Renovation Day ... I have no idea!

The reno continues and we are happy with the results, although as we get farther and farther into it and can see glimpses of what the finished product will look like, it gets harder to be patient.

There have been regular bumps along the way and the supply issues caused by Covid 19. Each day the build moves in the right direction and that is what matters when combined with the first-rate workmanship of all the trades who have been here so far.

We have enough deck boards now so that we can sit out on the deck as I did yesterday morning. It’s not quite as pleasant as listening to the red-winged blackbirds that frequented the campground we stayed in this week, but it’s not half bad for being in the middle of the city. The house shades the deck in the morning and the Manitoba maple tree shades most of the deck in the afternoon and evening.

Now that we’ve been doing this since April, we know where more of our stuff is and so spend less time looking for things. We haven’t had a mirror in the one working bathroom for the last few weeks and when I see myself in a mirror I think,”Huh, so that’s what I look like.” We do have a full length mirror in the bedroom but I don’t often look at that one in my day-to-day comings and goings.

We have the dishwashing system working well and it will be a treat when we again have a dishwasher. The thing I will be most glad to retire is the jug-and-plastic bin set up for washing our hands in the bathroom. Somehow walking upstairs and into the shop to wash hands is just too much of an annoyance, hence the jug and bin. The shower works so when the bin gets full we empty the water down the shower drain. We fill up the jug about once a day. The washing machine and dryer still work although they share their space with the set of shelves that have been temporarily displaced from the bathroom. There’s a certain obstacle-course quality to laundry days.

With the heat we have been eating a lot of salads so haven’t needed to cook much. The Instant Pot does a great job of hard boiled eggs. Every once in a while we buy a dozen, hard cook them and use them in salads and sandwiches. We have three working fridges if you count the one on the van so we can certainly keep things cold.

We were out of the house last week so painting could happen. The cabinet fronts aren’t here yet so we’ll have another round of painting when they arrive. The floor is done and we love it! We have new windows but no screens. It’s been so hot we’ve needed to have the windows open and the fan going at night and. Knock wood, we haven’t had too much of a problem with tiny winged creatures getting into the house.

The rest of the boards for the deck are somewhere in transit and we’re hoping they will be here next week. I think the new front door should be here fairly soon as well and that means that the front of the house can be finished. We will still have to have a security screen door made since the new door is wider than the old one. All the appliances are at the dealer’s so there won’t be any holdups there when the time comes to install them.

We’ve been able to visit Odie a number of times. He is always glad to see Richard and, in his own quirky way, glad enough to see me once he has fawned over Richard for a while. This is the longest time he has ever been away from us.. Soon it will be time to pull out all the pieces of his cage, drag them to the front lawn and clean them all up with the hose, then hope we can figure out how the cage goes back together again.

Having said we haven’t had much trouble with bugs I just dispatched a very quick little white bug motoring up the handle of my tea spoon.

I think that’s enough of a ramble for the moment. Concrete work is still to come as is the installation of cabinet doors, counter tops, appliances, lights, switches and faucets. It’s coming together and we can see now that the new configuration will work very well for us. Patience, patience.




Stay tuned.

A different sort of lunch date

Alberta hit a high in terms of new Covid cases today (406)and with that we get closer to increased restrictions. I was thinking of what I miss and don’t miss about life before Covid. I don’t miss the busyness. Even a retired person can run around frantically trying to do too many things. I very much like staying home in the evenings especially now that the weather has turned wintery. During the summer we enjoyed the occasional yard visit either here or at friends’. That’s not going to be happening now for a while so I guess I’ll be putting in a bit more Zoom and Skype time. I do miss eating out. It’s a chance to get out of the house, have someone else do the cooking and the clean-up, and just chat with each other. While restaurants are open for in-person dining, we haven’t felt comfortable going into a restaurant and with the case numbers on the rise we won’t be going anytime soon. So what do we do instead?


Mostly we get take-out and eat it at home. Today Richard suggested that we get take-out and eat lunch somewhere with a view. We ate our Vietnamese subs in the car at the top of Battalion Park. Even though I managed to get sauce on my down jacket, I enjoyed watching the cars come and go on the newly-opened south part of the ring road and the familiar shopping centre looks very different from above. I think we will have to make a concerted effort this winter to do different things or to do things differently. Who knows, I may even be seized by an attack of tidiness and systematically deal with the various nooks and crannies in the house where overlooked stuff has taken up residence. I know some of you are laughing at that possibility and, if I were you, I wouldn’t hold my breath. Still, these are unprecedented times and unprecedented things happen in unprecedented times. I’ll keep you posted.