Post-Renovation Report #1

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, the bulk of the work on our renovation is done. We're still waiting on a few things but we've basically been moving into our (new to us!) house and making it home again. I've shared many of these pictures and stories here before, but I wanted one place to gather them all. So here's what happened in the first week after we had access to our whole house again.

On the Saturday that March Break started, I took down some letters which had been in Rachel's old room. In taking down the letters, some of the plaster came out. So I patched the holes with compound, and sanded them smooth. I discovered that patching holes is kind of fun and now I'm a little addicted to it :)

The following week we returned from the Dominican on Friday. By Saturday morning I was priming that strip of fixed wall and then taping and painting my new office.

 I was highly motivated and by 1pm, the first coat was done. Rachel and Dave helped me with some taping, but other than that I did the first coat all on my own.
 

That afternoon, our good friends came over and helped us move everything from our neighbours' basement. Sam's old room/Dave's new office, is the holding area for everything, as it is the room we need the least at the moment.

Our friends also helped us move some furniture, so they took apart Sam's bed and put it back together in his bedroom and also moved his dresser. (Looking back, we must have moved Sam out of his room first and then unloaded boxes into his room, but it really was all a domino effect!) 

We moved some of the living room furniture into the new living room. However, we couldn't move the couch because we needed to move it down the driveway and there was a construction vehicle blocking the way. Yep, they left it parked here for a week...

Rachel, in a slightly emptier old living room and some of Sam's boxes outside the powder room, waiting to be moved downstairs. On Saturday night, Dave, Rachel, and I painted the second coat in my new office space.

On Sunday morning, the first order of business was to determine if two coats of paint was enough in the office. We decided it was, so then we started moving our bed and Rachel's bed into our new bedroom. There is no door between my new office and our new bedroom, so we had to wait until we were done painting the office to move into the bedroom.

Then Rachel started fixing holes in the walls (and got addicted to it so now we fight over the job), and I did some priming of the bigger patches. 

 

On Sunday, Rachel's bestie came over and the two of them taped and primed Rachel's entire room.

S had so much fun priming that she came over after school on Monday and she and Rachel painted the first coat of colour on Rachel's room. Rachel loves that she and S got to do so much work in there. And honestly, I was fairly tired of painting by that point so I was thrilled to have them do the bulk of the work. While Rachel and her friend were painting, Dave, Sam, and I cleared out one of our storage units.

 

Dave and I did the second coat of paint in Rachel's room on Tuesday night.

Wednesday was operation "move Rachel to her room." When I got home from work, Rachel and I took apart her bed, moved it to her new room, and put it back together. That night Janice came over and helped motivate me. We moved some shelves to my office and to Rachel's room, cleaned off a bookshelf so Dave and Sam could move it to Sam's room, and moved some food into the kitchen. Oh, and we folded some laundry too. I really needed a fresh infusion of energy and Janice coming over was exactly what I needed!

Sam with shelves in his room and our living room with a little more furniture in it.

Our rec room/laundry sorting area and a view of our bedroom with Rachel's bed not in it!!! It was fine to share a room with her for two and a half months but we were all happy to have our own rooms again :)

From Thursday through Sunday, we took a break to get away to Toronto, visit IKEA, celebrate Sam's birthday, and focus on some non-renovation tasks.

On Monday night I finally got to move some dishes into my glass cupboards and I was so excited!!! We also picked up the bean bag chairs for the rec room downstairs. And at some point, we moved the TV down there.

 

We didn't do much renovation related work last week as it was Sam's birthday, Passover, and the start of the Easter weekend. However, we did a lot this past weekend so I will write about that another time. But for now, this is the end of my first post-renovation report. I didn't realize how much work moving back into our house after the renovation was (mostly) over would be. And there's more to come...