Some Finishing Touches...

This past week has brought us sunshine & snow.....Very unusual weather for this time of year & for around this part of the island. It's rather unsettling - doesn't lead to very much gardening or yard work but we've got lots to do inside still, so as long as we are moving around, the cold isn't too noticeable.
On Tuesday I painted like a crazy person ~ again ~ & this is the loft in Barefoot Beach. I had to maneover the scaffolding as close to the edge of the loft as possible, stand on the stair half wall & climb up. I didn't feel much like that today when I took the photos (yes, I'm on top of the scaffolding!), so the colour isn't as sharp as it could be in the photo.




I also finished working on the south facing window wall - it's now got 2 coats of red & I just might have to put on a 3rd coat....it's just so hard to tell if this is necessary because of the lighting!!



This is just a funny picture taken while I was on the scaffolding looking down my red wall.....









Big thing to note is that our decks are now complete - well, the top deck still needs a bit of work with the 2nd row of posts & some trellis work & stabilizing....but essentially, it's done.



Upper deck by west side entrance....see the cedar top rail..!! We'll probably sand them a bit & put a finish on them....The 2 tall posts seen need to be tied into the house with some horizontal beams on the top & a bit of decorative trellis...






The bottom deck is done - done - done. All I need to do is clean it up a whole bunch & hang up my hanging baskets - which are in the green house. I will hopefully not loose the plants I put in them the other day while we are down in Florida....I think as long as the weather remains cool like it is (not even 15 degrees yet!!), that the plants will be fine.

Nice cedar top rails along the railing...











Phil had Wednesday & Thursday off to work on the house. We had the Dude show up & we got some help from Steve as well. The big chore for the day was to plane the cedar stair stringers. These chunks of wood were very heavy - I couldn't help Phil with this - it was definately a 'man' job. The idea that was suggested was to move the planer down the wood instead of the wood through the planer (the planer weighs a lot less!).

So, the boys set up some saw horses with the cedar on top & then the planer was flipped upside down - yes, upside down! - so the blades were planing the underside of the cedar & Phil & Steve moved the planer down the cedar. Whenever they reached a saw horse, one person would lift the cedar up while the saw horse was moved back behind where the planer had just moved down.

Took a bit of coordination & a bit more time, but the end effect was just what we wanted. Then came the 'dueling palm sanders'. I didn't get a photo of that - was quite funny. Steve had one sander on one stringer & Phil was on the other. Lots of noise & lots of sawdust flying through the air, but the stringers needed another sanding - evening out any ridges left by the planer blades & any gouges or rough spots.

I even got to get into the sander action! Sure is dusty business!




Phil applied a light coat of varethane to the stringers to stop any checking (cracks) & to protect it a bit. The stringer on the left has a really interesting red vein down the middle - this will be visible into the living room. The knots & other little flecks are all interesting features that we hope will work nicely once the stairs are assembled & in place.


These are both now coated with varethane & work will hopefully commenced on the router work soon.....








These are the fir treads that will fit into the routered grooves on the cedar stringers. They need a bit more planing - to make them as close as possible to the same width. They will be varethaned - but I'm wondering what to do to make sure that they don't become slippery and dangerous to walk down in socks...



During my last painting marathon I got into the closet & turned it yellow - once the light is installed in here it will practically glow....the ceiling is yellow too!!

So, I took some time & 'organized' some of the stuff sitting around upstairs. All the paint & painting supplies are now in here - to be used in the office when we unpack that & I found a shelf unit to put some of the tools onto. I hope the boys see that there is now a place for their things & use it appropriately...

We cleared out the corner where the pellet stove is going to be & painted the floor. Now all that needs to be done is to paint the stove pipe pieces, cut a hole in our repaired roof...ha, that makes me laugh - putting a hole in a perfectly solid roof...




We are also doing some crazy work on the floors. We want to have a painted plywood floor for as long as possible before we decide what the final flooring will be. So, we are sanding it down - it was rather roughly treated during the building process - filling in the nail holes & cracks & gouges with filler & then applying the floor paint. Will look quite good & since we've sanded it, it won't be too rough on the feet. But it is a bit more work - all to save a few dollars....~ sigh ~

So, the upstairs kitchen area is all ready for the cabinets...we just need to find some time to get them here & get the cabinet maker to install them. He phoned on Saturday to say the base cabinets were done - but there's no sense in storing them in the kitchen area when they could be installed instead. So, I hope the upper cabinets won't take too much time to finish & then he can start from the top & work his way down the wall.......We just need to move the stair treads out of the way....

Serious Updating Going On

Well, I've had a good week of work at the house - in-between cleaning at other establishments & I've had to 'book' myself as my own housekeeper just to remember to clean my own house!! Too bad I can't afford to pay myself....

So, I'm taking some time today to update the blog proper, tell some stories & plan my next session of painting.

We are still without stairs up to the loft & that will be something the building inspector will write up as a issue in our quest to gain an occupancy permit (he doesn't know we've moved in just yet & we hope he doesn't come out for a few more weeks...)

The yellow cedar stair stringers are rather large - about 14 feet long & weight a 'million' pounds. We need to cut the 2nd one down to size & then plane them both really smooth & so they are the same size. Yesterday, Phil had a few hours off in the afternoon & we tackled the initial cutting of the 2nd stringer.

Phil - the jack-of-all-trades - has claimed that he can use any tool that we have in the house. So I watched. Here he's slicing off the excess wood - requires 2 cuts per side (have to flip the stringer over to make the 2nd cut all the way through). Very loud & very DUSTY!!! I'm glad I finished painting by that time! The whole house needs to be dusted yet again......


Here, Phil's using the power planer to take off the edge created when he 2 cuts didn't exactly meet up. The idea was to make a 'super' smooth side that we could put down on the bottom of his planer & then plane the top side. Well, good intention, but the stringer is 11 or so inches wide & the planer will only take 6 inches....ha, ha, ha. But at least we have the stringer cut to size & moved out of the way of the kitchen.



The kitchen area is all painted & ready for the cabinet maker, Mark, to come & install the cabinets. He stopped by today to double check the area & the plan & will work on building the base cabinets for hopeful installation early next week. All I have to do is paint the floor under the cabinets & make sure the wood & equipment is moved out of the way. I'm hoping the stairs will be worked on & installed this week so that we don't have to keep juggling all this around!

Well, I'm not sure if I posted photos of the glass installed on the decks, so here they are. Towards the end of March, they were pieced together - the glass having to be slid in-between a groove created around it & then the whole frame work of wood & glass carefully uprighted & secured in place. Weather wasn't the greatest, but our decks are now secure & safe!




As you can see, a rather gray & dreary day - lots of moisture but what a view!




The cedar top rail will be installed soon & will cover the top angle cut on the glass frame, but we will need to get a sturdy ladder later on to stain the underside of the cut wood - not shown here. It looks great from the road, so not on the top of our priority list.




We are trimming out the windows & window casings in some local red cedar. We stopped by the 'local' mill yard & found some edge cuttings of what we are looking for. It will need to dry out quite a bit, but I hope to get some instruction on the use of Phil's planer so that I can get some of this stuff ready for the suite.


This is gorgeous wood - has 4 different colours through out so once we figure out what we want around each window, we can then put the dark stuff around the yellow windows & save the lighter wood for around the red windows.

It's a little difficult to explain without proper photos of what we will be doing - but the top piece of trim & the window ledge will retain the rough wavy look & feel of the outside edge of the tree - in the 2nd photo it's the wood on the bottom edge of the wood. The trim that's vertical will be straight & a little bit narrower in width than the top. We are going for 'simple', meaning no funky cut angle corners. The casing is going to be a bit of a brain teaser, but I'm sure once Phil figures it out, it'll go like clock-work. We are treating the wood with Tung Oil to retain all the different colours - it's contains linseed oil & some other UV protectors, etc. So, a lot of work is needed for all the trim.
Our laundry area is fully fuctioning now - even though it's filled with boxes & boxes & more boxes...Phil had time on Sunday to install the lights. For some reason we have 6 lights in this back area! It sure will not be dark & gloomy like many back laundry rooms are! We had a fun run with the washer & dryer...We thought the heating coil was not working up to snuff in the dryer, so we sent it away to be 'fixed' - $100 later, nothing wrong with it. We hooked up with washer to 'test' & it didn't agitate. Well, it was cheaper to purchase a newer one than to get the old one fixed.

I spent the weekend in a mad frenzy of painting in a very confined space. Well, it's actually a huge bathroom, but the pole I use for the painter roller is about 6 inches too long! I finished off the bathroom - same colours as the suite bathroom, in the hopes that by this weekend I can seal this room off to use as my staining room. We have some interior wood doors that need to be stained to 'match' the kitchen cupboards & I need the space to do it where there is NO DUST! Well, I should be painting the floor in here by Wednesday afternoon & will have my work station all set up by Friday. I've now got a piece of hemlock/fir to test out first - soft woods (conifers) react to stain differently than hardwoods (leafy trees). My doors are soft wood & my kitchen is hard wood. Let's hope I'm able to figure this out without too much cussing & fretting....!!
Thankfully, the amount of ceiling in the 2nd & loft area is very small & in chunks that allow for quick & easy application of ceiling paint. That didn't take me very long at all & it looks much better than my first attempt downstairs!

The walls also got a quick coat of primer - I'm really starting to like this primer gray they gave me....


Welcome to my yellow house! It's very bright & warm - but difficult to see around all the scaffolding & equipment still living up there. It was a royal pain dancing around all this stuff while trying to get 2 coats of colour on the walls in the shortest time possible.

I have a whole bucket of yellow paint left over - how on earth I miscalculated the wall areas, I have no idea!! It's non-returnable because it's in the bucket size (5 gallons) - so I will be re-painting the house in 5 years whether it needs it or not!

Introductions are needed here. This is my Autumn Bronze for the front window wall. It's difficult to get a proper feeling for this particular red - it's got lots of brown & earth tones in it & this is just the first coat. I know it will darken up once the 2nd & possibly 3rd coat go on & once the lighter cedar trim is around the windows it will tone it down a bit. I had a moment of complete panic late one afternoon just after a put this on. The light was weird & the walls beside the red were still primer gray - which actually turns blue or purple depending on the light. Well, the red wall looked purple - like a merlot purple! NOT the colour I wanted! I had to shut my eyes & run away. The light around here can do funny things - & not to mention being exposed to paint fumes all day!! So, with the yellow beside it & the sun shining, the red looks much better. But it sure is bright!
The kitchen area is all painted & ready for the cabinets to be installed. Now, this kitchen is different than the one in the suite - same wood, same doors, but the upper cabinet will have only 1 shelf & be about 18 vertical - starting from the ceiling. I wanted it flush to the ceiling so that underneath this row of cabinets, I can have to open, floating shelves. There will be a floor to ceiling 'pantry' cabinet right on the left side of the back wall, then the fridge & then the open kitchen. No upper cabinets on the right of the window - just like the suite. We will have to build & install some shelves to attach the hood vents to, when ever those arrive in the mail.... We also have an island running parallel to the side wall - but it's hard to visualize with all the 'junk' in the way....
We've also made some 'last minute' colour changes with the house. I was going to paint the 2 half walls of the loft & the half walls of the stair well & the 2 posts in yellow. But the yellow is just a little too much for ALL this area. So, yesterday I painted it all navajo white. I was concerned that the primer gray it was originally painted would not work well with the white, but after 2 coats of white, it looks great. We still need to cut away some of the half wall close to the glass block window - but after the stairs are installed. Should open up that area once again & not make it feel so boxed in.
Last bit of yellow is in the closet - that's going to be the 'happy' place - the ceiling is being done in yellow to save me some back ache & once the light is installed, it will be BRIGHT!

Well, I'm going to have to give Phil lessons in taking photos for the blog. This is me on the scaffolding trying to get primer up into the tight top corner of the peak. I taped the paint brush to the roller pole (Thank you, Mike Holmes - I wish I could get Craig, your painter, out here to help me with this wall!!) The scaffolding is a very scarey place to be - apparently the welding on the 'ladder' part isn't very strong.....So, the less amount of time I have to spend up here, the better. This is what I'm tackling this afternoon - will try to get my 2 or 3 coats on in a very short time frame.....Now, how do I get the shop vac up here to clean out the windows??? Might as well bring up the Windex & do that too!!!

So, that's pretty much it since I've started my full time job here at the house. I'll go work elsewhere til noon & then paint like crazy til about 8 or 9 pm - just in time for Phil to come home from work & check out what I've done. There's been some yard clean-up (wonderful feeling to burn it all!!) but really, the weather is still too cold to be concerned about gardens. I'm sure I've got tulips & daffodils blooming in the greenhouse, so I should check on those later today too. I've also managed to sun-burn & then freeze half my house plants. The poor things are looking quite raggity & I'm hoping that I can save some of them. I really did have a jungle going on & sometimes it's necessary to chop it up a bit.

An Open Invitation....

It's time to start thinking about a big, huge OPEN HOUSE party!!

The date is set: Sunday, June 22nd
Time: 11:00 am - 6:00 pm (I like early parties - it will probably continue on elsewhere anyway)

Bring appies & drinks & we'll supply the rest!

I've already started to tidy up the yard....yes, instead of cleaning up the drywall dust & working upstairs, I took a nice afternoon out in the yard. I did a big, huge BURN! Was very cleansing to get rid of silly little pieces of lumber & other rotting things. The garbage pile at the end of the driveway is growing larger week by week, so we will have to order in our own dumpster & cram everything into there. Hopefully, we won't need more than one!

There are still a few more finishing touches to be done (top rail on decks & stairs to the loft), plus all the work that Phil & I can do on our own, but we've got to wait for a bit more time to do this - which will be in the middle of May! I know that sounds like a long way away, but April is a funny month for being so busy elsewhere. Then we jet off to Florida for a beach wedding & some relaxing time before the mad rush of work waiting for us here.

Well, time to get back to the lodge to cook up a dinner for the RHIOT students....lots of fun & gets me back into working in the kitchen & lodge cleaning just before summer returns, but I still would rather be painting the upstairs....!!

The Move...

Well, I've got a few moments to show some photos & tell some stories...

The sun is shining & both of us have to head off to work in a short time. It's a good feeling to be in the house & it was a good feeling to know that yesterday was the last day of paying rent & today is the first day of entering "mortgage world" - not that we are paying a mortgage just yet, we have to finish the rest of the house & finalize things with the bank, but it's all ours now!

This is what the living room in the old place had looked like for many weeks. I packed up a lot of items, moved stuff out of our storage spaces & the only place to pile it was in here. There was a path that lead from the couch to the TV...ha, ha, ha.




This is the old living room now emptied except for the TV unit. Ha, ha, ha. I still have to do a massive amount of cleaning - cobwebs are all over the place! It was amazing to see the old place empty after having lived here for 4 years!





On Saturday we had 3 people show up to help us move. Malcom on the left & Omar (a co-worker of Phil's) on the right. This looks like it's the last load of the day, but they hauled some really big truck loads. It was a very busy & fast-paced time - I was in the rental house & Phil was in the new house.



This is also at the end of the day - our third helper was Steve on the far right. A few neighbour's stopped by for a chat & a beer: Roy - in the hat, lives directly behind our new house, & Darry, another neighbour down the way.


Phil has been learning a whole new set of skills. This time he was a plumber hooking up the kitchen sink & the bathroom sink. He's done a very good job - there are no leaks!








Our electrician came in for a couple hours of work to finish setting up the electrical for the lower floor. There were a few set-backs, such as: the hot-water tank didn't have power, the bedroom closet light turned on the main light, the washing machine plug didn't have power, the baseboard heater in the bathroom didn't have power, a plug in the kitchen was located in the wrong place.....these were all relatively easy to fix. In the photo, Phil & Brian are fixing the kitchen plug. It was placed too far over - so would have been behind the stove. I thought they were going to cut a huge hole in the wall, but it's a very small hole - easy to patch up & the new plug is in the right spot.

This is the vanity unit we picked up at Home Depot. Stunning!! We worked quite late last night putting in some more bathroom items - such as towel racks & just need to hang the mirror & figure out some sort of storage unit & the bathroom is done. Well, except for the door. We just have a blanket hanging over the opening for now.....





This is the pine furniture for the bedroom. It's darker than I had thought, so I'm going to try to re-finish it to lighten it up.






Well, now that the hot water is working, it's time to get going on washing dishes & taking a shower. I spent the day yesterday cleaning the metal doors, the stove (which needs a coat of tremclad paint...) the fridge (we managed to flip the doors around too) the floors (I put down some mats so we can hopefully keep the dirt down) & some of the decks outside.

Phil has a truck load of stuff in the truck & a few more items left in the house. I hope we have time this week to finish that off. John - who is moving upstairs, is coming back on the weekend to do his part of the move, so we have a few extra days. We are just both tired of having to go over there....but it won't take us very long.

I'm off to cook for the Coast Guard RHIOT course for the next 8 days. Thankfully, it's only 6 people, but it's spilt shifts - early mornings & late evenings, so a little difficult to get into too much work over here....Phil's lucky that he has sunshine for the beginning of his work. He probably gets to hang out on the beach & go for boat rides for the next few weeks!!