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.

Winter Projects con't

February has been one of those months where the weather is just plain weird! It's my favourite month in that we get at least 14 days of sunshine, but mixed in with all that is rain, snow & general winter weather.

An easy project that we finished was to install some rope along the top edge of the wall where it meets the ceiling. An awkward angle to try to figure out for wood trim & it took Phil less than an hour to get it installed with his nailer.

There are 2 continuous pieces that run from the front of the living/dining rooms up the loft half walls....

....and through the loft to the back wall.

Am wondering how this rope will age - we didn't treat it with anything....








The next big project Phil just completed was to cut & install the window trim for the upstairs. We have 2 HUGE windows along the front & the one beside the dining table. (this is a close up of the dining room window & rope trim)






After Phil finished, I followed behind with some wood filler to hide the nail holes & applied a couple of coats of tung oil.
(I am just about to apply the tung oil to the trim around the sliding glass doors).




One tricky detail was how to deal with my cast iron plant hooks. Remove them from the wall & re-attach with a piece of wood behind or cut the top trim piece to go around the hook.... Phil cut around the hook... Hope it wasn't too much of a pain...

Will have to take photos of our window treatments when they arrive in the next couple of weeks. While we love the winter sunshine, because the sun is lower in the sky at this time of year, it can be brilliantly blinding - making sitting at the table almost unbearable. Then the temperature in the house starts to soar - ha, ha, ha - you say. But at 10 a.m. it can reach upwards of 20 degrees. And this is February. I have to open the sliding glass doors & we retreat to the back office if we want to work on our computers. What a waste of the view!! So we are getting some mesh roller blinds for the 2 big windows & some sheer curtains for the sliding glass doors. I'm not worried about the upper 2 levels of windows - at least for now. This should help also with the summer heat (not that we are inside during the summer) but also protect the paint & furniture from sun damage. Who'd ever thought we'd be complaining about sunshine here on the 'wet' coast!!

Watchmen Widget

A Few More Windows...

Well, we are back home again after spending some time with the niece & nephew in Okotoks, Alberta. Didn't have the opportunity to update the blog while there, so here is what we did just after New Year's:

Phil brought in the scary-wooden ladder-of-death to install the trim around the other side of the glass art in the loft wall. Then I had to clamber up to put on a few coats of tung oil. Not my idea of fun....(and hanging over the top edge of the wall isn't too good an idea with a container of oil in one hand...tends to drip everywhere!)


Next window was the one at the bottom of the loft stairs - the glass block one. Very nice....








Last one before we left was the kitchen window. I really like how there appears to be a wave in the top of the trim. It's got a lot of physical feel to it too - in the last picture here - if you can click on it to zoom in, you can see that it's very textured & rough. There's even a knot hole showing the wall behind.