Sarah's Shades!

Last night we got the first coat of paint on the basement living room walls! YIPPEE! That said, I won't be revealing it to you quite yet. Rather, I needed to share with you my review of the paint we picked.

When we started the process of picking a paint colour, I already knew what direction I wanted to go with the basement. B told me he would swing by Lowe's and pick up paint samples he liked (in the hue I was thinking) and would let me pick the final colour. I asked specifically if he was going to Lowe's to grab some chips of Sarah Richardson's new hues that she has released in collaboration with Para Paints.

After looking at a number of paint chips at home, we finally settled on the colour Pearl.

According to Sarah's advice on her website, Pearl goes great with soft blues and greens. Something we had been thinking of... but I'm also leaning towards throwing in some bolder blues. You'll see when it's all come together.

After settling on Pearl (via paint chip), B headed back to Lowe's to get us a sample can. Downside? The Para paints aren't offered in sample cans, so we colour matched a Valspar and brought home a sample of "Muslin Wrap". It was a little bit more yellow than Sarah's colour, but we were okay with it, so we knew Pearl was our perfect match. Even better was that Sarah's paint only cost us $29 (CDN) for a can, while Valspar paint will run you over $30 (CDN). Thanks for making your fantastic colours so affordable Sarah!

Last night was the big night. I cracked open Sarah's "Pearl" paint and was so happy to not be slapped in the face with your typical, harsh paint smell. There is still a scent to the paint, but because it is low VOC it is far less obnoxious. It really makes the whole painting experience that much better.

The best part though? The coverage of the paint is FANTASTIC! With only one thin coat of Behr's drywall primer on our new walls, we got awesome coverage with our first coat of paint! Thanks Sarah and Para! It was an absolute dream to paint with, and is the perfect light colour to brighten up our space, but still bring in a bit of colour on the walls. The rest of our colour I plan to obtain through colourful toss pillows, an area rug and some accessories. I also have one furniture piece in mind that I hope to paint.

We're still working away feverishly to finish up the basement so we can share it with you and our family and friends... but also so that we can take some time to relax and enjoy the rest of the summer before we move onto our next reno.

Now time for me to get back to it. Still so much to do...

Excuse Our Absence...

I have a ton of content to share, but no time to share it! We spent a large portion of our weekend working away in the basement. More done than I could possibly share right now... I may just wait until the big reveal. We're speeding towards having a bunch of guests next week during our "staycation" (We can't WAIT!), and we are thrilled to show them what we've done! We're also having an open house on the 17th and have invited tons of family and friends to see the work we've done since we got the keys last July 17th!

For now, I'll leave you with a sneak peak of some of the work that's been done in the last little while (pictures care of B)... and I'll be back soon with some more exciting ones (hopefully)!

Basement stairs before - there were no risers in these bad boys...

Basement stairs after risers are in and new closet is framed and drywalled. Seating bench to the right, inspired by Aubrey + Lindsay's Kitchen seating bench!

One shower wall completed - late Friday night/early Saturday morning! Lots more completed since this photo was taken!

We're so thrilled with our progress, and I can't wait to share the finished product! Keep your eyes out. It will hopefully be coming VERY soon! Hope you all enjoyed a fantastic weekend, whether you were celebrating Canada or the US (we did both!)

Oh Baby!

B had to work over night last night... so he's taking a little hiatus from the blog world today. He'll be back next week with the second half of his blogging about our multi-zone heat pump. In the meantime, some fun stuff to share!

It seems like everyone we know is having babies (except us)... which we're okay with right now. We're a long way away from that actually... so we're enjoying being Aunt Kerry and Uncle B.

Two of our close friends are expecting a little boy this fall, and this past weekend I stepped forward to ask Mommy if I could help decorate the nursery. She excitedly agreed, and last night we sat down to talk, paint, colour and style.

We started too look at pictures for inspiration and this is the one we landed on.

Image from lucyandcompany.com via Aubrey + Lindsay's Blog

It's pretty cute, right? Mommy was surprised at how much she loved the grey, and since Daddy paint's for a living - he may even attempt the argyle (and B stepped up to the plate if they decide to go for it). So we'll see how the walls turn out.

Now, the happy couple will be moving into a new place in less than a month. In the meantime, Mommy and I will be doing some shopping to see what we can find based on a little moodboard I created to give the two of them an idea of the colour scheme. We'll see what the furniture actually ends up being, but here is our jumping off point...

I created this using Olio Board (which I was made aware of by @amandalaird on Twitter - Thanks!). It was super easy, and I found some interesting pieces. Mommy fell in love with the hippo, so I'm on the hunt to find one for her. The rest, will have to come as we go along!

I've just recently been in love with orange for boys rooms, ever since seeing the room that Ashley Ann did for her three boys, and I think that this little man will be able to grow into this one! First shopping day is this Sunday. Looking forward to it, and can't wait to share the progress with you as we build little Baby P his new room.

What do you think of Orange for a Boy's room, or a nursery? Or are you more into traditional blue for boys and pink for girls?

Weekend Recap

WOW! What a weekend! Left for Ottawa Friday morning and spent Saturday cuddling with this little man...

Not my photo... but I do have a ton of them that I haven't had a chance to upload yet...

While a whole lot of this was going on back in Toronto (how embarrassing)...

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...and B was slaving away down here...

While he accomplished A LOT (that I can't wait to share) I accomplished very little in the studying department for my final this evening. Once I have that wrapped up, we'll be as busy as ever racing towards finishing the basement in time for our party on July 17th, celebrating the one year anniversary of moving into our very first home!

Hope you all enjoyed your weekend, and that those of you in the GTA were far away and unaffected by the madness that marred our downtown core on Saturday.

Fancy Friday Love

Another Friday, which of course means a collection of Fancy Finds!

First off, Shannon from 8 foot 6 shared this gorgeous photo of her bedroom this past Sunday.

Isn't is lovely? I guess I just love the clean simplicity of it. If you haven't stopped by 8 foot 6 before, now is probably a good time. Shannon is in the homestretch on their basement renovation! It's been incredible to follow all of the work that is going on over at their place and I'm itching to see the final product! I just KNOW it will be gorgeous! Oh yeah, and Shannon ALWAYS shares the best craigslist finds for the Toronto area! Go check her out!

These paper flowers are absolutely gorgeous! Stumbled across them on the blog Oh Happy Day!

After spying these here, I headed over to Livia Cetti's website, and learned she had done some floral and prop styling for Kate Spade! No wonder I loved her flowers so much! You can check out her work at The Green Vase!

I'm sure you all caught it, but I loved the feature that Camila from High-Heeled Foot in the Door did this past week on Vintage Travel Posters! I love to travel and always try to find a way to bring the places we've traveled to into our home. No surprise, I enjoy doing that through unique prints. A while ago I shared with you these cute little gocco prints from Art Shark Designs.

This sweet little NYC print already hangs in our home as a reminder of the place we first met and fell in love. I revisited the Etsy shop a little while ago and discovered that Megan (the shop owner) has also recently created a Dublin print!

I'd love to add this as well, as a little reminder of our trip to the Emerald Isle. I could go in the direction of vintage travel posters... but I'm tempted to create a small gallery with a collection of these fabulous gocco prints to represent our favorite cities! Aren't they fantastic?

Want this floor for our front entrance...

Photo is from CAR Möbel, found on automatism. Isn't it lovely? Any ideas where I can find something like it?

Hope you had a week full of beautiful things as well, with more to come this weekend. I'm off to Ottawa once again, this time for a bridesmaid dress fitting, my best friends new condo house warming, and a visit with one of my favorite boys of all time! I can hardly believe little Brayden is almost 3 months old now! Unreal! Happy weekend everyone!

Searching...

Okay... I absolutely fell in love with the table in the pictures below. I stumbled across it while getting my daily dose of Desire to Inspire yesterday, via this post.

Yes, the table in the foreground of the photo... with the wooden legs! Seen anything like it!? Know where I can get it? I'm looking for the perfect round table for our little living room... and I'm pretty sure this is it.

(The whole apartment is pretty incredible... go check out that blog post!)

Nuts 'N Bolts - Going Ductless

Installing a multi-zone split heat pump may sound like an intimidating task given the fact that the name alone sounds like a serious piece of hardcore technology. However it might be a lot easier than you envisioned, provided that you have a basic electrical and plumbing know-how.

First, I'll give you a little background as to what exactly one of these units are and how they operate along with what lead us to make the decision to go this route instead of a traditional Furnace/AC combo.

From the Mitsubishi Website:
"Like your refrigerator, heat pumps use electricity to pump refrigerant and transfer heat from one space to another. When we transfer heat from within our home to the outdoors, we call it “air conditioning”. Conversely, when we transfer heat from the outdoors to within the home, we call it a “heat-pump”. Because refrigerant is naturally much colder than outdoor temperatures even on a very cold day, it actually absorbs heat from outdoors, and transfers the heat it absorbed outside to within your home. The refrigerant’s physical properties do this naturally. What you pay for is the electricity to pump refrigerant via copper tubing from outdoors to indoors. Because we move the heat rather than create it (as electric baseboard or resistant heat does), we can deliver up to 4 times the heat for the energy we consume!"

http://mitsubishi-mini-split.com/?p=10

The heat pump system is comprised of two main parts, the outdoor unit which houses the pump and the condenser and the indoor unit which distributes the conditioned air. The outdoor unit is similar to the traditional AC condenser that sits in many homeowners front or side yards like an old broken down Chevy. The heat pump condenser is much more compact and can be placed just about anywhere outside the house. The other difference is that this condenser can be reversed to provide not only cool air, but heat in the winter as well.

Indoor Unit

The indoor unit resembles that of an air conditioner and base board heater love-child. Being a multi-zone system you can place multiple units throughout the interior of the house and choose to heat or cool certain areas at a time, increasing efficiency. Depending on the size of the system you can have up to 4 interior units for each outdoor condenser. Our system is designed for 20,000BTU with each indoor unit providing 10,000BTU. The indoor unit is comprised of a blower with vanes which directs the air flow through the apparatus providing hot/cold air into the house. The indoor and outdoor units are connected by copper tubing(to transfer the refrigerant) and electrical wiring.

Outdoor Unit

The outdoor unit has a large fan mounted vertically that acts the same way as your automobile radiator does. It draws air through the metal radiator composed of aluminum fins containing the refrigerant. The unit also contains a pump which transfers the heated or cooled refrigerant to the indoor units. In the summer it uses the air to cool the fins turning the refrigerant into a liquid which chills the air and in the winter it heats the liquid to a gas, creating heat and warming the fins. One downfall of this system is that it is only effective to -15*C, so in the event of any extreme cold temperatures, the system switches to defrost mode and no longer heats the air. As a backup we will be installing a gas fireplace in the basement as well as utilizing the wood fire place in the living room upstairs.

When we made the offer on our house and had our home inspection, (nobody should leave home without one) it was confirmed that the furnace and AC unit were both 20+ years old and on their last legs. We figured they would have to be put out of their misery sooner rather than later and to avoid the risk of losing the house in renegotiation, we bit the butter and made due. Shortly after moving in, we realized that the AC barely made a dent in the upstairs oven we call our bedroom. Fast forward to the fall, Kerry and I attended the fall home show in Toronto in search of a reputable company to price up some new HVAC systems for us.

We grabbed many brochures and talked to various 'experts' on different units and we felt most were just talking heads who just wanted to sell us the most pricey, luxurious model to up their sales quota for the year. We found one guy who truly seemed he wanted the best for us and talked us down from a Cadillac and showed us something more in the Honda range.

I had scheduled an in house visit with him to show him our current system and provide us with a quotation. When he came by we talked about what I was looking for in a new furnace and AC and that I would probably need to upgrade the duct work as well since there was no return air ducting in the upstairs, hence the oven-like quality of temperature at night. We discussed various plans and the quote he gave me was something in the $6000-7000 range for a new system including the duct upgrades(this did not include any and all repairs to the drywall that would be ripped up in the process). It also didn't take into consideration the necessary upgrades to the existing duct work which was a result of the previous installer's less than stellar job.

After presenting the price I discussed doing the duct work myself to save a thousand dollars or more and just before he left he asked me if I had checked out the ductless system at the show. I had never heard of it and how no idea what they entailed. After handing me some literature he priced up the unit for me and instantly I became a fan even though the price was comparable to the furnace/ac combo. However no ducts meant cleaner, filtered air being distributed throughout the house (with two dogs and 2x the fur and dander this was a huge plus) as well as no need for expensive metalwork and drywall replacement.

One of the perks of being in construction is the connections you make along the way. Lucky for us, I had made friends with a subcontractor that had done some welding on my previous project. He had mentioned that he had his HVAC license and dabbled in that work on the weekends. I gave him a call and he told me he would look into pricing one up and get back to me.

Once he had quoted me a price with a savings of nearly $1500 plus installation materials I was sold. Scheduling in time to install the unit was a project on its own as we were both busy most weekends but we were finally able to free up some time after about 3 months of trying and thankfully the installation (which Ill get into in my next post) only took about 3 days.

In Part II of Going Ductless I will go over the installation process which is a lot easier than you may think. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them for you. Cheers.