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Renovation

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“Space is big. The whole point of the frontier is that we go there to do new things in new places – not one place, and not one thing, but all of the above.”

Rick Tumlinson

It is very nearly four years since we acquired our lovely home on the Saanich peninsula.

I have – as it happens – good reason to recall that moment in time precisely. The day that we moved in to our new residence – the day after all of our worldly possessions were delivered by our carrier – I arrived early in the morning because I wanted to watch on the TV one of Scotland’s final pool matches in the 2015 Rugby World Cup, the which was taking place back in England (the reason for the early start times on the west coast of Canada).

Now here we are – four years on – and the 2019 Rugby World Cup is just about to start in Japan.

This post is not, however, about rugby.

I made reference in a recent post to the fact that we have been re-decorating our downstairs ‘family’ room. This work was actually started by a dear friend whilst we were away in Europe earlier in the year, but she and I finished it off together over the summer. We then had the carpets cleaned before reorganising all of our downstairs spaces ready for our recent guests (also trailed in the above mentioned post).

Why is all this significant – and why ‘final’?

Well – this past four years has seen a great deal of action on the home front – as regular readers of these meanderings (should such there be) will be aware. There have been legal battles to be fought – monies to be scrimped and saved – new decks to be built – extensive renovations of the main living spaces to be wrought and all manner of other nipping and tucking besides.

On our arrival here four years ago the downstairs ‘family’ room was immediately pressed into service as a repository for goods and chattels from our transatlantic move for which we did not at that point have a home elsewhere. It then became a temporary studio before subsequently being turned into a furniture store and living space when we moved everything downstairs for the four months during which we handed over the whole of the main floor to our contractor. It then reverted to being a dumping ground and part-time workshop… until earlier this year.

Now – finally – four years after our arrival here – the last remaining unallocated space in our home has been turned into a proper functioning room.

Job done! Yaaaaaay!!

 

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“Come back!” the Caterpillar called after her. “I’ve something important to say.”
This sounded promising, certainly. Alice turned and came back again.
“Keep your temper,” said the Caterpillar.”

Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

Well – this little corner of the year always takes me by surprise – comprising as it does an unexpected overload of events/things to do/world-wide happenings etc…

Sometimes it all feels as though it is just a little bit too much, but – hey! – it’s not as though I am supposed to be retired and taking it easy or anything, is it?

Oh – wait…

So – what has been/still is going on:

  • the end of August is Fringe time – and this year was no exception. I will report back further on how that went in a future post.
  • the academic year has just restarted. This morning at 8:30am (brutal!) I was facing a new class of 32 keen-eyed students. My timetable is somewhat unkind. More on that later also.
  • the Kickass Canada Girl (who grows more kickass by the day) is about to spend four days on another course. For logistical reasons the instructors – who hail from Vancouver – are staying with us for the duration of the course. This has meant that we must…
  • …finish off the redecoration of our big ‘family’ room downstairs (more on that too) and put our guest suite back into service.
  • the garden – as ever – demands constant attention.
  • I have been working hard to prepare a whole bunch of tracks for mastering, so that we can finally get some music up on the web. More on that… you get the idea!
  • Brexit rumbles on in ever more convoluted contortions and the Canadian election campaign is about to kick off. I will do my best not to comment on either, but you know how it goes…

 

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“The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining”

John F. Kennedy

I don’t recall ever having had to think much about roofing. Now – I know that those in the UK (and elsewhere) who own older homes – particularly those with complex roofs – may find such things to be a constant source of anguish, but apart from a few relatively minor incidents my six decades in the British Isles were largely free of roof related concerns.

This was doubtless greatly helped by living in the sort of houses that were furnished with tile or slate roofs – the which have a life expectancy of anywhere between sixty and two hundred years, depending on climate and construction.

It was thus a bit of a shock on coming to the west coast of Canada to discover that the shingle roofs common here have a very much shorter expectancy, and that our roof would probably not live much beyond twenty five years – if well looked after. Ours was already about ten years old when we acquired it!

The problem on the west coast is that the moisture-laden climate rapidly leads to roofs that once looked like this:

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid…looking instead like this:

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid

Naturally there are companies in BC who will strip back all of the moss and detritus and spray the shingles with an inhibitor to discourage further growth. Such services are not cheap but help to extend the life of the roof and thus ultimately to save money.

It need hardly be said – given the very fact of this post – that this we have just had done. Our roof now looks like this:

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidSpiffing!

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I could not resist taking some further snaps of some of details of our recent renovations. I hope that my posting some of these to this forum will not try the patience of the gentle reader too far. This will – I promise – be an end of it!

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson Reid

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Some before and after views of our just-about-finished renovation – before we moved back upstairs. Double click on the images for the full effect.

This is our living room:

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid
Photo by Andy Dawson Reid

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid
Photo by Andy Dawson Reid

Here is our sparkly new kitchen:

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid
Photo by Andy Dawson Reid

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid
Photo by Andy Dawson Reid

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid
Photo by Andy Dawson Reid

This is my bathroom… yes, it is the same room:

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid
Photo by Andy Dawson Reid

…and this is The Girl’s:

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid
Photo by Andy Dawson Reid

Master bedroom and entrance hall:

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid
Photo by Andy Dawson Reid

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid
Photo by Andy Dawson Reid

Now to clean thoroughly and to move everything back upstairs again.

Phew!

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Image from Pixabay…like an arrow – but fruit flies like a banana!

Terry Wogan

As I write this post I am awaiting the arrival of a shock (or whatever may be the appropriate collective noun) of electricians who should be the last of the contractors to add their expertise to our long-running renovation. Hopefully by the end of the day all that will remain to be done will be further painting and cleaning.

Glancing back over the scribblings that I posted last January (a mistake I know, but it is fascinating to see how the years vary… or even repeat themselves!) I find to my great surprise that it was exactly a year ago this very day that I visited the North Saanich Municipal Offices to deliver the paperwork for the application for a building permit for our new deck – which was eventually constructed last April and May. That project was just the start of the long process of renovation which has been going on pretty much continually since then.

That set me to wondering as to when it was that we had actually engaged the designer who drew up the plans that formed the basis of said application. Hunting further back on this blog gave me the answer to that as well – it was in September 2016.

The long and the short of it – and the point of this post is of course that the long occasionally feels both short and long (if you know what I mean) – is that by the time we are done this whole renovation project will have occupied us for around a year and a half – which feels both like the blink of an eye and also an eternity!

Needless to say we are eager to crawl – blinking in the bright light of day – out of our current subterranean dwelling place to resume our former lives above ground level.

I am also – naturally –  keen to take and to post to these pages a further portfolio of photographs displaying the results of our labours – that we might dazzle the gentle reader with the sumptuous fruits of our endeavours.

Hmmm – that’s quite enough of that, I think…

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“It is not your paintings I like, it is your painting.”

Albert Camus

Ho, ho! Little painting related joke there… which is most apposite because much of our time at present is spent with paintbrush and roller in hand – or failing that with filler and sanding block.

The main floor of our lovely home comprises a living room, a dining room area, a kitchen, master and guest bedrooms, two bathrooms, a laundry, several hallways and four sizeable built-in closets… All of which must be painted before our renovation is complete.

As painters we are most fortunate that our dry-waller – who gave us splendid new non-popcorn ceilings – also painted them as he went. Further, our excellent contractor budgeted for his painter to handle the woodwork – baseboards (skirting) and trim. Indeed, he would have done the lot were it not that I felt guilty about our playing no role at all in the proceedings (other than in the financial sense).

So here we are – with several thousand square feet of wall to be prepped (filled, sanded and cleaned), primed as required and given two coats of decent quality eggshell (or pearl for the bathrooms).

In this enterprise we are even luckier to have a dear friend who not only operates a sideline in interior decorating but is quite the most ferociously perfectionist craftswoman I have encountered. When it comes to the laborious, time consuming and delicate operation of cutting in it is my view that she has no equal. Furthermore she seems actually to relish the challenge, leaving to the ‘oily rags’ like me the prosaic duty of wielding the roller – a low-order task if ever there be one!

Even luckier (for us!) she is gifting us her time and expertise – and extensively so – on a quid pro quo basis. There can be no doubt at all as to who is getting the better part of this particular deal.

We are truly blessed!

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 "Janus"- watercolour (and photograph) by Tony Grist
As I indicated in my last post there is good reason at this point not only to look back at the year just passed but also towards things already on the cards for 2018. All of a sudden a great deal is going on.

I have not posted any photos of our renovation since those I uploaded before we went to Mexico at the start of December. Much has happened. The floors have been laid, the kitchen cabinets installed, the bathroom floors and walls tiled, the trims and the baseboards installed and painted and various electrics second-fitted. The huge task of painting the walls throughout has also been started.

This week the countertops go in along with much of the bathroom equipment. We are approaching the end game. I have not posted photos because, once the floors were finished, everything was carefully covered to protect it from damage and things thus look less ‘done’ than they actually are.

Not long to wait though…

Now – when I retired and came to Canada I had no intention of working again. What I had not calculated for was the UK referendum on membership of the EU. Should the gentle reader wonder as to the connection the answer is simple: post-Brexit the Sterling/CAD exchange rate tanked and the two-year transfer deal that I had set up expired at Christmas. Since my State Pension does not kick in for another year there is a slightly uncomfortable gap.

I have – therefore – been looking for a part-time job to ensure that things remain comfortable. Furthermore, I have already found same. I will – as of this very week – be teaching Computer Literacy at a post-secondary college in Victoria. The contract is for a single term (though more teaching may be available later in the year) and essentially for two days a week. As far as I can ascertain at this stage this is pretty much the perfect setup. Let’s hope I have not forgotten how to do it!

In addition, it looks as though my ongoing attempts to get something started on the youth drama front might also be about to bear fruit. Fingers very much crossed that this is indeed the case – but I am most hopeful. It does mean that this will be a busy period, though.

That is no bad thing of course…

Whatever your own personal situation I hope that your 2018 has gotten off to a good start.

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“…a little becomes a lot”

Anonymous

A quick pictorial update on our renovations. This is where things stand after our wonderfully perfectionist dry-waller (and his partner) have spent a week and a half working on our walls and ceilings. What you can’t discern from the pictures is just how wonderfully smooth and silky the ceilings now are. The spaces immediately look larger and far, far cleaner than they did before.

Next up – floors throughout and tiling for the bathrooms:

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In the drama that is our ongoing renovation the first two acts are over and there is now a brief intermission before act three. The tearing out has been completed and the loaded bin (skip) of detritus has been hauled up onto its truck and trundled away. The new infrastructure has been installed; wiring, plumbing, gas, ventilation, sub-floors, windows and so forth…

We now stretch our legs gratefully and pop to the bar for a swift sticky whilst we await the fireworks of the cosmetic part of the project that start the second half.

The shell of the kitchen is ready for dry-walling and flooring:

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidThe drawing room awaits its new ceiling and floor:

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidThe bathrooms are also ready for the dry-waller:

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidSome of the new windows have even been trimmed, though others must wait for further finishing:

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidThe dry-waller comes on Monday to start on the walls and ceilings. The following week sees both the flooring and the tiling done and we will then be ready for the installation of kitchen cabinets and bathroom fittings.

All most exciting!

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