Our first wet basement

After spending Thanksgiving weekend with my in laws, we returned home Monday ready to tackle the week. While I stocked our fridge with leftovers, Mr. Speedy ran down to the basement to feed Allistair, our bunny, who had been home alone all weekend. All seemed well.

Then Mr. Speedy yelled "We have a problem" followed by silence. I shouted "What?" while wondering whether we'd been robbed or if the bunny had not fared so well flying solo for the weekend. When I still didn't get a response, I dashed downstairs to try to quell my wild imagination.

That's when I saw Mr. Speedy standing in water up over his ankles in the unfinished portion of our basement. What used to be our laundry and storage area had turned into a wading pool.

So, I grabbed some flip flops and started rescuing boxes while we tried to figure out where the water was coming from. A quick investigation showed some telltale bubbling from the water heater, so we quickly phoned the rental company and turned the handle to stop the flow of water from the cold water pipe to the heater.

Repairmen, and a new hot water heater, were on their way (and arrived within hours, thankfully) but, it was a holiday and we still had several inches of water in our basement. And, we had neither a car nor a wet vac.

We called in a favour from a friend with a car, who then did the tour of closed-for-the-holiday hardware stores with Mr. Speedy while I waited for the repairmen. We figured we were out of luck, but thankfully, our friend remembered that his church had a wet vac, and was able to borrow it for us.

The wet vac, along with uncovering a floor drain that had been closed off by a previous owner, helped take our basement from a pool to a puddle.

So, things are looking up. Our shiny new water heater has been installed. The carpet and underpadding that had been down there (which, honestly, we hadn't liked much anyway) has been trucked out to the garage awaiting disposal, the dehumidifier and fans have been working overtime, and the space has had a thorough scrub.

But, sadly, the story isn't over. Last night, while debating whether it was finally dry enough to return all the storage items, which have been cluttering up the finished portion of the basement, Mr. Speedy noticed a small but steady trickle of water streaming down the side of our shiny new tank. Turns out the soldered new connection isn't quite sealed. Argh.

So, they're coming tomorrow to finish patching it up. All in all, we were pretty lucky. No real damage was done to our home, and nothing important got waterlogged. But, it was definitely stressful and perhaps the least fun we've had since moving in. I'm hoping that after tomorrow, and another scrub, my basement will return to its former glory of storage area and laundry room, albeit sans carpeting.

Kitchen envy

Lately, I've been experiencing a whole lotta kitchen envy. My kitchen is relatively functional, but not so fabulous. (Read more about it here).

And, in case those lush spreads in the fall magazines weren't enough to have me shopping for my imaginary kitchen makeover, Frigidaire has just introduced a new line of lust-worthy appliances.

The 200 (!) revamped appliances look super sleek and offer "time-saving" features, like the ovens' "PowerPlus Convection", which is supposed to reduce cooking time by 30 per cent and pre-heating times of "less than six minutes." 

The new dishwashers offer speedier wash and dry options, while refrigerators have more storage and a fancy new organization system.

The other thing that's got me drooling is the new washers and dryers, which have something called "TimeWise" technology - meaning wash time is supposed to be the same as dry time. I hate waiting for the dryer to finish when I'm doing a serious run on laundry, so my impatient side welcomes this idea!

"Our goal was to build the kinds of appliances that would help families breeze through household tasks to create more time to enjoy the things they love," said Tom Coulman, Director of Product and Brand Development for Frigidaire, in a release. Keep an eye out for the new lines at retailers like Sears, The Brick, Leon's and The Bay. Read more about the new lines on the Frigidaire website.

More from the basement ...

The basement was my major project for the long weekend. My goal was to take it from a dark, cavelike space filled with boxes to a fun place to hang out, watch TV and play video games (The Beatles Rock Band is our latest addiction).

Mr. Speedy had already swapped out our overhead light for one that worked - which made a huge difference in making the space less cave-like! - and we'd already sorted out a colour scheme of black, white and red (black to match the TV and PS3, red for the Xbox 360 and white for the Wii, of course).

Earlier this week, I shared my start at colour-blocking my books, and the next step was to start decorating!

A black slipcover made our old futon look a little bit less sketchy while we save up for a new downstairs sofa, and, to really make the room pop, we've hung this delightful, vintage-inspired poster, an amazing project spearheaded by a Yourhome reader! With its clean lines and quirky message, it's really the perfect piece to set the tone for our basement den!

The next step is to finish sorting the DVDs back into their cases (embarassingly, I forgot to move the folders for them before snapping this photo on my way out the door this morning), and finish tidying up all the unpacking remnants (which I really must do before sharing a picture of the full space!)

After that, my major next step is to choose a paint colour to freshen up the walls. I fear white could be too stark for the space, against all the eye-catching black and red, so I've been thinking maybe a soft grey. What do you think?

Opening boxes

I've been tackling my unpacked boxes lately, which has turned out to be a difficult, and emotional, task. You see, while Mr. Speedy and I have been purging our belongings annually, with every move, we've also been lugging a few untouched boxes from address to address.

And, now in our largest living space yet, we're still trying to pare down. Getting bogged down in belongings gets messy. It makes it tough to keep organized, harder to find things, and attracts dust. And, after all, it's really only stuff. 

So, I finally cracked open some of those boxes - whose belongings were last seen way back in '06/'07. The stuff has been slotted into its respective places, along with toss and donate piles, but I'm still ruminating over my finds.

Because, it's not really only stuff. It's a snapshot of who I was two years ago. It's a glimpse into the person who was leaving almost everything she knew to move to Toronto to start a career in journalism.

The bobble-head lobster is a funny reminder of home, and a definite conversation piece.

The stack of political science text books (not all required course reading) remind me of my aspirations towards political reporting.

The student loan statement from May 2007, with its terrifyingly steep numbers (why on Earth did I feel like that needed to be packed?) helped motivate my relocation for work, and my enthusiastic hunt for full-time work (which continues these days with less vigour, more wishing and hoping).

Photos and ticket stubs are a wonderful reminder of the friends I left behind (and still miss), and were easily slotted into folders, frames and albums.

Other things are less concrete reminders. Three koosh ball animals, prizes from some sort of residence carnival night, will hardly come in handy and were instantly destined for the trash. What ever possessed me to pack those so lovingly? Ditto for unlabelled mini-cassette tapes, presumably from student assignments.

Not all of these pieces fit into my new life, and really, they shouldn't. You want to always be moving forward and changing. But cracking open these boxes was like peeking into a time capsule, a reminder of the optimism with which I came to Toronto (little did I know that apartments here wouldn't have room for my full library of books!), and I'm kind of grateful that I left them untouched for so long.

What treasures do you have hiding in boxes?

Organizing by colour?

I'm not much of a camper, so for me, the Labour Day weekend is typically a mix of relaxing and getting things done around the house.

On Monday, we had a story about organizing your closet in 10 minutes which inspired me to take my efforts to the next level. With the help of the move, my closet is still in pretty good shape, organized by type of garment and colour, so I had to focus on a more troublesome area of my house: my many boxes.

Ten boxes later, which yielded a slew of outdated photos of me as a redhead and Mr. Speedy with very long hair, a few odd socks, three koosh ball animals and several other odds and sods, along with many things that we actually do like and need, my house was in dire need of organization!

Once the kitchen cabinets and bar were fully stocked (turns out I have as many martini glasses as I do bowls) and the DVD, CD, record and VHS (!) collections alphabetized and stowed away, I turned my attention to the six very heavy (and largely still unpacked) boxes of books that we've been lugging around since leaving Halifax.

Our collection spans a lot of genres, everything from textbooks, anthologies and Penguin classics to chick lit (well, only I can take the blame for that one) and comic books. Not an easy collection to manage, much less organize in a logical way.

So I decided to throw all logic out the window (after all, isn't alphabetized conspicuous consumption so pre-recession?) and organize them the way I wanted to look at them: by colour.

Now, this isn't a new idea. Loads of people have colour blocked all of their belongings. But it was new to me. And, to add a further illogical twist, my massive collection of books would span several floors of my house, so to find a particular book, we're going to need to remember what colour the spine is, and go to the proper shelf on the correct floor.

Black, white and red books (which match our PlayStation 3, Wii and Xbox360 respectively) were the first to be sorted out, to complement our basement entertainment den. This is a system that wedges Kevin Smith (of Silent Bob fame) between Orwell and Freud, and the Nanny Diaries next to Bram Stoker's Dracula, but it looks pretty slick. And, just think of all the exercise we'll be getting when hunting for that favourite book on all three levels of our home!

Stay tuned for a pre-painting reveal of our basement later this week - along with some snazzy new vintage inspired artwork!

Get more organizing tips.

Crashing back to reality

Ah, the joys of being a homeowner. After a blissful week on the East Coast, I returned to Toronto feeling fairly calm, albeit a little bit motion sick from a turbulent flight home.

While I was very, very sad to leave my friends and family (and a wee bit reluctant to return to work), part of me was also happy to be returning to my house, complete with two freshly painted rooms. I was excited about getting back into the painting and decorating projects (hello secondhand shops!), after taking an evening to relax and get back into that Toronto state of mind.

Instead, what greeted me was a slightly overgrown lawn (sadly, my wish that the heat would finally kill the grass was not granted), coated in a week's worth of tossed litter, a stuffed mailbox, two dying (likely to soon be one dead, one maimed) houseplants and a nosy older couple (total strangers, by the way) who stopped by to say that they didn't like the look of our yard because our grass was too long. Not to mention a bunny to be collected, a few surfaces to be dusted, laundry to be washed and luggage to be unpacked. Plus a couple hundred emails, over a thousand blog posts to be caught up on, and a handful of voicemail messages.

But, despite wondering whether I couldn't just go back on an extended vacation (the answer was sadly no), we hunkered down and chipped away at our to-do list. So I'm back, and once we catch up, we'll be back to home improvement projects, rather than just maintaining/cleaning it. 

Responsibility is a drag.

One room is "done"!

Mr. Speedy and I have been in our new home for nearly three months now. We've had the place rewired, and patched and primed the holes. We've unpacked a few boxes, though there are still mountains to go. We've (well, Mr. Speedy and my father-in-law) re-shingled the garage roof, repaired the screen, and had a mason come in to fix our chimney. But, despite all this hard work, there haven't been a lot of really visible, aesthetic improvements, and not a single space has actually been properly finished. Until now!

With some help from my visiting brother-in-law and mother-in-law, the dining room has recovered from the colour match fail and now benefits from a snazzy coat of the ill-matching paint. I can't believe the difference it makes in how the space feels!

The wine rack/storage unit, with its fabulously swapped out handles, is still slowly getting filled up with barware essentials, and, while we certainly need a new table and chairs, it's totally thrilling to be able to hang my artwork (including this "Tea Revives You" print in sage) and slowly decorate a space that's no longer in shambles.

Next up is the living room, which also has benefitted from a fresh coat of (mismatched) paint and just needs a final strip of wallpaper hung before we can declare it done too, and start decorating away!

My colour match fail

Sometimes, when working around the house, I try to be clever and limit the amount of work I need to do.

Oftentimes, this results in more work for Mr. Speedy and I.

Case in point: my attempt at colour matching the paint in two of our rooms. We liked the shades used in these rooms when we moved in, and they weren't totally destroyed in the re-wiring.

Being ever the thinker, I decided that if we could just match the colours, we'd only need to repaint two walls (one in the dining room and one in the living room), saving ourselves some work.

We used the colour matching tool at the local hardware store, then tried to match it to paint chips we brought with us. It looked perfect in the store. On the wall, not so much, as you can see here in the dining room.

The colour is close, but we'll definitely have to repaint it all. Same with the living room, too.

I've learned my lesson: any attempts at shortcuts are only going to create more work. And, I've got loads upon loads of painting to do! But, as a bonus, at least Mr. Speedy likes the new colours better than what we had inherited!

These weekend warriors are worn out!

When I left here on Friday, I was both anxiously anticipating and thoroughly dreading a weekend filled with working on my house. I was excited because it was a chance for Mr. Speedy and I to continue to personalize and settle into our new home, as well as get some much-needed maintenance out of the way. I dreaded it because, well, I spend my days in front of a computer (as does Mr. Speedy). Manual labour is more than a little bit out of my realm. Plus, it's often dirty and difficult — so given the choice, I'd opt for brunch and mimosas any day.

But, of course, we want the best for our home. So, we braced ourselves and settled into a weekend of work, complete with four (yep, that's twice a day) trips to the local hardware store. And, it was certainly a busy one!

For starters, despite the bad weather, the garage roof was stripped, with the new shingles going on this coming weekend. I can lay no claim to this accomplishment, barring some moral support and the delivery of food and beer. Much thanks to Mr. Speedy and my father-in-law, both for the hours of hard work and for not falling of the roof.

I was, however, useful in other tasks, I promise! For example, I learned what spline was (beyond being a funny word, it's also the cord material that holds the screen into the frame) and even purchased my very own spline, along with a screen repair kit, which was installed during one of the weekend's many rain storms. Take that insects!

Plus, I replaced the knobs on my wine cabinet. Yes, it's a wee task, but it made a huge difference, taking it from granny-style to contemporary in five minutes flat. Plus, I used wood filler to cover up the extra holes — surely that gives me some DIY cred? Next up are the hall closets, which I'm totally ready to tackle!

I (yes, me, with just a little bit of supervision!) tackled patching the main floor walls, eliminating all those pesky nail and screw holes and moving dings. Then, after a bit of a paint matching mishap (or disaster, if you asked me yesterday. It doesn't match. At all. So I've got to repaint everything anyway. Arrgh), my mother-in-law offered up a lesson on cutting in, and we got the repainting started. Hopefully, we'll get the rooms done soon, so I can share some finished shots! (When I find my camera cord, hopefully tonight, I'll upload the photos of the wine cabinet makeover!)

And, last but not least, the basement was surprisingly transformed from a scary cave to a proper living space, through the very cheap fix of a working overhead light. I'm thrilled that it no longer looks like a place for trolls and spiders to lurk!

So, after two tough days, it was time for takeout and loads of sleep! We're still recovering, but all of those tired muscles should be back in fighting shape in time for round two this weekend!

Channeling my weekend warrior

When Mr. Speedy and I were renters, the rare quiet weekend was dedicated to doing a wee spot of housework paired with a large quantity of brunching, TV-watching and strolling through the shops. It was peaceful and relaxing, if not always particularly productive.

But now that we're new homeowners, things are happening at a slightly less relaxed pace. There's still so much unpacking to do (how on earth did we ever accumulate that much stuff?), along with loads of regular housework and maintenance-type things. It seems the list is ever-growing and never-ending, while my enthusiasm for tackling the items (especially the unpacking) has been steadily waning.

And that's not good. So this weekend, with some (OK, a lot) of help from my in-laws, we're going to get a motivation boost and start tackling that super long list of home tasks that I blogged about last week.

As for prioritizing, thanks for some advice from my Twitter friend @erinmillsliving we decided to rearrange our to-dos to move anything that could get worse (like the garage roof) and inexpensive fixes that could improve our enjoyment of our home, like replacing the faulty light fixture in the basement, to the top of our list.

And, if the weather ever holds, I also hope to start ripping out some of the unattractive, overgrown and undesirable plants from our yard (it may or may not be revenge for that first gardening attempt.)

Seeing as Mr. Speedy and I don't fit into the description of diehard DIYers (or, for that matter, even the "handy" label), it's going to be a stressful and challenging experience, as we pick up our hammers and screwdrivers and try to whip the place into shape.

But I'm going to try to channel the lessons Toolgirl taught me, and hopefully, I'll have stunning success stories to share with you next week, instead of tales of injuries and woe. Wish us luck!