Hello Again Hello, Farewell to Office Carpet, Free Stuff & More

 Hello Again my friends; took some time off blogging cause I was busy hanging out with my granddaughter & helping out my daughter and son in-law at their place of business.
But I'm back & that's all that counts right!
Well doing stuff at my daughter's house kind of got me in the mood for renovating again and it's fall & that kind of got me in the renovating mood as well. But after our 2 trips this summer, not a lot of cash in the renovating budget at the moment.
Well so here's our long term plan, Plan A. Eventually we want to install hardwood flooring on almost all of the main floor ( master bedroom, office, hallway, living room ) & we want it to be all the same. Kitchen already has a nice hardwood floor & main bath is getting a different type of flooring. But doing all this flooring simultaneously with quality hardwood involves a bit more cash than we can spend at the moment.
But at the same time, we want to give our main floor rooms a coat of paint, a bit of an update & make the spaces more our own without breaking the bank. So decision has been made to do that & leave the flooring until a later date. The carpeting in most of the rooms has been updated & in decent shape and I can live with it. But the office carpet is another story. I'm sure it's original to our home's beginnings and it kind of looks like someone got sick on it. And that's where this reno begins. We were talking about it just yesterday and came up with a simple temporary fix. Remove the carpet & stain/paint the plywood underlay & update the office with paint, shelving and a new desk. Sounds like a simple, easy peasy fix right? Well I thought the whole carpet would have been removed today & we could stain or paint the plywood in a day or two. Wrong, turns out the carpet has been glued to the plywood underlay and not only do we have to scrape the underlay off, but the glue as well. A bit more work than we bargained for. Honestly who glues carpet to the plywood underlay?
We all know that Rome wasn't built in a day & neither will this space!

All but a small section of carpeting has been removed; but that is the easy part. Been using fabric softener to remove the glue as it worked well when removing wallpaper. Any other solutions/ideas are definitely most welcome!

So Efficiency Nova Scotia came by and installed this warm blanket on our water heater absolutely at no cost to us. They also installed a low flow tap aerator & low flow shower head. Could have also got some energy efficient light bulbs but that's something we already did. If you are living in Nova Scotia and could use some energy efficient product upgrades absolutely free, you might want to check them out. Just click on my underlined link to find out more.

So far I'm in Love with my Space Age Looking Hot Water Heater Blanket; hoping it will create more cash for travel & home renos!

Have I ever told you how much I love free stuff. I'm sure I have. All of the stuff in this pic arrived in my mail box while I was away and shortly thereafter.The Nature Valley stuff was actually a contest prize win cause I enter contests too and I love entering contests as much as I love getting free stuff, and it included 2 drawstring bags, 2 LED flashlights, 4 water bottles, 2 boxes of Nature Valley Granola Bars ( not in pic ) and a $50 Visa gift card, best part! Anyone in need of a water bottle? If you want to know more about how I scored all this free stuff, talk to me!

Ups & Downs & In Betweens!

Good News, the shiny brand new kitchen appliances finally arrived! Not So Good News, the kitchen range has a ding on the door panel & someone has to come by and replace it  & also the old dishwasher wasn't originally installed with a proper shut off valve, so installing the new one has created a bit of a plumbing headache, no nightmare! Pics of the new appliances coming soon once they've all been properly installed and the kitchen is all tidied up. 

Easiest way to get rid of the old dishwasher was to toss it out the patio door onto the deck Fridge wasn't quite as easy to remove since it didn't fit through the patio door. Good thing Dear Son came by to help get it out the front door. Received a post card from Efficiency Nova Scotia & apparently they pay cash to remove old appliances like fridges, freezers & air conditioners so will be getting a little bit of cash for our fridge & freezer! And I'm sure the new ones will save us a ton of energy too!

Here's a before pic of the dishwasher pre winter storm! Yes we are expecting another storm! 

And here's a pic of it in the midst of the storm which is not over yet!

On another note, here  is Penny Lane hanging out with her new toys from the Target closing sale. I think she is happy with our finds!

  

All Tuckered Out & More!

It was a busy day in the East and even Penny L was tuckered out by the end of the day. We were having dinner and she wanted some cuddling time and decided to curl up on hubby's feet! 

Since we are planning on doing a bunch of renos, we attended The Real Home Show in Halifax. Picked up a ton of literature on Heat Pumps; just need to sit down and read it all. Seems like there is a Heat Pump Revolution goin on here in Nova Scotia probably cause generally due to minimal areas of natural gas availability, home heating is electric. And electric is definitely not cheap here! Don't exactly know how expensive but when our electricity bill comes in, I'm sure it will be a shocker! Pretty sure, installing a Heat Pump is the way we are gonna go once we decide on a brand & size. The folks from Efficiency Nova Scotia were at the Home Show & apparently they will come to your home and install some energy efficient products at no cost too you. So yep that is definitely going to happen. Will let you know what kind of stuff they all provide. Also found out they pick up old appliances like fridges & freezers & air conditioners and actually pay you to remove them; imagine that! So once I have all my new appliances in place & working, will definitely be giving them a call. 

Learning how to use my new washer/dryer combo. Just need dear son to come by and give hubby a hand with stacking the dryer on top of the washer.