the misadventures of sarah and dennis

Friday, March 26. 2010

Mattamy New Release

So I've been looking at houses again. We're not planning to move or anything, but I like to see how our neighbourhood is progressing. Anyway, Mattamy is apparently on Phase 6. Crazy. The townhomes have gone up in price again. Our model is now listed at $257,990. That's $33K more than what we purchased at (base price). Apparently they'll be building in this area for a few more years. I've signed up to get notification on the new phases. Eeee.. I can't wait for 3/4 more years and off to our final house we'll go (I hope). Dennis seems to think that we're moving once we have at least two kids in this house.. hmm.... interesting.

Saturday, January 23. 2010

Wallpaper I Wanted. And Wallpaper I Got.

Okay, today was looonnnnggg.

I knew I wanted to tackle the wallpaper that I've been talking so much about in our dining room. The problem was, I've never wallpapered before, but like usual, the Internet proved to be helpful (sort of).

I was following this guide: http://www.diynetwork.com/how-to/how-to-apply-wallpaper/index.html

One thing that took me by surprise was this:

Prime the walls with a high-quality oil-based primer. Primer is especially necessary for new walls because untreated drywall will quickly absorb moisture from the wallpaper adhesive.

Not really reading the latter part of that quote, off to Home Depot Barrhaven I went. I asked the paint expert about priming the walls. Apparently that's a no no and the builders priming and painting would suffice.

First of all I purchased the wallpaper months before we moved in. I tried to explain to the lady that I'd need 3 rolls, but she insisted that 2 would suffice. Well it didn't matter anyway, there were only two left in the store. But, sure enough, when I'm ready to install, I do the math and I'm missing one strip. So it wouldn't be a big deal if all I have to do is buy one more roll. With wallpaper, it doesn't really work like that. Each roll has a lot number associated with it. So you need to match the lot number so that each roll is guaranteed to match. I had been checking Home Depot to see if they would restock, but they hadn't. The HD employee was supposed to call me and let me know when they got more rolls in. Yeap, no call.

Anyway, so here we are 5 months later and I need about 7 more feet. I call Kanata Home Depot and they are crazy busy, so I left a message. Sure enough, 2 hours pass, no call and I'm going to start to run out of light. I took my chances and decided to just visit the big HD again (but this time in Kanata) and hoped they had 3 rolls. I was in luck! But I also had to talk to a few people since my receipt was so old The wallpaper woman remembered me and gave Customer Service a call. Finally, I would be able to start wallpapering.

The one thing about me though is, I didn't want to have travelled to Kanata just to get wallpaper. So naturally I had to go shopping at Costco and do some groceries. Good thing though, I decided it was time to put up the television, so I picked up a wall mount. We'll get to that in another post...

So after reading and rereading the online guide, we were ready to wallpaper. We couldn't decide whether to do the bulk head or not. For now we're going to leave.

We figured since the wallpaper was going up, we might as well install the chandelier. Mind you that's a story in itself, but while at home depot I had to get them to cut down one of the pieces that came with the chandelier since it wouldn't install properly. The man at HD wasn't very happy. :S

What I wasn't happy with was the fact I had to hang each and every one of the crystals. Now that was a lot of effort and pain. But we ended up happy with the result.

Check out the pictures from our wallpaper / chandelier adventure. However, that table is just temporary.

Wednesday, January 20. 2010

All Fired Up

Soooo... we mentioned a long time ago that we'd want to either remove the mantle and replace with a shelf. However, plans changed because we realized the mantle got really hot when the fireplace was on for an extended period of time. Our other option was to paint it. We were sure what colour, but it was either black or white. We decided to try white first. And I think we're going to stop there. Take a look at the before and after pictures and tell us what you think.

Before


After