North Glenora Reno

Our new bed is in place, as is Finley’s new bed as well. I am writing this from the “chair that started it all.” So, I’m done, right?

Who cares that the windows aren’t all stained yet, or that we have no baseboard or window trim, or that the bathroom is little more than a beautifully lit cavern? I am done. Don’t tell R, he will run over here to my beautiful chair and dump me right out of it.

Okay, so I’m not done, despite my deep desire for it to be so. We still have a whole lot of work to complete around here (as mentioned above).

However, going back to my happy place, these are the things that have happened over the last week and a bit. The painting of the eating area, the closet, our bedroom and the bathroom are all done. The flooring for the bedroom and closet, R did last weekend. It is beautiful and it was amazing how quickly that that made our new room seem a part of the rest of the house. The closet organizers are complete and one of us (guess who?) got nearly all of her clothes in there as soon as possible. The closet too, is amazing. It is so much wider and brighter than I ever thought possible.

The electrician came back yesterday and connected all of the light fixtures that we installed this week to the circuit box, so not only do we have light fixtures, as you saw the beginning of last week, but we now also have light! This is an amazing feat. The safety factor around has gone up ten fold both inside and outside the house. There are now fixtures in the bathroom (aka beautifully lit cavern), and the fixture in the entry of our room is spectacular! I am not overstating.

Today, we prep the windows for R to stain while I am out of town (wow, I dodged a bullet on that one, eh?) and R is doing some fancy switches and plug-in so that our house controls itself.

Things around here are really starting to come together! Since the end of October, the drywall has been completed, the mudding and taping has been completed and the painting has begun!

The taper took just over a week to complete his job and despite the mess (oh, the dust) did a fantastic job. During that time we determined what the paint colours would be. I chose the colour for the eating area a year and a half ago and even had the paint already. I know, super prepared! As for our bedroom and bathroom, that was a bit more work. None of the initial choices seemed to fit the bill, they were too dark, too blue, too purple. In the end, we have gone to such a pale gray that it is nearly white. In fact, when you see it, you will probably say that it is white. Generally, I hate white walls but I think that this very slightly gray white will provide exactly the calm and soothing feeling that we are going for. I hope.

Anyway, we caved, I admit it from the get go. We are getting tired and the idea of having someone else complete a job around here with little or no help from either of us turned out to be too good to be true. We hired a painter. In our defense, he is super reasonable and a friend of a friend and was willing to get started right away. So, thanks to Doug, our eating area is painted the great colour I chose eons ago and he will be back this week for the bedroom!

With the eating area painted, today we installed the trims for the pot lights, the back entry fixture, the amazing Artichoke chandelier and the two ceiling speakers! R painted the speaker the same colour as the ceiling and walls and you hardly notice them up there! The artichoke light is everything we imagined it would be and more! After some small wiring and wire issues, it was pretty easy to install. We were finally able to remove the scaffolding from the area and we removed the plywood and cardboard etc from the floor to reveal flooring we haven’t seen since sometime in July! We moved the table back in and all the chairs and (will wonders never cease?) we actually ate dinner in the actual room designated for that purpose! It was cathartic.

Doug, the painter, was also able to get the first coat of paint done in our new closet. R, super motivated by this advancement quickly raced to stain the window and cover and stain the beam in the closet as well. That, not being quite enough for R, gave him invitation to then paint the second coat in there. This meant that R could begin on his next job (a favorite, if you ask me), flooring. Tonight, after we spent most of the day getting the eating area back in order, R got started on laying the flooring on the entry of our room and into the closet. If all goes according to plan, I will be spending my weekend, building closets and then filling them up! Seriously, what is more exciting than building furniture and then getting to filling it up with beautifully organized and colour arranged clothing and assessors!?!? It feels like Christmas!

And with that, I’m off to bed so that there can be visions of sugar-plums dancing in my head!