The house completed and FOR SALE

I realized I never really posted any final product pictures of our Oak Lake home.  Please refer back to "Soon to be a memory" post of Januar 13, 2010 for before pictures.

This is what was hiding underneath all the carpet and stuff!

Looking from the West to the sunroom area

Heading to the North side

Sheds to the East

Going towards the garden shed and garden

Lovely new deck on the south side, where we always entered.

From the South East entry

Enter into kitchen, a little feeling like a retro 50's look

From the door looking into living room

Looking right

Right is master bedroom door, left is basement door.

Notice the antique grate on the wall...lots of hours spent cleaning it up!

I can't find any good pictures of the master bedroom for some reason...hummm

From living room looking into the "baby room"

Looking from the West sunroom into the house

Finally, after 6 years trying, got the varnish off the glass above the stairway door.

Landing above the stairs...see the reflections in the flooring!  WOW!

Looking right, original doors and copper/brass hardware

Into the West room.  New window, notice the little box on the right.  We made it into a toy box of sorts because it is the stairwell underneath.  Oh how many people loved it and thought it would be a good reading seat!  Just add pillows and a book!

Some more of that room, it could fit bunk beds to the right.

The east room upstairs door

Part of the East room upstairs, hard to take pictures, there are fun corners everywhere!

Mainfloor bathroom joins the laundry and master bedroom

Other side of bath, obviously

West sunroom, which was very handy for our sleeping arrangements!

That was a bit of a tour for you!

Very hard to leave this home, as it was in EVERY way a HOME for us.  We are praying for it to continue to be a blessing to others.

Choosing JOY daily

Psalm 28:6-8

Praise be to the LORD,

for he has heard my cry for mercy.

7 The LORD is my strength and my shield;

my heart trusts in him, and I am helped.

My heart leaps for joy

and I will give thanks to him in song.

8 The LORD is the strength of his people,

a fortress of salvation for his anointed one.

Part 2 Life of a Renovator...

In order to survive a major renovation when you are living in the home, you must be prepared for some craziness...such as...

~dead batteries~

~breakfast on a new deck~

~ eating your free box of sugar junk cereal on said new deck~

~eating on make shift tables, whenever, wherever~

Sharing perogies with friends while having an indoor picnic

~then being prepared to wrangle the child that ate the aforementioned sugar junk!

Be prepared for children to use your paint drop clothes for other purposes!

Be prepared to offer food and take food from others while eating on the floor

~ to take your tea on the piano bench ~

~ to enjoy spur-of-the-moment family gatherings

~to share a snack at 1 AM with your sweetie who is starting to look like Grizzly Adams~

Grabbing the internet connection whenever you can.  Here I am advertising our house for sale.

Watch your children find new uses for your disposable latex gloves.  This is a cow milking station!

Kids get a little bored of raking leaves, but burning them is more fun.

Be prepared to swallow your pride when friends show up to help on your final day and you offer them water in a measuring cup ~ and they just giggle and drink!

Hard working yard clean up crew!  Makes good byes hard, but the moment sweet!

Spontaneous picnics are fun

Be prepared for your girls to find new uses for your ropes.  Here Mei is in her swinging chair.

Be happy to sleep wherever, whenever you can.  Even if it means in the middle of a living room, with no curtains and with an edge sander screaming away.  Daily we just shook out our blankets and fell asleep!

Be prepared to break your own personal record for longest and most painful sliver.  1.5 inches long!

~ to trust your 12 year old to clear coat the floor with you.  Not once, but 3 times on each floor.

Then also trust same child to prepare meals safely while her father is still in the house!  ha ha!

~ relax and goof around when you can...which is not often! Be thankful for the friends that show up and let you be the recepient of their many decorative talents!  Thanks Ronalyn Art!

 

Be prepared to shed some tears as you look at your baby bed and remember all your sweet memories  

The crazy life....the life of a renovator!

This post has been delayed due to getting pictures uploaded, so here it is.

If you know me, I do like to plan or at least have some sort of idea of what my life requires of me...I did NOT think this one out so clearly.  Maybe that was my blessing in disguise.  I just knew that I wanted to be with my honey as we renovated our home to sell and our family to be together.  We were definately together and if a happy that works together stays together, then we will!  ha ha

We arrived the beginning of March in Manitoba to a few feet of snow blocking our path to the entrance of the house.  So I got shovelling.  The heaters had all been cranked up in the house so it was steamy warm (poor hydro bill).  We unloaded tools, etc and paints that were temperature sensitive and then headed to friends for the next few nights. 

Looking at what needed to be done and where to start...

some before photos, or at least when we had just started out.

Bathroom after old "barker board" removed.             Ruth and Mei's pink & purple room, floor scrapped.

Kate's green room, painted subflooring.              Middle area upstairs with wallpaper on drywall...stuck!

So I started some priming, etc and then went for my "girls weekend" AKA Stepf's Wedding Fun and came home to this...my toilet and sink were outside.  A little miscommunication, but we made do....poor Mei will dislike me for these next posts!  Roll with the punches they say?!

Father and son work in the tiny bathroom ~ J. the drywall king

When you renovate, there is no such thing as "personal space"...

Now this was exciting...for me!  This huge cord went across our bedroom ceiling like a giant umbilical cord.  It was hideous.  It took the better part of a day to do the wiring properly, but oh so nice to not stare at it!

I would catch Gregg doing this constantly...the fir flooring has soooo many slivers.

Found Gregg's teenage cool dude shirt in the rag bag...

Do I ever learn?  This time I returned from town with supplies and had to stradle what was left of the deck.

The nice weather also brought out the bees...1000's of them!  They love MDF sawdust.

Getting the borrowed paint sprayer ready and working around the SNOW

This is what a real working kitchen looks like.  Fuctional, not pretty.

Renovators replace kitchen windows after dessert and even if your company is watching!

...and use cheap labor...

Part 2 later