Flood Door Delivery

The flood door -- no, it deserves a more monumental introduction than that -- the Flood Door the Conservation Authority insisted we install on the stairwell has arrived. This is in case the distant lake overflows its boundaries, backs uphill instead of downhill, ignores the valley, and climbs the road expressly to fill up our stairwell. Ordered from British Columbia, manufactured in Germany, delivered via Mississauga on a thirty-foot long truck, and hoisted very helpfully on an 8-foot wide forklift to the back yard, the door came encased in a large aluminum box like a coffin, and there it will perch until the end of August, when the specially-trained installers from Stephensons arrive. It weighs, in the box, a terrifying 500 kg. and will require a crane to lift it into place. I'm hoping it doesn't crack my foundation or pull down my walls when it's installed. If it does, the Conservation Authority and I are going to Have Words.

Madly Drywalling

My husband and I (poor, patient man) are trying to complete the bits of drywalling that the hired drywallers didn't do. It's a messy job, and in this heat, with no air conditioning, the rooms are about 29 celsius, so the drywall dust ends up caked on the skin, reconstituted as mud. The part I'm doing is overhead, so I'm sanding the stuff directly down onto my face. Goggles and dust mask, and trying to catch the dust in a plastic pail as I sand. Frequent showers and a couple of runs into town to get ice cream, because, ya know, because.

We rented a carpet cleaner that aggravated my tendonitis/tennis elbow, and hauling the couch downstairs yesterday threw my back out, so this afternoon's session on the scaffolding is going to be entertaining.

Tonight we head back to Mississauga to babysit the kidlets for the weekend, and I give a talk in church. Then back up here Sunday afternoon to keep working. I'm going the States to see my family in August, and the painters return right when I get back, so this has all got to get done this coming week. Whee!

Lower level painted -- A shoutout to On Point Painters

Many thanks to Ernesto and On Point Painters. They got the whole lower level done in a day and a half, flawlessly done, tidy and efficient. They will come back to do the upper level in August and will do any touch-ups needed downstairs when they return, but so far I'm not seeing anything that needs touching up. A really professional company I can highly recommend. 

Golden brown in the rec room and a sunny yellow in the kitchen. Hard to see right now because we don't have much light in there yet. Electricians coming back soon to rectify that.

The drywallers had made an awful mess of the old carpet, but we can't afford to replace it yet, so we spent two or three days cleaning it like crazy, so it's got some life in it for a while longer. The blue will be replaced eventually, never fear.

All of the pillars used to be round little poles like the one below, but we boxed them in to allow us to bring the heat ducts down to the floor.

The big brown box in the photo below is the old insulated cupboard where food was kept warm for big church suppers. We are going to use it as a cheese-curing cupboard.

The old kitchen sink cupboards will be refurbished and become a buffet/sidebar between two of the pillars, between the "living room" area and the "dining room" area. The other long cabinet you can see on the right will be cleaned up and used back in the kitchen.

Looking from kitchen to rec room. 

A better view of the colour in the rec room.

 

The Shower's In!

Shower installed and septic hooked up. Plumbers now have to go away again until after the painter does his thing, then they'll come back to install bathroom fixtures and kitchen sink. Then the electrician has to come again to install an outlet, because the one we thought would work for the pump won't, and to finish the receptacles and lights downstairs, and then do the upper floors that are only roughed in. Then an inspector has to come give the nod of approval on everything thus far. Then we have to decide if we're doing the new septic this year or next.

The flooring will wait for a year or two. The kitchen will consist of roughed-in or homemade units until we can afford something permanent. No dishwasher or freezer in the budget. But hey, it's starting to look like a home!

Paint!

We're finally to the fun part of renovating---choosing paint colours. We are keen on earth-tones and will go for browns and golds in the basement apartment, to keep it cosy and grounded. Upstairs, we want the room to be light and airy, so will go for a pale ivory in the vestibule leading into a light gold for the sanctuary.

Doesn't that sound easy? Shouldn't it be a breeze to swan into Sherwin-Williams and select those colours? Think again. Do you know how many kinds of light gold there are? A month of debating, and I'm now convinced I'm completely colour-blind, because what I call gold, my husband calls peach, and what he calls gold, I call greeny-yellow, and we're about to come to blows over what pale ivory means. 

In the end, I will let him make the final decision, because a) I no longer trust my own judgment, and b) it really doesn't matter in the end, and c) he deserves to win this one after the heroic days he has put into drywalling. He didn't want a reno project, and he got the biggest of all reno projects. He wanted to spend his retirement playing his bagpipes and relaxing, and instead he's spending it up a ladder. Whatever we end up with, it will be lovely, because this building has good bones. It isn't the colour, really, that matters, so much as the feel of the place, and that will---hopefully, after the dust settles---be tranquil.