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Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Bye,... ciao 2015!

It's been a year since we had our closing. I can remember all the mixed feelings really well, I mean the mix of happiness and anxiety...

Seeing our house the way we planned it to be was awesome. Learning how to install the appliances, moving ourselves and installing a garage door opener (with the help of our best friends) were also great adventures.

I had so many plans for this blog and for my house however I didn't have the time I needed to make all of them happen. But I cannot complain, we achieved so much this year,... we learned so much about the house and how things work.

Some milestones lived this year:

  • we moved into our home;
  • we had a great time with our friends;
  • we went to Brazil to visit our family;
  • we saved our grass (sodding);
  • we had lots of visits to Home Depot, Lowe's, Canadian Tire, Ikea and of course Home Sense;
  • we enjoyed two amazing road trips, one to Frankenmuth and another to New York (posts almost ready)
  • our first Halloween was spectacular;
  • the Christmas atmosphere is still around;
And right now we are preparing the 1 year inspection to be submitted soon. Luckily we didn't have any major issue - only some cosmetic things.

Overall, 2015 was a great year. Just a quick recap:

Installing our appliances
Kiki helping us

Temporary shades - that are there for almost a year now!

Halloween


Halloween

First Christmas in Our New Home



Wishing you guys a fabulous 2016!



Wednesday, December 23, 2015

Christmas...

I can't believe another year is almost gone.

So it brings us to the beauty of the end of the year events. I love Christmas,... and this is the first one in our home.

We didn't have a Christmas tree (and ornaments) till this year. It was awesome to enjoy each moment that we planned and prepared our home for the "most wonderful time of the year".

Kiki tried to help us, but we thought she wasn't so comfortable being a Christmas tree!



We got some special ornaments from Bronner's - a store in Frankenmuth, Michigan - that is known for being the world's largest Christmas store. They customize ornaments for you. Of course we couldn't miss this opportunity, since is our first Christmas in our Home.

It says: First Christmas in Our New Home

We also got some ornaments that represent us. Ron chose a snowman in a motorcycle and we picked one for Kiki - so cute;





I am so excited for our Holidays!




We wish you a very merry Christmas and a great 2016!

Monday, November 9, 2015

Halloween

Last weekend we celebrated Halloween.

It was really special for us since it was the first Halloween in our new house. I know that trick or treat has been a Halloween tradition for a long time but it was also our first time we experienced it.

We got decoration for the house from Michaels, Homesense and Dollarama.

We don't have kids yet, however we dressed up (including Kiara) and waited for the kids in front of our place. It was so much fun!!!

Some kids were scared when they saw Ron holding a skull,...

Check some pics:





Kiara also had fun!




It was a spook-tacular Halloween for us,... 

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Temporary shades

I decided to write about something that most of you are familiar with, however I have lived in Canada for almost 3 years without knowing they existed. Yes, I am talking about Temporary Shades.

Before moving into our home we rented a small apartment and I was hesitant to install any type of shade because I didn't want to make holes in the walls. Honestly, I didn't want to give property management excuses to charge us for "fixing" them later.

I didn't know temporary shades existed.

They are a great solution if you want/need to have some type of covering on your windows for privacy until you feel you are ready to buy the "final" ones.

The shades we bought are called Redi Shades and we got them at Home Depot. You don't need any type of hardware to install them. We used a utility knife to cut accordingly to fit in our windows. The top of the shades come with an adhesive stripe, you just peel off the protective backing and stick the adhesive in place.

In the beginning all our shades kept falling every two days and I didn't understand what was going on. I talked to a friend who told me she has had hers for a long time and never had any issues. She sent me a pic of her shades and it made me realize that I stick them in the wrong place.

Since then, every time one of them fell, we re-stuck it in the correct place.


You can find the shades in different styles, I got the white shades for our home, but they also have a blackout style.

This type of shades are a great temporary solution and they are not expensive. So you can get some privacy until you decide which window coverings you want permanently.




Thursday, July 9, 2015

We are back!

I know, ... I know,... It's been a looooong time.

But we are back full of ideas, projects, pics for you.

As you know we a first time home buyers so our projects will be an adventure (for us). I promise you will be able to follow all our trials, experiments, embarrassing/humorous mistakes and our victories.

So many things happened during this time: we had our 30-day inspection as well as our 120-day inspection; we went to Brazil to visit family and Kiara (our pet) traveled with us; the same day we left on vacation, the builder put our sod (there will be a post to tell you, with details, all the drama!); we started our first Ikea project; all our appliances are installed now (last one - OTR Microwave) was installed last weekend - seriously!

Talking about it, we installed the appliance ourselves. It took us about 3,5 hours to get it done. It was a lot of work. The most difficult part was to make sure we didn't "catch"/damage any electrical wiring and also find the studs. We have a stud finder, however it wasn't that easy to find the studs.

The tools we used for this project were: level, driller and screwdriver.

In the end, everything worked fine. Check the pics with our before & after.

Before:




After:


Our next projects for the kitchen area include: backsplash, 3 pendant lights (over the breakfast bar), high chairs and maybe crown moulding (cabinets).

What do think about our kitchen?






Monday, March 16, 2015

Finally,... Moving day

It's been a while since my last post. I am sorry it took me that long to be able to post again. We are still trying to adapt to our new life - bigger house and longer commute (for me).

So many things happened during this time. My mom came to visit us and help with the moving; we moved into our new home, we worked a lot to install the appliances and organize things around the house. My mom went back home, we went back to work, we had the 30 day inspection and the builder already fixed most of the minor issues.

Mom and I in front of the new house - closing day


I know that most of you want to see the result of our choices, so there we go.

Closing day:
The closing day was on December 29 and I cannot describe how happy we were,... emotions, emotions, emotions. I was even happier because my mom was living that special moment with us. The tiles of the powder room weren't changed, however the representative of the builder told me they will schedule some time to do it soon.

Appliances:
The appliances were delivered on the following day (December 30) and then we started the process of installing everything (I must confess, it is not over yet).

Kiara:
The first time Kiara came to the house was on December 30. She had a great time, my impression is that she understood that this is her new home from now on. She ran and played feeling really comfortable. We were a little concerned about her "adaptation", but fortunately there were no issues at all. She decided to "help" us with the appliances and 10 minutes later she was "exhausted", as you can see.



Moving day:
We decided to move the things ourselves. We used to live in a small apartment (1 bedroom), so we didn't have a lot of stuff. We rented a 14' truck from U-Haul. Our great friends Luciana, Fernando, Ana, Bira, Veronica, Marcelo and my mom helped us with the logistics and the moving. Ron drove the truck.
It snowed quite a bit during our moving, ... adventures!!!



Ron driving the truck - thank you for the pic Marcelo!


On the same day, the men installed the garage door opener. It was a team effort. Great job guys!




We bought the garage door opener at Canadian Tire, and it was a really good deal. We chose the Genie belt (as you can see in the picture). It comes with 2 remotes, sensor - that stops and reverses the door to avoid accidents and wall wireless keypad. We do recommend this brand, it is very quiet and smooth.



Here there are some pictures of the house.

Bathroom 3rd floor:




Master Bedroom:


Master Bathroom (I love our ensuite):




Living room:




Dining room:



Kitchen (without appliances):





Breakfast area:



The day after moving-in, what a mess.



Kiara "supervising" our job.




Ron assembling our table:



Installing our appliances:



So, what do you think? Did you like the way the choices came along? Please leave your feedback and suggestions.