The New House-Reno Part 1

If you've manged to stick around after my months and month of plans about the new house (I was annoying even to myself), I salute you! You'll be happy to know we got possession of the house on November 30th, which is already last year (gulp!) and started immediately to tear it apart. I suppose tear it apart is too strong a word. It wasn't like our last house where we demolished any walls but we did rip up a lot of carpet, remove a hell of a lot of popcorn ceilings and paint every last surface.

For those of you who have scraped a popcorn ceiling you're saying to yourself right now "um mm, yeah dummy it's a huge and messy job that leaves piles of heavy, wet plaster everywhere". If you were me before this started you where saying to yourself "this needs to be done at whatever cost to Chad and his father" because I am a rational person who realizes that popcorn ceilings are a crime against humanity.

Making our kitchen look like a scene from Dexter

Chad and I took a week off work and both our dads came over to help (Chad's amazing dad even flew in all the way from Alberta to help!). We were two teams ready to tackle the 80s back into its rightful place. Camp Zentner (Chad and his dad) were in charge of wetting and scraping every single ceiling in the house, removing all the carpet upstairs, removing all the floor staples and installing the new plywood floors. Camp Brown (my dad and I) were in charge of supervision and stupid questions.

I'm kidding (not really, we Browns do ask a lot of questions and are not super handy). We were in charge of taping all the goddamn plastic up over every goddamn surface in the entire house. 3000 square feet of plastic later, we ensured none of the wet plaster ruined any surfaces. 

While the ceiling popcorn came off fairly easily it really did get everywhere. After it dried it left dust EVERYWHERE. The ceilings are also not perfect. After sanding and patching they are pretty good but I think to make them perfect you'd have to skim coat them or something.  Halfway through the popcorn removal was when I swore it would never end and that the whole house would have wonky ceilings and be plaster and dust covered forever. 

Side note: there is always that moment in the renovation when you swear you made a huge mistake and have taken a perfectly good house and ruined it...usually you do some yelling and then push through with the help of alcohol and it works out!

Team Brown were also the sanders and then the painters. Okay so maybe my dad ended up painting most of our house (thanks dad, you're the best!) but painting every single ceiling was no joke. I swore my neck would be stuck looking up forever. 

You can see below the ceiling in the Master bedroom freshly scraped and painted, just waiting for the carpet to be removed. This was the only neutral carpet upstairs but it was certainly showing some wear and had a few strange stains. I also hate carpet, not as much as popcorn ceilings but they still had to go. We left the carpets in while scraping the ceiling allowing them to act like a huge towel-one less room to give the "Dexter" treatment to.

And then the carpets were gone...but not that ugly wall colour! 

A view in the second bedroom (below) gives you a sense of the beauty of those carpets. Not sure what the thinking was here-yes, let's do red in the bedrooms for a fun pop of colour and to hide all the blood stains... but let's show some restraint and do a nice neutral grey in the hall and then just to change it up-a beige in the master! Design dreams, people. 

Below is the upstairs hallway with the last of the carpets gone but before the beige walls said goodbye.

Here is Chad deep in thought about the plywood floors. We knew we wouldn't have the money to replace the carpet with the same hardwood that runs throughout the house. At approximately $4-$5 a square foot for materials alone, it was going to add up fast. I'd kept Jenny Komenda's "DIY Wide Plank Floors (from Plywood)" tutorial in the back of my mind for a while just waiting to find a time to use it. Chad liked the fact that it ended up being about 80 cents a square foot. 

Here's Chad to tell you a bit about how the process went:

Ok - so this is easy, but tedious and time consuming. Good thing it's cheap! What you do is buy a bunch of cheap-o 3/8" plywood. Then rent a hardwood floor sander and use 20 and 40 grit paper and go to town on each board. We did this in the garage. Once each board is sanded, you will need to rip each board into 8" strips on a table saw. Each strip will then have to have the edges knocked down a little bit with a hand sander. Then it's just a matter of cutting and installing with a nail gun. (Sarah insists that I mention that we made the gaps between planks uniform by using my square as a spacer before nailing). Once the floor is installed, we did a DIY whitewash which is just a 2:1 mixture of water to white paint. Once the whitewash was dry, we protected it with 3 coats of polyurethane. Like I said, tedious but cheap.

Above the master floor completed but not whitewashed. Below, floors done and the beginnings of removing the colour Chad liked to refer to as baby shit. 

The hallway complete before we painted the stairs white.

The other huge project for Chad was removing the ceiling fan from our very high vaulted ceiling, scraping away the dreaded popcorn and creating a very large DIY light fixture. I'll save the details of how he made it for a special Chad post a.k.a. a post full of swearing.

Renting scaffolding was actually not as expensive or scary as I thought. The delivery was the most expensive part and a nice guy came and set it all up. It ended up being around $168 to rent, have delivered and set up for two weeks and then picked up and taken away.

Chad had to install the light fixture in sections, removing a level of scaffolding as he went. 

Yeah! Pretty light fixture for a fraction of the cost I would have shelled out! 

So that's where I'm going to leave you for now. Stay tuned for part two so I can show you the house finished and just waiting for our furniture to arrive. Thanks again to our two awesome dads who probably cursed ever agreeing to help out. At least I know my dad was after he found out there is a real ailment called "dad reno knee syndrome".

Real Estate Room Reno-Update

Back in June 2014-yikes, a while back now- I posted a real estate room reno for a house that was for sale near my aunt and uncle's house in Ile Bizard that I truly loved. Here is what I said back then:

A few weeks ago I got an email from my aunt that said: "I know you love this house. They are subdividing the property and the price has plummeted to $495,000. Think of all the reno projects you could undertake!!! (Notice I didn`t cc Chad on the message……)."

So instead of actually buying it I did the next best thing I could think of, pretended I owned it and planned a renovation on one room in the house. You can see the full post HERE. I happened to be browsing the real estate listings, as one does when one is closing on a new house in less then 20 days, and saw that "my" house was listed for sale again. It's been completely renovated. It's obvious they didn't follow my plans but it's not too bad for a flip. There is nothing I love more then a little before and after action (except for browsing the real estate listings), so here it is:

Listing and Exterior Before

Unique 1786 4-bedroom ancestral home on large lot on Ile Bizard with no rear neighbours. Thick stone walls and historic architecture create a charming atmosphere. Large yard is surrounded by a cedar hedge, and has many mature trees. Located 30 minutes from downtown Montreal, and close to 3 Golf Clubs and Bois-de-l'Ile-Bizard Nature Park.

Bedrooms: 4
Bathrooms: 1 full/ 2 half
Year Built: 1786
Asking Price: $495,000

Listing and Exterior After

Nested on a private 5000sqm, beautifully landscaped and surrounded by mature trees lot, this exquisite 1786 authentic stone manor was completely renovated in 2014/15. Experience the luxury of today's comfort and modern design combined with the timeless elegance from the past. An architectural 3-story treasure, only 30min. from downtown Montreal!

Bedrooms: 4

Bathrooms: 2 full/ 2 half
Year Built: 1786
Asking Price: $1,150,000 

So that's quite a jump in price! What kind of work did they do to warrant that jump? First exterior, it looks like a new roof, newly painted shutters and some landscaping but let's dig in and see the really good before and afters to find out where all the money went.

Living Room Before

Living Room After

You have to agree that is so much better. While the decor is a bit bland for me, the bones of the room have definitely been returned to its former glory. The popcorn ceilings removed (something I have to look forward to), the wood paneling removed and the floors and beams refinished. It looks like all the trim work and staircase was refinished as well. This is now such a great neutral base to come in and decorate however you'd like. Wouldn't it be lovely to have two seating areas in your living room? 

Dining Room (Porch) Before

Dining Room After

I really like the use of this space. In the original photos I envisioned this as more of a three season porch or conservatory but I love it as a dining room. It looks much less porch-like without the wooden ceilings and fans. 

Master Bedroom Before

Master Bedroom After

I think you probably know if you've read this blog for a while now how much I dislike beige and taupe, regardless I'll still give this bedroom a pass. New floors, new ceiling and beige is still better then red. Oh yeah, and a fireplace in your bedroom- I could handle that too.

Family Room Before

Family Room After

While this one isn't as dramatic, it goes to show the power of new flooring and the removal of weird textured ceilings and walls. I imagined the before room had a wet musty carpet smell while the new room looks perfect for relaxing and not having an allergic attack. I've saved my favourite for last, the kitchen remodel.

Kitchen Before

Kitchen After

What do you think of this kitchen? The before was an obvious gut job. I like how it's still fairly traditional with white shaker, full height cabinets and a beamed ceiling. I think the island is a little strange with the cut away for bar stools and I don't love a small scale glass subway tile but overall I think it looks well done and not too modern for the home. I might have gone a bit more classic with a subway tile and gone with a more traditional soapstone counter. Would I take this kitchen and enjoy it? Yes! 

Overall, this appears to be a high quality renovation with attention to detail and materials. Do you think it's worth over a million dollars? What would you have done differently and who wants to buy this for me?

Goodbye Old House, Hello New House

Well this certainly is not the next installment of our trip to Ireland. Would you believe me if I said it's almost done? Ha, I thought so! At least this time I have a valid excuse and some exciting news in the saga of our never ending house sale.......IT'S SOLD! I'm not angry at you anymore little house. You and your coziness and all of our blood, sweat and tears will be very happy with a new family. Happy with people who appreciate your new kitchen and 'paid more than I should have' light fixtures and black feature wall that nearly killed me while painting on a ladder. Now that I'm not angry at you, I can reminisce about how much we learnt about renovation, about design and about yard work (okay not that one). I thought I'd share my favourite set of before and after photos from our feature in La Presse  since they conveniently put them all together in a grid.

BEFORE

AFTER

And just in case you aren't sick of the house, here is the full house tour along with some of the stages of the renovation.

My other exciting news is that in the same week we sold our house we also bought a house. That's right, we bought a house in Ottawa! Break out the exclamation points! While I'm slightly sad that I can't earnestly browse the real estate listing anymore (as evidenced by my Real Estate Room Reno series), I am thrilled that we found a house we could agree on. This is often difficult when one person likes beautiful stately old homes and character filled bungalows from the fifties and sixties and one person prefers characterless, soulless boxes from the eighties to present day. It's not to say I wouldn't like a brand new house, it's just the brand new houses I like are usually architecturally interesting, custom designed houses that cost a fortune. The house we compromised on, cause there are always compromises, is from the eighties but it has an interesting open plan design-win for both of us. Now this house does still have some things that are stuck in the eighties,like seashell sinks and kitchen cabinets that while appear to be modern in the photos actually have metal trim that dates them to I'd say at best the early nineties. All of this is workable and I think you'll agree that the bones of this house are good. Here she is in all her eighties glory:

I've obviously already started a secret Pinterest board that I'll share with you once all my plans are in order. Aren't you excited to come along on the ride of renovating this place? This time it will be at a slower pace as we have a few boring major fixes to do-ughhh windows- but boy do I have plans for this place. Glass railings, a hanging pod fireplace, oh and getting rid of that horrible red carpet and the eighties bathrooms and repainting the exterior-I'm thinking black! We are also super excited to be trading in yard work for pool maintenance. I'm going to have a long time to stew this over as we have three months between our closing date and the move in date. Get ready for my plans for every room and maybe I'll finally finish the round-up of our trip to Ireland.