Life Happens

It’s been a very busy week. No, make that weeks! I have been meaning to post updates but life happens. I’ll post pictures for now and do more of the yadda-yadda later with more pics of course.

Summertime and the living is easy

We got to enjoy, as a family, the very limited one week vacation we have this summer. It was quite a nice break from all the brouhaha of trying to put things in order in the new house ASAP. I know, that last statement there is contradictory – go through a series of brouhaha to put things in order hahaha.

Well, for this summer, we decided to visit the maritimes – New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and PEI. And on our way home, we drove through Maine and New Hampshire, where one can go loco shopping (zero sales tax, is why).

Grilling

I’m sharing here a sample pic of what my boys whipped up. It’s a typical summer dinner – grilled fish and roasted vegetables. Veggies are drizzled with olive oil with dashes of pepper and salt.

We’re cutting down on meat. But we do have a steak monster in our household and he only prefers his Dad’s steak. I remember when he finally decided not to order steak to avoid disappointments whenever we eat out as most of the steaks he’s had outside our kitchen don’t come close to Dad’s steak. That’s one loyal customer, isn’t it?

The never-ending list

The settling in and decorating of the new home is still on-going. Of the 58 items I have on my to-do list, 36 have been done. And that's just my to-do list, not counting DH's.

Here are the things we've done so far:

• No more visible sink holes in the bathrooms. All 4 bathrooms look pretty decent - sinks and faucets have been replaced (we didn't like the ones installed by the builder and decided to replace all of the faucets, sinks, and countertops in all bathrooms and kitchen). And the best thing is, DH managed to install all the faucets by himself. And no leaks so far. We've used Moen faucets except the one in the guest bath. I will recommend a Moen faucet to friends in a heart beat. They look great and fairly easy to install. Remember their motto - buy it for looks, buy it for life? It's mine too hahaha. For most things in the house, I go for looks. And function too. But it has to pass the "looks" criteria first :)

• DH and DK's toys are now tucked in their proper spot in the family room. We decided to use Ikea's Besta furniture mostly because it is easy to mix and match their pieces to get the configuration we need. We need at least 8 ft wide and most of the electronics require some McGyver-type maneuvers because of their sizes. Sure we could have it custom-made but that will also mean we'd have to wait for weeks and would cost more. ANd if you knew me, you'd know I'm not keen on waiting. I love the end result. I will of course take pics once all the things I want in the family room are done, including these pics below which I will frame and display on the wall.

A collection of orchid pics which I plan to frame individually and display in the family room

• I've repainted the fireplace in the family room with white (Benjamin Moore's Chantily Lace). It was a tad difficult to convince DH to have it painted with white. It's wood and as most of you know, men don't like their wood painted. The original stain was the same stain used in the loft banister but I think having a dark (huge) entertainment centre in the family room, there will be too much of dark colours in there if the dark stain in the fireplace stays. In the end, I was allowed to paint it white and I am glad that everyone's happy with how it turned out.

work in progress in the family room

• And the one big thing - the ginormous chandelier is finally up. It was quite a relief seeing the 125 lb thing dangling on the ceiling and not using up a big space in the family room floor. Most importantly, it doesn't feel like being in a cave in the family room when we hang out in there at night.