En suite is finally done!

I've already posted about how much I hated the en suite and how everything in it was white: floors, walls, cabinets, fixtures etc. Here's the pic from the Kijiji ad when we first looked at the house.
So in August, I painted the cabinets. In October, it was the walls.
Last step was the flooring and thanks to my fantastic incredible father-in-law, my ultrafantastic truly amazing husband and 6 hours of a Saturday we'll never get back, here's the final result!!
*BLISS*!!!!
We used Allure tiles from Home Depot. It's a floating floor so there's no adhesive, just two sides that stick together using contact cement. Isn't it beautiful??? *sigh* I'm going to go admire our work again... happy happy!!!

Thoughts from our side of the city

It's been a year since we sold our West End house so I thought, given my 11 months of being in Transcona, that I'd share what my impression is.

1) No one knows where Transcona is.
Tell someone that you live in Transcona and watch their eyes glaze over. And it's not just Winnipeggers who think T-cona is that uncharted part of the map described in latin as "Here there be dragons", our utility companies think the same way. Case in point: MTS called us (at the old house) to tell us that they offer HD and PVR in the West End now. I said "Great, but we're moving to Transcona. Is it there?" Lonnnnnng pause, he comes back "No, we don't offer service outside of the city." What? After moving here and dealing with the mind-boggling ineptitude that is MTS, we discovered that we don't have call display or answering machine on our land line anymore. I call MTS to find out what happened and she said (and I quote) "Different parts of the province have access to different features. If you lived in Winnipeg, you could get call display." I called back the next day (once my jaw had been picked up off the floor) and got everything fixed by someone who knows geography better.

2) Regent Ave traffic is as busy as St James, but without the suicide lanes.
Driving in the area of Regent and Lagmodiere on the weekend is akin to Route 90 or St James. But, someone with a background in traffic flow patterns realized that left turn lights are a good thing and used them A LOT on Regent. Too bad the city can't rehire that company and fix the train wreck that is St James and Route 90. Instead, they're putting in *more* shopping in that end. Can't wait to see the parking lot on Sterling Lyon when Ikea final plunks down here.

3) Transcona is it's own city
Okay, this is the weirdest part of living here. Transcona has it's own downtown, complete with decorative arch! So when I tell someone I'm going "downtown", I have to specify if I mean "Downtown Winnipeg" (ie far away) or "downtown Transcona". I had lunch last week with a group of Transcona residents (transconians? transconites?) who admitted to me that they haven't left Transcona in months. She said "Anything past Nairn is too far away. Besides what do you need to see that you can't get here?" We have 3 chinese restaurants and a thai restaurant withint 1 block of each other. Does that qualify as our "chinatown"?

4) Transcona is a small town.
And just like Pinawa, everyone here knows each other. Or tries to find out if they know each other somehow.
Case in point: The woman and her daughter that deliver the weekly flyers were stuck in their dead car outside our house on a really cold day in December. We invited them inside to warm up while they waited for a tow truck and when they found out that Brendon and his brothers all went to TCI, they spent time trying to figure out if she (as TCI grad in the early 90s) went to school with anyone of Brendon's brothers. When her husband came to get them, turns out he (like most people in Transcona, including my mother-in-law) works at the Freshwater fish processing plant (did you know Winnipeg has a fish processing plant?? I sure didn't...), then we started the whole conversation over again trying to figure out if the husband remembers my mother-in-law. Thank goodness the daughter doesn't work at New Flyer or else we'd have to link her to our friends.

At the same lunch last week, a woman admitted to me that she's lived in Transcona and gone to the same T-cona church for 32 years but is still referred to as "new to the area", but her kids are "neighbours" because they're born/raised here, and yes, came back to raise their families. Yup, it's more like Pinawa than I'd like to admit.

5) Coffee shops.
We don't have one. Seriously. There's neighbourhoods elsewhere in the city that have 2 or 3 on a single corner but the closest Starbucks is Regent and Lag. Depending on how you draw the boundaries, it means Transcona doesn't have a Starbucks. And Timmy's? Only 2. There's a Timmy's inside the Safeway on Kildare (Transcon Proper) but no stand alone Tim's until you go down Regent, past the casino, where you find 2 within a block of each other.

6) Pink flamingos?
I don't know where this notion that T-cona is filled with tropical plastic birds but I've never seen one.

7) Jacked up chromed out trucks with swamp tires and growling engines?
Sadly, yes. We've got that in spades. I'm sure Princess Auto can't keep the "Calvin peeing on the Ford logo" sticker in stock because they're everywhere here! In T-cona's defense, there was a truck down the street in West End that was covered in chrome diamond plate so there are men with Freudian complexes throughout the city.

Holidays!!

Normally, while you're on holidays, in the back of your mind is always the thought "what's going on at the house", especially in this province where November can be either freezing cold and rupturing pipes, or a freak storm creates a random flood that can destroy a basement. We've always had wonderful friends and family coming to our house to look after our Kitty and this time, Brendon's parents will be coming by each day to give Kitty her special pills and her special food (low protein so her kidney failure doesn't progress faster). The pills have to be wrapped in a chewy treat so they don't have to wrestle her to the ground and ram it into her throat; she may be old, skinny, toothless, and clawless but she can be extra nasty to strangers. But this trip, we have added security from our neighbour. Oh yeah, one of the neighbour's house has an extensive camera system that monitors his house 24/7, with a live feed on a password protected website, and is backed up daily onto DVDs. Yup, we live next to Fort para-Knox. He has, the last time I counted on the way to the mail box, 7 cameras that covers 3/4 the radius of his house; 2 are night vision, 1 has a microphone, there's even 1 on the door bell. If anything were to happen to our house, as he told Brendon one day, he's got it on disc. He said that he can't "see into your house or anyting". This is supposed to make us feel welcome to the neighbourhood?! It's creepy creepy creepy. But being thousands of miles away and knowing that he's "covering" our house, is pretty reassuring. Just wonder if insurance can give us a discount for his paranoia?
I wonder if he's reading this...
I wonder if he's reading this as I type it next to the window near one of the night vision cameras....

Second Honeymoon!

In a few weeks, we're going on our second honeymoon! Feel free to start hating us. Hard to believe it's been a year since we were on our first honeymoon in the Dominican! We've been saving up our Air Miles for years and years until we'd have enough for a decent trip. Last year, we were *close* to having enough, so a year later, and many many trips to Rona, the Liquor Mart (yeah, that was a lot of work and arm twisting...) and Safeway for bonus miles, between the two of us we managed to collect about 8500 Air Miles. It is enough that the trip costs us 1/3 the normal price. The trip, for both of us, for a week, all-inclusive, is only costing us $900 instead of $2600. Did I mention that you can feel free to start hating us? Yeah, well, when you're only saddled with a ridiculous mortgage and a cat with kidney failure that requires pills, shots and special expensive food, you may as well blow all your Air Miles and nearly a grand on a trip. You'd be stupid not to!! We just loved the Gran Ventana and the Dominican Republic so much that we talk about going back all the time. I was looking at other all-inclusive resorts in the same area (Jamaica was top of my list, as was Costa Rica) but we just kept coming back to how much we loved the Gran Ventana. So, we're going back.

And yes, I know what you're all thinking so I'll beat you too it. No, this trip is not about making a baby. It's because we want to, can afford to, and will go to a fantastic resort, drink rum, and soak in Dominican sun for a week for $900. Nyah nyah nyah! :-P I know... I'm ridiculously mature for my age. But I get enough flack from my seriously-overly-concerned-about-my-reproductive-status co-workers with their constant opinions about why I'm not pregnant yet, that we need a week off in the 200% humidity, melanoma-inducing sun to get away from their daily advice about what worked for them, or recommendations from their friend of a friend of a niece of a neighbour. I'd like to pretend that I'm exaggerating about their daily comments, but I'm really not. I put on a little weight, they comment that I'm "starting to show" and rub my belly. Oh yes, that actually happened, (hence the new treadmill which I am using regularly). I complain that I'm not feeling well, eyebrows shoot up and a big grin spreads across their face with a "knowing" smile. Since when did sinus headache qualify as a symptom of pregnancy?! *sigh*

(follow-up... Just checked on WestJet Vacations and the trip we're taking is on sale for $750 per person, nearly $530 per person less than we're paying for the same dates. Dammit!!!)

The En Suite

The one room I whined and nagged Brendon the most about changing ever since we moved in, is our en suite. Actually, I whine and nag Brendon in every room, but the one I complain about the most is the en suite. It's white. It's really white. I'm talking "Blinded by the white" white. It's retina-searing, "okay, I'm awake now and seeing spots if you turn on the lights in the middle of the night to go pee" white. White linoleum (except where it's yellow from the previous owner's bath mat), white counters, white sink, white toilet, white vanity, white blinds and the inexplicable green "accent piece" behind the diagonal toilet and the window sill. Yeah, I don't get it either, but it's what was here when we moved in.
So I started my en suite transformation with baby steps and bought a new mirror. Then I bought melamine paint and did the vanity. We'd looked into getting a new vanity but because, for whatever reason, there's no shut-off valves on our plumbing, so we'd have to get someone in to do that first and melamine paint is $40, plumbers are $200. That just seemed like a lot more work than just painting it. Then I bought the new flooring, but that's currently under the bed, awaiting inspiration.

But after much nagging, Brendon finally relented (like he had a choice?) and said we can paint it this weekend so I rushed over to Home Depot before he changed his mind. I tsp'd the walls and we taped off all the baseboards and framing before painting. It's a small bathroom and he was done with the roller work in an hour while I finished the edges and trim. Here's the 75% completed en suite now. *sigh* Bliss.... :-)

AWESOME!!! The wall colour is C-I-L Tomorrow's Taupe with Cocoa Mousse on the cabinets. I prefer Behr paints but it didn't come in this colour, which is supposed to match the faux grout lines on the new flooring which hasn't been installed yet because it's going to be very difficult and we'll probably need some help with it. What you can't see in the photo is the diamond-shaped shower on the left that'll be one of the problems of putting in the new floor with the toilet being the other half of the problem. We can't do much about the shower, but the toilet? Looks like it'll be easier if we just lift it out and put the flooring around it instead of doing ten million cuts.

And in about a month from now, the view from our window will be this...

if Brendon's lucky! We're heading back to the Dominican for a second honeymoon!! We had enough Air Miles that we can go for a week for $900 for both of us. Normally, it's $1200 per person! Can't wait. If you ever get the chance to go to D.R., I highly recommend the Gran Ventana. It's a spectacular resort!!

New Clothes Dryer!!!!

Sooooooo excited!! I've heard that air drying your clothes is better for the environment and for your clothes, so we invested in a new $1400 dryer for the basement. It's even got mp3 capabilities!!

Ha ha ha. We upgraded from our stationary bike to a treadmill. I've wanted one for a while but the floor at the old house was tipsier than I was in my first year at university so we bought a bike instead. With the new house and LEVEL floors in the basement (shocking change!!) we decided to invest.

The upstairs bathroom is a work in progress. I finished the cabinets and we'd do the floors this weekend but I have a performance at the Prairie Theatre Exchange. Will post photos of the new bathroom later, but if you want to see pics of me dancing, go here.

All done

I hate saying these words, but I'll have to eat crow and utter those little words that Brendon has never heard from my lips.... "I was wrong."
*shudder* I was wrong when I said that I could find a dry waller for less than $1000. It's possible, but very difficult. I called one guy in Lac Du Bonnet three times without answer. Turns out, there's so much business in and around LDB that he can't come into the city for extra work. I called around to a number of places in the city. Those that did answer their phones said that they wouldn't come for anything less than a grand. Apparently, Naomi Campbell's attitude is infectious to the construction industry (though she will get out of bed for blood diamonds...). I did find one company that's too busy but knew someone that'll do it for cash. After a few phone calls, he said that'd come and install our 1 lousy piece of drywall for $400. Seriously. 1 piece of dry wall 8' long and 4' high! It took him four trips to the house over a weekend and a grand total of 47 minutes of work which works out to an incredible $8.51/MINUTE!! It's not bad enough that after all our collective years of post-secondary education that we never learned to shower, but to know that someone working under the table makes 25x what I make just blows my mind. However... to defend the construction industry... my university classes had dozens and dozens of MSc's and PhD's all studying med mic without any jobs to go into. I'm sure his class had maybe ten or twenty people in it, all whom had jobs lined up on the second day they showed up at school.

He wasn't out of the house 15 minutes before I was upstairs with the paint roller and a glint in my eyes!! Once the paint was dry, I tacked down the carpet and put in the baseboards. We're back to where we were 4 months ago, but here's the end result!!


Still a work in progress because we still haven't put up the photos and stuff on the wall, and I want a new computer desk instead of a kitchen table.

My next project, the en suite... or as Brendon calls it "The bathroom that no one else sees so why should we waste time and money decorating it???? Please please please don't make me paint anything else!" Or, as I call it, "The gawd aweful room with the white floors, white walls, white counter, white cupboards, white white white." First step is to paint the melamine cupboard a walnut brown, the same colour as the vase in the corner.



The rest will be a "mushroom" colour and I really like the fake tile floors at Home Depot. My "honey do" list is growing again.... someone warn Brendon!