The Fun Starts Now

Weeks 16 & 17

It was really great to be able to move out of the basement and back upstairs to our beautiful new space at the start of the new year (well, almost). Our eyes are getting adjusted to all of the new light in the house where there used to be none. Our work on the inside really started once our cave dweller eyes adjusted to all of this new light.

I know. It's really silly :o) Our dear friend Sally also helped us through this process. Poor thing.

Since our stomachs are very important to us, we started on the kitchen first. Most of our food is still in the basement and we need to get it back up to the kitchen, where we can now cook inside on a real stove. The existing cabinets needed fresh paint so Rowan got all of the drawers and doors painted while I worked on stripping the upper cabinets of many layers of old paint.

We also had some patching to do on the kitchen floor where we removed a cabinet and where a few tiles got damaged during construction. The floor is laid with vinyl composition tile (VCT). We had extra tiles left over from when we originally laid the floor so Rowan, the master cutter, and I, the master layer, made easy work of the task.

Our cat Lulu supervised the work.

Rowan the master cutter

Meanwhile, the boys were busy outside in the FREEZING cold continuing their work on the siding and the beautiful arch on the front of the porch. How their hands can function in the cold is a mystery.

I took this photo of Pat's shadow outside the living room window. Even his shadow looks cold. Brrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Mike and Rob were the only ones who stayed for the our last beer Friday for the winter.

Actually, the beer Friday was a shot of Johnnie Walker Friday. After working in 20 degrees all day, it was the only thing we had to REALLY warm them up. :o)

And, this is how I warmed up and soothed my aching bones after this very cold week. Rowan calls it my swamp water bath. It is actually mugwort. A herb especially good for the aches and pains of women.

Aaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I feel just like a swamp thing! :o)

There were a couple of other great things that happened in the last two weeks. Josh finished hanging and venting the new kitchen exhaust hood and the guys got all of their tools and equipment removed from the porch. They carried the new grill to it's new place in the grill chimney.

WOW! I can't wait to cook out here! :o)

Pork chops. YUM!

Winter just continues to come. The snow hasn't gone away since it started falling on Dec. 3rd.

We are giving the work crew a break from the freezing cold for a few weeks. There are only two things left to do outside, the siding for the back side of the house and the outside steps to build for the side washroom door.

Rowan and I, with help from our good friend Sally, will continue painting, cabinet work, etc. on the inside of the house for the next few weeks. Now, what colors to use is the next big hurdle. Stay tuned.............

Happy New Year!

Weeks 14 & 15

Here is a photo of us and our crew having a little bubbly at the end of their work day on New Year's Eve. We made a toast to them and a job well done in 2010. They are (from left) Rob, Steve, Patrick and Jim (Josh and Mike are absent). We soooooo appreciate the beautiful job they have done turning our early 1950's home into a stunning bungalow.

It is an understatement to say that we are REALLY excited to be moving some things back into the new parts of the house and to finally have the dust under control (well, almost!). And.... our new front porch has been unveiled to the neighborhood.... and we can actually come and go from the front door instead of the garage in the back yard.

Here is what has been going on for the last 2 weeks:

Week 14:

The guys worked through very cold temperatures the week before Christmas to get as much of the siding finished as possible. With winter in full swing, we will have to wait until spring to paint the house.

Our builder, Jim, promised he would do everything he could to get their inside work completely done so we could have the inside of the house back for Christmas. By Dec. 22 he had his boys bring our stove and refrigerator from the garage back into the kitchen. This was a very good sign :o)

Next, he said the boys were ready to bring the new front door around from the garage for installation. As the VERY heavy solid cherry door was brought around the side of the house, I was holding my breath. This has been a highly anticipated event as we just can't wait to see how it looks on the front of the house. WOW!

It was a very short ceremony as Rob took his circular saw and cut up the old front door for its trip to the dumpster. Not even worth recycling it to the Habitat ReStore. R.I.P. :o)

Look at the happiness on these faces! Josh, Jenni and Jim are excited about the coming holiday and the promise of giving us the inside of our house back for Christmas. THANK YOU JIM AND CREW!!!!

We had a beer with the crew on Thursday to celebrate their accomplishments and the coming Holiday.

The guys had Christmas eve off, so Rowan and I got right to the task of bringing some basic things back into the house, like chairs and a TV so we could start to come out of our cavedweller stage. We also removed the ply wood from the doorways that sealed us off from the construction so we can now go directly to the kitchen and living room from the back of the house instead of walking around the outside of the house. YAY!!!!

We had only two Christmas decorations for the house. The old Santa light in the dining room window, and the wreath on the front of the house. We are excited that next year we will be able to have our first Christmas tree since we moved here. The house was always too small for a tree, so we just decorated our ficus tree instead.

We spent Christmas day stripping and painting trim. We were able to have a fire in the fireplace too. Our cat Lulu was just in cat HEAVEN!

Food Alert!!!!!!

I haven't included a food item in quite some time, so here is a photo of our first meal cooked back in our kitchen. Not glamorous or complicated, but tasty. Believe me, we will be eating this kind of thing for quite some time until we get this house paid for. :o)

Week 15:

The week after Christmas the guys continued with the siding work and took the tarps down from around the porch. The transformation of the house is really amazing.

Jim made one trip back into the house this week to start the installation of the exhaust hood over the stove. Rowan assisted with what I call 'a holding call'. Penalty, 10 yards. For some reason Jim was having a hard time getting those screws in the wall. Hmmmmmmmm. :o)

The guys also brought the chopping block up from the basement so we could do some serious cooking for New Year's Eve. Rowan and I decided on Thai food for our New Year's meal.

Happy New Year!

Stay tuned..........

Week 13 - Light At The End Of The Tunnel

December 13-17

With the early winter snow slowing things down on the outside siding work, we have made quick progress on getting things finished up on the inside of the house in the last week. Laundry/mud room, built-in shelving, lighting, wood floor finishing and painting were all on this week's list.

We are VERY excited to get the laundry/mud room finished first. The Marmoleum tiles we chose for the floor really brighten up the room and will make doing laundry a little more fun (yeah, right!). We will be able to move our washer and dryer back into the house this Monday. Dec. 20. and be able to do laundry at our own house for the first time since Sept. 7. We want to thank a number of our friends who have let us do our washing at their homes in the last three months. They can all look forward to us feeding them in our new dining room in the new year :o)

Laundry Room

The other big accomplishment this last week was the completion of the FABULOUS built in shelf/display unit between the new dining room and kitchen/entry. We have been really excited to see this element of the design take shape. Jim and Steve did a fantastic job with the building.

This is where we will display much of our art glass and pottery collection.

When the building was complete, Jenni worked late into the night filling the nail holes and preparing the shelves for finishing.

Meanwhile, Pat and Rob braved temperatures in the 20's to get the siding on the outside of the house started. It looks like our weather will continue to be very frigid with more snow and temps in the low teens to low 30's for the foreseeable future, so they fired up the propane heater and made a tent out of the front porch to give them a warm space to go thaw out every 30 minutes or so. They are real troopers. I also kept the coffee pot fired up for them.

Brrrrrrrrr!

The warm space where the boys go to thaw out

By weeks end we had the wood floor sanding guys in to sand the new dining room floor and blend in and re-polish the rest of the existing floors. This should be our last task that creates dust in the house. Hallelujah! There is some light at the end of the construction tunnel :o)

Over the weekend Rowan worked on installing some of the light fixtures while Jenni started painting the living room. Looks like we just may be sitting on the couch in front of a nice warm fire on Christmas day. Fingers crossed!

Rowan has gotten really good at the electrical thing. Thank goodness! Every time Jenni touches a wire, there is an explosion. Really! :o)

With the ceilings now 13 feet high in the living room and 15 feet in the kitchen, getting up there isn't easy for those that have a fear of heights. My ears nearly popped when I was up painting at the peak. We are setting our sights on a new free standing ladder to get us up that high once Jim leaves with all of his equipment. Or, maybe we should just get some climbing gear :o)

Let's hope we can show you all a photo of us in front of the fire place on the next post.

HO! HO! HO!