But I digress…. The traps that most established businesses find themselves in is that they can’t grasp the fact that in contrast to their existing business (where their knowledge to assumption ratio is high) in a new business venture it is low and the metrics, processes and norms that surround their existing business don’t apply in the new.

With some examples he illustrated that there are 3 traps that established businesses find themselves when trying to create new businesses. (Note that this doesn’t [shouldn't] apply to start-up businesses (unless you have real problems.)]

Trap 1- failure to allocate resources. Basically this is the “Holy crap! Is this thing as big a disruption to our model as we think? Better not pay too much attention as we don’t want to rock the boat.” Think DEC and the personal computer.

The second trap is in trying to graft new technology onto an old business model. How to develop a digital camera? Make it work the same as a film camera. At least this is what Kodak thought in the early 90s when they released the $30,000 DCS-100 that had the same quality as film. (Except users didn’t want the hefty the price tag!)

The third trap is companies don’t let these new innovative businesses mature and are impatient for growth. In this case because HP was a multi-billion dollar company, they wanted their newly developed HP Kittyhawk 1.3 inch hard drive to be a $100M business within 12 months, because that’s the growth rate established by the rest of the company. They didn’t allow the product a “Test and Learn” that would have made it apparent that the main market that they were targeting with this device was wrong and they needed a different business model to succeed where the device would have the most traction.

At this point, one asks, “What is the problem with these companies? Cant they see that you have to be aware of all these “traps” to succeed?” Where it really becomes a challenge is around culture and operational norms. In the rigidity of rules, norms and metrics established business find they are “trapped” in how they evaluate new opportunities and how they fit into existing business models. They really need to step back and think about how they currently make money and what needs to change if they are to really take advantage of a new opportunity. In a lot of cases, the whole business model has to change.

Think about the Tata Nano. It was created not to compete against other cars but as an alternative to a scooter. They had to change everything about the model (supply chain, distribution, manufacturing) in order to compete on that level.

Or what about MinuteClinic? Its not a competitor to existing medical services but meant to take care of many routine health care issues that can be treated by rules-based procedures.

The biggest problem comes from the inevitable commodification of business models as new entrants come in once and attractive market is carved out. You can ignore it to your peril or do what innovative companies like Hilti have done. They’ve created a new business that realizes that one source of frustration to contracting companies is tools and tool failure. Rather than simply selling tools they now sell a “tool fleet management service” with a monthly fee covering leasing of the entire tool category. They had to completely rethink their model. Rather than selling through distributors, now they sell direct. Before they had to think of low cost manufacturing, now they need IT systems to track inventory and repairs. They had to really think about the stakeholder and the job that needed to be done and how they could serve that stakeholder.

Finally the example of Better Place was raised. With the advent of the true electric car close to fruition, a key problem still exists- the long charging cycle of current batteries. Shai Agassi, the entrepreneur behind the company thought, What if we could reinvent the whole model so that we didn’t actually sell cars, but we sold “miles?” Their target is not other new cars, but used cars- they need to be competitive to someone who might not consider a car at all! Their model is similar to the cell phone where the initial cost of the vehicle is subsidised by an ongoing distance contract.

For me the real takeaway once again was getting to the heart of the job to be done that the customer needs. This leads to a clean sheet thinking about what the appropriate model is to serve that customer and how to integrate that model into a system. The ever-present question is whether this can truly ever happen in an established company with and established model and established ways of thinking. Time will tell if there are ways of breaking out of established patterns, but given the above examples of very competent companies, the jury is out on if this journey is one that has a happy ending.

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1. Is Apple’s iPad the next big thing, or another Newton?

Given the amount of press and speculation feature expectations were bound to overshoot what even arguably the leading consumer device manufacturer could deliver. But in the afterglow of today’s launch I am starting to wonder if we need to look beyond the actual device and features as some have mentioned.

With any new category it firstly is difficult to envisage what the eventual maturation of devices will look like. When automobiles were first starting to be delivered to mass markets, they took a lot of design cues from horse drawn carriages. It took quite a few years for cars as a new distinct category to emerge and people to accept that the two categories were different. What’s also exciting is the potential that cars would promise and deliver in terms of mobility and even urban design and travel.

Now I am not suggesting that Jobs and company have delivered something so life changing as the automobile, but we might want to separate out a few things from the hype to see if indeed there is promise that would justify even Apple’s internal hoopla. If we move past the shiny device itself to the ecosystem then to behaviour, are there any indications that this device would impact developers / users to create new ways to use / interact with the device? Could it then be a new way of interacting with content that is significantly better than what we have now?

I am only asking the question because the iPhone (which isn’t really just a phone, but a most personal computer) and its data plans changed how people interact on the go. Heck, it even changed how I interact in the home! It broke the carrier model of aggregating applications behind a pay-wall and brought more of an ecosystem approach to app creation and consumption. Are there any aspects in the iPad which may break existing content models?

Time will tell, but one thing is for sure: no one ever got rich underestimating Apple’s ability to create interesting new markets.

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But in an industry that is one of the most criticized from a customer service point of view, why would a company try to compete against very established players with deep pockets. The answer is contained in a dramatic slide which showed the veritable duopoly of control of the wireless market between the incumbents Rogers, Telus and Bell. Because of this, Tony made the case that there is a disincentive for the incumbents to be aggressive outside their home territory for risk of retaliation by the other players. Simply stated he believes “…that the root of all or our problems is contained in this slide.”

With a story that many of the audience members could relate to he recounted that when he stared Gloablive in 1998 he needed a cell phone, but he found customer service from the big carriers was lacking. This started a decade-long quest to somehow find a way to bring a customer-centric wireless company to the market. So when Industry Canada set aside wireless spectrum for new entrants for an auction in 2008, he went looking for partners that would provide him the scale to introduce a legitimate challenger to the incumbents. He found that partner in Egypt’s Orascom which is the 9th largest wireless operator in the world.

However, after bidding $445MM and winning spectrum in most of the provinces, the company was put before an ownership review by the federal government. In the first review, both Industry Canada and the Department of Justice approved the ownership structure, but was turned down by the CRTC. After what could only be described as an excruciating delay, the approval to launch was announced on Friday December 11, 2009, clearing the way for the company to begin selling wireless services.

The root of their strategy comes from the thousands of customer suggestions and submissions from their site, wirelesssoapbox.com. Lacavera said that he “talked to so many people and the problem that most of them talk about is the complexity,” of the whole process. “It’s so complicated, it’s like a car lease for 3 years,” Lacavera said, and we “need to make it simple and enjoyable.” To illustrate this, the company recently put together a humorous campaign that pokes fun at the way the incumbents currently sell wireless services.

Lacavera says that taking the complexity out of the business won’t be easy – customer service needs to be at the core of everything the company does. Along with a keen focus on the customer he mentioned a few of the “fun and cool” things they would have at launch including person-to-person mobile top ups; an open mobile application platform and social media and instant messaging integration.

As far as handsets go, Lacavera noted that they will have the “latest Blackberry” devices as well as the same ones which are available on other GSM networks. As for the iPhone, he said that it won’t be available at launch but there is “no reason” why it wouldn’t be available in the future.

In summing up his talk, Lacavera said that Wind Mobile is “in it for the long haul” and has every intention of competing and succeeding in winning business from the incumbent players. As everyone knows, it will be a challenge, but with the right customer focus and strategy the company looks to continuing to challenge the status quo and maybe just push the whole industry to change. And as one audience member later remarked, “It’s about time.”

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According to a new OECD paper, government investment could be justified based on even small direct benefits in just four key sectors of the economy – electricity, health, education and transportation. The full paper is available here.

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1. Tony Lacavera gives an update on the evolution of Canada’s wireless industry

But after I wrote that post, I started to think about what else could be causing this. So I went out and looked at a few posts and decided to try something radical: I’d change the detergent! It seems that for this type of unit, you need to use a detergent with enzymes that help eat the dirt off the dishes. Sounds a bit weird but I was willing to give anything a try.

What really helped out was looking at Consumers Reports online because they’d just finished a report on the best and worst detergents available and to my displeasure, I was using one of the worst. So off I went to the store to pick up an “All-in-one” that was supposed to work better with the way the dishwasher is made to clean.

And it did! I use Cascade All-in-One tabs and now I don’t rinse anything: dishes with oatmeal, sticky jam, barbeque all go right in there. It even cleans the soy milk off glasses. So now I can save time and water by not having to rinse. Now I need a cheaper source for detergent as this stuff is about twice the cost of the old! But its worth it.

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1. Dishwasher drama – inside the world of dirty dishes

Well, in practice this has worked splendidly! But what this also meant was that the sink and dishwasher was visible from the rest of the main floor. So we would have to deal with potentially dirty dishes and an appliance in full view of company. To minimize the clutter we wanted to have a dishwasher that could take a custom panel that matched the rest of the millwork in the kitchen.

Custom panel hides dishwasher

The problem with this approach is that for the pleasure of installing a panel, most manufacturers charge significantly more than stock appliances. Why? I guess because they can. And, not all manufacturers have this option. So we quickly settled on two brands: Miele and Bosch.

We took a look at both and I honestly think that although each has its advantages and disadvantages, they are both solid machines. What really swung the pendulum in favour of the Miele was the third rack for cutlery (more on that in a moment) and the fact that we could get one that was a “scratch and dent” model for over 50% off the list price from MTC.

So I went to the showroom and ordered one for delivery. When it was delivered, the installer mentioned a few hints because Miele’s have a different installation method than others. As I mentioned previously, it was a good thing we got those tips because it was certainly somewhat less straightforward than I thought.

After first time we loaded it up and turned it on, we were sitting in our living room reading and at a certain point we both looked up and wondered if the thing was still on or if there was a problem and it had stopped. Well, no word of a lie, it was running, but it’s so quiet that we didn’t hear it! What a change from our old machine that was so loud we had to turn up the volume on the TV! The only time you can tell its going is during a drain cycle when the noise from the water rushing down the PVC drain pipes tells you that it’s still on.

It does however have quite a long cycle, which isn’t really a problem if you plan for it. I believe the manual says that the “normal” cycle is about 110 minutes! Additionally, with this type of dishwasher, there are no heating elements at the bottom to dry the dishes. Instead, the stainless walls retain heat which is radiated back into the drum and dries dishes by evaporation. If you open the unit just after it finishes, you’ll be greeted by pretty wet glasses and cutlery. So we typically turn it on in the evening and by morning things are usually pretty dry.

Speaking of glasses, a good rinse agent is mandatory! There is a separate compartment and a red indicator light if the reservoir is running low. Furthermore, its better not to use lots of dishwashing detergent or else the interior begins to smell a bit funky. I had to find that out by following a few online forums.

Three, count ‘em, three racks!

I really like the design of the racks and it has such a large capacity that it takes us a couple of days to fill. I’d rather fill the unit and run it once than run a few half empty loads but the problem with that is the inside starts to smell of whatever last nights dinner was! So I often just run a quick “rinse” if I know that we don’t have enough to run a full load.

It has a filter in the bottom that you have to check and clean manually (rather than an automatic one in most North American units). But its really no problem to get and and a quick rinse every few weeks gets out most things.

Filter is easy to clean

But just a word of warning- if you and your partner have “discussions” about how to load a dishwasher, you could find all sorts of things to argue about with this unit! For example, the third rack is for cutlery and supposedly the fastest method is to arrange all the knives together, the forks etc. so that when you unload, you just grab a handful and dump them into the drawer. So if you like this type of order (and your partner doesn’t) these discussions could degenerate quickly to a battle! Just warning you!

Cutlery rack-helpful or hindrance? Discuss!

Finally the big question: how well does it clean? Sorry to disappoint, but its just ok. Nothing startling, but ok. I eat oatmeal in the morning and not only do I have to scrape (as is recommended in the manual) but I have to rinse and scrub or else it gets baked on to the bowl. Even if I put them in and run it right away, it still gets baked on. I’ve tried a number of different locations and still the same problem. So I’ve learned to live with that because it does the other stuff so well. And it’s built in, so it’s not going anywhere for a while!

So there you have it- good looks, quiet, ok cleaning. And hopefully no more discussions about how to load cutlery.

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So as promised here is a bit of a review on some of the choices we made for our first floor renovation. Lets start with the sink and faucet.

Faucet is clean and simple

The faucet is a HansGrohe Metro: a single lever, high-arc unit that I picked up on sale at the Home Depot for 20% off after I nearly fainted seeing the prices of other models in a specialty store. I figure that this cost us less than half of what some of the mid priced units were going for at the other store.
Pros –

• Looks good with a simple clean design – the control lever can be mounted right or left or in the center like we have
• Feels solid and the unit moves smoothly without sticking
• From what I saw it was a pretty easy installation
• Sprayer option on pullout can be operated with one hand

Cons –

• My biggest beef is that you pull the control lever down to turn it on and left for cold or right for hot. No problem really but seems to be very little fine control – the water goes from a trickle to full blast very quickly. This is something we had to get used to.
• The head for the pull down doesn’t want to retract fully. There is a little magnet which holds the head in but you have to make sure its aligned before it takes hold
• The sprayer requires you to hold down the trigger. There is not a setting where you can turn it on and leave it on.

But given the other benefits I think it’s a good trade-off.

Now the sink. Its a Franke RGX-160 ‘Regatta.’

The sink is a good size for the small kitchen and the bottom grid on the left really helps with cleanup

I wondered why they were so expensive – I mean its just formed stainless steel right? Well in comparing the it which we ended up purchasing from Bathworks in Ajax with products at the depot, I found that the others didn’t have the solid feel of the Franke. It also had nice sound insulating material on the underside which keeps it from sounding “tinny” when you put something in the bottom. We were pretty fortunate that the sales staff at Bathworks helped us by extending the manufacturers sale offer that included the bottom grid and the strainers. I didn’t think that the grid would be useful but we hand wash a lot so its great to put it right on the grid and have it dry. Once again here are the pros;
Pros –

• Looks great!
• Two bowls are different depths so when you put dishes in the deeper one to dry you can hardly see them from the living room. (This was a big consideration to us as you can see that counter run from the living/dining room and we needed it to at least look less cluttered on a day-to-day basis).
• The strainers really seal when you push them down so no water leaks out.
• Solid feel! A real difference between this one and other manufacturers I looked at.
• Sizing fits a 33” base cabinet

Cons –

• None!

So far we are really happy with these two choices. They are used frequently throughout the day and their solid feel (hopefully) means that we will get many years of use out of them.

Next time I will take a look at our Miele dishwasher and you may be surprised by what we’ve found.

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You might be asking yourself, “What is RedEye and why should I care?” Good question! It is a device coupled with an iPhone app that allows you to control all your A/V  equipment through WiFi . This is a great idea that has been attempted before with IR blasters, but no one has brought in the power of the iPhone application to control all the devices in the stereo cabinet.  Which is why I was attracted to this solution in the first place. I wanted my stereo equipment (Tuner/Amp, CD/DVD, surround speakers) to work in my newly painted and redecorated living room, but didn’t want to look at all the components sitting on a shelf collecting dust.

So I went to IKEA and bought a cabinet with a solid door so that I could close off the components to the outside world. So what’s the problem you ask? With the solid door, I couldn’t get an IR signal to control the devices. Not really a big deal when you consider I’d only have to open the door and turn on the Amp and then close the door; then open the door and adjust the volume and then close the door… Well you get the idea.

So as every good tech enthusiast asks, “Why expend energy when we have a technological solution to throw at the problem?” So I got on their site and ordered it through Amazon. After a few hiccups the product shipped out and arrived at my house a few days later.

First the packaging- really great job on all the design and how it is displayed! It looks top notch.

When I started to do the install I realized that I had some space limitations- it was difficult to get the unit inside the cabinet to send a signal to the devices so I had to jiggle with that a bit. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me explain how it seems to work.

There is a device that sits on or near the stereo equipment which flashes a blue light (looks pretty cool) that is “seen” by the IR receiver on the device(s) and controls all manner of functions. This device has a WiFi receiver built in so it gets the signal from the iPhone and transmits it to the stereo equipment.

The other part of the system is a free app that you download for your iPhone or iPod Touch that gives you a neat, clean interface to control the devices. So I could be sitting in my chair and fire up my iPhone (which of course is more readily available to me than that darned remote which keeps getting lost) and adjust the volume, change the station, flip on a CD or anything I could do with the regular remote(s). Best part? This solution is also a universal remote so I can do it all from one device. At least in theory, and here is where you have to go back to the first paragraph. Repeat after me- Its still in BETA!

So one thing to keep in mind is that everyone sets up stereo components after they’ve been drinking a bit (oh, wait- is that just me?) So the instructions seemed a bit cumbersome and didn’t make sense until I realized that not only could you control something in the living room, but you could control multiple rooms (as long as you are within range of the device). You have to use WiFi, so switch your iPhone to WiFi then initially look for the RedEye device and connect to it. You add your component by name in the setup screen, and add commands by capturing the remote setting by holding the remote to the device. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

So after trying a bit more for about an hour, I gave up and went to bed. When I opened the iPhone app the next day and connected to my home network (as in the instructions) the app looked and looked but couldn’t find the device. So as I do with most electronic devices that aren’t behaving, I unplugged it and plugged it back in. Then I got the stereo to turn on! Awesome!

So I closed the door to the cabinet and tried again. Nothing. I could see the device flashing but no change. So (and this is because of my cabinet door) I taped a piece of silver tape (usually used for HVAC) and it bounces the light off and turns devices on or off pretty well. Except when I get “Network Time out” errors on the application.

The company has been updating the app on a regular basis which is great and making it somewhat more reliable, but I still have some issues with the UI. You set up commands for each “room”, and then group the commands (ie turn on amp, turn on CD, press play on CD) into activities. So I get this, but it doesn’t always work. So I think there might be a way to have more of a step by step system in the app to walk through what would be likely use cases for 90% of the population, then hide the setup stuff unless it is needed.

Also when the app starts it looks for the rooms (I guess it tries to contact the device and read the info stored in RAM) and most times it just looks and never finds the device). When it does find the device, it tells me I have to select the room before I can do anything. But I only have one room! So it should know that and autoselect so I can just go to my activities.

Finally it is a bit slow. In this world of insta-on, it takes a bit of getting used to. What I mean is that you have to wait a bit for the command to get sent to the device, then for the device to respond. If you keep hitting the command it will either time out or eventually all the commands will get sent and the volume will go up, up, up! All in all, I love the concept, and am eagerly looking forward to having some of these small bugs worked out!

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1. Is Apple’s iPad the next big thing, or another Newton?

When the tile was at last done and the plates were put on the switches, we realized that looking at our punch list that there were no more things left to cross off! And just in time too as we had some friends over on the weekend to “break in” the results.

In terms of impact the work that was done in the kitchen was huge no question. But everyone commented on the new hardwood and the paint as making a big difference to the rest of the floor. Which goes to prove that for the biggest bang for the buck, changing the paint color is usually the way to go to improve your space.

So now to go over some of our choices and how they are holding up in use. First of all, lets start from the bottom up and take a look at the flooring. Everyone agrees that it is really gorgeous. Hickory would not have been the first material on my lips if you’d have asked me a year ago about hardwood, but it looks really elegant. It gives the visual interest you want in a floor with the grain pattern, but not too busy as you get with other hardwoods.

The color also goes really well with our furniture (and the paint, but that’s another story). The only thing I have to get used to is the scratch factor. I still kind of worry about scratching the floor and I know, I know that this is inevitable, but I haven’t gotten over it yet. And even though the manufacturer quotes a “35 year warrantee” and a high tech “Nano” coating it still scratches (all floors do!). In fact my contractor said that he’s never heard of anyone collecting on any manufacturer’s warrantee!

But that’s not really the point here. Our intention was to get a good looking floor to carry through the entire space to unify the living/dining room and the kitchen. I know the contractor thought we were crazy to put hardwood in the kitchen instead of ceramic, we love it! And the new carpet should help with the entry areas.

Carpet looks great with the paint and hardwood!

Speaking of carpet we selected a great fabric from D’Abbieri Collection called “Leggero – Undercool” and it feels really luxurious underfoot. The carpet installer (Victorious Flooring) did a fantastic job doing the stair runner and the front hall. He even set up the cutting so that we could maximize the carpet installation within the least amount of carpet saving us about $400 in the process!

So next time I will get into some detail on some of the fixtures in the kitchen proper and maybe sum up our experiences.

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I spent a few minutes yesterday setting up tethering on my iPhone 3G using Fido (actually Rogers, but that’s another story). It didn’t take that long once I actually realized that you need a few things to make it happen:

• A PC (in my case a HP dv6000 Laptop running Windows Vista Home Premium)
• iPhone 3G with the iPhone 3.0 or better update
• iTunes 8.2 or better
• Either Bluetooth (don’t have it on my laptop:<, or the USB cable from the iPhone)
• 3G or EDGE coverage (not a problem in the city, but maybe in outlying areas)
• A big data bucket!

The reason I set it up is that we are going out of the city and I want a way to check email etc without using (shudder) dial-up.)

So after updating my iTunes on Vista and restarting it was just a matter of going to Settings->General->Network ->Internet Tethering and turning it on. Then I hooked up the USB cable to the port on the side of the laptop and Vista recognized it as another broadband connection in  Network and Sharing Center.

To test it I shut off the wireless on the laptop and found that I could surf at a pretty speedy pace on the iPhone. Pretty neat although I’d want to be careful what I did online to make sure I stay within my data bucket. Well, not really because I have a 6GB limit, but I don’t want to be pulling down too many movies from iTunes!

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But really the work that Bill the electrician had to do didn’t take that long: putting the trims on the potlights, plates on the outlets and installing the pendant light (which looks great!) with some other bits and pieces.

Pendant picks up the color of the floor and furniture

He even replaced one of our existing outlets to match the Decora style outlets he put in. He said that he didn’t like the look of it because it didn’t match. That just shows the attention to detail in his work!

He had to wait on a few things as he ran out of trims for the pots and wanted to come back after the tile was grouted to put the plates on that wall. So he will be back tomorrow, co-incidentally when the carpet is being installed in the front hall and up the stairs as a runner. I found the carpet installer on Homestars.com and he has a fantastic approval rating. So far he has been extremely responsive and has really helped us through the carpet ordering process.

The backsplash was grouted and looks better than the previous one, although the tiler commented that the tiles are still not truly straight and I can see what he means.

New tile installed last week and grouted

So now it looks like we could really be done for the weekend! (Cross fingers and toes)

Stay tuned – I will devote some time to talking about the various appliances/ fixtures we chose and what I think of them having lived with them on a daily basis!

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1. Sink and faucet- What’s the verdict?

So I though I was SOL because I didn’t see how Apple could possible update the device with software. But I was wrong! Imagine my surprise when one of the features announced at WWDC ’09 was stereo Bluetooth! I didn’t even think it was possible but Apple, being clever, built in into the hardware and turning it on became possible with the right software upgrade.

So that solved the biggest problem. All I had to do was wait. And wait. And wait until June 17th for the upgrade to become available so I could download it and install. [I always worry when I upgrade software on most electronic devices about turning them into bricks, especially something that I use as frequently as my phone! But it went pretty smoothly all things considered]

Now a bit about the headset. The Plantronics Voyager 855 comes in an attractive package, suspended in clear plastic within the main outer box. I carefully pulled the headset out and took a look. It appears to be made to a high quality standard and although very light, looks like it will stand up to daily use.

It came with several replaceable ear buds that should help fit most ears. Except of course mine. Now this is not a new issue – I can’t get any ear buds, including the ones that came with the phone to fit. I just have a non-standard ear I guess….

The unit comes with two over the ear clips and I am still fiddling with them to get the headset to sit properly and comfortably.

So when I pulled the phone from the dock all looked good. I paired the two devices really fast (with QuickPair technology, the unit stays discoverable for about 10 minutes and makes pairing a snap.) I made a voice call and the call quality was great- some background noise but better than I was expecting.

But to my surprise when I played music it didn’t play through the headset. I consulted the manual to no avail. I went online to a few sites and quickly determined that I need to restart the phone. Oh yeah! After this I turned the headset off then back on and then off to the races. Stereo music with no wires!

As I write this, I am wearing the unit and its so light I forget I have it on. I have had to experiment with different earbuds and I think I will investigate if I can get custom ones made to fit if I can find a source. So far no luck but I’ll take any leads/suggestions.

And the best part? I got it on Amazon for about $100 off! It came from an Amazon store called shopcell.com and they shipped it out same day. With shipping it came to about $42 which is fantastic and I am looking forward to more testing. Stay tuned!

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Ripping out the backsplash. It had to be done….

hmmm… drywall compound as a backsplash?

Its not like we didn’t know, and I know its only a small setback but it has slowed us down somewhat in getting things back to a somewhat normal state around here. Luckily it wasn’t too messy today…

I think the electician will be back to hook up the dining room pendant and exterior light and finish off the rest of his work next week (when he gets back from Disneyworld). And I am getting some wood delivered so I can put up a pergola over the deck just outside the door, where it gets really hot in the sun. I figured, I had pretty much taken out the railing anyway, so I might as well extend the posts up and put in a sun shade. We shall see how that goes!

Related posts:

1. Sink and faucet- What’s the verdict?

Basecoat meet house. House meet basecoat

I think all stucco jobs are messy.

Today they sprayed it and it looks really good! Its not quite the stark white that we had originally; its warmer which I like. The coat is nice and even so that part is great. The part which is not so great is that they oversprayed the area a bit so that my hose, and gate are now a slightly stucco’d. Not sure if it comes off but we’ll see.

Nice clean look; makes me want to repaint entire house? Nahhhh.

Speaking of messy the contractor was in on Monday to pickup the rest of the trim pieces and assorted garbage that has built up since the bin was taken away about two weeks ago. What we also looked at was the backsplash. He agreed that its not the tiler’s best work and asked me what should be done? I said that given the really stellar quality of everything else in the kitchen it stuck out like a sore thumb and he agreed. So what does that mean? It means that the backsplash on the kitchen side will be ripped out (ugh) and re-drywalled and re-tiled. What does that mean? It really means more mess, just as we were starting to get all cleaned up!

So I am waiting to hear when all this will start. I am hoping that it will only take a few days to demo and patch. Then waiting for the tiler to come back and re-install the tile and re-grout. I hope that the finished product will be worth the impending mess!

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But we are still waiting on a few things. The tile contractor has to take a look at the backsplash to give us an opinion on the job and the electrician has to come and put in the trims for the potlights and all the plates on the switches. And in the kitchen we couldn’t push the stove all the way back- it is just about ¾” out too far and it interferes slightly with the door mounted spice rack beside the stove. Maybe we can figure it out later.

Slide in stoves don’t always slide all the way.

We still are putting things back in the cupboards and deciding if they are in the right place. We never really thought of it before as we were so short of space that organization was an afterthought. In this case we can hopefully think of what makes sense in the way we work and organize accordingly. But I think we will just run out of patience and put stuff back and worry about it later. Anything to get rid of those boxes!

But the floor looks good.

On the weekend I finished painting the ceiling and the one area on the wall that’d been holding us up and we ripped off some of the kraft paper that was protecting the floor. I’d forgotten how good the floor looked! But it reminded me that we still have to get some carpet or runners done for the front hall and near the back door. So with that in mind, we went to a store to select a carpet sample and lo and behold within five minutes we found one we both agreed on.

Got the drapes up-finally.

So now it’s a case of finding someone that can do the custom work to cut around all the vents etc that are in the front hall.

I just finished painting the walls in the kitchen and just have the second coat to do near the stairs – almost done! When I said I would do the painting, I seem to have forgotten how much time it takes. At least the paint I’m using is good (Aura by Benjamin Moore) so it makes it a bit easier to cover the last of the yellow.

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So this week more handles got installed on the cabinet doors and some adjustments got made so the panel on the dishwasher can fit properly within the cabinet. Just a quick word for those intrepid souls who try to install their Miele dishwasher – when you cut the hole for the hoses to hook up to the supply and drain, make sure you get them as far back towards the wall as you can or, better yet, cut the hole close to the floor and bring them up through the bottom of the sink base. Reason? There is a cut-out on the bottom of the dishwasher that goes up about 6” that lets the hoses fit between the wall and the dishwasher and if the hole through the cabinet is too high, when the unit is pushed back, it will pinch the hoses. We did a lot of measuring before we pushed this one back so we knew where to cut the hole, but if you didn’t, you might be met with a nasty mess one morning.

Oh yeah, and the tile behind the sink is a bit rough. We are waiting to see what can be done (if anything) about it.

With the dishwasher panel in, the look is more seamless.

So next week I have to sand the patch in the ceiling, prime and paint it as well as the kitchen ceiling, paint the rest of the walls and put in all the baseboards. Oh yeah and paint the patches upstairs that the electrician drilled to run the track and rewire a few outlets. And still no word on a stucco contractor to patch the back of the house. I hope this doesn’t take weeks to get done, but really as long as we can get the stuff into the kitchen (and our furniture up from the basement) I will be extremely happy.

We can use the stove again!

Related posts:

1. Sink and faucet- What’s the verdict?
2. Dishwasher drama – inside the world of dirty dishes

Early this morning the contractor was at our house and I asked him why he was here.  He said that the countertop with showing up at any minute.  I was pretty surprised that it was showing up early and I helped him cleanup a bit of the kitchen in preparation for the installation.  I brought up the sink and they brought in the counter and it was a way to the races.

The countertop was fabricated with strips of plywood attached to the underside.  This is so that if the countertop ever has to be removed you can unscrew it from the cabinets without having to rip it right off.  It also helps to attach the dishwasher when that’s installed.

The installation went pretty smoothly was finished in about 45 minutes.  The only area where the installer had some problems was that the back corner under the window.  He had to take out a bit of drywall [only about ¼ inch] push the counter back enough to make it fit.

He then siliconed the under mount sink and pushed it into place against the underside of the countertop.  He just cut two pieces of wood to hold it in place underneath while it dried.  And then he applied a little bit of silicone to the joint between the countertop and the wall and that was it.  Off to the next job.

Sink finally out of basement in its proper place.

So now we have to wait hopefully only a day or two until the plumber can hook up the faucet and the drain on the sink.  He will also do the dishwasher at that time.  So that is why we’re back in the basement.  With no running water in the kitchen we have to go back downstairs to get water for cooking.

But with the counter and sink installed its really starting to look finished and the material looks fantastic with the cabinet color and the flooring.  It’s a quartz countertop from Hanstone and with the bits of quartz which reflect the light and the other subtle colors it picks up the browns and reds from the floor.

Countertop and doors make it look like a real kitchen!

Can’t wait for the appliances to go back in.

So now we’re getting to the part of the job where we have to make note of all the items that have to be completed [and a lot of them are mine].  Things that I have to do include  priming and painting the living room ceiling, installing new trim around the dining room window, priming and painting all the window trim and even repainting the stairs as they got a bit banged up over the past couple months.  I have to say it’s looking really good and I can’t wait for it to be done so we can enjoy having friends and family over again without having to wonder where the spatula is!

Related posts:

1. Sink and faucet- What’s the verdict?

But they of course found out where the leak was and replaced that connection so when we got home everything was dry!

Water in the kitchen- what a concept!

Its been really great to be able to use the kitchen to do basic stuff like wash and chop veggies without going up and down the stairs. Now that we are using the kitchen, we are really looking forward to when the countertop arrives and all the rest of the tasks can be done. Seems a bit strange that the countertop holds up most of the stuff required to complete the job, but when I saw the fabricator template using the cardboard, I understood that since the walls are not perfectly square there would be no sense to fabricating it then having to re-cut and fit it on site. Better to do as much as possible at the factory and do small (again, cross fingers) customizations on site.

I’ve spent a bit of time patching the damage from the electricians doing a bit of re-wiring in the upstairs hall. It made sense to do this extra now because they ran a feed up to the hall for the track lighting and we could then use that to put in an additional outlet in the office and replace an old one in the middle bedroom. I just hope I have enough paint (and that it hasn’t dried out) to paint over the drywall compound.

Today they are installing the range hood which is great because not only does that finish off one more task, but it gets that big box out of my basement where I’ve stored it for the past 3 months!

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As some of you know we had an old couch which we Freecycled before we started all this work on the house. The expectation was that we’d find something that we could have delivered just as the job was finishing up. It so far hasn’t quite worked out and we’ve been looking for some furniture to match our existing Danish teak sideboard and dining room table.

So as we were driving down a county road, out of the corner of my eye saw not only an old barn (which is nothing really out of the ordinary in Prince Edward County) but an old barn with teak furniture out front! So after a quick u-turn we pulled up to MacCool’s Re-use, which has a fantastic collection of furniture with prices to match.

So after some thought, we picked up two chairs and a small table and stuffed them into the car. Now that they are here they look great (well they will look great once the kraft paper is off the floor and things are back to “normal.”)

Would you believe these chairs came from a barn?

A big decision we are looking at now is that we don’t have a couch, but would it make sense to move the dining area to the front of the house and the “living room” to the back? Any thoughts?

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