Convocation!

Last Thursday was John's Doctor of Music convocation. To celebrate this grand event, his parents arrived the weekend before. A party, hosted by dear friends of ours from Da Camera Singers, was held in John's honour on the Saturday evening, and then we enjoyed many family dinners and much fine wine and scotch for the remaining days leading up to the convocation.

The convocation day was filled with great joy - a luncheon at the faculty club with John's parents, Kathleen's mom and John's supervisor. After a few photos of John in his DMus robe and hood, the ceremony began at 3 PM, and lasted about 2 hours. Kathleen found out the day before that all convocation ceremonies would be webcast on the University webpage, and we were able to inform the rest of John's family from Ottawa, and to our, and their delight, they were all able to see John walk across the stage and receive his degree. It was a very joyous afternoon indeed.

No rest for the wicked though, We had to run off to the Winspear shortly after the ceremony for a concert with the Richard Eaton Singers, as they were performing their fall concert and CD release. John was to conduct nearly a third of the program, so it was a great way to get his acquainted with the audience and musicians as a Doctor of Music.

Some pictures of the convocation and concert are posted below:

Kitchen Renovation Completed!

As of yesterday, all the things that needed to be done in order to get into our new kitchen have been completed. Plumbing is all installed and working (including the extra quiet new dishwasher that has been sitting in our carriage house for the last 12 months) - and things are being put into shelves, breakfast appliances brought up, and COOKING can begin!

We thought this would be a good post to place a few "before and after" photograph so you can see what has happened in since John started ripping off the back splash exactly three weeks ago today.

Thanks for following us on this journey. Keep logging into the blog though - there are always new things to talk about and discoveries to be made!

Kitchen Sink Area (east wall)




Kitchen Fridge Area (west wall)




Kitchen Stove Area (south wall)




Two other angles of the stove and sink area:




Two pumpkins we carved for Hallowe'en - OK, unrelated, but we had to put them up here before we forgot!

Counter top is finally in!

Here are the some updated photos - it really is starting to look like a kitchen now! Tomorrow we finish up the plumbing, and the hookup of the dishwasher. After that - it will be official! We can start using our kitchen again!

Huzzah!

Over-the-Counter Microwave

This morning, we put the last coat of paint on the trim, and John took on the unenviable task of getting the over-the-counter microwave up and installed. It turned out to be easier than we expected! John only swore 11 times.

Here is the result!

Waiting Period

So, since the cabinets have been finished, we've really just spent most of our time waiting for the next big part of the project, which is the counter-top installation. In the mean-time, John has installed the under-cabinet lighting, and we've painted the trim. We'll have some touch-ups to do to the red paint once the counter-tops are in as well. Tomorrow we're planning on tackling the installation of the microwave, and then all that's left is the plumbing work and the dishwasher. The end is in sight!

The goal is to have everything done and put away before Kathleen heads for Salt Lake City for a conference next week.

Cabinets installed!

Well - here they are - all installed!

Just waiting on new plugs and light switches (which John will install tomorrow)the over the stove microwave (sometime later this week or weekend)some under counter lights (sometime this week) the counter top (next week), and all the plumbing (next week), including DISHWASHER!

Here are the photos of the new cabinets!

Cabinet installation - day one

The first day of cabinet installation is now over - and although it is not complete - there are signs that our kitchen is starting to look like a kitchen once again. All the cabinets are in their places, and what is left to do is molding, valances, and clean-up tomorrow.

Also happening tomorrow: The counter-top company is coming in to measure. So it will be an exciting day. Hopefully, we'll be able to put back our appliances, and eat at home once again soon.

At least tonight, we don't have to paint!

Painting Done!

So, with the exception of the trim, we are done painting! The cabinet installers are coming before 8am tomorrow morning to start that stage of the project - we can't wait to see what the cabinets look like in the space! And we're pretty proud of the work we've managed to do in just a few short days.

And on the third day ...

This morning we awoke at the crack of dawn (well, maybe a little after the actual CRACK - I think if the dawn had actually cracked, we slept through it) and put the first coat of RED (Red Wine according to Behr) on the walls. Instead of watching paint dry, we decided to go to Home Depot and buy our new kitchen faucet, and a few odds and ends from Superstore. In the evening, we got all dressed up to sing for 10 minutes at a fundraising concert at the Winspear, had a glass of wine with some of John's festival friends from Ontario, came home (opened another bottle of wine) and put coat two of the "Red Wine" on the walls.

It is all coming together, we are getting tired on envisioning what the cabinets are actually going to look like, and are very excited to see what the final product will look like on Monday night!

We will save posting photos until Sunday night when the final coat of paint is on the wall. Trust us though ... it's RED.

Onwards!

Primer!

We have put all our trust in the paint guy at Home Depot with regards to the appropriate primer to put on the walls. Here are the pictures taken after the primer went up. You will note, I hope, that the primer is pink. He informed us that this will help the red paint, which is notoriously finicky. We think this makes good sense. Today, we put the first two coats of the red paint up, one this morning and one this evening and then we'll see where we're at with regards to further coatage. Probably at least one more tomorrow, maybe two.

Here's the primer! Note the "helper" in the second picture.

End of Day 1

So, after the demo this morning, John cleaned up the rough edges of the plaster hole and headed off to Home Depot to buy a sheet of dry-wall and all the requisite plaster and tool sneeded to get the wall repaired. Here are the results, both before mudding and after. The wires sticking through the drywall are for the under-counter lighting.

Tomorrow, we'll keep mudding and sanding until the wall is ready for paint (two or threee coats, depending how our attention span holds out). We'll give the walls and other bits and pieces of the room a good clean and then start the priming! We are right on pace for Monday!

We did discover that "cabinet installers" was not the same thing as "counter-top installers", so we'll have to wait until early NEXT week for the counter-top, but that's not a big deal.

Here are the end of day pictures!



And here are what the renovations are doing to the rest of the house!

Kitchen Renovations

We are hoping to provide a fairly detailed blog over the next week of our kitchen renovations, so that friends and family can read about and see the trials and tribulations of the transformation (alliteration, whoo!). For those of you who have seen the kitchen, the change will be quite dramatic, and will result in about twice the cabinet space, and half again as much counter. Yay!!

We phoned our cabinet company last week to check on the status of our materials, which we expected to arrive and be installed in November. We were pleasantly surprised to hear that the cabinets and counter top were to arrive TODAY!!! Currently, the timeline is that installation will take place early next week. In the meantime, our to-do list includes clearing out the old kitchen (done), demo (today), drywalling (to repair plaster), mudding, taping, cleaning, prepping, priming, and painting (more alliteration!). We made a preliminary start on the demo yesterday by taking out the tile backsplash. You can see the resultant damage to the plaster in the photos below. John got up early this morning and began removing cabinets, and our goal is to have everything out and the new drywall up by the end of the day. The latter should only be a single sheet, so it shouldn't be too difficult.

In the midst of all the work to be done in the next few days, we have a choir rehearsal tonight, a concert on Saturday night, church on Sunday morning, and rehearsals on Monday and Tuesday night of next week. And Kathleen's office is moving tomorrow during the day! NO END TO THE EXCITEMENT!

Some Photos!

October, already??!!

Well, here we are, into October in seemingly record-setting time.

We have discovered this week another one of the joys of living on our street, where the elm tree branches hang so low that they touch the road surface. With the fall colours displayed in full glory, the street is a beautiful sight.

We are working slowly towards getting our house ready for winter. John did an amazing husband-of-the-year quantity of yard work yesterday to get the lawn mowed, crab apples picked up, leaves raked, etc. We are hoping to take advantage of the long weekend to dig out the garden and get the carriage house (our garage) cleaned out as well.

We have been led to believe (largely because we gave them money) that we can expect our new kitchen cabinets and counter top to arrive in early November, which is a very exciting prospect indeed. Before they arrive, we will tear out the old, and paint the walls (red!). Our new cabinets are white, and the counter top is a mottled grey-ish colour. When all is said and done, it will be a very handsome kitchen, we think!! And it will have a dishwasher, which is pretty exciting.

We celebrated our birthday on Saturday by having hockey poolers over in the afternoon to pick their teams and eat chili, and by going for a wonderful evening at Adam and Shelly's with food, games, wine, cake, etc. It was a very peaceful and happy day!!

We're Back!

We apologize for being so blog-negligent in the last month!

Somehow, someway, the rest of the summer has passed us by and we are back at work. All three choirs, Richard Eaton Singers, Da Camera Singers and Holy Trinity Choir, are back up and running, with our first RES concert a mere two weeks away. Kathleen's work is very busy as well, with new projects coming in and going out at a remarkable rate.

Probably the biggest news of the last week is that John has successfully defended his thesis! After a few minor revisions, he will officially be Dr. John Brough. The relief, excitement and joy abound! This is the end of a very long road (16 years of postsecondary education!) and we are looking forward to celebrating his convocation on November 22nd of this year.

It is our hope and intention to keep blogging this year, as we settle in to our life and marriage together, and as new adventures come our way. We hope that you will continue to check in!

And we're back!

Number of Pints of beer consumed: 29
Number of Castles seen: 11
Number of Concerts sung: 8
Number of times "Brough" was mispronounced: 0
Number of days to get over the jet-lag: 5

The Da Camera Singers tour to Scotland and Northern England was highly successful. We had a wonderful time! The singing was wonderful, the weather was bright and sunny, the sites were beautiful and interesting ... we really couldn't have asked for better. There are a few pictures below from the trip!

The cats seem to be happy to have us home and we've enjoyed getting our life back together in the last week. Kathleen is busy getting her name changed in all the appropriate places and finishing all the marriage paperwork she needs to complete for work. John is putting the finishing touches on his thesis before sending it off to his committee in a couple of weeks. We're looking forward to getting some work done on the house and the yard in the coming weeks in preparation for winter.

Stay tuned for professional wedding pictures in the coming days!

Pre-Trip Update

Hello everybody! The three weeks since the wedding have flown by! We've played some golf (it's rumoured that Kathleen out-drove John...), Kathleen has gone back to work for a week and half to push her projects another step forwards, we are preparing our house to take in our dear friends Kevin and Sonya while we're away, and tomorrow, we fly to Scotland! We will be on tour with Da Camera singers for the next two weeks, and are very excited! The tour will see us sing in a number of Cathedrals in Scotland and England, including doing one Evensong and one Sunday morning Eucharist. The tour has been organized to also allow us a good deal of time to sight-see, which we are very much looking forward to.

We'll post again when we return, including pictures!

Take care everybody!

Love,
The Broughs

Post-Wedding Relaxation

So we did it! We got married! We are Mr. and Mrs. Brough! And what a wonderful celebration it was. Beautiful music, beautiful liturgy, lots of laughter, lots of joy, and a wonderful opportunity to celebrate with so many people who mean so much to us. Thank you so much to everyone who was involved, and thanks to everyone who has kept track of our journey on this blog. We foresee keeping the blog active, but maybe not for the next couple of weeks while we catch up on our sleep. We are looking forward to our tour to England and Scotland in just a few weeks, so there are certain to be stories we'll post from that trip!

Love to all!
K & J Brough