Back to School

We leave for the school house tomorrow for a month of continued renovations. At the minimum we plan to lay a finished floor (locally milled pine) and prime the ceiling and walls. A little time off would be good too

We managed a weekend visit in May but I had no photos so didn't post about it. My youngest son (the wiry Anarchist) went under the floor to run wiring for the electric baseboard heaters and to install the vapour barrier. (Technically I'm the smallest member of the family but there were concerns that my chest bumps might prove a hindrance, and besides, I'm rabidly claustrophobic.) The great news is that there was absolutely no evidence of mice over the winter and with all that rotten wood removed it smells fresher even after being closed up for 6+ months.

As some of you know, the school house has gone from being a cottage type getaway to our future full time home so we have to get serious about renovating. I hope to have lots of photos for those of you following along when I return in September. Thanks for your interest!

Madly interested, please photo away..

and have fun.





(No way I would have gone under our Venice bungalow via the crawl space.
Probable black widows.. and we had (an electrician, I think) freak about a dead cat of yore, hitting his head on the floor joists. ) Good for your son.

I'll be waiting for those pix.


Every time I use my lovely patriotic folding chair I think of your project.

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=vkDU61Rmkuc&feature=related

This is the swing bridge we take to the island. It's an old railway bridge and so traffic is one direction at a time. Often we arrive and have to wait our turn to cross. For the first time in a long time we had to wait for the bridge to close this summer. In tourist season the bridge opens every hour on the hour to allow tall masted sailboats to enter the North Channel.

This bridge is the only access to the island in winter. In good weather, there is a ferry from Tobermory:

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=mH9cytf5yGs

osso, found this photo of the wiry anarchist and me before he went under the floor. There were some pretty ugly spiders under there but luckily no snakes or mice (or worse).

If our new pine floor was a dog, it would look like this. We got locally milled pine from a neighbour and it was wonderfully varied in colour. Some of the pine boards were perfectly clear, some knotty, some streaked with an almost blue-grey stippling, some reddish, a couple of boards were almost black. We had fun trying to alternate patterns so we didn't have too much of one colour in one place. I'm guessing some people would think it looks too rough but we think it's lovely. Yes, it's soft and will get marked up rather quickly but in a building that's over 90 years old that's a good thing.

Here's the finished floor:

The floor took a lot longer than we anticipated. We had to store the lumber inside and move it and furniture around as we progressed across the room which was a pain. Luckily the fellow we bought the wood from lent us a proper flooring nailer. That was a real help. (Pretty smart guy. Want to put down a wood floor? I can lend you a nailer. How much wood do you need?)

A trailer full of wood:

A close-up of the "machinery" and the pine boards.

And here's a special guest:



djjd brought our Mom up for a visit and stuck around to help with the painting. The tin ceiling is beautiful but so detailed that no roller we tried would cover it. So it looks like it will all have to be done by hand. I lasted about 5 minutes on the 12 foot ladder. Because I'm so short I have to climb way higher than djjd or Mr. Fix-it just to reach the ceiling and then my reach is about one tile in all directions. <sigh>

It was really great to have djjd's help. The painting is going to take a lot longer than we thought obviously. This is just the "problem-solving" primer. There's still the finished coat(s) to do.

Look at your progress! WOW!

It wasn't all work of course. We tried to get in to town on Fridays to go to the farmer's market (fresh produce and the United Church ladies' bake table) and to get whitefish from the fish truck. (Yes, ehBeth we ate lots and lots of whitefish!) We went to the Providence Bay fair and watched the horse pull and looked at all the exhibits (you know, the ribbon winning apples, tomatoes, quilts etc -- I love that stuff). Of course we had whitefish at the Lake Huron Fish & Chips restaurant before the fair. The United Church ladies had a whitefish-on-a-bun booth at the fair but we were too full (those ladies really get around). (Is ehBeth drooling yet?)

One of our most memorable meals was at Abby's for native cuisine night while Mom and djjd were visiting. Mom had salmon, djjd had pickerel, Mr. Fix-it had venison and I had moose steak. Wow. (Now I'm drooling just remembering it...)

Hi Joeblow. Thanks for looking in!

Yay! Pictures!!

Hi Tai Chi!!

Hi djjd!

I love that green. Gorgeous.

And the floor...! Incredibly beautiful.

Thanks for the update!

Who did the chalk drawing? It's really nicely done.

One more photo:



I'm not the world's greatest photographer so you probably can't tell that there's a double rainbow here. I thought of Noddy quite often while we were away. This rainbow made me think of her.

wow, that's one cool house.

Um...I hate to tell you soz, but we're trying to cover up the green It looks better in photos than in real life! It's that institutional green found in hospitals etc. (Sorry, I can't stop laughing.) The white is a really heavy duty primer that will eventually be covered by a blue-based storm cloud grey on the ceiling and a lighter shade grey on the walls. Boring I know but painting is such a big job that we wanted something neutral so we'd only have to do it once. We figure furnishings etc will add enough colour.

(The chalk drawing was done by my youngest.)

Chai! Haven't seen enough of you lately!

I can't wait to check out these links from home.

The green from this picture (not the dog, nice doggy) is different from the tin, isn't it? I like it too.