Transition Strips Done!

Ok - the transition strips have been varathaned & installed so it's time to show you what they look like now.

This is the division area between the kitchen & the dining room. I'm glad that the dark colours of the lino & laminate work well with each other. The light transition strips will probably darken to a more rich yellow over the next year or so as it's exposed to sunlight, which will tie in with the cedar, pine & fir in the rest of the house.

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This last photo is of the change in direction, colour & type of laminate from hallway to office. There's a 45 degree angle in the wall where the office door is, so lots of tricky cutting to get the 2 types of laminate to match up with the appropriate space inbetween.

We went with this more red coloured laminate (walnut?) in the office because the wall colour is a gray/green & it works very well. With some black bookcases, it will look very classy. The gray colour of the laminate in the rest of the living space works very well with the red & yellow wall colours & is picking up the brown tones from the other woods - which are all more golden than brown.

Phil is already checking out what we have left for baseboard trim as I think he sees the light at the end of the tunnel & can't wait to see this all finished. It's a good feeling...

It's Laminate Laying Time!

It's funny to think we are now into the Renovation Stage of owning the house, but we are now upgrading our beautiful painted plywood floors to laminate.

We have chosen 'Midnight Barnboard' for our main living space (living room, dining room & entrance hallway) - with lino in the actual entrance & kitchen.

Before we started, we needed to fix a sag in the floor which meant that Phil was back to using his tools indoors & making a lovely mess...




We had just returned from a month long 'vacation' & wasted no time in getting things ready for our project.

The laminate arrived 2 days later than we were hoping, but just allowed us to work on another project down in the suite, as you will see at the end of this post.

This is our 'Midnight Barnboard' laminate.

We started in the living room, which meant we had to remove the pellet stove - not a fun nor easy thing to do! The white lay is a sound proofing layer we found while doing our weeks of research back in November. It came rather inexpensively from the US & I really hope it helps with breaking up the transfer of sound between our space & the suite. The suite bedroom is (unfortunately) right below where we have our TV...

Ok - DAY 1 saw us finishing up the living room area & we were able to move the pellet stove back in & get it hooked up & running again. It's still pretty chilly at nights & the days are dark & gloomy with rain. I hope we get to see the laminate floor in the sunshine soon!!

Phil finally got his toolbelt this Christmas!

DAY 2 - work moved now into the dining room & the area around the lino in the kitchen. A bit of tricky cutting was necessary around the curved drywall corners & up to the transition by the office.

I'm so glad we have central vac - I spent most of my time 'helping' by keeping the areas clean & keeping Phil a steady supply of boards for clicking into place.

Ooooo - I'm liking the way the laminate looks up against the lino...

Surprisingly, the laminate really isn't all that grey. The more we live with it & get used to the feel, the more it seems to pick up on some of the browns in the house. The lino isn't all grey either - there are hints of blue & rust/brown in it that warm it up.

DAY 3 - last bit of work is in the entrance hallway, which includes our large pantry closet. Lots of tricky cutting here too around the door frames & to the edge of the lino in the entrance.

By the end of the day, it was finished & we were exhausted. Looks great & seems to make the space feel larger...

DAY 4 - Tansition day - Phil's been busy making all our own transition strips out of fir. Lots of sawdust & noise & thankfully it has been a sun-shiney type of day.

Once the transition strips are cut, we'll have to varathane them & install them.

I love when the sun shines around here!!

We got down into the suite bathroom a few days before our tenant came back from holidays & put in the last piece of lino. I love how it goes so well with the blue walls & the red vanity!!

There will be some photos coming up later once the transition strips are varathaned. Stay tuned!

Renters for the Suite

Well, for the last few months of winter, Phil has been using the suite as his work room - meaning all his wood cutting tools were put to use so that we could finish up the window & door trim. Luckily I had enough bed sheets to cover up the kitchen cabinets, the stove & hood vent & the couch. As you can see - it turned into a disaster!!

Phil would spend a bit of time down here through December, January & February - when he wasn't working on computers for other people or out doing other things. It wasn't until we received a request from someone looking for a place to live for 2 months that the fire got lit under Phil - it needed to be ready for occupancy by February 27th.

Phil worked liked a mad-man all that week - working full-time at the Science Centre & then coming home to put in 3 or 4 hours downstairs cutting wood for all the trim work - we hadn't even started the trim downstairs at the start of the week....

I was allowed in to clean on Thursday - giving me just over 24 hours to turn this disaster zone around....

The end result is quite nice - a few pieces missing here & there, but you'd have to be told where....also, didn't get a chance to repaint the floors, but there's always later on in the year.





This is our lovely wall of doors - there is actually one more to the left out of the picture...







Our front windows with some Dutch lace - am still not certain that we'll ever get regular blinds on these - want as much light down here as possible since the deck overhead reduces the summer sun drastically.

Lofty Trim Project

We got busy again - want to finish the work in the loft & move on down to the next level. Seems like time is running out, but that's the way it goes when you want things to be done...

Phil first installed the cedar ceiling trim & then worked on the windows.

These photos show all the trim finished with a couple coats of tung oil applied. We are using tung oil on all the cedar trim - it brings out the colours (reds, yellows, purples) & is a little different than varathane. We will probably have to re-apply the tung oil in a few years after it's all been exposed to the sun & has had a chance to season & fade a bit.














This is just a close-up of the detail at the ceiling peak around the central ceiling beam.








This is the trim around the glass art piece installed in the wall. I was pleasantly surprised that Phil made the trim so large - he just needs to trim it out on the other side of the wall - which should be tricky....don't know if we have a ladder tall enough for him to reach it easily!!

Lofty project

We have decided to work top to bottom for finishing projects. That means getting the loft dirty, dusty but complete.

We worked on the storage door covers (refered to as hatch covers also). There are 4 - 2 on each side of the loft. This storage space is great for items that are needed only a few times a year & once we start to condense our boxes, we should have enough left over space to install some built-in-drawers in the next few years.

Phil framed in the holes with the knotty pine we used on the ceiling, but I liked the look of the stain we used on the fir doors, so I put on a light coat of stain before a thick coat of varathane.

Gives it a bit of the old farm house look....

(as you can see, my storage space is already crammed with items that have to be either donated else where or find a proper home in the living space....)




I love the finished look! We had some left-over cabinet handles from the kitchen that we installed onto the doors & once they were dry, we popped them in place, with a small wood latch to keep the doors from popping out of the holes.

Winter Projects

Well, Christmas is almost upon us - I'm sure we'll find a tree in a day or two to complete the indoor decorating...

We have a bit more time on our hands for some of the larger projects & I think we'll be able to finish most of them before work starts back up again towards the end of January.

We brought in Mike again to help with the installation of the wall caps on the half walls. They were a bit tricky & we were sure appreciative of Mike's help - even though he was frustrated most of the time. I guess there were issues with the thickness of the drywall, warping in the walls & tight angles to be figured out. It didn't help either that we have some curved corners that make for issues when trying to get the wood square against it. But Mike & Phil did a fabulous job & all the wall caps are now installed.

Mike & Phil fitting the wall cap in place.








We ran out of the fir we were using for the wall caps, but Phil found an extra piece at another renovation project to fit. It's fir, but just with tighter grain. This section is up in the loft.

We are waiting for a few extra bits of finishing trim work around the stairs before we get into varathaning & sanding. We should be able to start that up just before New Year's & have it done before we leave on a road trip out to Alberta to visit the neice & nephew.

Our last project before we obtain our 'occupancy permit' was installing the railing on the other side of the stairs going up to the loft. This one had some design issues (Phil's idea versus mine), so I think Phil did this one while I was working this past week so that I didn't disagree & create a more difficult job (ha, ha, ha).

We didn't feel we needed a hand rail all the way up the wall, so there is just the hand rail in the opening seen here.

We have some of the spindles attached to the wall cap (at the bottom end of the stairs) & then in the middle, the spindles are attached just like on the other railing. The spindles towards the top are attached to the ceiling.

In order to further secure the spindles in the top portion, Phil attached another short piece of fir along the ceiling edge. Looks pretty good & it's definately not going to fall down any time soon!

Phil is just making plugs to go into the screw holes & then we'll start the finishing sanding & varathaning.



Hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas & a Blessed New Year!

More Fall Projects...

Well, another month has passed us by & we've not found a whole lot of time to finish things.

This will be a short posting!

With the wet & cold season starting upon us, I really wanted to have someplace proper to hang our outdoor gear. So we had to dig through the pile of cedar planks in the back entrance to find the one & only board that wasn't nice enough for window trim. We now have some wonderful coat hooks that look like they were rescued from an old farm house. Love that look....

Our house has a few features in it that are built for tall people - high bathroom counters, higher than usual hand rails on the stairs (we didn't plan on that, but the building inspector noticed - of course, he's a shortie himself...) & now we have some nice tall coat hooks. I wanted them up a little higher because when you hang your rain pants, they don't dry very well when they are bunched up on the floor. This will be interesting when kids try to hang their stuff....might have to put some shortie hooks outside for them....;)

Then just the other day Phil got into action with the pellet stove - we needed to cover up the hole in the ceiling where the chimney piece goes through. So the scarey wooden ladder of death once again came inside for another finishing job - We now have a nice big black square on the ceiling - but it's got some 'pretty' silver screws & I'm sure we can frame it out with any left-over cedar later on.

That's about it for now.

I am gearing up for the annual Bamfield Christmas Craft Fair on November 29th. Late next week I will become the crazy jam/jelly queen of Bamfield as I finally have the opportunity to use the stove in the suite...

Then on December 6th we are having a Sinterklaas party - Dutch Christmas. Something to get the holiday season started with. We have lights up on the upper deck & bring a bit of light to the dreary evenings & I hope that the rest of the community has lights up soon. While it may seem early, the month of December usually flies by pretty fast with more gatherings & potlucks than any other time of year!

What did We Miss Showing You?

Okay - it's been a while since we were at our crazy-mad paced & frantic work schedule. Actually, this past week since we returned Claire & Joe to the airport has been rather slow & easy for the both of us. We had an appointment with the bank appraiser on Friday morning - he arrived at 8 am & left at 8:20 am. The bank has now termed our house 100%!!!! This means that we get our last draw of money - to pay off our line of credit & to start slamming a bit of money down on the last of our bills. (what? the last of our bills??!! That's hilarious - our bills will never end..!! Such is the life of a home owner...)

Anyway - I'm sure there's things we've done in the house that you've not seen, or stories we've not told.

So, I'm learning the art of container gardening. Heather gave me this lovely hanging basket - am starting to love the smell of these flowers whose name has escaped me...

The weather hasn't been so great lately so the boxes on the upper deck aren't growing as quickly as I had hoped. But I am learning the delicate art of water & fertilizer...

I have a darling greenhouse on the deck as well. I've got 2 tiny bean plants & some miniscule tomato plants (back row) & Dennis gave us some wonderful pepper plants. I hope that we get some flowers & some fruit. If I start earlier next year - or just buy the plants - I will get a harvest. This year I just want to see some flowers.



Well - here's what I'm really excited about - the yard has NO MORE JUNK OR BUILDING MATERIAL ON IT!!! As you can see, I have a wack of containers that I just moved down today - much easier to water them here than up at the greenhouse - I'm about 1 hose short.

So, what I want to do in this section of yard is to have another berry patch. I've got logan berries that will grow along a 'fence' of sorts, I've got some red currants that dearly need to be planted & I found someone in this town with gooseberries, so I've got cuttings that should be ready to plant next spring. I would also like to have a few raised beds in here as well. A lot of planning & appropriate use of space & figuring out the sun cycles...CAN'T WAIT!

Check this out - the upper deck is clear! Phil & Joe moved all the cedar wood that Phil wants to keep dry down to behind the house under some heavy plastic. What to do with this space? Since we don't have stairs going up to the back door at the back left of this photo, we don't use this space. I have ideas for keeping some plants up here as it gets wonderful west light & I can remember to water them on a regular basis.






Ok - this is going back to the middle of June. The kitchen floor had been painted, the kitchen cupboards went in & I REALLY wanted to get the dining room floor painted so that when the 2nd coat went on the kitchen, I could do the dining as well & have them be the same colour.





Here we go with the 2nd coat of paint & the coat of varathane. Looks marvelous...







Here's the dining room with furniture. The lights haven't been lowered or swung over the table yet - not too far - just about a foot or so over & about 2 feet lower. To do that, Phil needs the super scarey, rickety death ladder....








We had a bit of help from Mike Hughes for a few days with trim & casing of the windows & then again with starting the railing up to the loft. We have just the large rail installed & hopefully the spindles will go in before Phil leaves for summer work.



Phil & Mike - Mike sure does know his stuff & I wish we could get him back for some more finishing work...Please!!!









So, a few personal touches we are starting to add. These are some glass balls that are hung up in the front window. We were also given some stain glass pieces at the open house & need to figure out where to put them. I'm enjoying the uncluttered feel we have so I'm not bringing out a lot of my older pieces that I had all over the place in the old house.







This is the kitchen light - in the proper place finally & yes, we barely notice the caps in the ceiling where we had to cover up the original positions...






I LOVE my little propane cook stove. One day we will get it plumbed in & installed properly. Right now we use a little 2 burner hot plate jobber that doesn't get hot enough to boil water in under 30 minutes.... Our hood vent is almost complete too - just need to punch yet another hole into our wall to vent it & I'm very pleased that the shelf & bracket idea that I had has managed to work out well with both hood vents.

(as you can see, we need to invest in some garbage containers.... have gotten quite lazy & just use whatever box is not yet burnt....)




Have you seen this yet?









So, the deck clean up also involved the lower deck - all the extra wood went back behind the house (that garden will not be worked on this year at all....;(_









The upper deck has NO TOOLS!!! It's so wonderful to be able to sit outside & have a meal - even though we have some saw horses with a piece of plywood on top for our table....Outdoor furniture isn't high on our to-get list just yet....








Did I show you the fir landing & step up to the stairs to the loft? They are not yet finished - just a quick coat of varathane to protect it while we try to find the time to sand & varathane....They are quite lovely, eh?








This is me at 7:30 in the morning....
Ok - so, in the few days before the open house, we were crazy-crazy working & one thing was to get ALL the tools OUT OF OUR LIVING SPACE & that allowed me to finally work on the living room floor. Now the paint I originally purchased is NOT a proper floor paint, it was deck stain & of course I needed 2 coats instead of the 1 the paint pro told me & he only sold me 5 instead of the 6 I asked for....& I found out that if I didn't let the paint cure long enough inbetween coats, the paint would come out a different colour than the area beside it... So, Phil bought me some 'proper' floor paint but I had to put primer down first! How ridiculous to spend so much time on the floors....And guess what.....

The new floor paint is DIFFERENT!!! AND I have to put 2 coats on still!!! I really want to put down some varathane so that it 'matches' the dining/kichen floor...

I'll never win with the floor...

But funny-ha-ha story: Back to varathaning the kitchen/dining floor - meant that I had no access to the fridge or the upstairs unless I did some fancy maneovering over the half walls & around some posts....I had also varathaned the suite bathroom. What I did was painted myself out of access to the washroom & food. I didn't quite catch on to that until I was done around 9:30 pm when I had to go pee & I was starving... Managed to find some frozen sandwich meat in the deep freeze & then crawl over the half wall to get to the upstairs.... How silly - won't happen again!

This is the living room floor - all bare & empty.




This is the living room today with all the furniture - not really in the right place, we need to play around with it & we also need to find a TV stand - I'm trying to get Phil into something like a bakers stand or a plant stand like those Lee Valley has - black metal...






This is Claire & Joe arriving in the rain - soggy & exhausted. Of course, the rain stopped 45 minutes later after we had finished bringing in all the food & bags....





We are busy trying to finalize all the details in the suite.

I decided to hang some of the local art pieces I've got down there.

Here are a series of sea stars in the suite bathroom. I have finally purchased some bath linens for when we rent it in the summer, but forgot to take a photo with them set up...


Here's a sea slug photo that looks stunning in the suite living room. I love the floating frame idea....







Here's a water colour of a leafy-hornmouth snail also done by a local artist. It's a little small for the suite bedroom, but I'm sure I'll find a few other pieces to tie it all in.






Trusting Phil to make some design purchases is hard for me to do - but with the new shower curtains, he did great!!









This is in our bathroom upstairs - great colour & we aren't having issues with water leaking out around the liner over the short shower lip. It's so nice to have the curved shower rods - gives more space inside the shower.








Well, we are still working on the loft. I hacked up a shelf & figured out how to install & hang them so we can now hang up some clothes. There are a lot of boxes of books up here - might try to move up the book case sometime soon....Also need to find some of my curtain material that isn't quite so tacky....








Ok - we park our boat on a dock that is home to the last commercial fishing boats in town. Some days we stick it lucky & are given some fresh sea food. We got a HUGE grocery bag full of prawns & there were some monsters in the pile....ummm, can't wait to eat these in the dreary days of winter....if we can wait that long!