Mister W's legacy

The staircase at Mister W's house will soon be in ours!It is still unclear what happened to dear Mister W, our crotchety old neighbour from across the street. We are not sure whether he passed away or if he has moved to an old age home. We like to think that it is the latter. But either way, we miss him. His house has been sold to a very...

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Have you finished yet?

The kitchen (minus the switch plates)Ze back splashThe closet doors minus the hardware and the mirrors in the openingsWhen the subject of renovations comes up, we are invariably asked "Have you finished yet?". No phrase in the english language seems more foreign to me than those four words. Yes, we are living in the whole house, and yes we...

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The László seal of approval

Luckily, we made very few mistakes in the whole ground floor reno process. One of the few was putting some of the halogen pot lights too close to the kitchen cabinets. Hardly a mistake really, more like a fudge, a little boo boo. But still it required some patch work as well as the services of our favourite Hungarian curmudgeon, László, to make it right. True to form, László entered the Tall House without even so much as a hello:Cutting...

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Looking for fixer upper?

Mr W, our ancient, crotchety old neighbour with the heart of gold has moved out and put his house up for sale. We saw the pictures online. Save for the staircase, there are no original features, just an empty shell. There is nothing to show for a lifetime of living in that house but a bunch of linoleum flooring and some bare walls. Growing...

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We're in!

All the trim still needs paintingThe range hood needs to be installed. The smoke alarm goes off every time we open the oven......we're missing the backsplash tooOne day we'll hang the real plates, these are just photocopies...The future coat closet. The antique doors need to be hung and painted.We've been living in the new space for a couple...

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The summer of the great Stejoine

Behold the great pirate shipArgh! And she shall be christened the StejoineThe Jolly Roger flying aloftThe summer of 2010 will forever go down in Tall House history as the summer of the great pirate ship, The Stejoine. One fine august day while I was busy unpacking and organizing the first floor, Manu came up with the most inspired idea to...

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Vestibule floor heartbreak.

Our layout of what could have beenI realize that in the grand scheme of things, being heartbroken over a floor is pretty silly. So lets just say that we are bitterly disappointed. We had found the perfect tiles for the entrance way. Manu had first spotted them while lunching at a sandwich shop in the old part of town, and had told me about...

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