Act Three

It’s been a while since we’ve updated the blog.  Much has happened since then, but we’ll start with a wedding.

It’s been a busy spring, with renovations happening both at home and abroad.

In February we began work on our basement. Eventually we want to have some nice living spaces down there. We also want to add a half bath to the main floor when we renovate the kitchen. This means that some expensive and labour-intensive work has to happen in the basement first. I began by moving everything out of it and then demolishing the existing walls and bathroom. Then we hired some plumbers to modify our heating system. I couldn’t walk anywhere without cracking my head on a steel pipe, so the plumbers cut them out and replaced them with plastic lines. They also installed a system that splits the different floors of the house into different heating zones.

Though most of the cold weather had passed by the time it was completed, we had enough cold days to see just how much we will enjoy the new heating system in the coming years.

Next, we hired some people to break up the floor to install weeping tile and a sump pit.

With the rubble-stone foundation temporarily exposed, I decided that I should do some maintenance on it before it would be covered with insulated walls.  I spent quite a few hours tuck-pointing all the places where the mortar was falling out from between the stones.

The floors have been repaired and the exterior walls have been framed.  The contractors are now waiting for me to run some wires.  My plan is to pull the permit myself.  We’ll see what the city inspectors think of me.

We also decided to do some work on the rental.  The new tenants weren’t fans of the 1980s carpet (who can blame them) and the tub-surround that I had tried to re-adhere to the wall a year ago was again letting go in the bathroom.  We pulled up all the carpet on the main floor, patched the hardwood, sanded it down—Pam might still have the occasional dream involving a floor sander pulling her places she doesn’t want to go—and refinished it.

I didn’t want to mess with a temporary solution in the bathroom again and so we pulled out most of the fixtures and about half of the plaster and lath on the walls.  After some adventures with mortar, tile, and grout, and after dealing with some stubborn water leaks, we ended up with a bathroom we can be proud of.

We might even be a bit jealous, since the bathroom is now a nicer one than our own.

L was inspired by some of his friends to try and make a stopmotion video, so he spent an hour taking about a hundred pictures and produced this.  Enjoy.

This summer has been a hectic one, with most of it spent moving and renovating. With its end approaching, we decided to make an impromptu trip to Calgary to visit Aunt Ivy.  Though it was difficult to pull away from responsibilities and work, we weren’t sorry we did it.  We had a great time.

We left on Monday and made the trip to Calgary in a single day, thanks to the fact that L and K travelled really well.  On Tuesday, Aunt Ivy decided that we needed to see the silly side of Alberta, so she took us to Torrington, the home of the infamous Gopher Hole Museum.

I’m not sure what to say about it.  If you like to see small vignettes involving stuffed gophers, this is the place for you.

We then made a stop in Linden for supper, where we met Evelyn and Alex for some fine Mennonite cuisine at Country Cousins Restaurant.  We left very satisfied (and a bit poorer).

On Wednesday we made a trip to Canmore to hike the Grotto Canyon.  The scenery was spectacular…

…and so was the water in the clear mountain stream.

On Thursday, we spent the day at the Zoo.  Highlights included watching the penguins being fed, the tiger training session, the hippos swimming in their tank, walking among the owls inside their enclosure, and the black bears playing in the pool.

Aunt Ivy had to get back to real life on Saturday, so we headed south to take in some history at Fort Mcleod and Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump.

Let’s hope it’s not too long before we can make the trip again.

It is hard to believe that we are into the second week of August, Manitoba summers really are just so short.  I guess we have been doing some summer type activities.

There was camping over July long weekend. The weather was beautiful; not too hot and only a little rain one night.

We watched the fireworks at Island Park in Portage La Prairie.  Some little people had more fun watching the sunset develop than the fireworks (it is hard to watch fireworks with sleeping eyes).

And let’s not forget that we picked 18 pails of saskatoons on Dad’s land this year.  There were more, but our enthusiasm was fading so we left some for the bears.

For Colleen’s Birthday we all headed to the zoo.  This was our first expedition as a family of 15.  Welcome here Baby N.

So I’ve been spying on the contractors from my office over the last two weeks.  First the concrete guys poured the pad.

A week later the framers showed up.  By 2:30 in the afternoon, they had transformed a pile of lumber and rafters into a shingled structure!  I got the impression they had done this kind of thing before.

Today the electricians did their thing.  The siding would go on early next week except for the fact that we apparently have non-standard tastes when it comes to style and colour.

Yes.  That is a boxspring that has been cut in half.  And yes, that would be our boxspring.  Fortunately, it seems to have survived the ordeal and is still fit to sleep on.

Work is continuing on our closet reconfiguration project.  All that is left is to finish the outside trim, hang the doors, and install the hardware.

When we opened the walls in the bedrooms, we discovered some knob-and-tube wiring.  If only the people that had previously had the walls open had done what they should have done, then I wouldn’t have to be the one making holes in the walls and ceiling, eating dust, and scratching my hands and arms.

The day came when we had to say goodbye to our Ingersoll house.  Tears were shed by all.  Let’s hope the new house will accumulate at least as many good memories as the old one did.  It treated us very well.

a wife thinks her husband can do anything, and the husband can; you get a lot of dust.

Now that the painting in the kid’s rooms, dining room, living room and den is finished it is time to think about the master bedroom.  The closet space is awkward.

While shopping for wardrobes at IKEA, wife commented how much cheaper and sturdier it would be if husband built it.  This conversation led to demolishing a whole wall.