What is one of the great first challenges of the immigrant? Make a clean break. He has a career, has friendships, documents, says in the bank, has the adaptation to so many other issues, but one of the first things is where to live. If you're arriving in Canada or some other country other than yourown, except for a few very special cases, you'll have to "assemble" your home, starting with things of first necessity. Some people choose to stay in furnished properties right at the start until they can rent or, luckily, until they buy their home sweet home, but the time will come, and soon, you will have…

For those who follow the blog or know me a little more about us know that I have a degree in architecture and urbanism and work in my area here in Canada for more than 8 years. I got my first job here in the icy lands just over a month after I arrived. I intend to write a little about how is the job market in this area here in Ottawa in another post, but Could not fail to mention here the process of validating the diploma of architect in Canada, since it is one of the questions I get most from both Facebook and the blog to tho.…

With only a few weeks until the arrival of our baby Diana, we finally finished her little room. With Alice, we didn't finish much in advance either, but this time it almost reached the time limit, especially for the anxious mom here. Alice's little room you can meet here. I started projecting the little room into my head as soon as we discovered the pregnancy and of course, before we knew who would come, boy or girl. But from the beginning I had neutral colors in mind, such as green water and tangerine. We ended up painting the walls, which still had the original color of when we bought the…

Although I don't always post here (lack of time, mainly), we're always doing or planning something to make our house more like a home. Flooring, some small transformations and so on, as you've seen here on the blog. Our basement is something that we never discussed here and even not that much in our renovation plans, mainly because we have so many other more important spaces on the main and second floor to possibly be focusing on. Our current basement is partially finish, with surrounding walls sort of done and carpet installed, but no partitions or defined rooms, no ceiling etc. In our basement is where the laundry appliances are…

Here I come back to talk about the biggest project we've ventured so far – the second flooring!!  Just to remind you, our house is 16 years old. A lot of things haven't been changed since then, one of them the carpet on the second floor (which was in good condition, but it was green/blue and sort of dirty). In my routine at work, I see that some clients like carpets in bedroom areas and I do find a bit more comfortable, especially in cold months, but I just can go past the potential bacteria growth and cleaning that comes along with it. I find that kids/dogs and carpets are…