I Love When it Looks so Festive 'Round Here

Ok, Ok, I know I;m a few days late...but time has a way of  getting away from this chick these days.

No lie, folks. I begin to plan my Christmas tree themes/colour schemes in early October. A tad obsessive, yes. I get so inspired by all of the beautiful trees and decorations out there in the blogosphere that I can't help myself.

This year is bittersweet for me. It will be the first Christmas since my mom passed away and I will miss our little traditions, most of which revolved around obsessing about our Christmas trees!

My mom just loved the attention I gave to my trees, and it revved her up to beautify her own tree. Every year we'd go ornament shopping and hit up all our favourite out-of-the-way boutiques and shops, always spending far more money than we intended to. My mom would not-so-subtly gather intel on the theme I was working on and buy ornaments that matched, then "surprise" me with them at the end of the day. I always knew what she was up to, but she enjoyed doing it so much I couldn't bear to ruin her fun. She'd take home her own new treasures and carefully select the perfect place on her tree for each of them. It was always an awesome day, and I will miss spending it with her.

Onto happier thoughts....

This year's main floor tree is new; a 7 1/2 ft flocked tree from Martha Stewart. I've wanted a flocked tree for a few years now so decided to finally go for it.

I have never done a tree in blue, and decided it was about time. My sister often does her tree in shades of blue and I am always struck by how pretty it looks.

In the interest of full disclosure, this is the scene when I decorate a tree.First, approval by the kitties, then the massive sort. Mr. Mel typically makes himself scarce for this process, as my OCD goes into full effect!

Almost 500 decorations, 5 hours (plus or minus another 30 mins to vacuum up the flocking that was everywhere)...and this is the finished product, I hope you like it. My only regret here is that I should have used a ribbon or garland. But, despite that, I am so happy with my blue tree!

 

And for my mom, a memorial angel...

Garage Progress

We've been making slow progress on the garage. Because of the tremendous amount of local housing construction, our little project hasn't been high on our subs priority list. It's taken a few weeks longer than expected, but here's what's been going on...

We had the soil dug up for the grade beam. This frost wall is super important up here where we have lots of freeze/thaw cycles that can compromise the structure. The bobcat accidentally hit the line for our outdoor electrical panel but, thankfully, it didn't do too much damage and was a quick fix for our good buddy the electrician.

Next up, the foundation forms and re-bar for our concrete. Once this passed inspection, we had the grade beam poured.

Next was our garage pad. We had to remove an existing basement window (local code won't allow this opening once the garage is up) and the sill sat below the finished pad, so it had to go. I asked the contractor to give the pad a brushed finish so the epoxy I plan to apply will adhere better. Because the pad was a few inches higher than our patio, they created a rounded transition from the garage door.

The rest of the garage went up pretty quickly. The trusses were delivered right on time and the guys got to work. Before we knew it, we had walls and a roof! This is the point where I got the most excited, it really is going to make an awesome area for my workshop.

The original soffit and fascia on the rear are still in place, and I think I may just leave it. The ceiling will eventually be drywalled so it won't be seen anyway. The existing garage door will be removed and reinstalled at the entrance to the new addition and we'll remove the existing light fixture.

The electrician comes tomorrow to rough in our lighting and indoor and outdoor outlets...time to shop for an outdoor fixture! The original was just too small for the space and really didn't shed much usable light. Because this rear light will now provide light to the east side of the patio, I want it to be more practical.

Our exterior contractor is super busy and is going to squeeze this job in as soon as he can, he's on deck for next week. Stay tuned for more!

When You Just Can't...

Trying to maintain my blog over the past few years has been a real challenge for me. It's gotten harder as my mom, who was battling diabetes, heart disease and kidney failure, relied more and more on me to take on the responsibility for her personal and financial affairs.

It's been a very long road for our family as mom fought these diseases...they are brutal and show no mercy.

Between the day to day of life, and the responsibilities I took on for my mom...there was just nothing left for this blog. I'd try...but just couldn't.

Mom's brave fight for life ended on September 5th, and it's left me reeling. But, it's also released the enormous pressure I put on myself to focus on her needs, instead of my own.

I miss my mom terribly. Those who have been through it can understand that there are no words to describe the emotions involved when a parent dies. But I know that she'd hate for me to dwell on that sadness.

So, I've decided to dedicate this humble little blog to my mom. She always got a kick out of all the crazy projects I had on the go. She was hugely supportive of this blog, and I want to ensure that she stays proud of me for not giving it up.

Thanks for sticking with me!

Garage Addition Saga

In construction it seems that, no matter how much you plan, things will inevitably go awry.

I posted quite a while back about our garage addition and the construction quote I was waiting for. When the quote came in, it was high. Much, much higher than I had hoped. It immediately put this project on hold.

After feeling sorry for myself for a few months, I called up my cousin (a custom builder) to see if he could help me out (or at least call in a few favours with his subs to save me some moolah). I didn't expect him to take on this project himself. He builds very high end homes, and I knew that my little 14' x 19' garage addition wasn't something that he'd likely be interested in taking on.

Much to my surprise, he offered to have his crews complete it for me for less than half what other contractors had quoted me. Yes, you read that right...less than half! The catch was that we would have to find someone to complete the exterior.

Quick like a bunny, our architect complete drawings, the engineer finished the foundation drawings, and I had building permits from the town.

That's when things got frustrating...

The engineer required enormous footings for this addition. Much larger than were required, in our opinion. It almost doubled the cost of the build in concrete alone. It also would have required us to tear out half of my brand new patio and create a huge mess which would drive my neighbours nuts. There had to be another way....

After a lot of discussion with the engineer, he agreed that we could use 3 1/2" x 16' screw piles for the foundation (traditional concrete piles were not an option for us; our soil is far too sandy to drill as deep as we needed, and it still would have been a messy job). We still had to cut the patio, but only 12", I could live with that. Armed with this new set of foundation drawings, I had to submit an amendment to our building permit.

Tick tock.

Thing is, folks, 16' screw piles are hard to come by, and we ended up having to have them custom manufactured.

Tick tock.

Yesterday, these piles finally got installed. It is a slick process. It's super simple, the guys were hilarious, and they had all 5 in place in less than 3 hours. After all the drama, I was so happy to get this show on the road!

 

As long as the weather holds, we can expect the grade beam to be poured next week. Then walls and roof...we could have a closed in garage in less than 2 weeks!

 

 



Main Floor Custom Cabinet

One of the few regrettable decisions I made during the construction of our house was removing a 3-sided fireplace between the living room and dining area of the main floor. The intent was to open up the space but it backfired...now it's too open! The result has come to be known as "No Man's Land".

Right now, No Man's Land is home to a curio cabinet I got from a friend, that's become a catch all for random accessories and books. Needless to say, something has to be done!

I stumbled on a local craftsman who does amazing custom woodwork, and challenged him to come up with a solution to my problem.

His cabinet design is approx. 3' x 5' x 4'. Big enough to fill up this empty space and provide us with storage, but not so big that it overwhelms the house.

I love it and can't wait to see it finished!