No photographs today because it was so wet and dreary yesterday; everything came out grey. But everything is moving apace! We still don't have a full bathroom yet but we have almost all of the ingredients — the holdup is the grout, which needs 48 hours to cure before we can seal it and caulk up the rest. (I am pretending I know what all of these words mean.)
We do, however, have a sofa! Specifically, this sofa. I love it, and not just because we are the only people in all of Toronto own this sofa (so far). It's part of West Elm's new collection, which they just put in stores before this weekend. They had one in stock, and then we took it away. The salesgirl and cashier were both delighted and tickled that it was bought so soon.
It's fabulous, though. I really didn't think we were going to be able to find anything small enough for our space, and this is just perfect. The cats love it, too. I know this because I lost them for an entire afternoon yesterday, and found them both curled up on the sofa. On opposite corners, of course.
Garden Update:
The African violet is still alive! That's a whole week, then. I have to say that I obsess over it a little. It's sort of become my talisman — if I can keep this thing alive, then I can garden. Maybe. The garden is starting to bud, actually, all these tender shoots of bright green. I have no idea what they are. They may, for all I know, be weeds. The previous owner assured me that the garden is mostly wild flowers and requires no maintenance whatsoever, but everything I've read so far indicates that non-maintenance leads to ... well. A garden full of things that end in -weed: milkweed, pokeweed, smartweed. I am reasonably sure that I don't yet have bindweed, but it may only be a matter of time.
Monday, 29 March 2010
Wednesday, 24 March 2010
I am really getting into this whole "owning a house" thing
Look! New books (and a plant)!
Someone gave me an African violet last weekend, and now I think I should garden. Outside. So of course I had to have books that will tell me how to do it. Have I mentioned that I've never had a backyard before, never mind gardened? And that I kill African violets — the easiest houseplant ever — repeatedly, inadvertently, and often with very little remorse?
(This one is still alive. It's been four days, and I'm very proud. I did managed to keep a calla lily alive for a whole two months, once. Then I accidentally left it behind in my beautifully sunny apartment, with no water or air conditioning, for three weeks and in the middle of a hot June, and that was the end of that.)
Someone gave me an African violet last weekend, and now I think I should garden. Outside. So of course I had to have books that will tell me how to do it. Have I mentioned that I've never had a backyard before, never mind gardened? And that I kill African violets — the easiest houseplant ever — repeatedly, inadvertently, and often with very little remorse?
(This one is still alive. It's been four days, and I'm very proud. I did managed to keep a calla lily alive for a whole two months, once. Then I accidentally left it behind in my beautifully sunny apartment, with no water or air conditioning, for three weeks and in the middle of a hot June, and that was the end of that.)
Tuesday, 23 March 2010
a perfect(ly exhausting) weekend
The weekend previous to last, I started unpacking my books.
We were sort of at an impasse in terms of packing: most of the kitchen was done, but some things had to wait until we unpacked the living/dining room, because there was no room in the kitchen. But we couldn't unpack the living/dining room because of all the boxes, and the boxes had nowhere to go because inside the boxes were books, and the books were to go on bookshelves that had not been put in place because the walls were blocked by boxes. Of books.
In theory this could be solved by moving the majority of the books upstairs, to where they belonged, but the sunroom-cum-library was full of tools and the den (through which one had to go before reaching the sunroom) was still in the process of being painted.
So we did more Towers of Hanoi maneuvres and managed to get the two bookshelves flanking the fireplace up, and I unpacked that, but it was difficult because it turns out I have a lot of books (no, really?), and it's hard to corral sets of things when you don't know where said sets are. And while it seemed like I had done a reasonable job — at the beginning, anyway — of labelling my boxes, I had somehow thought that labelling a box full of English and World Literature anthologies and Agatha Christie novels "Books. EngLit (mostly)" would be helpful, and ... it's really not. (Don't even get me started on the ones that say, simply, "Books." Books? Really?)
Anyway, much as I love unpacking books (and I really, really do), the bathroom last week was much more exciting.
But this weekend, Pierre finished painting the den, above, and he helped me organize the tools and clean up in the sunroom, and so we hauled the very heavy boxes of Ikea upstairs and I built The Library:
View from the right of the door
View from the left of the door
There are seven bookshelves in there, plus the desk, all gloriously empty. Well, were. Some of them have books in them now, and it kind of looks like a lending library had the stomach flu and barfed all over the room. In a good way.
Meanwhile, I had a little bit of time and managed to get some adorable bowls from Anthropologie:
Yes, of course they're blue.
And Pierre had a little bit of time and got me a prezzie:
Which will explain why I will suddenly and inexplicably fall behind on unpacking this week. And possibly next. (Yes, it is beautiful. Also: squee.)
We were sort of at an impasse in terms of packing: most of the kitchen was done, but some things had to wait until we unpacked the living/dining room, because there was no room in the kitchen. But we couldn't unpack the living/dining room because of all the boxes, and the boxes had nowhere to go because inside the boxes were books, and the books were to go on bookshelves that had not been put in place because the walls were blocked by boxes. Of books.
In theory this could be solved by moving the majority of the books upstairs, to where they belonged, but the sunroom-cum-library was full of tools and the den (through which one had to go before reaching the sunroom) was still in the process of being painted.
So we did more Towers of Hanoi maneuvres and managed to get the two bookshelves flanking the fireplace up, and I unpacked that, but it was difficult because it turns out I have a lot of books (no, really?), and it's hard to corral sets of things when you don't know where said sets are. And while it seemed like I had done a reasonable job — at the beginning, anyway — of labelling my boxes, I had somehow thought that labelling a box full of English and World Literature anthologies and Agatha Christie novels "Books. EngLit (mostly)" would be helpful, and ... it's really not. (Don't even get me started on the ones that say, simply, "Books." Books? Really?)
Anyway, much as I love unpacking books (and I really, really do), the bathroom last week was much more exciting.
But this weekend, Pierre finished painting the den, above, and he helped me organize the tools and clean up in the sunroom, and so we hauled the very heavy boxes of Ikea upstairs and I built The Library:
View from the right of the doorView from the left of the doorThere are seven bookshelves in there, plus the desk, all gloriously empty. Well, were. Some of them have books in them now, and it kind of looks like a lending library had the stomach flu and barfed all over the room. In a good way.
Meanwhile, I had a little bit of time and managed to get some adorable bowls from Anthropologie:
Yes, of course they're blue.And Pierre had a little bit of time and got me a prezzie:
Which will explain why I will suddenly and inexplicably fall behind on unpacking this week. And possibly next. (Yes, it is beautiful. Also: squee.)
Friday, 19 March 2010
this washing hands business is complicated.
I want to show you something.
Okay, fine, the picture is kind of blurry and that is not the colour of the faucet, but the point remains. Do you see them? Water drops! In the sink! We have running water!
It took two trips to Home Depot, some judicious use of the saw and Dremel kit, a small panic and a certain creativity with plumbing elbows, but this morning I brushed my teeth in the bathroom, and that's just a great feeling.
The vanity we had initially ordered was smaller, and was nearly completely open on the bottom, like a table — it only had a shelf way at the very bottom. So we didn't really measure the openings fo the drain and water pipes when we redid that wall, because the vanity was so flexible. And then, of course, came the backorder thing and the substitution thing, and when the new, bigger vanity with the (surprise!) drawers arrived, we found that the P-trap ... didn't fit.
And P-traps are really important.
Yeah.
I assume it works because the drain is draining and the pipes are not leaking. That's good enough for me.
...
So I've decided that the light in the bathroom makes the automatic white balance on the DSLR give up and die. There's a CFL above the bathtub and halogens in the sconces on either side of the medicine cabinet, and somehow that means that I have three different wall colours in three different pictures. It is probably somewhere between the colour in the first picture (but less green) and the third (not baby blue). It is almost baby blue in the morning, which I find distressing, and then absolutely, adorably dusky at night, which I love.
And the faucet is not bronze at all; it's a sort of brushed pewter. (It should have been brushed nickel, but there was a small mix-up and ... whatever. Running water!)
So now there's a functional powder room! The shower is not yet functional, but that is only a matter of time (I think). It almost feels like a real house now!
Okay, fine, the picture is kind of blurry and that is not the colour of the faucet, but the point remains. Do you see them? Water drops! In the sink! We have running water!
It took two trips to Home Depot, some judicious use of the saw and Dremel kit, a small panic and a certain creativity with plumbing elbows, but this morning I brushed my teeth in the bathroom, and that's just a great feeling.
The vanity we had initially ordered was smaller, and was nearly completely open on the bottom, like a table — it only had a shelf way at the very bottom. So we didn't really measure the openings fo the drain and water pipes when we redid that wall, because the vanity was so flexible. And then, of course, came the backorder thing and the substitution thing, and when the new, bigger vanity with the (surprise!) drawers arrived, we found that the P-trap ... didn't fit.
And P-traps are really important.
Yeah.
I assume it works because the drain is draining and the pipes are not leaking. That's good enough for me.
...
So I've decided that the light in the bathroom makes the automatic white balance on the DSLR give up and die. There's a CFL above the bathtub and halogens in the sconces on either side of the medicine cabinet, and somehow that means that I have three different wall colours in three different pictures. It is probably somewhere between the colour in the first picture (but less green) and the third (not baby blue). It is almost baby blue in the morning, which I find distressing, and then absolutely, adorably dusky at night, which I love.
And the faucet is not bronze at all; it's a sort of brushed pewter. (It should have been brushed nickel, but there was a small mix-up and ... whatever. Running water!)
So now there's a functional powder room! The shower is not yet functional, but that is only a matter of time (I think). It almost feels like a real house now!
Tuesday, 16 March 2010
most of a bathroom!
... because an entire bathroom would apparently be pushing it.
Anyway: we have a vanity and sink! And medicine cabinet! And light sconces!
All of these things were put in last night. Granted, the plumbing is not yet hooked up (more on that later) and so the faucet (not pictured) is not actually functional, and I have yet to unpack the bathroom box so the medicine cabinet is empty, but ... the lights work. That's something.
Anyway, I took this picture last night to share the excitement of having an actual bathroom sink with you, but when I looked at it just now I realized that ... the wall is not actually that colour. It's actually the colour of this hallway, so you might want to mentally colour-correct:
Much nicer, don't you think? You may remember that I mentioned that the bathroom was going to be painted "Cool Sky." After two weeks of staring at medium-blue drywall (bathroom drywall is a special moisture-resistant kind that comes in either blue or green), I decided that the bathroom could take a darker blue and went with the same paint as the hallway. Literally the same paint: there was a lot left over so I used the same can.
You may notice that the vanity is a bit on the large side, considering the size of the bathroom. It's 40 inches across. We had originally ordered the 32" one, but they're backordered until the end of May because the Chinese government diverted the electricity from the factory that makes them. Seriously. So the manufacturer offered to ship the 40" instead (as we had already paid) and, given the choice between having a sink or brushing my teeth in the kitchen for another two months ... I decided that my bathroom could handle a 40" vanity perfectly.
The long wait explains the following conversation Pierre and I had last night, immediately after installing the vanity:
Me: Hey,didn't we specifically order the one without the drawers on the bottom?
Pierre: (looking up for the briefest of moments) I don't care.
So now we have a vanity with drawers. And we need to go back to the Home Depot to get a smaller P-trap or ... something. It's a non-standard sink (much wider, and shallower), so the standard fittings that came with the faucet don't actually fit. It would have been helpful to have known this earlier. Then again, earlier we didn't know we have a vanity with drawers, either. The one with the shelf sits lower.
Meanwhile, I have some Deadline Knitting to do, which luckily I've become obsessed with (luckily because obsession may be the only thing that will drive me to get done in time):
Noro Chirimen in shades of blue and grey (and some brown). I told you I had a thing for blue.
Anyway: we have a vanity and sink! And medicine cabinet! And light sconces!
All of these things were put in last night. Granted, the plumbing is not yet hooked up (more on that later) and so the faucet (not pictured) is not actually functional, and I have yet to unpack the bathroom box so the medicine cabinet is empty, but ... the lights work. That's something.
Anyway, I took this picture last night to share the excitement of having an actual bathroom sink with you, but when I looked at it just now I realized that ... the wall is not actually that colour. It's actually the colour of this hallway, so you might want to mentally colour-correct:
Much nicer, don't you think? You may remember that I mentioned that the bathroom was going to be painted "Cool Sky." After two weeks of staring at medium-blue drywall (bathroom drywall is a special moisture-resistant kind that comes in either blue or green), I decided that the bathroom could take a darker blue and went with the same paint as the hallway. Literally the same paint: there was a lot left over so I used the same can.
You may notice that the vanity is a bit on the large side, considering the size of the bathroom. It's 40 inches across. We had originally ordered the 32" one, but they're backordered until the end of May because the Chinese government diverted the electricity from the factory that makes them. Seriously. So the manufacturer offered to ship the 40" instead (as we had already paid) and, given the choice between having a sink or brushing my teeth in the kitchen for another two months ... I decided that my bathroom could handle a 40" vanity perfectly.
The long wait explains the following conversation Pierre and I had last night, immediately after installing the vanity:
Me: Hey,didn't we specifically order the one without the drawers on the bottom?
Pierre: (looking up for the briefest of moments) I don't care.
So now we have a vanity with drawers. And we need to go back to the Home Depot to get a smaller P-trap or ... something. It's a non-standard sink (much wider, and shallower), so the standard fittings that came with the faucet don't actually fit. It would have been helpful to have known this earlier. Then again, earlier we didn't know we have a vanity with drawers, either. The one with the shelf sits lower.
Meanwhile, I have some Deadline Knitting to do, which luckily I've become obsessed with (luckily because obsession may be the only thing that will drive me to get done in time):
Noro Chirimen in shades of blue and grey (and some brown). I told you I had a thing for blue.
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