Sunroom

I finally found the perfect furniture for the sunroom!


I have done very little buying and selling on Craigslist, but I am an avid "looker" at the listings.  One of the things I have been searching for is wicker furniture, and while many listings have come and gone, nothing really caught my eye until this one:

"Pier 1 Azteca wicker furniture, lightly used, settee, chair, ottoman, coffee table, and  side table $500."

Wow!  I love Pier 1 stuff, and since this Azteca furniture is still part of their line, I went to the local store to have a look at it and test it for comfort.  Price new, including cushions and tax for all the pieces in the ad was almost $2200.

 

The new furniture in the sunroom

I emailed the seller, Val, and we had a few chatty emails back and forth.  She was selling because she needed a hide a bed in her living room as she is waiting for a hip replacement and won't be able to get upstairs in her condo for 6 weeks  after the surgery. She bought the Azteca furniture as a treat to herself when she first bought her condo a couple of years ago. 

I told her I really didn't want the large coffee table, but I would take it to get it off her hands.  She said if I took everything she'd drop the price to $400.  I LOVE CRAIGSLIST!!

So I rallied my son to give me a hand and we went and picked it up. It is in perfect condition.  The cushions are slightly worn, so I may replace them in the future.  But I am happy, happy, happy with the way the sunroom looks now, including a newly framed painting done by my Dad and a little area for my guitar practice.

 

Dad's painting

 

Guitar Practice Area

 



 

The coffee table I didn't want is a great home for Mom's Christmas Cacti that are blooming like mad!

 

 

Cabin - et Fever

It has been cabinet finishing time lately. 

You might not remember the built in cabinets in what was the dining room of the country estate house.  They were butt ugly.  Seriously.  Unfortunately the flooring was installed right up to them but not under them, making removing them somewhat of an inconvenience. 

Okay, no one could argue that these are attractive.  Definitely '70's looking.

This room is going to be our home office, so the two corner units will be able to house books and files.  The big built in leads right into our dining area, so once it is finished, I will sell or repurpose the dining cabinet we have been using and move all the contents into this one.

This project has started and stalled many times.  Before Christmas I got rid of the sliding glass doors and the tracks, and sanded off all the residual glue from the tracks.  Then nothing happened for some time.

A few weeks ago I removed all the hardware, doors and drawers and sanded everything down.  We took the drawers into work with us and used some evening time to paint them there.

Here are the drawers on the workbench being painted.

This weekend we finished the filling and sanding, and I painted the cabinets while Chuckles made a new shelf for each.  In some of these pics you can see the new shelves sitting out front with white primer on them, they are still needing to be painted with the colour which is Monashee Mountains by Sico. 

Above, the big cabinet with the cutting of the new colour.  Below, with the first coat of new colour on.

Above, one of the corner cabinets with the cutting in done, below, with the first coat of colour on.

Below, all the cabinet doors needed one final coat, here they are laid out on floor.

I admit that part of my hesitation in moving the project forward was our colour choice.  I have had the swatch for ages and kept on holding it up to the cabinets and trying to picture them that colour.  Problem is, I am not good at "picturing".  We chose this colour because we wanted them to be darker, and this colour really picks up colour in the backsplash kitchen tiles as well as the living room carpets, so it seemed like a good colour in this transitional space.  But, it's so hard to know for sure until you do the painting, and then, if you don't like it...?

Luckily we both like it a lot!  I think it's going to look fantabulous when it's done.  And the hardware I chose is really pretty too. It's brushed copper, really cool.

 

The new hardware in package, I should have photo's someplace beside the counter top, which has a busy pattern.  Oh well, you get the idea!

 I like it much better than the hardware that's in the kitchen..oh no, does that mean another project?

First Post of 2014

Here we are half way through January and now I get around to saying Happy New Year to you!  Did you make any resolutions for 2014?

I gave up on resolutions several years ago, and surprisingly that is when meaningful changes began happening in my life.  Somehow those resolutions I used to make seemed to set me up for failure - an all or nothing scenario, whereas thoughtful small changes worked at over time have added up to some big differences. 

So, rather than quitting or starting something at the stroke of midnight on Dec 31st, I have been ruminating on some new things for myself for the future and have begun the small shifts.  We shall see in time where they lead!

Progress, albeit slow, has begun on the storage shed at the country estate.  Chuckles suffered with a hand injury through November than prevented him from doing very much, then it was Christmas with all the busyness that brings.  During the last several days of the Christmas break he was able to make a big push on the shed.  Last weekend's stormy weather precluded any more progress except tarping the structure so it didn't become waterlogged.  Fingers crossed that this coming weekend brings better weather.  If only he could go out and work on it mid week, but he has too much work to do in town to take the time for that.

This shed will accommodate all the stuff currently stored in the barn, which then will undergo a transformation from barn to workshop. 

Early in December I made a bit of headway with the built in cabinets in the room that will be our office.  I have removed all the glass, drawers and shelves, removed the tracks that the glass ran on, and sanded everything down.  Now I need to get a piece of wood to fill the groove the track was laid in, and do some filling and more sanding before they are ready for paint. 

 

The lower pic is the full size hutch which we will finish to model after the pic below:

 

 

The corner cabinets will be painted to match, although somewhere down the road I hope to do something like this:

Before

 



 

 After

 

All in good time!

 

 

Meanwhile we are dog sitting for the next two weeks for my cousins who have gone to Mexico.

 

Leo is a Duck Toller, and is very attached to his family.  Here he is just an hour after they left looking out the window for them to return!

 

 

He has settled in now and we are having fun together.  I know the two weeks are going to fly by!





 

Whoo!! What a Week!

It Friday!  And so ends my week of putting out fires.  Two suppliers shipped wrong items, both internationally of course, requiring flurries of emails, phone calls and oh so much paperwork!

 Mail ordered  clothes received were sent in the wrong sizes and had to be returned.  Mail ordered boots previously returned for credit, were sent back to me repaired (badly),   meaning  more emails and paperwork.   But… on the bright side this week I did receive my free pair of boots on Wednesday which were replacements for the defective ones I just got back!  Now I have two pairs, but one will be going back for sure.

And a hippie couple came in with their kayak, all the way from Lasquiti Island, with a fit issue on a sprayskirt we made for them almost two years ago.  So we  got the skirt sorted out, they bought a second one, we stored their kayak overnight so they wouldn’t have to drive around Vancouver with it on top of their van (nope, not the VW you are picturing right now!) and they have now gone back to their life off the grid with big smiles on their faces.

 All’s well that ends well, as they say!  

Our first Christmas on the country estate is fast approaching!  Somehow, it’s not as I pictured it.  Since we are still spending most of our time working in the city,  the country estate still seems to me more like a holiday destination than actually home.   Chuckles would disagree.  To him, the country estate is a place where we go and work from morning until night without ever getting a paycheck!

Tomorrow I plan to pull out the Christmas decoration boxes and spread a few bits and pieces around the house.  First, I have to FIND the Christmas boxes.    I am pretty sure they made it into the crawlspace.  That means that I have to go into the crawlspace.  Ewwww…

 

 

Then I think we will put up lights on some of the outside trees.  I picture this task completed with mugs of steaming hot chocolate in our hands and pretty red scarves ‘round our necks –  as we smile happily at each other with flashes of our brilliantly white teeth – something right out of a GAP commercial.  The reality will be more like cursing at each other as we attempt to untangle balls of light strings as my hands freeze off due to the Raynaud’s Syndrome.

WHATEVER!  We are going to do this Christmassy stuff even if it KILLS US!

And once the lights are up and the decorations are out, I hope to make some faux gingerbread houses with my little gal pal Heidi.  She found this idea in a school library book last year and we vowed to do it this year, so I am crossing my fingers that she is free this weekend sometime.

 

 

 

Good-Bye City House!

We have slept our last night at the city house, and all that's left to do is gather up the few things which are still there and give it a final wipe down, and we're done!

I thought this moment would be bittersweet, but I actually feel like it's just a job to be done and good riddance, as two houses are too many to look after in the long term.  Life will be simpler from this point forward.  Sort of.

As we were taking the final load out of the city-house garage last weekend, our neighbor who shares our back alley was pulling into his garage.  He took a moment to come over to chat, and proclaimed that we are conducting the slowest move ever! 

 

Another load from the garage to the country estate

 

Of course, he only sees the city end of things, and has no idea of all the work we have accomplished at the country estate to date.  AND, I noticed that his garage is pristine enough that you could eat off the floor and there were about three garden implements hanging off the wall and that was IT.  Unlike our garage which has been a woodworking, metalworking, mechanical garage for the past 30 odd years with all the accompanying bits and pieces.  Not sure what he does for fun, but I have the feeling that he and Chuckles have NOTHING in common!!

Nicky

My little grand-dog Nicky was with us for the weekend.  We discovered Friday night that she had fleas, so Saturday morning bright and early I was at the Co-Op, buying shampoo and flea powder to treat her with.  I was a bit concerned that it would be like bathing a Tasmanian devil, and if you have ever seen her run from one end of our property to the other in 3 seconds flat, you would understand my concern!  Staying still is not her strong suit.  I had a sleepless night Friday thinking about the scratches and nips I was going to sustain, not to mention the potential of my newly decorated bathroom being destroyed. 

Happily it was absolutely the opposite.  Once I coaxed her into the tub and familiarized her with the running water and the spray nozzle, she acted like a princess on a spa day!  She rested her chin on the edge of the bathtub and was like a blob of jelly - so relaxed that when I moved my hand off her to get more shampoo, she slid down the side of the tub in slow motion as her legs splayed out from under her.  She would have stayed there all day if I had nothing better to do! 

We bought the exterior windows and doors for the barn reno on Saturday, picked up the load from the garage in the city and unloaded that at the country estate and basically sorted and tidied most of the day.  Until it was  suddenly 8 o'clock and we were starving hungry! We went to a restaurant in our little "downtown" area.  We have been trying a different one each time we eat out, which is not every weekend, probably every other weekend or so.  So far the Mexican place El Pollo gets my vote.  The one we went to this past weekend offered all you can eat ribs, which were pretty good.  The proprietor had a unique way of checking on his guests - rather than asking how everything was the conversation was more like:

Proprietor:" The ribs are pretty good aren't they?"
One of us "Mmmm yes they are."
Proprietor" "They're really meaty aren't they?"
one of us "Yes, they are."
Proprietor: " Everyone love them because they're so meaty, that's the trick, they're meaty!"
One of us "Yes, they are."

A variation of this conversation took place every time he came by our table - which was often, as he was attentive (in his own way). 

Every meal we have eaten since we have a similar conversation:

Me: " This cereal's really grainy isn't it?"
Chuckles "yes, it is!"
Me: "We really love it because its so grainy, don't we?"
Chuckles: "Yes, we do!"

Then we laugh.  Lame, I know.  But it amuses us!

We bought curtains and rods for all the bedrooms and put them up on Sunday, in preparation for both our sets of parents coming out for their first overnight visit next weekend.  Curtainless windows are fine when it's only us in the house, but when there are six adults  -  you never know who may need to run out to their car in the front driveway at an inopportune moment when someone else is getting changed in the curtainless bedroom!  The choice was curtains or after dark lock-down,  so we opted for curtains! 

I checked out Pier 1 Imports first, as I do love their stuff, but the didn't have much selection on rods and their curtains were terribly expensive.  So, I walked over to Home Sense and found just what I was looking for at a fraction of Pier One's price.   I have to say that Langley is good for shopping if you can tolerate the traffic chaos!

 I am going to leave the windows in the living spaces without window covers.  Privacy isn't an issue as our property is completely private from the road and neighbors,  and I like the unobstructed view of the green trees and fields so much!!

 

I would rather look at the gardens than at curtains or blinds

Tonight is our first night staying in the city in our commercial building.  We have partitioned off a space that will do as a make-shift bedroom so that we are not committed to commuting 5 days a week.  Since we have lots to do here to get ready for the business move down the road, our time will be better spent here sorting and downsizing (we have to fit 6000 sq ft  of stuff into 2500 sq ft of space), and we are getting back into our swimming routine next week - for which I am very excited!!  I have missed my swimming so much, and I know my back and hips will appreciate it too.

We will stay in the commercial space until we go on our vacations in October, then we can decide after that if the commercial space is working as a living space or if we want to bring the travel trailer into the city and put it at the RV park down the road.  It's kind of fun being nomadic.  Not something that I could do permanently, but I am enjoying the diversity now, knowing it is for a relatively short time.

And that pretty much brings the blog up to date!

Sky High Skylights

Well my painting project got off to a rocky start. 

The ceilings in the house at the country estate need painting badly.  So obviously that has to be done before tackling the walls.

I decided that the best place to start was with the skylights, of which there are four.  Four tall skylights.  I'm tall, but they are really, really tall.  Sky high, or so it seems when you are teetering up on a ladder, in a narrow passageway with hot sun beaming on your head, and the treetops visible through the skylight (if you are brave enough to open your eyes!).

After breakfast I asked Chuckles if he could help me, so he got the extension ladder from the garage and set it up in the foyer skylight, the lowest of the four.  Good place to begin.  He showed me how to work the ladder, where to set the rung so it was secure, and how to test it before ascending. 

 

Ready to paint the first of the four skylights! 

It took me a while to figure out which parts to paint by hand, what I could reach with the roller from the ladder and what I could reach with the roller attached to a pole and to overcome my fear that the ladder was going to slip out from under me.  Okay - I never overcame that fear.  I just persevered through it.  Unfortunately, on one of the skylight walls, a bit of the popcorn ceiling peeled off when I used the roller on it, but I was able to paint over the spot with the brush and it looks fine.

After an hour, I was done, and moved the whole process into the master bedroom, where the roof is higher, hence, so is the skylight.  Gulp. 

I set up the ladder.  Positioned the rung correctly.  Tested it for non-slip.  Climbed up with my paint pot in one hand and brush in the other.  Was unable to reach the very edge of the glass without climbing higher.  Could not make myself do it.  Climbed down and gave myself a good talking to. 
Didn't work.  Chuckles came in the house, so I told him I was nervous about climbing higher on the ladder.  He climbed to the top, pronounced it safe, went back outside and started up the lawn tractor. 

I can honestly say I hated him in that moment.

Following his lead, I climbed to the step I needed to be on to reach the edge of the glass.  I was actually wimpering.  I was up there, but paralyzed, I couldn't dip into my paint pot and begin.  I climbed back down to assess the situation.  It occurred to me that I needed to free up one hand to be able to hold onto the ladder, that would help.  So, I jury-rigged a bucket tied to the ladder to put my paint pot in, which meant every time I needed to dip my brush I had to go down two rungs, dip, then back up two rungs, paint.  But it worked.  And that was just to get the hand painting done around the edge and down the seams.  Then I used the roller from a lower rung.  However, even more popcorn texture peeled off in this skylight, so it took more work to repair/disguise it.

An hour and a bit later, I moved the entire production into the main bath where the going got tricky.  The skylight is over the bathtup, so I had to finagle the ladder around tub and toilet, as well as covering all kinds of uneven surfaces with drop cloths.  Finally done with that, and knowing that this skylight was even higher than the bedroom skylight, I decided to give myself a break and start with the roller rather than the hand painting.  I hoped I would be able to get so close to the top with the roller that I might not even need to hand paint!  But disaster struck.  First swipe with the roller peeled off a whole bunch of popcorn texture. 

 

It's hard to see, but the popcorn texture is all peeled off above the ladder.

At which point I packed it in.  I just had to walk away, and it was lunchtime.  Over lunch I told Chuckles how frustrated I was and how I had really wanted his help.  He was surprised!  He thought I had wanted to do this myself.  So I clarified my position.  I am good with the walls, even the regular height ceilings.  But I am no sky high skylight painter.  No sir.