Sunday 28 April 2013

Phase III: Exterior.a.

Colour Palette:
Hoorah! Prompted by the tardy arrival of spring on the prairie... like... yesterday... the junk that was cluttering up our brain-space cleared up (analogous to the 25' of snow that has finally started to receed), leaving room for thoughts on... ya know... stuff.

After making a b/w template of the exterior through an old skool method of scan+sketch (cuz we analog like that), we used a program called Seashore to "colour in" the house options, starting with the current WASPesque style-situation of beige + whatever...
...and then give it a little razzle-dazzle.
(Oh... those two circles represent the accent colours in accessories).
By choosing the "same" colour scheme, we could potentially save $$$ by not having to worry about triple-coating the paint for fair coverage, just a little scrape & paint ++
Alas, when we looked closer (I admit we like to blur the eyes to reduce our impending stress-level when it comes to this money-pit gorgeous old turn-of-the-century House) at the condition of the paint, it was an inevitable total re-do of what was there, so... why not get a little funkier? Yah, we couldn't come up with a good enough reason not to roll the dice either.
So, we looked at other colour schemes and plunked some of them into Seashore... like the Mod (grey + white + almost black brown)...
which is nice, but our neighbours across the street have pretty much got it cased, so moving on...
There's a building on Broadway called the "Empyreal Building/Emily's" and so we tried to emulate that theme with a little lemon-lime punch...


...which didn't sit well with us, gothicly spectacular as it is. So, with gigantic tub of Green Exterior paint in-hand (because OF COURSE WE WERE SURE. Good Lord will we ever fecking learn? Haha... I hope not!) swatches & samples were splattered on House & on paper/Seashore. Ultimately, we just ran out of time & had to choose... so carted the already neon-yellow Adirondack's (painted earlier in the year because neon.yellow) onto the boulevard with some tasty extremely alcoholic beverages and boom.
Our (future) pretties!
Green (olive), green (avocado), green (lime), yellow (neon lemon), white, and dark brown (that looks grey on here... ???) that is the same as the front door. Yah... brown shingles... we know. Live a little kk? Future fancy cedar shakes pending for when you send us piles of money for being cool :P
Yeah baby! Knockin' 'em down one by one. This house keeps gettin' better & better!
Red (or some racy Hot-Pink???) flowers & X-Mas lights are our choice of bling.
Pictures of the finished house to come... if it ever gets finished ;)

Wednesday 24 April 2013

Phase Z. Basement Suite (overview)

Ah... things not going as planned.
Perhaps we should be used to this being the process and all that jazz... but at the moment it's heartbreaking. Ouch.

Thankfully we have the perfect army of very very good friends and the happiness that is created by being the most wonderful threesome there ever ever was.

So, when things get rough... you can well imagine we get pretty darned shiny-happy-faces & super-human-strong. But when we really really fall apart, it's because things are really really worth falling apart over. And you know what... it's a o k to fall apart when its worth falling apart over.
We get back up again.



Buffering...


Phase Z: Basement Suite
We are not just building a Suite to house one lucky ducky, but constructing a beautiful, clean, bright, up to code, and stylish space.

Deconstruction:
To commence asap. Rip it all out (except the exterior walls), and build it all back up. Re-use of original materials is nil here... we'll recycle the unused appliances/fixtures & keep the washer/dryer, but that's all folks. This Basement was shoddily put together by previous D.I.Y.ers, and it's our duty to make her clean, safe, and habitable (if not absolutely fabulous) as a Secondary suite.

original walls
new walls
Floorplan:
Suffering from renovation burn-out is taking the giddiness out of this :( Luckily these plans were made while hopped up on new-house-honeymoon-juice. They are good plans. We shall stick to them.

Walls will be reconfigured to tidy the electrical and accommodate moving the existing ducting (accomplishing headroom & hiding the main support-beam for the house). At the moment we top out @ 5'5" due to the beam/ducting: no natural light dingy dungeonesque ohHai furnace! Yah... so those new walls are kinda important to creating a hi-end liveable space.

Changing the layout also makes the flow of the suite better: bigger Bathroom with linen closet, open Kitchen-Dining area, walk-in closet in the Bedroom, walled-off Sump and Utility/Laundry, plus a "Bonus" room (to discourage double-occupancy we will not label it as a 2nd "Bedroom").

Soundproofing & fire-rating with dense Roxul & suspended 5/8" drywall on the ceiling/other division walls (Laundry, Sump).

Some windows to be replaced (to meet egress requirements) and some filled-in so as to compliment the changes in walls/ducting.

Giddyup.