North Glenora Reno

I know, I know, I know. It has been weeks and weeks since I updated you on the reno and I’m sorry but, well, umm, I went back to work and well, my whole life has gone crazy.

So here we go, I think that I will do several posts for you so that you (and I) don’t get too confused and stay fairly close with the timeline. I did write a lovely and lengthy post the day before school started but lost the whole thing before I could upload and well look what has happened…

If we go back, way back, we would find ourselves at the beginning of September. The new windows were finally all in and I felt that I could at least leave the house for the day and know that it was secure. The lack of heat was a big issue for us as it got pretty chilly at the end of August, I may have mentioned that. My dad worked like a madman and got us heat early on in the month but in the interest of not heating up the entire neighbourhood, he didn’t run heat into the new space. The day we finally got heat will also go down in history as The Pizza Night. Mom and dad, M and R & I worked all day and we thought that pizza would a great idea for dinner. I carefully chose 4 different pizzas to give everyone lots of choices and then mom and I went to pick them up. Upon returning, we realized that the pizzas we brought home were not the pizzas we ordered. So, I called Panago and explained the issue and they offered to bring us our order but since the starved wolves at the table had pretty much already dove in I said not to worry about it and they offered to add a credit to my account instead. So, no problem, 4 pizzas we didn’t order but we all found something we were willing to eat. Not ten minutes later, a guy from Panago arrives with the pizzas we ordered and told us to keep them all. So we ended up with 8 pizzas between 5 people and meals for the next week and I’m pretty sure that there is a 4 pizza credit on my account! Oh yeah and I’m pretty sure that we each ate about 20 more pieces than we really wanted. We pretty much just rolled away from the table. Anyway….

So the old?, existing? part of the house became warm but the new, not so much. None the less, R stopped sitting in front of the space heater with the dog to eat his breakfast and went back to the table like regular people do. They were priceless (read: pathetic) to see though.

On the day of The Pizza Night, we also made some serious progress towards R and I gaining some sense of normalcy and sanity really. M came over and he and R drywalled the new closet in out existing room. Not sure if I mentioned but we used to have two little closets and we decided that through this process we would combine them into one proper sized one. The closet taking shape will prove to be a remarkable step forward as R and I have clothes all over the house. I mean, I have been making the morning dash into the living room for underwear for weeks. The neighbors will likely be disappointed though…None the less, it needed to be done.

Today was another busy and exciting day. Rob and Tristan tore the roof off of the eating area and reframed the one that the door will be in. Now the house is completely open to the elements. The only thing that keeps the kitchen as an indoor one vs. an outdoor one is a thin sheet of plastic. It is very exciting though because we can see what the other side of the house is going to loom like today. I am constantly startled by how tall the whole structure is.

Darryl and another guy, who came up from Calgary, came to mull together and install the four pack of windows for our bedroom. The windows look spectacular and it is so nice to have another step towards sealing up the house complete, now for the other hundred ones. One nice surprise is that we noticed that the screen on the operable window in that four pack is wood! Not white aluminum. One less screen we have to fight for from Marvin Windows!

Mike and his helper (Steve, the one that doesn’t even make eye contact) came and got the primary power up and running. I know they looked into the mouse pit but don’t know if they actually had to go in. For obvious reasons, I stayed clear.

My dad came by to get the hot water tank hook up started. I even helped…dad said that I was a natural (pushing on a pipe and giving it a tiny twist). I know, you’re impressed. 😉

Tile Town called to let us know that the pale gray tile that we wanted to order for the shower is back ordered for two months! Great! Now I have to go and choose something else. On a good note, the rest of the tile is in, so I will go and choose a new tile and pick up with others, hopefully tomorrow.

R came home and added concrete to the pile that Rob will need to use tomorrow and we boarded up the house and off we went with our tons and tons of free time to the Cirque de Soleil show, Alegria. It was amazing, although we may have enjoyed it a bit more if we had been slightly less tired.

Finally, the Hughes came home today and K and E came by while we were out to help clean up a bit and steal wood scraps and other goodies. So nice to have them home!

Windows! Windows! Windows! The windows came today! They are beautiful, amazing and huge! Mere minutes after I finished giving foot baths to three dogs (yes, it rained again last night), Daryl and his guys showed up at 8:30 and were in and out in about an hour. The bathroom window is so big, I didn’t really realize until I saw it, how crazy high the ceiling is going to be in the bathroom. There will be such amazing morning light, we won’t have to turn lights on until winter. I was so busy being excited and checking to see that we had received all of the windows that I missed a rather important detail that of course R pick up on the second he saw the when he got home from work. The screens are white. White framed screens in beautiful raw pine windows. It looks like shit. We can’t have them and I don’t even want to think about how much this little mistake is going to cost us.