poplar road

It's Tuesday, and after putting in a day at work close to home, Richard is doing one brief road trip before we head down to Vancouver. They have finally had enough accumulation at the ski resorts and other areas where Richard's potential clients clear snow to make it worthwhile for him to show off the Unimog. So he left at 5am for a place near Vernon to demo the plow and blower, and will leave it with the client for the week in the hopes they won't want to part with it on Sunday...

Which means he's stranded there, so I'm going to brave the winter roads and drive down to pick him up, and we'll be on our way to Vancouver late this afternoon, ahead of schedule. We'll be in late, so don't expect to hear from us tonight, but knowing Richard he'll probably wake a few of you up tomorrow morning (sorry!).

Richard did manage to clear our driveway using the blower when we had the big snowfall Christmas Day, but he took a pretty large chunk of dirt out of it in the process (our drive is gravel, not pavement, and grown over). This photo is from Whistler, where Richard finally found enough snow for the Mog to really sink its teeth into. As most of you know, the category "Shop Talk" refers to the fabricating (I don't dare say "tinkering") Richard looks forward to doing on his off-road rig once the barn has been converted. (And initially will probably feature pictures of the process of reconstructing the barn...) But as Richard's life outside our home renovations is pretty obsessed with the Unimog, I'm giving the first Shop Talk space to it.

Anyway, we're off... looking forward to seeing as many of you as we can for sushi at 7pm on Thursday, or for New Year's Eve. We've got the cell, so please give us a call.

We woke up to a winter wonderland Christmas morning. Snow, just as our neighbours promised despite all weather reports to the contrary. Richard says I must be on the "nice" list to be so lucky. It's beautiful here. I can't resist taking photos....

We went for a walk out to the back acreage to bring the llamas apples after our first breakfast (both of us were up well before dawn). There was about 3" of snow on the ground – the sqeaky, fluffy but not crystalline kind of snow that is perfect for making snowmen. When I was a kid and we got this kind of snow I built forts, and I would stay out for hours, as long as I could see and still move my fingers. This morning the snow has fallen from the trees and it must be warmer out there – everything is dripping. But I'm looking forward to another good trudge out to visit Smoky and Supper. Smoky, who is "wild" and doesn't know what they are, ignored the apples yesterday, but the genial and curious Supper came over and devoured them, one after another, rolling them on the snow to get a good grip with his teeth, and then rolling them in his mouth until he could crush them.

We had a relaxing day, an excellent dinner, and Richard got to take out the Mog and test the snow blower on our driveway. No call from the client at the ski resort, though, so I think we're staying home today. Which is fine, I'm enjoying lounging around for a bit. I tried composing this entry last night after Richard went to bed, but the combination of turkey, butter tarts, falling snow and the glow from the Christmas tree made me so sleepy, I gave up halfway through and went to bed. This morning I'm up early, ready to go out and play.... Life is good.

Best wishes to you for a wonderful holiday and a joyful New Year!

Much love,

Anita and Richard

at home in Poplar Road in our (almost) finished family room.

Thanks to everyone who has sent us cards and called or e-mailed to encourage us and keep in touch. We had a quiet Christmas Eve, moving our furniture into our new family room, solving two out of three mysterious happenings (that goat again!), finding and decorating a tree, and taking in the sights at the BC Wildlife Park's WildLights exhibition. Here are more photos to share – which we have very much enjoyed doing via this weblog over the past three months.

We hope to be able to share our new place in person with many of you very soon, as the "guest suite" is the next space on our to do list. But better late than never… so if you don't make it up here to enjoy the sunshine this summer, please consider yourself invited to our first ever Poplar Road Christmas Party, 2005. We've already been given notice, you see: the first card I opened said, enjoy the peace and quiet this year, because next Christmas, "company's coming!" And we'll be glad to see you!!

Richard baked a ham in orange juice and cloves, with brussel sprouts (for me), peas (for him), mashed potatoes, and glasses of cranberry juice and 7Up. We had a little toast to our first meal in our dining room, with our first real tree presiding over our new family room, and our new kitchen fragrant with the scent of fresh-baked mincemeat, lemon, and butter tarts. Tomorrow morning Richard is making an extravagant Christmas breakfast of croissants, cinnamon buns, and eggs Benedict with fresh home-made hollandaise. And while he's doing that, I'm going out back to the acreage to treat Smoky and Supper to a couple of the Macintosh apples we picked at the beginning of November, to start a new habit of getting some exercise and fresh air every morning.

Here is our new room, hastily decorated with what I could grab out of boxes in a hurry, and I was still in the midst of hanging ornaments when Richard began taking pictures. The floor got its last coat of "cardamom"-coloured paint on Wednesday evening, and was still tacky when we moved the couches in with the help of neighbours Bud and Brian on Thursday night. What a joy to walk in our front door this afternoon and be able to sit down on the couch, turn on a Christmas CD, and open your cards in the comfort of our very own space.

That's all for now, it's almost midnight and Santa needs help wrapping Richard's present to go under the tree. And there's one more glass of eggnog with my name on it. We're going to stay home and enjoy the day tomorrow, and then Richard may be taking the Unimog to a ski resort to show off the plow and blower on Sunday. (Richard has asked me to make the first entry in the "Shop Talk" category this weekend, a picture of the Unimog taking on a snowbank… look for that soon. And with luck, more snow pictures in general as it is getting COLD outside.) If the roads are in good shape I'll follow along in the truck as he's going to leave the Mog with them as a demo… so we may have a nice winter drive on Boxing Day, meandering back home.

Our plans are to be in Vancouver for the evening of the 29th, possibly earlier if Richard does leave the Unimog for a demo and takes the rest of the week off. So, the annual Christmas Sushi has been postponed but not forgotten: we're on for dinner on Thursday, December 30th. Call us to confirm a time, we're thinking about 6:30. Richard will make a reservation so if you let us know you're coming, we'll have a big enough booth. And if we don't see you then, let us know your plans for New Year's Eve….

Be well, everyone.

Cheers!

Boughs of holly. Check. Be jolly. Check, check. Gay apparel… anything not covered in paint will have to do. Yuletide carols, 9 hours worth. Check. Oh, Christmas tree… uh, wait… that would require finishing the family room to put it in…. Check? Not quite.

We've been busy the past few days, too busy for me to post anything sooner. Bah humbug, you say? Blame the season – we pushed hard this week to get the kitchen, family room and dining room ready so we could spend our first Christmas in this house sitting on our sofas in front of a tree… and not be in the garage. No tree as yet, and the sofas are still hosting mice, but tonight we're feeling like we've made it. Here's what we've accomplished so far….

twelve coats of paint…

eleven pairs of knobs…

ten trips to Kamloops…

nine ruined sweatshirts…

eight hours of trimming…

seven fluorescent light fixtures…

six months deferred payments…

five, gorgeous wall colours…

four tubes of caulking…

three new doors…

two replacement windows …

…and a great room ready for a tree.

Not bad for six weeks of renovating. This weekend felt like the most progress though, with the kitchen finished and unpacked last Wednesday, trim and baseboards selected on Thursday night and painted on Friday, the two old windows removed and new ones installed along with the front door on Saturday – thanks to Jonathan (in the red hat) and his brother Bill, and then sills, trim, and baseboards cut, shimmed, sealed, nailed and caulked yesterday and today. Last thing tonight we cleaned and primed the old plywood floor, because we're going to wait a while for tile and hardwood and live with the existing laminate and painted plywood for now. Hopefully the colour we chose for the floor will look okay and hold up under heavy traffic for a year or two. And dry fast – we need to put the last coat on by bedtime Wednesday, so we can bring our furniture in on Thursday night and go find a tree.

There are still a few things to finish besides the "cardamom" paint on the floor. This shot of our new, custom front door doesn't do it justice: you can't see that it arrived deeply scratched, with brass instead of zinc fittings, and since it was a custom special order (because they don't stock 34 1/2" width doors), they are avoiding replacing the door and want to make us remove and replace the glass part ourselves. And fix the scratches with "special primer". But as you know, Richard is very good at dealing with this kind of thing. So I'm not worried, and in the meantime it's wonderful to have all that light through the door and be able to see my visitors.

We've had two visitors this week, Maria who dropped in Wednesday and today, and Rob, who arrived last night. He got suckered into helping finish the moldings before dinner and clean up afterward before spending the night on a spare mattress on the floor. Sorry folks, no guest room yet. We're being warned, though, that visitors will descend on us next Christmas!

Our neighbours, who welcomed us to their brush-clearing bonfire out back on Saturday night, also have visitors: Smoky the llama and her 6 month-old son. Smoky is penned up in the newly fenced off area behind our property with the good-natured, knock-kneed Supper. Smoky will return to her owner up the mountain once she's carrying a new bloodline, but so far they've just been cropping the brush and the lower leaves of the pines and firs. Also in the photo, the white blob is one of the goats, who roam around and get through just about any fence they please this time of year. Remind me to tell that story over the holidays…

It's late and I'm working another full day tomorrow, so I've left out much of the descriptions. If you comment with a question, I'll post a comment in reply and fill it out that way. Just not enough hours in the day, and nine photos hardly does it justice (I took 39). But we're feeling good and on schedule to make our first, quiet Christmas here comfortable and memorable. One more post before Christmas Eve, I think. Happy holidays, everyone!

Our reno plans for today went awry, as Richard had to go in to work after all, so last night we got moving and had the kitchen cabinet doors up before dinner. Which was great timing, because this afternoon we had our first visitor in a long while – Maria dropped in en route to see a friend in Salmon Arm. I gave her the tour and showed off the kitchen (I'd been unpacking most of the day so it was a mess, but feeling much more like home). Chad, thank you so much for the holly!! Now it will feel like Christmas here despite the dusty plywood floor and multiple construction zones (and the rain melting all the snow away). So, here's the kitchen.

All but four of the cupboard doors are up; four sets of hinges out of 22 sets were unfortunately a different size. Richard got the replacements this evening after work, along with some valence fluorescents, but I couldn't convince him to install them after dinner, too bagged. Instead we watched the last half of a DVD (a treat, usually we watch about 20 minutes a night) and planned the next series of tasks.

When the cupboards are cured properly I can clean and do touch-ups, but already I'm happy with the way they look compared to the original (see "Progress" for the before shot). Most of them had to be tweaked to fit, and a couple of them Richard may trim when he gets his router set up, but they'll do – and I unpacked and put away every last box of kitchen stuff today.

I even found a spot to fit the mixer, since it doesn't fit on the counter beneath the cabinets. Thank goodness I spent all that time carefully sanding and painting that awkward bottom corner cabinet next to the sink. It's the only one both tall enough and deep enough.

Whoever built this kitchen must never have used spices, cookbooks, tall bottles, large platters, or heavy flour cannisters – the shelf heights are completely impractical and it's all one open space so trying to keep food separate from dishes is nearly impossible. That's what you got, I guess, in the middle of nowhere in 1972. At least it looks more modern, and it's certainly enough space, if not in the most ideal setup.

And about the next tasks… Our dining room/family room area is much closer to completion. We've bought moldings and baseboards and white paint; primer and deck-quality paint to seal the plywood (no flooring yet for a while); and a replacement window for the 5x5 foot 1972 special (along with the one for the office). I start painting moldings on Friday (along with the ends of the two bottom kitchen cabinets behind the freezer and fridge – forgot those!) and if I'm really energetic I might get the last coat of ceiling white done in my office, too. Then it's a toss-up: paint the walls in my office ("ripe currant"), or paint the dining room/family room floor? I'm dying to move into my new office, but I also would like a clean floor before we set up our couches and the Christmas tree. However, before the plywood can be painted it may have to be sanded to remove the last of the carpet glue, and do we want to start messing up the place just when there's paint curing everywhere? Or, we paint the floor as is and hope the primer is tough enough to keep the glue from peeling underneath. And by the time we can even consider it, Christmas will be a week away. Sigh. At least now I have holly.

Here is the dining room, with our new light fixture, a "chandelier" style dining table lamp. When we got it home we realized there are actually 3 sizes of glass shades on it, so a complete replacement set is on order from the lighting store (where they gave us 60% off on this thing so we could afford to take it home with us, hooray!). We also got the "puff" fluorescent in the kitchen and 5 dome-style lights for the halls, bathroom, and bedroom. They all fit compact fluorescents which makes Richard happy – he doesn't want a single energy-sucking halogen or incandescent light in the house.

Which is why tonight he came home with an LED "ice crystal" nightlight for the bathroom. The old-fashioned one we had (initially to make sure I didn't fall down the open staircase on my way to the bathroom) apparently sucks as much electricity as the three compact fluorescents in the overhead dome lamp. Pity. This fancy "ice crystal" thing gives off the same "white" light as the new Christmas lights. Moonlight blue, in other words. Barely enough to see by. Or just enough to imagine things by, when I'm alone in the house at night. Two nights ago I woke to a strange clatter, and ran to the door to see what was the matter. (Sorry, not Santa, couldn't resist.) It was the culprit responsible for a hole in a very messy bag of garbage, come back to finish her work. Not the dog (which was worrying at it all day today, mind you). Skunk? Nope. A black and white cat. I got a good look when I turned the new (c.f.) outside lights on and the thing didn't bat an eyelash much less run away as I'd hoped. So much for scaring things off. Instead I woke Richard, and had to deal with a growly bear in my bed for the next few hours. You can't win.

Tomorrow I work a full day, which means I can't join our neighbour, Jonathan, on a drive to see some llamas someone is giving him. We were supposed to go this morning but it got postponed. He gets this twinkle in his eye and starts talking about giving US one… We keep telling him we don't have the time or resources to take care of a pet, even one as apparently low-maintenace as a llama, but he still tries. Even after the incident with the goat in the back yard. But that's another story.

There's been little in the way of "wildlife" here, but no lack of animals to keep us entertained. And we're tracking mouse droppings. They were black, and then they were green, and then there were none. We hope it stays that way. I showed Maria the "mouse duplex", but everywhere else I've swept up and with luck they won't be chewing through any more bags of flour, or leaving any more turds on clean piles of socks or frying pans. I've had enough of washing my dishes both before and after a meal. It makes that fact that everything is now put away in the kitchen doubly fabulous!

That's it for me. The next time Richard has the camera at home during the day, I'll try to remember to stop and take pictures with this place full of sunlight, the photos work out so much better. Crash! Our nocturnal visitors are at it again. Time to snuggle in next to Richard – I'm not going to leap up in defense of my garbage tonight!

We haven't had a lot of snow here yet, just enough regular dustings to keep it bright outside. After only three weeks here, I'd gotten used to an early dawn in the brightness of the snow; in Vancouver last week dawn crept in under the clouds about an hour later than it does here. There is more snow in the forecast for tonight, but it's supposed to "warm up" again to a balmy four degrees by the end of the week. After a beautiful (although slippery) drive home in the snow on the Coquihalla late Thursday night, I was up early on Friday to take these photos from my front and back doors.

The first view is looking east towards the hills, outside the dining room French doors. The trees both in our yard and behind in the 10 acre wood are stunning in fresh snow, and the hills are just high enough to get snow when it's raining down here. The second shot is looking north from the same doors. The neighbour has lights up on the A-frame cabin in his back yard, and at dusk it looks like Hansel and Gretel could come skipping home through the trees. Wish I had time to do my gingerbread house this year.

The two photos above are from my front entrance, looking southeast across the street. We're near the end of the block and it doesn't take long going north or east to get into wooded hills and farmland. I'm thinking cross-country skiing; Richard is dreaming of snow-mobiles. Snow-shoeing would also be great around here.

This last photo is of the unusual crab-apple tree, which has attracted several varieties of brightly coloured birds, not to mention squirrels, as the fruit is still firm, bright red and glossy. If they remain frozen a little longer, I am going to pick the last of them for my Christmas centrepiece next week. If it gets really cold, and if I have the time, I may be able to decorate one of the trees outside with berry & leaf decorations molded of ice. That would make up for not getting lights up this year.

No Christmas cards this year, either, and I still cannot say when we'll be back in Vancouver to see everyone, though it's looking more likely that we will come closer to New Years. Sushi on the 30th, perhaps? So I'd like to say Merry Christmas, a joyful, peaceful holiday, and a happy and prosperous New Year to all our friends and family from Richard and I. Cheers!

I've delayed this post a bit, hoping to get photos of the final result of the past weekend. Here is a little taste, but you'll have to wait for Wednesday night for the main event: we are both taking Wednesday off and will have a finished kitchen by the end of the day if we're lucky.

The first surprise for me when we got home Thursday night was that Richard finished painting three coats of "rosemary sprig" on our family/dining/entry walls while I was away, in addition to painting the ceilings and removing the last of the kitchen wallpaper.

In this shot from Saturday afternoon Richard is priming all 22 cupboard doors and 7 drawers, and I finished them off with a third coat of the same rosemary green as the walls (but in satin rather than eggshell) this afternoon. We also finished the kitchen walls (above the cupboards) in the same colour.

That's the only photo for now – the rest came out quite dark and all were from Saturday, before we put up our new light fixtures and finished the kitchen walls. It looks so wonderful in the "great room", with the green paint to tie all three spaces together, the green and white of snow and pines through the windows, and our new lights to make it brighter once the sun goes down. I look forward to showing off more of it later this week. (What was the next surprise? There were a few... stories for holiday visits, I think!)