About A House - Master Bedroom Door

Anyone who knows Dave is aware of his past projects in stained glass. He hasn't picked it up in years. But he's brushing the thick layer of dust off his equipment to make our bedroom door.

It took a few days of mucking around to get the pattern and basic frame squared up. Once he got going, he cut most of the glass in a day!

Here's some pics of over the course of this day of great progress!

Since I can't cut anything other than my fingers, I'm thoroughly bowled over by his talent!

About A House... Wall Tiles Are On!

The counter guys came Sept 18 and installed everything within 1/2 day. Rich the master tiler got to work on the back splashes right after! Rich is meticulous! Almost all our wall tile design are straight stack pattern and he was so careful to ensure it all lines up!

Our kitchen backsplash in Interstyle Glasshues Dry Rose

Our ensuite back splash, Interstyle Marsh

Ensuite shower Interstyle Claypad with the Marsh in the shampoo box

Main bath back splash in Interstyle Barcode

Main bath tub area, Interstyle Claypad & Barcode accent

Suite kitchen being very loud in Interstyle Gable pattern. 

Although the photo doesn't really show it, the bling was toned down after the grout was applied... PHEW!  It will calm down some more once the cabinet doors are in and the hood fan is up.

Suite bathroom & laundry backsplash, a thin strip of the Gable

Suite shower, Interstyle Claypad and Gable

That suite sure is lively!

About A House - Exterior Walkways & Patio

The front, back and side walkways and patios were poured this week. The gang worked hard on the form works prior and it took about a week to get it all done. Together with the garage floor, 1200 sq ft of cement was poured!?!

Here's the finished form work all around the day prior to the pour....

Top view of the backyard, walkway from garage and recycling area towards the house. Our patio is in front of the garage.

Entrance landing for the suite

Walkway on the side of the house

Front walkway

We were a little apprehensive about some much concrete in our yard as it may look extremely cold and industrial. We researched into how we can integrate some natural elements to soften its application and came across this Landscaping Network video. It inspired us to add a wider channel in each section to add small rocks or soft ground covers.

Here's the walkway after the pour on Sept 18...

This is looking from the front entry back out onto the walkway.

The garden view from the suite patio. The other patio in front of the garage is our patio.

We spent the next day keeping the cement wet to prevent cracks. I helped out with that to make myself useful! Ha! Ha!

About A House - Outside Trim

For anyone who read the earlier post about trim colour choices, here's its conclusion...

For the wood trims, we chose to keep the stain as close to the original colour of the wood as possible: Broda stain parchment 210 for the pine soffits and maple 209 for the cedar. Advice from Wilma: to prevent the greyish tone of the wood aging from showing through the stain, it is best to choose one that has a colour in the stain rather than picking the more transparent ones.

For the trims around the windows, a reddish brown was the final chose for all of them except for one vertical stripe. That particular piece is painted green to match the front door. All other trims around the house match the underlining Ceraclad colours the trim is part of.

Here's the naked front:

And here's with everything painted & stained with 1 coat.

The unexpected result is the influence of the brown trim on the Ceraclad just above the left top window. With the combination of the trim and the brown flashing, that particular piece of Ceraclad changed from grey to more like a linen colour. At first I though it was the camera, but when I looked at it on site today, the illusion of a different colour is real. Interesting!

The garage naked...

Dressed...

We're quite happy with our decision to listen to Wilma as she responded to our cry for help in the earlier post about the colour trim dilemma!

About A House - Solar Heater

The solar heater is in! It is supplied by Sunbright Solar and we qualified for the very last grant offered by the City Of Vancouver! Although it is still not cost effective for mass market as yet even with the grant, we decided to give it a try!

The hot water tank is installed in the sloped part of the attic directly under the solar panels. No conversion of the energy is required and it doesn't travel far to reach the tank. Apparently, it will need to be dampened in the Summer months if we don't use much hot water as the heat just keeps coming in!  I think we will need to get used to the temperature of the water as it'll be much hotter than what we're used to.

Here's a picture of the panel fitted neatly on the roof.

About A House - The Joint Is Hoppin!

It's hard to believe the last time I updated the blog was only 2 weeks ago. So much finishings are being worked on and are all in various stages of completion. The final look of the house is really taking shape. We can definitely see what it will look like.

Since the painting, flooring, cabinets and tiling are semi-complete, I'm going to post pictures of individual rooms as of end of first week of Sept.

Starting in the suite:

Kitchen cabinet are in along with the first coat of paint on the walls...

Bathroom wall & floor tiles are complete and cabinets installed...

In our suite...

Kitchen cabinets are in...

Main bath tiles and cabinets.

Ensuite bath cabinet & floor...

The amount of progress by end of each week is incredible! We think this is where keeping the design finishing very simple is speeding things up greatly.

About A House... Tiles

More proofs that it's Christmas every day... tiling started on Aug 22 and by Aug 30, 2 of the shower areas are completed and Rich the master tiler is moving onto the bathroom floors.

We are so fortunate to be living in the city where Interstyle Tiles are made... we managed to source almost all our tiles from their overstocks at a fraction of the cost! We have always loved their products and have used a little bit in every house. For anyone who's interested, check out the Clark's list on their website  & call Clark for details of overstock!

This is our kitchen from the last house with the Interstyle back splash. We loved it & always tried to keep the counter clear & not place stuff in front of the tile :0)

Here's some pictures of the 2 finished shower areas starting with the wheel chair friendly shower in the suite.  First, the sample board that everyone loves to check out!

This is the bath tub tiles in our main bath. Similar pattern but the accent is slightly different.

 Here's its sample board

There is this dance between the trades to see who should get what done first. Because 2 of our bathrooms have floating cabinets, Rich now wants to tile before the cabinets are in so he doesn't have to be like a contortionist to work underneath the cabinets. Photo of those finished bathroom coming soon....

About A House... Cabinets Are Here!!

Supreme Kitchen delivered the cabinets on Aug 29! There are cabinets everywhere!! Every day is like X'Mas at this stage of the project as there is some kind of finishings revealing itself every time we show up! Woo! Hoo!

The next day, Norm the cabinet installer got on it right away! & Here's our kitchen after his first day!