Renovations: Let There Be Light!

The lovely electrician team came and did some fabulous work to get us light switches in the wall. Yay! Three way switches. Off:

On:


Off:

On: 

Renovations: The Bathroom Under the Stairs

Pretty soon after we arrived here we discovered a need for a second washroom. It became a priority and very happily we were able to get some excellent tradespeople in to do the work. In progress…

We are also getting an outside light above the sliding door and a wall switch for the overhead light. That’s ‘Tall Tim’ just outside the sliding door working out where to put the light. And Darryl under the stairs working on the vent. 

Renovations: The Fireplace

When we bought the house we knew the mantelpiece had to go because it just isn’t our taste. We made the most of it with a beautiful mirror my mom gifted us, along with candles it was ok 

We had hopes that the beautiful Victorian brick would could be exposed and we’ve have a nice focal point for the dining room. It was a ‘wow’ of disappointment unfortunately. As we tore off the facade, it became evident that was not to be. Still we are glad we did it since there was nothing holding the stone facade to the wall! 

I was able to just pick the mantle up off the supports. We have salvaged it for later. The fake stone bricks were just stacked on each other with flimsy mortar and nothing connecting them to the wall. 

As we continued our dream of exposed masonry was dealt its death blow by two runs of ductwork that provide heating to our upstairs. 

We also salvaged the fake stone and plan to use it for a path in the yard. 

Chris got the last of the new hearth brick work off last night. There’s some lovely old brick that was likely the original hearth. Just on the edge of that is a peep of what looks to be the old oil cloth linoleum. 

Another bummer note is that our plan to put a wood burning insert into the old chimney just won’t work because there isn’t enough room for one. And the other little bit of horror arrives when one of our expert trades had a look at the thing and determined that the chimney is only standing up by the grace of God. 😳 we plan to fox it so that more than faith is holding it all up. 

Christmas Time’s A Comin’

Yep! We still have green grass here in Annapolis Valley. We’ve also had a heck of a lot of rain. And some snow rain. It makes outdoor decorating a pretty miserable job. But his Chris is not near as miserable as -30! Although he did have to come in and warm up his hands before we could try putting up the garland on the front of the house.

We went over to Bridgetown today to pick up the wreaths we got from the Bridgetown lions. While we were there we hit the Digby Salvation Army hard! They had fantastic collections of Christmas ornaments.

We also have a tree stand. And we have some intel  about where to get a Christmas tree. For some reason this year they are reported to be in short supply. It is an even December 1 yet!

And we bought our tree already! $30 no matter what size. We got a 10 foot tree. It was a bit difficult getting it on the car. 

We had planned on buying a tree. But apparently they’re in short supply this year we’ve been told, and they are selling like hot cakes. 

It’s got to be 50 years old. The thing weighs a ton!

And it is 10 feet tall! Our ceilings are only 9 feet. Whoops! 

Craftsmanship

We took apart the shelves under the stairs today in preparation for plaster and its' future as a 1/2 bath. Christopher was absolutely struck by the wide planks, the square nails... and most of all the perfect tightness of all the joints and supporting joinery... amazing. Very few tradespeople today put the level of thought and craftsmanship into anything built today... let alone on some shelves and hooks under the stairs.

Crazy Road Trip to Halifax

Due to bureaucratic limitations of shipping companies... no amount of $$$ or cajoling could get our wood fired hot tub and cedar fence panels Sent and delivered to Annapolis Royal. So... off we scampered with the new to us VW Touareg and U-Built Utility Trailer to Halifax and Dartmouth to pick everything up. Winter found us for the first time about halfway to Halifax from Annapolis... blowing wet snow near blizzard conditions with about 4-6inches of accumulated snow as we drove. What was supposed to be a 2hr one way became 4hrs. Thank goodness Sarah and Scapa were with Topher to keep me awake and focussed. We made it, picked up our crazy sized packages, got a visit in with Sarah's Mom Barbara... and shot back to Annapolis to meet with our Mason the next day. The fence panels did not make it in great shape so CJA has some repairs to do now. There are no pics of the snowstorm for obvious white knuckles reasons... There are some pics of the damaged panels, the crazy but effective hillbilly style load Topher put together... Scapa choosing the large closet at the Westin Hotel as her Den... Sarah after an exhausting day, highlights from our visit Renovators Resource in Halifax, etc.

Progress 2

Here are a few pics of Sarah hard at work picking wallpaper scabs in the pink room in anticipationof the plasterer coming...

Progress

Today I got a whole lot of old stuff off the walls of the pink room. This is in preparation for some plaster work and painting to finish the room. 

The Rosy Beast is Tamed

It is done. The fairy tale rose bush had been brought down to size. 

A two man and dog job. 

And power tools! Done! 

A very nice tent

So we got an energy audit on our NS house. The scale goes from 0 to 300 or at least that’s how I interpret it. Zero is a house that’s actually producing energy and putting it back into the grid, 300 is you are  living in a tent with a stove. Apparently we’re living in a very nice, very pretty, two-story tent with only an oil furnace in the basement. 😳

Egads! 

First Room Almost Ready

Sarah was awesome and did most of the nail removal on the sub floor in the pink room / Sarah's future office. We'll be ready for our plasterer/finish Carpenter Darrell to tackle this room next week. We are happy to report that it seems the entire upstairs has beautiful rustic wide plank floors throughout.

Mean Squirrel!

Torture!