Our splurge!

So far we have been able to pretty much stay on budget... even though I did more than double my appliance budget (oops) - we were under budget on enough to make up for it.  Although now its the finishing details that are going to kill me!  The one big splurge, however is our pool.  Ron has grown up with a pool and had very strong opinions in this area.  We were given lots of advice from different people.  We had it drawn up a few times, but in the end changed it to be very similar to Ron's mom's pool.  We absolutely love his moms pool - my kids and the many families that she shares it with, have been enjoying it for years.  We hired arguably the best pool company in the lower mainland, and we are so glad that we did!  The owner themselves were there to spray the concrete in the pool last Friday.  What an interesting process that was.  The different trades in the house couldn't help but watching in amazement.  We even came home from our vacation to see it all happen!  The owner told Ron that he was thrilled with how we designed the pool.  He thought is was very practical, unlike many of the pools they build in West Van that are mostly for looks.  I can tell you my children will not be just looking at this pool!

Here you can see our hot tub.  It is set off to the side of the pool and will overflow into the pool.  Above you can see there is going to be a ledge that will sit below the water to sit on.



Here is man land.....  The other part of Ron's pride and joy.  His garage.  Its a 3 car garage with an extra add on for a workshop, snow mobiles...whatever Ron decides.And this is the start of my kitchen cabinets.  They are a simple shaker panel with open shelving at the top.

By this weekend I should have more pictures to show..  Have a great weekend!

 

High/Low

The best way to meet the budget in any project is choose your budget breakers wisely, and don't choose too many of them!  I am working on tile right now for our house.  Im having to make some of those decisions.  I think when we were putting figures into our budget we really shaved off the tile budget to make it all work.  Now Im faced with trying to make the tile I want fit into the budget!

The kitchen backsplash for instance:  I could go with $1.50 per square foot bevelled subway tile, or $35 per square foot tile like this:

We have a very large mudroom/laundry/powder room area that is going to get the most high traffic use of almost anywhere in the house.  Ive been introduced to a groutable vinyl tile.  Almost indestructable, looks almost identical to tile but is not quite as hard under foot.  Unfortunately the choices are very limited.  Also, from a design and practicality prospective it has to go into the powder room.  The powder room is the only bathroom in the house that the majority of our guests will see, and we will use regularily.  Most people pour their money into the master ensuite which is fine if that is your priority.  I had thought I would choose my budget breaker as the powder room instead.  But, if I use vinyl, the flooring needs to carry into the powder room.  That kinda put a damper on my grand plans :)  Tile and install for the vinyl is $4.50, the cheapest ceramic tile I can find - which is quite nice, plus install is $7.50 a square foot.  Here is the vinyl tile:  The colouring is good, but not perfect....

In the powder room I would love to do something like this on the floor or wall:

A less expensive way to make a statement would be to do stripes on the wall in the powder room:

So I have some decisions to make....  For now, I have decided on a beautiful mother of pearl mini brick tile to do a tile area rug in our ensuite.  The rest of the tile is only $2 a square foot - so it all evens out in the end!  Im a believer in making sacrifices where you can so you can sqeeze some "holy cows!" into the budget.  Id love to hear your th0ughts.  Your comments are appreciated :)

I've got a few more pictures of our house for the blog.....  I'll post those later today.