The green, green grass of home

The lawn is in! My giant sandbox/beach volleyball court/kitty litter box is no longer! Hurrah!

When I bought the house, the lawn looked like this:


Then it got worse.


And then just weird.


But now, it's quite gorgeous.


My soon-to-be-vegetable garden is one of my fave things.


The irrigation system is fully functional now.


Good thing it's programmed to come on at 4:30 a.m. because at least one of my dogs is rather obsessed with sprinklers.








The windows in the front room are in. It's going to be very nice to have all that natural light in the house.


At the front of the house, the new door has been installed. By moving the front door out about 3', the foyer is a lot more open now. I think I'm going to paint the door either a deep burgundy or perhaps an aubergine. It's definitely going to be a bright door, whatever colour I choose!


For reference, it used to look like this:


On the inside, the demo is pretty much done.


The big change is the removal of the wall that separated the kitchen from the dining room. Now the whole area will flow as my giant, gorgeous, perfect kitchen. :-)


What it used to look like:


The dining room area will be moved to the back of the house, where the fireplace is.

Quick update

The stairs are done. I really like them - in fact, I really am loving my patio.


There will be a couple of flower beds surrounding the patio. Hank the Rock was joined by a new friend: Mr. Inukshuk. I want to buy a podium from the 2010 Olympics (so I literally can own the podium) but I think they will be pretty spendy. So as a consolation, my awesome landscapers made me the inukshuk from leftover cedar post bits. :-)


At the far end of the yard, where the bamboo used to be, I now have three small garden planter things. I am going to plant veggies, though I do not actually eat veg. But I didn't know what else to do with this odd little space so I opted for these planter box things.


It's been kinda rainy lately.


This week, the turf will go in. NO MORE SAND - yay!! On the inside, the demolition will begin in earnest. The interior walls between the kitchen and dining room, and between the dining room and living room will be removed, as will the floors (including the super-slippery tile.). The front door should be replaced in the next week or so, which should change dramatically the look of my weird little house. After that - new dark floors, cabinets, appliances, to-die-for countertops ... so excited!

All I need are some patio lanterns

Except for a little bit of work to finish the stairs, the patio is done. I think it looks great and will look even nicer once there's some grass and flower beds, and of course, Hank has been moved into position.



Leaky condo!!! Oh wait. I don't live in a condo anymore. :-(


The front of the house is getting a face-lift. Sort of like botox for houses.

An appliance change

After thinking it through over the weekend, I decided that a two-drawer dishwasher, while hopelessly stylin', wasn't really what I wanted. Thus, I've ordered the GE Cafe dishwasher, based largely on the fact that you can load it up with an entire bottle of dishwashing detergent and it will dispense the right amount each time.

Another very productive day

Well, I finally got to do something in which I have demonstrated proficiency: shopping! Specifically, appliance shopping. Even more specifically, sleek, stainless, gorgeous, make-you-drool appliance shopping.

Accompanied by deal guy extraordinaire, Chad, it was off to Midland Appliances in Richmond. After drooling over Viking, Sub-Zero, Wolf, et. al., we decided on appliances that would not exceed the appraised value of the house.

To whit, I present to you ... the appliances.

First off, the duel-fuel range, a GE Cafe 4 burner with a griddle in the centre, and a lower baking oven.


The fridge is also a GE Cafe. French doors, bottom-mount freezer, lots of bells and whistles.


The dishwasher is a Fisher&Paykel double dishwasher tall tub. Can you marry an appliance? Cause if you can, I might marry this dishwasher.


I also ordered a Broan hood fan that should be powerful enough for even my grilling, which can tend towards, um, smoky. What else? A shiny microwave and a garburator that can hide any evidence of aforementioned smoky grilling refuse.

So that concludes appliance porn.

Back to the yard!

The patio pavers are looking very nice.




Lou thinks that he would like a job in the landscaping industry.



Wick prefers excavation.


She is quite keen on Hank.


Oh look, it's Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum Lou and Rex.

Unlike Hank, Stumpy is not staying. Although it *is* kind of a cool old stumpy thing.

And that concludes the door installation portion of the program

The third set of french doors went in today and not a moment too soon. The insane sliding door contraption pretty much fell out of the frame last night. Stupid slidy thing.


In other news, these pavers and other brick-like things arrived.


I think that they must have snuck in through the hole in the fence.


Mmm.... latte ....


The yard is looking a little, um, rough.




On the plus side, the landscapers unearthed this lovely rock. I am calling him Hank.


Wick approves of Hank.


Tomorrow, the steps to the patio will be finished, and the paver weaving will begin.


And Rex and Lou vow to continue marking any macho-looking equipment that shows up in the yard.