Condo reno update (10th in a series)

Our kitchen counter is coming soon! Allset Interiors has confirmed that Konrad (from their fabricators) will install our Ceasarstone countertop on Monday. Simultaneously, Celcon (our general contractor) will be back on site overseeing the installation of the glass wall and door in our ensuite shower stall by Canada Shower Door. On Wednesday, Mohammad, Dekla's agent will return to finish up installation of the Scavolini cabinet (the vertical unit with the garage door that sits on top of the counter and houses small appliances). Simultaneously, Celcon will also be sending their tiler back in to start installation of our glass tile kitchen backsplash.


Meanwhile, we are becoming hopeful that we will qualify for some government tax credits to recover some of our renovation expenditures. The province of Quebec announced an economic stimulus measure yesterday that will allow homeowners in that province to claim a refundable tax credit on outlays of between $1,500 and $2,500 to recover 20% of amounts between $7,500 and $12,500 paid to qualified renovators during 2009. There are rumours that other provinces may match and that federal Finance minister Jim Flaherty will do likewise in his federal budget. Given that we have a balance of over $12,000 to pay this year in final progress billings and the holdback, we are hopeful that we will receive rebates of some of these cost through tax incentives.

Condo reno update (9th in a series)

Our (much delayed) kitchen cabinets are finally IN. And our countertop was templated today! The cabinets were made in Italy by Scavolini and designed by Dekla. The quartz countertop is by Ceasarstone in a nougat fleck pattern. We ordered it thru Allset Interiors. It will be fabricated over the next 10 business days and installed early in the new year. Thereafter, the glass tile backsplash will be installed. We also have a working toilet and sink in the master ensuite now. Work is about 90% complete at this point in time! We are finally almost there!

Picture gallery here

Condo Reno Update (8th in a series)

Our condo renos are 80% complete now.

100% of all flooring, electrical wiring, light fixtures and dry-walling jobs are finished.

The ensuite plumbing (for the shower and tub) is complete and the vanity has been assembled and installed.

Outstanding jobs to complete:

Installation of kitchen cabinetry and built in appliances (scheduled for December 18)

Installation of the ensuite marble tub surround, backsplash and walk-out sills (marble is being cut to order now and should be installed before Xmas)

Installation of kitchen countertop: Ceasarstone surface has been selected and estimated but cannot be finally measured / templated for fabrication until after kitchen cabinets are installed.

Installation of kitchen backsplash: glass tiles have been ordered but cannot be installed until after cabinets and countertop are installed.

Installation of master/ensuite and shower glass panels/doors: have been measured and are being fabricated. Should be available for installation in two weeks.

Installation of shower kit: should be installed before glass panels/doors are installed

Relocation of granite countertop (from ensuite) and installation of new sink in 2nd bathroom: should be complete this week.

Installation of tub filler: should be installed after tub backsplash is installed.

Installation of new ensuite toilet: should be complete this week.

Completion of wall trim work (baseboard in closets is outstanding): should be complete this week.

Condo reno update (7th in a series)

We received good news and back news today on the home reno front.

First the good news: There is no more bare exposed (plaster dust coated) concrete flooring left in the condo. Yesterday the cork underfloor was laid and today the Mercier maple hardwood was laid on top... in all rooms except the kitchen and bathroom... in the entrance foyer, dining room, hallway, 2nd bedroom and the master. Coupled with the montauk black slate floor in the ensuite and the limestone in the kitchen (both from Olympia Tile), all our floors are now covered. All that remains is to install the new higher baseboards.

Also our new candy apple red laundry pair from LG are now up and running!

Next the bad news: Our Scavolini kitchen cabinetry which had been promised by Dekla for delivery between November 20th and 30th will now be delivered on December 12th (at the earliest). Although they are promising to install it ASAP thereafter, this will push the window for fabrication of our caesarstone countertop back (since the templating and exact measurements to custom cut the countertop cannot be completed until after the cabinetry is installed). Since the counter top fabrication takes a minimum of 10 to 14 days, we are probably now looking at installation of it sometime around Christmas followed by installation of the new SS sink and (deck mounted) polished chrome faucet and glass tile backsplash (ordered from allset) until later this year or early in the new year! C'est la vie!

Meanwhile our contractor expects to finish up work on the bathroom-- including installation of the shower stall, bath-tub and Vanico vanity (with integrated countertop and sink) in the ensuite-- by the end of this month.

Condo Reno Update (6th in a series)

It has been a productive week on the condo reno front.

Last week our slate and limestone tiles arrived from Olympia and our Vanico ensuite vanity was delivered by Canorama.

On Monday night we sold our old GE stainless steel (two oven) range. The buyer (who bought it off a kajiji website listing) drove in from Hamilton to pick it up. We got roughly 50% of our purchase price (for an 18 month old appliance). In the "small world" department, the buyers’ son (who tagged along) was attending the same grade school (St Micheals on Hester St.) I went to at one point in my youth!

We picked up new matching Aqua-brass tub filler and vanity faucet from Taps on Wednesday. Our new Sharp microwave drawer (from Caplans), Jenn Air wine fridge (from Sears) and (candy apple red) LG washer-dryer set (also from Sears) were delivered today. Our new air-tub is being plumbed today and the washer dryer is being installed.

We also put a deposit on and confirmed a date for installation of our Mercier hardwood flooring. It is being delivered from Yorkdale flooring next Friday and installed (by Fraser hardwood) the following Monday. (Apparently it needs two days to acclimate).

We also placed our order for our Ceasar nougat quartz counter-top and glass backsplash with Allset and put a deposit on our living-dining room track lighting system and two pendant lights (to be suspended over the kitchen peninsula) with Eurolite. The backsplash is custom made to order. You get to pick and chose colours and finishes. We went with a mix of three colours (in a 40/40/20 mix) with equal parts matte and gloss finish for each. The tiles will take 4 weeks to arrive. The countertop cannot be templated until the cabinetry is installed and will take two weeks to be custom manufactured to order thereafter. So the backsplash tiles should be available just in time following installation of the countertop.

We still have some pot light trim kits on back order from Eurolite plus a one-piece toilet on back order from Taps. Taps will deliver the latter with our two sinks (one a ceramic undermount sink for the “guest” bathroom (the ensuite sink is integrated in the vanity); the second an undermount deep square stainless “bianco” style kitchen sink) and our kitchen faucet.

Meanwhile, we have purchased our paint colours from Ontario Paint on Queen. The new flat ceiling has been primed but will need a final coat. The colours were selected from a muted “neutral” palette of off-white beige, sand and gray. The new drop ceiling in the kitchen and most walls will be painted this weekend.

The only item left to shop for now is the marble slab for our tub box face, tub surround and vanity backsplash. We expect to order that thru Allset too.

The tile setter is scheduled to come in next week.

According to Celcon (our general contractor's) progress billing our project is now 50% complete.

We are keeping our fingers crossed that the Scavolini’s shipment arriving here on November 20th contains our new kitchen cabinetry!

We can start to see the light at the end of the tunnel now…

Condo reno (5th in a series)

It has been awhile since I posted an update on our condo renos. Work got underway while we were away on our eastern Med cruise in late September and are continuing. We are into week 4 now and work is unlikely to be substantially completed for at least another 3 weeks.

So far our contractor has completed the tear down, constructed the new drop ceiling in the kitchen (removing the bulkhead), completed the drywalling of our living room / dining room ceiling (to eliminate the stipple / stucco look), completed most of the new electrical wiring (including for 18 pot lights) and started creating the new shower stall in the en suite bathroom. The buyer of our old kitchen cabinetry (who will be re-installing our old cabinets in a basement kitchen up in King City) also showed up last week to haul away what he purchased (on kajiji).

Our new Oceania bath-tub and Aquabrass shower system were delivered last week and the plumber is expected to install them this week. Our bathroom (slate) and kitchen (limestone) tiles are expected o be delivered from Olympia on Monday. And our new Vanico en suite bathroom vanity is expected o be delivered Tuesday afternoon. We are still awaiting some pot light trim kits to arrive at Eurolite and haven't placed our final order for our track lights with them yet (although we have selected some from their catalogs... we want to comparison shop at Royal).

We checked in with Boris at Dekla (who has relocated from their Liberty Village location to their Yonge-Summerhill location) to update on over Scavolini kitchen on Saturday. He advises that it should leave Italy next week and could arrive as soon as November 20th. We also placed our order for our white maple engineered hardwood with Susan at Yorkdale flooring (with has a new "urban floorscapes" location on the Danforth (at Greenwood). Finally I confirmed the delivery dates (for the middle of next month) with Shawn at Sears for our Jenn Air wine fridge and our Samsung washer and dryer.

We still have to shop for paint, a new kitchen sink, a kitchen facucet/tap fixture, a new ensuite toilet, marbe for the ensuite tub surround / backsplash, the Caesarstone counter-top and the glass tile kitchen backsplash.

Check out some pics of the reno work in progress here

Introducing our newest home additions:

We finalized and placed our order for new home appliances this past Saturday! So 5 spanking new modern conveniences will soon be on the way. The matching washer-dryer combo will arrive first, followed by the kitchen appliance (undercounter wine cellar, electric cooktop and wall oven. The delivery time on the kitchen appliances is uncertain and this point and will depend on when the new kitchen cabinetry arrives from the Scavolini factory in Italy.


The pieces we ordered are:


Cooktop: Bosch 30"electric NET7552UC ... black with stainless steel accents


Oven: Bosch 4.2 cu. ft. convection oven HBN3450UC ... stainless steel, 27" wide


Wine Cellar: Jenn-Air 5.6 cu. ft. JUW248LBRS... stainless steel, 24" wide


Washer: LG 4.2 cu. ft. kingsize frontload steam washer with LCD display WM2688
... candy apple red, 27 " wide


Dryer: LG 7.3 cu. ft. kingsize steam dryer with LCD display and dual humidity DLEX8377 sensors ... candy apple red, 27" wide


All together the price-tags gave us change back from $10K, (taxes (no PST on the energy star appliances and a $60 city rebate on the washer), installation and delivery included).


We still have one more item to purchase--- the Sharp microwave in a drawer-- but the retail store we ordered the other 5 appliances from didn't carry the Sharp brand.

Condo Reno (4th in a series)

Having placed our order for our kitchen cabinetry before our vacation, we are now starting to focus on sourcing our hardwood flooring.

We are partial to a wide plank (4.5") natural maple, premium (select and better), satin finish engineered floor manufactured by Mercier. The Mercier product comes with a 35 year warranty and contains non-yellowing and antimicrobial agents. We first saw the sample in The Floor Shop (on Wickstead) showroom. Alan from The Floor Shop came out to measure and complete an estimate for us this morning.

We are laying the hardwood in the entrance foyer, living-dining room, two bedrooms and the hallway. He measured 593 SF of surface area to be covered. They add a 5% "waste factor", which brought the measurement for estimate purposes up to 623 SF.

To complete the estimate he extended out the per SF wood material and installation (labour/materials) prices and applied them to the square footage. There were also some add-on charges (an $85 hand-cutting surcharge for laying in the hallway and a $100 delivery charge). Installation charges were $5.25 per SF ($1 of which is extra for the glue-down process).

Installation includes the cost of a Sika AcouBound underlay sub-flooring. (Condos require that subfloors meet certain minimum sound reduction and transfer standard ratings to avoid creating noise for neighbours in units below). They also collect 5% GST on the materials and installation service cost, but you only pay PST on the material charge.

Mercier offers a 5 year installation warranty.

We have identified another supplier that also carries the Mercier product-- The Yorkdale Hardwood Flooring Centre (on Bridegeland) -- and have their estimator Mark coming out to provide a competitive quote on Saturday morning.

New Kitchen Design finished

Boris at Dekla has finished his design of our Scavolini kitchen and provided us with a quotation. The drawings of the plan can be reviewed at a facebook page photos album here. The final quotation is within $1,500 of our budget (including GST). Half of the pricetag is due as a deposit upon placing the order with the factory in Italy. Once the order is placed, it takes 10 to 12 weeks to be constructed and shipped over here to Canada. So we are most likely looking at a November arrival and installation date. So we have to be prepared to do alot of grill, warming plate, BBQ cooking and eating out between the teardown date (early October) and Christmas!

Condo Reno (3rd in a series)

Artists conception of our new kitchen

Design by Boris of Dekla

STATUS UPDATE

**********

In previous posts in this series on our condo reno project, I have commented on the scope of the work we hope to undertake and on the supplier and material selection options we are trying to make.

Last Wednesday night we went out to meet (for the second time) with Jennie the kitchen designer at Raywal (@ Allstate Parkway in Markham (Hwy 7 & 404 area). She presented us with two alternate kitchen designs. Both had the sink moved off of the peninsula. One had the sink located in the south-west corner and the other had the sink located along the south wall. One design had the cooktop centred on the west wall with the vent-hood revealed above and the other had the cooktop a bit more off-centre with the vent-hood concealed behind cabinetry. She had retained an angle on the peninsula (which is what we have now). Her designs were generally much more angular than the streamlined design (see pic at the top of this post) we have from Dekla. The design also did not have as much of a sleek contemporary look as most of the cabinetry was vertically (rather than horizontally) oriented. We asked Jennie to re-design the peninsula, straightening it out. We also picked a drawer finishing style. She has committed to get back to us with pricing. Unless the pricing comes in significantly below Dekla (and her ballpark WAG suggests it may not) our inclination would be to favour Dekla

After leaving the Raywal showroom, we drove over along Hwy 7 East to Markham Rd and turned north onto Main St. One of our shortlisted contractors (Chuck of Celcon) lives on this street in a historical home that his company completely renovated and Chuck wanted to show us his work in person and also show us pics of some of his other work. We were very impressed with his home. In spite of some technical glitches with his laptop, we also got a good sense of the wide cross section of projects his team have worked on. He showed us some pics from a project they did on Britain St and another on River St that were especially impressive. That being said, he admitted to having had only limited experience working as a general contractor in a condo setting (although he has done some sub-trade work on Queens Quay and is currently working in that capacity in a project up on Cumberland in Yorkville). We discussed project timing with him and it appeared that he could make his team available to start the teardown in late September, when we are expecting to be away on our Med cruise) and proceed to start the re-built immediately thereafter. So we retain hope of completing our project before the holidays. He agreed with us that his quote on floor installation was not competitive with what we got from The Floor Shop and explained that was because his quote was at a carpenter's labour rate and that a carpenter is over-experienced for a floor installation task. So we agreed that we would delete that from his contract. We also posed questions re the concern surfaced by a poster to this blog with respect to the suitability of slate in a water area. Chuck committed to discuss this with his tile-setter and get back to us with feedback.

We are still also hoping to receive a competitive estimate from Trevor at Bryant. We also have references from both Bryant and Celcon to check out. Following that, we expect to sign a contract before we go away on our Bermuda cruise at the end of this month. Celcon uses a standard form contract (which I have a copy of to review)

Today (Saturday) we headed out to Bamco Custom Woodwork in Guelph to meet with Doreen, the kitchen designer there. This is the first time we had been to this showroom or met Doreen (they have been on a plant shutdown. We made our appointment two weeks ago.) Banco manufactures their cabinetry in a Gueph facility adjacent to the showroom. They had one kitchen design (inspired by DolceMano) that they had built for Dynamic Space by Blum in a recent homeshow that we were particular partial towards. It is very sleek. We also liked their dark chocolate brown finished wood panels. Doreen was very thorough in asking questions to determine our preferences and has committed to get back to us with design preferences in short order. It sounds like the pricing could actually come in below Dekla and that they will be able to duplicate the Scavolini European look. Doreen is based in Port Credit and proposed dropping by our house before a photo shoot on Monday afternoon, but that timing did not work for us. In any case we are now looking forward to getting her pricing and cost estimate.

Dorren also gave us a lead on a cabinet supplier in Oakville called Euroline appliances. It is at 2278 Speers Rd. (off Bronte, just south of the QEW) in Oakville. Unfortunately the showroom is not open on Saturdays

Condo Reno (2nd in a series)

In my first post in this home reno project series, I outlined the scope of the work we intend to complete in the home reno project we are starting. In this post, I will outline some of the suppliers and products we have on our short-lists. If anyone with any practical recent experience in a condo reno project has any feedback (favourable or unfavourable) on any of the suppliers or materials, we would appreciate receiving it.

CONTRACTORS:

Selecting a contractor is the biggest decision we have to make, as a significant part of our budget (close to 40%), will fund labour costs.

We have two contractors under active consideration:

Celcon: We met Chuck (the proprietor) at the Spring Home Show at the BILD booth. Chuck and his son came out to our place to scope out our project and take measurements. They have provided us with a cost estimate itemized by sub-project. We have received some references and have also read some positive feedback on-line. We have been invited to go to Chuck’s home in Markham to inspect work he completed in his own home.

Bryant: Gary met with Trevor from this company at our place a few weeks back. Trevor has provided us with some pics of specimen rooms that Bryan has re-built with price tags attached but has so far not given us a cost estimate, pending submission of further product details. We understand Bryant has won many design awards.

KITCHEN CABINETRY SUPPLIERS:

About 30% of our project budget will be earmarked for kitchen cabinetry (the next biggest expensed after the contractor is paid).

Dekla: In the Liberty Market village complex. Dekla is the exclusive carrier of Italian brand Scavolini. We have spoken to Boris in their showroom twice and he was out to our place once. He has provided us with several designs. We have e-mailed him a few questions. This is our leading candidate for the work so far. The model we like is “Mood” with a dark oak veneer.

Raywal: on Allstate Parkway in the 404/Hwy 7 area. We talked to Jennie, a designer, at their showroom two weeks ago, left her with our drawing of the kitchen footprint and had hoped to schedule a second appointment this weekend to review her design ideas. However she cancelled on short notice and we have now made an appointment to go back to see her on Wednesday evening.

Cameo : @ 1020 Lawrence Ave. W. This store produces has a beautiful product but it is well beyond our price-range.

Binns: We checked out their showroom on Bay north of Wellesley. Its very high end and beyond our budget. They also carry bathrooms in addition to kitchens.


OTHER KITCHEN SUPPLIES:

Countertop: We are going with a quartz surface. Probably CaesarStone. We like the nouggat or perhaps oyster colour. A number of suppliers carry Caesarstone; including Ciot at 1020 Lawrence W and Allset @ 201 King St E. Apparently this products retail for about $100 / SF. Another alternative quartz countertop manufacturer is Cambria.

Backsplash: We are favouring a coloured glass backsplash. We like the longer brick look in a tri-colour (light and dark grey with clear) combo. We will probably purchase this at Allset.

BATHROOM:

Canorama-- In Woodbridge. We have visited their showroom twice and found a bathroom vanity and a bath-tub that we are interested in there. We talked to a design consultant (Simonetta) who has provided us with a quote. The 46” vanity is made by a manufacturer called Vanico and is called Avati . We also like a brushed nickel thermostatic shower system (available with a matching sink faucet and bath filler/faucet set) by Castile here. Bath-tub: We want an air-jet tub and have a space limitation of 60 inches long. Maxx makes several models that fit (including the Urban) but we are leaning toward an Oceania Unity 32 with aero massage and chromotherapy lighting.

Taps Bath Centres: On Lawrence. We like a polished nickel shower system and matching single piece vanity bowl faucet and 4 piece roman bath filler set (called Eiffel from Selection 25) here but is $800 more than the set we have selected at Canorama. Gabriel, a sales rep there, has given us a quote on this plus a small square kitchen sink and faucet. (see below)

Roman Bath Centre: At 883 Caledonia Road ( Castlefield area (near Elle and Ginger)). We checked it out. They have a reasonable selection but, as with Tubs, we came away empty-handed

Tubs : At 45 Samor Road in the Orfus Rd. area. We visited this showroom but came away unimpressed


FLOORING:

Hardwood:

The engineered wood flooring we are leaning toward is from a supplier called The Floor Shop . We talk to a sales rep called Alan there and we may arrange for an in-home estimator to come out next week. We like a Mercier light natural maple


Olympia Tile:

@ 1000 Lawrence Avenue West. We have selected tile flooring and wall covering for the bathroom here. It’s a Brazilian Montuak Black slate . We will may use a tumbled marble mosaic for the walls and grey pebbled stones (good selection available at Allset) as an accent. Warning: The proprietors are Jewish so this showroom is closed Saturday in observation of their Sabbath.

APPLIANCES:

We are planning to include two built-in appliances in the new kitchen—a wall oven and an electric in-counter cooktop. We would also like a small (15 or 17 inch wide) wine fridge.

Caplans: 1111 Weston Road (near Eglinton). We checked out this supplier. They had an amazing high end selection in their showroom. We had a sales rep price out a Miele oven, cooktop and wine fridge, but the price tab (over $8,800) drove us away in a hurry.

Sears: We talked to a sales rep (Sean) in the appliance department in the EC store about a Jenn-Air separate cooktop and wall oven. We are also interested in a full sized LG washer-dryer with steam (perhaps in the candy apple red colour) to stack in our laundry closet (tho we are concerned about whether we have adequate ventilation). Sean is offering us discounts of 10% - 15% off their listed prices.

Condo reno (first in a series)

Gary and I are planning a reno of our condo apartment (which we have been in for almost 3 years now). The scope of the work we plan includes gutting the kitchen and master en suite bathroom, replacing the flooring (and baseboard trim) throughout and some electrical re-wiring to add enhanced (pot and track) lighting in selected areas.

So far we have completed our budget, secured our project financing and have received some design input. We have also discussed our project with two contractors and contacted two kitchen cabinetry design/manufacturing firms who are working on designs for our consideration. We have also been roaming throughout the city (mainly the Orfus Rd and Woodbridge areas) looking at various materials options.

Here is a summary outline of the work we plan to do:

Kitchen:

-Replace all wood cabinetry.
-Replace the counter top (with quartz) and glass mosaic back splash
-Install built in oven and counter-surround electric cook top surface
-Replace the flooring with limestone
-Replace and relocate the sink (we currently have a peninsula with a round bar sink which is being eliminated in the re-design) and replace the tap/faucet
-Drop the ceiling to contain pot lights

Ensuite bathroom:

-Replace and enlarge the shower stall (shower to include bench and complete in wall shower system—the shower will extend forward into space that currently houses a line closet that opens into the master bedroom)
-Replace bath-tub with air jet tub (likely MAXX or Neptune) and add new faucet and bath filler
-Replace entrance door (currently wood) with glass panel and frame less door to seamlessly connect to adjoining enlarged shower
-Replace vanity, sink bowl and faucet
-Replace wall tile and flooring
-Install under flooring heating
-Install heat lamp in exhaust fan

Elsewhere:

-Replace laminate hardwood flooring and carpeting (in bedrooms) with engineered hardwood and install higher baseboard trim
-Install track lighting in living room
-Remove speckled living room ceiling and install flat ceiling
-Install pot lighting in hallway
-Relocate existing master en suite vanity counter top to 2nd washroom

I will post updates to this blog from time to time as we lock in our choices and as the various stages of work progress. We are (perhaps naively) optimistic of having much of the work complete before the new year.

1st post

Welcome to my blog. This is my first entry! I hope to be a fairly faithful blogger.

Those used to receiving a high volume of e-mails from me may be relieved that they can just come here at their leisure instead now and we can avoid all that e-mail clutter / traffic!

I am feeling a bit under the weather today (slight cold and a case of the Monday blues).

We had a busy weekend. Details...

Friday night: Took the kids to see Journey to the Centre of the Earth in Real 3D at the Scotiabank (formerly Paramount) theatre at John & Richmond Friday night. It was very entertaining family adventure (if you can look past the implausible pseudo-science) and the 3-D effects were quite nifty. The theatre we were in was not packed as most theatregoers seemed to be there for the Dark Knight (which was playing in multiple theatres, including the IMAX theatre). It appears the Dark Knight had a record breaking first weekend at the box office.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/ I plan to see it when the first wave of crowds dies down.

Saturday:

Gary & I spent most of the day (with Ryan and Claire in tow) scouring the Castle-field / Orfus Rd. area for tiles, fixtures and cabinetry for our condo reno. We also made it back to the East Liberty Market Deckla kitchen showroom http://www.dekla.ca/ to meet with Boris who had started on a kitchen design for us featuring Scavolini cabinetry. Boris's layout designs were somewhat surprising to us but it was pricing out within our budget so he is scheduled to come out to our unit later this week to get a better sense of our space. We have an estimate back from one contractor but are waiting for another for comparison purposes. The Scavolini cabinetry takes 4-5 months to arrive from Italy so our planned work schedule (we hope to have major work down when we are away on our Med cruise in late September-early October) may need some tweaking.

In the evening we went to see the movie musical Momma Mia. In addition to Ryan, Claire, Gary & I, Cathy (Gary's sis) and Marie (Gary's mom) also joined us. We had planned to go to the Cineplex Varsity in the Manulife Centre but the 7AM showing was sold out (checked on-line) so we went to see the 6:30 AM showing at the AMC theatre complex in the Toronto Life Centre (Yonge Dundas Square). We probably saved ourselves quite a bit $$$ wise seeing it at the AMC vs The Varsity as adult admission (with a Movie Watcher card) is only $11 there. We all enjoyed the show. It is getting good audience ratings Meryl Streep is amazing as Donna and while Pierce Brosnan's singing and Colin Firth's dancing are sub-par, its still a fun time. The Greek islands scenery is spectacular. We came out humming ABBA tunes. (Actually took the cars and parked in the municipal Green P parking lot underneath the square for the first time... it was reasonable... $6)

Sunday: After attending the 10:30 mass at St Mike's cathedral (Father Bush, the rector, was the homilist and delivered another great sermon), we headed down to the Top Cuts in the block on the South side of King (west of Victoria) for Ryan to get a haircut. It was pelting down rain. Claire & I ordered drinks and waited for Ryan in the Tim Hortons across the street. Following that we headed home, had lunch and did some housekeeping. (We have had to re-organizing storage since on account of our new master bedroom suite (queen bed with tall boys on either side) arriving from Casalife last Thursday.) About 3 PM we left to head over to the Rogers Centre. Gary had received free (CAW) vouchers from his Bombardier co-worker Donna for redemption at the Argos box office for tickets. We wound up with decent seats in section 114 just two rows below the concourse at around the 20 yard line (at the opposite end from the Jumbotron). I had taken the kids to pro basketball (Raptors), hockey (Leafs) and baseball (Jays) before but this was the first time we had been to a CFL Argos game. The Argos were outplayed thru most of the first half but came roaring back in the second half to take the lead with less than a minute reamining in the 4th quarter. The Argos wound up rolling up close to 550 total yards on offense and their QB ran for over 100 years on his own. The one negative... the cost of food at the concessions... I bought 2 chcken finger with fries and 1 chicken wings witrh fries combos and 2 drinks at half-time and only got a twonie back from two 20s! In any case, the kids came away happy! More game details: http://www.argonauts.ca/index.php/article/joseph-hurddles-argos-over-esks I dropped them back to their new Kilgour Estate http://www.kilgourestate.com/ condo home around 8:30 last night.