Phase 2: Engage!

Our spring reno plan got started two weeks ago when I went up to Crow Lake with my dad.  Christine and I got started on the second part earlier today.

Now I don't want to point fingers, but a few weeks back, a non-human member of this household disrupted our 2014 plans significantly by spending four nights in the hospital.

"Who?  Me??"

Yes, you!  But just so you know, I'm going to get my money back in hugs, Princess!  And you're going to sit there and like it!

As long-time (or frequent) pet owners know, that sort of thing can be devastating to disposable income (such as it was to begin with).  So some projects have been pushed back, others have been trimmed down.

Among the latter is the living room floor.  Christine wondered whether, instead of adding vinyl flooring as we did in the master bedroom and have prepared to do in the guest room (because we love our guests), we wouldn't be better off pulling up the well-worn carpet, painting the wood floor, and throwing a rug over it similar to the one that we have in the dining room.

At first, I thought that NASCAR had finally eroded her mind to a point of no return (although her grammar is still pretty good...) but I had a look during my last visit and could kind of see what she meant.  And if it ends up looking like an atrocity, we can just return to the original plan.  There's no harm in giving it a try.

So we dropped in, bringing several bins of linens and such with us for future use, then moved the living room furniture out of the way and yanked up the carpet.

Things looked...okay...under there.  Solid, but not particularly even, which we'll have to deal with.

My dad will be the furthest thing from shocked at this revelation.  However, it can be remedied by applying baseboards instead of (or in addition to) quarter-round.  No big deal, still less work, and much reduced overall cost.


The rug seen at right was bought a little while ago.  It sat around the house for a few weeks but was among the items hauled up when dad and I visited.  It'll cover most of the floor from window to couch and while it may be hard to tell from the photography, it matches rather nicely with the couch. We're going to paint the floor a sort of rust / burgundy colour, though little of that will be visible.  One can of paint will do just fine.

I took May 12th and 13th as vacation days so we're aiming to use that weekend to complete the work in both rooms, conditions permitting.  Last year, dad and I went on the last week of April and while we had a nice time of it, the weather and temperature were largely brutal.  Hopefully those 2-3 additional weeks make all the difference.

I tell ya, as brutal as winter has been, watching the melting snow dripping off the roof on the lake side was pretty damn uplifting.  It's coming, people.  It's on its way.  Hang in there!

We Have a Plan. And a Moose Planter.

That's all you need.

We have a significant list of projects that we want to tackle.  We'd love to do them all immediately, but cost and time have a significant voice in dictating what gets done now and what doesn't. Therefore, we prioritize.

We're going to have guests.  We enjoy having guests (that may seem like a load, coming from me, but it's actually true).  We want our guests to be comfortable.  And to bring booze leave happy.  So since we have flooring left over from last year's master bedroom floor replacement, we want to get the floor done in the guest room too, early in the spring (if there is such a thing as "spring" anymore.  Tough to have faith right at the moment).

The patriarch and I got the ball rolling last weekend. This picture doesn't really do it justice...

...but that carpet was pretty rough. Even for a cottage. And while everyone loves Tupperware containers (?), it's probably possible to find more attractive and functional "furniture".

So the the room has been emptied and the rug has come up.  We had to work in darker conditions than the picture below might imply, because the windows are still boarded up.  And it was colder inside than outside.  But we're men, damn it, and we would not be denied.

The cork insulation base is down and the additional floor "boards" we need were ordered today.  A few weeks from now, we're going to attack that thing for good.  I'm aiming for the weekend of May 10th (write that down, 'ti-père) in the hope that by then we have the water running again so we're not on a schedule.  In other words, people can work at a decent pace, have a nice dinner afterwards and spend the night.

Since we were in the Lowe's / Canadian Tire / Rona money drain triangle area, we stopped by and attempted to price a few other future projects (such as kitchen counter paint kits, for example.  Neat idea).

While doing so, I stumbled into Mr. Moose Planter.

Yes, I know you can see my creepy reflection in the fireplace. 

I was actually walking through an aisle of clearance items and pointed it out to Christine. There were two left and the other had a chunk taken out of it.  Feeling it's rather cottagy, we grabbed the good one.

Funny thing; While Christine was at the cash (I'd seen a shiny object in the distance and wandered off), the person ahead of her asked her what she planned to do with Mr. Moose (our 2013 income tax.  It's a planter, what the hell do you think we'll do with it??).

Upon my return from the cheap DVD bin, I heard Christine's cashier comment on how cute Mr. Moose is (didn't say anything of the sort about her husband, I noticed).

Then the guy in line behind Chris ALSO asked her what she'd be doing with Mr. Moose (find that missing Malaysian Airlines plane.  It's a planter, why do you think they call it that??)

Anyway, for a clearance item, it turned out to be pretty popular among the riff-raff, so Canadian Tire might have misjudged there. Their judgement error is our decorative benefit.  Mr. Moose will be a nice addition to one of the decks, where I admit that sometimes the frog planters make me feel uneasy.

That piercing stare makes you feel guilt for a crime that you did not commit.  And when you look outside at night, and happen to glance at one of those things, you momentarily believe the Creature From the Black Lagoon has emerged from the murky depths to slit you open and feast upon your innards.  It's...disturbing.  Mr. Moose, with his big soulful brown eyes, should improve on that.

The only item on the mental checklist that I was not able to cross off during the visit with my dad was to obtain a brochure listing the events in the area this summer.  We had a terrific pizza at that Maples Restaurant that I wrote about earlier, and while they normally have racks full of those pamphlets at the front door, it was just too early in the year for them to be available just yet.  So that part of the planning will have to wait a bit longer.  No big deal.