Black and White Sunday

Black & White Sunday is supposed to be short and sweet, but I can't resist but to give you a black and white recap of Miss. Daisy's experience over the past two days as we rip up our flooring and replace it with beautiful chestnut coloured bamboo.

The adventure's begin with the ripping out of the carpet.

No more carpet. 

A new floor! Subfloor time!

Just watching from my bed. 

Ah, the sunshine, such a nice spot.
There was a couch here once before, wasn't there?

Progress!

What's Uncle Phil doing?
Enjoying the serenity of the couch. 

Doggy time with Aunt Ashley!

Alas, the peace has arrived. 

Hardwood Dilema 1

Remember When I showed you this picture of my DH earlier this week? 

Did anyone notice something odd or strange about it? 

We didn't either. Home Depot didn't either. The delivery man didn't either. 

So, we started chugging all that wood to the top of our house. 

We live on the second floor, and rent out a unit on the first floor. 

We are redoing the entire top floor (minus the bathroom and two bedrooms)

in solid chestnut coloured bamboo. 

DH and I only got half way through before we were tired and exhausted. 

I should actually say him, the boxes weigh 60lbs and I can't really lift one without a lot of complaining. 

So, we asked my SIL if she knew any kids who wanted money to lift up hardwood to the top floor. 

She knew herself. So we paid her 50$ to move the remaining hardwood. 

Now when Phil and Ashley finished the project. They sat down and Phil said something along the lines of 'you have a lot of wood' and then gestured to the pile in the dining room and said thata could finish the house! Well, then what about the pile in the kitchen? the hallway? the spare bedroom? 

He asked if we measured and ordered correctly. DH runs through it in his head. yes. he did. 

I pulled out the order contract. 36 boxes that looks about right. 

Now, hold on, how many boxes did we get? So we run around panicking and counting. 

The dinning room pile has 31. 

The kitchen pile has 15

There are 15 in the hallway... 

SHIT! 72 boxes of hardwood! 

See, two flats delivered. 

And nobody noticed it was too much. 

Our Neighbour had commented on the massive flooring project. 

But we are newbies, I didn't know how much was really in a box. 

So, after debating what to do, I called Home Depot the next morning. 

Flooring department wasn't in yet, so I left a message "They delivered too much flooring"

The lady calls back, they thank us very much for calling them. 

They'll be by to pick it up. 

They can't help me move back downstairs. 

So I tell them they have to wait till Saturday to pick it up. I can't move them, I'll have to wait for husband to be home. 

So Saturday they are picking up the extra pallet. Apparently the vender screwed up. That's what they are insisting. I know how it kind of happened since our order got a little complicated when she had to 'return' and 'resell' us the hardwood so that it would be delivered properly.

Yesterday, Eric went to Home Depot and asked about buying some of it back. 

Well, why not? We have a master bedroom I'd like to do too. The spare maybe carpet. 

So, she sold us 8 additional boxes at 50% off! score! 

Now we only have to move 28 boxes downstairs! 

What would you have done?

It's one of those tough moral/ethical questions....

In other news, carpets out. 

Starting to lie the subfloor, and then Phil says he can get it in over the weekend. 

Looks like I'm making ribs this weekend! 

New Lights & A Few Tips

I finally pushed and complained enough that Eric and I finally made some commitments to changing out the lights in our house.

  (Need I remind that our house was ancient looking. It's a great little house, but it had ALL white walls, those yellow light switch covers, this ugly yellow wood, and it also has these ugly light fixtures to go with it's "I've never been updated" look.) 

Seriously? What is that? Ugly little light. I wanted to replace it with track lighting. you'll see what happened....

Honestly, there's just too much going on here, since the middle thing is the sky light! I just can't fix it the way I want to without ripping apart the whole kitchen

Things to Keep in Mind When Shopping for Lights

1. Bring along pictures of your rooms. 

Consider taking pictures at night when you actually use the light fixtures so you can understand how you want the space to look. 

2. Look at lots of lights, and check them out everywhere. 

Shop around. 

The boutique store downtown had $$$$ lights, but the lights we wanted ended up being bout the same price as the lights at Home Depot, and they ended up looking nicer.

3. When you decide on a light consider the lightbulb it needs, make sure it's something simple. 

the first light fixtures we picked for the kitchen had the weirdest lightbulbs. They didn't even sell them at Home Depot. Thus, we said, this isn't for us! We don't want to have to replace the fixture because we can no longer buy bulbs for it! 

4. Purchase lightbulbs  with the fixtures. 

I don't know how we counted wrong. but we are short one light. Whats the point of installing beautiful lights if you can't turn them on? 

We purchased led chandelier bulbs for the one set from Costco. Costco seems to have the best prices on led bulbs ATM. 

Why LED? No mercury is a big selling point for me. If you can afford it, it's a great option. Plus I think the bulbs like nicer than the curly-q

5. Consider Future Renovations and Current Fixtures

We already replaced one fixture in the kitchen. 

We talk about updating the flooring of the house so that was a consideration. how will these lights look with our future renovations?

I think that's all of my tips that I found useful. 

while it is beautiful and will match our future hardwood floors
it doesn't give off as much light as I want. Even Eric wishes it was more, but c'est le vie

we ended up matching the two other fixtures with the fixtures over the sink
It gives the kitchen WAY MORE light at night time.
As well as a much more modern and sleek look

Now we are looking for a fan! The fan we love has a crappy light kit and the fan in the kitchen is off-centre and I don't want to really make it a focal point because of it's weird position in the ceiling. 

We also need floor lamps.