Trip to Home Depot! (and only one today, yay!)

It was a good trip. After we pulled the gross stove out downstairs, we discovered the cabinet was in pretty bad shape on the bottom and needed to be replaced. We had not budgeted for a whole new cabinet there, so that was not good news. But we did discover that the existing lower cabinets are from Home Depot, and they have the exact models still in stock - and they're not expensive! That was a huge relief. This means we can keep the counter tops, drawers, and sink (which are in good shape), and just replace the base. We also found out that some of the things we need are on sale this weekend. So this is a good time to pick them up. In particular, flooring and paint. We've been debating back and forth whether to put carpet in the downstairs bedrooms or vinyl. The current decision is carpet, both because it's nicer for bedrooms, and it's actually cheaper than the vinyl. We weren't able to match the exisiting livingroom vinyl at any of the stores we've been to, which everyone assumes is actually hardwood flooring. So that's a shame. It would have been great to find more of that.

AND, our neighbours across the street both work at Home Depot, and offered us a 15% discount coupon (up to $500) that they won't be using because it expires in a few days. They are the nicest people, always offering us tips and telling us about things in the neighbourhood, and even offering to let us use their chainsaw, etc. I think they are just so happy to have owners here who are quiet and responsible, and want to fix the place up. We did find out today that the house floods sometimes in the winter if there is any ice. That was not disclosed to us even though the sellers knew about it. Not a pleasant surprise. For some reason, there was no flooding this past winter even though it was a very cold, snowy winter. Nonetheless we'll be doing everything we can to make sure that flooding doesn't happen again this year or in the future. One thing about the basement is that it is quite dry, and the storage/furnace room in particular is in great shape and doesn't smell musty at all. If flooding was a huge problem every year, there would be evidence of it.

So today was about picking paint colours, flooring styles and colours, measuring, pricing out things and deciding what to pick up for RENOS. Yay! That part was fun. R also took another load of garbage to the dump. We'll be doing that again soon, I'm sure.