Talk about efficiency! (Part 2 of "The painting came in")

We received the painting misprint Monday afternoon.  I chatted with their online support not long after it's arrival and got confirmation within the hour.  Today is Friday, and the reprint arrived!  Who would've thought I'd be able to get the reprint the same week?  I have to say I'm quite pleasantly surprised and would definitely recommend CanvasPop to anyone else looking for similar service.  Although they messed up the first print, but I seriously don't think you'd find any other company with such efficient customer service and follow up.  Definitely two thumbs up!

The painting came in! (sort of)

I just realized that I've taken a whole month off blogging.  What's happened since then... hmm..

-> We've finally put down a deposit for our bed and sofa.  That'll take six to eight weeks to deliver.  We're estimating mid-September?

-> We've been waiting for the mattress we like to go on sale, and it finally did!  That got delivered two weeks ago and we were so excited, we immediately took out the old one, dismantled the bed frame and laid out the new king-size on the floor.  We get much better sleep now, and I no longer grunt at Kel when he comes into bed late and wakes me up. :)

-> We're still having endless bbqs with different friends at the house, as that's the easiest and fastest, ending off with ice cream for dessert of course!

-> For those who've been worried about Mr. Plant, don't worry, my black thumb hasn't killed him yet.  He's still alive and doing quite well.  The new shoot has grown quite tall and we can see tiny nubs on him about to unravel to become full leaves.  Kel has also decided that Mr. Plant needs a first name, and so he is now Mr. Raphael Plant.

-> Kel is still battling with the weeds out in the lawn.  He's making progress, but the battle is still not over!


And now, on with the post..

I got this discount coupon for an online photo printing place last month, and I've been working with their designers to turn one of our photos from Shanghai into a triptych to put in our bedroom.  Kel and I figured it'd be easier to print a picture we like for wall art, then to spend endless hours shopping for one we can both agree on.  What's great with dealing with online vendors (as I've discussed with Flo), is you don't feel so bad asking for more proofs.  I had never intended to print photos any bigger than the regular 4x6, so setting 5x7 as a maximum seemed to make sense.  (That's the equivalent of setting my camera to the three megapixel setting even though it had the capacity of shooting at ten.  It also didn't help that for some reason I thought a three megapixel photo equated to a three megabyte file, but that's a different story.)  Anyhow, so I was working with their designer (and Flo) and contemplated the possibility of printing the picture itself, versus one with the digital paint effect, black and white, and colour isolation.  This took quite a bit of time, as everytime I asked for a new proof, it'd take the designer a few days to get back to me.  In the end, we decided to go with just the picture itself with no effects as the slight blur would work with printing on canvas.  It wasn't another two weeks before I got another email with the UPS tracking number saying it would be delivered today!  I was so excited, I stayed home (worked from home that is,) to wait for it and of course it had to come during a meeting, but after that I went to open the box and...

... it was our picture with the digital paint filter!  They printed the wrong proof!  After chatting online briefly with their support person, they admit the designer had a misunderstanding, and will be reprinting our picture as soon as possible.  The down side is, it'll be another week or two before it gets here, but when it does arrive, we'll have both copies right in front of us to decide which we'd want to hang.  As well, it's not like we can hang it before the bed comes anyways, so it's a win-win for us!

Oh, and of course with both of us being in the picture, I'd have to thank Sunny for helping us frame the setting and taking multiple shots.  I actually have a series of photos from when Kel and I were getting onto the rock, and having random people in the background, to this, and of course, one where Sunny insisted we pointed at something. :P

Another room painted

We've lost our dedicated painter Ceci for almost two weeks now, so the progression of painting has gone to a stand still.  It's almost like our foreman Erica has been grieving over this lost and chose to do other work around the house instead.  Well last night, since Kel was tiling the shower wall, Erica was unable to do any sanding around the vicinity, and was left with either putting up foam boards behind the furnace or painting the office.  I convinced her to start painting the office since we had a couple hours, and putting up foam boards need not be a continuous task.  (You can put one up and go do something else, but you can't paint a patch of the wall and walk off.)  So here's to another room done!

When Kel walked in, his first comment was.. I love it, but is this... Hippo's color? 
Oddly enough, it does remind me of our Moomin hippo...

Summary of our past eight days

Yes, I realized I haven't posted in a week now, so here's the short and sweet of it.

Ceci came by that Tuesday and helped us finish painting the rest of the ensuite walls.  She also came by on Sunday and painted the first layer of the big wall joining the living and dining room under Erica's guidance and Kelly finished the top layer.

 Sears delivered the dryer that day as expected *phew* so that's done.  However, the crediting on the bill wasn't done and we were charged a second delivery fee, so I had to email Vicky the customer service rep to get that fixed.

 The repairman for the range came in the weekend after.  He looked at the range, and by that I seriously mean he looked at it.  He didn't pull it out from the slot between the cabinets, nor did he take anything apart.  He simply looked at it, made a call to inquire what he needed to fix it and then told us he needed the "timer" part, which he didn't have and would need to order and come back when he has it...  Really? We already told him what the problem was and what the serial model of our range was, but I guess he had to see it for himself to believe it.  We're thinking we should try baking something in the oven just to make sure it works so we don't have to deal with this madness all over again.

Besides that, we've been working on insulating the basement, and Kel's been building the frames for the basement walls.  He did another water test last weekend for the shower faucet in the bathroom and let's just say we had another water show.  LoL

Below, you can see how we (and by we, I mean Erica) adds fun to our days of work.

Painting has begun!

This past Sunday, Ceci came over to paint again.  Since Queenie and Lotus finished priming the living/dining room the weekend before, there were no more rooms ready for priming. So... Erica got Ceci to help start painting the ensuite bathroom! :)

Below Left: Ceci inspecting her work.. and you can see the frame Kel's dad had prepped for the closet doors.
Below Right: The pile of rubble Kel's dug up in the basement to move the toilet pipe.  (In the process, he also broke the main drain pipe... but that's fixed now and the hole's filled up again.)

Below:  The three walls Ceci and Erica painted. (And we've managed to schedule Ceci to come help paint some more on Tuesday, too!) :D

We've found our painter! Now we just need her onboard...

Ceci proved to be an awesome primer!  The best we have thus far!  We're trying to convince her she should use her talent on the colour layers, too.  We'll let you know how that goes...

Ceci primed our main bathroom and most of the office.  Erica's dad came over and put in most of our kitchen cabinet doors and drawers.  The kitchen is really coming together!  We should be scheduling someone to come in to give us estimates on those granite countertops this week.  Kel's dad and Erica started putting in the first layer of insulation foam boards in the basement. Kel's finished tiling the ensuite tonight. :)

Below, you can see the kitchen with all the doors, and our hallway finally has the door to our master ensuite built.

Our lesson in painting (aka Why the kitchen took an extra week)

Last week after much plaster and sanding, we were finally happy with how smooth the kitchen walls were. We figured we needed to wipe the walls down a bit before we put on the primer, but we also knew that we couldn't wipe it with a wet cloth since water would dissolve the compound on the walls. So... we ended up just brushing the surface over with a broom. What we didn't realize was how MUCH dust was actually on the walls. Apparently, there were still random clusters of dimples and small cracks in various places, which we could not see because the dust had filled in everything. Well, the primer revealed all of that to us. We ended up having to patch some places that were more obvious after the primer dried and then do a little re-priming. After that, we painted the walls with our shade of "Justice", and then taped the corners to proceed with painting the ceiling. Our second issue came when we went to peel off the tape... parts of the paint came off with it! And it wasn't just the paint, it was primer, too! I guess there really was too much dust left on the walls and the primer couldn't cling on as well as it should. :( So we're sort of done, but with some touch up spots which we will do when we proceed with further painting. For now, it's back to working on the cabinets.