Completed projects:

roof, kitchen, master bedroom, main bathroom (sans shower tile), fireplace, hardwood flooring, windows, office, front entry, stairway

Ongoing projects:

shower surround, dapping/painting woodwork, ensuite vanity/lights/mirror, painting outdoor trim, finishing front entry tile work, interior door painting and hardware, decorating

Monday, May 19, 2008

Jenna's welcome home surprise!

So Jenna the dog keeps walking over to this one wall in the kitchen. I know what she wants. She wants to be let out onto the back deck, leading to the backyard. Poor confused dog. Her hopeful looks she shoots back at me won't help her either. She CAN'T go that way any longer because...

there's no more back door!

Cody, Jenna and I drove our travel trailer up to Harrison this weekend to get it set up for the season. That was a story in itself, however in an extreme attempt to stay on topic, I'll concentrate on the newer story at hand here.

We came home on Monday, mid afternoon to find the front and garage doors WIDE open. I saw Mandy sitting in the doorway greeting me with a big smile. And out comes Janette with a broom in her hand. Whaaaa....

So.... apparently a few people had a reno party at my house to which I wasn't invited!

Immediate guilt crept up inside me. I should have been here to help! Cry! Whine! Whatever it is I do when I'm here. But I think they were even smarter than I made them out to be. I think they devised this little plan and left me right where I was for good reason! As Janette explained, I was on holidays and how wonderful to come home to something new being done! She was indeed right.

I'll admit this tired house will get worse before it gets better. Fully expecting no renos this weekend, Cody and I carried on with some plans that did NOT include the house. This structure is truely getting alot of attention and somewhat spoiled at that, so we diverted our interest to worrying about rv water leaks and rv towing instead. (there was some fun in there too naturally but this still truthful explanation makes me feel much less guilty!!)

And we came home to a whole lotta been done stuff!

1. Jenna's kitchen door is history. In it's place is lovely 2x6 framed in plywood, prepped all up for my lovely new kitchen windows!

2. Outside stucco around windows is prepped for windows too! Scaffoling and ladders galore out there!

3. Trench down hallway boarded up nice and tight, ready for eventual floor install!

4. Gorgeous pine ceiling installed in the basement downstairs. Remember those ceiling envy pictures? This one truely wins the REAL envy version! And neatly trimmed around a row of potlights to boot!

5. Drywall installed where the woodstove use to be!

6. Janette swept and took pictures!

7. Mandy made lunch!

8. My dream chosen baseboard was found in the garage!

And from there, I don't know more. I do feel so sorry for those that moved all that basement junk out of the way though. That's something I could easily have done had I known what was being worked on in advance. Hard to guess these days where to scoot stuff being that nearly every room in the house is somehow being touched! So thanks to all of you for getting to marvel at just how much crap I store in an open room concept, soon to be hidden in appropriate places I hope!

Although I very much appreciate all the efforts going into the not so pretty aspect of the renos, when something pretty actually happens, it stuns me. I've lived in ugly for so long I don't know what to do with the pretty. Let's just say everytime I go into that pine covered ceiling room, my jaw opens wide open again as if seeing it for the very first time. Fabulous, simply fabulous.

Among the list of hard workers today were:

Jake, Ralph, Ben, Vic, Jeremy, Micha, Dan, Mandy, Janette. Thanks so much to all of you sneaky wonderful folks!

UPDATE: Dave T. was pulled off a job to help get the pine ceiling started. Thanks so much Dave! I can't wait to meet you!!

And Jenna. Let's add her to the list as well. Because she's working really hard at finding her back door! For now, she is reluctantly adjusting to walking through a window with a chair in front and behind the window to form makeshift steps.

Welcome to the world of renos, Jenna! Woof woof back atcha!

Thanks again everyone! I'm sorry I missed all of you but I appreciate what you did for me so very much! (pics to follow soon)

And to add..

I've missed two entries that happened last week.

*Pete and Erna came one evening, late, to quickly cut out some trenches for Rich. Erna wasn't feeling up to par and Pete had just had a very long day doing other things, and here they were at MY house doing this! I felt like tucking them both into bed. I sure appreciate you two! Thanks!

*Rich and Alec came the next day to work on the electrical downstairs so the pine ceiling could be installed this week! Thanks again Rich and Alec, and it was nice to meet Alec for the first time too!