The kitchen, I never did reveal it.

I suppose I should post some final pictures of the awesome kitchen Jeff and I still have completed... well there are a few things left to do. A few finishing touches. But lets recall the beauty that it was once upon a time.

Pre Jeff and Sarah

Here is what we have today, I love it!

Kitchen cabinet hardware to come!

Gardening in the rain, oh I love thee!

Spring has sprung here on the wet coast of BC. We have had some great days of sunshine and some more great days of wet sunshine, the sun is up there, above the rain clouds, or so they say. Regardless I love my garden and I love getting out in the rain or shine, either way, it's refreshing to be in the soil.

Projects of late have involved the removal of some ugly shrubs from the front garden and replacing with some Rose of Sharon (hardy hibiscus) shrubs we had out the back. Jeff got to have some fun with a chain saw for a few hours.

Fences have been slowly replaced...

Raspberry Patch May 2012

All the crap out of the patch!!

Raspberry Patch April 2013

 Gardens are starting to bloom too, can't wait to see the rhododendrons!

The next few weekends and months are going to be busy! We've got vegetables to plant, a fence to finish and paint, a play house to build, a deck to construct and a 70s yellow house exterior to transform into a gorgeous modern colour! Can't wait to get started on it all, I love it, and this rain could certainly go away.

Here fishy, fishy, fishy

Thanks Lisa for reminding me about the work we have been doing, what would I do without you? You see when I posted last week about the back splash I mentioned that we hadn't really done a lot around the place, but I totally forgot about Jeff's last minute fish pond renovation, which Lisa kindly reminded me about. 

You see when we purchased this grand abode the first thing I thought of when I saw the GIANT fish pond was 'Oh my, the babies are going to drown in there!', so we kind of, well I kind of decided that it had to go. 

Drowning hazard

This pond is huge, at it's deepest point it is easily 7 feet deep! Wowza, and it's pretty long. This was what it looked like in May, pretty gross looking right? In its hay day it was probably a real stunner but had been neglected. The bird netting was all crumbled down, lamiastrum was taking over the backside (no longer a problem, I tackled that) and it had about 2 feet thick sludge on the bottom of it, no doubt years of accumulated gold fish poop and needles from the neighbours awesome spruce trees.

My vision was to fill it in and then make a pretty garden over the top if it, then reality set in, how the F%^& were we going to fill in that huge hole when we have no backyard vehicle access to truck in the multiple pickup truck loads of dirt and fill that would have been required? Easiest thing to do... don't fill it in, instead let's renovate it too! This decision was made in late August, after we had given away over a gazillion gold fish, sold some of the pond Lilly's and had thrown away the bird netting! Oh well, live and learn.

So Jeff donned his chest waders and started the draining process. Perhaps this is why my back lawn did not follow the 'go golden' philosophy of summer water conservation! The draining of the pond took about a day, and during this time Jeff caught a heck of a lot of really cool goldfish and put them in buckets of fresher water as they awaited their fate. Buckets and buckets full of muck were removed, and man did it stink. As Jeff emptied the buckets of muck onto the back grass Gavin and I were on fish watch, looking for any fish that might have escaped Jeff's eager eyes.

Jeff in pond, up to waist, with pond half drained.

Jeff plodded about in the pond for about a day and a half cleaning out muck, fixing up the pumps/filters, and re-filling the pond. The water is now uber clear and you can see all the way to the bottom. 

The new pond decoy,
and blue pump/filter thingy.

We were all pretty pleased with the cleaned up pond, now with the clear water at least if a kid falls in we will be able to see them...and at least now the predatory birds can also see the gold fish. A few days after the job was complete a Great Blue Heron paid us a visit (not the bird in the above image). He had a great time catching the goldfish, lucky we have so many. I busted him a few times taking some really big fish out, and as such Jeff started to get a bit annoyed so he dropped $60 bucks on his pond decoy, apparently herons are territorial and if they see another feasting at a water hole, then they wont join in. HA HA. I walked out into the backyard one afternoon and they were sitting there beside each other! so much for that theory. So for a couple of days we had a visit from a heron, which was pretty cool. 

We have some work to do around the pond, some landscaping to do, I am thinking native plants, vine maples up back, perhaps some salmon berry bushes, Indian plum, snow berries, smoke bush, echinacea and some other things that will attract lots of birds and bees. Next spring should be a fun time to plant, I am really looking forward to it. We have some nice big hunks of rock we found in the bush to put around the edges and perhaps even a water feature is in the future, oh and a big fence the kiddies can't fall in!

One last thing, anyone want a cement swan? if you do, it's yours...

What?! September was the last blog...

Time flies! September was the last post I wrote, wow, so I would expect you'd think that Jeff and I have completed the renovations right? Well not quite. Things have been plugging away slowly, work and life seem to have gotten in the way of things, but we keep at it. Choosing a tile back splash for the kitchen seemed to take forever, in the end it was the great deal we got at the home depot that sealed the deal. 

Hopes are high that I can finally finish up in the kitchen by the end of November, hopes needed as we are hosting Christmas at our house and I would like that space complete. 

Here is the to-do list, it might be different than Jeff's:

• call chimney sweep
• finish painting kitchen cabinets
• install new hinges in kitchen
• install the new door bell 
• patching walls in the family room
• touch up crown molding in family room
• dab and touch up base boards throughout house
• install new door knob backdoor
• paint door casing on backdoor and powder room door in family room
• furniture for living room- couch or sofa bed
• hang up bulletin board in kitchen to hide electrical panel

Lots to get done, perhaps the next post will be sooner and I will have crossed lots of the list. It's really hard to do stuff in the few hours after the kids go to bed and before we go to bed, often the motivation has waned. 

The weather outside is delightful...

The inside of the house has stayed pretty much the same over the past few weeks. The quartz arrived and looks fab. The Annie Sloan Chalk Paint was purchased and is sitting on the kitchen table. Jeff installed crown in the family room, but it needs to be painted. A few hooks have been hung up, but that is about it inside. Outside is another story. The weather has been so nice, a lovely long summer and I want to take advantage of it before the rains come.

So I have been busy tidying up the yard doing all sorts of fun things. I have loved it all. I have been weeding, weeding, oh and weeding. I have also been removing invasive species like English Holly and Lamiastrum, which I suppose is another form of weeding. I loath English Holly and Lamiastrum and forbid you from ever purchasing these two invasive plants from any nursery or garden center and ask that if you have them in your yard, get rid of them! Please. Click here for reasons why. Remember, forbid you! 

Oh, tangent. 

Before: Big green, tall bush by fence- Ivy

After: See that dead tree leaning over, culprit Ivy

 Here is a nice Echinacea for you instead of that Ivy.

Love me some Echinacea

I am also super proud of my ability to now sit in the garden with multiple spiders hanging out around me. Which is OK because these are Canadian spiders that wont kill me, much unlike their Australian cousins whom would view me in the garden as a nice afternoon tea snack. But we did have a 2 foot long Garter Snake and even though it is totally harmless I squealed like a little girl and ran the other way. Some fears will always stick.

I managed to plant some things too, scored some great Hostas and a Rhubarb plant from my work, thanks Demonstration Garden, and things are starting to look pretty. Plans are in the works for some apple and pear trees too. 

After Hosta

I also did some planting out front by the wishing well. I planted some pansies for the fall, and removed some Yucca's and put in some Lavender for the bees.

So the inside list is still pretty long. But that is OK, it will start to rain soon, then I can paint the kitchen cabinets.

The quartz has arrived!

They say the kitchen is the heart of the home, and ours is well on it's way to becoming such. It is the one room that we have spent the most money in, and it will probably be the most impressive reveal once all is said and done. Slowly but surely things are coming along. Last night was an exciting evening in our home, our new quartz countertops were installed and geez they sure are pretty! But more on those later.

Here is what we started out with in our 70s dream home, and no it wasn't the dream kitchen that sold us on our lovely place.

Needless to say, that was quickly ripped out, and we went searching for a new kitchen, finding one on Graigslist for $400. Sweet deal. But I recall most of this has been blogged about already.

Update to today. These are our new cabinets, awaiting some paint as the oak look is oh so 1990s!

Now if you have been following my Face Book page you will know that I have been contemplating colours. The thought of prepping, sanding, priming, painting, sanding, painting, sanding, painting etc just didn't really appeal to me, so I was so happy to discover something called chalk paint! This stuff is amazing and not the same stuff that you paint chalk boards with. I discovered Annie Sloan Chalk Paints, which are the biggest and greatest thing in the furniture restoration business... or so they say. Word is that all you do to your  item wanting paint is a good old scrub down with TSP and then fill any holes, nicks etc and apply two coats of paint, then this special wax that seals it all up. The wax also brings out the grain in the wood, so that should appeal to those of us whom balk at the idea of painting wood!

I think we might go with the Graphite paint, which is a gorgeous black, stunning, classic and should hide all those finger prints young children are apt at leaving on everything! Remember Harold the fridge, he looks stunning with finger prints all over...

So here we go with our paint options:

Graphite on the left, Cocoa on the right. Thoughts are to do Graphite on lowers, Cocoa on the top cabinets. This is what it looks like on our sample cabinet doors:

Graphite on left, Cocoa on right. Think they look pretty nice, what do you prefer? Notice on both images how there is a darker area? Those are the spots with the wax applied. Now we are at a standstill when it comes to the actual painting as this paint is only available at selected stores in our area and they are all out of our chosen colours, apparently Hurricane Isacc has shut down the plant in the US and until it reopens and they can get shipments out, we are just going to have to live with our oak. But that's OK as I don't for-see painting in my immediate future, perhaps that is a job for October.

Atop these beauties is our gorgeous quartz! So fab to look at, I just love them. Here is a sample.

As I write this post, the wonderful Jeff is busy installing our Kraus Under-mount Stainless Steel Sink- gorgeous, you could bath 2 kids in there at once, plumbing in the dishwasher (which I might add has been full of dishes for the past 24 hours and awaiting its first run), and I am hoping will install our Kraus Single Lever Faucet!

Renovating a house is like Christmas everyday! I can't wait to reveal the completed project. 

Mowing the grass

Jeff is pretty happy with his new toy, no it's not the remote controlled helicopter he has been bugging me about for the last 5 years (one day...), but his new Fiskars Stay Sharp Reel Mower. No noisy, gas powered lawn mower for him. I was quite surprised when he announced a few months ago that he wanted a reel mower, commonly referred to as the push mower. After looking around at several mowers he chose the Fiskars, finding one at Home Depot, but it didn't come with a grass catcher, and I didn't want the kids traipsing grass clippings into the house. That's when I declared 'Amazon will have one!', so we went online and ordered the mower and for an extra $30 a grass catcher.

Well today was the day it was delivered to our mailbox below the 49th parallel. So like all great wives I left work an hour early and headed down to the US to pick it up. I had the foresight to print off a couple of documents that I had been procrastinating on editing for the past few days (you'd be surprised how organized my area of the office is becoming) and away I went. Fortunately there wasn't too long a wait to cross, I was able to edit one of the documents on the way down, and after picking up the mower, overfilling my car with cheap gas (whoops) and heading back north, I was able to edit the second one waiting to get back into Canada. I had to laugh while sitting at the Peace Arch crossing, a couple flocks of Canada Geese flew over the border lanes, they must have had Nexus as they just kept flying and didn't stop to present their passports ;)

It wasn't long and I was pulling into the driveway, just after Jeff had shown up with the kids. First thing he said to me "did you get my lawn mower?" Sure did honey! So for the next hour Jeff put the mower together and proceeded in successfully mowing our almost 1/4 acre yard. It was so nice to hear the peace and quiet of our new neighbourhood. No noisy, stinky, gas powered beast to interrupt the tranquility of the tree frogs.