Current Projects

Needless to say, no work on the house was accomplished while we had our family visiting. Since they left on Tuesday, Wayne has been starting his landscaping and returning to inside renovations.



The first project was tidying up the little flower bed which Nancy made by our back door a few years ago - hopefully this year we will have more time for gardening in general. The garden had had a little picket fence which got somewhat mashed this winter due to storm damage to the garage soffits above it, plus the subsequent repairs required. So we went to Spencer's and chose some large tumbled blocks for a new border and added some good soil - as you can see the perennials are popping up through the new soil already. We also bought a few annuals (pansies, impatiens) on Thursday to fill it in a bit - those will have to wait a few weeks before planting: they are waiting in a sunny window in the shed for now. Wayne plans to move his wood pile and we are thinking about some gardens for the back yard, perhaps along the old stone wall from the carriage house. He hopes to get the last of the brush tamed so as to be able to fairly easily cut all the grass - some smoothening out of the yard is required, and then we can get a ride-on lawn mower (read as male toy).


Inside we started working on the finishing touches for the back entry. When we went to Halifax to pick up Chris and the grandkids, we stopped at Home Depot and found the carpet tiles that we wanted for the back entry. Yesterday we put them down: Wayne found them very easy to work with - easily cut, they are kept down by double-sided tape (which I had to peel - my contribution other than lots of opinions about what he should do). They can be taken up and washed individually if necessary and also replaced easily. We bought an extra box of 10 tiles (since knowing our luck they won't be made any more). Today we will cut the baseboards and the rest of the hat rack trim for the top of the walls, prime them, and the threshold for the back door will be installed.

We have ordered the tiles and grout for the kitchen/laundry room. They will be the same as the wood stove hearth area with a listel trim of small coordinating tiles along the hearth to emphasize the slightly raised area. Likely we'll have to have some other trim as well to cover the edge - yet to be figured out. Installing the tiles will take quite a while, particularly now that we have the kittens to "help" and no doors on the kitchen to keep them out. The floors must be primed and furniture, appliances etc moved out of each area as we do it, including the island, the fridge and the electric stove.

The other major project to be undertaken some time is the renovation of the "north parlour" which we used as a play room while the grandchildren were here and which houses the piano, the second satellite TV and the Wii - so it likely will continue as a play/rec room in function. We think about it whenever we are playing Wii games but have made no actual decisions about how to tackle the reno.