新年快乐

Happy New Year to all our Chinese friends, including our contractors who have taken a couple of days off to spend some quality time with their family and friends!

We visited the house yesterday after finalizing and paying for our appliances (one more thing to check off our list).

There were not a lot of major changes since Thursday night of course, but it was great to see the place in day light.  The blue on the main floor is really nice and we are happy with the colour (although I am still nervous about the matching wall paper😓🙈)

63 more days

Not that I am counting down or anything...

Another busy week with lots of things on the go, I am glad the weekend is here!

I visited the house twice this week. Now that the demolition is done, the day to day changes are not as visible. Although the ensuite bathroom looks a little more civilized.And the kitchen floor has been laid.

Our family room still looks like a junk yard, but the fireplace is being resurfaced this week so once the cabinets are installed we should be able to see a major transformation.Some of the interior doors are already up and the backdoor to the garage has also been installed. 

Although I cannot wait to move back, the thought of rearranging everything and setting up the house from scratch scares me. I wonder how long it will take to settle in, how many more days I should be adding to the countdown calendar....??

Mustard.... check!

We went "home" earlier today; Sundays are the only days of the week our contractors are off, so we don't have to feel guilty about slowing them down while visiting.

I was curious to see if they had started painting the walls on the main floor, and they had.  The mustard coloured wall looked nice next to the light grey (although I am pretty sure I am at my limit with that colour!).

They had also installed the side door in the laundry room. The door with the large glass has certainly made the room much brighter! I definitely appreciate the natural light more than ever these days 😢

The bathrooms tiles on the second floor have been laid, as well. I have to admit, the ones in the second bathroom look much nicer than those in the ensuite, probably because the latter reminds of our old white tiles on the main floor😨

Some of the baseboards are also up in the bedrooms. You can now see that the "face lift" is beginning to make a difference! 

It's a hard-knock life for us....

That's the new Annie song that Samy has been practicing this week... it is really interesting,  except for the part he has to scream and clap.....😨

The good news is that we are making progress in the house, the not so good news is that we all miss home. Living in a small space with no natural light is harder than we thought. Having said that, we decided to extend our stay to mid March; the thought of living in a messy house while the contractors are still working in the basement makes my skin crawls.

We had a meeting with M&M yesterday afternoon to finalise the paint colours for the main floor. To my own surprise I agreed to two ideas that I would not have imagined in my wildest dreams... patterned wall paper and a mustard coloured wall! I am sure it will all come together at the end, but I am not going to deny that I am nervous beyond belief! 😓

I was out of town for a couple of days so I had not seen the house for almost a week. We visited the place after our meeting to pick up a couple of things, including a bottle of my favourite wine (I needed to drink for obvious reasons!!). It was great to see the new floors in the bedrooms, especially next to the newly painted walls.

The stairs looked strange without the carpet and the pickets. I cannot wait to see what the finished product will look like. 

The gas fireplace has also been installed and they are preparing it for the new surface to be placed.

Today we ordered all our appliances so we will be writing another big fat cheque shortly. 

I have to admit, I have been humming "it's a hard-knock life" all day... at least I have been  skipping the screaming and clapping parts!

Annie

It took me over two weeks to convince Samy to sign up for the performance class at school. He attended the first session last Wednesday,  and now we cannot stop him singing "Tomorrow" from the musical "Annie", the show that they will be performing in March.

Today we went to the lighting store to select a few lights and chandeliers for the house. The store had a good selection, which was great and also confusing. Samy loved almost all the crystal chandeliers and wanted to buy all of them! At the end, we managed to buy  everything we needed and stay within the budget.

Sound, Check!  Light, Check!

Action!

🎵🎵Tomorrow, Tomorrow, I love you, you are always a day away....🎶🎶

Happy Friday!

In preparation for the renovation, I used up about 15 vacation days in November and December of last year, which means I only worked 3-4 days a week during that period, which means I had not worked a 5-day week since the beginning of November, which really means this week felt like an eternity.... I am glad the week is finally over!

Samy has been homesick for the last couple of days, which is strange considering we are only 8 KM away from home.... So we took him to see the house this evening. Kids always amaze me, although they don't usually show their emotions, they often say what adults only dare to think! His first reaction was that this was not our house anymore, which may sound silly at first, but when your house is occupied by people you don't know, the equipment you have never seen before and also has a different layout, then such a comment may not sound as weird. He was also unhappy with the colour of the walls, because they were too "brown". He said we were lucky that he had picked the colour of his own room, otherwise we would have ended up with another brown room!

The walls are not brown and the house is still ours; I don't think he is trying to be difficult, he just misses home!

So when he says that he does not like the shower in our apartment, because the water sometimes gets too hot and turns his butt into "shish kebab", you should probably just laugh with him....

The Wall

"The" wall is almost down, so our narrow living room and dinning room are about to open up! I was actually looking forward to this day. There is still a lot to be done of course,  but this wall is one of the reasons why this whole renovation started!

The first coat of paint in all bedrooms (except the master bedroom) has been applied. Samy's room is different, it is very blue! I have to admit, the room looked green when I took these pictures this evening , probably because of the lighting, but he seems to like it!

80 more days.....

That says it all.... No more comments!

Week 1

It has been exactly one week since our move,  it sure feels a lot longer.

In the last few months before the move, we had done a lot to prepare for the renovation, but I don't think we had realized how tough the first week would be.

I know we are not the first who are going through this,  but people react differently and show their emotions in different ways, especially kids. Samy looks forward to visiting the house, and his mood completely changes after each visit.  The empty and broken (as we would put it) house, with all the mess actually comforts him! At the end of the day there is no place like home. 

In terms of the renovation itself,  the work is well underway. The demolition on the main and 2nd floors is almost done. Tomorrow is another big day as they will  be removing the wall between the kitchen and dinning room as well as the one between the foyer and living room.  I look forward to seeing the new open layout.

11 more weeks to go, not that we are counting down or anything....

Back to normal....

The kids are back to school starting tomorrow, so life is supposed to go back to normal, whatever that means.

I have not been back to the house since Friday, even though it has only been two days, it feels like an eternity.

My phone is filled with pictures of sconces and toilets; half of our weekend conversations has also revolved around flushes and toilet features.

My permanent headache is not leaving me and I have not been able to sleep properly for about a week. By the way,  I am not complaining,  just stating the facts!

May be the " normal" life that is about to start tomorrow will also help me go back to my "normal" routines. I also bought a couple of new books today so hopefully I am on the right path!

Simple things....

There are so many simple and silly things that we take for granted until we lose them, here are a few examples:

- Personal space
- A good night sleep
- Your favourite pillow
- Having your own washroom
- Natural light
- A window that can be opened
- Not explaining or justifying everything you do or say to a 10 year old
- A good coffee maker
- A piece of clean carpet with a yoga mat
- Comfotable chairs and table so everyone can sit and enjoy their meals together
- A head-ache free day
- Not forgetting things
- An indoor parking

I know everyone has their own list,  but I think we can all agree that a little peace and quiet is priceless; So if you have it, cherish every moment....

Music, Wine & Books

A much better combination than this morning's trio!We went back to the house earlier today to finalize the kitchen plan and pick the paint colours. M&M had already dusted the furniture in the basement and covered them with plastic sheets so that put our minds at ease a little. 

This has been an emotional roller-coaster, one that I would not recommend to anyone at this point. May be I will think differently at the end of the project. Clearly it is too late to change my mind at this point, so now I am just going to relax and enjoy my wine, music and books!

Old, crazy or stressed out?!

I don't know which one, may be all three  combined!!

It took me forever to leave for work this morning, as I couldn't figure where everything was.... when I finally made it to the office, I realized that I had left my laptop at home. So I enjoyed the rush hour traffic twice this morning.

Happy Friday indeed!

The honeymoon is over...

Not everything is rainbows and sunshine when you go through a renovation. 

The smoke detector went off today and the alarm company almost contacted the fire department. Also, the door to the basement has been taken off which means everything (i.e. all our furniture and personal belongings) in the basement is now covered with a thick layer of dust. You may think dust would not be an issue because it could be wiped off, but not when it covers mattresses or chairs with beige colour fabrics. Everything should have been covered with thick plastic coverings.... "should have" is the key word....  hopefully we will not have to replace all the furniture and incur additional costs.

Samy's comment was " I told you so,  this renovation was a mistake "... may be he is right....

Three Amigos

And the demolition saga continues...

This time I didn't need an excuse to visit our beloved home; I was officially invited to meet with M&M to discuss a few options!

The first thing I noticed was that the white tiles were gone! Thank God I took a picture of them last night otherwise how could I ever prove to anyone how outdated they were!  

The popcorn ceilings on the second floor were also history. 

And the laundry room was nothing but an empty box (and a cabinet!)

All the kitchen cabinets and appliances are now resting in peace and the bulk head is also gone ....

Thanks to Mahnaz, Jacky and Maryam... the 3 partners in crime! 

Demolition - Day 1

We had to go home earlier today to pick up a couple of items that we had left behind, OK, who are we kidding, I was also curious to know what was going on over there!

Well, the house was more like a war zone! All the second floor carpets, drapes and doors were gone. Also the guest bathroom was almost wrecked and of course the one in the master bedroom as well as the walking closet were completely gone.... poof!

I have to admit,  the little window in the master bathroom looked even smaller on that wall!

The second bathroom was hard to recognize as well! 

The main floor was almost untouched, except for the the kitchen, or what used to be a kitchen!

And as I was looking around I realized that our beloved white tiles were almost identical to the tiles in the place we have rented. Oh the joy...

The Cave

I have to admit,  it is hard to live in a space where there is no natural light.  There are only 2 small windows,  both of them are covered with turquoise drapes to match the rest of the place. I have no idea if we are buried under 5 feet of snow or if it is sunny outside. I am sure I will get used to it! I guess it is like being in a casino in Vegas, at least I know where the exit is in this place, but then again I have to pay for my own drinks!

I am working remotely today but will be going to the office starting tomorrow, after about 2 weeks.  I am sure it will be a challenge to get back into the old routine and wake up early again, especially now that my car is parked outside and I will need a little more time to defrost and scrape the car. Good times!

Chapter Two

Last night, we thought we were almost done, but today we didn't technically leave the house until noon.... there were still so many things to pack up or throw away, it just would not end. Samy was also very emotional all day and made me take millions of pictures.

I just wanted to leave the house and move on to next chapter....

When we finally left, both cars were full, not that we were taking everything, oh no.... we still had more boxes... oh let's not go there....

When we got to the rental place, we were welcomed by our new landlord,  a very nice gentleman who was originally from Morocco and could speak fluently in both French and English. He started speaking to Samy in French as soon as he found out that Samy was going to a French school, which was a nice surprise for the young lad!

Long story short,  we are now officially settled at the new place. It is modern, cozy and very well arranged.  I have to admit,  it is a little strange to sit on the couch and not worry about packing or cleaning up. I think I might even be bored over here  but I am going to enjoy the quiet time and look forward to the new adventures in this chapter!

Last Supper

We just finished our last dinner, nothing fancy,  we were just trying to clean out the fridge!

We are almost packed and ready for the next chapter... I am very excited and nervous, of course.  Tomorrow I will take some pictures before saying the final farewell, not just to compare them to the "after" pictures (which will be fun of course) but because we have so many memories in this house with the existing lay out.

Good night  moon! Good night ugly brown back splash! Good night white shiny tiles!  Good night walls!