Almost there

Here are some very recent photos of the exterior and interior, to give you an idea of where we are now (none of the furniture in the right-hand photo is in the right spot, but will be soon).

96A Crichton is now a habitable location, and we love it more every day.

Stay tuned!

Roof with a view

While we were tiling a couple of months ago (still ongoing, if you can believe it), we had a little snack on the rooftop patio. It wasn't finished yet, but we still enjoyed getting some fresh air on the roof. The photo on the right shows the rooftop patio as it is now. From there we will be able to see the fireworks over Parliament Hill on Canada Day, and the international fireworks competition in Hull. We can't wait!

Time to cook

Our kitchen is almost complete; only a single cabinet and our countertops remain. It's hard to get a photo of the whole kitchen from any angle, but here's an attempt. We love everything about this kitchen; it turned out even better than we had hoped. We especially love the stacked cabinets to the ceiling (no place for dust!) and the pull-out pot drawer in the peninsula. Oh, and the 36-inch cooktop, too. And the dishwasher. Okay, all of it.

Stairs — the triumphant return!

Less than a week after they were removed, our stairs were safely returned to us. They now meet code, and are as beautiful as they were when they left. We are now only waiting for the maple handrail; once those are on, the stairs will be 100% complete. (The handrail in the photo is temporary.)

Copper sink installed!

When the copper sink we bought on our honeymoon in Montreal was put in, it felt like things really started taking shape. We kept that sink in a bag in our apartment for about five months, waiting for the time to come when it would be installed. The powder room is now almost ready for visitors — the box of cleaning materials in the photo has been removed, and all the regular bathroom accessories have been installed, including a great round mirror, a toilet paper holder, a hand towel rack and lights. It's amazing how much a toilet paper holder makes a room look like a real room.

Indoor camping

While our stairs leading to our bedroom were gone, we spent a few nights camped out in our house, moving from spot to spot as work progressed on the second floor. We still managed to have some good meals, though. (If you look closely in the right-hand photo, you can see a real sign of the wilderness: Tammo, our pet bunny!) That photo still makes me laugh.

More floor pics

Here are a couple more photos of the floors before they were refinished. On the left is a photo of the first floor, which was really terrible. The photo on the right shows marks in the second-floor bathroom. I still find it truly unbelievable that a company that did work this shoddy would not be embarassed and offer to refinish them as soon as possible. Instead, we had to chase after them until they finally relented. It's infuriating. But it's Sunday evening, so I'm letting it go.

Bye, bye stairs

Here are a couple of photos of our stairs being removed. It was quite an operation -- not a scratch anywhere! Look at Ethan's legs dangling in the second photo where our stairs used to be. Yikes!

Our floors: Before and after

After some serious digging, I managed to find my camera software and download some photos. Here are the first of many to come.

As we mentioned in previous posts, we had an absolutely awful experience with our two flooring companies. The photo on the left shows the state in which they first left our floors. Remember, these were to be our finished floors, with no other covering on them. Truly, they were unbelievably bad. The white streaking shows where the varnish was rubbed off of the floors before it was dry. It looks like you could just mop it up, but you can't. The guys finishing our floors did try their best, but they had no training and no support. It was a disaster. The photo on the right shows the refinished floors. They are dusty in the photo, but you can still see how much better they are. Unfortunately, they are far from perfect. We will live with them for the forseeable future, though.

Four football fields

Between moving furniture, finding places to sleep, and generally fretting, we have spent the last four weekends sanding, staining and varnishing 800 feet of two-inch window and door trim and 400 feet of four-inch baseboards. Stretched out end to end, that's four football fields worth of poplar.

Lessons learned from finishing four football fields of wood:

1. Sanding large amounts of wood is back-breaking, dusty work.

2. Working in a confined area (garage) and trying to carefully move awkwardly long pieces of wet varnished wood around furniture that shouldn't be in the garage except you had to put it there because you hired an incompetent flooring company is extremely frustrating.

3. Staining is toxic and tedious, but instantly gratifying.

4. Bugs are indeed dumb enough to fly into wet varnish and die there.

5. At about foot #1,150 of 1,200 feet, absolutely any task looks more appealing than varnishing wood. Scrub the toilet? No problem! Clean out the bunny's cage and litter box? Fun! Run in bare feet across a bed of unsterilized needles and hot garbage? Whee!

Still, we made it. Our carpenter installed some of the baseboards and trim last weekend, and we can't believe what a difference it has made. The house is taking on a distinct house-like look, and it is wonderful. The baseboards around the curved walls are made of two thin layers of 1/4-inch maple, which were cut to the same height as the poplar boards, bent around the curves and nailed in place. Unfortunately, we have to stain it to match the rest of the baseboards. More sanding, staining and varnishing! Ohhhh.

The rest of the baseboards and trim and due to be installed this weekend. Once they are in, we can move furniture agains the walls and unpack!

Actual unpacking! We can't wait.

Floors refinished!

Last we left you, we were anxiously awaiting the refinishing of our awful floors. The second floor was refinished first. This floor is where we have our kitchen, living room and dining room, and the most wide open space. The floors look much better, although given the state they were in before, that wasn't too difficult (to come: before and after pics). The surface is mostly one colour — a fairly dark brown — but the holes in the DaroTopp cement flooring are still very visible in places. There are also strange swirly marks in the floor in the kitchen. Not swirly-stylish, but swirly-whoops-I-made-a-mistake-ish. Still, it is markedly better, and we were extremely relieved to finally have it done, a month after we moved in. Once the second floor was refinished, we needed to clear the first floor to have it redone. We moved all of our furniture from the first floor up to the second floor, and all of the boxes from the first floor down to the basement. Who needs a gym membership when you can just carry furniture up and down stairs every night? Thanks, flooring company! We're in great shape!

The first floor was refinished later than planned (no warning, no phone call), and at the last possible minute. It too looks a lot better than it did, although there are some shiny patches were the matte finish wasn't applied, and the holes in the DaroTopp are still visible. But, we're thrilled that our business with the flooring company is now over, and we can finally start moving things into the rooms where they're supposed to go.

Remember us?

Hello, everyone! It's been a long couple of weeks, but we've finally turned a corner. Things are on the upswing. Slowly, slowly, things have improved. I found my laptop, but because it was recently resurrected from the dead (huge virus), it no longer includes the software for my camera or my Internet connection. I could reinstall it, if only I could find the box with the installation CDs in it. I'm aiming for Christmas (seriously). Until then, I'm typing away on John's machine; the pics will have to wait, though.

Instead of writing one novel-long post, I thought I'd break it up and start with the stairs.

Our stairs from the second to the third floor were removed and replaced without any problems. Our stair guys took great care in removing them -- it's truly amazing what can be achieved by smart guys and a block and tackle. Our 1,000 lbs stairs were lowered and eased out of the building without a scratch on them or the walls. It was a real feat. Before the stairs were removed, John and I had a little bit of time to run up to the third floor and pack a few clothes for the week. We spent our first night on our camping mats in the living room, then upgraded to a single mattress on the floor the next night. We spent the next few nights alternating between my lovely sister's house and our kitchen floor. The stairs were reinstalled within the week, and we were thrilled to be reunited with our bed. The stairs are as gorgeous as they were when they first went in, no worse for the wear. The ceiling height is now corrected. The only thing left to do is install the maple railing cap, clean up the railings, and repair the drywall where it had to be cut out.

We now also have railings everywhere we need them — all around every outside structure, on the garage stairs leading to the house, and on the stairs leading to the basement. The stair rails leading to the rooftop patio now have a much nicer railing. It almost makes you forget that if you fell from up there, you'd be toast. Almost.

Having the stairs corrected has been a huge challenge, and we are thrilled that it's over. The stairs are beautiful -- photos to come!