Starts With a Flower
Week 32, Day 221
Anne has a couple of clematis vines growing around the house. One is white, and it’s quite pretty, but this one is spectacular. And it has a ton of blooms right now. It’s hidden in the side yard, but it seems very happy with its location, so I suspect it will stay there.
Last week’s post had a last-minute note added that said the shipping container was empty. Here’s the proof of that:
And even better, now it’s gone!
That’s a driveway with plenty of parking. Sadly, we still have the porta-potty, but that will go away relatively soon. The question is whether there will be contractors here when our first visitor arrives or not. If so, it stays. If not, it goes. I hope we can make that decision next week.
And yes, we’re having a guest arrive in mid-July to stay with us for a bit. So the interior has to be all back together by then. There might still be some exterior work going on, but only time will tell.
This morning we passed the final plumbing and heating inspections. They were quick and easy. It was a different inspector who was much more reasonable than the previous one had been. In addition, I am told the final electrical inspection will happen on Wednesday. So things are moving along.
So what did I (or we) accomplish this past week? Well, quite a bit, actually. Anne got the kitchen set up and running. She’s cooking down there again, and it is so much nicer than the old kitchen.
Tonight will be our first homemade Friday night pizza since this all started last November. Bad news for the local pizza joint that we’ve been going to, but good news for us.
As for me, I spent hours cleaning the inside of a skylight. The issue was twofold. First, during the painting, the contractors had put up masking to protect the skylight from overspray, but it didn’t get taken down right away, and the summer sun baked the tape to the acrylic, making an awful mess. But even worse, some paint snuck through the masking, getting onto the acrylic as well. I didn’t think to take photos of the job except for this one when I was nearly done:
That white spot in the corner was the last of the paint. It’s gone now.
That was a serious effort, involving half a bottle of Goo Gone and more elbow grease than I knew I could put out, all from the top of a ladder in the family room / conservatory. Even worse, it was a warm day (about 26°–28° C, or 79°–82° F) made even warmer by the oven-like qualities of the skylight.
Still, it got done.
Another task that turned out to be more complicated than I expected was hanging the new dining room light:
That fixture came fully assembled with over two metres of wire between each bulb and the canopy above. There was no way to simply coil the excess wire in the canopy, so I had to shorten the cables and get the measurements right. If the lamp had shipped with one end or the other unconnected, that would have been easy, but it was fully assembled, and it took me four hours to go from opening the box to turning on the finished installation. Still, it looks great, and we love it.
By way of comparison, here’s an image from 2023 of the old dining room light:
It used a halogen T3 (tube) bulb that got way too hot, it collected bugs and dust, and it was easy to smack your forehead on. The new light is much nicer on all fronts, plus we just love the way it looks.
In addition to those projects, there’s been a lot of Tetris going on. (You remember, the video game with the falling blocks?) We have so many boxes and things that came out of the shipping container that we have to move them around to unpack other things. It’s not efficient, but it is necessary.
Here’s a photo of the living room as it stands right now:
And here’s the family room / conservatory:
Both are improving, but there's still a ways to go. As for the guest bedroom, the office, and the library, well, those are basically storage facilities at the moment. But they will get better. More about that effort next week, including a particularly thorny issue in the library.
There’s nothing else to report, and I have to go work on the house. I’ll be back in a week with all the news worth sharing.
May all your inspections go well!
