A new life; same as the old life?

The kitchen and associated remodeling is coming along nicely. Kitchen tile is down and partially grouted, dry wall is hung and finished but still to be primed. The cabinets went up last week and most of the trim is completed. Counter tops were measured and arrived this morning. They are being installed as I speak; appliances are in and working. I reckon we are about 2-3 weeks from 100% completion and finishing touches, but we should be able to host Burns Supper on the 25th! This picture is the stone installed on the bar in the family room. Work is well advanced in the powder room floor and we can already use it. Those trips up and down the stairs were becoming tedious! As you would expect, there have been some hiccups and a lot of on the spot decisions to be made along the way. The two major gotchas have been the duct work that we knew was a mess, but just not quite how much of a mess, and the electrical supply service which we found out is aluminum (or aluminium for my UK readers), in...

So we are into the second week and things are progressing. Last week was of course all demolition, and this week starts off that way, but moving quickly to actual construction as you can see with some new walls getting framed in. There have been no major surprises yet, although some small issues like the bad header on the old door, poor plumbing work and extremely bad duct work. By the end of the week we are hoping for rough inspections, they new pocket door installed and the basic plumbing work done. The best thing here is that the contractor really seems to know what he is doing, unlike previous ones that have worked on this house, that much is obvious! We should be ready for tile in about 3 weeks, cabinets the week after. Check out the pictures to see the choices so far, door fronts, handles, dishwasher, oven, fridge, cooktop hood, under cabinet lights and floor tiles. Oh and don't forget to check out my photo 365 efforts by clicking on the links over to the right with the rota...

As regular readers will know, we bought our house, the one we have been living in for almost 3 years, in December of last year. Of course, besides the normal maintenance and cosmetic items that I have been doing for a while now, since we own it, there are bigger more fundamental issues to deal with like the windows we installed in December, the completely unbalanced heating/cooling installation and the tiny crappy kitchen. I started planning the new space, with some walls to be knocked through, bathroom shrinking to a powder room (toilet for my British readers), smaller laundry room, etc. Reasonably complex but nothing horrendous, no supporting walls, etc. However, as these things always do, (especially if there is a wife involved :-) the project potentially had become significantly more complex, possibly tearing out most of an original supporting brick exterior wall, the one that now forms the wall between the dining/kitchen area and the family room. Whilst I saw the logic of the cho...

into this, then this, this, and finally this, This is what the side of the hot tub looked like before,

When I lived in the UK, many's a day Charlie and I would find ourselves rumminating over a DIY problem, often with a beer in hand and some Tiger Woods golf on the Playstation or Xbox in obeyance until we were done. Everything from building summer houses for my then MIL, to erecting fences in his garden to simple painting and decorating, although we tended to do the simple stuff in our separate ways. As I have been working on this house, I have often wished for his assistance or support, if nothing else, a fresh pair of eyes. I miss the spare hand, the common sense approach but most of all I miss the camaraderie. So when I was working on these new doors, replacing the horrible old, brown stained, flat, hollow cores, with some nice 6 panel, foam core versions, with brushed nickel hardware, I thought of Charlie. Particularly when I left the door standing in the opening for a minute to get a tool, and it fell through into the room, landing on Addison's new fan, and her toy chest, a...

The debate will never be resolved of course, but it is an interesting thought process. Theoretically we have done nothing different with Cooper than we did with Addison, yet the differences in his behaviour are marked from Addison's. I say theoretically because, of course things are different. Our values have not changed, but likely our approach has. He is child number two, so of course lessons have been learned, attitudes are different, and Addison is here being very involved in everything going on. He is way more grizzly than Addison ever was, doesn't sleep as well, and seems to need to burp every minute of EVERY DAY. Appearancewise, he could be her twin at that age. There are often time when I look at pictures, on the computer or the digital frame, with some hand me down outfit from Addison, and I cannot tell for sure which one of them it is. All of this to say that he has been a nightmare to feed, to the point where I don't even try any more and Lorraine spends hours w...

the water is lovely

Like many of you I suffer from junk mail. Everything from "pre-approved" credit cards to catalogs and magazine offers. Whilst I am sure some of this is my fault for not ticking the right boxes on forms or websites, or inviting one company to mail me, who then sell it to others, they sure don't make it easy. Hiding the text in small print, or intentially badly wording opt out questions to catch you unawares. Of course we all know the dangers of simply throwing this stuff away, so we end up opening it, shredding parts, recycling others, etc. The good thing is that there are some ways, unfortunately some of them tedious, but we shall see if any of them are effective as I just used a bunch of them. Have a go if this is a problem for you. These links are for the US only, although I am sure similar sites exist in the UK too. Telemarketers - www.donotcall.gov or call 888-382-1222 "Preapproved" - www.optoutprescreen.com or call 888-567-8688 (you will need SSN) Catalo...

We are now homeowners in the US! Yay!

My postings seem to be getting less and less regular as life itself takes over! The holiday season is fast approaching with Thanksgiving tomorrow, and the sales, although again this year, despite the economy, I am not overly impressed with the deals. The weather has been exceptionally mild here with temps still in the 50s and last weekend I was out putting up the Christmas lights in a t-shirt, and in the same breath I was preparing my snow blower for the inevitable. Jan and Mads are coming for Christmas, with Jan actually coming for two months. We figured with the two kids now, it is going to be difficult for Lorraine to travel on her own. The plan is that Jan comes here, baby arrives, we wait until the two month check up, then she and Lorraine fly with both kids, and then I join them for a bit and fly back with Lorraine. So Charlie, I will be bringing my clubs and looking for some spring time golf! Speaking of the baby, Cooper James will be coming along very soon....December 10th is t...