The Dyson dilemma

Posted on January 29, 2013 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

I love the new carpet in the basement. It’s cozy and warm and soft. Its light colour is nice and neutral.

What I don’t love is cleaning it.

Don’t judge

The fluff. Oh the fluff!

I blame Matt and his black socks. The fact that the basement stairs start at the front door, a major traffic point for the house and source of many “bits” and dirt, doesn’t help.

My parents loaned us their old vacuum (old as in purchased in the 1970s before they moved to a house with central vacuum), but its suction kind of sucks–not in the good way a vacuum should. Our shop vac does a slightly better job, but it’s not really skilled at cleaning carpet and doing the whole basement with it is a pain.

If I’d been thinking ahead, perhaps I would have put in a central vacuum system when we had the walls open in the basement. However, I didn’t think of it, so we didn’t do it.

So now, I’m dealing with a fully carpeted basement and the weekly sock fluff invasion. And all I keep thinking is “Dyson.”

I really know nothing about them aside from the marketing hype. In the informal polls I’ve done so far with people at work, Dyson comes highly recommended. We’ve looked at them in stores, where, of course, the price tag makes me blanch.

So now I’m turning to you. Is a Dyson worth it? What version do I buy? Is there another brand that works just as well?

We have a cut pile carpet in the whole basement (1100 square feet). The stairs are carpeted too, so the vacuum can’t weigh a ton, or it needs to have an attachment that lets me easily go up the steps. The biggest requirement is that it easily and cleanly picks up the sock fluff and all of the little bits that accumulate every week. Someday, it will likely have to pick up dog hair too. Oh, and I need a vacuum that lasts. I don’t want to have to buy a new one–especially if I invest in a Dyson–anytime soon.

Please weigh-in in the comments. Do you have a Dyson? How does it work for you? Is there another vacuum that you recommend?

Home Goals 2013

Posted on January 6, 2013 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

I’ve never been big on new year’s resolutions, but there is a list that’s been building in my head for some time now. It is the Home Goals 2013 list.

After having most of last year sucked up by the basement-renovation-that-never-ends, my plan for this year is to avoid any other massive all-consuming projects. However, as you can probably imagine, there are a few to-dos I’d like to accomplish.

1. Landscaping. This is going to be the big one this year. As I’ve noted, we didn’t do any landscaping in 2012, so there is a huge need to get on top of the situation outside. However, with 129 acres of property, we will have to prioritize where we spend our energy.

Reestablish the flowerbeds around the house. Some will have to be rebuilt. Some will be extended. Everything will have to be weeded.
Level old fire pits at the top of the driveway and plant grass seed.
Build new fire pit close to the pond.
Tidy the east shore of the pond. The brush grew so thick over the past year that I can only access about ten feet of shoreline. Chainsaws and perhaps a bush hog will be required.
Put in a garden on the turnaround. This pile of dirt and rubble and weeds is approximately the size of a suburban backyard. A big lush flowerbed sounds like a better plan than mowing any additional grass.

I’m going with inspirational photos for this post, rather than reality. A lush garden with a brick path winding through it would be perfect for the turnaround. Source.

2. Painting.

Living room
Dining room
Kitchen
Main floor hallway

3. Living room fireplace. A wood burning fireplace was high on my wish list when we bought the house. We have one, but it needs a little work to make it exactly what I want.

Replace the woodstove-esque insert with an open hearth one.
Reface with fieldstone.
Put up a new rustic wood mantle.

Design by Burlington Architect Smith & Vansant Architects PC. Source.

4. Laundry room. The final section of the basement needs to be brought up to our new and improved standard.

Fix the leaky foundation wall.
Paint.
DIY a fun light fixture.
Build a drying rack.

A few other things will sneak in there, I’m sure, but here’s hoping 2013 brings slightly more time for enjoying rather than always working the farm.

How do you feel about resolutions? Do you have any home goals for 2013? The nester, the champion of annual home goals, published her list last week. It’s a bit more philosophical than mine. I think I’m still at the stage of working on the underlying form for our house and property. Once I have that established, I’ll build in a bit more philosophy.

Christmas comes early

Posted on December 14, 2012 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Merry Christmas to us!

Sorry for the lighting. Winter hours plus being underground make for challenging photography.

The sectional we bought for the basement–Matt’s and my Christmas present to each other–wasn’t slated to arrive until maybe Dec. 22. However, the Christmas elves were obviously working overtime, because the couch showed up early.

Despite the fresh snow, the couch arrived by truck rather than sleigh

There may have been a happy dance when I heard it was on its way… Okay, and a fist pump too.

The sections of the sectional as our delivery team elves set it up

We went with what I would term a semi custom sectional. It’s made by Decor-Rest, a Canadian company, and we ordered it through Smitty’s Fine Furniture, another Canadian company.

Semi-custom means we got to pick the configuration and the fabric from a selection of options. We went with a pretty neutral grey-black-white tweed fabric, and then I picked a few brightly coloured cushions to pep up the fun factor.

It’s probably not everyone’s taste, but I love the bright colours and retro look of the striped cushion

Ever since I first saw the basement, I knew I wanted a big corner sectional with a chaise. With this couch I definitely got my Christmas wish. The couch fits perfectly in the corner and has lots of space for Matt, me and anyone who comes to visit.

Although please do not sit in my seat

It’s incredibly comfortable too. In fact, there may have been an hour-long nap one evening when we were supposed to be working on finishing touches in Matt’s office.

I’m looking forward to a lot more of those soon! Maybe over Christmas vacation?

‘Twas a month before Christmas

Posted on November 29, 2012 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

‘Twas a month before Christmas and all through the house, there was scrubbing and dusting and vacuuming the couch.

(Not a perfect rhyme, I know).

Despite my earlier anxieties about hosting a big Christmas dinner before we were finished with renovations, everything came together–new carpet included–and the house was pretty presentable by the time Matt’s family arrived for the party last Saturday.

My main focus was on just having everything clean, so decor was mostly limited to the tables (and with 17 people for dinner, we needed two tables and lots of extra chairs).

I kept things simple with my go-to cream table cloths, a burlap runner down the middle, khaki napkins, a single candle centrepiece, some greenery, pine cones and our wedding china and crystal

The inspiration for the theme came from Mrs. Limestone’s woodsy place cards. Stefanie’s engravings are beautiful, and the animals were perfect for our rural setting.

I adjusted them slightly for our party, eliminating the tag portion and adding people’s names in George Gibson, a cool handwriting font I found via The Art of Doing Stuff. Then I tucked them into pine cones I picked up from behind the house and slipped them between the cutlery on everyone’s napkins.

I love the attitude this porcupine has!

The other adjustment I made was on the back of the cards, where I printed little bits of trivia about each person’s animal.

It might be a little cheesy, but people did enjoy reading about their animals. Little known fact: the porcupine with the largest quills (nearly a foot long) lives in Africa.

Of course, the decor is only one small part of a successful dinner party. The most important part–the food!–was a hit as well. While I was running around in the freshly fallen snow, gathering tree boughs and searching for similarly-sized pine cones, Matt took charge of our 20 pound turkey.

The best part of this shot is he’s not mugging for the camera. This was his actual facial expression as he was getting intimate with the turkey.

The fruits of Matt’s labour: a perfectly cooked turkey, a pile of dirty dishes, a bowl of stuffing and a sink full of vegetable peelings. (And yes, he did the clean-up as well as the cooking).

Before, during and after at the Christmas party.

According to the camera’s memory card, I spent the party doing things other than taking pictures, so I don’t have much documentation from the rest of the day. By all reports a good time was had by all. To return to where we started:

“We heard them exclaim ‘ere they drove out of sight, happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”

I hope everyone has a great weekend. Do you have a Christmas party to attend or host? A major meal to cook? A big cleaning blitz to complete? What’s your go-to decor for a dinner party? Anyone have any interesting porcupine facts or experiences to share?

My new pet

Posted on November 27, 2012 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

There’s yet another new addition at the farm, and this one is soft and fuzzy and warm and brings me much joy.

These are happy feet, in case you can’t tell. The novelty of going down to the basement without first putting on shoes still hasn’t worn off.

Our new carpet was installed on Friday, and the difference it makes in the basement is amazing.

After the nasty, stained, old carpet that came with the house and the bare concrete that we’ve been looking at for the past 8 months, even just the sight of the underpad going down was an incredible transformation.

Our installers likely thought I was slightly odd given how I cooed over the underpad as soon as it was installed

Between the underpad and the carpet, the basement floor is extremely cushy on our tootsies–and our tushies, which is handy given that we currently don’t have any furniture.

Matt and I have both spent time sitting on our imaginary couch across from our imaginary TV. The shelf standing in for a TV stand is real, for anyone who’s wondering if they’re seeing things.

When it comes to selecting carpet, the array of choices is somewhat befuddling, in my opinion. Matt and I made our decision very quickly, mostly because we wanted the carpet installed as soon as possible so that this renovation could be finished as soon as possible.

Here’s the details:

Who: Alexanian in Burlington, Ontario. They have a good local reputation and had been used by a few people we know, including Matt’s Dad.

What: Spillguard underpad, the thickest offered by Alexanian, topped with a nylon cut loop carpet in a light beige colour

Why: For the coziness. I know carpet isn’t a lot of people’s first choice for flooring, but for a basement, it’s at the top of my list. In terms of the specifics of what we chose, I probably would have gone with a Berber or loop carpet. However, Matt prefers the plusher feel of the cut loop carpets, so I deferred to him on the texture while I chose the colour. I may regret going with such a light colour someday, but I really wanted something neutral.

Where: The whole basement, about 1100 square feet, including 11 stairs.

All of the stairs, including risers, stringers and treads, got carpet.

Carpet installation is a major milestone in the basement renovation. We still have some paint touch-ups to do, light fixtures to install, (don’t talk to me about the bathroom that needs to be tiled), and a few other finishing touches, but overall the basement is now livable and useable. And it looks fabulous.

As much as I disliked that concrete floor, it did have one nice element.

A secret message commemorating our renovation

Is it too harsh to say I’m hoping that we never see this message again?

Monday night football

Posted on November 11, 2012 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

360 feet: the length of an American football field (including end zones)

384 feet: the length of trim currently in our basement–all of which required two coats of paint

Matt and a portion of our 23 pieces of casing

We’re at the two minute warning on this basement renovation. Walls are painted, carpet is scheduled for next week. The next play is to install the trim.

We bought pre-primed MDF casings and baseboards, but they still needed two coats of paint–Benjamin Moore Cloud White in a pearl finish. So I strapped on my knee pads and got to work.

Didn’t you know painting trim is a full contact sport?

Me and a portion of our 18 pieces of baseboard

The task for this week is to install all of the trim. It’s team MJ versus seven doorways and five rooms.

Cheer us on as we head for the end zone!

Saturday night love letters

Posted on November 4, 2012 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

For our Saturday night date, Matt and I primed his office–it’s an exciting life we lead, I know.

Given that we were on a date, I tried to inject some romance into the evening and left a note for him while I was cutting.

He wrote back.

It’s clear where his heart lies. He even framed his message.

Ultimately, the love letters, the bacon and even the retina searing green primer were all covered by two coats of Benjamin Moore’s Manor Green–Matt’s choice of colour. Helping your husband paint his office forest green? That’s true love in my opinion.

Anyone else have a hot date this weekend? How did you spend your Saturday night?

Shades of grey

Posted on October 28, 2012 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Blame it on being away at a course for two days and missing husband and home. While driving back to the farm, I decided that the best colour to paint the basement is the one that Matt liked the most. After all, the basement was his main priority when house hunting, and I’ve said that my priority is to make it nice for him.

There were six finalists in the running: two off-whites, two creams and two greys. When I asked you what you’d choose, one of the off-whites, White Dove (my favourite), came out on top with Misty Gray (Matt’s favourite) in second.

We decided to make it Misty. However, it turned out not to be that simple.

I went and bought a 5 gallon pail of Misty Gray. We put the first coat on the long room. And I didn’t like it.

The grey was so subtle that it looked to me like we’d painted the room white. As much as I liked White Dove, now that we’d chosen to go grey, I wanted the colour to be noticeable.

So we returned to Benjamin Moore with the pail and asked them to adjust the colour. The next tint on the fan deck was Bunny Gray, and that’s what we aimed for–keeping in mind that the colour wouldn’t be exact given that we’d already used more than a gallon from the pail.

There were two things I was unsure about though: I thought that Bunny might still be too light, and I was also concerned that we wouldn’t have enough paint in our pail to cover the whole basement. And with our custom mixed colour, we likely would have trouble matching it exactly if we came up short.

So I decided to order a single gallon of Thundercloud, the next shade darker after Bunny. When we got home, we dumped the remains of our Misty sample pail along with the gallon of Thundercloud into our pail of Bunny.

Misty is the light blob at the top, Thundercloud is the swirl in the middle.

Matt mixed it all together, and I crossed my fingers as I picked up my paint brush. Fortunately, I was happy with our Franken-colour, and we went to town.

Sorry for the picture quality here. It was dark by the time we finished painting, and lighting in the basement isn’t the greatest. This is the future ping-pong area in the main room of the basement.

Running to the store for the retint and being away from home for a couple of days cost us a bit of painting time, so we still have a little more to do yet. But with the colour finalized and a few free evenings this week, we’re expecting to make good progress this week.

Have you ever mixed your own paint colour? How did it work out for you? What do you think of our custom shade of grey? Given my subject matter and the title of this post, I feel like I have to ask if there are any Shades of Grey fans out there? I haven’t read it myself. Do you recommend it?

The greatest dilemma of all time

Posted on October 21, 2012 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

The title of this post may be a little over dramatic. I am not the first to face this conundrum or to wrestle with this question. However, the angst, the uncertainty, the pressure of this choice is well known by many.

What paint colour do I choose?

With the conclusion of the drywall phase of the basement, we progress to the painting stage. We (optimistically, as it turned out) bought primer months ago, so last week Matt and I started priming the basement.

Matt priming the long room with the roller

Matt rolls on the primer in the long room

You would think with 5 1/2 months of drywalling (still can’t get over how long it took us), 7 1/2 months of farm ownership, and 9 1/2 months of knowing we were going to be painting the basement, I’d have figured this out by now. But I haven’t.

Most of the time in this project, I was planning on going grey. However, we’re planning on buying a charcoal grey sectional and the carpet will likely have grey tones in it. Painting the walls grey too was starting to seem like a lot. So over the last little while, I started thinking about other options.

The criteria for the colour are

Light – I want the basement to be fairly bright, but, with only one window, pale paint is my best bet.
Neutral – I really don’t want to repaint any time soon, but I may want to redecorate every so often. A neutral colour gives me the option to switch up the other colours in the basement when the mood hits.
Works for the whole area – We have a fairly large basement, and the main room, long room, laundry room, stairwell and hallway are all going to painted the same colour (click here if you need a floor plan refresher).

I ended up buying samples of six different colours. Originally, I bought four, but then I didn’t like any of them, so I went back and bought two more.

Clockwise from top left: Cloud White, Distant Gray, Misty Gray, Mayonnaise, Linen White, White Dove. (All colours from Benjamin Moore).

This is my first time sampling colours on the actual wall. Usually I just trust my gut and go with a paint chip that I think will work. However, this is also my first time painting my forever house (bathroom aside), so I feel like it matters more that I get this right.

So, in addition to sampling the colours, I am appealing to you for help. What do you think?

Have a favourite colour that’s not covered in my samples? Let me know in the comments what you recommend.

The dark side

Posted on August 27, 2012 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

I may be getting ahead of myself, but the other night I did this.

Work continues on the drywall in the basement, but we’re all done in the bathroom. So before I put the tile on the walls, I decided to put on some paint.

Yes, I should be sanding and pasting, but it’s so much easier to open a can of paint and brush it around a small room. Never underestimate the power of instant gratification when it comes to renovations.

In fact, I was so pleased, I may not have stopped with just the prime.

I decided to go really dark with Matt’s bathroom. It’s a pretty small room, and there are no windows, so my first instinct was to choose a really light paint. However, between the built-in shelving, tile and a big mirror, only one wall is going to be painted. Therefore, there’s room for some drama. Plus, everything else is going to be white or mirrored, so there will likely be enough lightness that the room doesn’t feel like it’s closing in on you.

The colour I chose is Wrought Iron from Benjamin Moore. It’s a really dark grey that reads as black at times.

I’m hoping that it will play well with the grey tones in the tile.

And that’s another benefit of painting at this point in the project: no spatters or drips on our beautiful new tile.

This is my first time choosing a paint colour this dark, and so far I’m loving how it looks. If it turns out that I don’t love it later on, it’s simple enough to repaint one little wall.

Anyone else a fan of the dark side? What are your tricks for dealing with a small window-less room?