Happy House Anniversary!

Today marks our first year in our new home!  We are really happy with our new digs!  Our new neighbours are fantastic, we can walk to our school, and we have a lovely ravine path near our home.
 


Last April, we said goodbye to our little bungalow, left the message below for the new owners and then moved in with my in-laws while we worked on the home.

This past year was full of home improvement projects - some big, some small and some that are still on our to-do list. 

After ripping out all the wallpaper in the bungalow, I didn't think I'd be doing it again.  But, our new place had some wallpaper so we put on our goggles, got out the sprayer, and began scraping.  It's so satisfying to take off a whole sheet!

I'm pretty sure I cried more than once while taking down the plaid green wallpaper.  The wallpaper was fused onto the drywall and it took days to remove it.  We would remove a little bit each day in order to maintain some level of sanity.  Eventually we got it all off.  I had a moment when I thought, "let's just paint over it".  But we persevered and we can now say that the wallpaper DID NOT win.

We said goodbye to all of the carpet (too many different kinds!) in the house except for the stairs.  The kids weren't used to so many steps so we will keep it until they are a little bit older.

Here's a pic of the new floors.  It's so much easier to clean now that the carpet is gone.

 
We replaced the old windows with energy efficient windows.  Supposedly they are self cleaning as well. 

We started painting this year.  Little fingers are great for taking off painters tape!

After we put in new baseboards, we realized that most of our baseboard, trims, and doors are not white but a pink toned beige.   Aargh!!!  Time for the spray painter. 

I did a lot of landscaping last year to remove the overgrown backyard.  It was a little crazy back there - almost like a forest!   Joshie is a mosquito magnet so I removed most of the ground cover, trimmed all the trees, raked all the dead branches and things out of there, and discovered a bunny nest!  This year, it's much more tame and we only saw 2 new baby bunnies.  (I love this pic.  I was in the kitchen making lunch and saw big brother helping little brother.  Muah to both of them!)

I never thought I'd get used to the new mail box system but I have! 

There's so much more to write about but since this is not a home improvement blog, that's it for home related talk.  It's been a fantastic year and I couldn't have done any of this without hubby.  As I type, I can hear him fixing something somewhere in the house.  I'd better go help!

Until next time,