poplar road

Agh! I thought the moles and gophers were bad. Now we have 5 foot deep, 6 foot long holes in our newly levelled and seeded lawn. This is not the way I intended to give a preview of our new landscaping!

In the foreground is where a break in the pipe had developed into a complete blockage that Richard located (surprisingly accurately, thank goodness) with the help of a septic company with a camera this afternoon. Just visible at the back in the wider last image is the series of trenches that he and Jonathan dug yesterday, looking for the 'T' where this long pipe from the tanks beneath our dining room window meets the field itself, right at the back fence. Tomorrow Richard will repair the pipe close to the house, and mark the spot for the next hole, which luckily we can deal with later. If all goes well with the repair, we might get away as planned for the long weekend. And then come back to lawn patching and re-levelling and re-seeding....

Richard has been down in a stinky black hole for the last several hours so he's in a peachy mood now as he finally sits down to dinner. I just can't believe this has happened. The break appears to be old, not caused by the excavations in December or the trucking in of dirt to level things this spring. So it's even more terrible luck that it finally clogged just now, when everything was dug up just a few months ago.

If by some miracle we manage to pull off the repair, fill the holes, get the piles of turf back in some semblance of lawn, and sow seed in the next two days, we'll be back in business for all the other special projects we'd planned before August long weekend. But more likely, we'll leave late for our Marrowstone getaway, and waste more time on this shit when we get back. At least I got in a trip to the candy store yesterday (a.k.a. my favourite nursery). The expensive new lawn may look like moles the size of elephants have been running amuck, but at least my flower beds will be gorgeous. Hopefully our UNniversary campers will be too distracted by the new rock work to notice the patchy lawn!

We're hanging in there. I'll update again soon.

This is what the entrance to our basement looked like last weekend. A mess.

If you look closely, you can see not only the trash building up under the deck, but also the interior wall that had yet to be drywalled that day. Looking at the steps, you can see the big change in elevation of the yard immediately below the deck. This was formerly the 2nd step down... so it's more of a drop than the initial grading done during the geothermal excavation. At right is what's left of my flowerbed - a bunch of old roots and what do you know, more rocks.

In about 2 weeks, I'm going to share the photos of:

1) our professionally mudded and taped basement (Marjorie starts on Thursday),

2) our professionally landscaped back yard - this photo is a hint, and

3) maybe a few shots of our amateurish but hopefully much improved front yard. It's weeds vs. grass seed. We'll see.

But not just yet. I'm impatiently waiting for the transformation from mess to wow. And let's face it, at this point, we're too exhausted to fully appreciate it.

Richard's back went out yesterday morning, so we are not, quite, done the drywall boarding - that pesky stairwell where Richard bumped out the wall for our ensuite shower will require some careful work on a long ladder. Close enough, though, that there's no point in more pics until Marjorie has done the mudding. Small bits and pieces are easier to carry, but it's been some finicky work. I even did some all by myself. (Did you know when manufacturers punch the heads of screws, they don't always get a full depth punch? It took me 15 minutes of swearing at my lack of skill with the drywall driver before I figured out the screw wouldn't stay put because the drill bit wasn't getting any grip on it. And then came the screw with the off-centre punch, worse yet.)

Anyway. We've just about had it with drywall dust, dirt moving, and with Richard's back out and my shoulder seriously strained, picking up rocks is just not fun. Getting recommendations on pros to take our years of DIY mini-projects to the next level is extremely satisfying (albeit stressful financially compared to the other route), and our landscaper is an artist with rock (!), but somehow we've been working even harder than before. Our vacation is mere weeks away and I'm really, really looking forward to getting out of this house. And then, coming home, of course!

We spent another dusty weekend in the basement, trying to get the drywall done. Not quite there yet - lots of finicky bulkheads and a couple of other small jobs to do - but here are some pics of the latest.

The main room downstairs is the size of our living room, dining room, kitchen and entry put together, and now that the boards are mostly up, it looks very bright, spacious and perfect for entertaining. Eventually. You just have to imagine some furniture and a baby grand piano to go with the pool table.

We expect to finish the last of the boarding this coming weekend, and have the mudder/taper in next week. Not sure what more has to be done before we have the advisor come in to do phase 2 of our EcoEnergy assessment, but we're close, and really looking forward to the grant cheque! Drywall - maybe primer since we've got some on hand and we have a sprayer - is about as far as we'll get for now. Our focus has moved outside... wait 'til you see the changes in our back yard. We're going to have a lot more fun this summer! And someone pointed out we'll have a good backup plan if it rains on the August long weekend. Yes.

Remaining ceiling boards went up Saturday, walls Sunday.

This wall hides under-stair storage and mechanical room.

Guest room closet, before all the teeny pieces.

Richard finished wiring the posts so we had power.

Sound insulation between laundry and family room.

So much better than old faux wood siding!

Looking from entrance across family room - isn't it bright?

The hallway - walls for the bathroom, what a treat.

Here's our huge new family room!

Finishing up for the weekend.

Here are a few photos of our progress in the basement. Okay, more than a few. I’ve included all the main rooms (except the bathroom and mechanical room which we aren’t working on yet), focusing on the main family room area facing the fireplace, so you can see the transformation since the original photo from September, 2004 when Richard and I first put the offer on the house. The next image after the original shows the gutted space with the first framed wall and new electrical panel in the summer of 2005. With projects over the years being small and intermittent, I find I don’t have very many photos between that first summer and this year’s major push. The rest of these are since January of this year.

The photo here at left looks out towards the basement entrance (north) from beside the fireplace, which corresponds upstairs to the entrance to my office, looking out to the deck through our French doors. You can see the drywall challenges posed by the various ducting bulkheads, so I’m very happy to report that we’ve found the perfect professional mudder/taper, Marjorie, who will get to work as soon as Richard and I finish the remaining boarding.

You’ll see in the final images that we still have half of the west and north walls and the north edge of the ceiling to cover. And the sides of lots of bulkheads. We only got the lower walls of the laundry room and guest room done this Saturday, and one more ceiling board up in the main room, but Richard got some key wiring and plumbing issues sorted out, and I got our boxes and piles of construction materials, tools, and storage items put away elsewhere. Hopefully we’ll finish up by the first weekend in May for the mudder/taper to do her thing the following week. And then we can call up the EcoEnergy people for our final evaluation, and get in line for our big fat rebate cheque!

Next on the basement to do list are the plumbing and fixtures for the bathroom, mechanical room, and storage-turned-laundry room; flooring, which will be tile throughout; lighting, halogen pot lights on dimmer switches which are wired and ready to install after painting; and of course painting and moulding. That’s a big list and we’ve got a teeny budget right now, so don’t expect to see furnished rooms any time soon! But already it’s warmer, brighter, cleaner, and so much easier now to visualize our plans for the space that I no longer dread going downstairs. Whether or not we get any further this spring than the drywall stage, I’m looking forward to showing it off to our guests in August. And here, of course. It’s been ages since I last had anything to post under the title “Playing House”!

Like the mice that have been slowly but surely chewing their way into our house season after season (yup, just caught another one yesterday), we've been tackling our basement transformations little by little since Richard gutted it back in October of 2004.

With help from Chris, Jason, and Rick, the gas lines, ducting and framing were done back in '05 and '07 between other more urgent projects. Last September Richard finished the wiring and most of the plumbing, and the heating system got its final upgrade with the geothermal installation in December. Finally this January, the looming deadline of our final EcoEnergy evaluation lit a fire under Richard to get the basement to the drywall stage.

It's taken him just about every Saturday since then to finish the plumbing, ducting, insulation, vapour barrier, etc. He even had to relocate the laundry in what was to be the storage room, because he couldn't get the venting for the dryer to work within the plan for our ensuite bathroom. (I'm pleased with the result, actually, because this way I get more of a counter and a full-size laundry sink, and after 5 years hell I'm used to the stairs.) Every project seems to have at least one snag like that which makes it take longer than you'd expect, so I was really relieved when our EcoEnergy evaluator was able to get us an extension past our April 6th deadline. I admit though, I was tempted not to tell Richard we got it, for fear he'd spend the long weekend on the couch!

I shouldn't have worried; his momentum had been building as the walls filled in with insulation and the vapour barrier gave everything a unified surface. Suddenly we have rooms! Despite not having friends or family up to help over Easter, the way we usually do, the two of us found the energy to spend every minute of daylight hanging drywall for 3 days straight. For me, I'm motivated to get this out of the way so I can return to gardening. I had originally planned to spend the long weekend in the yard, but the universe shoved me in the right direction by sending a fresh bout of winter weather - it even snowed yesterday morning! So the garden can wait.

As I write, Richard is trying to find more of that energy to get down there so we can finish it up today. The boarding, I mean. We're still hoping we can find a mudder/taper with professional skills and not so outrageous prices to do the finishing for us in a week or two. The quote we got last night was absolutely ridiculous! I need to get us moving, no time for photo editing, so look for the pics of our progress later. High ho, high ho....

The things Richard manages to do in his rare days off…!

You might think we’re installing a pool, but this shot is from day 2 of our long-awaited geothermal heating system installation. We only had until next March to complete it in order to qualify for the rebates the government is offering, and of course an excavation like this can’t happen during the rainy fall or spring. So there were the boys – our good friend & geo expert Jason and his apprentice doing the geothermal install, and Richard overseeing a two man excavation crew – working past sundown in –6 degree weather. As you’ll see in the last few shots, it even snowed on Thursday night. Amazingly, the whole operation took only 5 days last week.

I’m so thrilled with the result. First, we are one last part away from our high-efficiency, cold tolerant new heating system. That’s going to save us a bundle on heating, particularly combined with the foam insulation we just had sprayed on the basement headers. But more exciting for me, thanks to an unexpected glitch with the location of our gas line to the house, we switched from a driveway dig to going down the west side of our property, from the southwest corner of the house to the back fence. That meant we finally had an excuse to redo our landscaping!

Richard figures we gained about 8 feet of yard along the whole length of our back yard now that it’s level. It’s messy with rocks and probably full of weed seeds, and we had to sacrifice a lot more plants than I was prepared for, but it has so much more potential. And, the neighbours insisted on paying for the new fence and the retaining rocks on their side of it. Excellent. A blanket of snow – next weekend most likely – will make it all look perfect. Yay!

In these last three photos you can see the pipes of the geothermal system Jason and his young apprentice Trevor installed. In our climate the pipes have to be at least 8 feet below ground level. We dug 12 to 13 feet down, however, because we stacked our loops, with earth back-filled between the two layers. Thus the massive hole. (Incidentally, the Bobcat in this photo got stuck down there, and had to be lifted out with the huge excavator like a mother cat lifting her kitten.)

Originally we were going to dig up the driveway to achieve the 150 foot long trench we needed, but the location of our natural gas line indicated on Terasen's map was inaccurate by 1 to 3 metres along most of its length across the driveway. When Richard started digging he hit the actual line almost instantly and we were lucky that Terasen was able to send someone that Sunday afternoon to locate the line properly and fix the section that Richard stretched when he hit it. With the dig scheduled to start Monday morning, we had to change our plans, fast, digging in the opposite direction.

The change in plans meant sacrificing our admittedly ailing maple tree, one of our apple trees, and several shrubs, as well as my blackberry vine and raspberry canes. All replaceable, however, and the resulting levelled areas mean I'll get my kitchen garden and a flat area for outside dining much sooner than I'd hoped. And plantings like trees will be so much easier to plan on a wider scale now, as Richard was quick to point out when I mourned over my apple tree.

Thank you so much to Jason!

"Grumpy" is highly ironic - Jason is the most easy-going, unflappable person we know, and not even the cold bothered him as he and his apprentice made a weeks-long job for Richard come together in a mere two and a half days. (And one evening they installed our humidifier and UV filter, which had been sitting in boxes for years.)

Richard kept the boys' energy up with homemade chowder, chicken wings, and lots of hot chocolate, and took most of these photos as he worked to record their progress, since I didn't get home from work until dusk and could hardly see what they were up to.

I took the last few snowy photos on Friday afternoon, as the excavation crew was moving the last of the dirt from temporary piles out back in the woods and helping Richard install the posts for the new fence. They needed a bit more, actually, so Richard had them dig out the last section of retaining wall out front around the apple trees there, so we can finish that new rock wall and get around the trees with the mower. The excavators also re-levelled and seeded the ground out back with a forestry mix of rye and alfalfa, so there will be food for the llamas and goats come spring.

All that work in a mere five days, it's incredible. I wonder if we'll be able to be as quick finishing the basement?! That's next.

Chris and Dagny tied the knot! On Saturday, April 18th, after a whirlwind of preparations coordinated by yours truly, these two wonderful people were married in a little chapel in Burnaby Village Museum, and partied the night away afterward at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts, in the gorgeous spring setting of Deer Lake Park.

The lateness of spring this year was a surprise to all, but it was just what the wedding coordinator ordered: all the park's blossoming trees, daffodils and other early spring flowers that would normally be finished by mid-April were at their peak. It was a beautiful afternoon, and they make such a perfect couple.

I wish I had more photos of my own - this one comes from Dagny's sister & bridesmaid Marla - but I had enough to do without wielding a camera. I was wedding coordinator and matron of honour, Richard was both groomsman and emcee, and we had our hands full. Luckily, Dagny and Chris had a talented pair of photographers following us around, so I look forward to showing a few of the formal photos as soon as Dagny gets them. (For once I'm even excited to see a few of me... I've never been this dolled up before. And mmm, my man looks damn good in a tux.)

So there you have it. What was once referred to as the Olson Vortex is now an ever-expanding spiral, growing in love and friendship, humour and happy memories. Here's to the bride and groom!

A decadent dinner chez Richard, with filet mignon, half an Alaskan King crab leg, tiger prawn, and perfectly steamed broccoli (hollandaise optional): $27 a plate.

Spending the weekend with Richard between business trips: priceless.

And just try and find a meal like that at a restaurant for less than double! Can’t believe February is half over already… an update is coming soon.

Happy New Year! As Bev pointed out in her comment this morning, I’ve been away from the blog for a while. Writing has been on my mind more than usual and I’ve got no end of photos I’d love to share, but it’s been hard to find the time. The holidays were a whirlwind (a blizzard?) from the 12th of December when Dagny, Chris and our first major snowfall arrived, to the 5th of January when we collapsed in a heap, holidays over. Since then we’ve been struggling to keep up with everything. I’m going to post a few photo highlights of our holidays here, finally, after an update on the latest goings-on.

So far the New Year has been about work: finding it, in my case, and getting things working smoothly, in Richard’s. While I try to get my writing & design business off the ground, I’m also hunting for part-time admin work to keep funds coming in. This coming week I’m working with my two sisters to get a new website going for my business, and design all the other promotional material to go along with it. I’ll be posting the link to the new site here soon. If you know anyone who’s looking for a writer or editor, send them my way!

Also taking up my time has been reorganization of our office since the arrival of new furniture on the 31st. Richard has joined me in working from home, so we’ve transformed my 14’ x 16’ study-like space into a professional office with two walls worth of desk area including a peninsula that seats two or three for meetings, two much better designed computer stations, a new printer, and more storage coming soon. (His new employer covered the cost of his half of the furniture and the printer, thank you Cubex!) Now it feels like coming to work. Richard’s colleague Andrew was here Wednesday evening through Thursday night and they were able to work comfortably for several hours at one desk while I was at the other. It’s probably the most used room in the house! I’ll post pics when the last of the furniture is installed at the end of the month.

Earlier today, Richard was outside getting familiar with one of the pieces of equipment he sells at his new job. It’s a municipal tractor for sidewalks, currently with a powerful snow blower on the front. He practiced on our driveway and our neighbours’. Ironically, now that they’re beginning a tour across the province showing off the winter equipment they sell, it has stopped snowing pretty much everywhere, although there’s no shortage of it lying around here still. I’ve been breaking in my snowshoes making tracks in the back yard where the snow is up to my knees. Most of our family and friends on the coast are sick of snow, but we’re looking forward to the next round, especially now that Richard is back to selling snow plows and salt spreaders again. I hate to point out, but it is only January, people.

Aside from work, the main other activity taking up my time is exercise. I’ve been working out with a belly dance DVD every morning, trying to get back in shape so I can return to dance class starting February 5th. I see my naturopath next week for some more work on my tailbone and the torn ligaments in my foot (which is why it has taken so long to heal since the break) and hopefully some more acupuncture for my hips, and then I should be able to make it through one or two classes a week without losing the ability to walk. It’s been almost a year since I was last in class and I miss it and the troupe a lot. I look forward to getting back into it with a much healthier lower back this time around. And I’ve got more motivation: to fit into my gorgeous dress as matron of honour at Chris & Dagny’s wedding, only 3 months away!

Now for the holiday photo journal. This is in order, pretty much, from when we left for Calgary on the 17th until Ben & Adrie’s visit for New Year’s. I didn’t get pics of everything and everybody but I did make more of an effort to pull out the camera, at least on Christmas Eve. We had a great time with Richard’s new colleagues, with our families, and with the few friends we were able to see over the holidays. To everyone we didn’t get to spend time with, we hope to see you soon!

O Tannenbaum - our tree was beautiful.

Did I mention I went crazy with my new glue gun?

My first trip through the Rockies in winter.

A mountain I remembered from childhood holidays.

Wonder of wonders, a white Christmas in the Cove.

Making snowmen on Christmas Eve morning.

My sister & nieces sled through the Xmas Eve snowfall.

My nieces shimmy in the belly dance hip scarves I gave them.

Richard shows off a new set of tools.

A family tradition: carols with Erika on piano.

Our drive home Boxing Day was fine. Unlike this guy.

Richard and Jason made the boys a wild toboggan run.

A few things I have to paint you a picture of because I never got out the camera:

December 23rd, dinner at Adrie & Ben’s, a million pairs of eyes watched us from snowmen of all sizes and poses covering every inch of their townhouse. We added one more for the garden. I had no idea Adrie had a snowman fetish!

Christmas Eve morning in Deep Cove, my sister Erika and our nieces Lael and Niamh and I went outside, swathed in woolens and armed with carrots to make a couple of snowmen. The second one became a snow bear, after Niamh took a bite of its unfortunate nose and then lost it while trying to wade through snow higher than her waist. Lael and I got stuck trying to get up out of our wingless snow angels – we couldn’t move our arms.

Christmas Day morning, Lael brought out a new gift, a special set of playing cards, two sets of the alphabet illustrated with animals doing activities like a purple polka-dotted pig painting a letter P. We try Memory and Monkey’s Uncle (a version of Old Maid), and then she and Richard play Big Big Fish, the same as Go Fish but instead of a stack of cards, you spread them out in a fish pond. Cheeky Lael (encouraged by her equally cheeky uncle, of course) replaced the reply “go fish” with inventive ways of saying no using the letter of the requested card. Do you have a raccoon roller-skating? asks Richard. Roll away, Richard Racoon, says Lael. Her replies got far cheekier than that, and so quick! If we weren’t playing a game I’m sure her mother would have been horrified at the insults. My parents sat there laughing their heads off. I couldn’t come up with anything to draw a laugh, until asked for an “N”. Um, nnnnn… I said, struggling for words…nnNO!

Christmas Day evening, we arrived at Richard’s sister’s place for a big potluck dinner with family and friends, at which mashed potatoes were not on the menu. Richard was hugely disappointed, until he saw his Christmas present: a sack of potatoes on the kitchen counter. He got exactly what he wanted – he made them himself.

Boxing Day despite the weather, a few people joined us for Christmas Sushi. We didn't get organized enough before the holidays to get the usual crowd, sadly, but you might be glad you missed it. Chris developed a drinking problem, and Dagny nearly called off the wedding. Not once but twice he knocked over a full glass of ice water right into her lap. Richard and I tried very hard not to laugh.

December 28th, the Rocksons were visiting. After young Alex went out with three pairs in his first turn at Go Fish, we decided to teach him how to play Crazy Eights. Richard helped him sort his cards and run through one game to learn the rules. The 5-year-old won. Then Richard left to cook dinner, and by himself Alex beat us all again, twice. His last card was a Crazy Eight every time. Beware boys with dimples. I love cards and Richard rarely plays, so it was also a treat to play Rummy after the kids went to bed that night.

Oh, and one more anecdote from Ben and Adrie: driving through Vancouver during the worst of the Christmas snowfall, they saw a man whose car had been buried at the curb by a snow plow. He was digging it out with a 9”x13” baking pan. Ah, winter.

Wishing all our loved ones a Merry Christmas and a joyful and abundant New Year.

We survived our drive to and from Calgary - wow, the Rockies in winter are spectacular - and are about to set out into this winter wonderland again. See you for Christmas sushi at the usual place Boxing Day, we hope, and if not, see you in the New Year. We'd love to have you over to play in the snow. All two feet of it (so far). All the best, Richard & Anita.

What a busy fall we’ve had! It feels like it’s over now (for which I’m grateful) because we had our first snowfall last night and as I sit here the sun is turning the icing sugar dusting all sparkly. Richard and I have been impatiently waiting for winter.

October ended up being a month off for Richard because he gave his notice at work on September 29, was shown the door on the 30th, and didn’t start the new job with Cubex Ltd. until November 1st. So he made great use of his time at home – and the neighbours made use of him as well! As the following photos show, Richard never stopped moving during his month off:

He and Ben drove to Colorado and back in 4 days to pick up his new project truck, a 1980’s Unimog;

He transferred tools and machinery from all over the house and both garages into the newly renovated barn;

He and the trailer came in handy when Farmer Brown brought home a huge thresher – in 3 trips – and another neighbour wanted to make room in his shop by moving his plane;

He hauled rocks from the various piles out front to build up the retaining walls on the west (downhill) edge of our property;

And then before the ground froze, Richard used the Bobcat to carry the entire mound of earth that was piled high behind the barn for the past two years over to the lowest edge of our back yard and spread it out to fill the dips and raise that irregular slope, then levelled the back corner.

Once the weather cooled he got to work fixing up the Unimog, but since his new job began November 3rd he’s been on the road more often than not and any spare time he has over the winter will hopefully be devoted to indoor projects like the basement reno. Might be hard to tear him away from the Mog, but it’s getting c-c-c-cold out there.

I, meanwhile, have visited the coast every month since late August, dividing my time between family visits, naturopathic treatments, and organizing Dagny and Chris’s April wedding. (Am motivated to eat healthily this winter so I can fit into my bridesmaid's dress!) While at home I’ve been out in the yard doing fall gardening, re-organizing and catching up on long-neglected office chores (filing, ugh), and trying to establish a new writing & design business. And now I’m trying not to get distracted by holiday preparations. I bought a $10 glue gun and started making pine cone decorations, and now I can’t stop….

We’re going to be very busy this holiday, including driving to Richard’s company Christmas party at the head office in Calgary, mere days before Christmas. The food had better be worth the trip. I can't wait to watch for Santa on Christmas Eve with my 8- and 3-year-old nieces, who will be visiting from their new home in London. There will be lots family and friends to celebrate with from the 22nd through to the 4th - and hopefully snow to play in! (Maybe we'll even squeeze in Boxing Day Xmas Sushi this year? It's been a while.)

2008 has been a stressful, painful year for us and for many of our friends and family, so we’re looking forward to the comforts and good cheer of the holidays and the simplifying, blanketing snow of the New Year with hope for a better year to come.

Thanks for your comments on the UnEvent, everyone! And Sharon, thanks for the great photo (shown here). Sorry I haven't replied. I scrambled to get the last post done and then we left town for a weekend in Washington State, after which Richard left me on the coast for 10 days with my family, spending time with my nieces and helping my sister prepare for a move to England, and working - though a fair bit less than I intended. After an intense visit and long drive home yesterday afternoon, I feel like I could sleep for a week...

So many fun gatherings this summer! And Richard tells me we have more visitors tomorrow night, though he's enjoying keeping secret who it is.

While away, I've been finding a little quiet time here and there to re-read Jane Austen's Persuasion. A wonderful novel, and like Pride and Prejudice, full of constant visits between relations, friends and neighbours. I couldn't help finding parallels as I thought about this summer. We had several visitors in June, spent the 4th of July on Marrowstone with the Lunds, had more visitors in July and entertained 25 friends on the August long weekend, travelled a thousand kilometers to have dinner with Chris and Dagny on the 14th, the Lunds on the 15th, the Webbers on the 16th, ate brunch with Rob and Jen after leaving the Webbers on the 17th, and I arrived at my parents' house by dinnertime that night. While with my family (both siblings having moved back to the Cove this summer for a very full house), my aunt Gudrun arrived from Idaho. And while I was visiting with all of them, Chris and Dagny spent Friday night here on their first leg of a cross-Canada road trip, and Richard got the news of visitors coming tomorrow - presumably for the long weekend, coming up so fast now. I'm exhausted just relating it all! Now I have a day to get the house and my desk in order before the next whirlwind.

I finished Persuasion last night and that's it for novels and visiting (once these mystery guests leave) for a while, at least until I get my business off the ground. My only regret is that I didn't get to see more of my friends while on the coast, but I'm no Austen heroine and one more dinner party might have worn me out completely! It has been a very abundant summer (aunt Gudrun reminded us what abundance really is), and I appreciate every minute we got to spend with all our loved ones this season. It's feeling like fall already, though, isn't it? These guests will help us extend summer just a little longer, then it's on to fall projects and the kind of changes - for the better I hope - that I always associate with September. Have a great Labour Day, everyone.

All our early summer sunshine and intense heat has produced a fantastic apricot crop! Richard and I just picked about 40 pounds of fruit, a few a little on the green side because the wasps and squirrels will be digging in soon. But they’re ripening nicely inside. We should have lots left for our gathering next weekend after I freeze some for smoothies. Our apples are doing well, too, although the bears are harder to predict than the wasps and squirrels. One of these days we’ll get a plum tree, and maybe pear and peach, too. Fresh fruit all summer long, pesticide free and no shopping required! Anyone have a good apricot recipe?

Richard’s friend George (at right) came over early this morning to help Richard continue with rock wall construction. I watched them work, George in the excavator and Richard in the Bobcat. Wow, now there’s an example of many hands making light work. When they quit in the heat just after noon, they’d pretty much finished the job. We’ll need to pack more gravel on top, and Richard wants me to fill in the chinks with smaller rock still, but the main job is done. (The rest of the wall around the fruit trees will be tackled in the fall when the weather is kinder.)

It ended up using more large rocks and lies much more vertical than Richard could have done on his own. George has some impressive excavator skills. Even without a thumb on it, he was picking up rocks pretty effectively and positioning them without having to get out of the machine constantly. Richard, meanwhile, scooped up all the dirt removed from the bank opposite the garage and used that to fill in where the root cellar was. It’s definitely a sturdy wall. Not sure if it will be as easy to plant with rock garden perennials, but for now it should stay free of weeds except along the top edge, and that’s mostly grass between the apricot and the apple tree anyway. We gained four feet of room to manoeuver the car into the garage, and it should be easier now for Richard to level the ground in front of the doors so the water flows away from, rather than onto, the garage floor. Now it’s about 32 degrees outside so Richard and I are going to have lunch in the cool of our air conditioning. Tonight, George comes back with partner Diane for dinner – a thank you for all that hard work.

Our June heat wave has carried on into this month, and despite the powerful storm last Thursday, we only received about half a centimeter of rain, the only measurable moisture in weeks. It’s made for a particularly brown, crispy, and dusty yard. We compared photos from the past three summers and all were much, much greener. My gut says this scorching heat is going to stick around all summer. Lowering our water use is a high priority, and with the barn work done for the time being (while the concrete cures) Richard and I are focusing on ways to spruce up the property, get more usable space, and reduce the need for watering, weeding, mowing and other maintenance. The solution? Something our neighbourhood has no lack of: rock.

The first project, my new flowerbed, used rocks from our own yard, but since then we’ve brought in two truckloads of much larger rocks and will probably need more. It’s a lot cheaper than landscape ties, blocks, or concrete and although more labour intensive, the final look will suit the already rocky landscaping and allow lots of flexibility for eventual rockery plantings. Richard is taking care of the heavy labour, leveling out the previously unused margins of our yard to make things like mowing the lawn, plowing the driveway and driving into the garage easier, and once it cools down in the fall I’ll go round with some divisions of creeping thyme, sedums, veronica, cerastium and hens-and-chicks and make all that stone a little more colourful. Other than my flower bed, which I finished on the 30th, all these pictures are of work done this weekend, believe it or not.

The first attempt – gaillardia from seed – didn’t grow, so I started over.

Richard insisted I try larger rocks, and brought me one the size of a bench.

Heat-loving dwarf gaillardia, or blanketflower is happy in this south-west facing spot.

This trailing sedum will bloom through fall and spill over the edges of the bed eventually.

More sedum, daylilies, hens & chicks, veronica, and behind, thyme, lavender, iris, yucca and Maltese cross.

Before the heat did me in, I started on the weedy bed out back, with more rocks to level it out.

Richard got us a free patio set, 26 years old but in great shape. Just need an umbrella.

The west edge of our yard falls away unevenly. Richard began leveling by increasing the rock wall.

First he removed stumps and weedy turf, then added rows of rocks from the pile nearby.

Then he back-filled with broken chunks of concrete, smaller stones and gravel.

His cunning plan? Using the earth scooped from the east wall as fill here. We'll top with turf or river rock.

Couldn’t have done it without the Bobcat. The new section is four feet high at this end.

The east edge of our property this spring, overgrown since work in the fall.

Richard used the excavator to carve away more of the bank opposite the garage.

We’ve been waiting a long time to get rid of this decrepit old root cellar!

The dirt pulled from the other areas will fill this gap behind a straight line of rock.

The new rock ‘wall’ will be sloped up the bank to the fence. Goodbye, bindweed!

It will curve past the apple tree (left), around to the maple (far right), about 2 feet further back.

It's taken me almost as long to get these photos sorted out and posted as it took to get the project itself done; but here is our long-awaited new closet!

I'd been waiting two years, since we first finished the master bedroom, to get shelves and rods into my 17 feet of closet. It had been filling up with junk on the floor, and cobwebs. Emptying it out filled every nook and cranny in the spare bedroom. For clothes storage I was using a bureau and Richard was using the spare room for both closet and dressing room. I've been frustrated with that setup to no end, and every time my birthday rolled around I begged. Finally this Christmas, Richard presented me with a gift: a sheet of paper with a closet organizer printed on it, wrapped around a wad of cash. Hooray! I knew just where I wanted to spend it: PAX closet units from IKEA.

It wasn't until February, when we were in Vancouver for my mom's birthday, that we went shopping. We came home with piles of flat-pack boxes, and I was ready to get started, but Richard took one look at the height compared to our existing closet, which has a front overhang, hung with standard closet doors, and said no, these are not going to fit!

That was not a fun conversation. He thought he was going to have to take them all back. But I took some more measurements, spent Friday night plotting, and on Saturday the 16th, a work day for Richard, I got started. Within minutes I confirmed yes, I could do this - and all by myself - without having to trim a single piece of wood. The only cutting I'd have to do to accommodate the beams was score and snap the flimsy laminate sheets that form the backing of each cupboard. That was the easy part, actually.

I was so proud of myself that afternoon. By the time Richard got home form work I was on a roll, putting the first section (mine) together all by myself with ingenuity and a little bit of string, and doing an excellent job. I couldn't wait to get it done, but Richard made me stop after I prepped the next section for the following day. I could hardly sleep I was so busy thinking about how everything was going to fit. Unfortunately my success on Saturday made me a little cocky on Sunday morning.

Richard left early in the morning for a day out with friends and I started planning how the next phase was going to work to a) get around the beams in the ceiling and b) squeeze the last section in with only 8cm to spare, since due to height every cupboard had to be assembled standing, inside the closet. (Ideally you assemble flat on the floor and tip up. That would have been nice.)

I began by assembling the first half of what would be the final middle section, starting from the top rather than the bottom, so I could hang it in an inverted L-shape over the finished cupboard to the right, with the backing already nailed to it by the left edge. That made all the difference when we finally finished the job. Brilliant. But after that, my cunning plan fell apart.

Admittedly, I was a bit tired and impatient. I tidied up the mounds of cardboard, styrofoam, and torn plastic from the entry hall, brought all the remaining pieces into the bedroom, and pre-nailed the left edge of the backing to go on the metre-wide leftmost cupboard, which would become my linen closet. Eventually. I probably should have spent a little more time sweeping up and planning. Or even waited for Richard. Instead I propped up the left and right panels to begin the next section, not expecting problems because it was the mirror of the first one I did on Saturday morning. But it got ugly.

I got one side and the base attached, an 'L' 58cm deep and 100cm wide. I moved that from where it rested against the left wall, out to the middle of the closet floor space, so I could attach the backing to the left side, and tack it into place along the bottom piece. Putting the backing on midway instead of last was a new brainwave I thought would improve on my method from the day before. Hah. Then, as I had done on my first section the previous morning, I went to bring it in close to the other side piece and position the top piece to slot in. Not an easy job, and I couldn't at that point really remember how I accomplished it the morning before (there'd been string involved). Whatever I did right on Saturday, I didn't do on Sunday.

I stood balanced on top of a stepladder, my head wedged against the interior of the overhang behind me, and both hands busy holding up the top piece. When I got my three pegs into the three holes on the left edge, the backing helped hold that heavy metre-wide top piece in place, temporarily. What I should have done, in retrospect, was insert at least one of the nifty little round tightening bolts to lock that side in place... But the backing that was holding it up wouldn't let me get low enough for a proper fit. It was in the way. No problem, I thought. I decided I had to bring the right side in and get that pegged. Here's where I should have stepped back and waited the hour for Richard to get back. But he'd grumbled on and on when it looked like he might have sawing to do, so I was determined to do it all by myself. As I sit here with my foot aching, I really, really wish I'd waited.

What I did - I know, I'm an idiot - was hold the top with one hand, grab the side from where it rested to my right against a beam, and walk it vertical to get its pegs to insert in the top piece. Again, they didn't meet because the damn backing I'd so brilliantly tacked on was bending inward in my way, rather than staying in the slight ridge on the back rim of the top shelf. I remember it in slow motion - in my right hand I was levering the eight foot tall right side into position from the top, struggling to get the bottom aligned as well. With the metal pegs not lining up, I couldn't get the side closer than an inch and a half from my top and bottom edges. In my left I lightly held up the top, seemingly pegged to one corner of the left side, and balancing on that wobbly backing. Obviously the backing was the problem, so in frustration I let go of the top with my left, and pushed on the back. Simultaneously, I cranked on the right side panel with my right hand, hoping to get the back corner in the right spot. Instead, it twisted in the opposite direction.

The gap between the top and the side panel increased just as I pushed the backing outward. The metre-wide top panel shifted and hit my head. Had I USED my head, I could have held it up that way, but I instinctively shrugged away from the smack to the skull, grabbed fruitlessly with my right hand, and just managed to tilt the shelf vertical in time for the corner to align itself to fall point down on the top of my right foot.

The shelf continued downward, tilting past the stepladder to fall neatly between it and the door with minimal damage. The right side panel fell just as far as the beam a few inches away. I truly had a moment of relief at that, before the pain kicked in. Then I stepped carefully backward off the ladder and ran across the room to lie on my bed, knowing I had to get there before it REALLY began to hurt. I was sure there was a danger it was broken. But I didn't go pale and dizzy, the way I would have if there'd been a lot of blood. I just lay there and swore for a full ten minutes at the top of my lungs and then sat up to peel off my shoe and sock and take a look at the top of my foot. (No, I was NOT wearing my steel-toed boots. Enough said.)

It hurt like hell, but at that point the hole in the top of my foot was barely bleeding, thankfully, and I was able to wrap my foot in a spare pair of sweatpants, padding under the heel, lower myself to the floor (thank goodness for laminate flooring!) and haul myself on my butt to the kitchen where I grabbed the phone. My first call was to my neighbour Sandra, a nurse, but she wasn't home. Jonathan answered and convinced me that if I could somewhat move my toes and hadn't passed out from the pain - wimp that I usually am - it must not be broken. Ice it, he said. I hung up the phone, wiggled to the freezer where the ice pack was thankfully stored on the bottom shelf, and then made my way back to the couch. I was just levering myself up off the floor when the phone rang. I couldn't keep the pain out of my voice when I answered, and RIchard on the other end freaked. I can just imagine how fast he drove home after I told him what happened. About 15 minutes later he was there. He handed me the Advil and arnica, and insisted on unwrapping the layer of sock and towel and ice to take a look. That's when I quailed at all the blood and the black hole on top of my foot, and shock kicked in. Then he gave me shit. Pardon my language. But I never passed out, so the verdict was I'd only bruised it, until the x-ray the following Wednesday proved it was actually broken. The project was on hold after that for a month, and for the first few nights as I lay in bed chock full of painkillers, all I could think about was that I hadn't got it done.

Then, as I spent weeks recuperating (am STILL recuperating), Easter rolled around, and Chris and Dagny decided to come up for a visit to celebrate her birthday.

I wasn't particularly mobile yet - still had to wear the air cast and take the crutches when we went into town - but I knew exactly what I wanted to do with Dagny while Chris and Richard were working outside. Dagny's no stranger to IKEA knock-together furniture, so with her doing most of the work up on the ladder and me safely on the ground (and taking enforced rest periods every hour) we assembled the rest of the closet, starting at the left end with the section that had fallen apart on me. She couldn't believe I'd got that far alone. As it turned out, even with two of us handling the pieces, the tight space remaining once we got the leftmost section done posed quite a challenge and I was really grateful to have Dagny's (and Chris's) help. She probably wishes she'd gone somewhere else for her birthday long weekend!

We scored the backings, tacked them on as best we could with a hands breadth of room to swing the hammer (all that great knock-together technology and they still resort to piddly little nails to get the backs on, why???), and I explained how my inverted 'L' needed to get the right panel and base attached within the remaining centre space, with only three inches of wiggle room. If you look at the photos above, you can see how things had to jog around the beams, but that was actually a benefit, because we could lean the sides against the beams for extra support as we were pushing ends together. The amount of space was perfect, actually: I got the full eight feet of height I wanted, the lamps we'd installed two years ago were never in the way, and although tight during assembly, I'm glad we ended up with less than 3" of wasted space left over across the 17' length.

We stopped for dinner Saturday night - a decadent birthday/Easter prime rib and crab - and then Chris finished the last section off by gorilla-glueing the right and bottom edge of the backing on, since there was no space to reach in with a hammer. We had to leave the leftmost section - what is now the linen closet - out of the picture because it needed some shims and the fall had left a crack at the top. But everything else was ready to install the important stuff on Sunday morning - shelves, wire baskets, rods, and these great Komplement pull-out pant hangers (which unfortunately can't be pulled out entirely in my section because they overlap the closet doors, but they work great all the same.) And then all our clothes, shoes, luggage, storage bags full of off-season stuff... I had to re-arrange the shelves a few times to make it all fit.

One of these days I'll fix the cracked top on the linen closet and shift Richard's section around so the topmost shelf is usable. The linen closet itself wasn't finished that weekend - I had to catch Richard the following Sunday to get screw it to the other sections to level it off. He refused to shim it, impatient to get outside to the barn where he has his own project on the go (more on that after this weekend.) And just filling the closet with the clothes and linens from the other room took hours with me not walking well yet. That's what delayed this post, actually - I wanted it to be done. But now as far as daily use is concerned it's finished, it functions well, and looks fantastic!

Perhaps it's sad how much I value my closet - particularly since I'm not much of a clothes fiend nor do I have collections of handbags and shoes - but I love to be organized, and look good doing it, and this looks really, really good. Of course, now that the closet is done, I'm thinking about bedroom furniture (like a little bench to sit on across from the closet) and looking through the open door to the plywood and insulation-swathed cave where my luxurious ensuite bathroom will one day be. I've waited two years for that, too. And that's one project I wouldn't dream of tackling by myself. But first, now that the good outdoor weather is upon us, comes the next stage in transforming the barn into a shop. For those of you bored to tears by closet photos, you might like Richard's project better, coming up next.

What a beautiful morning to start our holidays! It is snowing and blowing out there, smoothing out the edges on the three inches of old snow that was still on the ground. It’s no longer snowing at the airport, so the weather report isn’t very reliable, which it gives me hope we’ll have a winter wonderland for Christmas yet. I’m looking forward to a long walk with the camera later when the wind stops gusting.

As I write this, wonderful smells are coming from the kitchen, where chef Richard is doing early preparations for holiday feasting. In addition to Christmas Eve and Christmas day dinner, he has written up menus for the 29th through the 1st, when Chris, Dagny, Ben and Adrienne will join us for New Years. Right now he’s making a vat of chili for lunches. Lots of great food, but a minimum of baking. I’ve decided to forego the gingerbread this year. Richard will make his Almond Roca, which is quite enough decadence for me!

What I’ve really enjoyed over the past couple of weeks has been my holiday decorating. I add a few little things to my collection of ornaments each year, but most years I try to make at least some things myself. This year, because of the pine beetle, I collected a huge bag of cones, and went maybe just a teeny bit overboard decorating with them. The following photos are from last week as I was just getting warmed up! And then we got our tree, and I decided since it was short, that it was going to be overpowered in the usual corner by our ugly metal shelving holding the tv etc. I was just going to change the tree’s location to the other side near my office door, but Richard had the brainwave to adjust the metal shelving to half the height. We hadn’t been using it fully anyway. And what a difference! Richard will tell you I must have been suppressing some rage that afternoon, because I took the unit apart with a rubber mallet while he was trying to take a nap. Clong, clong, clang, bang… But he agrees that the result having the unit at half height and better organized is much more attractive, and then he put it in the corner, so we can really appreciate the tree. Now if I could just find space elsewhere for the jumble of things that didn’t go back on the shelving. Two days ‘til Christmas and the living room is still a mess! And there’s the pile of metal on my table. But Richard didn’t have to work today after all, so we’ll get it done. And it is still merrily snowing.

Richard and I want to wish you all a merry, warm and cozy Christmas. We’ll be thinking of you. All the best for 2008 – health, prosperity, happiness and love. The carols say it best, so I’ll sing it again: Love and joy come to you, and to you your wassail too. Cheers!

This busy week started out with a quick visit from Jason. He came up here for a heating job, but at the end of the day Monday when we were about to put our feet up on the coffee table, he got Richard motivated to do a quick and dirty (very dirty) installation: our over-the-range microwave convection oven. The box in our entry hall had become the new catch-all spot coming in the front door, sitting there for 3 months after a similar delay getting the thing; but with Jason’s expertise it didn’t take the guys long to plot out the ventilation, install the fan and get the oven in place. Jason was a little perturbed by my hovering with the camera, but I couldn’t resist documenting yet again. Richard still has to install the vent duct, which of course means that with less than 72 hours until he serves up the Christmas Eve ham, my dining room table is hidden beneath a pile of razor sharp bits of metal. But it’s in, and isn’t it shiny! More than makes up for the sawdust I had to clean off everything when they’d finished.

Better late than never, I am putting another sleepless night to good use by finally updating my blog. Starting way back in September of '04 when we put in the offer on this place, Richard dreamed up big plans to transform the barn into a shop. Here is the way the previous owners left it for us, with the large cluster of railroad tie and chicken wire pens that housed all of their birds. It was nasty. What a difference now, as we look forward to hosting our party in it!

As of this weekend, we have officially seen the last of the bird manure, hurrah! (And hopefully can say the same for the smell.) It's been hard to pick highlights of all the phases of demolition over the past two years since we began in the spring of '05. Thank you to everyone who's helped us along the way! I know most of you will skip to the end to see what we finished this weekend, but with a before and after like this I can't resist posting as many photos as my connection will allow. Lots of work to do still before our big bash, but we're feeling more confident that we'll get it done. Enjoy!

Bev got us started in Easter of 2005.

In May, one shed left on the east side, on the west a jungle.

Richard's whole family leant a hand in Easter 2006.

And then in June we tackled the interior. Ugh!

Many thanks to A, B, and C. (Now it's A, B, C & D!)

Leaping ahead, Buddy's favourite spot, January 2007.

Chris helped hang new doors, and Dagny 'parked' Mechano…

…right through the last horse stall. Demolition derby?

Dagny found clean sand to play in, while the guys

cleared out barrowloads of chicken crap. Ta-da!

Richard re-built the west wall, recycling much of the wood.

With the thresher gone, Mechano became a plow.

Richard's rock-crawling 4x4 has been very useful as it sits waiting for the shop to be finished so it can get fixed. We've used it to winch down roof beams, break up small hillocks of earth, ram walls, lift piles of tires, and Chris and Richard even fabricated "the ripper" for it to drag like a plow, using the airbags to adjust the height. But that barely scratched the surface of this weedy, rocky property. This month, we put Mechano out to pasture and brought home Bobbercat.

My vantage point is a huge pile of dirt.

The excavator worked best to loosen rocky soil.

Richard's new toy has him smiling ear to ear.

Separating out the largest rocks.

What a difference! So tidy, so flat.

That pile just gets bigger and bigger....

Richard did the first dozen feet or so by himself...

...and together we doubled it. Almost out of rock, though.

Richard got a great deal on this used skidsteer, and thanks to the twins, he also got the neighbour's excavator working, without which we'd be fruitlessly dodging boulders. We expected a lot of rock, this being Stoney Flats after all, but good grief! We had enough rock just from the area he graded over the past week to start a retaining wall this weekend. Without the bobcat Richard couldn't have set the bottom row in place, they're so heavy. I'm excited about setting up a rock garden when we use a similar method in the front yard. The next task is to dig a trench for the new water line and electrical cable between house, well and barn. And order a truckload or three of gravel to put down on top of all the bare dirt. We're so looking forward to showing it off in person to our visitors this month and in August!

Here's a taste of the work (and play) we've been up to for the past few weeks. Huge THANK YOU's to Rick, Chris, and Dagny for all your help. Working hard and getting dirty is much more fun with great company! If this works and I can solve my posting problems, I'll put more photos up of all the transformations around here. We got so much done I can hardly believe it!

I just got home from the coast, where the days are cooler than here although the nights are now milder. I went to a series of meetings for work, and then spent Friday and Saturday with my family. I made a decadent chocolate cheesecake out of chevre for my sister's birthday party, and we spent an hour or so in the park, watching the waves crashing on the beach. Meanwhile, Richard has been in Oregon on a short 4x4 trip. He rolled Mechano down a hill, cracked the windshield, and dented the hood, but managed not to hurt himself. A spectacular roll and I missed it, AGAIN!! A dose of testosterone for him and family for me and we should be in better shape going into what will be a busy fall.

There'sstill a tonne of garden work to do (picking apples, pruning trees, and digging up, dividing or moving bulbs and irises), the renos have been on the back burner for far too long, and Richard is hell bent on selling several more Mogs by the end of the year. And I'm starting month four of my new job with hopefully full time hours from here on in. The long drive home through the mountains got me thinking about my novel as it usually does, so I'm hoping to get back into that once gardening season ends. And I have good intentions about updating the blog more regularly, although lately we've been very busy doing things that don't make very interesting blog posts so I haven't found much to say or time to write. Now that the warm summer evenings are behind us and it's much nicer to be indoors in my cosy office, I'll have no excuse. I'm looking forward to the next round of visitors - next Saturday - to liven things up around here. Although I had quite enough excitement being in Vancouver the past few days. I need a nap!

An update:

Richard sold another Unimog just after my last post, making it three in an 8-day stretch. He's now about to take a well-deserved vacation.

We had a great long weekend visit with Jason, Mari Ann, Alex and baby Zach. The guys finished up the ducting for our heating system while Mari Ann and the kids and I checked out the local farmer's market. We spent one day at the wildlife centre and Richard and I got an annual membership.

On the holiday Monday I came down with a bad cold and have done little but rest and watch movies for a week, including old favourite French Kiss and new favourites Elizabethtown and In Her Shoes. Typically when I'm on the mend from a cold (and get my taste buds back) I get the urge to bake, and this time I experimented with muffins using rice and rye flours instead of all-purpose (wheat) flour, with apples off our trees. Richard had a bite of one and then helped himself to two more so I guess that means they worked!

And I should mention the weather: smells like fall despite the 28 degree highs, and if we get the rain forecasted maybe our crispy brown yard will get green again. Still lots to do in the garden but looks like I won't have much time for pruning projects until spring.

Catchup to do now on the work front, but I've got a series of project planning sessions on Thursday that will decide just how busy I am between now and January. I'm hoping these projects will involve me so I can maintain full time hours until Christmas.

One new development on the reno front: we are now the proud owners of a used commercial-quality stainless steel stove, with two ovens and 8 burners. Thanks to Chris for scavenging it for us! Unfortunately it's about twice the size of our existing stove, so fitting it into our kitchen will be a massive project for sometime down the road. Maybe after my master bathroom? Richard is still burning the candle at both ends doing Mog sales so renos have been the last thing on his mind this year so far. But if his success continues maybe he'll be able to spare some energy for the house. Ah, if only I were a plumber. I am trying to be patient...

Rumours of a new baby llama being added to the flock for my benefit, but I'll believe it when I see it. Meanwhile Buddy waits at the fence for me to open the gate and he runs across the yard so fast he kicks up dust, making a beeline for the apple tree in the corner. I'm glad the llamas like them, because the bugs are so bad this year that they're mostly inedible for us.

That's about it. Pretty quiet around here these days. Nothing but brown grass and blue sky.

...Richard would be doing the yippy-skippy dance right now. He has spent the first half of this year on the road all over the province demonstrating Unimogs on ski hills, on highways, in mines, in fire halls, and finally word is getting out and Richard's perseverance has started to pay off. This week (after weeks of hard work, mind you) he has made TWO Unimog sales!!

That makes 4 in total for this year. Hurrah! One of this week's sales was a fire-fighting Mog, for the fire department that he was en route to demo at when he stopped to help put out that flaming semi-trailer in McLure. The other is to an individual as an off-road expeditionary vehicle. I haven't heard much more about the sales than that, because he carried on to the next appointment (and hopefully the next quote) and hasn't made it home to sit back and savour it yet. There are another four potential clients he's working on right now, so he's feeling very positive that this is the year Unimog in BC gets off the ground. Then maybe he can slow down enough to sleep in his own bed more often than not. (And I could finally get my new master bath!)

As for me, I jumped from a 20 hour week to a 30 hour week this week, am probably working a few hours more this weekend, and next week I'll be up to full time. Maybe even the odd week on Richard time (60 hrs) because suddenly my job is insane!

I've been involved in some facet of education every year since school began at age 5, and it's always the same: the arrival of September causes an anxious knot of anticipation (or dread, initially) in the pit of my stomach as the education season begins again. I started this new job after the spring training season ended, so I've yet to experience registration and certification processes in full swing. But if I'm going to be swamped with work, that gets us closer to a working second vehicle, a finished master bathroom, and a flat screen tv, so I'm happy to get the hours.

On the third work front, Richard's heat pump business, he made a sale to yet another co-worker last Saturday, and plans to do the installation tomorrow. This one will actually make the business some money. I just hope the full day tomorrow on top of his usual 60-hour work week won't drain away all the energy he's got from making those sales. If nothing else, Richard has proven that honesty, integrity, and high standards for quality and workmanship can exist in the world of sales. I'm so proud and grateful that his hard work is being rewarded.

It was clear and moonless when I got home from bellydance at midnight last night, so I went looking for Mars - you may have heard that last night was supposed to be its closest proximity to Earth for the next hundred lifetimes or so. I turned off the outside lights and couldn't believe how clearly I could see the Milky Way. Didn't know which of the brightest three stars was Mars, but just seeing that infinite sky.... I said a thank you to the universe for the clear night, the cool clean air, and the good things that have happened this year. Whether you have a telescope to pick out the planet amongst all the other pricks of light or not, I suggest you get out there tonight in a clear, unlit place and look up. And if you think of anything at all, think, Yes.

We're having a lazy summer long weekend with NO visitors! It's 30 degrees, the sky is an amazing shade of blue, the air smells of pine (not smog), and the breeze is blowing off the Shuswap (at right).

I spent a few hours in the garden today, and when I admired my neighbour's thriving rows of vegetables, she gave me a few. We'll have the peppers and lettuce with our barbequed sirloin steaks tonight. I'm going to let the llamas into the yard so we can watch llamvision as we eat! Wishing we had a backyard patio complete with real lawn furniture, but that's a project for next summer.

I hope you're relaxing in sunshine and peace and quiet like we are this weekend, whether you're in the sunny interior or enjoying the sea breezes on the coast. Happy BC Day, everyone!

I'm playing catchup again. We've been crazy busy this month, but there was another reason I didn't – couldn't – post on my blog for a while. After our annual Canada Day – July 4th vacation we came home to news that has left me close to tears for two weeks.

Jonathan sold Cama Llama and her baby Flora, several weeks ago.

Because the land behind us which he grazes his animals on for free is up for sale, he'd been worrying about finding a good home for the llamas on short notice. Then a trusted couple he has often traded animals with came by, wanting his help to find a pair of llamas as pets. Their plan was to go up the mountain to see the woman who has a herd (and had just taken Buddy for the summer) and pick two llamas from there, but Cama and Flora saw the men as they stood at the fence. They wandered over and Flora gave them her snuffly kisses on the cheek and it was love. Of course they asked. They begged. I just wouldn't have expected Jonathan to say yes!

When Jonathan's granddaughter Ashley told me they were gone I could have cried. I didn't get to say goodbye. We cuddled up to Dairy and Rusty, the new pair of orphaned kids, but I'm not that big a fan of goats. I was never even a horse person. For me, if it had hooves it had to be giraffes, and then there were camels, and now it's llamas. The only reason I can even talk about this now is that Jonathan has brought Buddy home (he was guarding the mountain herd too well so even the owners couldn't get close) along with a new chocolate-coloured female and baby much like Smoky and J.B. from last year.

So we have llamavision again. They're not friendly, though, not like Cama and Flora. Jonathan is beginning to think he might try to trade this pair to get Cama and Flora back again. I hope that happens, but I guess it will come down to how quickly the land behind us gets sold. If Jonathan has to keep his goats in his penned acre, there isn't room for hungry beasts the size of llamas, and less need for defense. Last Tuesday a coyote chased the goats from one end of the woods to the other. I saw the flash of brown as it went by with one of the gals running full tilt for Jonathan's gate ahead of it, and the others fleeing haphazardly in all directions (they usually run as a herd so it was bizarre to see how quickly a single coyote could separate them all even in that small space). Two days later Jonathan called to say Buddy was back, surprise surprise, bugling away at the slightest threat. Including me. It's just not the same. So I've been avoiding writing about it.

Now that that's over with, I've lots of other tidbits to update you on. We've certainly been making good use of our time lately! Here's what we've been up to this month.

We had a great long weekend away at the beginning of the month, starting with dinner at Chad and Maria's place on our way south. We played a fantastic board game I'd love to get, I think it's called Carcasonne. (Chad, if you're reading, please confirm, I've forgotten!)

The July 1st to 4th celebration with Tim, Debbie, and the gang was the usual overindulgence in food and fireworks, with just enough nap time to make up for sleepless nights squished in that rotting matchbox we call a camper. Next year the plan is to balance out those fabulous meals with a little hard labour to turn their camping plot into the beachfront paradise it could be. Richard has already acquired a couple of stainless steel sinks for the dishpit makeover. This sunset followed a brief thundershower and lightning storm that took out power while the seafood boil was cooking on the 4th. It cleared up just in time for a great show of oohs and aahs and deafening bangs on the beach, and we were back on the road the next morning.

On our way home we stopped in to meet the newest member of our growing circle of friends, Joshua, born on June 23rd. Congratulations to Pam and Rick and siblings Tristan and Danaeya. Josh is the 18th child under the age of 7 among our friends and family, isn't that amazing?

We also have a new neighbour, by the way. Jonathan finally sold the property next door to us for nearly his asking price, amazingly, and new owner Paul should be moving in next weekend. He and his brother are pilots and like tinkering with planes, so I foresee more variety in Richard's shop talk in the future.

And speaking of shop talk, we spent a busy weekend with visitors Chris, Ben and Adrienne on the 8th and 9th. Saturday they got the tour of what we've accomplished since their visit last fall. It's always great for us to see our progress from the eyes of our guests for whom the change is more dramatic. And it seems the most dramatic changes happen when we have visitors!

Sunday was an intense day of demolition. The boys took chainsaws and crowbars to the interior of the barn. In five hours they had more than half of it gutted, clearing out old plywood concrete forms, layers of sawdust, bird feathers, styrofoam, wasp nests and mice. I can hardly believe what a cavernous space it is with the second floor removed and the partitions for horse stalls and chicken coops gone.

Adrienne and I had the less musty but equally thirsty chore of digging up all the rocks – many of them football size – which frost and rodents had forced up out of the lawn to lie in wait like icebergs for the unsuspecting lawn mower. I would have preferred the more dramatic achievements of barn demo, but with all the bird and rodent droppings it was pretty nasty in there and the guys made incredible progress on their own. We helped sweep up some of the remaining debris at the end of the day while Ben and Richard took a huge load of trash to the dump. Richard will reuse the even bigger pile of wood left over behind the barn when he reinsulates the inside. Still more demo to do in there one of these days.

Thanks so much Ben and Adrienne and Chris for your help! Now you can see its potential as a shop.

Then the following week Richard had a meeting with a fire hall in Quesnel. He and Greg were heading north in the fire-fighting Unimog when they came across an accident on the highway near McLure. You might have seen the CTV news report: an elderly woman died when the minivan she was in crossed the centre line and collided with an on-coming semi carrying a load of vegetable oil. If you've ever lit your stove on fire with vegetable oil you know it's tough to put out. Only one fire engine (the first of 5) had arrived at the accident when Richard and Greg drove up, and the two women firefighters had just begun administering to the accident victims. Greg assisted with first aid and then he and Richard offered to pour their full tank of water and foam on the blazing semi. When the rest of McLure's volunteer firefighters arrived, Richard and Greg kept on pumping water alongside them, and were directed to the firehall to refill several times. CTV News even interviewed Richard a few hours later when the media got wind of the accident. By that time the semi was a smoking wreck and news footage showed the Mog at the edge of the road with the smoke billowing up from below. After five hours in McLure they were late for their Quesnel appointment, but they had a good story to tell and real-life practice with the Mog's fire-fighting equipment.

The past two weeks have been fairly busy for me, keeping up with watering and pruning in the garden, and learning the ropes in my new job. I still have office supplies all over the floor, but we just installed "faux wood" blinds in all the 5 x 10 foot windows so at least I'll be able to read my computer screen in the afternoons now, and it should keep it cooler in here, too. I'm part time now for the rest of the summer, so am working during the hot part of the day and spending cooler morning hours outside. In the heat wave it's been challenging just to keep the garden from drying up, but now my carefully watered gladiolas are rewarding me with gorgeous flowers. There's been an abundance of everything - raspberries, lillies, grasshoppers, frogs - despite being hotter and drier than last year. I guess our hard work in the yard is paying off. The apple crop will be incredible this fall thanks to Richard's pruning.

I don't talk about dance on the blog much, if ever, but I went to a tribal fusion belly dance workshop with Sharon Moore of InFusion Tribal last weekend and had such a fantastic and inspiring time that I have to mention it. It reached a scorching 40 degrees both days, and thirty of us filled the tiny un-air-conditioned room we practiced in, but I was having so much fun – especially with the bhangra (East Indian dance) lesson – that I hardly noticed that you could have wrung out my shirt and filled my water bottle. Sharon and Jen kept our energy up and our feet grounded. I faded fast in the heat on Sunday afternoon during the flamenco session though, so was disappointed in myself for not grasping the moves better, but overall I was more motivated in my dance practice than ever. Plus, this was the first time in a year and a half of living here that I really connected with a group of women in community and friendship instead of just as familiar faces in my weekly class where we don't get much opportunity to talk. I look forward to getting to know my classmates a bit better now. And I'm ordering a bhangra DVD!

On Sunday night, the 23rd, a huge lightning storm blasted through, with one fork coming down right in our neighbourhood. We watched the forks light up the hills for a while, and then the power went out just around bedtime. Our air-conditioning evaporated and we tossed and turned until after 3am when the power came on again. I'm enjoying my mornings outside in the dry warmth (even getting a good tan for once), but coming into a cool house is so wonderful when it's this hot. It's supposed to peak today and cool down to 30 for the weekend. We have another visitor for Friday and Saturday, our friend Peter from Germany. He helped with the first round of barn demolition at Easter, so Richard is looking forward to showing off the latest developments, but no new projects. We'll sit back and enjoy the house and garden this weekend.

We just had a fantastic long weekend with Sharon, Pat, Olivia, and Andrew, and special guests Cama, Flora, and Buddy, who fell head-over-heels for Olivia. Here's Buddy playing King-of-the-Castle on the heap of dirt exposed by our demolition of the chicken pens around the barn. He says, Hi, Olivia!

Buddy scared Olivia a bit at first - when you're only two feet tall, a big fuzzy thing five times your size galloping toward you is understandably intimidating - but despite frequent kisses from Flora it was Buddy who captured her heart. She started saying his name on the second day and he started coming closer than he usually does with Richard and I. I was very impressed. Letting the three llamas in was challenging because they just love raspberry and cherry leaves, and Flora is getting too big to be leaping through my flower beds. But it was worth it to have them closer once Olivia got comfortable with them. She made a beeline for the back door as soon as she got up every morning. Our visit to the BC Wildlife Park was also fun - it was one big wildlife weekend. (Sharon, I'm looking forward to seeing your photos! Thanks for a wonderful visit.)

Yesterday, my "recipe" was a hint about our progress on this weekend's project, demolishing all the bird pens around (and inside) the barn. Today you get the photojournal. Look at last weekend's entry for the "before" pictures. We're tired, sore, have just stuffed ourselves with a fabulous Easter dinner, and are heading down the street to see Cama Llama's brand new boyfriend, so I have to make this quick…

That's the peacock coop roof lying on the left.

Look, it's a barn! With more bird cages inside. Ugh.

(The llamas rolled in yesterday's pine ashes! Beats the bugs.)

Our apricot tree is blossoming! Maybe we'll get fruit after all!

One year ago last week, Richard and I moved into our new house on Poplar Road. He had already been working on the necessary demolition (remember the smell) since we took possession just before Thanksgiving. But our first night actually eating and sleeping in the house was November 6th, 2004. That month we began a total transformation of the upstairs of the house (as well as gutting the downstairs, which we haven't done anything more to yet.) I'm not going to repeat the "before" pictures here – just take a look at the Archives for October 2004 – but many of you who have visited us over the past year are familiar with the work we accomplished in December to make the upstairs livable. We spruced up the kitchen with paint and hardware, tore up drywall, carpeting, and basically started from scratch in the living room and what is now the office, and tried to make the bathroom less… blue. Since the initial huge push, we've run out of steam and/or cash flow a few times, but somehow our big plans have come to fruition despite the challenges...

One of the last projects to complete to finish the upstairs was the master bedroom and two bathroom renovation. You'll remember we had to renovate both bathrooms at once because we needed to steal space from the existing bath to allow for a full-size ensuite with laundry area. Although the ensuite is still only roughed in, and full of materials at the moment, the rest is nearly done. In a week or two, once the window is trimmed out, baseboards on, and shelving installed in the closet, we'll be happily settled in the bedroom. We can do without our luxury ensuite for a while, since the guest bathroom just needs touch-ups to the grout and paint to be declared finished. (I'm looking forward to decorating with Richard's antique glass, pottery, and other scuba-diving finds.) Adrienne and I worked all day Saturday on the grout, what a messy job that turned out to be. But doesn't the stone tile look amazing? Well worth the effort, although I'm kind of dreading the much larger job to be done in the master bathroom in a few weeks.

And the biggest change? We decided we couldn't wait forever for hardwood floors, and instead of living with painted old plywood for another year, we laid birch laminate. We couldn't have done it without Richard's mom, Bev, who came up for Richard's birthday, got the flooring for us, and motivated us to install it right away, starting with the master bedroom. Then, the following weekend, we had help from Rob and Greg, shown in the photos of the living room below. They worked out a faster, more effective system for installation (throwing out the instructions that came with the laminate helped a lot), and we put in two long days to finish the living room, entryway, hall, dining room, and kitchen.

This past weekend, we enjoyed a more leisurely visit with Chris, Ben, and Adrienne, who helped lay the floor in the office, grout the tile in the bathroom, get all the existing baseboards back on, and clean up the garage. (Unfortunately we didn't have time to take advantage of Chris's expertise to get our new furnace started up, so the cold snap we're having – culminating in three inches of snow today – has made it harder to revel barefoot on my gorgeous new floor.)

I have to say, paint and trim and lighting aside, it's the flooring that has really made the biggest difference to the look of our rooms. They look like one unified space now, without the ugly lumpy painted plywood and the diagonal edge of two kinds of old laminate to separate entry hall and kitchen from the "great room". It really is a great room now. Brighter. Larger. Polished. My office is fantastic with its final coat of cranberry red paint complemented by the light birch, and once the baseboards are up in the master bedroom the suede finish is going to contrast nicely with the texture of the floor. The pictures probably don't do it justice. It's fabulous. Many thanks again to Bev, Rob, Greg, Chris, Ben and Adrienne for helping us get this done.

More work still to do, of course, but by the holidays this place is going to be very, very comfortable, and we can devote some time and energy to each other, family and friends instead of this house. It's about time. So - who's coming for Christmas?

Why has my main page been blank for a week? Because we've been working as hard this November as we were this time last year when I moved in (well, one year ago tomorrow, actually). Today, Rob B and cousin Greg are here for extra muscle, to get the rest of our new laminate flooring laid. Last weekend we had Richard's mom up for a visit. Bev motivated us AND made it possible for us to get this flooring, so we're very grateful (and still very sore). Thankfully with Rob and Greg to help all weekend, we should get the livingroom, hallway, dining room and possibly the kitchen done. Our electrician is here this morning too, finishing the wiring in our freshly painted and floored master bedroom. With only the trim, baseboards and closet doors to go, we can move into it soon! The main bathroom is also near completion, just needing grout on the tile countertop and tub trim. So, lots of progress and no time for picture-taking. But stay tuned, lots to show off after this weekend!!

Great News!

1. Our high-speed satellite internet system was installed this afternoon. We have to get a wireless router set up and then I can turn into a mouse potato (instead of a couch potato). However, that's nothing compared to Richard's big news…

2. He sold two more Unimogs today! The photo at right is of Richard's godson Alex, dwarfed beside Richard's demo Mog (the one he sold a few weeks ago). I think Richard was doing the same happy dance as Alex this afternoon when he got the purchase orders. And to make the timing even better, the head of Unimog for North America is visiting this week, and Richard's superiors freely admitted that they haven't supported Richard at all, these successes are his and his alone. That felt good too. Oh, and the bonus for me is that a happier Richard is a more motivated Richard, therefore we will get our master bedroom painted this weekend. Hurrah!

Things I hoped to do by my birthday & Thanksgiving:

1) get beeswax, wicks, and varnish; make half a dozen mini pumpkins and gourds into candles;

2) finish mudding office, prime, move all furniture and boxes, scrub floors, and paint 2 coats on the 2 walls that need it;

3) prime and paint drywalled section of hallway and redo all white trim;

4) do a blog post featuring friends' and families' visits over the past year;

5) finish drywalling, steppling, cleaning, priming, painting, and moving into my new bedroom;

6) dependent upon 5, clean old bedroom and move in guest bed (a.k.a. oversize coffee table) from middle of living room; restore order to living room;

7) wipe construction dust off all belongings again, for the last time;

(8) make decadent cheesecake for Mari Ann and Jason's visit;

9) mow, rake and till wildflower patch, plant poppy, columbine, lupin and other seeds; deadhead, prune trees and mow lawn in what remains of good weather ;

and 10) celebrate one-year anniversary of buying home (October 6th) by not renovating home for an entire day.

Number of items on above list that Martha could do blindfolded in 10 days or less: 10.

Items I might actually complete by my birthday: 2, 3 but not trim, 4, 7 but probably three more times, 10 (please?) for a total of 5.

On the other hand, things we can feel accomplished about…

1) I've returned to bellydance lessons and am less stressed;

2) I'm getting a paycheque three weeks in a row;

3) the new window in the master bathroom looks awesome – daylight, whoo-hoo!

4) we may not have a vanity in the main bath, but we have trim around the tub and doesn't it look great? (Needs sealant and grout, but you get the idea.)

5) the heating system will finally be finished this weekend with Jason's help;

6) we found torchiere lamps for bedroom lighting that come with compact fluorescent lights on dimmer switches (at last) for under $100;

7) Richard started up his new business in a month, and his first job finishes this weekend;

8) we might not get as far as painting, but we will have the ceiling done and primer on in the new master bedroom (here are pictures as we were doing the last coat of mud on most walls, and starting the ceiling);

9) we have renovated about 1200 square feet from top to bottom in less than a year without intentionally doing each other bodily harm;

and 10) Richard sold his first Unimog today. He's not overjoyed, as the negotiating on this deal was tough and he put more hours into it than perhaps it was worth, but it's a good sign that more sales will follow. It's progress.

So, we have a lot to be thankful for. It's been a slog, lately, with me back at work and both of us working double time to get the new business going, and we haven't had much time to relax since starting the new bedroom & bathrooms project this summer, but the first morning that we wake up in our new master suite and look around at our smooth freshly painted walls, new birch laminate floors, tidy, dust-free and well-organized dressing room, and the sun shining in our French doors, we're going to roll over and go back to sleep happy in the knowledge that we've done a great job, and that there's no reason to get out of bed. And if that's not until Christmas morning at the rate we're going, well, I can live with that.

I've been hinting at this for a while, but let's make it official: Richard has started a home business to supplement his "day job" since Unimog sales have not gone well in his first year on the job. Here's how it happened: people at work knew he was in HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) before, and asked his advice to help them get the right heating system for their homes. This month, the third time around, the gal at work who took his advice brought him two heat pump system quotes that were, in Richard's opinion, asking an arm and a leg. So after thinking about it and talking with Jason, our friendly not-quite-in-the-neighbourhood distributor (who you'll remember provided and installed our own heating system), Richard asked his co-worker if he could give her a quote - and three weeks to get ready for it. She said sure, and Sheridan's Heat Pumps and Mechanical Ltd. was born.

As a result, we've been doing a rigamarole of applications, certifications, licences, insurance, banking, sweating over how he's going to get the business going while we're finishing this gigantic renovation! (One source of funds, sad to say, was our beloved lawn tractor. Sold it to the neighbours. Sigh.) But it's all coming together. We're working hard on the master suite this weekend - pictures to come soon - and on things like business cards and the new website. Plus I've been back at work for a few days, with hopefully more contract days to come. It just means the reno itself is slow going. But, Jason and Mari Ann arrive next weekend, perfect timing for Jason to help Richard with his first new job: his co-worker accepted his quote! And my parents arrive the weekend after that for Thanksgiving. Further motivation, despite all these other chores, to get the bedroom done.

So that's the big news. I am now going to don my Holmes-like brown overalls and yesterday's dusty T-shirt, and put one more coat of mud on the drywall. Then I get to seal the tiles that Richard has already adhered around the tub. Which means that instead of using the sealant in the open, airy garage, I'm using it in the tiniest room in the house, with only the ceiling fan and my nasty dust mask to protect me. Lovely. But I can't wait to photograph it and show it off. It's gorgeous. The whole thing is going to be gorgeous. It's just taking a while. Yesterday, a bear spooking the neighbour's llamas caused some excitement as Jonathan got out the shotgun to go rescue the llama that jumped the fence, and we all went out back to steer it back to the farm. Then we met our new neighbours on the east side, and their two dogs. And Richard talked to Don on the other side about borrowing his ceiling-steppling equipment to do our master bedroom ceiling. I got all the drywalling I could do done, but at dusk when I quit, all I'd had to eat all day was a couple of pepperoni sticks, cheese and lots of water, because spotting the bear kind of used up my lunch break. Hm, and now that breakfast is over, I've got to get back at it. Richard is cracking the whip! (Mind you, he's the one who let me sleep in until 9.) More later.

Another busy weekend! Although Richard's initial response was, "great, more work", we were happy to hear from our plumbing store that our replacement shower had arrived three weeks ahead of schedule. And, to add to that excellent luck, our pocket door and French doors were ready for pickup as well. So we picked them up on Saturday morning (entirely forgetting about the grocery run, unfortunately). In the afternoon, Richard took an online course and wrote an exam (more on this later), and I mudded and cleaned up the reno zone to make room to bring in the shower.

On Sunday, with the help of the neighbours, we squeezed our gorgeous (and undamaged) new shower through the rough opening left by the old sliding doors, and tucked it into the back of the master bathroom. That was the easy part. Richard has decided to leave it there until the bedroom and other bathroom are done. I was looking forward to seeing it with drywall up, but there's a lot of plumbing and electrical still to do, not to mention cutting an opening in the stucco for the new window, so it will have to wait. The important thing was that with the shower inside, we were then able to install the bathroom's pocket door, and the new French doors. Not enough hours in the day to get the new bathroom wall drywalled, but the wiring is done, and drywall in the closet got done so that I could continue mudding this week.

This weekend, we'll drywall the new bathroom wall and around the French doors, finish patching the hallway and my office, and something has to be done about the bedroom ceiling. Then I can focus on the fun stuff: paint, trim, lighting, and moving in. However, I will be busy for the next two weeks with full-time work, we've got guests coming October 1st, and Richard is gearing up to launch his new business on top of his regular job. Not a recipe for rapid renos, pardon the alliteration. And the new business? You'll have to talk to him…. Life is crazy to say the least.

As promised, here are the pictures of the past two weeks' renos, from framing and electrical, to insulating and drywalling. The main space shown is the new master suite, combining the old guest room with a new closet/dressing room leading to the ensuite bathroom (left of the French door opening). It's not a large space, particularly since adding 17 feet of closet along the east wall, but it will have all the features we want in a bedroom. Great lighting, storage, seating, room for a TV and a spot to plug in phone chargers and laptops, and a luxurious master bath.

Note that the 6'x6' space we created for our ensuite is currently on hold (and holding a huge pile of fixtures, materials and tools) while we wait for our replacement 5 foot one-piece acrylic shower to be shipped all the way from Quebec. Until we get that, we can't a) build the wall for the pocket door and b) install the new French doors because it's too big to fit through those openings. Nor can we finish the electrical, plumbing, insulating, window installation, drywalling, tiling.... And the delivery date? Hopefully no more than three weeks.

I really wanted my ensuite ready for my birthday at the beginning of October but at least it looks like the main bath will be done instead. I'm sealing the tile tomorrow in preparation to install the tub border and countertop as soon as our custom cabinet arrives at the kitchen place. Another week or so on that. Despite being a small room it doesn't really photograph all that well, so the photo in the last post will have to do. I can't wait to show off the tile, it's tumbled stone in a lovely range of coffee shades that will give depth and texture to that teeny tiny room. And I think the fact that it's unglazed will really suit Richard's diving collection of antique bottles and pottery.

As I've mentioned before, the main bathroom's new tub juts into what was the original master bedroom. The floor area of the main bath hasn't changed, and the new toilet is in the same spot as before; but it looks smaller when you stand at the door, and bigger when you're inside with the light on in the shower. Light coloured walls help too. The main reason for the switch is to give more room to the ensuite, which also bumps out almost as much as the main bath does, leaving what's left of the original master bedroom as dressing room. The patched drywall on the ceiling shows the old closets and other divisions between rooms. (Fixing the ceiling surface is going to be fun.) The new wall is wired for wall sconces and the thermostat for our bedroom heating/cooling zone, and there will be lighting inside the closets as well. The odd black rectangle near the floor of the entry wall is the return air vent - it'll have a grille over it when it's done.

Everything took longer than we expected, because although it looks as if we've started from scratch, we've got a lot of existing structure with flaws that we have to live with. Getting things square, for example. Wishful thinking. Having Jonathan come over on Monday to help put up most of the drywall put us almost back on schedule, though. We got just enough done that I've been able to start mudding this week. I'd like to finish that torn up corner in my office as well. Then I'll have a whole lot of painting to do.

I never thought of myself as one of those women who would give her firstborn for a walk-in closet, but after living out of suitcases and narrow, dark, mouse and moth-infested closets for a year, I can't wait to move my things (and Richard's - he's the one with all the clothes) into this new closet and dressing room. Each section will have a white 5' bifold door, like the other closets in the house, with the same white mouldings we've used elsewhere. On the opposite wall there's room for a bench. For inside the closet we found some economical lighting, and the dressing area will have three wall sconces. I'd love to get the closet organizer system IKEA has, but we'll probably end up with basic shelving and rods for now. With 30" in depth, there will be lots of storage space for suitcases, and a linen closet at the far end, across from the laundry in the ensuite. Down the road when we eventually sell this house, I hope the closet will be desirable enough that buyers forgive the fact that the bedroom itself is only 10'x10'. Still, with the courtyard window at one end and French doors at the other, looking out over the yard, it has a flow down the length that makes it seem quite large now that the drywalling is almost done. I've also given up on my first choice of a dark paint colour in favour of a mocha colour, which will still give the contrast we love and go with my dream furniture and fabrics. (Richard's first choice of colour was "fudge brownie", but somehow I think the name, not the shade, was the reason.)

My biggest challenge tomorrow is to even out the joints between the existing painted wall of the hallway and the new drywall. So far my feelings towards mudding haven't changed, still love it, but I am worried that after volunteering to do this, I might have to leave a lot of it for Richard because I haven't done anything this finicky before. We'll see. You'll know I pulled it off if the next post with primed walls shows up next week, and not the week after.

After all the mudding today and typing tonight, my joints are stiff and swollen, and there's so much more to do tomorrow now that I'm onto the second or third coats, so that's it for this Playing House. More next week.

Okay, you're probably wondering why my blog looked blank this week. The reason ties into the answer to Allyson's question, "Aaaaagh! What's happened to my bedroom?!". That end of the house is OUR bedroom now. This Labour Day weekend was the first long weekend of the year that we didn't have visitors, so we got a lot done, with some help from our neighbour. I've just been too exhausted with all the work we've done since the 27th to post any pictures. And tonight's not any different, I'm pooped, so this is just a "teaser trailer", with more explanations to follow later this week. Look for the next entry, Playing House, Part X, for all the pictures. To make this quick for now – since I haven't even looked at all the photos yet – here's a summary of what we've been up to.

I came home on the 26th with my sister Erika and her boyfriend Chris, and while they enjoyed the Shuswap (and frequent llama feedings, of course), Richard and I continued with the master suite and main bath reno. He worked on the electrical; I sanded, finished mudding, and primed the main bath. During the week, I finished painting the bathroom and cleaned off the floor, on which we've left the original linoleum. Friday night, we laid some of the maple-look laminate we kept from the old guest bedroom over top of the lino. Not ideal for a bathroom, but hey, it's free, and it looks great. It's the guest bathroom, not the regularly used one, so it should hold up well enough for a while. With the floor in, Richard installed the new toilet. This thing uses half the water of a standard toilet and could probably suck down one of the neighbour's shitzus without a hiccup. Kind of scary, actually.

Saturday morning we tidied up the master suite and Richard framed in the 17 feet of closet along the east wall. I took a truck load to the dump just before it began to rain. It has cooled down a lot in the past week and rained quite a bit this weekend, which made working on insulation and drywall more difficult, but at least it's a comfortable temperature. It didn't really pour until we'd finished insulating on Sunday afternoon. I could hear it coming down as I stepped out of the shower in the main bath, which we'd just surrounded with sound insulation – and it's the only room in the upstairs without an exterior wall. Buckets of rain, but it was over by the time we left for the city, for our monthly HD run. Paint, moldings, and 4"x4" stone tile for the counter, backsplash and tub surround in the main bath (which we were able to do because we reused the laminate for the floor.) I have my work cut out for me preparing the tile with sealant this week.

This morning we had just finished taping the vapour barrier and were clearing tools etc from the room when Jonathan came in. He needed Richard's help with something, so he insisted on helping him get the main sheets of drywall on the walls first. I was amazed how quickly they did the largest walls, starting with the bedroom window in the photo. After lunch Richard was on his own and it went more slowly, with me getting underfoot trying to stick the mesh on the joints and sweep up the gyprock waste. I'm doing the mudding during the day this week, although we didn't quite get all the drywall on. Close enough that we can probably prime next Sunday, though. Hooray!

We quit at 7 tonight. Richard is back at work in the morning, and in addition to Unimog stuff, he's got another little project going on. But I'll let him share his news another time. Right now my feet really want me to get to bed. Looking forward to sharing the rest of the reno pictures later this week!

Framing in the main bathroom tub and the new master bedroom's entryway did not go as easily as Richard expected on Tuesday. Then when we slid the tub into place, the drainage hole lined up right over a floor joist. With changes needed to the plumbing, a door that didn't fit, a few too many studs ripped out and redone, and the last of the 8-foot lumber used up, we had just given up and begun a shopping list for a trip into town when the phone rang. Ben and Adrienne were an hour away!

We knew they were camping in the Okanagan and would be dropping in, but expected them later in the week. Richard tidied up the construction zone while I tried to make the huge pile of bedding, clothing and boxes in the middle of the living room look less like a tidal wave had passed through here. Then he put a roast on the rotisserie for dinner. After the frustrations of the day, it was nice to sit back over a good meal and just chat.

Ben was one of the first to see the house after we bought it (he and Chris helped us move in), so he could fully appreciate the transformations of the past 10 months. I was happy to finally meet his new girlfriend Adrienne, and look forward to having another gal to hang out with on the next wheeling trip. We gave the usual tour, and after dinner (and blueberry pie which they bought at a roadside stand in Enderby) we took a walk in lightly falling rain to feed the llamas and goats. I guess that energized us because we stayed up talking well past midnight.

They had a camper so we didn't have to worry about the guest bed being in the middle of the living room. We just had to leave a lot of lights on so our guests didn't wander into the unfinished bathroom, or fall trying to get downstairs to the only working toilet in the middle of the night. (It's a bit disconcerting to open the stairwell door and see the hole in the wall - this is where our 5' x 3' ensuite shower is going.) Ben and Adrienne slept in Wednesday morning, but we were up early, discussing our reno plans and preparing for our shopping marathon. After a liesurely breakfast Richard and Ben loaded our cracked shower and too wide bedroom and bathroom doors into the truck. We couldn't believe it was after 2pm when we all got going, Ben and Adrienne towards home, and Richard and I to Kamloops.

The returns took a couple of hours, and then dinner, and then back to HD to get 42 more 2x4s, 3 sheets of plywood for the subfloor in our master bathroom, a replacement bedroom door and pocket door, a maple cabinet, mirror, and gallon of paint for the main bathroom, a heating pad and thermostat for under the ensuite tile, lights for both showers, screws, foam, and a free sample of maple-look laminate flooring which we may use for the bedroom, office, and living room/dining room. We spent a long time talking to the flooring guy. And then Richard had to go by the office so we were right next to the grocery store anyways… so it was almost ten by the time we got home. Exhausted.

Today, Thursday, the pressure was on to get the plumbing done so we'd have a working shower finally. After a break from it yesterday, Richard was feeling confident that we'd have the main bathroom paint-ready by Saturday, but as we should know by now, everything takes longer than expected. He's been to the local hardware store twice (which charges about 40% more for the same parts as the plumbing store in town), up into the attic (in a haz-mat-like polyester suit that's supposed to protect him from the drifts of blown-in insulation he has to crawl through, only it doesn't fit him), and up and down the stairs struggling with the plumbing all day. Two parts (which we luckily had doubles of) didn't make it through the trial and error of setting up the shower head and bar, but he figured it out and I was able to have a shower tonight. It's gorgeous. Still no water pressure, unfortunately, so that will have to get looked at eventually, but the new white acrylic tub and adjustable height shower head are wonderful. (The old seafoam blue tub, now lying in the back yard, is going to make a nice water feature in the garden one of these days.)

Tomorrow morning we have one more quick shopping trip to make, to get or at least order a counter top for the bathroom cabinet, and find lights for our closets. And maybe a few other things, but we still have so much to do just to get plumbing and electrical working again. A working upstairs toilet would be nice, and what a nice fixture it is, too. At least, unlike the tub, the plumbing is all there from the old sink and toilet so (cross your fingers) there are no problems getting that done and moving on to framing the closets, et cetera. I'm loathe to leave on Saturday when there is still so much work to be done! But the shower was the big thing, thank goodness that works. (I just wish Richard had had enough energy left after finishing it to have a shower before he crawled into bed at midnight.) Well, time for bed, if I can just shut off the interior designer that has taken over my brain....

Over the past four weeks we hit a dry spell, in several ways at once, but there's been a change in the weather this weekend! Starting on Friday we officially began the master bedroom and two bathrooms renovation that we've been planning since May. The main bathroom, master bedroom and closet/ensuite, and guest bedroom have been gutted down to the bare bones, and we've begun to restructure it. I have fifteen photos of our progress and very sore feet, so this is going to be mostly pictures again. Sorry not to have posted anything sooner, but that's the way it goes around here, doldrums one day, and dramatic changes the next! Please leave comments if you'd like to know more about what we're up to, and I'll reply with more details when I can. Richard is on vacation this week so we can get as much as possible done by next weekend, so we're working dawn to dusk.

If you've read previous "Playing House" posts, you've seen what the old master bedroom looked like back in October, and that awful adjoining closet with the cramped bathroom behind it. (To the left at the end of the hall in this "before" shot.) Last month we gutted both those rooms. We also removed the venting from an old wood-burning furnace, which allows us to remove the wall of closets dividing the existing master bedroom from the guest room. (The wall with the mirror on it.)

This weekend, right after our latest guest left on Friday morning, we emptied out the main bathroom and the guest bedroom (last door on the right and 2 pics above), and began to strip the remaining walls at that end of the house down to studs, or to nothing at all….Which leaves us with no guest room. And no bathroom. Oh, joy.

In the picture above left, Richard is standing where the wall at the end of our hallway used to be. The large square hole in the floor was for the furnace vent. You can see by the gaps in the ceiling where the framing of the closets was. Richard drywalled over the gaps this morning, replacing some of the insulation from the attic. He decided not to take the ceiling down, it's just too messy, time-consuming and expensive. Thanks for the expert advice, Rick!

For those of you who haven't heard about or seen our reno plans first hand, here's a quick explanation of the changes. The main bathroom off the hallway, which you can see below is now missing walls, is staying the same size, but the tub is being relocated to be opposite the cabinets and toilet, bumping out the wall of the bedroom by three feet. The space it occupied will belong to the new master bath, with a toilet going in over the old bathtub drain, and our washer and dryer beside it. A new shower is going in the small niche where the old ensuite bathroom used to be, and the vanity will go on the outside wall, next to a tall narrow window squeezed between the studs. Natural light in my bathroom, hooray! We're also going to put glass in the wall between the two bathrooms to extend the daylight into the main bathroom.

The plan was to tile both bathrooms, but the Pergo came up so easily off the guest room floor that we've decided to save time and money by using it in the main bathroom rather than tile. We'll just have to seal it really well. That'll be the least used bathroom anyway so laminate should be fine. Using the laminate in the main bath means we can afford to put underfloor heating in the tiled ensuite, very nice on chilly winter mornings! Neither bathroom will be very large, but they'll be bright and comfortable. And not having to trudge up and down those steep stairs with a laundry hamper will be nice, too.

It's all one big space! But it's not staying that way. In the photo below, you can see the edge of the new tub enclosure, in its new spot. Tomorrow we hope to have the new bathroom walls in place around it - especially urgent since we could both really use a shower!

The original plan was to install the ensuite shower first, and focus on finishing the master bath. But when we unwrapped the new shower this afternoon, we found a crack in it, so it has to go back. Despite the problems caused by having to wait another six weeks for the replacement, we're kind of glad this happened, because Richard figured out that he can bump out the wall above the stairwell a few inches to accommodate a 5 foot wide shower instead of the four foot one. In the meantime we can get the main bath workable, and get all the electrical and plumbing ready to hook up in the ensuite for the end of September.

One of the last things we did tonight was frame in the French doors, which replace the sliding doors with a smaller opening to allow for deeper closets along most of the east wall, and the extra three feet that both bathrooms gain on the other side. We haven't got our doors yet, and there's still the shower and its replacement to move out and in, but Richard framed the opening and then boarded it up. A storm was blowing in while we were cleaning up for the night.

I hope it rains. The garden needs it desperately, and I'd sure like some cooler weather for the rest of the week. The exterior framing is done, but we've got several interior walls to do, plus plumbing and electrical. If I'm still able to move by the end of the day on Wednesday, I'll post a few more pictures then. Oh, and we look forward to more visitors mid-week! More on that next time. Cheers.

Our latest reno marathon is over for the week. The end result of it won't show up in any of the following photos, though: cool air. Just in time for this heat wave, we've got air conditioning. Thank you, Jason!! Only half the house is done – two out of our four thermostat-controlled zones – the great room, kitchen and office upstairs, and the main area of the basement. The bedroom was still overly warm last night at about 26 degrees, but with the AC on for several hours this evening it should be cooler all over tonight. There is still lots of work to be done to hook up ducting to the remaining zones, finish replacing the plumbing, and complete the wiring. But the amount of work completed since Friday morning was incredible. Here are the highlights.

Since Chris came up to do the gas-fitting on the 9th, things have hardly slowed down around here. Richard continued with plumbing so that we'd have hot water for showers, laundry, and the dishwasher, which we had to time around power outages as Kevin, our electrician, worked four mornings last week on the electrical upgrade. Our neighbour with the backhoe came by to dig a trench through my flower beds for the electrical grounding plates, and Richard took the day off work on Friday to get a head start before Jason arrived for the weekend's heat pump installation.

In addition to Kevin, at work on the new panel and the mast in my office, and me hammering away in the ensuite bathroom on the last of the demolition, we had Darryl, concrete repair expert, filling in the fissures in our foundation in the basement and at the front steps. The filler stank and I apparently made more of a racket than the three guys combined, but Richard, Kevin and Darryl worked away in the basement all morning. As Kevin removed old aluminum wiring, Richard drilled holes in the joists for the new copper wiring. (The old stuff was often looped underneath and sometimes stapled, sometimes not, with the usual complement of hidden junction boxes and dead end wires capped with tape.) He also drilled through the foundation for wiring and ducting to reach the heat pump.

Then when the guys finished up around lunchtime, Richard started pulling out the remaining ducting. He also found time to drive into town to get more parts, and a roast for Saturday night's dinner with Jason and the Adies. We brought in all the new ducting, heat pump, and furnace components, and then loaded the truck full for a trip to the dump the next morning. Jason arrived late Friday evening. Once they started talking excitedly about the job ahead, I worried the were going to start work on the spot, but after such a long day for both of them they were ready for bed. They certainly burned the midnight oil the rest of the weekend, though!

Saturday morning began early. Jason and Richard started setting up the furnace and heat pump in what will be the mechanical room, behind the downstairs bathroom. But when I got back from a half hour run to the transfer station at noon, they sent me out the door again, already short on parts. We were expecting the Adies to arrive early in the afternoon, so I raced into town and back with a front seat full of sheet metal. I came home to find one of my lilacs resting limply in the dirt, and in its place, the exterior half of our new heat pump. I found a new spot to re-plant the lilac. No sign of Kahlyn, Bob, and Anika, which gave me ample time to sweep up the huge amount of dirt these construction zones create throughout the house. (Earlier in the week I toyed with the idea of mopping the floor. Not worth the trouble given the matter of minutes it takes to get dirty again!) Richard took a break to get the roast on the rotisserie, and I began preparing vegetables for dinner. The Adies arrived and got the tour, just as things began to look dramatically different in the basement.

We had a great dinner and stayed up quite late talking. As we were sitting around with my magazine images and colour swatches, Richard came up with a great solution for the lack of natural light in our main bathroom. (More on the bathrooms another time.) And we decided a tissue box I found at the Safety Mart was the perfect colour scheme. We might have put ourselves to sleep at that point, had a mouse not darted out from under the couch near Bob's feet. It ran into my office, looking for a way out, but the escape routes via the old ducting were all gone, and the hole in the foundation that let the mice in and out via the front door had been filled on Friday. I briefly felt sorry for it, but ran to fetch the poison anyway as Richard found the hole in the wall where it had squeezed through. He put the poison in and blocked off the hole with plywood. Tonight it sounded like it might have got its revenge for being trapped in the wall, chewing on the new wiring for the thermostat above its hiding place. The best part of this latest reno might be the gains against both the mice and the mosquitoes as the house becomes less inviting for them. It's definitely getting more comfortable for us.

On Sunday as I visited with the Adies - during which Anika got sneezed on by one of the llamas, and Kahlyn uncovered cherry tomato plants growing in our courtyard - Jason and Richard got the ducting in and vents cut out for the living room and office, and determined which other vents needed to be added around the house. The four different zones allow us to set separate temperatures in the downstairs main area, guest suite, upstairs bedrooms and baths, and the office and great room. Jason will need to come back to set the zoning for the remaining two areas, but since only the one small upstairs bedroom is in daily use right now, it can wait. And the furnace isn't working yet for heat, but with sunny weather finally, in the 30s all week, all we care about is the AC.

The last thing the guys did was pull the large vent out of the wall between the existing master bedroom and the spare room. (The material looks brand new, so we'll probably sell it. That's the first image in this post.) With this space freed up, our plans to open up the two rooms and bump out the bathroom walls into the existing master bedroom can go ahead when the new bathroom fixtures arrive. The electrical upgrade is just about done after Kevin installed the new meter base and mast today. Richard spent his third day off wiring new outlets and lights in the basement to replace the aluminum wiring removed over the weekend. (I spent most of the day gardening. Am avoiding the next trip to the dump with all the master bedroom's drywall.) It's all coming together. My office is in chaos thanks to the electrical work, which is making my job-hunting tasks a little more of a hassle, but I look forward to sealing up that wall soon and finishing the paint and molding properly so we can get on with using this space to the fullest. Like bringing in Richard's desk. With all the technical specs, manuals, plans, receipts, contacts and doodles he's been accummulating, using the kitchen as his office space doesn't cut it any more.

It's been overwhelming the past two weeks, but we're making progress. And it's been great to see Chris and Jason and all our other visitors, who keep us excited about what we're doing here. Thanks again for all your help.

It's a good thing we spent the first five days of July relaxing and recharging our batteries, because since we got home a week ago it's been full steam ahead. Chris came up over the weekend to do the gas-fitting for us, and while that was underway, Richard got most of the plumbing done as well as removing most of the old ducting. Rob stopped in on his way east and joined us for a rotisserie roast Saturday night and breakfast Sunday morning, then he went on his way and the guys went back to work. I continued with my drywall demolition in the upstairs master bedroom Saturday, but a cold has slowed me down a bit, so I left the last hard-to-reach edges around the ceiling for another day (the ceiling itself has to come down soon, too). The transformation going on in the basement was rapid and gratifying, so each time I took a break I headed downstairs with the camera.

Because I took so many photos over the past week, I think I'm going to make this post more of a photo-gallery and keep the explanations to a minimum. So, here are Chris and Richard threading gas pipe in the yard, the scrap ducting behind them. The canopy is up over his threading machine because it is still raining daily here. Also below are shots of the new gas lines and the plumbing – including our Rinnai "instant-on" hot water heater, 2.5 gallon tank, filters, and hot and cold manifolds – in what will be a closet in the downstairs bathroom.

There are a few photos from the 7th as well, when we were tidying up around the house and enjoying being back at home. We visited with the neighbours, a group of us all gathered at the llama pen fence to watch Smoky's new baby, born at 2pm on Thursday. (The Barbados sheep also provided some unusual bedtime entertainment: on Friday night as we waited for Chris to arrive, Jonathan and Sandra roamed the neighbourhood with flashlights. Richard went out at midnight to help track down the flock, which was discovered missing when one of the visiting grandchildren realized she hadn't closed the front gate. We'll have to nickname her Bo Peep! The Barbies were found curled up on the next door lawn soon after.)

This week, our next door neighbours' son-in-law Kevin, an electrician, has been working on our electrical upgrade (which is why I'm so late getting this post done – we ripped out the corner wall in my office and it's a mess in here). We've also hired a neighbour with a backhoe to dig a 13 foot long trench from the foundation through my poppy field so we can lay the ground wire for the upgrade perpendicular to the house. (Bye bye, lilac.) Then Jason arrives on Friday with our heat pump. Hopefully he and Richard can install the heat pump components, ducts, and other equipment by the end of the weekend, and then maybe Richard will frame in the mechanical room and the plumbing closet. When the HVAC stuff is done, it's on to the master bedroom and bathrooms, starting with the new shower in the en suite (so we have something to bathe in once we rip out the old sea-foam-blue tub). To add to the excitement this weekend, Bob, Kahlyn, and little Anika are staying over Saturday night on their way to a local beach. Another full house and lots of work to be done. I won't be on the computer tomorrow or Friday, most likely, because Kevin will need to get at the main wiring in my office and shut the power off in here for a while, but I'm sure I'll have lots more photos to post on Monday! Playing House, Part VIII continues…

That's all I have time for, and I suppose it's not very self-explanatory, but you get the gist of what we're up to. After Jason and Richard get the heating done this weekend, I'll spend a bit more time describing the plans for our master bedroom and the two upstairs bathrooms. Richard has made some more changes that are going to work even better than the original plans. We were very lucky in the structure of the house that all the plumbing was centred in this one area - it made last weekend's plumbing job easier, and allows us to reorganize the bathroom spaces into two rooms that will work so much better than the existing layout with a minimum of actual piping changes. I'm looking forward to the fixture delivery (and moving on to things like tile and paint). I just hope we can get the fixture installations done as quickly as the work we've done so far! What a week. Wish us luck.

As promised, here are the photos of our latest (and long overdue) renovation marathon. The demolition part, anyway. Actual construction is still on hold because it's impossible to get an electrician around here! Richard wanted our service upgrade done by a professional, but since the local electricians aren't professional enough to show up when they say they will, or even reply to a voicemail, I think he's going to end up doing it himself. We can't wait any longer: the new heating system, bathtub, shower, 2 toilets, 2 sinks, and the accompanying faucets et cetera were ordered yesterday and are due to be installed starting the second week in July.

Given the rainy weather and my intense desire to do something destructive on Monday (topic for conversation elsewhere), I decided it was about time we cleared the way for our new ensuite. Allyson and I made a start Monday, I really put my back into it Thursday and Friday, and today Richard and I finished gutting the ensuite and most of the master bedroom. This photo shows the first of two loads that went to the transfer station today. I have twenty photos to post tonight, and hopefully I can use them to provide as much of a picture of the intended construction as they illustrate of the demolition.

Although we're calling this our master bedroom reno, it really starts in the basement. Jason is setting us up with a new heat pump, partnered with a high-efficiency furnace and an instant-on hot water heater. (And yes, we're getting AC.) We spent two hours on the phone with him the other night, going over the plans, to make sure the four zones the house is split into will most effectively heat or cool where we want it, when we want it, and how to do that given odd basement ceiling heights, the more exposed southwest wing, and the overall downstairs layout. What makes the process a bit easier is that in October, Richard almost entirely gutted the basement, removing the drop tile ceiling for easy access to all the wiring and ducting. At right is a section of the west wall of the rec room as it was when we made an offer on the house back in September. Below is the reason Richard ripped out the walls: the insulating value of mouse nests and mouse turd is just about zero (never mind the stench).

When Allyson arrived at the end of May, we decided to install a water filter to help deal with the increased sediment our new well pump was churning up. That gave us an excuse to take down the last of the basement's drywall, in the bathroom we use as a laundry room. The "before" picture from September shows the previous owner's stuff (Note, the photo of the initial tidy up when we installed our washer and dryer is in the first October entry.) After Allyson and I got through with the walls, cupboards, shelves, and even the ceiling, it was easy to see where we can put not only the tub and sink in that bathroom (tub in the corner where the laundry sink is, new sink and vanity where the washing machine is), but also how the existing plumbing from above will work for the new upstairs bathroom layouts.

Since taking down the walls did have an effect on our heating bills over the winter, our intentions back in March leant towards finishing the "guest suite" downstairs, and leaving the master bedroom until last. But finishing 1500 square feet from concrete out is more than our budget can stand at the moment, and with the delay in getting the electrical done, it's now summertime and the coolness of the basement is pleasant rather than expensive. Richard has framed the west wall where he set up the new 200 amp panel for the electrical upgrade, and there will be some construction of a mechanical room when the heating system goes in, but the majority will happen upstairs to finish off the main floor.

So, here is that small room – more like a hallway – that leads from the master bedroom back behind the main bathroom and the stairwell. At the end, a four foot wide nook held a toilet and sink, so close together you could almost sit down to wash your hands with your knees against the cheap sheet of wood hiding the plumbing. Two things made that so-called ensuite the second most repulsive room in the house: the previous owners had carpeted the floor some time ago, and the mice had converted the two shelves in the vanity into a mouse duplex. We ripped out the stained carpet – and the toilet with it – the day we moved in, but the rest stayed, with mouse poison carefully tucked into the duplex on a regular basis. I shuddered every time we went in there to consider how to use that space.

Between ensuite and bedroom was a closet along the inner wall, which wasn't deep enough to hang clothes in without walking sideways, but it happens to back on the main bathroom. You can see in this shot how it follows the outside wall to the left of the sliding doors that open onto the back deck. That's directly over the downstairs bathroom, and the kitchen sink and dishwasher are on the other side of the ensuite wall. That concentration of all the plumbing appealed to Richard, so he began thinking how we might alter the existing walls here to accommodate a proper ensuite bathroom with our laundry in it, as well as the main bath, a large master bedroom, and double the amount of closet space.

The next few photos show the demolition project Allyson and I started on the 13th. By Friday, when I took these shots, the cedar siding lining the closet had been ripped out, and the framing for the two pocket doors came out without much prodding. Richard helped me get rid of the sink and then the vanity, which was held onto the wall as much by the wiring running through it to the overhead light as by the nails through the gyproc. That's when the mask went on, as the stench of mice crap was overpowering and deer mice are hantavirus carriers. Gyproc dust isn't much fun either. (But I do like ripping it out almost as much as putting it up.)

The view in this first photo looks into the master bedroom through the wide opening left by removing the closet's pocket door. Call it the master bedroom, but this portion of it is actually going to turn into a dressing room: closets all along the east wall, white French doors to replace the old sliding doors at left, and a new wall on the right, bumped out into the room by about three feet to create a hallway the width of the French doors. Some artwork, a padded bench, and mirrored closet doors, and it will be a very relaxing, bright and airy space. As the demolition photos continue here I'll indicate again which walls are going where.

Looking in the opposite direction now, through what was the pocket door to the closet, first the shelf and siding were all stripped away and the second pocket door to the ensuite pulled out, the sink and tiles disposed of, and then drywall removed and more of the framing as well. If you put your eye to the tiny hole made by the electrical socket facing outward in the bare back wall, you'd be looking over the kitchen counter at our dining room. The plumbing in the corner connects to the dishwasher and the kitchen sink. The left side of the ensuite section is going to be ripped out further next month, removing the wall facing into the stairwell, so Richard can access the plumbing for our new four-foot wide shower insert that will fill that end of the room (with an inch to spare!).

Rather than a rectangle the width of the shower, however, we wanted space for our stackable washer and dryer to be close at hand, a good-sized sink and counter with storage, and room to add a window to let in some daylight. Richard's bright idea is to bump out the wall between this room and the main bath (the left wall of the closet area), taking over the space occupied by the bathtub. He will also bump out the wall of the main bathroom, three feet into the existing master bedroom, so that the tub in the main bath moves from the back of the room to the side. In the ensuite, the combined area gained will give us enough room to put the washer and dryer and the toilet on opposite ends of the inner wall, and counter on the outer wall beside the shower.

From the new dressing room, looking towards the doors to the deck, the bumped out west wall shared by the two bathrooms will intersect the north wall a few inches from the edge of the sliding door. A new pocket door to the ensuite bathroom will open from a central position rather than the right. The dressing room hallway will end behind the viewer, opening into the new master bedroom area and a new doorway. I hope that makes sense… I suppose I could scan Richard's sketch of the floor plans if anyone's interested.

Here is how we finished up with the demolition today. Richard removed the insulation in the outer wall, propping up the ceiling layer after some of the yellow blow-in stuff fell down on him accidentally. We continued tearing drywall out around the sliding doors, and began removing the cedar siding covering two of the master bedroom's walls (see below).

I still have to yank out all the nails on the studs on all the outside walls, where Richard will increase the studs to 2x6 to allow for thicker insulation, just as he did in the great room. This is the first area where we've taken down the ceiling, but judging by the rodent damage it's necessary. He's also redoing light fixtures and fans so ceiling access will be important. Hopefully we don't have to redo the subfloors before laying the heating pads and tiles. I bought four tile samples yesterday, three of porcelain and one of slate, to see what might work in the new bathrooms. The actual floor space in both will be small, luckily, so we can afford to do underfloor heating and nice tilework. Both the shower and tub are one-piece acrylic enclosures so no tiling (and no grout-scrubbing!) to worry about with those. We got the coolest faucet for the master bathroom, something very sleek and high end that the showroom was selling the floor model of at a discount since it's been discontinued.

The trick with the bathrooms will be in the timing; we have to install the shower in the new ensuite and be able to use it before we rip out the wall and tub in the main bathroom, but still keep the toilet accessible in the main bathroom because there won't be one in the ensuite until the new wall is up. And we'll wait until the last possible moment to tear down the wall between the existing master bedroom and the guest room closet, since we don't want to lose our guest room – and closet space - for longer than necessary.

There are bound to be a few more surprises (such as this junction point hidden in the wall behind the dry cedar siding), and certainly a lot more work just to remove what we don't want, but it feels after today as if we've got our momentum back.

If the sunshine in tomorrow's forecast sticks around, there's more yardwork to do, and Richard's extension to the deck for the barbecue needs paint and a roof. And the neighbours provide lots of distractions - goats getting through fences, visits to share fresh vegetables or equipment, and a tour of the construction here and there - but next month there's time: we've decided to cut short our usual July vacation and spend it at home on this project. I'm glad, it's nice to be at home.

Richard's sister, brother-in-law, and two dogs came up for a short visit this weekend. We celebrated Colleen's birthday with a decadent lobster and clam boil followed by Richard's best ever apple pie. (And BBQ'd salmon with quesadillas for lunch, eggs benedict for breakfast Sunday morning, and clam chowder made from the leftover clams and stock to finish off the weekend of eating). The weather could have been better – the gorgeous hammock Colleen and Jorge brought was dripping wet most of the weekend – but between storms the ground dried enough for a game of bocce, we enjoyed our lobster out on the lawn, and had a couple of visits with the goats and sheep, and the neighbour with his growing pack of tiny dogs (more puppies are on their way, he says, and Smoky the llama is due soon, too).

Colleen and Jorge's border collie/Jack Russell terrier cross followed her herding instincts when it came to the goats, so she was better off on this side of the fence, but she's also a very talented mouser and had a great time digging and pouncing in the tall grass and weeds at the back corner of our property. Both dogs didn't quite know what to make of the lambs, which Jonathan points out are not quite bright enough to recognize a threat, and therefore stared down the smaller dogs with mild curiosity.

While we were out back with the animals, Jonathan drove his pickup over to take home the last of the large railroad ties that were holding up the bird pens east and north of the barn. The goats, let into the yard just for a little while, made short work of the weeds. With the grape vine nearly covering the remaining chicken pen, it's looking much better in that half of the yard. This angle is from the northwest as I was watching Maisie hunt mice. I'm hoping we get lots of grapes!

When the sun came out on Sunday morning Jorge wandered around with his camera, capturing rain on the poppies and other plants, and I took a few with the digital as well. Amazingly, some of our fruit is nearly ready to pick. Still don't know whether we've got a hybrid gooseberry or a blackcurrant; there's no blackcurrant scent to the leaves, but the berries are definitely changing to black. No flavour, so it's hard to tell. Couldn't resist a few more shots of the poppies myself, that gorgeous red, and the white-flowered bush I'm calling mock orange because it's got that heavenly scent.

It was a very relaxing weekend, a good break before we grabbed our hammers and crowbars for some demolition on Monday. I'll have photos of the start of the master bedroom reno soon. Summer seems a long way off, with more rain in the forecast right through to the weekend. Hard to believe the "midsummer" soltice is next Tuesday. Twilight here lasts past eleven o'clock and dawn is at four, but it's been too overcast and cool so far to enjoy the late evening light. A good temperature for ripping down old drywall though. The next reno marathon is just around the corner when we take some vacation time in July. I'm looking forward to another transformation.

Hullo from North Vancouver, poplarroadreaders...

I'm told by my concerned better half that my regular visitors are getting frustrated that Poplar Road has gone silent the past two weeks. My apologies. I fully intended to post a flurry of photos last Saturday - the 4x4 trip in the Mohave, the overgrown garden we came home to, and Richard's taming of it with the new lawn tractor - but instead I fought with my dismal dial-up connection for work stuff half the night Friday and much of Saturday, and left home for balmy Vancouver Sunday morning without uploading a thing. It didn't occur to me I could have burned the images to CD and done the upload from here. Sorry, folks. Everything's been subsumed by work. And tomorrow, I fly to Winnipeg to run a conference I've been organizing for the past 6 months. The past two weeks of frantic preparations - from programs to menus to press releases - will finally pay off in a frenetic burst of energy followed by complete burnout. I can feel my first cold of 2005 creeping up on me. Luckily I will have lots of time to vegetate on the 5 hour bus trip back home on Wednesday. Am also taking the rest of the week off, an extra long weekend.

Richard and I have both been putting in extra hours the past few weeks, particularly on weekends, but the time off we get in lieu is going to be put to good use. That's right, we're going back into renovation mode to finish the heating (and AC!) system, and get the master bedroom done. With the yard somewhat under control and a new pump for our well going in this weekend, the outdoor stuff is behind us for a while. Inside we never quite finished all the white on doors and trim (I'm sooo fond of white paint), and there's some clean up to do so Richard can start work on the heating system. Nothing exciting just yet, but I'm looking forward to some heavy duty demolition in the master bedroom/bath soon.

The big news of the week is, we're going to have help... my friend Allyson is coming for an extended stay. It's not quite her beloved wet coast, being just around the bend from BC's only desert. But close enough that she can get some job-hunting done for her new career as a pastry chef. On Sunday morning, faced with the usual "continental" breakfast fare at the conference, I will remember Allyson's home-made fresh-baked croissants from her Easter visit, and pass by the evil baked goods tray without qualm, because nothing can compare. Mmm. If I wasn't so sleepy I'd be hungry thinking about it.

I am rambling and have no pictures to alleviate the sprawl of text, so I'll sign off now. On Wednesday, joined on the bus by Allyson, we arrive home in time to take Richard to the airport for a training session in Salt Lake City, and then it's time to relax, recharge, and catch up. I still have some awesome wheeling pictures to share, and there's Richard on his new toy, the lawn tractor. All to come later this week, after I make sure my 145 guests enjoy the conference so much that I get to do this again this time next year. If I survive this one. Wish me luck.

Posted by anita at 11:09 PM | Comments (1)

April 28, 2005

Home Sweet Home

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March 31, 2005

New Arrivals

Posted by anita at 2:07 PM

March 17, 2005

Catching Up

Here is a "before" shot looking down the hallway towards the family room. It's astonishing the difference changing out the old dark brown door has made to the feel of the hall. And the white door combined with the stairwell light (thank you e & j) has banished my paranoia at having that door closed when using the stairs. We also switched it so it opens from the left, so when I approach it from the main living area I don't have to get past it first and open it all the way to reach the railing. Can't do anything about the steep steps, but it's an improvement. You should have seen how off square the framing was – over an inch to shim at the top left corner and the bottom right, and jutting forward at top and bottom while sunken in the middle. You'd think the walls were plaster there are so many dips and bulges in it. Typical. In the bathroom, while I was cleaning off Richard's antique bottle collection to display on top of the vanity, he was delving into another kind of antique: 70's wallpaper, under the molding. No photo this time, but it was classic. A complex linear floral pattern in light and dark grey that must have made quite a show with the original white and blue tiles around the baby blue tub. Hah. By the way, does anyone else besides Mari Ann have a penchant for the old blue fixtures? No? All yours, Mari Ann, just as soon as we get to the master bedroom reno….
It's hard to tell by these photos, especially this small, but our bedroom walls are a deep reddish-purple to match our quilt. We actually took the fabric in to HD and fed it into a machine they have in the paints department, which tells you which paint chip it matches. Neat service, although we ignored all the suggestions of complimentary colours in favour of white. With the closet freshened up with white paint and new 6-panel doors, white trim and baseboards, the purple really doesn't darken the room that much. The contrast is exciting but the colours are comforting, as you'd want in a bedroom. We were thinking of refinishing our "pearlized" oak furniture, but now it suits this room perfectly. The only thing we still need is blinds. A scrap of fabric is just tacked up there for now. We tidied up and moved our bed back in when we arrived home from the Island on Sunday night, and set Dagny up in the guest bedroom. She seems to have enjoyed sleeping on the brand new mattress, although the box spring is so thick she almost needed a step stool to climb in. Eventually, this room will be the bedroom half of the new master suite. The existing master bedroom (currently the work room) will be a walk-through closet and dressing room centred on French doors, donating a few feet on the west side to both the existing bathroom and a new ensuite layout. No idea when we'll get to that project, though it's tempting to finish it, rather than the downstairs guest suite, first.
Rather than painting while the weather was so gorgeous, I dragged Dagny out to the yard with pruning tools and we attacked some of the overgrown plants and weeds on Monday and Tuesday. The front yard looks much better, and I can point out some of our fruit trees. We recently found out we had more of them than we thought! At the east side of the house to the left of the root cellar we have a large apricot tree. I adore apricots. Richard removed a fir and an ornamental crabapple that were stifling the apricot, and discovered another small fruit tree that our neighbour thinks is another apple. I can't wait until these are covered in blossoms! And, in front of the garage off the left edge of the photo is a very tall bing cherry. Other fruit-bearing plants include five or six grape vines, red currant bushes, and the Golden Delicious apple tree on the west side of the property.
Here you can see the severely pruned small Macintosh apple tree that gave us piles of fruit last fall, and beside it a large ornamental crabapple (one of several in the garden). Around the edge of the yard was a mess of tall grass and weeds, and an ugly, overgrown juniper. Dagny made short work of it while I razed the grass and thorny weeds to the ground. This southeast corner will be perfect for wildflowers (thanks Warren and Melissa for the seeds), and one or two plum trees that Dorothy next door is giving us from their over-crowded orchard. At right just at the start of our driveway are a small maple and signs of possible blackberries – though I'd try to move those to the back fence where the goats, llamas and deer can keep them from getting out of hand. But cutting all that stuff down with a pair of shears was hard work and I've given up the thought of doing the same around back. We pruned the lilacs and mountain ash instead. Chad and Maria, if you're reading this, could you stick Richard's weed-wacker in your trunk when you come visit? Thanks! This yard looks a lot bigger when I'm cutting 2 foot long grass a few blades at a time. Thank goodness we own a rake! (The one we bought for wheeling trips, to level the ground for our tent.)
Well, the owls are saying "Who's that still up at this hour, scaring away all those fat juicy mice!?" so I'd better finish up and get to bed. Have to drive Richard to work so he can take the Mog down to Chilliwack for the day tomorrow. Just wanted to share a wonderful moment from last night. Dagny, Richard and I were sitting watching a movie when we got a call from Jonathan down at Goat Haven. Daisy the long-pregnant sheep had dropped the first of her lambs. In the time it took to put coats on and walk two doors down, she birthed the second, and when we arrived in the barn she was watching Jonathan's wife Sandra towel off its head while the first one quickly learned how to walk. We watched the second lamb try again and again to get its legs beneath him and stand. Daisy showed no concern, carefully licking both of them clean between mouthfuls of water, grain and hay. She hadn't had much of an appetite earlier in the day and was making up for it as fast as she could chew. She made a constant sound the whole time, between a bleat and a grunt, that apparently helps her bond with her sons.
I worried for the second lamb when he kept tumbling over into the tray of grain; but he got his legs steady and we cheered. It took longer for them to figure out how to nurse, especially with Daisy turning from water bucket to hay and knocking them off their feet, but they managed it. In this photo the younger one is less than 20 minutes old, and both a bit gruesome looking, but by this afternoon they were drier, cleaner, and absolutely adorable. I fed Daisy some lettuce and we watched them for a while. In another two or three weeks, there will be other new arrivals as several goats, one of the llamas, and two of the dogs are nearly ready to give birth. And most likely all coinciding with the blossoms on the trees. Spring is on its way. Hurrah!

Posted by anita at 12:14 AM | Comments (1)

February 21, 2005

Playing House, Part VI

Richard's desk and filing cabinet haven't been moved in yet, because thanks to the sale of the trailer, we're going to get the electrical upgrade done sooner than we thought. The corner of wall to the left of my desk is going to need to be opened up when that happens (in March) so no point bringing in more stuff. I'll have to move my desk etc. out of the way, and we'll repaint those two walls before we put it back – a pain, but we thought it would be September before we did the upgrade. We've decided it has to be done before we install the new heating system this summer. (And of course the heating system has to be completed – involving moving chimney, tanks and ducts upstairs and down – not to mention the plumbing, wiring, and cabling, before the insulation and drywall goes up in the basement. Good thing the upstairs guest room is ready for visitors because the downstairs is going to be a long, drawn-out, expensive project.) In the meantime I get to enjoy the view and the light, and I finally have my books close at hand. Did I mention I found my missing box of books and other things? That space in the bookshelf below isn't for missing stuff, it's for the next volume in a series I'm reading by George R R Martin – he's a little behind schedule on book four. I know the feeling. I'm kind of glad we've got to take the basement project slowly when this upstairs stuff is done; it will free up some writing time.
Also installed in here this weekend were new overhead lights to replace the ugly brass spots. Just the cheap domes like the ones in the hallway, but twice the light I had before – though I only need them once the sun goes down. Those blinds can't come soon enough, for me and probably for my plants' sake as well. That fig (fondly referred to as the "frickin' ficus") doesn't like direct sun. West sun is fine in winter but I'll have to move it elsewhere come spring. The other plants on the fireplace will get more than enough light from the north window. Correction! I dug out Richard's compass: the street is south (not southwest) of us, and my desk faces west to the river, not north. So our house faces directly south, with the main living areas on the west side. I'm suddenly glad I didn't paint this room white! And glad we bought that portable air conditioner, because when summer weather hits 40 degrees Celcius and the sun is beating down on the glass it's going to get hot.
Below is the west-facing family room window, which I've included to show off our new lights to either side. These match the dining room chandelier, but with the back third cut off so it fits against the wall. One of the chandelier globes appears on the right edge of the shot. We also bought a torchiere with three brightness settings that works with a flourescent bulb – you can see it beside the couch in the right-hand image. Notice the wall of the hallway: I spent most of Friday getting it primed and putting on a first coat of "fossil stone", a greenish grey. Richard's choice, not mine, though I don't mind it in daylight. We have to replace the hall lights, a hodge-podge of old fluorescents, with the whiter variety, because the existing ones turn the grey walls a horrific neon green. I got the last coat on yesterday afternoon and can see it will look quite nice once the white doors and trim go on. Richard ordered stair, bedroom, bathroom and closet doors on Saturday, as well as replacement glass for the dining room French doors.
We ordered those doors from the place that made my office French door; we'll sure never custom order doors from HD again. Here, after two months' wait, is the proper new front door, with zinc, not brass, in the window, and a few less obvious scratches on the primer. Richard refused it initially because it was also scratched; but not as badly as the original, and HD's supplier will not guarantee unblemished product because they assume the customer will paint it. Who paints their front door? But we had to accept it, not worth waiting even longer. Richard even managed to control his temper one last time, to find nickel screws to match the hinges. The dolt at the doors desk had the nerve to ask him why on earth he'd want nickel-coloured screws instead of the brass ones? The guy is lucky their CSR had calmed Richard down before he got there. When you've heard "it'll be in next Thursday" every week for two months, even something as simple as the right colour screws can send you off the deep end. I'm so glad that's over with. That was Friday. On Saturday morning, I walked down the street to buy eggs, and Richard finished work on the vent in the office floor. When I came back we hung the front door, and then I cracked open a can of tinted purple primer. What you see here is the second primer coat in the bedroom. I didn't get the final colour on until after Richard left yesterday, so no photos of that until it's all done (which is probably a good thing, it will look best when the bed's back in there and the moldings are on for contrast). This looks almost pastel, but the final colour is called "dark aubergine", close to eggplant but more red than blue. The first coat of it looks ghastly, and it's so dark that by the time I was done in the hallway at 4 pm yesterday, I didn't have enough daylight to be able to ensure a good second coat. With luck and enough light three coats should do it. I think that's what I'll be doing on Wednesday. Evenings are out of the question. Still to do is a lot of white on insides of two closets, plus the doors and trim.
While I was priming, Richard disappeared into the bathroom and shut the door... Not what you think! He finally installed the chrome shower curtain rod, two towel racks and a ring, and discovered that the box of parts for a hook behind the door is missing pieces. He also switched the wooden toilet seat lid for a white one, which looks much better. Now we just need to install the magnets on the mirrored vanity doors and we're done. Until we rip it up completely when the master bedroom reno gets going (next year?). That's how it goes. Richard's final project before making dinner was the stairwell light. The bulb burned out just after we moved in, making the steep staircase gloomy and treacherous. Thankfully, my sister and brother-in-law donated a chandelier from their new place that happens to match our white & silver décor perfectly, and with three bulbs in that, the stairs are almost too bright. I didn't like watching Richard balance on a plank supported by a footstool and a borrowed ladder; actually painting the stairwell ceiling and walls is going to be a project from hell. Putting that off for another day was an easy decision! I've got lots of painting to do over the next few weeks. When the new doors arrive we'll buy trim for hallway and bedroom and that will finish off the upstairs projects for now. Oh, and we'll have to set up the new bed Richard got at Costco on Friday in the spare room. Dagny, looks like you're not sleeping in the barn after all! There are a few other little things we can do, but our schedules are busy with work and a couple of trips to Vancouver, and the electrical upgrade will eat up our remaining reno funds, so don't expect a "Playing House, Part VII" for quite some time. One final shot just for fun… The aubergine room started out pale pink when we moved in. Under that was a bright teal blue, and under that was greenish yellow. Under that, was this wallpaper. Amazing the history you find when you take moldings off of windows…

Posted by anita at 7:20 PM | Comments (5)

February 15, 2005

Little Things

We didn't get to the bathroom to mount towel racks etc, although Richard did consider it long enough to realize the tile hiding behind the newer beige tub surround was going to make drilling holes for the shower curtain difficult. So the thing is still sitting there 'til next weekend. Ah well. Richard got distracted, helping out the neighbour who is trying to retreive his broken pump from 300 feet down in his well. Didn't work. I was making sauce for lasagna while painting trim, running back and forth from kitchen to office, but I got both tasks done, and Richard mounted the French door for my office. I had cleanup to do after painting, and then we had dinner and company, so that was it for the night, no moving furniture. I hoped to get quite a bit done today, though, so I convinced Richard to leave me the camera when he left this morning on an overnight trip. I think the fact that we woke up to three inches of snow this morning helped. Yup, more snow pictures…These two are the view from my new office window, looking north and west. You might be able to see a swatch of the river on the north (left) view.
I hadn't got very far with the move into the office before the light faded, so I'm only posting one picture of it tonight, but more to follow as I finish unpacking the rest of this week. One thing that hasn't changed after several hours of unpacking, moving plants in, and arranging my desk: my stuff is dwarfed in this room. It's got 9 foot ceilings, which makes my tallest bookshelf suddenly look short; it's got two windows both over 10 feet wide and 5 feet tall, which makes my 5 foot desk look tiny. And no curtains or blinds yet so I feel very small and exposed. But the fireplace looks excellent, I'm enjoying arranging my more light-loving plants on it, and unpacking candlesticks and things that I haven't seen in a while. Just wish I could find my last missing box of favourite books and DVDs, it's distressing. I unpacked 10 boxes tonight and most of it is put away, but my bookshelf is missing half my fiction and I can't think where else to look.
I'm exhausted, it was so exciting to finally unpack but that wore off about 3 hours ago… So here's one last picture of the snow and deep blue sky. It was a gorgeous day, starting with a glimpse of the snow by starlight at 3:30am. Then at 7:30 as Richard was leaving we spotted four short, narrow-faced deer ambling along in the woods out back. This afternoon the sun came out and just look at that sky. Tonight I'll be listening for the pair of owls the neighbours told us about last night. I might feel odd sitting in sight of the whole neighbourhood, especially at this hour, but as Richard said to Bud and Maxine yesterday, what a great neighbourhood it is. More on the wonderful neighbourhood next time I'm on the topic of spring.

Posted by anita at 12:23 AM | Comments (7)

February 7, 2005

Tried, Too Tired

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January 30, 2005

Time for a Nap

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January 27, 2005

Playing House, Part V

Posted by anita at 12:26 AM

January 8, 2005

Mid-winter Magic

The first part of this morning's venture out in the snow was in the Mog. Richard is practicing manouevering with the plow (as opposed to the blower, in the last picture) and hopes during this weather that many of the road maintenance companies will be interested in a demonstration. Today I got to see what he's been up to, as we drove down our country road clearing a path through the drifts. If the windshield had been a little clearer and the day a little brighter, I would have taken endless photos – the evergreen forest on the hill to our left, meadows blanketed with white on our right, and then the corridors of snow-covered trees arching over on either side. When we got back from our drive, Richard cleared three neighbours' driveways, and I made a quick visit to the goats and sheep the easy way round from the street because that wind is cold. It's the first day we've felt a real chill outdoors. I took this shot of the front of the house and then headed around back, hoping the wind would be less brisk. Hah.
Here is Daisy, the 4H sheep, and a few of the goats remaining after Jonathan sold several yesterday morning. One of them saw me pull my camera from my pocket and assumed I was bringing more apples. She put her hooves right up on the fence to look me in the eye. She's probably the one who impatiently nipped my leg yesterday when I didn't produce more apples fast enough. Note, this is how the inhabitants of Poplar Road recycle our Christmas trees….
I re-made all my trails through the back yard, Richard following (and threatening to dump me in the snow if I didn't do them all!), and he managed to loosen our back gate enough for us to get through. That is, if the wind and further snowfall doesn't bury it before I get home. The drifts are well above Richard's knees, and this loose powder doesn't pack. I attempted a snowman yesterday, but this stuff won't even make snowballs the size of walnuts. It sure sticks to the trees though – these pictures are after the wind has taken half the snow off.
By the time I got to the back corner of the yard to take this photo, I was regretting not buying a pair of waterproof pants. There's a little series of humps in this corner – irregular piles of clippings, manure from the barn, all grown over with grassy thickets, now two feet deep in drifts – where I managed to carve a trail to the highest spot. Perfect for photo ops… and a sled, if I had one. Just seeing this cottage in the neighbour's yard makes me feel like a child in a fairytale.
One last photo taken this afternoon. More than half of what's left on the railing fell in the past three days. Tonight there's more and it's thicker on top, curling inward, and the deck which Richard swept yesterday morning is a foot deep again. And it's still coming down lightly. I'm a little nervous about taking the bus to Vancouver tomorrow with the weather still treacherous (and yes, I did see the news report of the bus rolling over near Chilliwack), but glad I'm not driving in it myself. I'm very proud of my little sister, learning to drive in this weather in Vancouver! One of these days Richard is going to introduce me to winter driving, but for now, he's in the Mog and I'm on a bus. Wonder what transformations winter will have made by the time I get back?

Posted by anita at 11:41 PM | Comments (5)

January 4, 2005

Visitors

Posted by anita at 9:30 PM

December 25, 2004

Merry Christmas!

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!

Posted by anita at 12:21 AM | Comments (6)

December 21, 2004

Deck the Halls

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!

Posted by anita at 12:30 AM | Comments (3)

December 15, 2004

Playing House, Part IV

	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!

Posted by anita at 11:44 PM

December 13, 2004

Surprises

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!)

Posted by anita at 11:00 PM

December 4, 2004

Away (And Up)

Just a quick entry this weekend. I'm away in Vancouver, busy with work, a little holiday shopping, and visiting with family and friends. I survived the trip to Ottawa and enjoyed seeing the city in winter. Next time I'll bring a few more layers, though. Richard, meanwhile, is busily running up and down ladders - mudding coat three on the new walls, and painting the textured ceilings in the bedroom, kitchen, great room, and office between coats. Nothing exciting enough to merit photos, but just wait until next weekend when I'm back and we start painting walls! I'm especially looking forward to moving our couches in from the garage - otherwise what would be the point of setting up a Christmas tree, if we couldn't sit down in our new living room to enjoy it?

Our plans are still not settled for the holidays. Since Richard is trying to sell the Unimog based on its facility as a municipal maintenance vehicle - snow removal, this time of year - it's important he get out to the communities that deal with high volumes of snow while they're in the midst of the season. So he may be travelling quite a bit throughout December, and we're not sure what that will do to our plans for visiting in Vancouver. We're going to spend Christmas Eve/Day at the house, certainly, but after that... we'll let you know closer to the date. Sorry! We'll be in touch with everyone to try to make plans, and hope that if time doesn't allow for proper visits, we'll see you on New Years' Eve to ring in 2005.

Posted by anita at 5:42 PM

November 28, 2004

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.

Posted by anita at 10:38 PM

November 23, 2004

Lots of White But No Snow

Posted by anita at 9:18 PM

November 22, 2004

Dry-Walling Continued

That's all, folks – more next weekend.

Posted by anita at 8:38 AM

November 21, 2004

Happy Dry-Walling Day!

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.

Posted by anita at 9:09 AM

November 18, 2004

Peacocks and Llamas and Mice, Oh My!

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?

Posted by anita at 12:04 AM | Comments (2)

November 16, 2004

Goodbye, Baby Blue and Beige

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!

Posted by anita at 9:54 PM

November 15, 2004

Playing House, Part III

There's nothing like a little paint (and a little destruction) to transform a place. The following photos are just a preview of the "finished" projects to come, but they give you the idea….

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?).

Posted by anita at 11:33 PM | Comments (6)

November 14, 2004

Easier Said Than Done

Okay. Second lesson of renovating marathons: do not start something new after eight o'clock at night. The first lesson, which I thought I would have learned from my parents' experience, spending over ten years renovating their home, is that everything takes longer than you think it will. And yet, on Thursday night we seriously thought we could clean, sand, prime, and paint kitchen cupboards, bathroom trim, door, ceiling, and walls, and finish removing drywall and insulation, frame, wire, re-insulate, and re-drywall the office and great room.

Ha.

I know what you're all thinking - I told you so. Well don't be so quick to say it, because although I have no "after" photos of our major restoration to show you - yet - we did get some major things accomplished over the last four days. There was just a lot more to do that we expected. (Which in this house, is lesson number three.)

I finished (hurrah!) priming the kitchen cabinets (and we have a LOT of cabinets), which involved scrubbing for almost an entire day with TSP every reachable surface to remove things I won't mention here... and then sanding to smooth out the shelves and trim (including Richard doing a little belt sanding - what a mess!). Having spent almost an entire day scrubbing, imagine my face as Richard insisted the sanding was necessary and all my clean surfaces were then deliberately covered in dust, to be wiped again (but much quicker that time). I have spent most of the last four days in the kitchen, and am sick of the sight of it; but now that all but the drawers have been primed, it won't take nearly as much slave labour to put on the final coat of white. Nor will it be such a gruesome chore just sticking my face inside some of the cupboards. And, better yet, I have this amazing extension on my paintbrush (two stir sticks and duct tape) that allows me to reach the back walls of the deep lower cupboards (no lazy susans here!) so that the photo Richard took of me this afternoon with my head and shoulders inside the cupboard as I lay on the floor cannot be repeated. (He thought I ought to post that tonight but I think not.)

So, the kitchen cabinets have gone from cream doors and butter-yellow trim, to no doors (colour yet to be decided) and very clean white inside and out, which is how they will stay once the final coat of white goes on them starting tomorrow evening.

The bathroom, which we're not doing much to other than paint for now, is a challenge, as the sink, toilet, and tub are that classic powder blue I'm sure most of you have seen before. The previous owners chose BEIGE as the complimentary colour, and added a couple of other unflattering shades of blue just for fun. I've painted the medicine cabinet and cupboard beneath the sink with white, and we bought a primer that will cover tile (thanks Mom for the suggestion) so when I prime the walls the beige tile backsplash will get covered as well. Incidentally, the ugly tub surround was put in over top of original tiles, I discovered while sanding. They were blue and white, and it's a pity as they would have been much nicer to live with. Judging from the weak spot in the drywall a few inches above that, however, there was a good reason for putting in the surround. We keep finding things as we go (and by the way, the mice are finding our things quite to their liking). The bathroom has a fresh ceiling and medicine cabinet, and looks much better already, but it still needs paint on the walls, door and trim. Definitely before the end of the week. Just not tonight, despite my best efforts. Richard finished the ceiling for me this evening after I started on it far too late and got frustrated far too quickly. I'm too short, I've decided. Not good for someone who hates ladders.

Anyway, on to Richard's tasks: the office and great room exterior walls. He worked very hard these past four days, but the electrical slowed him down a lot. On Wednesday night our trip to the hardware store included everything but the drywall (10 packages of R-22 insulation fit in the back of the truck, believe it or not) and he thought he'd be needing to buy drywall this morning. Instead he had to make a couple more trips for electrical supplies, get help on mystery wires from our wonderful new neighbour, Jonathan (the llama-and-goat man), and shut off most of the power in the house to finish the upstairs wiring over the last three days. But on Thursday and Friday he did get the rotten windowbox beam removed from the office wall as well as removing all the rest of the drywall and insulation from the great room, framed everything to increase the wall thickness for more insulation, and put in vapour barrier. And he framed the wall that will separate my office (the former sunken living room) from the family/dining area. I just have to find myself a door. Wooden ones (as in finished with varnish, not paint) are hard to come by up here.

Not being able to get to the insulation really bugged him, but the nightmare electrical panel he's dealing with downstairs held him up. He was happy to have finished it early this evening, and spent a couple of hours tidying everything up afterward so the place is livable for the week. Hopefully the electrician will make it out here this week and we can get our upgrade done, too.

So, we're behind schedule but very productive, despite poor sleep and a few little surprises. (Like pulling out my frying pan from the heap of cooking supplies in storage, and wondering what the small, black oval things rolling around in the bottom were... Sigh.) We still had time to take the back road home one night and look around at the neighbourhood, and on the drive to Chase (twice) we've seen bald eagles overhead and in the trees - the Thompson is prime salmon territory and it's peak season. Plus, we've spent some time over at Jonathan and Sandra's: on Wednesday their llamas, Cam and the unusually friendly Supper (his amiable disposition saved him!) had a 21 pound baby, Scorpio. Jonathan's large herd of goats went over to the llama's hut one at a time to say hello to the new arrival. And I got to spend a night alone in this place on Tuesday while Richard was on a trip to Revelstoke and Invermere. I confess that my nerves got the better of me around midnight when something started dragging something somewhere. I was only partially relieved when something turned into an animal, rather than a burglar, with loud snarling and ripping noises. I imagined a bear or a pair of coyotes (Jonathan had said something was stealing his rabbits), and when the noise faded down the hill and J&S's dogs began barking, I expected to hear something get shot. But it turned out another neighbour lets his pair of mutts run around getting into trouble and they regularly get into people's stuff at night - a bag of garbage in this case. I spent the night with the flashlight and the phone close to hand, not that either would do me any good. Still, I was able to sleep once the ruckus settled down and laugh about it with Richard the next day. All in all, it's awfully QUIET around here. I can just imagine how peaceful it will be in a couple of weeks when it starts to snow. Looking forward to that.

So the renovation marathon continues, Richard is due for another business trip, and I have three days of work to schedule in with painting and other chores. I'll try to do another update Tuesday or Wednesday night if time allows, with pictures, I hope. Lesson number four: set reasonable expectations!

Posted by anita at 11:10 PM

November 13, 2004

November 11 Reno Marathon

Hi, everyone! Thanks very much for your comments, e-mails, and phone calls. When you post a comment I receive an e-mail so I get them in my inbox as well as seeing them on the blog; or, you can reach either of us directly at anita@poplarroad.ca or richard@poplarroad.ca. And our Telus addresses are still active, although due to a misunderstanding about this archaic dial-up system, we lost Richard's address (and therefore messages) for a week at the beginning of this month. As of Wednesday we'll have a second line for data, and then connecting to the net won't be such a hassle. Sleepless nights like tonight, of course, are perfect for logging on....

We had Friday off (mostly) this week, so Richard and I set the goal of getting some cleaning & sanding & painting done on my part, and framing & wiring & insulating & drywalling on his. I've taken the "before" pictures, and we hope that on Sunday night I will have dramatic "after" photos to pair them with and prove that we are not completely insane. (Otherwise I shall have to feature photos of us looking dusty, dehydrated, and exhausted - we shall see.)

Ultimately we have no deadline, just a lot of impatience, especially me - I've been cleaning, caulking, and sanding for two days and am dying to get to the painting part. We are working on the office, family room, and dining room (Richard), and the kitchen and bathroom (me). If we can reach our goals this weekend, we might actually be able to move some furniture in from the garage. Hooray!

Well, I think I'll go get a head start on some cleaning. Dawn is a few hours away but we've both given up trying to sleep - all that hard labour doesn't seem enough to knock us out when we're so excited about our work. I'm sure we'll get into a routine soon, but for now the marathon goes on. Tune in Monday for the results!

Posted by anita at 5:33 AM | Comments (3)

October 31, 2004

Moving, Part III

It's Sunday afternoon (Hallowe'en) and I'm about to take a nap. The past week has been overwhelming. Yesterday especially. When I wrote, Friday evening, that I didn't think everything was going to fit in the truck, I had no idea how much "everything" was.... But at 10pm last night we left our apartment forever.

Richard drove away from my parents' place in the Cove at dawn this morning, the truck packed to the limit and our mattress scrunched on the roof rack in a grey tarp, which Richard's mom likened to duct tape - it does look a bit like a gigantic Red Green experiment. Colour-matched to the truck, too. He'll have quite a job in Pritchard, getting everything unpacked this afternoon by himself.

The Olsen twins and my family helped out Saturday afternoon, packing the majority of stuff in the truck (more than once) and the essentials I'll need for my last week in town into my dad's van. The drive up next weekend is going to be yet another packing challenge; I may have to leave several of my plants behind for now. But there's nowhere to put them all yet anyway. Too much construction going on. The mouse-hunt, in particular.

As my computer is about to arrive in Pritchard, I'm not able to post the last round of pictures, so you'll have to wait until my first week at Poplar Road to see what Richard has been up to with the renovations. My office has no floor yet (the plywood is still in the truck, now underneath the last of our belongings) so it may take me a while to settle in somewhere temporarily. I'm so looking forward to just being there, finally!

Six more days. I'm getting impatient, but there's a lot to be done here. Today, recharge my batteries. I love Hallowe'en, so it's good timing. I even discovered the bag I packed my suit etc in for the week also contains all my belly-dance things, so if I go trick-or-treating with my niece tonight, I could get dressed up. Then tomorrow, call all the companies we do business with (more than you'd think) and update our address information. Tuesday, call the satellite TV companies and find out whether I can afford to feed my Star Trek and CSI addiction or not... Haven't tested whether we can still get 6 channels with rabbit ears the way we've done in the apartment for the past four years. Wednesday is my last day of work at the office. I have to collect a box of files and things I'll need to work from home, not to mention CDs full of files that I use on a daily basis. Thank goodness MS Word for Windows and MS Word X for Mac are completely compatible. And Adobe, we love Adobe. (Can't say the same for Microsoft, no.)

Thursday I have a meeting on Granville Island, after which I'm going to putter around with Allyson, who's culinary class ends at about the same time. I'm going to drag her over to Maiwa Handprints, one of my favourite stores, and decide on my paint colours for the office and bedroom. Might even spend some of my birthday money... we could use some new curtains since I couldn't bear to keep the faded orange, water-stained drapes in the master bedroom.

Friday is a free day, to get the last few things done like getting in touch with friends, using up food I don't want to haul with me and making things I can microwave when I get there so I don't have to cook for the first while, and deciding which plants I can bear to leave behind.

Mostly, I need to catch up on rest after the past week, I went to bed at 3:30am on Friday night/Saturday morning, and we were up packing and cleaning at 7:30. Too, too much. Once I get there, I'll be even busier than last week - the only difference being, it doesn't all have to get done NOW. And it's mine. Yes, we'll be working hard, but when I look up from scrubbing or hammering or painting, or writing or proof-reading or e-mailing, I can look out at our yard and the hills behind and relax. The forecast for next weekend is minus 12 and snow, which just adds to my anticipation. Not long now...

Posted by anita at 1:53 PM | Comments (1)

October 29, 2004

That's All, Folks...

This is it, tonight is my last night at 3740 Albert Street. And it's going to be a long one - I don't plan on actually going to sleep, although I may pass out around 10am tomorrow if I get enough done tonight. How on earth I'm going to get everything - including a queen sized mattress and 8 boxes so far - packed up tightly enough to fit it all in the back of the truck (canopy, not camper) is beyond me. That's Richard's job. I'm going to be busy swabbing the deck.

I had a wonderful lunch today at work, a "goodbye" party even though I'm at the office until Thursday next week, and I'm not leaving, exactly, just working from a lot farther away! Tomorrow night we go out with the family for Richard's birthday, and I move in with my folks for a week. A few more days at the office, a few more nights to catch up with friends here, and then next Saturday I'm gone... off to Pritchard care of my parents who are coming up to see the house for the first time.

Right now, I have to make dinner (using up as much of the perishables left in my fridge as possible - look out, Dagny, it's mash for dinner) and Dag and I are going to hang out while I pack. And clean. And find my marbles, which I seem to have lost earlier this week. Aaaghh!!!!

Might need to make that emergency call to Mom tomorrow morning, after all.

So, off to the kitchen to cook my last meal before the dishes go in yet another box. Next time I write it will be on Mom's computer, or in Pritchard on -shudder- Telus dial-up. It's the big day already. Wish us luck!

Posted by anita at 6:32 PM | Comments (1)

October 17, 2004

Playing House, Part II

Here we have a corner of the master bedroom, followed by the stairs – the black dust from the underlay was everywhere in both areas – and the much improved basement entry. This past week, Richard pulled up the lino tiles in the remaining two rooms downstairs, which was a little more difficult as the tile was glued down more securely. He also ripped out the twenty foot long hobby room worksurface, a sort of cabinet without cupboards or finished countertop. It will be a while before that room is useable, though, so I haven't bothered with pictures.
Once we realized the source of the stench was the office floor, it was a matter of pulling up the flooring layer by layer, treating it with apple cider vinegar, and hoping that was the end of it. When Richard got a look at the original subfloor beneath the first layer of plywood Chris so enthusiastically ripped up, he was horrified. It was worse than the layer above. Most of that subfloor was black, some of it rotting, and the stain extended the entire width of the room beneath the picture window, plus a few splotches in the centre. And if we were unsure before – there was that large plant in the corner, after all – we were certain now: these were NOT water stains.
The two sheets of plywood the guys had picked up at the hardware store were not going to be enough. With the sun setting our light was almost gone and it was time for the boys to hit the road, so we left it at that. Then yesterday, Saturday the 16th, Richard removed the last of what he called "the entity", by removing the entire subfloor, drywall and insulation (which he did for the entire room as he's going to reinsulate with thicker walls anyway), and treating the remaining essential wood areas with more apple cider vinegar. It turns out the cedar beams sticking out of the stucco to create windowboxes had been letting moisture in, feeding the bacteria and increasing the rot. With that fixed, treated, and sealed, the smell will finally be history. What a relief! I look forward to showing pictures of the transformation soon. It's going to be a great space.

Posted by anita at 4:06 PM | Comments (1)

October 12, 2004

Playing House: The Renovations Begin

So, when we looked around after lunch on Sunday afternoon, with the sun brightening up the office and great room, and a good breeze to sweep away the sour air, we decided our first task should be the musty upstairs carpeting rather than the basement floor. All the carpeting had to go – I wasn’t going to sleep or work in the house until it was gone – and with Ben and Chris to help, it seemed like an easy chore to give us a sense of accomplishment. We pulled out a few tools and work gloves, and started hauling up the blue industrial stuff in the great room.
Here is a close-up of the previous owners' mystifying choice of carpeting. They must have run out of something – Pergo, carpeting, money, sense – because there was a triangular segment of a different pattern of the industrial blue stuff along the edge of the laminate at the entranceway. Astonishing. The real surprise, however, was the yellow foam-like substance gluing the carpet to the plywood. When we yanked the carpet back, producing a cloud of dust, the yellow underlay stayed firmly in place. So much for walking around on plywood. And that wasn't the worst of it. Ben and Chris finished tying up the blue carpet and ripped up the more typical pile carpeting lining the sunken living room which will become my office. In the far corner, where the previous owners had left a large hoya hanging dry, there had seemed to be water damage, and then Ben gave a groan and revealed the stained plywood underneath. No, this wasn't from a leaky plant pot, this was much more potent than that. So this was where the smell came from! Poor Ben singlehandedly rolled up the carpet as I fled the renewed stench. One sheet of plywood was almost black, and this was far stronger than the basement a month ago. We set up both floor fans. Richard then called Ben away to remove the master bedroom carpeting, and Chris took over in the office to remove the strips of carpet nails from the outer edges, since the yellow foam would have to wait for something to scrape it with.
I began removing the drapes, which would need to be cleaned. The bunting went outside to give a flush of pink to our growing trash heap, and the curtains were put out of the way for the time being. Until we're living in the house full time, light and air are better than privacy. Especially air. As Chris helped me pull down the drapes over the gigantic picture window in the office, the smell from the stained plywood was overpowering.
Chris called for the bottle of apple cider vinegar, which according to several pet-owner websites was great for nullyfying urine odours. It did the trick, for a short while, but the drywall along the floor was decayed and Chris suspected the stain went deeper. The wood was almost rotten. We called Richard in from the master bedroom, where he and Ben had begun the equally ugly task of removing the carpet around the ensuite toilet. No doubt about it, the plywood had to come out. By three o'clock we had one sheet of plywood removed in the office, the offensive carpeting (and the toilet with it) removed in the master bedroom ensuite, drapes tucked away, wallpaper border half gone, and carpet, linoleum, and some lino tiles pulled up in the basement. We also had a lengthy shopping list for a trip to the local hardware store.
I snapped a few photos, and then Chris and I started peeling the wallpaper border from around the ceiling. The paper peeled off quite well as I dug in with my fingernails, starting above the French doors. Ben and Richard headed to the local hardware store in Chase, ten minutes away, and after a few feet of wallpaper, Chris and I took a break for some caffeine and fresh air outside. I couldn't quite believe how much we'd accomplished in such a short time.
When the guys returned from the hardware store, plywood, shovel, screws, drain cover, work gloves (red ones my size!), and snacks in hand, we convened back in the great room to see if the yellow stuff would come off. As I returned to the wallpaper, Ben dug a square-ended shovel into the floor and sloughed off a measely little chunk. But Richard had a grinder, so Ben disappeared into the garage to give the shovel an edge. After a few sharpenings he was making progress. I continued around the room, scattering paper, while Ben took as much of the foam as he could off the floor. The twins took turns with the shovel and the new push-broom, and pretty soon we had a garbage bag full of the stuff. The great room floor will still need to be sanded clean so we can paint it (can't afford to lay wood or tile flooring just yet), but we got the worst of it off.

Posted by anita at 10:39 PM | Comments (1)

October 11, 2004

Moving Day, Continued

We got off to a slow start, and missed out on a little sleep, but this was a productive weekend! Saturday morning I finished packing and carefully labelling boxes, and dismantled furniture. As I was doing that Richard arrived at the Langley storage locker from Cranbrook, just in time to meet Rob there. Rob took away our trailer with the 4x4, and dropped it off at Poplar Road on his way past Pritchard. Thank you Rob!!

Richard arrived in Burnaby with the camper just after noon. By the time the Olsen twins joined us with Ben’s Dodge and their trailer, Richard had loaded the camper so full he had to bungee shut the door. With three handtrucks and several elevator loads they then filled the back of Ben’s Dodge with boxes.

Given that it was pouring down rain, when it came time to move the couches, box spring, other furniture, and storage locker contents, they took everything down to our parking stall. From within the parkade they loaded the trailer, and left a little space for the new washer and dryer to be picked up later. With a large tarp, Chris’s cargo net, and straps, it was ready to go.

Here we are just about to set out in the pouring rain with most of our wordly possessions stuffed in the camper, canopy, and trailer. And it took less than 4 hours!

We arrived in Kamloops at about midnight, a full four-hour trip from Burnaby loaded down as we were. Everyone was exhausted, so we put Ben and Chris up in a hotel for the night, and Richard and I arrived at the house at 12:30am. After a rocky night’s sleep in Richard’s trailer we were up early, ready to start unloading stuff into the garage. (The plan was to remove all the carpeting in the house, so we didn’t want to put furniture or boxes anywhere that might interfere with that task.) However, the garage was full of the previous owner’s junk and garbage, so we spent an hour or so cleaning it out while we waited for the twins to join us.
Once we got moving, we had all three vehicles unloaded in an hour and a half. I was amazed... even the boxes which had made an obstacle course of our apartment seemed to disappear into the second spare bedroom, and the main garage had more than enough room for the furniture after we loaded all the tools, sports equipment, Christmas lights and other stuff onto the existing shelving. The camper fit on the concrete pad in the back yard, and of course Rob had dropped off Mechano on its trailer in the back next to the barn. I wandered around taking pictures, and then we moved the couch and camp chairs onto the front lawn for a lunch break. It was cool and windy but the sun kept coming back, and despite lack of sleep we were ready to tackle the next step of making ourselves at home: the renovations.

Posted by anita at 1:26 PM

October 9, 2004

It's Moving Day!

I'm not ready!! Today is moving day - 24 hours ahead of schedule. We're taking advantage of serendipity, a.k.a. Rob Bryce, who happens to be passing through town and is going our way. With his help, we're forgoing Richard's extra trip to the house to drop off the camper and 4x4. Instead, Rob will tow our trailer with Mechano on it; Richard will put the camper on our Dodge and stuff it full (no worries about maxing out the GVW without the trailer behind); our canopy will go on Ben's Dodge so he can stuff that full; and Ben has got his trailer back from our four-wheeling buddy Sheldon in the nick of time (hope Moab was fun!), so we can load that up with the couches and other furniture. All in one trip, hurrah!

Unfortunately for me, as I wait for the boys to arrive this morning, rather than Sunday morning, I'm looking at a bunch of furniture with STUFF all over it still, 44 boxes done but more to pack, no wardrobe boxes for clothes, and no keys to the storage locker until Richard gets here. Lockers and boxes and shelves, oh my. I haven't actually seen inside the storage room for half a year at least. All of it will have to be carried upstairs and out the (newly repaired) front doors, very carefully. I hope the weather calms down a bit or this could get ugly.

However, it will all get done, and leaving a day earlier means I may actually have time to roam around my new house, unpack a few things, and get used to the idea before the twins and I drive back to Vancouver at the end of the weekend.

Yesterday was my birthday, and I can't remember a more exciting one (although the 20th birthday party in the hotel in Osaka on week two of my Japan exchange came close). Nor has the outlook for the year ahead ever been full of so much promise and anticipation. I just wish I wasn't spending my birthday long weekend in an all-out flap!

Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes - now wish us luck on the start of this new adventure. Richard's first comment when he arrived to take possession of the house on Wednesday: "What have we done?!?" It's been a series of hurdles and celebrations, but hasn't quite sunk in yet. But in less than 24 hours, I'll spend my first night in my new house. Can't wait! My next entry will hopefully have new pictures from this weekend as we move in to 4881 Poplar Road, so stay tuned.... Right now, I have to go finish packing!

Posted by anita at 12:07 AM

September 22, 2004

Moving! Part II

Posted by anita at 10:03 PM | Comments (1)

The First Look at Poplar Road: Inside

Here are Richard’s first photos of the inside of the house, starting with the view from the front door, looking toward the northeast corner. Again, the furniture, drapes, and other stuff are the previous owners', not ours!

The dining and family room create a great room which will be wonderful for entertaining and feeding a crowd. It's about 28 feet long, and open to the kitchen at the back (to the right of the French doors). Why the previous owners chose that blue industrial carpeting is a mystery, as the kitchen has been floored in laminate (see below), and the hallway in another shade of laminate. Laminate isn’t ideal for kitchen flooring, however, so we’ve considered replacing the whole area with slate or hardwood. In the meantime, since I grew up in a renovation, I have no problem walking around on plywood – better than that blue stuff!

The front of the north wing has a sunken living room over-looking the street. A large gas fireplace – unfortunately painted white over the brick - divides it from the great room behind. I initially thought we’d use this as a seating area as it’s laid out in this photo, but Richard has some brilliant ideas to transform this into my office. Bright, cosy, with a view of (potential) flower gardens, enough wall space for bookshelves and the option to close it off from the great room with a door on one side of the fireplace and a built-in bookshelf on the other. Richard loves the look of riverrock, so eventually we will recover that awful painted brick. My plants will love this room with all that light.

The kitchen, at 11' x 14', is a dream come true for Richard. Imagine it with base cabinets inset with custom commercial rangetops on one side and an overhanging counter above barstools on the other, extending from the right-hand wall to divide the kitchen from the dining room. And a stainless steel dishwasher (coming soon as the one in the photo is broken), side-by-side fridge, and gas oven. Of course for now we'll have to settle for the new dishwasher and a coat of paint.

We've got lots of ideas to make this the ultimate venue for Richard's talents as a chef, little by little. The renovations to the kitchen will probably make up a large portion of the pictures on this site over the coming months (years?). I'm looking forward to our housewarming party.…which may be next spring if we're lucky. At least with a kitchen this size, we can unpack and start cooking right away, and make improvements here and there as we have time and funds. Just getting that strip of wallpaper off the walls and painting over the yellow cupboards (which are studily built of plywood and won't need replacing) will make a world of difference!
The hallway bisects the main floor, with closets and two bedrooms at the front, and the kitchen, basement stairs, main bathroom, and master bedroom at the back. The master bedroom has an ensuite "bathroom" with no bath hidden along the rear wall of the house, a tiny closet with a cramped sink and toilet, with carpeting! Guess what we'll be ripping out first?! That's real cedar on the south-east wall (which backs on the second garage). We'll do our best to salvage all of it when we remove it, and use it elsewhere if we can. (There is a room downstairs with its ceiling beautifully covered in cedar, with a bit on the walls, but the rest of the room boasts three contrasting varieties of '70's imitation wood panelling. Yech!)

The main floor has two spare bedrooms, both about 9' x 10', with windows over-looking the courtyard. One of these rooms will be furnished as soon as possible so we can have guests to stay, and the other will be our bedroom temporarily while the carpeting and cedar are removed from the master bedroom. We might eventually bump out the wall between the master and corner bedrooms to add a real ensuite bathroom and more livable closet space. The flooring in the two spare rooms is laminate, the third type of laminate in the house, and the most attractive, so the guest room will thankfully only need insulation and furniture to make it ready for visitors. Richard plans to insulate all exterior walls as part of making our home as energy efficient as possible. The bonus for me (besides not turning blue this winter) is it will create deeper windowsills for my houseplants! The guest room is probably the only one we’ll be able to get “finished” before Christmas. We've been starved for space for friends - no guest room in the apartment, and no spare seats in the truck! - so we're looking forward to being able to host a crowd. With 1500 square feet per floor, it's going to feel like a castle for the first few months. The current basement layout is a bit strange, with two long, narrow rooms and a mystery closet set in the middle of the largest room; but we think some walls can be shifted, and we'll get another bedroom or two down there once the electrical work and cleaning are done.

	This room with the brick fireplace is directly beneath the great room upstairs. There are two high windows at the opposite end to let in daylight, and we’ll redo walls and floors to brighten it up. Once the stench (and I mean STENCH) from the previous owners’ dogs is eradicated, it could turn into a very comfortable space. Richard the ex-HVAC salesman took one look at the wood-burning fireplace and said we'll be replacing it with gas, but I don't think we'll change it otherwise. The previous owners did all the work on it, scrubbing it with acid and a toothbrush to get the white paint off. Pity they didn't have the patience to repeat the job on the upstairs!
And finally, for those of you who share Richard's obsession with shop space, here are shots of the two garages. The first used to be a two-door, but the door on the left was filled in and when we saw it the space was so full of junk it's hard to tell if it will really fit two vehicles. The gravel drive between the garage door and the retaining wall with root cellar is a bit narrow for our large truck to turn around in so backing in or out could be tricky - although hardly as bad as the apartment parkade. The window in the first shot is the one you can see on the front of the south wing in the main photo of the house. Richard really wanted that mower - his photos really don't do justice to the enormity of that back yard - but the previous owner wouldn't part with it. Might have to test the mower attachment on the Unimog!
The second garage used to be a carport, which they filled in (with blue vinyl siding on the outside - see the back yard photos), and the door is high enough to allow our camper inside. Or Stubby Mechano, if Richard has time or energy to do a little tinkering on the 4x4 over Christmas. (Hah.) Between the two garages he should have enough room to store his tools, truck parts, and things like bikes and camping gear, and still have space to work on reno projects; truck stuff will have to wait until he can tackle the barn. So that's Poplar Road, "before". I'm looking forward to seeing it again when we move in, just in time for my birthday and Thanksgiving. Won't we have a lot to be thankful for this fall!

Posted by anita at 6:57 PM | Comments (2)

September 13, 2004

The First Look at Poplar Road: Outside

Here are more images of the house and property as I first saw it on September 1st, starting with the outside. Note that these were taken with the previous owner’s stuff still lying around.

The house faces roughly west, with a north and south wing framing a courtyard in front. The south wing is all garage – two of them. The courtyard in between has a grape vine growing over the low wall, and a walkway between the entrance and the garage door. The house sits back from the street behind a circular driveway, and what was once the vegetable plot is just past the fence on the north side. On the south end the retaining wall at the edge of the property contains a root cellar. We’d like to paint the stucco green – a dark olive shade we found called “Crocodile”, and add natural rock elements in place of the so-called Spanish style facades. The goal is a West Coast/Whistler Chalet feel, organic, spacious but warm, and comfortable.

We were hoping for an acre with potential for a shop, fruit trees, and space for flowers as well as truck parts. Poplar Road has all of these, although the green spaces have run a little wild from neglect. In addition to the overgrown vegetable patch there are two apple trees, one beside either wing, three crabapples by the garden shed, a small cherry, and a chestnut. With the first frost coming soon after we move in, I doubt we'll tackle anything in the yard or barn until spring. Richard will use the garages as his shop for now, and eventually convert the barn by removing the floor of the hayloft.

We are on a well and septic system, both of which are in good shape – excellent water. The small shed in this picture houses the well, and will hopefully be my potting shed this spring. You can see the length of the property – there’s more to it than these photos can capture! The barn alone is gigantic, and will need its own gravel drive to get out there. Richard is quite anxious to get started, and I would love to do a little gardening, but there's so much to do inside first!

That’s all of the outside for now. (I’m looking forward to seeing it covered in snow, which may happen by the time I move up there in November, the way this weather is going.) The remaining photos from September 1st are from the inside.

Posted by anita at 7:01 PM