Post #100!

I didn't plan to wait almost four years between posts. Plenty has been done at the cottage since the last one but a number of roadblocks to posting presented themselves. I got locked out as an administrator of my own blog and prior to that, became unable to transfer pictures onto it. I've figured out a work-around to all of its issues, at least for the time being.

So have you heard about this pandemic thing? It was on the news and everything! It struck me a little over a week ago that I had not left our residential property in almost three months as a result of it. 😵 I spent this past Saturday night in Crow Lake and it did me a world of good. 

The plan was this: We were left with some extra paint after a couple of home projects were completed and rather than have it sit in the crawl space at the house for decades, constantly thinking "we're going to have to get rid of those some day", we decided to use some of it at the cottage.

The bleak weather does it no favours, but there's our little sun room after the blinds have been removed and Bjork the Stork has been moved out of her corner.

Before I go on, a brief rant to which Christine has already been subjected.

Five blinds. (5)
Three brackets per. (15)
Three screws per bracket. (45)
Three screws missing. (42 total)
Screws of the same variety (41)

Really? You used one different screw type throughout the whole installation? Did you giggle as you did it, thinking to yourself "one day, someone's going to take these down and this will piss him/her right off!"  

It wasn't even the last one! 😒

That challenge overcome, it was time to get going. On Saturday afternoon, I threw some white down on the framing. Never mind the clutter, I was in the middle of something here. 

I went left to right, essentially following the same path as the sun and thereby ensuring that whenever it bothered to come out, I would have it in my face while trying to complete the upper portions of the frames.

Then, after a night of trying to sleep on a mattress that was colder than a well-digger's ass (shout out to grandpa), I tackled the lower portions of the wall, taking an occasional break to feed the crows...

 ...and shoo away some flies and a wasp. Shortly before Christine returned to pick me up, I achieved the following result.

There are still some final touchups I'd like to do, and I have my eye on that ceiling, but for now the room should be much brighter when it actually does get a healthy dose of summer sun and those icky water stains are gone.

Coincidentally, we happened to match this coat hanger bought years ago for that room. 

It was good to get that done. We love that little spot and it's probably the room that's gotten the least amount of attention over the years.

That ceiling though... 🤔

And now...That old, familiar fear! Hit "publish" and then see all my typos! 😬

But It's Not All Bad!

Leading up to becoming Atlantis Of The North, we had ourselves some pleasant and productive weekends.

The Festival Of The Maples takes place in Perth on the last weekend of April and, you may recall from past posts about this event, is our target date for opening our place up, so we look forward to it a great deal. Christine went without me last year, but we both went this year.

Unfortunately, I left my phone in the car, like a dippy dummy, so I didn't get any pictures of the event itself. But we did fare rather well.

Maple cotton candy might be the best $5 I've ever spent. Christine looks for that particular bottle of maple syrup at right because it's organic (and extra yummy).

We spent the most time at a booth for All About The Soup. They don't trumpet it, but their entire line is vegetarian so it was nice for us to not have to cherry pick.

We've had, and loved, the Trinidad Corn (as a soup) and the African Peanut (over rice) but will likely work our way down the menu. I may donate my portion of the Beet Chiller to my mum, because I know she loves her beets, and I luv my mum. :-)

A few weeks prior to all that, my dad and I worked on the living room floor.  I won't display much of that now, because I would rather wait for the baseboards and quarter round to be installed, but it's looking pretty class, I think.

Looking forward to the finished product.

Meanwhile, I'm taking a different approach to the kitchen floor. I'd already removed some of those tiles but now I pull one up every visit. By the time the season is over, I should have the whole thing pretty well stripped and ready for replacement.

We haven't fully completely settled on a new tile yet but it probably won't get done until about this time next year anyway. We'll come up with something.

Soggy Start

Even those of you who don't live in (or near) Ottawa have likely heard that there's been a significant amount of flooding in the city this year.

I am pleased to report that we are not affected. It's been a miserable spring, to be sure, but if I didn't see images of the floods on the news and social media, I wouldn't know it was going on.

At the cottage, however...

We've been there for four straight weekends now, I believe. I believe it was two weeks ago that I made a very simple pasta supper and we ate outside under a setting sun with the temperature in the high teens/early 20s. We couldn't decide whether to eat inside or outside but Christine prophetically pointed out that it might quite a while until we got a chance again.

Last year, the water level was low throughout. So far this year, we were pleased with how high it was. But when we arrived this past Friday, we quickly saw that it had taken it up another notch.

All right, well, the old shed spot is...a little damp, but whatever. We actually had it worse one year when the shed was still up. I guess it happens.

But then it continued to rain. And water continued to flow into the lake. So the next day...

Ugh...So the stones from the first picture are now submerged and we moved the fire bowl because it seemed unlikely that it would be put into use (though I would be willing to accept that challenge).

We headed out to Perth for a part of the day. We needed to stop over at the animal hospital there for some pills for Ladybug (antibiotics, no big deal, we just forgot them at home), picked up some wood for baseboards at Home Hardware, a few groceries, doggy beds (which are essentially large chew toys for George) and a wicked good pair of slippers at Giant Tiger for me. We had a rainy evening inside by the fire and by Sunday morning...

Those of you who are there more regularly, take a look at top right of that shot. You can barely tell there's land past the fire pit. Unreal.

But...Aside from gardens, there is really no damage that comes to mind.  Some folks around the 'hood are going to visit some time soon and realize that their cottage spent a solid couple of weeks with water right up to the back door or Sun Room.

There's also nothing we can do but wait it out. It's pretty wild to think that right around the time Chantal and Joseph visited last year, I could stand on dry land at the bottom of the lake. Safe assumption that I won't be doing that this year.

Check out that rain forecast thought (third line from the bottom) for nearby Sharbot Lake.

Well...It is what it is. If we need to start gathering animals in pairs, at least we've got dogs covered (more or less).

One Hour Closer To Cottage Season!

But man it's cold. It's so damn cold.

Last winter, I managed two overnight visits to Crow Lake. Just one this year and even that one was testing the boundaries of good sense.

There was a job I wanted to complete though. During an earlier winter visit (only for a couple of hours) Christine and I began removing some of the living room tiles in order to replace them with something awesome.

When I'd messed with those tiles during our last weekend there, they came up easily. That created an incorrect perception that the job would be fast and easy.

The reality was that I just happened to choose easy ones to try to lift. Turns out the central part of the other tiles and the floor were stuck together tighter than Sigfried and Roy. So only the edges of the tiles would come up and break off. You ended up with this situation for virtually every tile around the fireplace.

Come on, man...

This was unexpected because for the most part, the dining room floor had come up fairly easily last year. At times I could pop those off in bunches of four or six.

But not in the living room, baby! There I was pleased if I could snap off a six-inch chunk. It was baby steps the whole way.

And so an excuse for a winter trip emerged. Christine equipped me with all sorts of scrapers and hammers and what-not and off I went. It was a battle but I threw on some classic blues and (literally) chipped away at it.

No flooring is already an improvement on the atrocity that was previously laid down. I could live with it for a while except that it remains sticky in many places. When we've dropped by and there has been exposed flooring, we've been a little concerned that we're going to find a mouse that got stuck and died there. Or a chipmunk. Or a moose. Can you imagine arriving to that?

Ideally, I'd like to have the new floor done before opening up but weather seems to be dictating otherwise. If it's an opening weekend job, so be it.

In the meantime, I'm going to make up for lost time a bit with a few pictures from our summer vacation that haven't made it on here yet.

Truthfully, I wish I could post a boat load of pictures from when Chantal and Joseph visited in September but it was only upon their departure that we realized that not a single one of us took a single picture. It's been months and I still don't understand how that happened.

It was a great visit, too, even though it was hot as hell throughout most of it. Outdoor fires, port, cigars, a little time spent in the water...But not a single picture. Baffling.

Instead, I'll throw down a few shots from our (Christine and me) visit to the Scheurmann Winery in Westport in late summer. We had stopped there before but there was no activity in the place. It felt like we were trespassing.  We assumed that maybe they just hadn't fully opened for business yet so we took off.

They were clearly open this time around so we stopped in and were greeted by this dood and his timely cock-a-doodle-do.

Fun stop. I recall that Chris wasn't blown away by the Pinot Noir but I enjoyed my sparkling cider just fine. But I would stop in just for the rooster.

Types of Vanity

I must begin with a correction to the previous post.

No, it doesn't involve my recollection of events leading to the construction of the sliding door.  That was spot-on, if somewhat embellished.

It's about the mirror selfie. From additional research, it is now my understanding that such pictures are taken and posted on social media by young, attractive females, or males who wish to display their abdominal muscles. I am not female and I do not have abs. Well, I'm sure I do but they are in no way visible. And no one wants to see my hairy bellybutton so I am disqualified from taking such pictures.

It shan't happen again. I replace it with this sexy, sassy beast.

God I hate that floor now...Luckily, when I enter the cottage these days, my eye is drawn elsewhere.

In late July, on a Saturday, my dad and I worked on the baseboards, quarter round, and doorway framing while Christine was visiting Mike in B.C.  We stopped at the delightful Home Hardware in Perth on the way. The flooring that I wanted to use as a back splash in the kitchen instead was on sale, so I took advantage of that.

I didn't really expect to complete the work that day though. But with a bit of time left in our afternoon, when my dad asked if I wanted to install right then, I nearly wept.

And it came out looking rather splendid, I think.

It just makes the kitchen look...finished. It ISN'T finished by any means (oh, you just wait until you see what Christine has cooked up!) but it looks more finished.

The back splash still needs a little framing of its own but everyone who sees it comments on it almost right away. And touches it, for some reason. I'm not sure why.

Now Christine will have you believe this was her idea too.

*sigh*.

Not so. I saw the flooring at the HH (what cool people call Home Hardware) and called her over to see it because I knew she would like that style. And JUST as I was about to say it would look good as a back splash, she rattled off "OhMyGodThisWouldMakeAGreatBackSplash" super fast just so she could take credit. Ah well.

While buying it, there was some debate as to how much we would need. If I recall correctly (and my mind is computer-like), I thought there was a chance we could get away with only two boxes. But taking into account the possibility of a break or some such, I bought an extra one.

Damn good thing, too. We would have been short by about 16 inches. That would have sucked. Those things really don't stretch well.

But now I had a little over a box left instead. So what genius did *I* (not Christine) come up with?

To change the vanity in the master bedroom from this style (using the term loosely)...

To this:

I neglected to take a picture of the vanity prior to its removal because...Well, why would you want to have a picture of that thing around, unless it was to induce vomiting after accidentally ingesting poison?

The light isn't great (it's the master bedroom, we WANT it dark in there) so it gives the drawers a bluish tinge but they are actually just a plain white. At least for now they are, Christine may have plans of her own there.

She already did change the also-white knobs with the little purple flower you see at right. I admit that it's kind of cute, but only because this blog is blocked from appearing in Google search results and no one but family and close friends would ever know I said so.

The back splash part of this reno was supposed to be a surprise for Christine when she returned from BC. She had considered going to the cottage briefly on the Tuesday...but changed her mind. So I had to struggle to avoid spoiling it all the way to Friday night. Tough gig, long wait, but well worth it.

Slider

All right! Most people have seen it "in person" already (quotation marks incorrectly used for Chantal's benefit) but the sliding door for the guest bedroom was one of the additions I most looked forward to and I finally get to talk about it, months after we actually started working on it.

Slider's origins are already clouded in mystery, however. I was supposed to manage a blog by which I would store information for future reference and avoid forgetting such things but alas, it gets neglected from time to time. But we don't quite agree on how the idea came about.

By Christine's recollection, after Frankenshed's defeat, she spotted the track used for its sliding door laying on the ground and said something to the effect that, because it was still in good shape, we should find a use for it.

That's pretty weak, man.

By my recollection, I staggered around the foggy, carnage-strewn battlefield following my final confrontation with Frankenshed. Bloodied, exhausted, shirt torn and drenched in sweat, I collapsed to my knees. Christine ran to me, joyful tears running down her cheeks, carrying a jug of lemonade. After noticing the track laying in the grass, I clutched it in my kung-fu grip, held it towards the heavens just as a beam of sunlight broke through the clouds and I screamed that from the evil of Frankenshed, a great good would emerge!!

Something like that.

Regardless of whether my far-more-plausible version of events is the one that actually took place, we bought the lumber for the door in the spring but completed the floor reno and hallway painting first. Then in late June (I believe) my dad got his puttering on.

Tip: Always know where the pencil is. The question WILL come up.

Being in a cottage environment, sometimes you have to make do with whatever you have on hand. Much of the door is held together with glue, so a jug of water and a metal duck contributed to keeping all the pieces good and tight. Actually, they were arguably more valuable to the project than I was.

And I love the result.

Again, it's not quite finished. Christine wants to add a stain but we're a little unsure as to what colour to choose.

And it could probably use...handles. Otherwise it might be tricky to open the door from inside the guest room (which isn't my problem, but still).

Here's a look at it from the washroom, across the very narrow hallway.

Now it is my understanding, based on social media, that if you are holding a cell phone anywhere near a bathroom mirror, you need to do lemon lips and take a picture of yourself in said mirror. So here we go.

I don't get it.

Anyway, one of these days, and it may just be in the winter to avoid the temptation to dive into a huge snowbank and hibernate the season away, we'll complete some finishing touches here and there such as baseboards, quarter round, doorway and corner framing and...door handles. But for now we're happy with the big steps taken this year.

Mid-Season Reno Recap

While on vacation last week, Chris and I talked about how fast the season seems to have gone by this year. We concluded that a big part of that is due to the fact that we never completely shut down from "reno mode". We, and our Jean-Guy-Of-All-Trades, have maintained a certain level of "busy" that has made the time fly by.

Several of those updates had yet to be displayed here. The primary reason is that I wanted guests to see them in person first. The secondary one is that I find that photos don't always do them justice.

But I can wait no more! Even though we have a couple of first-timers coming by in just less than a month! Eek!!!

So let's catch up a bit. The dining room floor was a big one. To recap, I spent two nights in the winter to prep, Asley and my dad came up in the spring and we did the bulk of the work at that point, then dad and I wrapped things up a couple of weeks later.

I took a picture of the finished product, but I'm not crazy about how the floor comes out in it. I think it helps to see what we started with back in 2012...

...and to compare it against the current version.

We visited a store a few months ago called Atmosphere et Bois and Christine was inspired by their method of using regular 4-inch wide (or so) boards for baseboards. Well, those guys were using old barn wood or some such that they're selling at about 20 times its actual worth, so...no. We're going the old Home Hardware route. We'll wear it out on our own.

Of course, as usual, we're dealing with crooked walls and uneven floors but it helped tighten things up in most areas.

Prior to that, Christine painted the hallway white...

And we added quarter round a couple of weeks back.

Whew! Busy! No wonder I keep falling asleep in the car on the way home!

That's it for now. Next time around, we'll talk about that thing hanging at the top left on that last picture...So happy with it...