Renovation Report Week 15

Before I start my renovation report, I have a quick health update for you. I stayed home on Friday with a bad headache and some dizziness. That resolved by Saturday late afternoon. Then on Sunday night, as I was falling asleep, I started seeing bright flashes in my eye. On Monday morning shortly after I woke up, I thought I saw a spider out of the corner of my left eye. But there was no spider and it kept dancing across my eye (super freaky). Then after about half an hour of that, it felt like the spider exploded and it's legs rained down in my eye for about fifteen minutes. Monday was a stat holiday here in Canada so my optometrist office was closed. So Dave and I headed to the ER. As I had experienced a headache and dizziness in the past week, they asked a whole ton of questions to see if I'd experienced a stroke (which I hadn't). I left the ER five hours later completely exhausted and with an emergency ophthalmologist appointment set for yesterday.

At that appointment, they did some tests and determined that I'd experienced vitreous detachment but not a retinal tear. The vitreous is fluid in your eye and when it detaches you see more floaters and it can lead to retinal tears or detachment. Thankfully, I did not have that happen, but it was very disconcerting. I've never had such larger floaters or so many all at once. So as I'm typing this, my pupils have been dilated for a few hours and everything feels really bright! So that's the latest in "minor irritations February" as Dave and I are starting to call it. Again, not a huge deal (in the end) but slightly stressful.

Now, on with the renovation report... Also, if you read my post yesterday you may remember me saying that I was barely home between 7:30am and 8pm last week so some of my pictures are a little dark, as many of them were taken at night. 

I was so excited to get home on Monday and see that they had installed the back splash. I LOVE IT!!! It totally reminds me of some of the house exteriors we saw in Portugal, which was my goal!

Additionally, they finished installing the flooring in the basement.

On Tuesday, they grouted the back splash and it looks even better!!!

Wednesday was a big day -- they set up both vanities -- in the main bathroom and the downstairs bathroom.

They added trim in the living room.

They primed in the bathroom and our bedroom. It just looks a lot more finished now that you can't see all the taping.

On Thursday they installed the basement toilet.

And they added taps for the basement bathroom, upstairs bathroom, and the kitchen sink!!!

Friday was SHOWER DAY!!! Rachel cleaned the shower on Friday night and Sam enjoyed the first one. Our main bathroom is basically complete (!!!) except for paint and installing the fan, the light, and the mirror!!! Oh and all the electrical outlets. We used a portable construction light to shower all weekend. Hahahahaha!!!

This is a better view of our bedroom (which is waiting for paint) and the kitchen sink during the day. We are able to wash dishes in this sink now so it's exciting to not have to haul our dishes up and down stairs.

And in surprising reno news, they took the toilet out of the powder room so they could work on the drywall behind it. It's now living in the (current) office until they can put it back. Thankfully the ones upstairs and in the basement work. Phew! 

So yes, there was a lot going on last week. We are able to use more of our house (kitchen sink, upstairs bathroom) which feels HUGE, even if the conditions are a bit rustic (makeshift lighting).

Learnings from the week:

We did it!!! We survived six weeks without a shower in our house! Go us! (And major thanks to our neighbours for travelling for six weeks and letting my mom and dad rent their house and to Tim & Janice who let us take over their basement bathroom for a few weeks.)

It turns out our dining room electricity can't support our fridge, microwave, toaster, coffee maker, and the light. The breaker flipped a few times this week but I think we have figured out how to fix it and we won't usually have so much stuff plugged in in our dining room.

Mudding and trim take a long time and they don't look like a lot of progress is happening.

Even priming a room can make a HUGE difference in how it looks.

I'm so curious to see if any painting will happen this week. Fingers crossed...