Sunday, November 16, 2008

Almost there

Here are some very recent photos of the exterior and interior, to give you an idea of where we are now (none of the furniture in the right-hand photo is in the right spot, but will be soon).

96A Crichton is now a habitable location, and we love it more every day.

Stay tuned!

Roof with a view

While we were tiling a couple of months ago (still ongoing, if you can believe it), we had a little snack on the rooftop patio. It wasn't finished yet, but we still enjoyed getting some fresh air on the roof. The photo on the right shows the rooftop patio as it is now. From there we will be able to see the fireworks over Parliament Hill on Canada Day, and the international fireworks competition in Hull. We can't wait!

Time to cook

Our kitchen is almost complete; only a single cabinet and our countertops remain. It's hard to get a photo of the whole kitchen from any angle, but here's an attempt. We love everything about this kitchen; it turned out even better than we had hoped. We especially love the stacked cabinets to the ceiling (no place for dust!) and the pull-out pot drawer in the peninsula. Oh, and the 36-inch cooktop, too. And the dishwasher. Okay, all of it.

Stairs — the triumphant return!

Less than a week after they were removed, our stairs were safely returned to us. They now meet code, and are as beautiful as they were when they left. We are now only waiting for the maple handrail; once those are on, the stairs will be 100% complete. (The handrail in the photo is temporary.)

Copper sink installed!

When the copper sink we bought on our honeymoon in Montreal was put in, it felt like things really started taking shape. We kept that sink in a bag in our apartment for about five months, waiting for the time to come when it would be installed. The powder room is now almost ready for visitors — the box of cleaning materials in the photo has been removed, and all the regular bathroom accessories have been installed, including a great round mirror, a toilet paper holder, a hand towel rack and lights. It's amazing how much a toilet paper holder makes a room look like a real room.

Indoor camping

While our stairs leading to our bedroom were gone, we spent a few nights camped out in our house, moving from spot to spot as work progressed on the second floor. We still managed to have some good meals, though. (If you look closely in the right-hand photo, you can see a real sign of the wilderness: Tammo, our pet bunny!) That photo still makes me laugh.

More floor pics

Here are a couple more photos of the floors before they were refinished. On the left is a photo of the first floor, which was really terrible. The photo on the right shows marks in the second-floor bathroom. I still find it truly unbelievable that a company that did work this shoddy would not be embarassed and offer to refinish them as soon as possible. Instead, we had to chase after them until they finally relented. It's infuriating. But it's Sunday evening, so I'm letting it go.

Bye, bye stairs

Here are a couple of photos of our stairs being removed. It was quite an operation -- not a scratch anywhere! Look at Ethan's legs dangling in the second photo where our stairs used to be. Yikes!

Our floors: Before and after

After some serious digging, I managed to find my camera software and download some photos. Here are the first of many to come.

As we mentioned in previous posts, we had an absolutely awful experience with our two flooring companies. The photo on the left shows the state in which they first left our floors. Remember, these were to be our finished floors, with no other covering on them. Truly, they were unbelievably bad. The white streaking shows where the varnish was rubbed off of the floors before it was dry. It looks like you could just mop it up, but you can't. The guys finishing our floors did try their best, but they had no training and no support. It was a disaster. The photo on the right shows the refinished floors. They are dusty in the photo, but you can still see how much better they are. Unfortunately, they are far from perfect. We will live with them for the forseeable future, though.

Friday, November 7, 2008

Four football fields

Between moving furniture, finding places to sleep, and generally fretting, we have spent the last four weekends sanding, staining and varnishing 800 feet of two-inch window and door trim and 400 feet of four-inch baseboards. Stretched out end to end, that's four football fields worth of poplar.

Lessons learned from finishing four football fields of wood:

1. Sanding large amounts of wood is back-breaking, dusty work.

2. Working in a confined area (garage) and trying to carefully move awkwardly long pieces of wet varnished wood around furniture that shouldn't be in the garage except you had to put it there because you hired an incompetent flooring company is extremely frustrating.

3. Staining is toxic and tedious, but instantly gratifying.

4. Bugs are indeed dumb enough to fly into wet varnish and die there.

5. At about foot #1,150 of 1,200 feet, absolutely any task looks more appealing than varnishing wood. Scrub the toilet? No problem! Clean out the bunny's cage and litter box? Fun! Run in bare feet across a bed of unsterilized needles and hot garbage? Whee!

Still, we made it. Our carpenter installed some of the baseboards and trim last weekend, and we can't believe what a difference it has made. The house is taking on a distinct house-like look, and it is wonderful. The baseboards around the curved walls are made of two thin layers of 1/4-inch maple, which were cut to the same height as the poplar boards, bent around the curves and nailed in place. Unfortunately, we have to stain it to match the rest of the baseboards. More sanding, staining and varnishing! Ohhhh.

The rest of the baseboards and trim and due to be installed this weekend. Once they are in, we can move furniture agains the walls and unpack!

Actual unpacking! We can't wait.

Floors refinished!

Last we left you, we were anxiously awaiting the refinishing of our awful floors. The second floor was refinished first. This floor is where we have our kitchen, living room and dining room, and the most wide open space. The floors look much better, although given the state they were in before, that wasn't too difficult (to come: before and after pics). The surface is mostly one colour — a fairly dark brown — but the holes in the DaroTopp cement flooring are still very visible in places. There are also strange swirly marks in the floor in the kitchen. Not swirly-stylish, but swirly-whoops-I-made-a-mistake-ish. Still, it is markedly better, and we were extremely relieved to finally have it done, a month after we moved in. Once the second floor was refinished, we needed to clear the first floor to have it redone. We moved all of our furniture from the first floor up to the second floor, and all of the boxes from the first floor down to the basement. Who needs a gym membership when you can just carry furniture up and down stairs every night? Thanks, flooring company! We're in great shape!

The first floor was refinished later than planned (no warning, no phone call), and at the last possible minute. It too looks a lot better than it did, although there are some shiny patches were the matte finish wasn't applied, and the holes in the DaroTopp are still visible. But, we're thrilled that our business with the flooring company is now over, and we can finally start moving things into the rooms where they're supposed to go.

Remember us?

Hello, everyone! It's been a long couple of weeks, but we've finally turned a corner. Things are on the upswing. Slowly, slowly, things have improved. I found my laptop, but because it was recently resurrected from the dead (huge virus), it no longer includes the software for my camera or my Internet connection. I could reinstall it, if only I could find the box with the installation CDs in it. I'm aiming for Christmas (seriously). Until then, I'm typing away on John's machine; the pics will have to wait, though.

Instead of writing one novel-long post, I thought I'd break it up and start with the stairs.

Our stairs from the second to the third floor were removed and replaced without any problems. Our stair guys took great care in removing them -- it's truly amazing what can be achieved by smart guys and a block and tackle. Our 1,000 lbs stairs were lowered and eased out of the building without a scratch on them or the walls. It was a real feat. Before the stairs were removed, John and I had a little bit of time to run up to the third floor and pack a few clothes for the week. We spent our first night on our camping mats in the living room, then upgraded to a single mattress on the floor the next night. We spent the next few nights alternating between my lovely sister's house and our kitchen floor. The stairs were reinstalled within the week, and we were thrilled to be reunited with our bed. The stairs are as gorgeous as they were when they first went in, no worse for the wear. The ceiling height is now corrected. The only thing left to do is install the maple railing cap, clean up the railings, and repair the drywall where it had to be cut out.

We now also have railings everywhere we need them — all around every outside structure, on the garage stairs leading to the house, and on the stairs leading to the basement. The stair rails leading to the rooftop patio now have a much nicer railing. It almost makes you forget that if you fell from up there, you'd be toast. Almost.

Having the stairs corrected has been a huge challenge, and we are thrilled that it's over. The stairs are beautiful -- photos to come!

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

De-construction update

Just while I have a few minutes as I wait for John to pick me up, I wanted to mention the latest bit of craziness that I forgot to report. Our drunken electricians didn't leave enough wire hanging out of the various outlets in the house in a few places, so they can't actually connect them. To fix this problem — which somehow passed inspection — they had to rip out parts of the wall today in three of our rooms to pull out more of the wire. That means they had to tear out the drywall and break through our foam insulation to try and find the wires they're looking for.

Yep, it's as bad as it sounds.

Refugees from 96A Crichton

John just went to the house around 7:00 p.m. tonight to see how the floors were coming along (they were supposed to be ready to walk on in socks at 9:00 p.m.) and found out that we actually can't sleep there tonight because the epoxy takes eight to 12 hours to dry. No one seems to have had any intention of telling us that. If John hadn't had the foresight to check on things, we would have been pretty upset to find out that we couldn't walk on the floor to get any clothes from our bedroom, and that we would have to find a place to sleep in a hurry. John hurriedly packed a few things for us, and my sister said she would take us in.

We are refugees from our new home.

Post-move stress disorder (PMSD)

After a year and a half of planning, working, sweating and worrying, we expected to be celebrating one of the biggest accomplishments of our lives after we moved in. Unfortunately, it didn't turn out this way. We're still hanging on to the hope that one day soon we will get some joy out of our new home.

Our plumbers and electricians have proven themselves to be incompetent. Two weeks after we moved in, we still have an unconnected sink and another sink that leaks. The electricians, after admitting that the first crew who installed our wiring were drunk on the job (yep, for real), don't seem to feel any sort of urgency to finish their work. On top of it all, they leave a path of destruction wherever they go (a broken light here, broken lightbulbs there, etc.). They flick our breakers and boiler on and off at will, leaving us with systems that don't work when we want them to and no hot water this morning. The minute they finish their work, we will be complaining to the Better Business Bureau.

We've hinted at our flooring troubles, and I wish I could post our recent photos (I can't find my laptop at the moment, unfortunately). As we mentioned in our previous post, our flooring company left us with completely deficient floors before we moved in. They avoided our builder's calls for almost two weeks before finally responding after he escalated the issue to the company's president. They are scheduled to refinish the second floor today; we'll see what actually happens. Once the second floor is complete, we will have to move everything off of the first floor to the second floor so that that floor can also be redone. We've decided to just skip the third floor; it's not as bad up there, and we'll just do whatever we can to clean them up ourselves. Again, we will be contacting the BBB to lodge a complaint.

Our lovely stairs have, unfortunately, failed inspection. It's a very long story, but the stairs from the second to the third floor must be removed (!), corrected, and re-installed. We don't know yet whether we will just move some clothes downstairs and sleep among the boxes, or whether we'll stay elsewhere for the week. We have a bunny to consider, too.

In the midst of this, we've been sanding, staining and varnishing what feels like a million feet of baseboards and window and door frames. We're pleased with the results, but wonder whether our backs will ever forgive us.

On a happier note, we have continued to unpack as much as possible in our kitchen, which we truly love. We have many photos to share as soon as my laptop turns up. Stay tuned!

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

We're in

Apologies for posting so late, but things have been incredibly hectic for us lately. We moved on Saturday, October 4, and it was definitely the most difficult move either of us has ever experienced. To all those who participated, we are very grateful for your help. I shudder to think what we would have done without you.

We moved into what is still very much a construction zone, and are trying to settle into it a little bit more every day. The greatest challenge remains the floors, which are truly a disaster. We will have to figure out a way to fix them, which will not be an easy task now that our furniture and 8,000 boxes are in the house. Various workers are trying to finalize the electrical and plumbing, put in the phone line, and install the living room ceiling, baseboards and trim around all of the windows and doors. The list is really a lot longer, but we're taking it one day at a time.

In happier news, we have started to unpack a few things for our kitchen. As of this morning, our fridge is our only functional appliance, but never underestimate the power of a mug in the cupboard to put a smile on our faces.

Cheerier updates to follow, we hope. Thanks to everyone for your words of encouragement; they mean a lot to us.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Where have we been?

Our deepest apologies to those of you who have been following our blog and wondering where we've been. We've been so tied up with all of our activities in the past few weeks that we've not been able to get here to provide an update. That, and one of our computers has been on the fritz for a week or so, and the other one was occupied with work.

In getting back to our chronicle, I realize how much has happened at our site--let's call it our home--since the last entry, even though for us it seems like we've been slogging through molasses. So much has happened, in fact, that tonight we started packing for our move! It's only being delayed by a week from the last anticipated date. We are planning to move on Saturday, October 4, 2008 (yes, this year), and have been granted a reprieve by our landlady to stay until that weekend, although not a day more.

If I recall, for our last update we were talking about tiling and drywalling. We're still doing those things, but both are almost done. The drywalling has progressed far enough that painting will begin this weekend. More on that later. The tiling, after 10 sessions of an average of four hours a piece, is also close to being finished. We have probably eight or so more hours to finish it off. More on that later, too.

Doors have gone in, locks have gone in, stairs have been constructed, the roof-top deck has been constructed, the siding has been finished, the basement has been wired and drywalled, and, just in the past few days, the floors have been finished--almost. All of these things are crucial, of course, and some of them have caused us great anxiety. The floor, in particular, has given us grief, and if you want our honest opinion on DaroTopp, please ask and we will reply.

About the drywall: our contractor has taken over some of it, but has also left some to the subcontractor that we asked to have fired. Apparently, there are enough bits and pieces left to finish that it will take a few days of work, by someone. It has progressed far enough, howeverm that the primer coat can be applied to most of the house. We're counting on this because one of our tasks for the coming weekend is to paint the bathrooms. Without going into the details, anywhere there is a colour other than the standard one we will be applying it. Our main priority will be the bathrooms. We'll be painting the study, living room and dining room after we move in.

About the tiling: it's been a lot of fun, but we're really looking forward to finishing it, which we're also planning to do this coming weekend. We're aware of all of the flaws that we've left behind, but when you look at it overall, we think it looks pretty good. Some will say that this kind of task should be left to the experts, who can do it quickly and are getting paid. We like the satisfaction of doing something for ourselves, when we can.

We have also been buying things like crazy--counter top, vanities, wardrobes, washer and dryer, lights, mirrors, door handles--all those things we spent hours window-and-internet shopping for months ago, and that finally we had to spend money on.

It's been a hectic few weeks, dear readers, and that's where we've been. In eight days we will be where we've been working to be for over a year. It seems like a short time for such a big move, unless you're us.

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Updated facade

Here is the front of the house with the garage door installed. We're really looking forward to the porch being completed and seeing the final facade.

It doesn't look like it will be entirely finished this year, though. We are considering a couple of different options for our driveway, which won't likely be implemented before the snow flies. It also looks like landscaping won't be happening until next spring, either. We'll see; there may be something we can do before the frost hits. To be continued...

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Garage door installed!

Our garage door was installed today. The colour isn't a perfect match to the front door or windows, but it's the closest that we could get, and it looks alright. It was very exciting to see it finally in place. (I tried to take another shot of the whole house with the garage door installed, but the batteries in my camera died. Ah, well. I'm sure you can imagine it.)

Sunday, August 31, 2008

Brick-a-brac

Today was Day 5 of our tiling adventure. (In our defense, not all of them were full days.) We still have work to do in the shower and on the front of the tub, but it's coming along. John successfully completed the difficult cut around the shower head fixture (you can see it best in the left-hand photo). The rough edges of the cut will be covered with a small chrome cover. It's going to look great. The temperature control piece below it will be a challenge, too. I'm sure we'll figure it out. And by "we" I mean John. The cutting tool he's using is a violent, aggressive thing, and I'm happy to let him wrestle with it.

Friday, August 29, 2008

Treads preview

We dropped by our stairbuilder's workshop this afternoon and got a sneak preview of our beautiful maple stair treads. There are 29 of them in total, and they are gorgeous. They will be stained a medium-toned reddish brown to coordinate with the rest of the woods in the house. The underside of each tread has been cut to exactly match the size of the steel steps (the treads in the photos are upside down so you can see the cuts). There are still a few dirty jobs left to do on the house, so these lovely pieces will not be installed until later in September. We can't wait!

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Movin' on up

We put in another seven hours tonight on the bathroom tiles, and made it almost to the very top of the wall. At this rate, it will likely take us another 20 hours to finish the job. Yikes. On the bright side, though, we're pretty happy with how they're turning out so far.

Stairs to the basement!













The interior and exterior stairs to the basement were installed today, and they look great. The interior stairs, in the left photo, lead to the ever-decreasing jam storage area (surely they must be finished pushing out my condiments with mechanical equipment by now). The exterior stairs, in the right photo, lead to the bachelor apartment we hope to rent out sometime in the winter.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Amateur hour

After some encouragement and helpful tips from our builder, John and I started tiling our third-floor bathroom tonight. After going to so much trouble to pick our tiles, we were nervous about ruining them, but Patrick bolstered our spirits.

Phase 1 of our tiling adventure has taught us a few things:

1) Tiling is 20 per cent tile setting, 80 per cent cleaning. I have mortar in places you don't want to imagine.

2) It is extremely time-consuming to clean dried cement off of tiles. We will not allow mortar to dry on tiles in phase 2 of our tiling odyssey.

3) Our marriage will probably survive finishing our bathroom.

Our first three and a half rows turned out pretty well. The tiles actually look like bricks, which was the goal. The next row is a decorative listel, which has a few different colours in it. This listel border will wrap around the tub and shower. We're aiming to put in the listel and finish the rest of the rear wall tomorrow.

Tile on!

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Party in the back

When our steel worker bailed on us, the Botan crew stepped up and took on the work to complete the exterior and the roof. They installed the inset panel on the rear of the house today, and we really like how it looks. The white trim you see in the photo will be painted the same brown as the steel.

As the exterior design comes to life, you can see why we call our place the Mullet House. The front is very traditional, while the back is more modern. Business in the front, party in the back!

Taping and mudding

Not all of the drywall boards are up, but the taping and mudding has begun in several areas where they are. We hope that this step will be finished by the end of the week so that the painters can begin next week.

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Drywall progress, part 2

The drywall is moving along. The boards were due to all be up by now, but there is still about a day's work to complete it. Still, we were encouraged to see that the stairwell had been done.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Drywall progress

The drywall has started and is coming along. The photo on the left is of the kitchen, and the photo on the right is of the third floor bedroom. The curves are turning out very well, to our relief. The interior windows in the third floor bedroom wall are intended to bring the light in from the skylights over the stairwell. That room will be especially nice when it's done, I think. It's our spare bedroom, also known as my backup office if working in the same room with you-know-who doesn't work out. Shhh.

The drywall is half an inch thick, and the rooms feel (and are) smaller as a result. (If you measure from the exterior walls, that's about 62 square feet of lost floorspace on the second floor, but less on the first and third floors. Sigh.) Every major change adjusts our perception of the house. The finished floors will be another adjustment, and the painted walls another.

Painted walls! I can hardly wait.

Porch begun

Work on the porch roof began this week. In the original design, the porch roofline was extended with a canopy over the garage. Because the front door is higher than it was originally planned to be, the top of the porch is also higher. If we had kept the original design with the canopy, it would have been a lot higher than the garage door. John thought this would look very strange, and after some convincing, I caved and agreed to drop the canopy. The revised design will mirror our immediate neighbours' homes, so that's a plus.

As you can see in the second photo, the underside of the porch roof is finished in cedar, like the soffits. I think it will be nice to have wood above our heads as we come and go from the house.

Monday, August 18, 2008

Garage and basement poured

The cement floors in the garage and basement were poured today. That giant truck is the cement mixer; the photo on the right is of the finished garage. A few bits to be sanded, but overall it looks pretty good.

The drywallers, however, didn't show today. Maybe tomorrow, we'll see.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

The week ahead

If all goes as planned, this will be a very busy and productive week chez Boucher-Thurston.

As I mentioned in the previous post, the drywallers are coming in tomorrow. They estimate that it will take them four days to board the entire house, followed by five days of finishing (mudding and sanding). Having the drywall done will be wonderful for many reasons, not the least of which is getting the drywall up off of the floor so that everyone can move around the house without having to do triple sow-cows. We're looking forward (a little anxiously) to seeing how the curved walls turn out.

The concrete floors will be poured in the basement and in the garage tomorrow. This is wonderful, because once that's done, our talented stair builders can come in and build us a way to the basement and into the house from the garage. Once the stairs are built, work can begin on our bedroom balcony, rooftop patio and front porch. We can hardly wait!

The shower in the third-floor bathroom will be completed this week so that John and I can start tiling it next week. We've placed the order for the tiles, and expect them to be delivered to the house next Monday. Between now and then we'll figure out how to tile a bathroom and screw up the courage to do it.

There are a few other things on the go this week, but let's not count our chickens. We'll keep you posted as we move along...

Drywall prep

After a few delays, the drywallers are scheduled to finally begin the drywalling in earnest tomorrow. In preparation for their work, the Botan crew installed some strapping (thin pieces of wood) in the ceilings throughout the house. Although not strictly required, the idea is that this will prevent nails in the drywall from popping as the house settles over time.

Garage drywalled

The garage has been drywalled, and the cement floor is due to be poured tomorrow. More gravel will be added to raise the level of the floor, then the cement will go in. Once that is done, we will be able to put in some stairs to the house from the garage, and have the garage door installed. This is great news, because then the house will be secure.

Kitchen wall up

The half wall between the kitchen and the stairs is now in place. This will be helpful in keeping us from plunging to our deaths after a few drinks out of the beautiful cooler Shawna and Chris got for us for our wedding. Sadly, the half wall covers our pigeon footprints, but we know they're still there.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Swing in waiting

I grew up with my wonderful godfather's handmade swings all around me: at my grandfather's farm, at my godparents' home, and at their cottage. My uncle Jim's swings held me, my sister and my cousins all of our lives. We loved them. When I was young, my Uncle Jim said he would build me a swing as a wedding present. That was a long time ago, and I was sure my uncle didn't remember it. When John proposed last year, my mother told me that my godparents wanted to give me something special. Since I was marrying so much later than I'm sure my godparents expected, I didn't feel I could really ask for the swing. I wasn't sure my uncle even made them anymore, and they certainly take some work. My mother made the suggestion to my uncle, and to my complete delight, he agreed to make one. It turns out he is still very active in the swing-making business.

Our swing is now ready, and we love it! The photo on the left shows our disassembled swing, which will be transported from Bryson to Ottawa in pieces. The photo on the right is of my godparents' swing, to give you an idea of how it will look when it's put together in our backyard. At our request, my uncle didn't paint our swing. It will stay natural cedar, to match our back deck and balcony. It will age to a greyish silver just like our cedar decks. The cedar comes from my Uncle Allen's farm, which was previously my grandfather's. It means a lot to me that this very special piece of my past will be a part of our future.

Friday, August 8, 2008

Our littlest helper

Shawna and Chris were visiting from Barrie and brought the girls to visit our house today. Wee Sylvie was very helpful in cleaning up the site. After we're settled in, she's hired to keep the place spic and span.

Beyond cute: After supper and some playtime at the park, we said our goodbyes until the next visit. "Will you call me in the morning when your house is done?" Sylvie asked.

I'll call you when it's done, little buddy, but something tells me it won't be tomorrow morning.

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Railings, part 2

After a weekend camping in Crotch Lake, we returned to find that the rest of the railings had been installed. This is a great relief to us, since it's one of the things between us and an occupancy permit. They look great, and will look even better with handrails and stair treads.

More to come soon...

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Basement progress

Work on the basement began in earnest a little while ago, but I didn't want to brave the ladder to take a picture. (The ladder isn't that bad, but I don't like to go down this one in certain shoes. I know that sounds loony, but there it is.) The pink stuff is insulation, which is laid over a waterproof (Platon) membrane. Our heating supplier is due to install the piping tomorrow, although the place doesn't look ready for him yet. We'll see how it goes. After that comes the cement!

Insulation complete

The insulators came by and finished the job today, filling in the garage walls, the upper basement walls, and the gaps around the windows. There are still a couple of cracks in the insulation, but they don't go through to the outside, so maybe that's alright. The photo is of the garage, which is now ready for drywall.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Railings, part 1








John and I went over to the house today to take some closet measurements, and to our surprise and delight, saw that the first set of stair railings had been installed. These have been a long time coming, and we were thrilled to finally see them. The photo on the left shows them from the ground floor, and the photo on the right shows them from the second floor, looking down. They will have to be removed when the maple treads are ready to be installed, but they look great for now.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Drywall begins

Our first pieces of drywall were installed today in the garage and in the mechanical room in the basement (also known as The House of Jam). These had to be in place for the insulators to complete the insulation, which is expected to happen sometime this week. The empty space above the ladder in the photo is for the end of our canoe, which we'll hang from the garage ceiling. Our canoe has enjoyed wintering chez Papa and Allison, but soon it will be time for it to move into its permanent home.

In other news, work continues on the exterior this week. The guys are installing our soffit, which is cedar. Our interior stair railings are delayed, but coming soon. Once the insulation and the related inspection are complete, the drywalling can begin in earnest. Our mechanical supplier is coming in next Monday to complete his work and prepare to "shock heat" the floors.

Speaking of floors, the saga continues. Once we have found a solution to our woes, we'll fill you all in. Until next time...