Finally...

Well, economic meltdown or no, we can't just sit around here doing nothing. But we have to be very, very frugal, so instead of buying $3000 worth of tiles, a $2500 shower system and four $500 faucets to finish the master bath, we bought a can of paint ($14) to finish the ceiling of the boys bath. The ceiling that we primed, oh when was it now? April 2007.
We didn't mean to be so lax but we figured we should leave the final coat to the ceiling until the master bathroom was done when, we planned, the painter could do a professional job on both bathrooms at once. Ha, in this house great plans have a habit of curling up in the corner for a long snooze and, apart from the occasional snore to remind us they are still alive, can be ignored until we are forced (by the imminent arrival of visitors, or the need to sell up and move to different continent) to dust off the cobwebs and ACTUALLY PUT THEM INTO ACTION. Anyway, we are no nearer getting the master fixed-up than we were eighteen months ago, so I called it diy time. Two trips to the paint store, one for a can of paint and one for a liner for the paint tray and we were ready to go. That was until we discovered that we couldn't get the stepladder into the shower to paint the ceiling without some serious trauma. One more trip, this time to Home Depot, and we scored a two foot step ladder for $13.95. An hour later we had a bright, clean ceiling, and we can finally, finally call that bathroom done.

Three Year Anniversary

With all the visitors this summer we totally forgot our three year anniversary on June 29th. That's three years we've been in the house, not the time we've been together. That is much, much longer.
So a little late, just like the remodel process, I've been looking back over the past twelve months, taking stock of the progress. Last year, our second year here, I wrote out a long list of things we'd done renovation-wise, and what we still had to do. Looking back on it now it seems I was a little optimistic, we haven't accomplished any of the things we set out to do this year.
Well maybe one: we replaced the window in the boys' bath; and oh yeah, we also replaced the glass in the back door. We did tackle a couple of things off the 2008 list, at least partially: we bought new appliances for the laundry, tore out the rotted cabinets and painted the space. We also replaced the gate and mended some fences from the 2009 list but we'll need to replace most of the fencing sometime. Continuing the outside projects, we decided it wasn't worth replacing the doors on the barbecue given the state of it and we demolished it. Then we put 3 Bluestone flags on the base and bought a new barbecue to sit on there. We pulled off the door on the pool bar and left it as an opening - great for trash now, maybe one day we can fit an outdoor fridge in there (in my dreams).
Of course the big ticket renovations this year were dictated by the leaks in the plumbing: the boys' bath, the girls' bath and the downstairs bath. Astute readers will have seen that there was no previous mention of these projects on our lists. That's because we weren't planning to do them at all and that, my friends, is where the best laid plans of the Vineyard Rd renovation go awry. Something crops up, maintenance becomes renovation and before you know it the budget and the timeline have taken on a life of their own.