We made plans to hold a small ceremony here for her in late August. Not everyone was able to attend the Celebration of Life that was held in St. Catharines in May, so we thought it would be nice to invite those who couldn't make it, to come here. And it seemed like the right way to honour her connection to this beautiful area and the cabin that she loved so much. With some family members arriving and needing a place to stay, and others coming for the ceremony and a luncheon, Rob and I got just the motivation we needed to get back to working on the new house, and to spend some time figuring out some of the meals and logistics for the upcoming event. I kept referring to it as "Mom's party", as we wanted the event to be a celebration.
Although Rob and I hadn't yet stayed in the new house, we knew that we could make it comfortable enough for his two brothers and a sister-in-law to stay there. We told them it would be a bit like "glamping" (glamorous camping) but it was really much better than that. Well, at least we hoped it would be by the time they arrived ! First Rob had to get back to working on the guest bathroom; putting in a sink and counter. He made the counter out of maple, in a butcher block style, and installed a sink that we had bought second hand from a friend when he was renovating his bathroom some years earlier. But the real coup was the sink tap, a perfectly good Moen tap that I had scooped for free at a nearby Reuse center. (A place where you can drop off no-longer needed household items, or pick up what has been dropped off - all for free. Not only is it a great way to divert items from landfill, but it was free! ) Oops, I had already mentioned the "free" part. Anyone who knows me though, knows how much I appreciate something for nothing! A little bit of a clean up and the tap worked perfectly, and it looks great too.
Next on the "to-do" list was to empty out the master bedroom, which was full of tools, scaffolding, and tiles, not to mention the bathtub for the master bathroom. So it was obviously time to get that tub installed. In our drawing plans this tub has moved location several times. We have gone back and forth on whether to place it along the wall that is positioned under the window, or the wall to the left of it. I'm pretty sure it's final resting place is likely where it was first drawn in the original plans!
Next up was the tiling job. It's hard on the knees, (notice I didn't say "old" knees !) so we are thankful for knee pads. We puzzled over the best way to finish the area where the horizontal surface tiles around the bath met the vertical surface tiles at the side of the bath. Eventually we found a great rounded corner bead product. Of course this involved multiple trips to hardware stores and tile stores before we found the right one. Then we balked at the price, but in the end, couldn't find anything else that would do it as neatly so went for it. Although we had to order it, it fortunately arrived within a week or so.
Grouting was the next item on the list. We really couldn't be sure that we had picked the right colour of grout until it was all applied and had time to dry. We'd been looking at grout colour charts for quite a while, and my original choice was a somewhat lighter shade, but I'm glad we went with the darker one. I had no idea there were even so many choices in grout colours until now. I'm guessing the last time we grouted around bathroom tiles there was no real choice!
I did a double take when I saw the photo below, as it looks like an Obi Wan Kenobi light sabre beaming in . On closer look, it's just the light coming in through the window. Still, it looks kind of cool!
Rob checks out the new taps! There was a lot of discussion on tap placement, but in the end, there was only one choice. Funny how that works out. The drain for this tub is in the center which seems unusual to me, but then I'm used to a pretty standard old fashioned tub.
Before I knew it, the walls were primed, painted, and the bathtub was permanently installed. I swore I wasn't going to test out this tub until we actually moved in. But one day in September we had a day long power outage at the cabin, and had no running water there. Of course the new house, being solar powered, had plenty of running water! As we had plans to go out to a movie, and wanted to get cleaned up first, we agreed we would use the new tub that day. Ahhhh...it is a very comfortable bathtub for sure. We need to install some grab bars though as it is a pretty deep tub, and they would be useful to hold onto when stepping in and out. Especially as we get ummmm.... "older".
The sink in the lower right hand side of the photo is a temporary one. (And yes - it's the one I also scooped for free at the Reuse Center.) It's useful right now for when Rob is washing paint brushes etc., but it's almost time to put the permanent bathroom sink and counter top in, and then I believe, this one will go up in my studio.
One problem we did run into this summer though, was the issue of high humidity. Although I love a hot humid summer, there were a number of days when that heat and humidity made it so that almost nothing got done. The floor finish wouldn't dry, nor would the drywall compound. We set up fans in the hope that some extra air movement would help, but the humidity level in the house remained fairly high (we could actually run a dehumidifier since we have excess power in the summer). After such a long cold winter, neither one of us wanted to complain about it being too hot or too humid. And I'm happy to say that I changed into a bathing suit and headed to the river to cool off more times this summer than I ever remember doing in previous summers.
We also found that the high humidity was also taking it's toll on our items in the storage shed, so whenever we had a chance we would pick up a few boxes and try to sort things out. We had done all of our boxes of books and most of our clothing earlier in the year. We were pleased to find that most of the remaining items were fine, although some items such as my sewing fabrics didn't fare very well, and had to be thrown out. While we were going through the boxes, we managed to pull out a few items that we knew for certain were no longer required, and get them into a "to be donated" box. We also pulled out some kitchen items, as we thought it would be nice to have some real dishes and cutlery when people arrived in late August. We've been living here in the cabin with pretty minimal kitchen ware!
Once the boxes of items were cleaned and sorted, we tucked them away in the upstairs of the new house. It felt a bit strange to be moving them in, long before we will actually move in ourselves. But we were happy to have them somewhere clean and dry.
With a luncheon for 10 planned, as well as a couple of lunches and dinners for our "house guests", we set to installing a temporary counter and cupboard in the kitchen.
We finished tidying up the house a bit more, stocked the fridge up with a few items, and the house was ready! We planned on cooking almost everything in the cabin, and then bringing it over to the new house. I must say that it made for a bit of running back and forth, but it worked perfectly.
It was wonderful for me to be able to spend some time with Rob's brothers Kit and Ryan, and Ryan's lovely partner Michelle. It's been a while since I've seen my "in-laws" in person (thank goodness for Skype at least!) as in the last few years I have stayed behind to look after the cats and dog whenever Rob would make the trip to visit them. It was their first time seeing the new house, and it was fun to show them around. We had a nice meal together on the Saturday night, and had some time to sit and chat. Rob and I headed home before bedtime with the dirty dishes as it was easier to wash them in the cabin, and sort out what we needed for the next day. In the morning, Rob went over and whipped up breakfast and coffee while I stayed home to get the rest of the luncheon organized. Then some of Rob's cousins, their spouses, and a second cousin arrived for the day, (with more food!) and it was absolutely delightful to all spend some time together. Rob and his two brothers scattered some of their Mom's ashes at the river, while the rest of us toasted her with a champagne tribute and then we headed to the house for lunch. Although we spread ourselves around the house during the lunch, for some reason we all ended up sitting in the overhang porch outside the workshop for the remainder of the afternoon! It seemed to be the agreed upon gathering place. There, we reminisced about Rob's Mom, and the times we used to all get together with her and the other members of her family. We really wanted our time together to be a celebration and I think we all did a grand job of it. But every one one of us felt the absence of Mom's presence, and wished she was still here with us.
I was a little bit sorry that I didn't take a single photo at "Mom's party", but sometimes it just feels right for me to be totally present for the moment without the distraction of my camera, and this was one of those times.
Before we knew it, our time with family was over. We were just a little surprised to go out on our walk shortly after everyone's departure and find a large pile of bear scat on our road. We had been assuring everyone all weekend that we hadn't seen any signs of a bear in the area this year!
Because the house was in reasonable shape for guests, we invited one more friend to come up in September for an overnight visit. Our dear friend Joe arrived and we spent an afternoon together enjoying a short hike up at the beautiful Shaw Woods.
We came home, had a great dinner in the new house, and had a good evening of catching up with each other. I only wish I had taken a photo of the marvelous bed we put together for Joe in the guest bedroom, using a futon, scaffolding and scaffolding platforms. (We put the same bed together for Rob's brother and sister in law in August and I forgot to take a photo then too!) It was truly "industrial style" and I actually quite liked the look of it. But I've looked through all my photos, and can't find a single shot of it. We spent the following morning sitting by the river, and then enjoyed a lunch together before he had to head home. By this time, I was getting pretty good at planning and preparing meals in the cabin and bringing them down to the new house! Not to mention hauling all the dishes back and forth!
I must say that Rob and I are really looking forward to being able to spend more time here with friends and family in the near future. This off-grid house building thing has been quite the project, and it will be nice when we are able to offer guests some food and a place to stay a little more easily.
We try to balance out our hours spent working on the house, with having some "down" time. But, as much as we enjoyed some of our socialising, it was time to get back at it. We really are hoping to move in this year, and there are a lot of things that need to be done before we can do so.
Although we don't have much in the way of furniture, we did have a couple of items that we wanted to get out of storage before winter set in, both of them rather heavy and bulky to move. After some debate we decided which of the upstairs studios they would go in. It was an interesting discussion as Rob tends to like having lots of storage, and I tend to like having lots of open space! After we had worked out a floor plan that would suit us both, we cleared out my studio area first to make room for the drafting table. While the space was empty, Rob decided to redo the wood floor. It hadn't come out entirely to our liking, and we figured now was the time to fix it, so he re-sanded it and applied another few coats of finish. This time it came out much smoother. Don't worry when you look at the photo, there will be a cable railing to stop anyone from going over the edge!
We still had some finishing work on the walls in the second area to do before we piled too much more in there. I'm still not sure what to call this room. The studio/office/cat hang out room ? Regardless, we got it all mudded, sanded, primed and painted. Then we managed to move in the flat files, and pretty much left everything else in there in a heap. It will take a while to sort out this space, and see exactly what we use it for, and what it will require. It's such a beautiful room and I can't wait to get all the boxes out of there!
Although we did find some fun old memorabilia in some of the boxes. Like this little gem from Rob's days long, long ago when he managed a music store.
And Jet just had to check out his "baby" harness when we came across it and pulled it out.
September was a rather lovely month, but as the light began to change, and the nights started to get cooler, we found ourselves with a pretty long "to-do" list, and a lot of that list had to be completed before the snow arrived.
It was time to deal with our propane heater in the workshop and our "new" propane tanks needed to be moved to a permanent location. We had poured a concrete pad for two smaller tanks originally, but when we decided to go with bigger tanks, realized the pad wasn't quite big enough. Rob had to mix up some concrete and extend the pad. Then we arranged for the propane company to come in and complete the installation of the larger tanks.
One item that has been on our minds since the spring, was the tandem load of oak wood that was waiting to be chain sawed into shorter lengths, then split and stacked. Summer isn't a good time for that kind of job, both because of the heat, and the mosquitoes and black flies. Even in early September some of the days were simply too warm, although the insect population had declined. It's a quicker and easier job to do with two people, and a horrible job to do if it's raining (or snowing!). So on days when I wasn't working and the weather was decent, we began to grab a few hours here and there when we could, and started in on the pile. This wood is for future years, but it needs time to dry, especially as we will need some of it to be dry for next fall.
I learned to keep my back to the wood that needed splitting, so that I wouldn't dwell on how much had to be done, and instead looked at the growing pile of split and stacked wood to keep my spirits up. Slowly and surely the split wood started to stack up!
We actually both enjoy the process, and it was fun to work together, taking breaks every now and then and watching the birds flocking in the nearby cornfields.
Judging by the number of corn cobs we keep finding on our road, there are some other animals feeding on the corn, and after finding some rather substantial piles of corn infused scat, we started putting our trail cam up to see what was in the area. Sure enough, in early November one night we caught film footage of not one, but two bears coming from the corn field direction. Yikes!
It took a bit of work, and just when it seemed we'd never get the fire wood done this fall, the pile suddenly diminished, and it was pretty much finished.
At the end of the day we were both ready to head down into the river, and enjoy some cool refreshments. And as long as the warmer weather lingered in September (and even on a few days in early October!) we made sure to grab any opportunity we could to spend a bit more time in the river, or at the river's edge at the end of a long day.
On the days when we weren't splitting wood, our chores varied between working on the new house, and taking care of pre-winter tasks here at the cabin. We began with acid staining the floor of the master bedroom in the new house.
While the concrete floor was drying, we worked at repairing the trailer wiring harness that was installed on our truck (after discovering some odd flashing lights on our dashboard we finally figured out that it was due to the failing wiring harness!)
And then we did the servicing for the snow blower, and the tractor. With a little help from some manuals!
When our guests were here in August, we discovered a few glitches in our guest bathroom shower stall, so we also had to take a look at that design and fix a few areas there too. It appears that it is now all under control.
This is the time of year when I begin to sigh a lot. Rob is used to it, and points out that I do it every year as summer comes to an end, and fall arrives. I love all the seasons, but I guess summer is my favourite, and as the weather changes, and the evening sunset arrives earlier and earlier - well - I sigh a lot.
I do enjoy the soft light, the fog in the morning, and the colours of the leaves.
Still.... I sigh....
And then we get back to working on the house. Which meant going back to a job we began way before summer began. The job of installing more window frames! After much debate whether to use Oak, Maple, Cherry or Ash, we settled on Ash wood for the master bedroom frames. We seem to have a bit of a collection of nice wood, collected over the years, (rather a lot of years actually) and it's time to use some of it up. I like the grain and colour of the Ash, but then I pretty much liked any of our choices.
Maple was the choice for the guest bathroom window frame.
In the past, at this point in the blog, I would usually make sure that I included a photo of Rob and I doing something other than working on the house, so that Rob's Mom would know when she read it, that we also went out in the Fall and had some fun! So in her honour, here is how we spent Rob's birthday this year; a somewhat annual tradition of going for a walk in the beautiful Shaw Woods.
And we continued to head over to the point, to sit and relax and listen to the river at the end of the day, whenever we could.
In late October we tackled the finishing of the drywall in the master bedroom, a room that Rob assured me would be "no big deal" to do. But of course, it was still a lot of work; with lots of corners and angles and closets to do. In the past I believe we would have left the closets unfinished, but we are trying to finish everything that we can before we move in. We know from experience that unfinished drywall in a closet remains unfinished after you've piled all your clothes in it!
Mother Nature has a way of reminding you of the next season to come, so when it started snowing (really - in October ?) we rushed to finish off last minute outside jobs as soon as it melted. Pulling out those turquoise chairs and tucking them away was really hard for me. It's our favourite place to sit at the end of the day, and it was hard for me to admit that those days are over. I left the wood bench though....just in case.
And then we continued working on the bedroom; mudding and sanding, and getting the hallway and mudroom in shape as well.
I couldn't wait to see the bedroom painted, as I was still not convinced that I really liked the colour we chose, but although it's not a colour we would usually use, I love it. It has the right amount of lightness in the day, and warmth at night. And I think it shows off the beautiful wood beams perfectly.
The mudroom and hallway are the last two areas in the house that need to be painted. Already Rob is working at night on the next big project which will be the cabinetry.
We've moved the melamine board into the house in preparation. And I use the term "we" but I actually made sure I was working the day that these were moved into the house. Each sheet had to be moved out of storage, cut in half, then moved into the house. And they are heavy and awkward to move.
We will make all of our own kitchen cabinets and bathroom cabinets, so we are now just figuring out all the hardware we'll need (hinges, drawer slides etc.) and finalising the kitchen cabinet design. The doors will be made out of wood, but we are considering painting some if not all of the doors. On the advice of the local paint shop owner, we tossed our potential colours on the floor and then began the process of elimination. We eventually narrowed our choices down to two, which isn't bad.
We are still debating what to use for the back splash behind the stove. We have found some tile that we like (at a price that we like!) and some tile that we really like (at a price that we really don't like!) But then we found some rather cool squares made of metal behind an old shed on our property, and are considering sprucing them up, and using them instead. I guess we'll see how that goes, but for now we will concentrate on the kitchen cabinets. The back splash may become a bit of a future project.
And that is where we are right now. We are still hoping to move in before the end of this year. Of course, in reality we could almost move in any time, but we have a lot of experience with living in unfinished spaces and know that we need just a few more areas to be finished first. It is much better to allow Rob the time and space to plan and install the kitchen in particular, at least to a point that it is entirely usable. As well, we need to get those railings up, and the permanent staircase in too. And there are a few logistics still to work out; things like telephone and internet. (Just to name two!) We sure are getting close though. Maybe a little too close, as I pepper Rob with questions every morning until he makes motions that his head is exploding. Obviously, there's still plenty to think about, and lots left to do. This is my 74th posting on this blog though, and it's hard to imagine that it may be the last one I write from here in the cabin, and that the next time I write we might actually be in the new house. If not, that's fine too. I think we are both feeling that at some point soon however, we'll be walking down that road, and into our next adventure.
