Junk be gone! - A REALLY quick update

Remember this?

My glorious protector from the sun met an early demise this winter.

When the gazebo fell over from the weight of the snow, Jake dismantled it immediately and stacked it in front of the barbecue until we could take it to the dump.

We never took it to the dump.

It's just sat there. Month after month.

Ignored because it was out of the way and out of our line of sight.

Bit by tiny bit - GARDEN UPDATE!

On Saturday, after Jake and I built the wall in the living room, we were cold. Even though it was really quite lovely outside, inside the house was bitter.

We wanted to stay productive but we also wanted to feel our fingers again, so we opted to work in the backyard for a bit.

Daffodils in the backyard.

Then Monday rolled around and Jake needed to cut the grass.

Obviously I didn't want to be stuck in the dirty (it had gotten quite messy) house so I decided to bring our backyard successes to the front yard where the neighbourhood could see them.(And maybe then the neighbourhood would think that the people who owned the house actually DID care about it, even if said people killed the grass last year by throwing lath all over it and leaving it for months on end....)

Like a boss! For one day...

First, a confession.

I feel like a fraud. A DIY blogging phony!!

Jake and I decided to hire some work out. And by some I mean, all of the plumbing, electrical, and drywall.

We were originally scared off by the crazy prices of hiring that stuff out, but if we want to actually live in the house some time this century, we have to make concessions somewhere. And those concessions are officially blowing any kind of budget we had out of the water.

So if you are our friends/family and happen to read this (looking at you Liz...) just know that we will be dirt poor for the foreseeable future. Ergo, no spending money.

Now, onto the happy and fun stuff!

Ish...

The tour I never gave you

Lately I've been toying with the idea of giving you guys a video tour of the house as it currently is. AKA in complete renovation-mode.

It would totally appease my vanity by allowing me to be narrator/host. Plus it would give me more blog content while Jake and I wade through this tediously slow part of renovating.

So I think I might do that.

But thinking about how I actually should do that, I realised that I never took you on a photo tour of what the entire house looked like before.

If I was any kind of GOOD blogger I would have taken a million more pictures than I did (I was too excited to get started when we bought the house) and I would have done this months ago.. but alas, here we are...

So sit back and get comfortable, because this is one doozy of a post!


EXTERIOR

Random updates! (Plus something tiny in the grand scheme of things but feels like a big step)

One
A little while back I posted this photo to my instagram account:

With the following caption:

Finished tearing up the living room floor yesterday and we discovered sections that were stained! I wonder if this is the original colour or if someone tried it but didn't like it? I can't figure out why there's only a few sections that are stained and the rest is sanded down. Once we clean up the floors I'll take a picture of it all to show you, but just with this picture as your guide, anyone have an idea? 

#guessthepast #help #oldstain #stainedfloors#originalfloor #originalplank #woodfloor

#victorian #victorianhouse #folkvictorian #diy#demolition #renovations

 #nofilter#renovatinganoldhouse #handpickedhome

First sunburn of the season and happier neighbours

This weekend Jake and I had all sorts of plans for working on the house.

And if you've followed along in our journey at all, you'll know that nearly all plans we make regarding the house change... like... a lot.

Plans changing completely. = This weekend.

We started checking things off our list like normal. Did a dump run, went to the house to calculate how much lumber we needed to pick up to finish blocking the living room ceiling, and then we saw that Home Depot had a great deal on rakes.

$10 for a 24" rake? Yes please!

Bad weather means I get sidetracked

Earlier this week I posted this picture to instagram by way of explaining why I couldn't finish painting my vanity light:

Rainy days

Well last night things progressed to snow, and this was the view I was greeted by when I got to work this morning:

Rain... you're ruining my blogging capabilities

A few weeks ago, the day after I lost out on that gorgeous antique desk, I showed Jake another ad on Kijiji, hoping he could see what I saw.

I'm still keeping my eye out for another beauty like this.

After a little bit of convincing, Jake picked up this vanity light for a measly $10.