Our Blank Canvas

Morning - Night

2010-06-19T12:22:00.002+02:00

Friday Morning:

Friday Afternoon:

Friday Evening:

Stuff Dreams Are Made Of

2010-06-16T20:01:00.005+02:00

Even though we are months away from needing to crank the heat, the thought of where to place radiators in the apartment is always swimming around in my brain. It's not that I don't like radiators; on the contrary I love the old iron radiators - but I think I do slightly detest the sight of the ones on the current market. Unfortunately Gregg is opposed to the idea of purchasing used older models as there could be the issue of rust - point taken.
So enter Joris Laarman's Heat Wave Radiator...

Honestly I think i'm in love! Hey a girl can dream right?

Photo credit: bonluxat

Back On Track

2010-06-03T21:49:00.005+02:00

And now we're back to our regularly scheduled apartment renovations....finally!
Nothing too big to report on, but the fact that things have been moving forward is good enough for us (and that's all that counts right?).

I'm not sure if it has been said yet but we are officially moved up into our attic due to a full capacity down below. Actually we've been up here for a month already, and although we are miles from a true apartment (defin: An apartment (in US English) or flat (in British English) is a self-contained housing unit (a type of residential real estate) that occupies only part of a building.) we are really loving all the amazing space that it has to offer. And that small amount of dust that we've had to deal with *this may change now that we're back to reno's is a small price to pay for the time we're getting up here to truly discover what this apartment really wants. Think a fresh airy palette with splashes of colour, a DIY quirky kitchen, and loads of storage. Once most of the general renovations are finished our first project will be to tackle the bathroom space, but I wont get too ahead of myself.

Anyways as of this moment we've got the framing up for our bedroom and bathroom spaces, as well as the outside dry walling of the bedroom wall. Both walls (plus the entry) are going to remain in a half finished state for a little while before we get all the wires, pipes, and cabling sorted.... better to live with half finished walls than having to knock out walls if something gets missed.

All those beams are also getting a bit of a face lift, if you remember a few months back they were all being sanded down (when the sanders felt like working). Of course we couldn't freshen up those beams without giving them a bit of protection, so with a little help from a friend all those beauties are getting a lovely coat of matte lacquer. Finding the lacquer was a bit of a pain though as we made the mistake of getting a wood protection in the same colour as the beams themselves. However upon opening the can we discovered a greenish liquid, not at all what we had wanted. To make matters worse the store wouldn't let us return it!

The conversation went like this...
Evil Belgian Hardware store "You can't return it because you have opened it"
Gregg "yes, but it's GREEN - clearly not what it shows on the can" as he showed them the stir stick
Evil Belgian Hardware store "what if we take it back and another customer doesn't like it?"
Gregg "That's not my problem, but i'm not happy with it"
Evil Belgian Hardware store "But you opened the can"
Gregg "yes, but it's GREEN"
Evil Belgian Hardware store "what if we take it back and another customer doesn't like it?"

This continued full circle a few times before Gregg decided that we had to cut our losses, and pick up a can of colourless and pray that this too wouldn't be green.

So here's the beams as they look now, and for comparison you can see the angled beam on the right has not yet been lacquered. What do you think so far?

Eyjafjallajoekull@#$*&%

2010-05-19T15:30:00.002+02:00

Or however you say it... has finally gotten to me.
Back in April during the infamous "Ash Cloud period", I couldn't be bothered by it. In fact it was actually nice, it was probably the first time in my life that I was able to look up to a perfectly cloudless sky and see no signs that an air plane had been there. And on the first Sunday of all the air space cancellations I could go outside and hear nothing- thanks to both zero air traffic, and very minimal road traffic. It was actually a real lesson in how much air pollution we are exposed to without even realizing it.

Now for my beef... us residing here in Belgium have only been treated to 3 days of decent spring weather ever since the month of May began. I would even hazard a guess to say that we had warmer days last November, and early March than the last 2.5 weeks. But this is not really a rant about cold weather - it's more a rant about how the cold weather has been delaying my garden. So at the start of the month when I was preparing to relocate all of my wonderful seedlings and young plants - the weather turned, which kept them under house arrest. Many of the plants were nearly pot bound, or had grown just too plain big for their pots. But just in time for the tomato plants to go out we have resumed to our regularly scheduled weather forecast * huge sigh of relief *

So the garden is still behind schedule but here's some shots that I took this morning.

Even though it still looks like quite an empty plot - our onions and peas are up in full force, some radishes are popping up and some are ready for harvesting, while the carrots, cabbage, and beets are slowly starting to show their presence. Just recently planted are some swiss chard plants, celery, artichokes, beans, cauliflower, tomato plants and even some sun flowers.

Our onions are growing like crazy, and our patio herb garden is providing us with some tasty additions to our dinners (thyme, rosemary, mint, spring onions, parsley, cilantro, and dill).

Unaffected by the cooler days were our trash can spuds (which you just keep piling on more dirt, or grass clippings to keep em growing and producing as many spuds as possible) and our wonderful pear trees which we planted last autumn.

Sidetracked: Part Two

2010-05-19T12:31:00.001+02:00

To say that life is full of many distractions would be an understatement, over the past two weeks we have learned that life is a distraction! We have gotten zero accomplished in the attic for quite some time, but the distractions have actually given us some time to really hunt for inspiration and develop second opinions on what we want in our space.
And of course all of those distractions has left us with little to blog about - instead it made me question whether I should be blogging about our attic, or just all the quirks of living with a house full of cyclists.

So here's a quick glimpse into our very distracting 2 weeks.
The morning of Friday May 7th the two of us were just nearly out the door with one of the cyclists living at the house - we were on our way to pick up a rental car from Lille France (just like the flooring and home hardware stuff - rental cars too are cheaper in France) for her to use, and on the way back we had planned to stop at our favourite French hardware store Castorama. Just before we had gotten away a call came from the other girl Emma staying with us that she and 4 other girls had been hit by a car while out training. That day will be one that we will always remember just from the sheer horror of the situation. Though some worse than others, we can happily say that the 5 girls are all recovering well - thankfully they were all wearing helmets!
The following day saw Emma return home from hospital still in a lot of pain from a broken collar bone, but it seemed like things would slowly return to normal at The ChainStay.
Fast forward to Sunday evening when some riders were still due back from a race about a 40 minute drive away. By this point they should have been back about an hour ago, it was then that Gregg addressed his worries. We didn't have to wait much longer until they finally made it back, all present and accounted for - but another broken collar bone. Total = 2 broken collar bones. Geeze our nerves cannot take any more!
It's not that we were surprised by broken collar bones, because it is the single most common injury in the sport of cycling (Gregg has broken both of his in the past) but 2 in 3 days come on!
Now two days following crash number 2 saw a trip to the doctors which led to a follow up trip to the hospital for a second opinion. Long story short Emma was to return to the hospital the next day to have hers pinned. All went well with her surgery, and she is now recovering very well. In fact both are riding their bikes again.... on the trainer of course as they are not quite ready for real life roads.

Now to add some icing to the cake, with short notice the both of us were asked to help out at a 3 day stage race in the Ardennes; Gregg as mechanic, and myself as Soigneur/Masseuer. It was an exhausting weekend and Thursday - Sunday were a complete write-off. But on Saturday while back at the team hostel we got the call again!
The other girl at the house Michal now also had a broken collar bone from crashing in a race. Her follow up also confirmed that she would need hers pinned, and in fact that is where she is now.
Grand Total = 3 in 8 days!!! I am now a believer that things come in 3's.

1 - 2 - 3 - Floor!

2010-04-27T20:41:00.001+02:00

So I'm back with an update. A real genuine update, not a lame update that just promises for an update as last time. But to be completely honest i'm not really entirely sure what to say. There has been quite a bit of progress up in the big attic space, but there haven't been many stories or anecdotes to go along with the progress. Since resuming our work we have just chugging along - have a look...

So here's where we left off. Dust, dust aaaand more dust! And how could we forget the countless migraines from all that plastering, and sanding, oh and all the wood slivers from all those tricky spots around the beams. Oh yeah i'm also pretty sure that the hardware store will never again let us return a sander to them - we are at a grand total of 3 broken sanders (1 belt and 2 smaller hand sanders) from all that plaster and freshening up those beams.

We did get a sneak peak of the flooring before our 2 week break,

getting just under 1/3rd of the floor laid.

Following our hiatus from the renovations here's what we had accomplished by the end of our first week back (we were also able to sneak in some springtime gardening).

From this angle you might also be able to notice that we've got a coat of primer on the walls - and that couldn't make us happier. The primer did an amazing job of sealing in all that extra dust that we weren't able to get rid of no matter how much we swept them and sprayed them with the air gun.

Good bye plaster dust.... for now!

Aaaand after a good sanding (this time with a rental floor sander), an evening of staining, a full 48 hours of dry time, a few coats of lacquer, and some more drying time here is the floor in all her shining glory.

After giving the floors a few days to cure, it was time to get the framing up for the doorway.

So that's the framing all done, and the first piece of drywall. I also feel it important to mention the door, really we couldn't be much happier with it. Although we hadn't put too much thought into the door, we knew that all the over priced "fake wood" doors that you find these days were not for us. We couldn't even find one door that we liked - so needless to say there was no need to talk ourselves into a 200euro + door. Instead we headed to the Ecoshop (think Habitat ReStore) first in Zulte - nada, Ronse - nada, then finally Gent (and if we couldn't find it in Gent we wouldn't find it anywhere) where we found a boat load of used doors and even new ones. We ended up going for a new door - which we had thought was MDF, but actually was solid wood sandwiched by MDF for it's "paneled" finish. Though we're not the biggest fans of MDF, we really couldn't complain with it's 30 euro price tag!

So here it is thus far. Doesn't look like the same place as it did a month ago does it?

Paying the Bills

2010-04-15T19:21:00.001+02:00

Springtime in Belgium means one thing... bike racing! Us being the cycling fanatics that we are, meant that it was time for us to get to work. But without further ado we are back and ready to get "crack-a-lackin" as Gregg would say.
Stay tuned for our next adventures in flooring

Progress in Photos

2010-03-09T22:21:00.000+01:00

We've been waiting to post an update about "Our Blank Canvas" before we got the drywalling stage finished. But as it so happened the height of our "walls" provided us with the opportunity to do a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Translation: We had to build up a platform to get the high stuff done. Sooo it made a heck of a lot more sense to do everything (instal drywall, and plaster, sand repeat) all at once, rather than having to move the platform all over the place.

Now that we're ready to celebrate the end of our endeavors in drywalling, we're practically at the point where we put away the plaster and trowels (for now).

And to be perfectly honest we don't really have much to say, we'll let the photos take it from here...

This is where we started...

Belle finds interest in even the oddest places.

Next came the sub-flooring.

Now on to the drywall...

we get by with a little help from our friends!

Here's the big bad and might I add sturdy platform

that helped us get through the high stuff.

We roughed up the beams a little bit

(we've got some more exciting details about this soon!)

Our newest addition.

Sod Off!

2010-03-04T22:02:00.000+01:00

We spent countless hours digging up this baby, cursing the sod every back breaking minute of it. But now that it is finally a big empty plot, and the fruits of our labour (well thats getting a bit ahead of ourselves, but you get the point) couldn't be more satisfying. So here she is our nice 9m x 5m plot all ready for a good ol till of the land, and some fresh compost...

...and again...

And as she awaits the arrival of the last frost date, I will be busy as a bee planning out where everything will go. I have a huge list of plants to go into this garden (some will be planted elsewhere in the garden, and others in containers) including tomatoes, an assortment of carrots, radish, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, beet roots, swiss chard, celery, celeriac, peas, pole beans, cucumber, zuccini, squash, spinach, lettuce, melon, rhubarb, onions, leeks, aubergine, chilies, peppers, potatoes, artichokes, and even sweet corn.

But where oh where should I seat all these lovely plants?
Carrots and tomatoes like each other, and carrots love onions, but onions don't like beans...yes must keep those two apart from one another. Oh the joys of companion planting!
It is so important for gardeners to consider if trying to plant organically since certain plants ward of bugs that would normally be attracted to a paired plant, while others will provide necessary protection from the elements.

While companion planting is important, crop rotation is even more important....and this is why it is crucial to have a well thought out plan.
Crop rotation comes down to rotating crops from one bed to the next from year to year. Just like people; soil can adapt to the same old same old, and after awhile too much of the same thing can get stale. Planting the same crop type in the same bed year after year can lead to soil borne pathogens that can make it downright impossible to successfully grow and harvest that crop organically.

Theoretically both Companion Planting and Crop Rotation make sense on their own, but trying to plan out our garden for this year (and future years to come) using both organic gardening techniques has been quite the challenge. It's like planning out the seating arrangement for a party (think don't sit Aunt Sue next to Uncle Al her ex-husband) while making sure that for the next party everyone sits at different tables. It does sound simple enough after typing it out like that, but when you mix types of plants together the order in which to rotate your crops becomes a bit less obvious.

So needless to say a HUGE PROJECT! I am a little intimidated, but honestly the worst thing that could happen is that seeds don't germinate or the plants don't make it. I guess it all boils down to trial and error, fingers crossed that there isn't too many errors though!

Sidetracked

2010-02-28T10:51:00.000+01:00

Been laying low for the last 2 weeks. We have had three new cyclists arrive here in the last week, so we had to take some time to get a few small projects done in their rooms before they all arrived.

Now that the house is buzzing with all our new guests we can get back to the big project of drywalling...dun dun dun! Pleased to say that we are nearly there, but going to hold off on photos until we can check that box done, and write up a whole post about the process.

Planning out that garden of ours is the other consuming task of the moment. At times I feel like i'm planning out the seating plan for our wedding all over again....only worse! And yes a full big ol post will follow on this as well.

So all in all this post was just a little tease - just a promise of more to come (and hopefully within the week).

TTFN

Holly

Our Empty Plot

2010-02-15T21:33:00.005+01:00

It's Crocus Vakantie (Crocus Vacation) in Belgium!

So in anticipation of milder temperatures and more day light, I thought i'd reveal some of our plans for spring. Not only do we have a blank canvas to contend with up in the attic, we also have a big blank back garden (for the most part). Last summer we did make a dent by adding in a small garden shed, a place for all the cyclists to wash their beloved bicycles, and put in some clothes lines.

We (Belle mostly) did enjoy having the vast space, especially since our last place had a tiny garden. We spent many hours chasing Belle around, and playing games of "Bellie in the Middle" (our take on monkey in the middle), but we feel that it's time for our garden to start working for us.

Our mission is to dig for victory, get rid of as much of that boring lawn as possible, have a bountiful harvest (however possible that is for first time gardeners - our tiny gardens in the past don't count), create a rotation plan for our garden, and do it all organically.

With that it mind we did get a bit of a head start this past autumn. We spent a good afternoon digging up a large plot just behind the garden shed, enlightened it a bit with some pages of the world press, and gave it a good covering of compost and earth. So here's hoping that the plot will be left well nourished after the harshish winter that we've had here.

In the meantime while our compost and newspapers were working their magic we've been studying up on information and more importantly inspiration. Been reading a great blog You Grow Girl and picked up two great books The Gardener's A-Z Guide to Growing Organic Food, Grow Great Grub: Organic Food from Small Spaces (great read, even for our not so small space!). Oh and just picked up a pair of pink gardening gloves, so far have only gotten to use them to carry up the wood floor planks.

And because i'm a little impatient to get my hands dirty, I have already began to sow some seeds inside; more for experimental purposes than anything really. So far i've sowed some tomato, aubergine, pea, and some radish seeds. All but the aubergine seeds have begun to make their presence know - here's a look...

Well that's it for now! Next time: Drywall - Lets Get 'er done!

Cheers
Holly

Crowning Glory

2010-02-12T21:06:00.003+01:00

Here to report through dust filled eyes that as of last Thursday our old 1970's butcher shop/row house now has something to brag about. Thats right she was officially crowned with the shiniest roof on the block! Yes officially - we were given a plaque to commemorate our achievement from the city council...... yeahhhh no not really, but at least we know it right!?

But honestly don't she look purdy?

Of course we waisted no time in commencing the celebrations... that's right we got right to laying down the sub-flooring. All 81 square meters of it! The floor space actually takes up roughly 90 square meters, but we left out 9 for where the bathroom will go. The bathroom will have to be built up slightly to accommodate for the plumbing.

Here's a photo of the sub-flooring going in midway. Gregg sprayed on some red paint where all the existing electrical wires were just to be on the safe side when it came time to screw the boards in place.

Once we finished with that it was time for a trip; hummm France perhaps???
Yes haven't been to France in a while, and not much else to do anyways.
You think I was joking, don't you? Well unfortunately nope, dead serious... we - went - to - France, and it was everything we dreamed it would be. Big, and bright, and *sigh* full of endless possibilities! Oh and I can't forget the prices, yes those prices that are unheard of 10 minutes to the North. Just thinking about it makes me want to shout "VIVE LE CASTORAMA" from our shiney new roof!

Not to build it up any further, Castorama is a hardware store much like a Home Depot or Lowes. So nothing really special if you live around the corner from one, but if you knew all of our other options Castorama would have you shouting too. I was almost embarrassed walking around the store, just knowing that it had been there the whole time while we struggled to find selection or prices that we could afford.

*** Side Rant: The "hardware" and DIY shops in Belgium present you with a few options; usually one poor quality and low cost option and then reasonable quality with an inflated price tag - nothing in between. If you want other options you go to the specialty shops - and no doubt you will over pay there too! Saw an idea that you liked in a magazine? Forget it, chances are you wont find what you need. Might as well stick to the same modern and minimalist design that all Belgians are going for these days! Don't get me wrong, I like their style, we just don't see ourselves going in that direction. ***

So Castorama first came under our radars whilst on a quest for flooring. We were originally planning on installing laminate and indirectly pump some money towards the Quickstep Cycling Team (hey we love them!) but some last minute nerves changed our minds. Luckily the one local DIY store had their wood flooring on sale so we thought heck yes, thats what we want! Long story short the sale price in the shop was listed next to the nice wood, when it should have been placed next to the sorry excuse for wood flooring (Surprise, they only had 2 options available). So after that disappointment we headed off to all sorts of home improvement stores (including ones targeted towards contractors) and came back with a single option - and it was still a bit of a budget stretch.
Jokingly I said "I bet if we lived in France we could find the wood flooring that we're looking for".
Both of us in agreement that joke turned into an internet search, which came up with 3 major hardware chains within France. We chose the larger one, punched the address in our gps, and didn't look back.
Two hours later we were on our way home with a van filled with 88 square meters of Maritime Pine, and huge grins on our faces. Can't wait for our next visit!

The van was saying ouch at the time, but so did we after carrying all those up 2 flights of stairs!

Whats Our Style?

2010-02-04T21:06:00.002+01:00

Now that work on our space has commenced we have started brainstorming how we want it to look.

Just to make sure that the two of us are on the same page, last week I had Gregg take an online style quiz on Sproost (www.sproost.com). The quiz takes you through a series of home interior photos that you rate on a scale from "Love it" to "Hate it", and in the end it defines your style for you - either defined by a combination of styles, or it under-covers a definite winner.

Greggs result - 100% Vintage Modern

For scientific purposes I took the same quiz (actually it wasn't exactly the same as the photos adjust depending on your previous answers) to see how my style compares to Gregg's.

To throw us a curve ball I scored 100% Vintage Modern!

"Flea Market anyone? You know you are drawn to modern furniture and interiors, and yet you really don't like a space that feels cold and sterile. And who could blame you? And that's why Vintage Modern is so appealing to you. Though the backdrop of the room, the walls and windows, are many times white or monochromatic, the furniture and accessories have the color, shape and texture to bring the warmth into the space. The great thing about Vintage Modern is ease of mixing different styles in the one space. You can have a new modular sofa mixed with a great pair of chairs that your grandmother purchased in the late 1950's and the new and old work appear as though they were destined for each other. What's great is that even if you don't have time for swap meets and garage sales, so many of the pieces from the mid-century were so great that they have been remade and mimicked year after year (www.sproost.com)"

I will take these results to show that Gregg and I are both steering towards the same general idea - but will leave it at that. Speaking for myself my "vintage modern" is a little more "vintage" and a little less "modern". The word modern scares me to an extent, I would prefer terms like "clean" "simple" and "timeless".

Discover your own personal style over at www.sproost.com , and see if the results compare to your own personal style.

Holly

Our Back Story

2010-02-03T20:49:00.006+01:00

After reading the first post we realize that you might still be a little curious as to why we are converting our attic into our "home within a home".

You may have noticed from the last photo that our home in fact is quite large (ten points to you if you noticed this).

Here's that photo again if you didn't catch it the first time.

Now here's a photo of the front side of the house, taken during the roofing process last week.

So the house was built in 1973; we're sure it was very "modern" at the time. It was originally used as a butcher shop with space for all "butcher duties", and attached living spaces.

It had been many years since the property was actually used for it's original purpose so we knew we had to snatch it up - after all it had exactly what we needed loads of unused space, 5 existing bedrooms, and a great attic space.

And why did we need all that you ask?

Well one of our passions in life is cycling (think bicycles and spandex), a sport which happens to be huge in Belgium. Gregg coming from the US, had pursued racing here - and long story short found living conditions for the average poor foreign cyclist to be quite difficult to say the least.

So after retiring from racing professionally in Belgium, Gregg decided that his next step would be to create a comfortable and adaptable environment in Belgium for other foreign cyclists.

So all that unused space has allowed for 2 extra bedrooms, making a whopping total of 7 bedrooms - enough space to house 10 cyclists! And there's even loads of space for the riders to do all their bike mechanic work inside (and in a room that was designed to get dirty too).

So bringing us back to the original question. Why are we converting our attic into a "home within a home"?

We love the cyclists we really do, we just need our own space now and again so we don't feel like we're living the life of university students in shared accommodation. Once everything is said and done we'll enjoy our own space with a full kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and living spaces... but of course we'll still spend plenty of time sharing stories and learning all about the riders sharing our home with us.

- Holly

Our Big Blank Canvas

2010-02-03T19:02:00.009+01:00

This is the story of Gregg and Holly a pair of loosely experienced diy'ers who have been blessed or cursed (depending on how you see it) with a big blank canvas to build their dream "home within a home". Together with our Supervisor Belle (our 2.5 year old English Cocker Spaniel, named after Holly's absolute favorite Disney movie) we plan on tackling/struggling through the conversion of our attic. Along the way you can expect many conflicts over proposed paint colours, debates over how to incorporate our exposed brick walls, and maybe even a rant or two about how we would so love a Home Depot or Lowes or something of the likes - you see we are doing all of this in tiny little Belgium. A great country if you're looking for chocolates, but home improvement stores are ding dang darn expensive or filled with zero selection. This could be fun...right?!

So here's a look at what we started with over a year ago...

Taken during one of the home viewings before we actually

purchased our home, we knew this could potentially

become a great space for us!

Within a month of moving into our home this is what we had accomplished...

Even though we knew it would be about a year before we

could start serious work on our space, we got the messy demo

work done first. We were happy that we did, because it

took months to getthe last of that demo debris under control!

No more hatch steps, we're climbing these babies now!

Gregg extended the rafters so that we could place insulation.

And this is where we are at now...

The stairs are still "under construction" and are in dire need of some tlc.

As you can see towards the right side of the picture the

drop down stairs have been removed and the gap filled in.

Windows and insulation have been installed.....ahh glorious daylight!

The new roof is currently being installed, and should be

finished by tomorrow- so long as the rain holds up.

So that brings you up to speed on where we started out, and where we currently stand. We will post again shortly about some of the spaces highlights, and of course our progress.