The baby’s room is painted in two colors from Benjamin Moore with their Aura series paint, which is what we used for the entire house. The top color is Limesickle, 2145-50, and the bottom is Guilford Green, HC-116. We had a simple chair rail installed in white, which is the same as the crown and baseboards, which you can’t see in the photo. The curtains in the room are from Pottery Barn Kids and feature a green and white stripe with brown stitching accent stripes.

The crib, dresser / hutch and side table are a part of the Rossport collection from College Wood Work. The crib converts to a day bed then to a double bed, so it was a good investment piece. Adding the hutch to the dresser gives us a lot of extra storage, though there’s also a pretty decently-sized closet in the room (not pictured). The chair is a leather glider recliner from Dutailier, though it is last year’s model (Intermezzo series). We got it at a discount, and I actually prefer it to this year’s model. Since it doesn’t “look” like a nursery glider, we’ll be able to transition it to our living room eventually.

As you walk into the room, the crib is straight ahead from the door, against an inside wall. Behind the crib we have the artwork our friends and family made at the baby shower. To the right of the crib is the hutch, while to the left is the chair & side-table in front of the window. The door is on the same wall as the closet, neither of which are pictured.

It was a great Christmas, I do have to say. All around fantastic. I spent 5 days in Toronto in early December to have an early Christmas with my mom and family, and had a quiet, if snowy, Christmas at home with Ianiv and my family here. Ianiv and I, without knowing it, each got each other a fun ‘big’ gadget for Christmas. Nothing camera related this time around (shocking, isn’t it?).

I got Ianiv the Cuisinart Griddler and Ianiv got me the Dyson Handheld Vacuum Cleaner.

My intention was to buy an upgraded version of the George Foreman Grill for Ianiv – something with grill plates that could be removed to clean or go in the dishwasher. We hated that our old model couldn’t do that. However, when shopping around I fell in love with the Cuisinart model. It came with 2 grill panels (grooved and flat) and could be used as a press or could open and lie flat for pancakes or something of that nature. It works with far better results than our previous indoor grill, and we have used it quite a lot already.

The little Dyson handheld was on my list for this year after I stumbled across it on their website. Earlier in the year we replaced our vacuum with the Dyson Canister vacuum. It’s lighter, quieter, easier to maneuver on the stairs, and gets up a really incredible amount of dirt and dust. Far more than anything we were getting up before. I love it, but even with its light size shouldn’t really be carrying it up and down the stairs with my injuries.

So, in steps the new handheld. If there’s some cat hair or something really bugging me on another floor of the house, I can grab the little handheld and clean it up. It has the same power as the canister vacuum, but is easier to use. Primarily I wanted it because it promises 5 minutes of full power work. Our previous handheld did about 30 seconds of “sort of” cleaning. Not picking up everything, but kind of helping. Drove me nuts.

So, those are our new gadgets. What did you get??

The spindles are from BH Woodturning:

The railing is not bamboo, but was stained to match as closely as possible. You’ll see how closely when we take some higher resolution images. ;)

These are just photos from my iPhone, so I’ll upload better quality shots when everything’s all done.

Today they are going to finish the majority of the flooring, leaving only the stairs and finishing work. Progress! Still, we’re looking at a few more days of mess and chaos.

Our house is a dusty mess right now. But it’s great to feel that things are happening. I love love love the new stairs! I hated the design of the previous ones – though they flowed nicely, the sharp edge was just an accident waiting to happen. Here’s a before / after (well, so far).

The stairs were also not to code because the railing had been removed, so that will go in later next week. But now that whole corner has much more room – it was essentially un-usable before.

The full renovation photo set can be found here.

We took a look at Squak Mountain Stone, a green material developed by Amee Quiriconi. The material is made of recycled paper, recycled glass, coal fly-ash and cement. It’s hand cast into slabs or tiles that look a lot like natural stone.

We’re currently considering the tiles to create a hearth flush with the new bamboo flooring, and also to apply on top of the old brick of the fireplace. It matches well with the floor – we chose the amber – and has a lovely texture.

Tags: squak mountain stone, stone, recycled material, eco building, green, green building, renovations

We’ve been mulling over our options for as long as we’ve owned the house. Our other 2 floors were laminated by the previous owners. They look nice, but we’re not big laminate fans. Hardwood is undoubtedly more expensive, but more appealing. No matter the final flooring solution, the project will start the same: full demo of all tile and subfloor, new subfloor, carpentry on stairs to change the alignment, removal of carpet in living room, demo of part of the fireplace.

Since those costs will not change regardless of our flooring choice, we chose not to let it influence our decision of flooring. We started looking into what floors would be durable with 2 cats and found ourselves drawn to much more natural grained products, including bamboo. We came home with some samples of teak and bamboo and did some research. We looked at hardness/durability (Janka scale here) and looked at the costs of different products (bamboo is less expensive than other woods, although different products have different installation costs).

It wasn’t a huge leap to go from liking the bamboo to deciding to go all the way and look into doing a fully "green" floor. We did some research on bamboo and found that, while bamboo is a sustainable product, the flooring sold in most stores was most likely not "green" – using sealers and glues that are not eco-friendly. In fact, the bamboo was likely too young, making it prone to warping over time.

Yesterday we paid a visit to Green Works in Vancouver, which is a fully "green" building supply store. They have a lot of amazing stuff, but we were there to look at the EcoTimber flooring. We were open to any of their products, but the bamboo came out victorious again both on appeal and price. We saw our first sample of strand-woven bamboo and fell in love. Here are the two colour options – honey and amber:

Strand woven bamboo flooring is made of bamboo strands pressed together with a durable resin. Not only does it have more of a wood-grain finish, less linear than traditional bamboo flooring, but it is much more durable than traditional bamboo flooring – at 3,000 per Janka (very very hard).

Green Works gave us a lot of information about flooring in general, and the consideration of not just the material but also the finish in terms of durability considerations. The bamboo comes pre-finished, which makes it less likely to scratch, but more difficult to repair when scratched. This is the same with any pre-finished flooring. Floors that are unfinished can be sealed, and spot patched, as time goes on. More work but more easily repaired.

I feel like, at this point, we have a lot of information to make an educated decision about what flooring is best for us. I believe we will likely go with the EcoTimber woven bamboo option, as it’s only slightly more expensive than a non-green bamboo floor. It’s an expensive investment overall, but one we feel is worth it.

We have samples of both the amber & honey colours and are shifting them from room to room. Both are beautiful options. Hopefully we can make a decision on colour and begin the much more complicated process of hiring a contractor to do the major work of demo & installation. And we are hoping to budget in Fresh Start for the environmental disposal of all our reno mess.

Stay tuned for what will be an exciting (and stressful) renovation process!

Tags: sustainable flooring, green flooring, sustainable, eco friendly, green, green floor, bamboo, bamboo flooring, bamboo floor, woven bamboo, janka scale, vancouver, green building, green renovations

Bathroom #1 – En-Suite

When we bought the house, it came with a leaky shower. We knew this from the inspection and received a price concession on the house. So, for many months we didn’t use the shower. Eventually the demo happened, and very slowly Ianiv built it back up. New insulation, new drywall, waterproof membrane, and eventually tile (this we hired for).

Turned out pretty nice. But still not done. We have yet to:

• Patch the walls
• Add the trim
• Remove old baseboard heater & replace
• Paint
• Hem new shower curtain for window

Bathroom #2 – Guest Bathroom

Since we were already hiring someone to come tile bathroom #1, we figured we’d semi-refinish this bathroom. It was the only room in the house with the original flooring (linoleum) and it was in bad shape. If you’re going to do things right, then you should really do as much of the floor as possible. This meant tearing out the original toilet (blue) and vanity (shell motif).

In our search for a new vanity, we realized most commercial products were the wrong size for our bathroom or were just complete crap. So, we opted to get a custom job. We ended up-selling ourselves for a bamboo vanity. Well, with how nice that looked, you can’t just cheap out on the counter (Home Depot also had a minimum cost spend we couldn’t meet for any counter product). So, we ended up going to a local stone company and had them cut out this gorgeous crema marfil marble. It was installed a couple of days ago. 

Still left to do:

• Seal the tile floor
• Install new baseboard heater
• Paint the ceiling and built-in cabinets (not shown), and touch up walls
• Have existing mirror cut and framed to size (custom job)
• Hire plumber to install gorgeous undermount sink and re-attach plumbing
• Install kicker board and add hardware to vanity
• Find a new towel rack & TP holder to match the very modern vanity hardware

If you think that’s the end of our bathroom woes, it’s sadly not true. On the other end of this bathroom is a blue (yes, blue) bathtub that will some day be replaced with a wall-to-wall shower. And, downstairs, some time this year, is a powder room that we will gut and replace when we are in the process of doing our floor. That will be our biggest renovation to-date (and hopefully ever) in this house.

Tags: bathroom, renovations, home renovations, home reno, home ownership

I couldn’t resist posting these. Gijs Gieskes has taken the “gameboy looks like a brick” concept a lot further and created gamebox bricks. The same size as a standard brick (and as the gameboy), these bricks are made with a custom mould. They come in natural brick color, though you could paint it yourself.

Via interior design room Tags: gameboy bricks, bricks, gameboy, design, funny

Tamara pictured in 2nd pic to demonstrate scale

Ianiv was not there while I picked it out and the look on his face was priceless. Already thinking about how we’re going to get it out after Christmas. But, with some care, we got the tree home. It was going to go on the second level by our stairs… but, well, it was touching the ceiling and you couldn’t walk around it. Oops. But, it looks great where it is, and is beautiful. A gorgeous, big, symmetrical tree.

Thanks to Tamara for helping to decorate!!

Tags: christmas tree, christmas, decorations, holiday, christmas decorations