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New neighbors coming soon

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It looks like we’re going to have new neighbors soon. Yeah … I hate having an empty house beside us … of course I hated our bad renter neighbors even more.

The couple who bought the house came by earlier this evening. I think it was their first visit since the house officially became theirs. I have no idea when they might move in though – maybe this weekend.

If they’re like us, they’d be smart to keep their current house, apartment or condo for another month and start some renovations before they move in. That’s what we did and it’s amazing how much we got done in one month! We knocked down three walls, tore out all the carpeting and sanded and then put polyurethane down on the wood floors, painted every room of the house, got electrical work done to replace all of the old knob and tube wiring and had some new duct work done.

Wow … I think that’s everything we did .. I might be missing some stuff but that’s the main things we did to our house in a month before we moved in. mostly on our own!

I was rail thin by the time that month was over … oh and we each only took two weeks off so we also worked for the last two weeks of that month.

I had to drag my husband kicking and screaming into our big home renovation. I think he would have rather sat back and taken a enzyte, but in the end he really liked getting his hands dirty and had a feeling of accomplishment at how different our house looked once we were done .. oh and it looked good. It’s all open now instead of having tiny little rooms on the main floor.

Anyway, I have no idea if the new neighbors will renovate or not – but knowing the house they bought as well as I do, I think it would be in their best interest to renovate as the house needs work.

I just hope they’re nice. We have to share a driveway and considering the driveway is only about 10 feet wide our houses are very close together .. so the better we get along the better for all.

It’s gonna be a hot one!

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I think we’re going to have a really hot summer here in Toronto. We had such a mild winter and warm spring I just know it’s going to be a hot hot hot summer.

I wish our yard was bigger. It’s so tiny. I’d loved to have one of those huge above ground pools or even better an in ground pool but we can’t. Our yard is just too tiny.

Our yard is about 30 feet long by 17 feet wide. Not terrible if it was completely bare, but of course we have quite the garden with 3 to 4 feet deep raised garden beds that border the edges of the yard so the free space is very small.

I guess if this summer is as hot as I think it’s going to be we might get a kiddie pool. LOL Hey .. we’ve thought of getting one anyway for our dog – she’d love it … but maybe we’d sit in it too.

What do you think?

Do you ever go to open houses just to look around?

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This past weekend my husband and I decided to go to a few open houses being held at some homes that are up for sale in our neighborhood.

We aren’t thinking of selling our home or moving – not just yet anyway … but we were curious as to how the home owners had renovated and decorated their homes.

One open house we visited was in a home that’s very similar to ours in design. Like us – they had knocked down the walls in the entry hallway, and the walls separating the living room, dinning room and main hallway in order to create an open living room dining room area. The only big difference was that they hadn’t taken out hte stairway hallway as we did. We felt that our main floor looked a little bigger or more open than the home we were in.

Another house that we visited was totally modern – stark white walls, white furnishings and just about everything stainless steel in the kitchen – including the Hansgrohe faucet. The house was a little too modern for my tastes, but I enjoyed looking around.

My husband and I are still renovating our home. Actually our renovations are stalled … so visiting a few open houses might have helped motivate us to finish our renovations and gave me some ideas for how we might decorate once we’re finally done our renovations … well if we ever manage to finish!

Do you ever go to open houses to just look around and get ideas?

We just can’t seem to get motivated to finish our home renovations

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I vowed earlier this year that this would be the year that we’d finish our renovations. So far that hasn’t happened!

We’ve actually been putting off finishing our renovations for 6 or more years! Can you believe that I’ve been living in a house that has two by one strapping spaced about a two feet apart all across the living room and dining room ceiling for 6 years or so? All that’s left to be done to finish the ceiling is for us to put up the tin ceiling tiles that we purchased about 8 years ago.

My husband and I both ended up having some bad health problems about 6 years ago so it made sense to put a hold on our reno. We also had some bad family tragedies happen around that time too .. but now, even though I’m still sick with Crohn’s we should be able to slowly start finishing the renovations that we started.

I mean .. all we have to do is put those tin ceiling tiles up, cut and apply baseboards, quarter round and maybe some molding around the top of the walls where it meets the ceiling and we’ll pretty much be done our living room dining room renovation.

Then we can either start on the kitchen or the basement. We just have to get motivated to get started!

I’ve been trying to motivate myself by looking at decor websites and magazines …I’m really interested in the look of a stone sink for our kitchen .. but I’m not sure it’s quite as easy to care for as a stainless steel sink … it also might cost more … so we’ll see.

Have you ever done renovations on your home? If so did you kind of stall at some point? If you did, what did you do to get yourself motivated again to start working on your renovation projects again?

Ow my aching back!

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I’m starting to wonder if we need a new bed, or rather mattress.

When we moved into our house in 2001 we bought a new bed for our bedroom … we had a double bed in the apartment, but we treated our selves to a queen sized bed when we finally graduated to new home owner.

I can’t remember what brand of mattress we bought, but it was a name brand and I’d selected a firm mattress because they’re generally better for you than soft mattresses.

I’ve been happy with our bed for the most part, but I remember that the first month we slept in the bed my back ached almost every day, until I got used to the new mattress. Now, for the last year I’ve had a bad back – so bad that I can’t sleep at night unless I put pillows under my knees. I know I have back problems, but I’m wondering if getting a new mattress might help too. Maybe one of those memory foam ones … do they come in firm?

Have you ever wondered if it was your mattress that was causing your back to ache?

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