poplar road

I look forward to the day when we can say a room is "finished", but here are more photos of where we've got to so far, and I think we can say we're making progress...

First, the "great room", which looks much cosier in proportions and less like a long hallway now that the wall has been finished between it and the new office. At this point Richard has finished two coats out of at least four in his mudding job.

The new doorway will get a French door in a couple of weeks, and a replacement front door is on order. We brought one home Friday night, but unfortunately it was an inch and a half too wide, so we had to order a custom width version – for $2 less, surprisingly. We also took two layers of wallpaper off the entry area wall - and underneath that, it's key lime pie green, yikes!

I'm finished painting the cabinets inside and out (except doors, which we've decided will be green), the drawers, and the faux tile. I'm so glad to see the end of the inside of those cabinets! Here are a couple of before and after photos. The mac-tac lined cupboard shown here was one of the "clean" ones, compared to those bottom cupboards. It's hard to see the faux tile but it was pale blue in several different floral and grass patterns. I spent a little more time removing the wallpaper stripe near the ceiling but didn't get very far – maybe tomorrow.

Here's the other side of the new wall – my office. This was Saturday morning after we got the insulation in for sound, and finished putting up the last few pieces of gyprock. Since then it's had two coats of mud like the rest, and Richard mudded, but didn't tape, a 10' tall piece in the corner that is easily removable if the electrician needs to get in there for the upgrade.

Since finishing the insulation and drywall it's much warmer at this end of the house – a good thing after snow flurries and dropping temperatures this week.

And finally, another shot of the bathroom, because I'm just so pleased with the way it has turned out. We have a few more finishing touches, like installing the chrome shower curtain rod, towel racks, and a white seat for the toilet instead of the wood… but one task I finished this week was painting the countertop white, and it looks so much better.

We have two more bathrooms and the rest of the house to finish before we consider changing out the tub & surround, etc in this one – but I think the painting we've done will hold up for a couple of years at least, and it's a nice space to be in now. Believe it or not, the dark teal is quite flattering - we just need new, brighter light fixtures so I can actually see in the shower.

This week I'm heading to Ottawa Wednesday through Friday for work, and then I'll be at my parents' place in North Van from the 4th to the 8th, returning here on the 9th. I'm working at the office that Monday through Wednesday, but I'll try to see people on the weekend and in the evenings while I'm there. Looking forward to catching up with everyone! (And shhh, don't tell Richard, but I'm going to IKEA for holiday stuff!) And when I get back here, Richard should have a few surprises for me! So look for photos again the weekend of the 11th/12th.

The temperature is dropping, but there's only been snow on the hills on the north side of the river so far. Inside, however, it's white, white, white....

With most of the drywall up, the walls look white again. With the new white-on-white striped shower curtain to round out the bathroom reno, the bathroom is as much white as blue... and today I scrubbed, sanded, and primed the bathroom countertop, so now it's VERY white in there. Tomorrow the counter gets a final coat of the kitchen&bath white and that should allow enough time for it to cure before Richard gets home and starts splashing around in the sink.

After a walk through the back gate to see the goats and explore the pine woods behind us, I cleaned up the kitchen counters, removing everything and then scrubbing it all down. Richard's stint with the belt sander on the cupboards had left a lot of dust on the counters, but the worst was the grime on the pressboard "tile". It goes all the way around the counters from left of the sink to where the counter ends at our cube freezer. No camera or I'd have taken a close-up "before" picture, but if you look back at my kitchen posts you'll see the pale blue floral print stuff over the stove etc. This "tile" board is now primed, and will be - you guessed it - white. Now that the priming is all done in there, I can do all the rest of the kitchen&bath final coat at once, cupboard and tile. I'll be much happier when we get the doors painted, to put some colour back in the room.

I took today off work, but tomorrow is a full day, as is Thursday, so I don't expect to finish the final white coat other than in the bathroom. But I'll have time again Friday. Richard will want to jump back into the drywalling when he gets home Friday afternoon, so I am feeling a little pressure to get the painting done so I can help. (I seriously love drywall mud, am looking forward to the mudding part.)

Funny, with all this white paint everywhere, I don't know that I'll be as thrilled to see everything outside turn white, too. I took some photos on the weekend of the remaining crabapples, rose hips, autumn leaves and vines, and it was so nice to find that vibrant colour. Today in the woods I found a few small shoots of holly, but no berries, I guess it's either too soon or they're too small to bear fruit. But lots of pine and the holly leaves to decorate with in a few weeks, to make the white a little less severe. The next painting job, too, will give me some relief - the colour we've chosen for the bedroom is almost as far from white as you can get! Rich, dark, and probably will need three coats like the bathroom. That should be fun - we'll have to sleep in the trailer. Maybe when I get back from Vancouver.

So much to do! I look forward to showing you the latest this weekend. I'm going to have an office! Hurrah!

Wish I had the camera! An addendum to this post, 7am Wednesday morning: we got 2 inches of snow overnight! It's still coming down, very wet now, not the kind of snow I can go out in my sneakers in (must buy winter boots), but it's stuck to every branch and twig, and the back yard looks magical. I didn't know it was snowing until I went to bed last night and turned out all the lights - with no light outside, it's pitch black usually, but last night there was a glow as of moonlight, and when I looked for the moon...Wow! So it's white inside and out now. Cheers!

We had a slow start Sunday morning (great breakfast á la Richard) and two visits with our neighbour (baby rabbits arrived, and a brand new sheep named Daisy who came from a 4H family – he wants to give it to us). So we still have cut pieces tucked against the walls, ready to go up below the ceiling, and of course all the taping and mudding, for next weekend. And we need sound insulation to go in the new wall between my office and the family room before those pieces go up. Anyway, here's the dry-walling, to be continued….

That's all, folks – more next weekend.

Well, it's another marathon weekend, trying to get the majority of work done on our projects from the last two weeks. Here are a couple of pictures to start off Sunday morning…

Yesterday Richard finished the vapour barrier, after applying sealant around the beams that protrude out through the stucco to support those windowboxes he's so fond of. (He's arguing they should stay because he plans to remove all shrubs from the sides of the house. What harm can a little lilac do? He's just decided to move the trellis out of his way at the front entrance, so I guess it's goodbye, climbing rose. He's lucky these aren't truly MY plants. Hmph.) Today he's just stapling the last few window edges and things, and trying to figure out how to lift the stack of 8, 10, and 12 foot sheets of drywall into the house. Might have to call in the neighbour as I'm not enough muscle. It's just before 9am, and he's hoping to be able to start affixing the stuff sometime today…. Still puttering around, but I think we'll get enough done that I'll have pictures tonight. None the rest of the week, though – he's away on his Kelowna-Cranbrook loop with the digital camera.

The bathroom is almost now done except for the "accessories". Yesterday I finished two coats of kitchen&bath white on the tile, door, and moldings, touched up where the blue mysteriously ended up on the ceiling and vanity, and finally unpacked all our stuff. The medicine cabinet is nice; however, its shelves are SHORT. So there are still things on the tiny countertop. Oh, that's one last job this week: we confirmed that we can use the same Teflon-based primer on the old "marble" look arborite counter as we did on the beige&blue tile. So I'll be painting that while Richard is on his road trip – the paint has to cure for a week without water exposure, ie no shaving in the sink.

Next weekend look for one more photo – the difference with our new white shower curtain masking the tub surround is great, and I look forward to getting towel racks and a light fixture. Richard wants everything to be high efficiency, therefore we're holding out for lighting that can use compact flourescents. Hydro will now give rebates for replacing halogens and incandescents with compact flourescents, so hopefully the lighting stores will start carrying products that can use them. I still like halogens best, but in a small bathroom like that, there's no arguing the heat would be a little bit much most of the time. (Mind you, with the heat off overnight the temperature upstairs plunged to 55 degrees F according our thermostat – I'm pretty sure that's less than 15 degrees Celsius. It would be nice if the bathroom had a heat lamp like the one in our apartment. Outside it reached –3, but no snow yet. Maybe tonight.)

Wish us luck today – if all goes well, I'll have more to show this evening.

You might think we were inspired by the peacocks that lived behind the barn when we first saw this place, but our choice of paint for the bathroom wall was more a question of finding the shade of blue that was a darker version of the same hue as the tub, sink and toilet. When we first went looking I didn't have a sample to match to, and brought home a royal blue thinking that would work. Wrong. While it looks like classic baby blue, when I brought home every blue chip in the Behr display, it was the teal series that matched best. This particular shade is called "Peacock Tail", appropriately. Note, the camera's flash has dulled it a bit and made it darker.

Appropriate or not, I'm not sure how I feel about it at this point. I've never actually been fond of the light blue/dark blue combination – not since a stint on my high school field hockey team, in the awful uniform in our school powder blue and navy, ugh. Mind, you, if it was just with the white, I'd really like how it looks. Richard wonders if we could also paint or otherwise change the tub surround to white; but there's no changing that light blue until we've finished doing the two other desperately needed bathrooms first. We have to live with this for a couple of years at least. Comments?

In between coats (I had to do three to get even coverage since we didn't use a tinted primer for such a small space), I did some house-cleaning. Namely a few days' worth of dishes, which right now means drying everything immediately and putting it back in the storage room. In the process I collected a few more things to wash, because the mice had wandered over things and left tiny field mice droppings just where I least expected them. The kitchen, too, has shown evidence of the little buggers, and I saw one the other morning in the master bedroom among my plants. The ensuite vanity is a two-level mouse condo with a hole in the wall on each "floor", and the droppings to prove it was used regularly before we moved in. What I don't understand is, how the mice got comfortable so quickly in the 6 months over the summer that this place stood empty – because when it was lived in, there were six people, several dogs, and an estimated two dozen or more cats (not to mention 144 varieties of birds out back, including the peacocks).

Our neighbour Jonathan, whom we referred to as the llama-and-goat man because he has a small hobby farm, told Richard that the previous owners had so many cats, Jonathan had no qualms shooting at them if they came anywhere near his rabbits. (Can't wait to show my neice these rabbits, giant lop-ears, just beautiful. Mind you, the only rodents I really like are hedgehogs, and I don't know if they count.) One neighbour who came by, curious to see what we're doing with the place, said the number of cats was closer to fifty as little as a year and a half ago. How is that possible, that a place could be overrun with mice with at least a dozen cats living here for several years??!! Do these field mice not have enough places to live, with 10 acres of property behind us used only by a family of llamas and the occasional billy goat?!

Generally I'm against exterminating things if they have wild areas to live in. But how do you relocate several hundred field mice? So the day that we plan to paint the bedroom, and spend the night in the trailer, we're going to have to use poison. I can happily walk around my yard and enjoy watching the flickers (woodpeckers) taking chunks out of the barn wall, and squirrels eating the last of the crabapples, but I can't handle mouse turd on my file bins and rolling around in my formerly clean frying pan. And what are they doing to the sofas out in the garage?!! Horrors. (Wallace and Grommit fans, imagine my hands waving Wallace-like in dismay to either side of my face.) Luckily, I have lots of other things to distract me, like whether this paint job needs a fourth coat, and what colour to do the great room, and what's happening on Enterprise because I missed the last episode, first time in three seasons, just when Brent Spiner is guest starring as Dr Soong, and I'll miss this Friday as well. (Didn't know I was a Trekkie? You learn something new every day.)

Anyway, I've left the tape on where possible, to allow for a fourth coat if necessary – more than enough paint, it's not like we'll use it anywhere else. Having to pull up the drop cloth so we can use the bathroom in the morning is a pain, but I really thought three coats would be enough and started just early enough today to get it done. Sigh. Tomorrow is a full work day so if I have to do a fourth, it will have to wait until evening. At least it's quick to do once the prep is done. Nothing else exciting to report – more on the weekend, I expect.

Here's the latest, all you impatient people… what slave drivers!! (Just kidding.) I had a shorter work day today so I got a head start on the bathroom walls. (See the "before" shot in my last entry.) Thanks to one of the many home improvement TV personalities, my mother found out it's possible to paint tile, as long as it's not in an area exposed to water. All you need is the right primer, and here's how it looks. Thanks, Mom.

Hmm, said Richard when he got home. White doesn't look bad in here. But that's only primer, it's temporary. The tile will remain white though, with a coat of glossier paint, perhaps tomorrow. I cleaned up early tonight once the priming was done, and Richard made a nice dinner, taking the night off. We both need a rest!

It's Tuesday, and I've got half a day tomorrow and all day Friday to paint, so there could be new pictures by Friday night. Maybe. That shot of me painting the corners in the bottom cupboards ought to be enough entertainment for the week. (Just a word of caution – this blog is personal, for us to keep in touch with our friends, please don't pass it along to just anybody, thanks.) I crack open the first can of coloured paint tomorrow afternoon, and I'm a bit scared… might poll you all on how it looks afterward. Let's hope it works out. At least walls are a lot faster to paint than scummy old cupboards!

Thursday, November 11th, the office and family room/dining room area were stripped down (and the smell is gone!). One beam of the windowboxes which adorn the front and side of the house was rotten, so before he could do much else Richard had to cut out the rot and patch the wall. The old drywall came off with less mess than we expected, and I hauled it out to the heap in the yard in no time. Underneath, the insulation was thankfully free of mouse tunnels (unlike the basement).

The kitchen cabinets, before, during, and after priming. With the dirt and grime and evidence of both cats and mice in those cupboards, I shuddered at the thought of putting my dishes in them (much less sticking my face inside to see what I was painting), but after scrubbing, sanding, and priming, they're simply old-fashioned - clean now, and very sturdy. I look forward to painting the doors (a shade of green, we're thinking) and replacing the navy blue plastic knobs with stainless steel ones.

Yes, that's the photo Richard wanted me to post last night, and no, it was not a Winnie the Pooh moment, I was NOT stuck.

I haven't got very far in the bathroom as yet – it's the only (bearable) one and the necessity of using it keeps interrupting my painting schedule. It's a good thing it's so dry here: the paint dries fast, and moisture doesn't cling to the walls for long. With luck I can at least get the door and moldings done tomorrow night in time to dry before the next shower.

Yesterday, Richard finished all the wiring and cleaned up. Notice the new wall for my office. Tonight he made a hardware stop after work, got one wall filled with insulation and then helped me clean up my paintbrushes so we could watch part of a DVD together before he hit the hay. How wonderful to STOP for a while! (Then he went to sleep and I started resizing photos for the web…)

I finished priming the last, ugliest bottom corner cabinet and all the kitchen drawers tonight, but didn't get farther than that. Oh well, I'll have a four day weekend again to do more: there's a coat (or two) of white to put on the kitchen cabinets, bathroom trim, tile, and door, and still more priming to get the bathroom walls ready for colour. And I can't wait to do the bedroom (the spare room we're inhabiting at the moment, which only needs paint and window coverings to finish it off). Problem with that is we will have to sleep in the trailer, not a prospect either of us is looking forward to – it's getting far too cold out. And then, by the time the bedroom is done, Richard will be drywalling, and we'll have to make a tough decision: what colour to paint the kitchen walls, cabinet doors, and great room walls. The sooner we decide, the sooner I get to unpack the dozen or so boxes of kitchen stuff which are currently at the mercy of the mice. Ugh.

I've been here 10 days and am just beginning to feel like this place is our own. Can't wait to share it with all of you in person (but that will have to wait for the next project, the downstairs guest bedroom and bathroom). Hope you're enjoying our process (progress?).