Picaso I am not

So over the weekend, I decided to paint the walls of my garage. I just went with a white colour and figured that it would just brighten it up a bit instead of looking at wall spackling. I also wanted to do it before I started hanging up cabinets and other stuff. I went with the Behr Premium Plus Ultra paint from Home Depot which is a primer and paint together. I wasn't looking for a perfect paint job, nor did I want to do more than one coat. I did give the walls a really light sanding but you can still see some seams and rough spots here and there. I literally slapped the paint on the walls and you can see certain spots where it's not super even or may see some lines here and there. But that's okay, I wasn't expecting a work of art although some would argue what passes for art these days. I was also reminded how much I dislike painting which doesn't bode well for when it comes time to paint the inside of the house. Hmmm...hiring painters may be something to consider. Anyway, the garage looks much nicer and brighter with the paint. I'm glad that I did it. Sorry, I forgot to take before and after pictures so you'll just have to use your imagination. It's really not that exciting but thought I'd post something on this blog which I've been very deliquent in updating.

Wam(my)! Bam(my)! Thank you Ma'am(my)

One of my awesome neighbours took the initiative and contacted a few companies to give a quote on eavestrough. He compiled the information and left a nice note summarizing the pros and cons of each company. In the end, he felt that Wammy was the best one of the three. He said the owner was very pleasant to deal with and the materials that uses are a slightly better grade. Turns out that one of my good friends also used Wammy for their house and recommended them as well.

All three quotes for my house were within the same price range. We just went with the standard eavestrough and didn't get get the gutter guard or anything like that since there aren't any big trees or anything like that to clog them up. So in the end, I think there was 13 of us in total that got their gutters done. It was completed over the Easter long weekend and the finished product looks good. It matches well with the house. I wasn’t home that weekend so my neighbour kept an eye out for me. The other nice thing is that all five units in my row all got eavestroughing so we have a nice continuous look. Cost for my house was $700.

Where art thou humidity?

About a month ago, the weather got really cold and dry. Consequently, the humidity in the air inside my house dipped down quite low. I bought a cheap hygrometer from Canadian Tire and it showed at one point that it was as low as 20%. Normal humidity I believe is supposed to be between 40 and 60%. I was also getting shocks upstairs where it is carpeted. Aside from the comfort level from the air being so dry, I was also concerned about the hardwood flooring. Too low of a humidity can cause separation.

So my problem solver comes in the form of a Honewell TrueSTEAM humidifier. I saw it mentioned on the forums and did some quick research on it. What I like is that it operates independently of the HVAC system. It will simply turn on the furnace fan if it needs to circulate the steam. It's also low maintenance. There is no water or filter to change. It's piped into a cold waterline. It will also self flush out as needed. But they do recommend just cleaning the tank out once a season. Basically, you flush out the water, take the tank off, clean and then reassemble. Aside from that, it's pretty much a "set it and forget it" system. This system is pricier than other systems. Even though my installer didn't have much experience with them, he thinks it's a very good system and has heard other people raving about it as well. Good enough for me. :)

Happy Holidays!

Wow, it's been a LONG time since I've updated my blog. Sorry about that. It's partly due to not having anything really interesting to post about and also just being busy. My house was to the point where I've been enjoying it the last while. I still have to find window coverings for my patio door and bedroom. But my dining room table arrived. I ordered a custom Bermex table through the Bay. At the time it was 25% off plus another 10% off for opening an HBC account. The quality of Bermex products are very good. You can really feel the difference in the finish and the assembly is very solid. I know that my table is going to last me a very very long time. Of course, you have to pay for it and can be quite pricey. But I like how I got a table with the dimensions that I wanted. One feature that I really like is that the leaf stores underneath the table. Plus the mechanism to extend the table is really easy to use.

I splurged on the dining room table but had to cut back on the chairs. I ordered my dining room chairs from Costco.ca. I got six of them for the price of what it would have costed me to buy three chairs through Bermex. They're comfortable, look nice and match well with my dining table.

Here's a pic of my dining room (don't mind the messes on the side). The the end table is just in its temporary home as my Xmas tree has taken over its regular spot.

So while I have been enjoying my house, I encountered a problem with my house. Last Tuesday, the sink faucet in the main bathroom wasn't working. I found that odd given that the tub and toilet were working fine. I opened up the vanity underneath and it was really cold. Turns out the lines were frozen. So I called Mattamy warranty in the next morning and Adam came by shortly afterwards. He confirmed the frozen pipes and said there is air leakage coming in. He cut a few holes in the ceiling on the main level near the front entrance and immediately can feel a cold draft coming in. He originally thought it was coming in from the front because there was a strong wind hitting directly the front of the house. So he called in some trades to take apart the soffit. It actually turned out that the air leakage was coming in from the garage. So he called in a few of his crew and they cut out some drywall in the garage and sealed up the leak with insulation. The faucet is working fine again and the floors aren't nearly as cold as they were before. Mattamy just needs to come by to patch up the holes which I said could wait until the new year because they were all getting ready to go off from their holidays. All in all, another good experience with the warranty office.

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to everyone!

I let the Genie of its box

Now that my garage door was adjusted properly (it wasn’t parking in all spots), I decided to install my Genie garage door opener that I had bought earlier this year. Enlisting the help of my friend Chuck, who was the one who put me onto the Genie Excelerator opener, we set off with the installation after treating him to breakfast at Royal Oak (gotta love cheap labour).

Overall, the installation isn’t too difficult but took quite a bit of time. One of the challenges was that the garage door seems to open up at a very high level. So we would have to use the maximum length for the arm to attach to the garage door. We thought that maybe I would have to extend it but in the end it wasn’t required. The other challenge was reinforcing the top section of the garage door. There aren’t really any clear instructions on how to do that in the manual. My garage door being an insulated one is different from Chuck’s and my brother’s so I couldn’t use the same way to reinforce. In the end, I connected 3 angled-type braces across the top of the garage and then got another piece of bracket to mount vertically down the center of the top section. I bolted all the brackets down and is pretty solid.

The final piece is running the wiring for the sensors and wall control and it was ready to go. I did a few fine tuning adjustments and it all works. As advertised, it does open very quickly (claim is twice the speed). It does create a bit more noise because of the garage door rollers moving faster along the track. I also noticed that the rollers installed on my garage door are the nylon ones instead of metal so that will help with noise reduction. Inside the house, you basically hear the noise from the garage door rather than the opener itself. My neighbor has a chain-drive opener and you can hear the hum from the machine. So installation took maybe 5 hours total but with a break in between and a Home Depot run to buy more brackets. Chuck was only there for a couple of hours and had left after we had mounted the unit onto the ceiling. I did the rest myself. Not too hard of an installation. Probably no more difficult than a chain or belt driven opener although I’ve read how people do not like installing screw-drive openers. Not sure why though. Now that I’m more “experienced”, I’m sure I could cut the installation time to near half.

Checking off the 30-Day Tarion List

Mattamy came by on Thursday and Friday to address the items on my 30-day list. Marc from the warranty office arrived on time with a tradesman who was there to fix a chip in the bath tub. The bathtub was fixed quickly and there's no evidence that a chip was there before. Apparently, the process that they use is a very specialized one. Only a few people in Ottawa have the skills and tools to do it properly.

Marc brought along the work order which breaks down the items and who will be responsible for fixing them. All of the trades were scheduled to come in to fix those items which Marc cannot fix. Marc is more of the handyman who will fix the smaller items. Throughout the day, several trades arrived and fixed the issues. All of them were very nice to deal with.

I must give kudos to Marc. He is a very friendly and nice guy and really seems to care that things are addressed properly. He even went and fixed other things that he noticed that didn't seem right to him even though they weren't on my list. For the paint touch ups and repairs, he took it upon himself to go around the house and fixed up any spots that could use it even though I marked only a few spots for him.

Completed items from my 30-day list:

• garage door adjusted so that it parks in all positions (done by the Door Company)
• all toilets adjusted for proper flushing (done by plumber)
• paint touch ups
• dents in hardwood floor -> I had two of them in my floor. The trade came by and explained to me the repair process which would require a panel of floor would need to be cut out and a new piece to be glued back in place. The problem with this is that for that piece, it would no longer be locked in via tongue-and-groove. I decided that I'd rather keep the integrity of the entire floor together and skipped the repair. The dents aren't major and are only noticeable if you view it at a particular angle and light. There is no chip or scratch either...just an impression.
• scratched window replaced by trade
• garage door lock fixed
• windows that were catching were adjusted
• countertop and incomplete vanity parts ordered by Laurysen. To be completed at future date
• railings were cleaned and touched up by trades
• ceiling repair from water leak damage
• closet support bracket and shelf fixed

Items incomplete or which I need to address with Mattamy:

• trade did not show up to top up my attic insulation.
• seam in carpet not repaired. Trade said that it appears that someone cut the carpet to repair something so it is not their responbility
• three-way switch was supposed to be installed for extra light outlet over stairs. According to the plan, it was not in it so as far as the trade is concerned, they did everything according to spec
• floor deflection and squeaks to be addressed at 1-year mark

Overall, I'm quite satisfied with the work. Everyone was pleasant to deal with. For the most part, all of my fixes were quite easy so it didn't take very long for the trade to do the repair. They were in and out.

Snail Mail...where I'm the snail

So I finally got my key for the community mailbox. After not receiving any mail for a couple of weeks at the post office where my mail was being redirected to, I called Canada Post back up to check on the status on my key. I had thought when I originally called them shortly after I moved in that they told me that the key would be sent there automatically when the community mailbox was set up. Apparently not. So I thought it strange that for over two weeks, there was no mail for me at the post office. I guess I must of misunderstood them originally and that I was expected to call them back to request my keys once the community mailbox was set up. I didn't even notice the community mailbox was set up until last weekend and my neighbour had told me it's been there for a couple weeks. Can you tell that I've been a bit busy? Anyway, I got my keys the next day so I went over to my mailbox and opened it up and saw this:

Guess I can't really blame the postal service being slow at delivering the mail because technically they had delivered my mail...I just couldn't pick it up. And yes, there were a couple of "past due" items. Whoopsie...my bad.

Fixture Mixture

In continuing with the oil rubbed bronzed look from the breakfast bar pendent lights and great room ceiling fan, I decided to swap out the semi-flush lights in the hallway on the main floor. The standard fixtures aren't ugly by any stretch. In fact, I've received numerous comments on how good they look for standard fixtures.

But I came across some lights at Costco. At $40 each, I figured what the heck. I'm trying to coordinate things to the best of my abilities but stopping short from watching those makeover shows on TLC. :)

My dining room light is also of the same finish. I still need to get around to hanging that one. Since the light outlet isn't where I need it to be, I'll need to figure out a way to hang it so that the light will be over the dining room table. I also need to shop for a light for over the kitchen table as that one is still stainless steel.

30-Day Tarion List

I had submitted my 30-day list to Tarion and Mattamy on August 14th. Today I met with Adam from the Mattamy warranty office to review my list. I had a total of 55 items on my list which was comprised of the items noted by my home inspector as well as additional items that I added.

The way the warranty process was described to me was that we would review each item on the list to ensure that all items are warrantable. If something isn't warrantable, they will explain why. All the other items will be transferred to a work order. If a trades needs to be brought in, they will make the arrangements. Otherwise, it will be Adam and his team that will do the work. I would sign off on items that are not going to be fixed. It sounded like Mattamy has reorganized its warranty department and how they operate. I've read/heard of people not being happy with the service that they had received in the past so maybe this is a move to improve customer satisfaction.

Overall, the review went very well. Adam was very pleasant to deal with. I was actually preparing myself for a bunch of excuses as to why they wouldn't fix items on my list. But even for items that were sort of iffy, he said that he would still leave them on the work order. Most of the items, Adam responded with a "no problem, we'll get that fixed". I had noted that touch-ups were needed from the pdi and he said that he'd even fix damage that I caused during my move in. He also added to the list as he noticed that there was a seam in the carpet in office that really stood out.

From my list, there were a few items which were noted as to monitor and revisit at the one year list, namely the deflection in the floor in the master bedroom, floor squeaks in the upper hallway (which weren't squeaking during the appointment). Other stuff like grading, sod, driveway will be done obviously when the other houses get done but I still had noted them on my list. Everything else should hopefully be fixed. The next step is that Mattamy will make arrangements to come in and do the repairs. They will try to schedule everything all together so that they can get it done at one time.

So a good experience today. Hopefully it wasn't just all words and that they will deliver on the repairs in a timely fashion.

Reflecting back

Well, I've been in my home for 6 weeks now and was reflecting back over everything in the last year and a bit since I started the whole house buying process. I've learned so much over that time period. Thanks to those who have been reading my blog and introducing yourselves to me. I'm glad that you're finding the information useful and am more than happy to share the knowledge that I have gained.

One of the reasons for this entry is that I've been hearing about people's frustrations over the whole buying experience with Mattamy lately. Whether it be countless delays, lack of communication or just poor construction quality of their home. I can definitely sympathize with them as buying a home is supposed to be an exciting experience, not a journey of frustrations and disappointment. Fortunately, my whole buying experience was actually pretty darn good from beginning to end. I experienced no delays and am quite happy with the delivered product. Sure, there are a number of things that still need to be done with my house but it's not anything major that would prevent me from enjoying my house. Now if I were in the shoes of those experiencing delays or a poorly constructed house, I can understand their reactions. When I bought my house, I basically prepared for delays based on the countless stories I've read on forums and newspapers. Anytime there was a remote chance of a delay, I got into defensive mode ready to unleash some wrath on someone. But thankfully it did not happen.

Post closing service hasn't been as good. It seems that the responsibility falls on the owner to stay on top of Mattamy to get something outstanding done even though they tell you that it will be done. I had to call three times before they finally scheduled a plumber to fix a leak in the master ensuite which was dripping down to the dining room ceiling. The hole in the ceiling still needs to be fixed and is scheduled for next week. Talking to my neighbours, they are experiencing the same type of service. One neighbour was telling me the other day that workers showed up in the morning and started some work but never came back after lunch to finish it. I'm hoping that my 30-day list will be addressed fairly promptly. I may end up doing some of it myself in the end.

So what would I do differently now that I've been in it for a month and a half? Here's a short list:
- I didn't need to add an additional porch electrical outlet as it does come with one standard (I was told it didn't come with one);
- did not need the upgraded circuit panel box (it's huge when a standard one would have sufficed);
- probably could have gotten away with two potlights in the kitchen instead of getting four;
- did not need the over-the-tub light in the master bathroom as there is a standard light fixture near the toilet area (was told there wasn't one)
- should have added a couple of potlights in the master bedroom but I can do this later
- should have gotten the maple railings to match the floor better. The oak railings have a lot more wood grains in it and doesn't match as well
- in the great room and master bedroom, there are three windows but only one opens (casement window). I wished that the one on the opposite side would open too. But I'm not sure if this is even an option as it's not in the design centre catalogue
- I should have paid closer attention to the positioning of the light outlet in the kitchen area and dining room. They aren't exactly over where I put my tables.

Pickiness:
- no real windows at the front of the house on the main floor. Only one is in the powder room which is down a few stairs and in its own room. The only window is the front door so not much light comes in. But I realize that this is very typical of townhomes in general
- still not sure about upstairs laundry room
- don't like the railing configuration on the porch

What do I really like about the house?
- love the kitchen, I'm so glad I got the Executive Kitchen upgrade. I think it looks fantastic
- raised breakfast bar -> I think it looks good and like how it hides some of the kitchen stuff that I keep on the counters (e.g. dish rack, dish soap)
- colours - I'm quite happy with all of my choices for cabinets, flooring countertops, etc. They seem to work well with each other
- master ensuite shower -> love taking showers in it, it's very spacious
- main bathroom -> I like having windows and bringing in natural light into it

Overall, I love my house. Also helps that I've met some great people so far and really believe it's going to be a great neighbourhood.

Covering Wonderings

Okay, I've come to the realization that I really need to finish off the window coverings for the rest of the house. For the powder room, two smaller bedrooms and main bathroom, I got faux wood blinds from Bou Clair Home. They will cut them to the proper width and you can trim the length (which I still need to do). However, for my great room and master bedroom, they didn't have blinds wide enough to fit. So, I'm still in need of some. I was thinking of getting something a little more fancier like the sheer weave with blinds. But those are VERY expensive (e.g. approx $1200 just to do the great room window). So I need to find something more affordable. A friend suggested just going with curtains in the great room which I am leaning towards. But I still want to have some light control to allow some light in, reducing glare on the tv and give privacy. So I'm thinking of adding a sheer curtain, sheer roller blind or getting more faux wood blinds. And then there's the challenge of finding something that will look good. I seriously need some help here. I've been feeling dumbfounded any time I go to a store looking for decorative ideas. I seriously should just give some money to some of my female friends and tell them to go decorate my house. Martha Stewart (is she still considered a guru?), I am not (I pay my taxes).

And then there's the patio door. Again, I want something to control lighting while providing some privacy. For this, I'm leaning towards vertical blinds. I realize that they don't look the greatest but they will be much more functional and convenient that putting curtains.

I'm open to ideas so please feel free to comment. And if you see a guy shopping for window coverings with a clueless look on his face, chances are that's me. :)

A little motion to light your way

Another change that I recently did was swapping out the outside lights to fixtures with motion sensors. The lights will automatically turn on when it senses movement. So when people go up my driveway or the porch at night, the light will turn on. I've got it set so that it will stay on for three minutes. And the lights will not turn on during the day. I think the fixtures look pretty good. I got them from Rona and I believe Home Depot carries them as well. Cost is $70 each. My neighbours seem to be enjoying them as well as they're close enough that they will trigger them and it lights their way in. Aren't I a thoughtful neighbour? :)

(Before / After)