More Puppy Pics

Ok... I am sorry already, this blog is going to have a lot of puppy pictures on it for the next while. Angie is such a great puppy. Super fun to get to know her personality more each day. Tag is still getting adjusted to having her here, but I think he is making great progress. By the end of the day, they were sleeping next to each other on the floor... so... that's a positive step I think!

I should have been knocked out with these two... I took them on a hour long mountain walk... all walks around here are mountainous, you can not walk on many flat areas around here.

New addition to the family!

So Brian, Tag and I welcomed a new puppy into our family! She is a Husky German Shepard cross and came from the Northwest Territories as part of a rescue... the name she came with is Angie, but, we are going to change that. Brian is going to name her. Unfortunately Brian is in Calgary on business right now, so he will be coming home to a bit of chaos... well, not too bad as Angie is a really great and well behaved puppy at 12 weeks old. Tag has really been the bigger baby about the transition but is warming up to her quickly.

Angie in NWT at the SPCA

After having arrived out our place... taking er easy, trying to  not upset Tag!

This little one likes to drink her water with one paw in the bowl!

I was told she will grow into her big ears!

Anyone have any ideas for a cool name for her? Feel free to suggest!

Kitchen Reno - Complete!!!!

The Kitchen reno is complete!! For my first time doing a reno, it turned out better than I had imagined especially considering what I had to work with. It cost just under $300 in supplies and then all my time (and I mean ALOT of time), to sand everything down, prime it, paint it, install new hardware, etc. Special thanks to Jeanie for all the great advice, I know she has done this a few times over now!

Drawers all were refinished and new liners put down... much cleaner!!

New pulls and knobs installed in the proper spots (not the center of the doors... that was weird)

Nice clean repainted cupboards all with new liners

Special thanks to Jeanie for all the great advice, I know she has done this a few times over now!

Kitchen Reno - Before

So when we moved into the Peachland rental... the kitchen... well, you see the picture... it's dated. And why are the knobs in the middle of the cabinets and made of plastic in peach? Ugh... Anyhow, still didn't look bad. It wasn't until the night we moved in that I opened the drawers in cupboards and declared that there was NO WAY I was putting my dishes in this kitchen! Yes yes, I know you all think I am particular and I am not disagreeing with you, however, when it comes to kitchens, I think we all have a certain level of what is 'ok'. The house is as old as I am, so you can imagine the years of kitchen goo that can build up. The sink was leaking and smelled rotten on the underside... I could go on... but, decided that I would ask the landlords if I could renovate the kitchen (at my expense), I couldn't see any other way around this. They said yes thankfully... lucky for them that I am willing to do it, but brave of them to trust a complete stranger with their house! Keep in mind, I have never done a kitchen reno before... I just had ideas and figured it couldn't be that bad to do! Here I am almost 2 months after moving in finally finished my project as of an hour ago! Thought I would share my pictures with you so you can see what all I did... must say, I am pretty proud of myself!!!

Kitchen Reno - Taking it apart!

First step... start taking the kitchen apart! All the drawers needed to be removed, doors taken down, hinges and screws removed. I took a few pictures of the nastiness inside the cupboards....

Drawers were so scungy that previous drawer liners were still stuck in them

This was just sticky and covered in cat hair

Under the sink was damp and rotten looking... some sort of sticker was put along the back edge probably as some sort of seal but it was all curling up and gross so I just pulled it out.

The back sides of the cupboards were covered with years of food drippings that just needed to be sanded off

Kitchen Reno - Sanding

I sanded down all the cabinets, inside and out with my very first power tool, my porter cable orbital sander (Thanks Dad!!) When I went to Home Depot to get more sanding discs, I laughed to myself when the salesman tried to warn me about sanding too long in one area... I guess I don't look like an experienced sander (I have spent countless hours sanding in the shop working for Dad). 

Even after sanding, under the sink still looked pretty bad... primer will hide all this!

Kitchen Reno - Primer & Paint

Amazing what a few coats of primer and paint can do to a Kitchen... when I saw how great this all looked, I really had a hard time with my color choices... I realize I neglected to mention my plan was to do the kitchen in a dark brown with brushed nickel fixtures... once I saw how bright the white looked, I almost changed my plan... almost... Brian and I had a talk and we both decided that I should proceed with the original plan.

No more rot!!! Yay!

Kitchen Reno - Burnt Out..

I realize I don't have pictures of the kitchen after I painted the exterior of the cabinets the dark brown! Anyhow, it looked great. I loved my choice of color, Behr Spiced Clove (I think that's the name). I must admit though... everything I did was ALOT of work and once I started working the new job and the old job at the same time, I just dropped the whole project for a while. It was at a point where the kitchen was usable, there was just no doors on anything... the doors were sitting in a pile awaiting sanding. I had removed all the ugly knobs from the center of the doors and filled the holes with dap (which was challenging considering the doors were soooo thin...). It wasn't until I was sick of having my cutlery and utensils on the counter that I finally got to work on the drawers at least!

Kitchen Reno - An exciting moment

After sanding, priming and painting all 4 drawers, I installed my first 'pull' and put the drawer in the cabinet! It was starting to come together, really and exciting moment. Thanks to those great youtube people, I watched a demo on how to install a pull first and got to work! Installing the pulls wasn't that hard, just lots of work with tape measures and drills. Drilling those holes is a bit nerve wracking as you don't want to make a mistake. 

Kitchen Reno - The doors

The day before yesterday, I got a spark of motivation and decided it was time to get those cabinet doors done! I dragged everything outside, set up a table and started sanding. Then, I didn't stop there, I started priming all the doors too... did I mention there is 16 pieces? After 3 straight hours of sanding and priming it was after 9pm, pitch black in the back yard and I was just finishing my last pieces... I had to finish because that meant I could paint the next day. And that is exactly what I did! I spent the entire day, first, painting then after letting things dry (not too long as the paint was starting to bubble in the sun outside) I brought the doors in and propped them in their places in the kitchen (pictured above). This was pretty exciting, the end was getting close. Hinges... ugh... I drilled all the holes, started installing the doors and some where about half way through I realized I did not have enough screws to finish the job! I wanted to at least get all the doors up so I stole screws from other doors and made it all work. In the end, I was missing about 60 screws... how was this kitchen ever held together?! I didn't throw anything out...?? The kitchen looked amazing... next the pulls for the doors... I drilled the hole for the first door and found out the 1" screw that came with the knobs was too short! Ugh... I called it quits for the day... nothing could be done without a home depot trip at this point!!

Exploring behind our house....

Brian, Tag and I went exploring out in the Mountains right behind our house. We went about 25-30 km up gravel dirt roads and saw what there was to see. We found an area called Headwaters Lakes and wow was it amazing and SOOOOO quiet. All these little lakes all next to each other and these cool little cabins all around. There seemed to be a forestry campsite in the middle of it all... sure would be a cool place to camp. Here are some pictures I took along the way (I decided like like the old corrals... well, even though old looking, are still being used).

Brian at one of the lakes at Headwaters

Checking out a trail to the cabins at Headwaters

You know I hate them, but it kind of reminded me of our old outhouse at the cabin! Wrong color, right moon!

Ok... this little ground hog is what cause Tag to have his first encounter with a cattle guard. Long story short, we are lucky Tag didn't break his legs...