the urban homestead experiment
the big window stretches from floor to ceiling on the landing of the stairs leading up to the second floor. I was thinking we should do some thing like Maynard Architects’ Tattoo House – they took pictures of nearby trees and simplified them into graphic forms. Cut the shapes out of UV-stable vinyl and applied to the glass.
Sadly, my idea was ix-nayed by other inhabitants on the grounds of privacy (we’re on a corner).
I still think it would have looked neat…
say what you will about IKEA, their kitchens have a decent reputation (Consumer Reports did an article ranking them 3rd, but unless you pay to sign up to their site, you can’t read it). The hardware is Blum – fully extending drawers, decent quality. Until I can afford Viola Park (or in my dreams henrybuilt), I will be very happy with my brown-black Nexus and glossy white Abstrakt doors.
kitchen after painting
after cabinets…
before with bumpout
after with cabinets. Because of the heating ducts and sun tunnel, the two tall cabinets next to the back door were hacked to be 12″ depth – I just need to exchange some shelves and drawers to fit these new dimensions.
The contractor built bases for the cabinets out of wood. In his opinion, this is a much more solid option than the legs provided. It seems like a good idea, especially since part of the lower cabinets dogleg across the room without a wall to hang on. I’ve also read that a reinforced base is recommended if you are planning to use a heavier countertop material like granite or quartz.
On the tall cabinet side, we boosted these up an additional few inches on top of the regular toe kick height, so that the upper cabinets would start at 70 1/2″, thus clearing the top of my new fridge.
Bought a nice, square range hood on clearance (last year’s model) at midland appliance – half the price of a comparable IKEA model.
the corner windows before…
and now. We raised them up about 12 inches to match the window over the sink, and also to give us some more wall space for things like hiding counter clutter from the neighbours.
IKEA has kitchen sales events two-three times a year: spend more than $1000 and you get 10 – 15% back in IKEA gift cards. FYI – my cabinetry was about $5K. I used the gift cards for closet fittings (IKEA kitchen cabinet boxes + drawers=way better value than the PAX system).
Keep in mind that if you are going to go down the same path, you must budget for AGGRAVATION. Measure your kitchen and play around with the kitchen planning software on the IKEA website. Save your plans online, and then retrieve them at your local store. The kitchen clerks are generally helpful – when you can get their attention (this can take a loooonnnnggggg time). I like to pick one clerk and stare at them mercilessly until they notice me. Small whining children can help speed up this process.
Remember that any cabinet can be set up in any combination of shelves and drawers – more options than are available on the website (especially for the tall cabinets). The clerk should help you sort this out.
After that, they will add all of the pieces that you’ve forgotten (trim, etc.), and if they are really good, they will provide you with a labeled layout and a manifest of which item goes with which cabinet (ESSENTIAL). Then plan on going back at least three times for exchanges and missing parts. It’s the nature of the beast…
if you want to read more about other people’s opinions on IKEA kitchens, check out these links:
apartment therapy q&a
washingtonian.com
this is the smallest person’s opinion of the goings-on…
The drywalling is done (except for touch-ups) and the painter managed to spray two floors before going to bed with the flu. It seems like everyone is getting sick, being sick or in recovery from being sick right now, including us! I hope he heals quickly.
The arch entry to the living room is drywalled.
painted with closet doors added.
living room
the fireplace has been retiled and we’re on the waiting list for the logset and door installation.
one of the bedrooms drywalled
and painted.
The window trim is uber-simple – a squared off sill and drywalled box around the other three sides. I love our windows, but i am a little puzzled as to how i am going to mount blinds over them – the windows need to be able to open at the top and to swing open. The up side is that when they are closed, the silence in the house is deafening. who knew good windows could make such a difference in blocking sound?
more to come…
the vancouver rains have set in and i think we’ve run out of painting weather. looks like we’ll be going with the concrete look this winter…
the back porch was rebuilt and the ceiling is lined with fir, like the soffits.
the front path did get poured. i’m planning to grow creeping thyme between the pavers (where you see wood at the moment).
and some photos of our favourite trick-or-treaters!
The plywood tiles have been laid on the second floor and I am really pleased with how it turned out!
I saw the idea on a blog and it took some figuring to work out exactly how we were going to stick it down. The wood place recommended using baltic birch instead of shop birch – both for aesthetics and because the higher quality of the plywood would make the tiles more consistent in height. They had a great deal on 5′x5′ sheets, so we decided to just cut each piece in 9 square tiles of 19 7/8″ (no waste).
I emailed Michael Huber who was the architect on the blog project and he very kindly sent me some pictures of his own plywood floor. For his use (large tiles), they put a continuous 1/8″ edge around each tile and used 1/8″ strips of masonite to splinth it together, ending up with a floating floor.
We have a lot of smaller tiles and we debated back and forth on what to do. In the end, we went with glue and tiny finish nails in each corner of the tile. There has been much cursing and sanding of edges because the tile cuts were not perfectly square, and there is also some variation in tile height. Given the thin veneer on the plywood, there isn’t much room for sanding, but I think they’ve done a great job of it.
Cracks are being filled with a mix of polyurethane and sawdust from the cuts. The cracks aren’t filled in the picture below, but you get an idea of the after across a room.
In the closet, they cut around the door tracks that are sunk into the floor. The poly warms up the colour of the birch just a bit – I love it.
Now just another 4 coats of polyurethane to go…
i’ve been on a bit of a blogging hiatus, but a brief house update, as i condense 4 weeks of renos into two or three posts.
here is the house with the stucco going on in layers. The colour on the chimney is what we will be painting the entire house.
from the inside – the stud walls get some insulation
and then some drywall
new back door in the kitchen (the kind with the blinds between the glass, based on our disastrous previous experience with blinds on the outside of the glass)
looking towards the dining area (living room through the doorway)
drywall in the living room
this part is all new – front hallway with window, coat closet (!) and stairwell where there was once a bedroom.
progress 
i like the circle, i can’t help it. And yet, it’s taken a long and hard search to find what i like – you’d think it would be easy to find a pendant light that is a circle. but no. here are the results of my search thus far.
love these three pendants from niche modern – way out of my budget, but how beautiful and organic.
solitaire ($450 US each). 10″ diameter – love how they’ve used the edison lightbulb to good effect inside.
stamen ($995 US each). 12″ diameter
binary crystal ($450 US each). 10″ diameter
the next pendants are alison berger – handblown glass pendants and perfectly lovely in their simplicity. not EXACTLY entirely round, but i’m sure she would make them that way if you asked nicely. listed in plug lighting through holly hunt, which means that they are so expensive, the price isn’t listed anywhere. Oh – and you can only order them through designers, natch.
found these at lightform – by vistosi. $580 Canadian each. It’s hard to tell from the picture, but there is a smaller glass ball inside of the larger one. The spec sheet indicates that the diameter is “16″ but not whether this is cm or inches. Based on the plates below, i’m guessing inches.
i’ve already written about my love for omer arbel’s bocci 14 light. It’s small and beautiful. $298 US each. 4″ diameter. I think they look best in random clusters – not sure how much light would be cast over a counter by two or three (10w 12V xenon or halogen light bulb).
my real life solutions?
These simple glass pendants from west elm – $229 US for a set of two, each measures 11″ in diameter. i tried to convince my mother to bring some back for me in her luggage during a recent trip to toronto, but she wouldn’t do it.
i’m thinking that an edison lightbulb (or here) would look really neat inside.
A quick update of where we’re at: the gutters are on, the building paper and the rain screen are going up, and the power has finally been cut.
The front entry before:
and now (the small octagon beside the chimney is now a circle).
The front of the house before:
and now:
i’m pretty excited about the first apple harvest (of my whole entire life) – i picked three today off of my espalier apple – a braeburn, a golden delicious and a red delicious. two of them were consumed on the spot, hence the lonely apple in the photo above.
also – peppers!
much better than last year’s failed crop. of course, without anything in the photo to give them scale, the pictures are deceiving – these are decidedly smaller than what you would get at the store. there were a few spiders lurking in the crevices. but i grew everything without sprays or chemicals or anything other than the fresh compost added to the soil back in the spring. i think the raised beds are helping with the pest containment. or maybe it’s the vigorous undergrowth of clover and dandelions around the plants…
relocating from our house to a rental during the reno saga has been seriously detrimental to my urban homesteading efforts. the freezer is unplugged, the canning jars are packed away in storage, and the garden went without water during one of the hotter summers I’ve experienced out here. in our absence, the blackberry canes invaded. it’s a jungle back there. the cauliflower and broccoli heads came in small and very quickly (overnight it seemed) and had already gone to seed by the time i fought my way to the backyard garden (past the old furnace, around the tarp covering the tool cabinet, through the knee-high dandelions). the strawberries performed admirably in the early summer but have taken a real beating from the work done – stucco raining down, roofing tile dropped, building paper left in a pile in the middle of the bed (obviously these people are NOT gardeners).
i still can’t seem to keep a male kiwi vine alive. i may need to relocate them – i now have two suspicious deaths on my hands. my thumbs are turning black. i planted potatoes in random patches around the beds and now (of course) with the plants done, i have no idea where most of them are.
don’t mind me. i’m just moping. i’ve been thinking about the amount of garden work in the back yard that i need to do to catch up for next year – ACCKK!
being even partially self-sufficient is so MUCH WORK.
i love being out in my garden and puttering – a little bit here and there. but apparently, for me at least, proximity is key. i don’t know how all of those allotment gardeners do it.
anyhoo, enough of the pity party. i think i’m feeling discouraged because the reno is being held up (again) – we’re on hold for another few days before they can finish papering the building, so we can stucco/insulate/drywall. the gutter/flashing guy made a brief appearance and hasn’t been seen since. i can’t find a window sill that i like. the budget is having issues. everything is great, but i want it to be DONE.
we were on our way to the PNE yesterday afternoon and I ended up taking more pictures of the front yard gardens that we passed than i did of the kids on rides. Some gorgeous, mouth-watering displays of gardening ingenuity, in all its forms. First up, a lovely Craftsman with a picket fence. From the street, it looks pretty.
When you peer over the fence (as i am wont to do), you spy a functional and attractive garden.
so pretty. in the same neighbourhood, squash and melon vines sprawl vigorously.
some are combined with raised beds holding other veggies.
the scariest version was an entirely enclosed chain link cage.
ugly as heck, but effective – check out the crop (i’m guessing bitter melon, but i don’t really know)
when we finally made it to the fair, i did manage to get a shot of the smallest kid on a ride.
the rest was just a blur of lines and rides and animals and junk food galore. i really wanted to eat a deep-fried mars bar (just to say that i had) but we didn’t get to it this time around. maybe next year…
