Kitchen Reno - First Steps

As you know we have currently bought a house. And it needs ALOT of work. On Saturday we allotted a bit of time to do some research on kitchen cabinets. We headed over to our local http://www.ayakitchens.com/ showroom to checkout cabinets. They had some lovely options, however, the cabinet cover we liked best, it is pretty similar to one I recently saw in Ikea.

Ikea Cabinet Lindingo White

I love the white cabinets and the detail is pretty. The price can't be beat! Here's another picture of the kitchen at Ikea.

I am thinking that since the price difference between the two places are HUGE, that perhaps the best route to go would be to do an IKEA kitchen and dress it up with nice hardware, appliances, back splash and countertop. You also can't beat the warranty IKEA has on their cabinets.

I was wondering if any of our readers have IKEA kitchens. Do you like them? What's the quality like?

When will things slow down?

I finally have a moment to sit down and write a bit about what's going on at home and on the business front. It has been a VERY busy few weeks! Especially with a few major things happening.

1. We have been searching for a new house for 6 months. It has been an extremely emotional and frustrating search. For those of you who are NOT familiar with the Toronto market, please believe me when I say that It. Is. Insane. I'm not sure if you've check out my new favourite blogger http://fmlistings.tumblr.com/rss but her blog is all about the market here and she is excellent at describing the insanity. Anyways, after putting in three offers that were rejected (one was lost by only $1000) we finally won!!! So after months of taking time each week to view house after house, the agony of waiting for the offer date, multiple trips to the bank we finally have our weekend back!! Only to realise that we now have to sell our house...

2. It's time to sell. So for the past week and a half we have been cleaning, organizing and purging like mad getting our house ready to list on Monday! When you have two children whose goal in life is to make a mess, this is definitely the easier way. So in this sense, the timing couldn't be better because we are going away on Monday for two weeks. However, at the same time we are packing up the house and getting it showing ready, we also have to plan and get everything ready for our trip. There is no time to be excited about the trip right now. All we can focus on is getting the house ready.

3. And of course, we now have a new house that needs a lot of work! It is a 1960's backsplit and was sold by the original owners. Enough said. There is a kitchen to gut, bathrooms to plan, wallpaper to hopefully steam off, and wood panelling to get rid of. So to add to all that is going on, we now need to figure out what we can do on our budget, find a contractor, source materials and try to get our house move in ready by the time we close on our current house.

4. Our trip. We are going to Disney. The girls are super excited. I am looking forward to it but have to admit that I am more looking forward to our trip to Sanibel Island AFTER Disney. I really need a Vacation! Not the waiting in lines, crowed kind. I need the sit on the beech with a drink and soak up the sun kind.

Sigh......

5. So enough about our personal craziness...There are exciting things happening on the business front! I can't say too much yet, but we will hopefully be able to share our great news in the next couple of months! But for now, these exciting things are keeping me SUPER busy! Why is it that all things seem to hit at the same time?

PS. - Our Organized Family Calendar was in Better Homes and Gardens this month!!!

Should I? Or Shouldn't I?

I have recently gotten into a fitness craze. It all started with my New Year's Resolution and this year I plan to stick to it! I started going to the West End Y again and tried a gravity class thanks to the urgings of a friend who goes with me. I have never liked exercising. In fact, on my list of things I hate, exercising was at the top. For some reason though, I LOVE my gravity class. On the days I don't go, I think about it. A lot. I am a bit obsessed. I have no idea why this particular class has peaked my interest. But it has. I've been going now every week for two months and I have yet to get bored (my usual complaint about exercising).

So the question I am trying to answer is, Should I try spinning as well? I'm a little scared of spinning. Bike riding as a general rule is not my fave because it hurts my butt. So the thought of doing an hour long class with a sore butt does not appeal to me. However, I have spoken with a few people who swear by their spinning class (and swear that the sore butt goes away). I am starting to muster up the courage to do my first class but would love to hear from you to see if doing this class would be a good thing or if it would halt my recent success with exercise and have me run screaming from the gym?