Floors!

Just popped in after taking girls to school and actually gasped when I came up the stairs and saw the floors. What a change!

Finally! A new blog post!

It's been a crazy few days. We're now ensconced in our temporary digs (a new duplex, all tickety-boo -- a nice contrast to chaos), though it feels like we're in limbo. Going straight into our new house would have made leaving our old one easier.

Translation from the phonetic: "boo-hoo housie."

However, we're happy the builders are taking their time to continue doing things the way they've been doing them: attention to detail, consultation at every step, and highly-skilled artisanship.

They're busily working away over there, and things are really coming together.

You're probably tired of hearing about this plastering thing, but this Irish guy really is incredibly skilled. The floor guy was telling me that here in Canada it's a dying skill. There're still a couple of people in Vancouver who can do it, he says, but they're 70 or 80 years old. 

Watching Dennis is like watching an artist paint. 

He works quickly too as the plaster dries fast. He does it in TWO coats! With no sanding. 

Look at these curves! That's all by hand! 

OK, I'll stop about the plastering now.

The hardwood floors upstairs are almost done! The floor guy had us in last night to consult on finish, and, on his advice, we decided to go with the natural colour of the wood: sanded smooth but still "bruised" with age. The dark patina is gone and the wood is surprisingly light! (I'd thought we would go with a slightly grey wash in order to tone down the gold tones of the fir, but he said after a couple of years that would look "dirty" and drive us nuts.) I love these contractors who aren't reticent about sharing their expertise!

The hardwood guy. Hilarious! And good at what he does.

This is what the floors looked like after one pass over.

After two.

My closet! 

(Stole the guest room closet, joined them together to make one bigger closet in this room.)

The view from our front porch. (One day without a porta-potty.)

From their perspective.

Kitchen installed!

While we were moving on Wednesday, the Ikea people installed our new kitchen. They started at 9 and were done by about 2 or 3 when they called us over to consult about placement of knobs and pulls.

But first, two days prior, the black tile floor was laid by excellent fellow, Patrick. Katie is quite the proud homeowner!

Ta-dum!

There were 4 or 5 people to install the kitchen. Above is the east wall. The guy's standing where the little kitchen desk will be. Coat closets to his left, broom closet to his right. Craft table in foreground. 

West wall. Stove and range hood will be going in the middle. Notice the wine rack within easy reach of the bar: good planning, Andrew Jackie.

This guy knew his stuff and was all business. Very efficient!

Sink will go under the window.

On the left, Keith McGill of Tercera. Keeping it all together!

Consulting, listening, advising. He even made a trip to Ikea to pick up 

a couple of missing items!

It looks awesome! I guess we'll have to choose countertops soon!

North wall. Where Katie's sitting is where the fridge will go, pantry cabinets on either side. (Notice the purse? That's where it was when I tried to check into the hotel. Aigh! See "moving day" post.)

Ta-dum! Fifi demonstrates pull-out racks in the broom closet. It's such a luxury to have everything planned in advance just the way you want it! 

Twenty-Hour Marathon: preparing for the kitchen install

One-day marathon wall-finishing turnaround, which started at 6 a.m. and was fully drywalled and plastered by 2 a.m. the following morning, dry and ready for the kitchen fitting at 9 a.m. What a miracle of timing ... and hard work! (Feb. 26th)

That plastering is a thing of beauty, giving our new kitchen a heritage look that will match the rest of the house. Not something we'd planned for or asked for, but which we are so thrilled about.

Moving day.

 Nightmare on Lakewood.

It was one of those days when if something could go wrong, it did!

First, the movers turned out to be the Double Rainbow crew, if you know what I mean. Painfully slow; the place was so upside-down at 3 o'clock when the cleaners arrived, that they took one look and left; they returned at 6 and abandoned us for good.

I gently spoke to the movers about maybe going a bit faster, but that didn't go over well. The guy I spoke to (apparently, the team lead who'd been packing the kitchen for 6 hours at that point?) told me I'd hurt his feelings and I ended up apologizing....?

The owner of the company called me at some point and, after I said hello, started yelling at me, really off the rails; I'm not even sure what he was saying -- something about it being our fault that the packers -- who just then had their heads together, fondly reminiscing over Andrew's CD collection -- were slow (too much stuff was the gist) so I just hung up. Twice. Andrew talked him down when he threatened to abandon our stuff on the street. We needed to agree to pay more money, I think was the long and short of it.

So at 8 pm they finally called in a second crew, who had to go in search of boxes at 9 pm, and they were still packing and loading at midnight. 

Get this. I finally got the girls to the hotel with the car packed with everything not going into storage, everything, that is, except my purse.... The hotel folks wouldn't let me check in without ID or a credit card. (Jane, you almost ended up paying for it!) I won't go into more detail, but, at that point, with two exhausted kids hovering between giggles and sobs (and their mother too), it was not pretty. 

(room service!)

I got the girls to bed by 12:30, while Andrew and his buddy Dave cleaned until 2 am. If you're still reading, you may find it amusing to hear that, to top things off, we wore sweaters and scarves to bed it was so cold in here but were too tired to call the desk, only to discover today that it wasn't just us! The heating system in our room actually did need repair. …What a day!

All of which served to underscore what amazing neighbours we have and why we'd be unwilling to move any farther than a block away.

As well as numerous hugs of support -- virtual and real -- we had so much help from our neighbours. Biyun had the girls over to play. Then Jacqueline had them to her place for another round of playing. Jacqueline invited them to stay for Josh's quinoa mushroom soup (mmm) but Biyun had already invited them over for homemade pizza! Biyun even brought some over for us! When Jane heard we still hadn't booked a hotel, she got on the phone and found us one (in English Bay!). Jacqueline and Josh are storing some of the fragile things we didn't trust the movers with. Jane and Lorraine are storing some large canvasses, which Clara helped us carry over. Thank you for all the help and support!

Tercera, our construction team, also remembered the date and offered bodies and trucks! (which in retrospect, we should have taken them up on. The job would have been done by noon!)

Meanwhile, back at the new ranch, the kitchen was being installed. See next post!

The Last Supper.

After almost 13 years here, we're about to sit down for our last dinner in our darling little house, the only house Katie's ever known, and, of course, F's first family home. Kind of sad, but many happy memories. Bye-bye Lakewood.

We found a temporary home!

A lovely condo duplex close to home at Venables and Victoria! Thank you to all who offered help and suggestions!

Ikea kitchen arrived!

218 boxes!

OK, the 34-day reno.

Looks like it's going to be another week or 10 days, but these guys are doing such a top-notch job, why cut corners to make a deadline? Thirty-four days is still pretty fast.

However, sigh, we still have to move out February 27th (Wednesday!), so if anyone knows of something available that will keep us in the neighbourhood and near the school, let us know.

In the meantime, check out some of the progress. The old world plastering is truly a thing of beauty, and not something we were expecting -- beyond our wildest dreams, as Andrew said tonight. Preserving the character of the old lathe and plaster.

The special stuff, brought in by request from Bellingham.

Look at that curve!

No sanding, folks. No sanding!

Artist at work

 The talented Dennis.