to pay him after....

And after all that is done,the painting and the floors we still need to furnish the house.Hopefully by this time we will have some of our government grant money so we can actually buy some furniture.We have never owed new furniture before so we are really looking forward to this experience.

With the renovations and the new furniture we won't be embarrassed anymore when people come over,this feeling on it's own will be great.

The painting begins tomorrow and I don't think I will get a chance to get pictures up as after we are done painting for the evening around 9ish,I have to race to the rink to play hockey.

But I will see what I can do...

Energy Audit And More Mud........

The drywall work continues with the third coat of mud being put on.Now from what I have been told this will be the last coat of mud.Then they will sand it once it is dry and then we can start priming and painting.

As for when we can start painting,well....I am hopefully that maybe this week-end.That is a big maybe though.

We had our second assessment for the Government grants for the energy rebates.That would be federal and provincial and I think the max is about five thousand from each if I remember correctly.We are lucky we did our first assessment when we did, because now they have cut some of the money you can get back.Good old government realized they had too many people taking advantage of the rebates and decided to cut it off.

The guy who did the audit was pretty cool about everything and gave us the max score we could get on everything.Which I am not surprised about because we did redo everything and it's all energy star stuff. He even got my brother and the contractor to take the toilet we bought out of the box set it up so he could take a picture of it so we could get money back for that as well.He also gave us credit for 9 windows instead of 7 because he counted the 4 new ones we have on the new part of the house.I thought he could only give us credit for what we had before not the new part.We are not complaining though, at $80 dollars a window that's a few hundred dollars worth of windows.

He said we should hear in about a month how much we will be getting back and the first cheque should come within sixty days.By the looks of things we should be getting a good amount of money back.This money will go towards new furniture and finishing the basement.

I didn't take any pictures today because, I went over to the house and then realized that I had no battery in the camera.....oops!! And I was to lazy to walk back over to put the battery in and then go back to the house again.

Tomorrow I will remember the battery and hopefully not be as lazy......

Mud and Tape

Things are not too exciting on the home front right now.All that is happening is mudding and taping.So there is no real drastic changes as of now.

I am going to post a couple of pictures just for fun anyway...

This is a wall in our son Alex's room.

A wall in the soon to be rec room. 

There you go.Like I said nothing to wild or exciting or life changing. This pretty much will be the rest of the week in terms of happenings on the home front.Once they are done sanding it,then we are up with the paint.

That could be interesting.........

I have tried to think back to the last time I had painted a room or anything for that matter.Well maybe some art in art class,but that is about the extent of my painting career.
I am reyling on my wife to give me some pointers.Painting seems to be her thing.

That's all I have for now!!!

Mud And Tape Up Next!

We are getting there...... 

I shouldn't really say that yet.We still have painting to do and floors to put in.But we are getting ever so close,although there is still a LOT of little things that need to be done after we move in.

Are contractor is set to mud and tape next week,which he will do by himself as his other two guys are moving on to start another job.Now we have been told by a few people that doing the mud and tape is what he is really known for.

It should be good and it should go pretty quick.So we have been told.

Here are some pictures from the last few days....

Here is our new bathtub. 

Instead of a stair rail our contractor built this half wall which we like better than a railing.

Another view of the wall that goes along side the stairs. 

This is a view of under the stairs which our son Sam has claimed as his office space.

Sump pump room which we will also use for storage.

There you have it all the picture from the last couple of days.The house looks really good and most people who know us can't even believe it is the same house.And even though the wait has been long our contractor has done a really great job and the wait will be worth it.

The Drywall Continues

The drywall work continued today and they are almost done putting it up.Next they will mud and tape.Once that drys then we can paint.

Here are some pictures from today....  

The new hallway upstairs.This is where our old kitchen window and master bedroom window where.   

The basement.

More of the basement.

This room is just to cover up the sump pump.

There are just a few pictures from today.I did have the chance to chat with our contractor and it looks like we will be about $6000 over budget,which is better than the 10% he told me we would be over.He also didn't charge us for the porch he built off the door for us and he was going to get us a new tub which was his gift too us.This is a really nice gesture on his part.

For what its worth and all the waiting we have gone through,he really has done a great job on the house.He also has been great to us because has not once asked or chased us for money.He just continued on with the job.

The wait will be worth it.

Drywall Has Begun!!

Yes they have finally started to put on the drywall.The end of the home reno is near......

OK maybe not that near but we are getting so much closer.

Lets take a look at some pictures....

This room belongs to our soon Alex. 

Hallway going down to the basement.

This would be our master bedroom. 

I wanted to show a picture of the porch with the lights on.

There are a few of the pictures from today.The guys from Pro Gas were back and finished up their work.The furnace is working and the house is actually warm....YAY!!

The drywall should be done by the end of the week or early next week at the latest.This means we could be painting by next week sometime.Once we get the painting done our floor guy is ready to go at anytime,which is great to hear.

Hopefully we can get into the house in early Novemeber, but time will tell.

Thats all for now!!!!

The Porch And Some Other Things!

The outside work continued today with the gravel being put onto the sand that was once the driveway.They also leveled out the backyard as well so it doesn't look so bad anymore, much to the disappointment of our son who lost his sand pile.

Everyday we would go over to take pictures of the house he would come along just so he could play in that sand pile.Now we might have to find some sand and make him a pile in the corner of the yard or something.

Lets take a look at the pictures from the last couple of days....

The new porch.This was not in the original plans, but it really does add a nice touch and I'am glad we went ahead with it.Now all I need is a chair out there so I can sit and watch the neighbours.

The new refurbished driveway.

Here is the backyard.As you can see the sand pile has been spread over the yard.

This has nothing to do with the porch or the outside work,this would be our new floor.

A close up of the new floor.These floors are going to be in every room except the bathrooms and the basement.

There it is all the work that has happened over the last couple of days.The drywall has been delivered to the house and it should be started on Monday.

I hope that is!!

OK,Drywall Next....Really!!

OK,so I thought the drywall was going to be started yesterday.When that didn't happen,I thought well, OK today they will start the drywall.This didn't happen either.

I am thinking they will start the drywall tomorrow....or should I say I hope they start the drywall tomorrow!!Once that gets going then we are almost home free.It's just paint and flooring after that.

We are getting closer!!

Lets take a look at the pictures from the last couple of days....

Here is the new porch.

The pot lights in the porch.These look really good,I am glad we decided to do this.

Ceiling getting ready for drywall.

Those were a few of the pictures from the last couple of days.

Stay tuned for more......

Inspection Passed...Up Next Drywall

The building inspector was by today to check things out and everything passed.Yay!!This means that the drywall will be started next week....Yay!!!

Once the drywall is done which should take about a week in a half,we can start the painting and then the floors can go in.Hopefully we can be in the house by the end of October.Keep your fingers crossed! 

Lets look at some pictures 

  
Here is the new porch area. 

The new lights in the porch.  

New window wells. 

The gas meter gets one too.  

New front light.They moved the light up a couple of feet, as the old light was right above the door. 

Here is a close up of the light. 

New attic hatch. 

So there you have it all the action from the last two days. 

I did get a chance to talk to our contractor yesterday and I asked him how much over budget he thought we were.I showed him the quote for the $73,800 and he figures we should be over about 10%,which would put us at about $80,000. 

It is not what I wanted to here but it was better than I thought.I figured for some reason we would be over a lot more than that for some reason.Had he told me we were over 20% or something,I probably would have had to tell him to stop right now and we would try to get the rest finished some other way or something. 

Our contractor also had one of his guys quit on him today.My brother said they had a fight about taking the trailer to the dump and I guess all hell broke loose after that and our contractor told him to "f**K off then" and that was it.He was gone. 

Now it's just the new guy and our contractor.I hope this won't slow things down.