Gates Reno

Hi there, long time no see.

So our renovation was going over budget. Some of it was our fault, as we have the habit of deciding on one thing in the planning/pricing stage and then upgrading on the fly when the time comes. Some of it was unforeseen, like over $10K in surprise chimney work, $9k in repointing work on the back wall, a $4K leak, and many many other things like that (man, do they add up quick). With our kitchen floor 2/3 of the way done, we had to make the difficult decision to halt the reno. With dwindling resources, we were faced with either drastically downgrading our remaining choices for the kitchen (appliances, doors, windows, counter, cabinets, etc.) or finishing things in a way that would leave us pissed off about the kitchen we should have had.

We didn’t want to go the small project route, preferring to wait until we could just start up again on everything. But not sure when we’ll be able to start up again in earnest, we’re going ahead today with some smaller projects. There are a few things that need to be done soon, some for our sanity and some for other reasons. With electrical and plumbing done and the walls up, we’re in a good position to do a few small jobs on the garden floor. Even if we won’t be putting the actual kitchen in yet, a more finished space could still come in useful for a party or guests or something like that.

First on the list is a back door, so that we can use our backyard this summer. Not long before we hit the pause button, the old back door had been removed so that some work could be done on the back of the house and a new frame could be built for the new door at the same time. Since then, going out to our backyard has involved unscrewing a dozen long screws and removing a giant, heavy piece of wood. Needless to say, we don’t do that much. So we’re going ahead and ordering the new door.

Second will be finishing the floors on the garden level. Omer decided after the wood floor was put in that he wanted the radiator to be moved to a different wall, so part of the floor has to be ripped up and the pipes moved (see what I’m talking about?), and then the wood floors can be sanded and finished. The tile floors need to be put in as well. We still haven’t picked tile for the bathroom so we’d better get moving on that.

Third is finishing the bathroom on the garden level. The four of us have been sharing one bathroom for two years now, and it’s getting old.

Fourth is finishing and painting the walls.

By the time all of that is done, hopefully we’ll have won our appliances on a game show.