DIY PROJECT

Last night, my hubby came upstairs from our basement to join threesome bed at almost 11pm. He looked totally exhausted, but with a big grin. "YES!! $3000 in our hand and finally my job is done." And I gave him my best-ever-smile with big hug too though his cloth is extremely full of wood saw dust. And he said "But pls, give me back massage".

Before The D-day It's was in early summer this year when our walkout basement started being developed. After additional mortgage was approved in August, a design plan for converting one big room basement into 2 bedrooms, 1 washroom, and an open kitchen with living room was made, we hired a builder to have want it done except for the floor. One of hubby's friend referred one for the job. They are skilled immigrants (just like us), running a family home renovation business here. Surely, meaning their workmanship cost is lower than local "white" builder. No formalities, friendly, negotiable, flexible for any change in plan. However, we got to tolerate their working time which affect the completion date as they also work for other job at the same time. Well, we got no problem with that as we are not in a hurry, anyway.

Money-money SO it's all about money saving project for our basement. We use the expert for things we can't do, in term of work needing specific skills, heavy lifting stuff, and special tools. Such as framing, wiring, taping, etc. Compared to our home country, workmanship for home renovation here is extremely costly. Well, great thing being here, with do-it yourself project if YOU WANT, you can make your own deck, your own patio, or garden, or develop your own basement or renovate your own washroom or whatever is not difficult. What you need is enough patience to learn and do new thing, ample of time allocated, persistence to complete the work notably related to heavy duty work. Those will save you money.

My hubby has limitation in time as he can got FT job and also his physical condition due to back surgery. We admit and realize, big period. But, then we thought nothing wrong to have experience to do one part of the project completion. SO, let's try installing the flooring for our basement. Why not, while we can attend free class, free support on how to install tile, drywall, laminated floor. THE HOME DEPOT gives us solution, as they also say : YOU CAN DO IT, we can help. We don't need to buy their products to attend the free class. It's up to us.
Several classes he attended to gain practical procedures to install the stuffs and not to mention, also to boost confidence that you can do it. Luckily, it happened, the instructor had to delay one class for an hour and he nicely gave the 10% discount. he delayed one class for 1 hour. Of course, more loony saving to purchase all the things needed such as tiles, laminated wood, safety gears, grouts, tool kits and even table saw for cutting the tiles/laminate wood, he bought. We in fact can rent it from the shop, or we can have them cut at the shop but we decided to buy it and again $$ saving. We will need it anyway for next garage shelving project. We spent a lot of time to survey the stock availability and price of the tiles and laminate. My hubby is "non-negotiable" perfectionist for the sake of similarity to our main house. It's almost for everything, like kitchen cupboard and colour of the appliances.

Finally at The End the Errands Tiles have been installed around mid October. It's only in

entrance and kitchen area. We out carpet for inner stairs connecting to the main floor. We had the carpet installed from local store. Other area is all laminated. He started putting some part of the laminate at the end of October. First we got help from our close friend to start up. Then, his confidence and skills improved in several days. I would say after watching and giving some help when I'm free, it's not a rocket scientist work, it's pretty easy and easy to follow. It's basically more practice you will get better output. We had a break at the first two weeks in November as his brother and family from Bangladesh came over and stayed with us for a week. We got to entertain them.

Finally, until last night, we're glad and satisfied with hard work we've done as all flooring work is done. This weekend the builder is coming to finish up putting the casings to the walls, windows and other final work. We just need to do put the foot path at sideway so that our tenant of this basement unit can get access to their entrance from the back. Ideally we wanna rent it especially for new landed immigrant not sure when. But it can also be for our relatives/friends who wanna take holiday here. Oh by the way, one Indonesian friend who plan to migrate in next summer already ask for that, OMG. No, we're not ready there yet!!

GEOPROBE

It’s the name I gave when I called the Revenue Canada to register it for getting GST number. The name just came up, as it’s so close to my mind. Most possibly, that’s always the name I put whenever I need to sign up in professional sites acquiring company name. It was just fictious. I never thought of having own company but my husband does.

The 2 contract jobs I got at the end of this year in fact took me to the idea of making a small consultant company. Initially, one of my hubby’s friend suggested us to get a GST number submitted to the employer if hired as contractor so that we can claim some expense for more return in tax reporting every April. He said just easily call Revenue Canada with quick option, a GST number will be instantly created. I did call the toll free number, in a minute I got the GST number. Then, they asked me to voluntarily register my business too. OK I thought why not, it won’t hurt me. It’s free anyway.

Less than a week, I got confirmation letter from the Revenue. Very surprising, as normally if you deal with Govt, their response is always super slow. My hubby said, not this matter as they will get money from me. Aha! No wonder.

What I need to do, report my income from Geoprobe from next June. They give me extra time, supposed to be April. So from now on, I have to file all receipts of the expenses made for the Geoprobe. I did buy a new laptop, scanner, and other office stuffs which in fact I used for the work. I am hoping to get some return when I report them next year.

Rush-hour-free job

Last week, the negotiation completed. Finally, they are on my side. I am taken, Yay!! They agreed to involve me in their project with my favored condition, working at home sweet office base, honestly never thought of it.

Today I met the project geologist whom I mostly work with, at uncommon place for a first meeting. At a library of govt. geological survey. Surprisingly, the gentleman looks so young - to my sight. Aside from it, I wanna comment here, he is too cute to be a geologist o(~_~)o

So, what about the work? Nothing new, things that I have done it before. It’s all about data management for their prospective geothermal areas. All I need to do, spend time in the library to dig out the papers, articles, journals. Extracting data, information, do a bit analysis, put it in the accessible database, produce data presentation in digital format and also make reports with some "wise sentences" for fields development. The latter is serious part.

The coming hectic days of the work (without hassles of rush hours) are real full of excitement as I feel being a student again. Spending time in library brings me back to old days as a student. The things I love to do it again.

Hey talking about being a student, no kidding I am a UoC student wannabe. Hopefully next year provided the admission board still wanna take me. We’ll see.