The reno: penultimate installment

Here we are more than half way through January and I’d better get the lead out if I’m going to reach the goal of 2 posts per month. There are two significant milestones this month and each deserves its own post, mostly because I anticipate more photos than I usually include.

I’d like to report that the renovation is finally done, but it’s not quite. Granted all that remains after last week is to get the correct cabinet hardware installed on two of the kitchen cupboards, and to get the door painted. We thought the hardware had arrived but when our trusty project manager went to pick it up it had disappeared into the ether, so we are still waiting. The door will have to wait until spring when temperatures will be reliably above +5 for a few days. If the paint goes on and the temperature drops, it won’t stick and it won’t be under warranty. Everything is functional and, overall, we are delighted with the decisions we made and the quality of work that made the designs a reality. Here's what it looks like now.

The drinks station where the old kitchen sink used to be

Looking from the dining room into the kitchen

Kitchen peninsula. We are getting new stools.

Looking toward the shop from the kitchen

Living room with new wider doors

Odie's corner of the dining room.

Upstairs bathroom

Merry Christmas (2021)

It’s a perfect day. It is Christmas Eve but days like this happen every once in a while for no apparent reason. In some ways today is nothing special. We are hanging out with Odie who happens to be semi-quiet at the moment. The temperature is going between -19 and -20 C, and the sky is a brilliant blue. It’s actually pleasant in the sun.

    We had a dump of snow last night and when we went out to shovel this morning Richard got warm enough to take off his parka. The snow was powdery so it wasn’t terribly heavy work although my Fitbit did tell me I got 23 minutes of cardio out of the activity. We don’t often shovel snow together, but today, as I was walking down the hall I saw Richard putting his keys in his pocket. I asked him if he was going to shovel the snow. He was and I was just on my way to the back door for my coat and boots. We decided to do it together. It goes much faster that way. We did the front walk, then the deck. I don’t know why I want to shovel the deck. Maybe it’s because I love to see the warm rich colours of the wood as I look out the window. Maybe it’s because I imagine taking a chair and a cup of tea to sip in the snowy landscape. I haven’t actually gotten the chair or the tea but if the deck is clear the possibility is there.

    I have wonderfully warm clothes. I wore the down ‘duvet’ that is slime green and that I got years ago for half price at MEC. I hate the colour, although I have friends who love it and I’ve had compliments on it while I’ve been shopping. There’s no accounting for taste, mine or anyone else’s. I wore the sealskin mitts that I bought from a hunter in Pond Inlet, and I topped the outfit off with a toque I crocheted just the other day. The pattern said you could finish it in an hour. Um, not in my universe! I pulled the thing down at least 6 times but ended up with a result I’m happy with. Oh, and I wore my new boots. They are actually a Christmas present but Richard wanted me to try them on to make sure they fit and once I knew what they were, I saw no point in having him wrap them up and put them under the tree even though he offered.
    

    They are Wind River X-ice and the only boots that CBC Marketplace found to really be anti-slip. (This is not a commercial.) I won’t say I can’t slip in them but if I don’t push off too hard with my toe they are amazingly steady on ice. I’m still careful crossing slippery streets but it’s nice not to have to do the ‘senior shuffle’ quite so much.

First coat of poly on the uke

   

 
 Another reason today is perfect is that I’m done making Christmas presents and have been for about a week. This has never happened before and I found myself a bit at loose ends because I had time to spare. I’ve been able to concentrate on getting ‘Lilred’ my current ukulele ready for finish. Every time I thought I was ready to go and get the finish, I found another flaw that I needed to take care of. This could go on forever, of course, so today I finally dunked the cotton pad into the polyurethane and wiped on the first coat. Because we’re not going anywhere for Christmas I’ll be able to babysit the finish which takes about 3 hours to dry between coats. I should be able to get another coat on shortly and then keep building up coats over the next few days. I haven’t worked enough with this finish to know exactly how to handle it to get the best results so it will be kind of fun figuring it out. The nice thing is that it’s a thin finish and I can always sand it down and start again if I need to. I don’t think it will come to that.


    Tonight we will head off to the Christmas Eve service, masked and triple-vaccinated. I’ve only missed one Christmas Eve service in this church since I was about 14. In 2019 we had the privilege of visiting family in Vancouver and attended a late service there. Last year we had shower curtains up to make individual booths for the singers and there were no people other than those involved in the service in the sanctuary. This year we have a cap on numbers. People signed up ahead of time and vaccine status will be checked at the door.

    Two years ago we had barely heard of Covid 19 and last year there were no vaccines by this time. This year we thought we might be getting out of the woods when Delta and then Omicron descended. We had just started to invite people, one or two at a time, to see our newly renovated house. That’s on hold again. With all the changes I’m becoming a bit more used to plans being cancelled and I think I’m calmer when things don’t work out the way I want them to. There are still days when I’m just plain mad at all the upheaval in the world in general and my world in particular but then I have days like today when I’m both happy and content.

    I have a house that is now a delight to live in. We have heat and running water, sunshine, snow, and sparrows in bushes loudly expressing their opinions. Odie looks at me, blinks his eyes, makes purring noises, and laughs whenever we do. Most importantly, though, I have kind and generous people in my life. Although we won’t be gathering in person again this year, it doesn’t matter so much. Christmas Day will be slow and casual and there are many ways I can contact those who enrich my life. I may not be able to hug them but I hope that will come. So Merry Christmas. I hope 2022 will bring good things to each of you each day and if, like me, you have days when you’re just plain cross at the whole world, may the memories of perfect days when there is really nothing special going on, lighten your mood if only for an instant.

Improvising the minutia

The renovation is getting closer to being finished each day. We are, of course, excited about the finished product and are getting a little impatient for it to be done. That said, it’s more anticipation than grumpiness because we have no complaints about the way the work has gone. The folks who are working on the job are all great, friendly, eager to answer our questions, and thoughtful. The quality of the work itself is impeccable. Each person who has worked on this has taken the same care they would take if this were their own house. We can’t ask for more than that!

As I headed to the shop today to do a pile of dishes, having gotten lazy and not done the ones from yesterday, I got the thinking about the accommodations we have made that are now just part of the routine. We collect the dishes in a dish pan downstairs where we prepare and eat most of our meals. We carry them up the stairs and into the shop where the out-feed table for my table saw becomes an auxiliary counter for the clean dishes. Since it’s raw plywood, we put down a tray with an absorbent dish mat inside it and onto the mat we put a dish drainer. I also lay a dish towel down on one side of the out-feed table to catch the drips because the table is wider than the tray. We take the tray downstairs and set it on a cabinet that has been displaced so that the main water shut-off to the house is readily available.

If we have more dishes than will fit into the dish pan, I have a piece of board from the old kitchen cabinets that I use to cover my sharpening stones on the right hand side of the sink and the extra dishes can sit there while they wait their turn to be washed. It all works pretty well and it will take us a while to get used to using the new dishwasher when it comes. In all of this I’m reminded of the people in Canada who don’t have access to clean water and for whom the system we have might be a luxury.

I have grumbled a bit about the set-up we have for hand washing in the bathroom although it does work quite well. About once a day one of us dumps the water from hand washing into the shower drain, rinses out the plastic tote, and takes the detergent container up to the shop to refill it with clean water. The push button on the detergent container is very convenient for washing hands. I don’t remember where I read that camping tip, but I’ve been grateful for it for the last month. We can use regular towels and our washer and dryer work which is another bonus.

Lighting is another thing we take for granted: flip the switch and you get light. At the moment there are very few switches, or lights, on the main floor. The bedroom and studies haven’t been altered so we still have lights there. There are also lights in the garage, on the outside of the garage, and in the entrance from the garage. There is one plug-in lamp in the living room and there are no lights in the kitchen or the dining room. No light in the hallway or the front steps either. We’ve had to think ahead a little when we’ve been going for walks at twilight. Leave a light on in the living room. Make sure the flashlights on our key rings are working so we can see to unlock the door.

That’s not much of an issue at the moment because the front steps have been demolished so we are using the garage as the entrance to the house and we have a very bright, motion-detecting light that shines on the cement pad. I have taken to leaving a pocket flashlight in the shop for whoever shuts off the lights for the night. That way we can turn off the landing light and see to get through to the bedroom.

During the presence of the recent heat dome we were without screens on the windows. We put a bed sheet up over the window in the bedroom and left the light off as much as possible. It was a bit more difficult when I wanted to work in my study after dark. I tried to work with the window open just a crack and only one task light on. The moths seemed to be able to get in anyway and I did end up swatting a few mosquitos. The screens we always took for granted are now a fresh delight every evening when we need to cool the house down.

In some ways, making our way through this reno has been a bit like camping: things are simplified. We don’t worry about the things that can be done later. We have food, water, a sturdy roof over our heads, and a reasonable level of convenience. I know that eventually all the changes we have made to the house will become part of the background to everyday living, but maybe it’s not a bad thing to have routines disrupted every once in a while so we can be reminded of how fortunate we are to live far beyond the necessities of life.