May 2012 Renovation update

Well,it's been just over a year since we first saw this place (we viewed it on April 5, 2011) and a lot has sure happened since that day. We moved in on August 27. In December we installed an airtight wood burning insert in the fireplace and had cellulose insulation blown in. In February we had the basement sealed - new concrete floor and spray foam insulation - and it's now as dry as a cork down there. We also converted one of the spare room upstairs into dressing room for Mike. There was another spare room downstairs that we were using as an office but decided - because it was connected to the downstairs bathroom - that it would make sense to convert it back into a spare room (since we lost one upstairs for the dressing room) so we renovated that room as well. Today - May 21 - the contractors arrived to begin the transformation of the dining room and living room. They are fixing up all the walls and then putting up wall paper and painting the ceilings and walls. The new light fixtures are already here and waiting to go up as are the draperies. We anticipate that in a couple weeks we will have a finished dining room and living room. I'll keep uploading photos as work progresses. Here are some of the new spare room, the dressing room and the work on the dining room.

The work begins.

Each room is sealed as the work starts.

Window seat overlooking the front yard in the newly renovated downstairs spare room.

The bed in the center of the room with a closet on the left and the bathroom door on the right. One of our Louise Williams watercolours matched perfectly.

The second window - this one overlooks the pool and deck.

Mike's dressing room has an "eyebrow window" which is a great architectural feature that we tried to show to full effect with the wallpaper.

The island has a top made from polished limestone. We found the slab of limestone in the basement and sent it off to be cut to size and then polished. We paid $100 to have it done and later were told that polished limestone counter tops sell for $125/sq foot. Nice surprise. You can see the new quarter-round on the baseboards (that white strip along the bottom). That is going to be painted this week as well so it will match the rest of the baseboard.

Mike's suits and shirts (some of them).