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 right to the chase he barked: -Who did this work?

Me: -What work?

Him (getting a little red in the face): -This!!!

Me (heart pounding): -Oh, You mean the mouldings?

Him (voice rising as if speaking to a deaf half-wit): -Yessssss!

Me (not knowing whether this is good or bad): -Uh, Manu and his brother did a day together and Manu has been doing it alone ever since.

Him (shaking his head as he walked around the room): -Whhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaatttttttttt? … … But this fantastik job!

Me (breathing again): - ...

Him: - ...

Him again: -What your husband do again?

Me: -Um, he works in advertising

Him: -And the brother?

Me: -He's an engineer.

Him (full on yelling): -IM-POS-SI-BLE!!!!!! Usually these guys don't know what they are doing.

Him again (more quietly): -This really incredible job. Most workers don't do as nice work. He's hired! … Now you go.

Continue Reading

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 old sucks.

The house is being touted as a "piece of history", as indubitably was Mr W. We hope that someone falls in-love with it and brings it back to life.

Continue Reading

We're in!

All the trim still needs painting

The range hood needs to be installed.

The smoke alarm goes off every time we open the oven...

...we're missing the backsplash too

One 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 of months now. No matter that there is still a list as tall as the house of things to do, we are home. And we are loving it.

There is nothing like a year of living in a construction site to make one appreciate the finer things in life. Cleanliness! Order! Organization! It is amazing how comparatively simpler our life seems. Possessions are now nicely stowed in their allotted space instead of piled higgledy-piggledy in a corner. We're back to having people over for dinner. We don't feel the need to get out of the house on weekends. We linger.

Everything just seems so damn easy. We've even discovered that mundane tasks such as doing the dishes are actually soothing and enjoyable in a beautiful space. Its even taken that edge off the weekly morning routine. Getting out of bed at 6:30? A snap! Because even on the grayish of days, the new kitchen is filled with light.

Oh we still have projects, but now the work is just aesthetic. We've put the grunting and heavy lifting behind us. And maybe that's why we are so happy, we are now just working on the pretty.

Even our gifts to each other have changed. We have moved on from power tools to more soul nourishing offerings such as the much longed for Magnolia tree in the back yard.

And just this past weekend, for the first time in years we actually had a whole two hours of doing nothing! Manu watched some football and I read while the Princess napped and our Little Superhero saved the world.

Life is good, but we can't quit now. We have to pull up our bootstraps and give that last push. Manu has already planned to take a couple of days off this week to prepare the house for winter and I'll be back in the saddle on the weekend painting the trim. Then the back splash needs to be laid, the range hood installed, the closet doors hung and painted, the vestibule tiles found, the front window trim applied...

Holy sh**t! We'd better get to work!

Continue Reading

The summer of the great Stejoine

Behold the great pirate ship

Argh! And she shall be christened the Stejoine

The Jolly Roger flying aloft

The 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 keep the little folk (which included my three and a half year old nephew who was visiting from Miami) out from underfoot. The children would build a pirate ship! It would only be an improvement on the actual landscaping and there was more than enough scrap lumber left over from the 1st floor reno.

The four of them worked away at it for the better part of the day. First the hull, then the masts and finally the sail. There was even a hand drawn Jolly Roger flying proudly aloft. The children baptized the ship Stejoine in honour of themselves, the mighty pirates who'd built it: Captain Stelio, First Mate Joseph and Secon Mate Inès. Much like real pirates, they got absolutely filthy, dirt on top of mud on top of black paint - there was nary a square inch of them that remained untouched. They would build, then they would play and when it all got too much, they ate grapes and water melon slices to combat scurvy.

But the fun didn't stop there. For over the next several weeks our little Superhero, all of five, busied himself making all manner of improvements to the lovely vessel. Benches and tables were added and removed, there was a cafeteria (!) in the works, storm proofing was attempted… Folks started stopping by just to see the ship. It was fast becoming more famous than the Black Pearl on the Small Street.

But best of all, it meant, for the first time since we bought the house, that the kids didn't have to go to the park to enjoy the great outdoors, they could just hang out in their own back yard. And it didn't matter if it wasn't pretty or cared for (yet!) it was still, simply, magical.

As you may have guessed we have a lot to do inside before we even think of tackling the outside. Which is a good thing because the darn place is overrun with pirates!

Continue Reading

Vestibule floor heartbreak.

Our layout of what could have been

I 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 them that night at dinner. He was in love. Then as luck would have it, we stumbled upon them at the very store where we bought our kitchen sink and counter top. If possible I loved them even more than Manu. Black and white honed marble tiles shaped like little lanterns. And the best part, they didn't look all shiny and new, they looked like they had been around for years and years. They were perfect for the Tall House. We were smitten.

And as we are want to do, we obsessed over them. Designing and redesigning the entrance way pattern until we were satisfied.

Then our luck ran out. Having a rather long list of things to do before we tackled the vestibule floor, we decided to wait before buying the tiles. Well, good things don't necessarily come to those who wait: they are not only sold out but discontinued!

I tried having them brought in from other cities. I have even tried having them made. No dice.

Ach.

Continue Reading

Mouldings

The artists at work

It looks like the mouldings have always been there. Good sign.

Crown is on. Door frames and baseboards need to be done...

...window frames too.

Manu and I have a thing for mouldings. We first discovered their power to transform a space when we lived in The Condo. Aching for a DIY project, but finding very little to do, Manu decided one day to install crown moulding in the two back rooms. The results were extraordinary, in one weekend the rooms had changed from bland and box like, to interesting and elegant. Since then, we have been obsessed, offering it as transformation advice to any and all friends who will listen.

Now if I had my way, or rather, if our bank account wasn't bleeding, we would have opted for plaster mouldings (it is supposed to be a "restoration" after all). But unfortunately those will have to wait. In the meantime we have opted for the run of the mill white painted MDF variety, but honestly you wouldn't know it.

So while the kids, my mum and I lounged by my office pool, dear Manu and his brother Fabio, who is expecting his first child any day now, celebrated father's day by installing crown moulding on the ground floor. At noon, my mother-in-law brought food, pasta (of course), salad and the great Italian Sunday lunch staple, vino. We ate on the stairs and admired their work. And despite the wine, or maybe because of it, they really got a lot done.

Manu still needs to build a frame around the top of the kitchen cabinets before the rest of the crown can be applied, then there are all the base boards and the door and window frames. All told about three or four days work.

But even if we are only a third of the way there, its really starting to feel like home.

Continue Reading

All over the place

The, ahem, view from the kitchen door.

We planted some Virginia Creeper along the fence to the right

in the hopes that by next year, when we are ready to attack the yard,

the fence will be covered in lush greenery.

Midway through: the doors look better,

the stairs and the siding look worse.

I spray painted some old terracotta pots black.

Added a few geraniums... and voila! Instant love.

The doors and siding are painted.

In autumn we will do the stairs and the railing.

The old girl has been upgraded from haunted -

to just rickety.

We are a bit scattered these days. We have been working a bit out front, a bit out back and a bit in the middle. Seems like every time we turn around, there is another mountain of work waiting for us.

Now, we do know better than to start a new project before having finished the first one, but somehow the theory hasn't made it to practice. I started stripping the closet doors but the onset of planting season urged me to add some love to the front of the house in the form of geraniums. This in turn lead to adding some crushed stones to the front yard to perk it up just a little, which brought on the need to paint the front doors, which highlighted the ugliness of the yellow siding (so it ended up getting painted too) which then brought us to work on the front steps…

But then it started to rain.

…so we decided to plant some climbing vines by the new fence in the backyard, which made us realize in what bad shape the soil was. Which lead us to start carting some of the rocks away, which in turn lead to some weeding…

…when what we should be doing is finishing the first floor. The stair risers and the wainscoting need to be painted, the crown mouldings and baseboards need to be installed, the coat closet doors have to be stripped, sanded, painted and hung. The windows need to be washed and god knows that the first floor and the basement are begging for a good, deep down clean. Not to mention some major reorganization of the whole house as well as moving some rather large pieces of furniture.

So what we need to do is focus!

We will finish the front steps and try straightening the banisters. But seeing as this is just a quick fix to keep the place from falling down until we can afford the real deal, we will stop there for this year. Then we will leave the backyard pretty much as is, allowing the newly planted Virginia Creeper a year's head start as it hopefully lays claim to the easternmost fence.

And now no more distractions, lets finish that goddam first floor.

Continue Reading