Drywall in the Lower Suite

Here are some preliminary shots of the drywalling that was done this week. I'll probably have more by the end of today as they moved into the laundry area late yesterday afternoon.

This is the lower suite, standing in the back corner (might actually be inside the bathroom doorway). With the bright white drywall up it looks much brighter than it did for most of the winter. It's got a warm, cosy feeling even though it's shrunk!




This is looking back from the opposite corner to where the kitchen will be. We need to get this done quickly as the carpenter really wants to 'empty' his work space of the first kitchen so he can get working on the second kitchen. I'm concerned that we are trying to squeeze too much into a small space. Now I'm going to have to research 'small space decorating'!



This wall holds the closet (which won't have doors because it's behind the entrance door & would be too awkward). The next opening is the entertainment cubby - an add-on to the design when we realized we had room to do it. The 3rd opening is the bedroom doorway & the 4th opening is a storage space under the stairs. I have a hinged door for that which I'm going to unbury today to see what condition it's in. I think it's mahogany....


This is a bad shot of the bedroom. It's an odd angle right in the doorway & I was amazed at how SMALL it seems...but we have a bunch of insulation stashed in here & drywall too. The accoustics are great! I'll have to get someone to stomp on the floor above to see how the sound proofing is working.

This is Dave working on the knotty pine ceiling. This is looking amazing & because we are pushed for time, we've not been able to put anything on the pine - it's raw. Hopefully, we'll be able to put a varnish or some sort of UV protection on it.

Inspiration to Colour

Well, drywall is happening. I'll take photos to show you how our space is now becoming more defined & smaller (??). I put together a paint quote & just got the numbers this morning. I can't wait to get final approval from Phil (it's going on the wrong credit card....but it's saving us a bundle).

So, I thought it about time to share with you some of my colours....

This is the upholstry fabric I found years ago & has inspired the colour of the entire house. I want to find some more of it to make cushions for the chairs & possibly some window treatments.

This is Serengeti Song - the main colour of the house. Now, remember that the vaulted ceiling in our space is pine, so there looks like more ceiling than wall space (which is true when you also remember the size & number of windows). I wanted a dark colour because of the south light that we will have, anything lighter would 'disappear' on bright days & in the grey days of winter, we need the bright dark colours to help keep us from fading.

This is Navajo White - a warmer colour with brown tints for the ceilings. I'm trying to keep the starkness of glaring bright white down to a minimum.





This is Pleasant Lake - a very nice dark & bright blue for the bathrooms. The bathrooms will be much more crisp than the more earthy feel of the rest of the house. These rooms will have stark white fixtures & hopefully the feeling in these rooms will be refreshing.


Welcome to Barefoot Beach, a lovely subtle brown that will be featured in the office & up in the loft. This is a mid-range colour, if I really like it, I might purchase a darker shade & make one or two walls in the office a darker colour, as this room will also be the guest room if the suite is rented out when we have visitors.
Introducing my accent colour - Autumn Bronze. I'm being very bold & daring with this - if it's the wrong red, I might look like I splashed blood all over the wall!! But I've seen other people's daring choices & have decided that this will be a fun detail in the house. Now, it's only 1 wall (so far?) & it's the south window wall on the second floor....so there really isn't a lot of wall to be painted. I also need to look at what we are doing as window trim......which will leave even less wall to paint. I hope that I have SOMETHING to put this awesome colour on!!
We are cheating on the floors for the first little while. I've found this lovely colour - again, dark & it's called Eagle Rock - a dark olive/brown colour. The future flooring will be (probably) a ceramic tile in a rustic blue which will go into the entrance up stairs, the bathrooms & the kitchen in our space (the 'kitchen' in the rental suite is termed a 'rec' room & won't be treated the same, unless the tile looks too good not to put it down.....).

Now, I've just realized that I haven't picked a colour (other than the grey tinted primer) for the laundry area (the lower back 1/3) & if you see something that would work or have any suggestions, we'd love to hear them. I do have a line on some 'extra' paint here in town, but I don't know how old it is nor what colour, but if it's free I just might use it & leave it for a few years.

The Lower Deck

What a glorious week!! We've hit a cold snap - which means clear nights, frosty mornings & sunshine all day long. It also means that a lot of outdoor work is being done on the house. The scaffolding came down & Phil should be bringing me a photo & the lower deck was surfaced. They have moved up to the upper deck & it's looking good for completion before the rains come again around the weekend.....


This photo is taken at the eastern edge of the lower deck (the entrance to the suite is just on the right). Behind me will be a set of stairs & we've yet to decide how the other set of stairs will come up from the laneway - it needs to be 'private' for the lower suite - meaning that they shouldn't have to walk through our stuff & we shouldn't have to walk through their's.....
The railing will incorporate large glass panels so that the view is not obstructed & it will allow an open feel to the whole structure. If we put in the traditional pickets, we'd look like a 2 level jail cell!!


This is still on the lower level & as you can see it wraps around for quite a bit! We need a covered, protected area for our generator & that will go to the left of the door here. We will need to put some walls up - which will make it a bit more boxy, but it also needs to hold our pellets for the pellet stove & we've also decided that the central vac unit will live out here too. Should be interesting to see what we come up with!

Back to Work

Alright! Thank you for being so patient - or for being kind in your reminders of me needing to update the blog. It's been a strange week, well, they all are, but I'm just now getting excited about the house.......WE ARE SO CLOSE!!

Today I went over to straighten up the green house - it sustained some minor damage this winter & I had pots that needed emptying & bulbs that needed to be potted & once I saw that the crocus & daffodils were starting to send up shoots I felt the urge to get my hands dirty! It's a bit premature for a full scale garden attack - the ground is still a bit frozen & very cold (my hands are aching right now) so I will just have to take it slow.....better to get prepared with detailed plans & focus on one thing at a time.
My white garden is looking fabulous. Phil noticed that I will need a retaining wall to hold some of the dirt back, so maybe in the fall we can find some way to incorporate that. The white lilacs that I planted 2 springs ago look like they will survive. There are shoots on them already! I've room for a few more items - maybe a white hydrangea & a white rhododendron along the slope edge.....And I will need to dig out the ditch if I want to put a bench there for people to sit on....The walk up the hill to our place is only half way & many people get discouraged when they see the rest of the hill to climb if they want to make it to the gallery at the top....Plus, it's a nice view of the harbour (for another few years til the trees grow) & if I get a bit of a gallery going, they can rest for a bit.

The first thing that I found to be DONE was the glass block window. Finally - it has been one thing that we spent a bit more money on, but since it's virtually the only window on the west wall, I thought that it should be a bit more spectacular. Just after it was finished (took 2 months!) the building inspector calmly tells us that we could have bought a window made of glass blocks already installed in the frame & we'd just need to 'slip it in place'.....Thanks Don....I think the name of the blocks is 'seascape' or something like that - it's got all these little bubbles that are so fun! Once it's framed on the inside it won't look so institutional.
The best news - so far - is that the roof is finally REPAIRED! That means no flap-flappy of the blue tarp in the middle of the night & people across the harbour won't think we've put on a blue metal roof. The boys had very bad weather for the west side repairs, but luckily the west side of the roof wasn't as badly damaged as the east side - which they finished the day that we left for Alberta. They also put on an edge cap - just on the south side of the house - which I feel finishes up the look of the roof. If we had pockets full of money, I'd have them do the north side of the roof (back of the house) as well as the covered porch on the west side. As you can see from the photos we still have scaffolding up on the deck. They are finishing up the south wall with window trim & siding - it's taken a lot longer than anyone thought - weather factors plus the final replacement window didn't arrive til after we left - end of the first week of January. Once that wall is finished - today maybe - I'll take a close-up photo so you can see how finicky the siding installation was - lots of small pieces & angle pieces....Whatever. I'll be glad once the scaffolding is down & out of the way. The boys are also working on the deck framing today - it wasn't built all the way around to the door underneath the covered porch & they've had to come up with an imaginative way of completing it.

I must say - it's been nice to have them come in to work on Saturday & Sunday. I think the main factor is that Ken (Dude) isn't here. The boys want to work & he seems to hold them up. So, Phil goes out & picks them up in his boat & spends all day working with them. It's been good.

Phil & Steve (another fellow who wants to work) installed a central vac system yesterday & I'm hoping that Steve wants to help install the drywall. We can't wait for another 'friend' of Dude's to say he'll come in - we are on a very tight time frame now - they have until the middle of February to get the suite & as much of the rest of the house into a liveable state so that Phil & I can start moving our stuff over. We are going to Cancun the last week of February & I don't think we have enough money to pay them after that. We'll be able to do most of the finishing work ourselves, but it would be nice to be able to relax 100% while down on the beach.....

The soffits are also all finished. I think Phil has a few pieces in the front that he needs to stain, which he will do while the scaffolding is up for the siding. But the pine is such a nice touch & Dude did have a great idea for how it should be done. We put in brown venting instead of white & I like it quite a bit.




Before we left, the yellow cedar posts for the inside had been planed & were ready for installation. As you can see, they replaced the 2x4's that went up to the ceiling. They've been repaired a bit with wood filler - we got the house so dry that the wood started to check - which means it started to split, so we had to quickly deal with that or else it would continue to split. So the wood filler went in - can't hardly see it & then it was clear coated with varithane. They look absolutely wonderful!