We've had some delays with the construction of the addition to the house, but the bits are finally constructed and installed, yay!! So here's a quick review of the process for your viewing pleasure, broken into three posts.
The original house layout was this:
A few years ago, Dave constructed these beautiful built-ins at the window end of the living room:
This year, Dave's built a pair of china hutches to go into the dining room:
Then in October, Dave framed in the new walls between the dining room & living room, to house the new built-ins, and installed them:
Here is the new layout of the house:
Along with framing the walls to house the built-ins, Dave moved the entry from the hallway into the living room down towards the other end of the hallway from it's original placement:
This has already improved traffic flow and has made the living room both physically (because it's blocked the draft from the front door) and psychologically more cozy. A huge side benefit to all this construction is the addition of a "hall" closet (it's actually in the living room, but close enough). 
Dave has a beautiful piece of furniture that he'd built to hang jackets and store shoes on; however, it takes up a huge chunk of the hallway. Now, we can move all that stuff into the new closet when it's completed, and repurpose that furniture piece somewhere else, thus opening the hall even further.
Last night we started getting a dump of snow, but then it changed to rain and started to melt. So I reckoned we'd be free & clear of the white stuff in the morning.
Not so much! This was the view from our front doorstep at about 11 am this morning.
So on such a crappy weather day, I thought it'd be nice to bring some sunshine into our house in the form of lemon muffins. There's nothing like having a bit of lemon zest zing to clear the drab dull winter blahs, and lavender to revitalize the ugliest of morning grumpies.
Lemon Muffins (originally from The Complete Harrowsmith Cookbook: All Three Harrowsmith Cookbooks in One Volume
, but adapted, of course!)
2 cups flour (you can use 1 cup unbleached and 1 cup whole wheat, for a nice hearty texture)
1/2 cup honey
1 tbsp baking powder
1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup plain yogurt
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice (2-3 lemons)
zested rind of those lemons
1/4 tsp cardamom
1 tsp lavender florets finely chopped
2 eggs
Combine dry ingredients. Combine moist ingredients. Stir moist into dry until just incorporated. Spoon into greased muffin tin about 2/3 full, and bake at 400° F for 15 minutes. Makes 12 muffins.
Dave just finished the lighting last night in the kitchen, so we've got track, ambient and also light over the stove top because of the range hood (installed about a month ago).
Hmmm, with this much light, I can really see what needs cleaning! Sigh.
We spent the last two days wandering helplessly through aisles and aisles of lighting fixtures, blinding ourselves every few minutes as we look up into a glaring bulb placed just so. We say to each other "I Nina'd myself" because our sister-in-law, Nina, is working towards completing her interior design diploma, and during the lighting class she kept giving herself welders' flash headaches by looking into the light. Don't do it. But it's really hard to avoid!
We had already been to Robinson Lighting, then we went to Norburn Lighting. Both are kind of pricey, plus anywhere you go where "trades" go, you can never find what the price is unless you ask, because it's differentially priced depending on who you are. Ugh. We had tried Home Depot in Coquitlam and weren't impressed; then we tried the one near Scott Road SkyTrain and they had a much better selection & display of lighting. Someone there said that the North Vancouver one was even better, more upscale. So much for shopping at a chain! Finally, we wandered around IKEA.
The end result is this fixture for our dining room from Home Depot:
I am rather partial to it because while it's quite simple, it still has lots of sparkle thanks to the fluted/scalloped glass bulb "shades" (I don't know what you call them), and it's bright because it uses eight xenon bulbs.
For the kitchen, we've decided to go with track lighting, and have purchased these lights for the same kind of light fixture, but not in a three-head version, just singles, but you get the idea.
We also ordered a bath tub (YAY!) from Home Depot, which will hopefully be here within the next 3-4 weeks. We are kind of stuck in the bathroom for proceeding without it, so that's why Dave is now dealing with lighting. The next project is installing the track in the kitchen. Oooo! Light in the kitchen. I can hardly wait!! We currently have a couple of fluorescents behind a heavy oak frame (well, actually, we don't currently have that - Dave took that down yesterday). And fluorescents are a pig to work under; anywhere you stand in the kitchen, you're blocking the light to what you're working on. Blech. So I'm looking forward to the new tracks. Dave installed an exhaust fan above the stove a couple of weeks ago, and the two little halogen lights in that do a better job of lighting the kitchen than the dratted fluorescents. Of course, it doesn't help that one of the ballasts has decided to act up, so we had one working and one flickering set of fluorescents for the past month or so. Highly annoying.
We spent some more time at Olympia Tile and drooled over their stock. I brought home a few samples for the backsplash & tub surround & floor. I think we've decided on a matte glass tile for the backsplash & tub surround, but aren't quite decided for the floor. It's fun browsing colours and textures in tiles, and Olympia is a great store with really nice displays that they change fairly regularly.
