When unpacking is like Christmas morning

30 minutes to carry it all up from downstairs, 2 minutes to take EVERYTHING all out, over an hour of fun, time to tidy it all up...remains to be seen....

The three R's

It's been a very long time since we've posted anything and I wish I could say it's because we've been too busy spending every waking moment exploring our new city. But we've only had new house adventures the past month as we have been consumed by the three r's - redo, remodel, renovate! Our new house is in Lynn Valley in North Vancouver and it's a great location. It's also the type of house that you walked into and you had to see past all the clutter to see the potential. So once we got the keys the reno began....and like any reno project things never went quite as we planned. We knew we would have to paint, replace carpets and update the kitchen so the first thing Alastair did was rip out the kitchen. We were hoping to just replace countertops and update the appliances but as you can see we decided it was time for new cupboards as well!

We also knew we needed to paint. And by paint I mean every room and every surface! Here are some before pictures. And no your eyes are not playing tricks on you....those are very yellow walls with a very yellow ceiling.

 The upstairs bedrooms were painted a lovely shade of green complete with hot pink curtains!

 And the carpet in both rooms...well not exactly the cleanest thing one had ever seen

Ripping out the carpet brought a few surprises such as uncovering beautiful original floors in great condition.

And a surprise paint splatter in the shape of a heart!

But as much as we would have loved to refinish and keep the floors cost prevented us (since we would have to do the whole upstairs) so new carpet was installed.

And now some after/in progress pictures!

3 coats of paint later we had a white ceiling and 2 coats of paint later the yellow walls were gone! Hello new favourite colour Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter and Edgecomb grey!

New soft carpet!

One of the best improvements we made was the addition of a small moulding strip to separate the ceiling from the walls. As you can kind of see from the photo below our new house has coved ceilings. So we were left with the question of where to paint the ceiling to separate it from the wall!? 

And the kitchen? Well after 5+ designing trips to IKEA, numerous measure and remeasures of our kitchen with the wacky slope in the corner and a beam down the middle and an IKEA delivery of 163 boxes we now have this!

Now we just need our new counter tops to be installed, stove, dishwasher and sink to be installed, and a new backsplash. We tried to work with the existing back splash. It was a really lovely white subway tile. But due to reconfigurations we couldn't keep it. So we plan on installing a new back splash of really lovely white subway tile.

Oh and in case you are wondering where all our "stuff" is it's all downstairs. Piled high to the ceiling....even the canoe found a home there for a short time!

Toronto to Vancouver

We are officially residents of Vancouver! It's been a week since we moved to the west coast of Canada and so far it's been sunny skies and warm weather.....or at least until today. When it rained. All Day. Oh well...Welcome to Vancouver!

Our life in boxes...Quite possibly the fastest and most efficient packing we've ever had. Fingers crossed that quick packing leads to safe and unbroken items when we unpack!

When we moved from Nashville Anna's favorite part of move day was following the cardboard trail. For this move Anna and Matilda couldn't get enough of the ramp over the stairs...

Up and down they went...over and over and over again....

And no matter how hard they tried they just couldn't slide down the ramp.

Our temporary housing is in Yaletown near the sea wall which has been perfect for evening strolls. The picture of Anna below is when I got her to climb up and yell,"I'm the Queen of Vancouver!"

Anna has been asking for a scooter so with all our our toys packed up it seemed the perfect time to get her one. And a new tricycle for Matilda. And when I say new I mean newly purchased on Craigslist for the low price of $35 for both!!!! Don't you just love bargain?

And while we have been enjoying all this sunny weather we did come prepared for the rain...rain coats, splash pants and ready to go outside!

BUBBLES!

Now that the weather is weather is warmer we've been spending a lot more time outside. Playing with balls, making sidewalk chalk art, and of course playing with bubbles! This was Matilda's first time seeing/playing with bubbles and the whole time she kept yelling"BUBBLES!" And nothing makes me happier than the bubble machine.....a constant stream of millions of bubbles for the girls to chase!

To market, to market

When did it become almost the end of May? It's seems as though the month has flown by in the blink of an eye. It's been a busy month for us...what have we been up to? Well a couple of weeks ago we flew to Vancouver, B.C. to check out all the things that beautiful city has to offer....

And of course no trip is complete without a little shopping....while we were there some might say we made quite a big purchase! See what we bought below....

Why did we buy a house? It's simple really.....we need a new place to live because our house is....

In the month of May we put our house on the market, flew to Vancouver, bought a new house, and sold our current house - all in less than 3 weeks (17 days to be exact)! Our summer plans now include packing up the house and moving to Vancouver....watch out west coast we're on our way this July!