Railings complete!

John took these pictures of our newly installed railings. They look great! One of the deck builders plans to build the stairs at his place and then bring them to the site. I am really looking forward to a way into the house that isn't a ladder.

Railings!

These are just two of the railings our deck builders were able to complete -- they'll be up in no time! We love their simplicity. No doily railings for us, thanks. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

Beautiful bricks

A load of handsome red bricks was delivered to the site today in preparation for the brickwork to begin on Monday. The bricks will cover the front of the house and a portion of the sides, about 12 feet back. The bricklayer anticipates that it will take him about two weeks to finish the job.

Dear trim manufacturers

My husband and I spent some time roaming the halls of a popular hardware store this evening in search of trim for our new home. We found a vast selection of trim designs. Big bevels, little bevels, ornamental designs, and geometric etchings abounded. Completely absent from this vast selection was one beautiful shape perhaps unknown to you: the rectangle. I have included a rough interpretation of this shape above for your reference.

The plain, unadorned rectangle is perfectly suited to baseboards, window frames, and other trim applications. It would be inexpensive to make, and the amount my husband and I need alone would support a small start-up product line.

Try it. We'll buy it!

Up on the rooftop

John ventured up the ladder through the skylight in the third-floor bathroom to check out the progress on the roof. Things are looking good. This photo shows where our little rooftop patio will go, way up there among the trees. Most of the roof will be planted with sedum (soon, we hope), absorbing the sun's rays in the summer, giving us a little extra insulation in the winter, and reducing stormwater run-off. The green roof will be a beautiful feature when it's installed.

Next stop: BBQ!

We dropped by the house today and found some wonderful progress on the second-story deck off of our kitchen. It's tempting to seal the untreated cedar and preserve the new-wood look, but we are determined to let it age gracefully. I love the look of silvered-out, aging cedar, too. It reminds me of the fences at my grandfather's farm. This deck will be a beauty, especially when it grows some railings.

Fruits of a sunny Saturday's labour

John and I were impressed to see our deck builders on-site this sunny Saturday, and it looks like it was a productive day. We were on our way to Kingston to pick up a tub and sink donated by our dear friends to the Boucher-Thurston cause (our builder wasn't able to do this after all), and stopped in on the deck crew to say hello. This photo doesn't show the platform that leads out from our office, but does give an idea of the effort put in so far. The decks will be constructed mostly of untreated cedar; the supports are made of pressure-treated lumber.

We're behind on a few fronts -- electrical, front porch, brickwork -- but we're hoping for a good week this week.

A week's work

A lot of things are scheduled for this week: the roofing membrane should be finished over the next couple of days, the sonotubes for the porch will be installed, the front porch itself will be started, and the electrical work should begin. We're going to pick up the third-floor bathroom tub at my Dad's tomorrow night (thanks for keeping it safe, Dad and Allison!), and our builder is planning to pick up a great tub and pedestal sink from our lovely and generous friends in Kingston on Friday.

John says hi from the roof in the photo above. That's the skylight in the third-floor bathroom he's peeking through. (There are three ladders between me and waving John, which is why no comparable photo exists of me.)

Mulch, anyone?

The guys revved up the chipper today to whip up some fresh mulch from the waste wood on the site, rather than send it on to landfill. It turns out they ended up with a lot of extra mulch. We hope that some of our neighbours can put it to good use.

Second-floor views

Here are some recent photos of the second floor. The second floor is our main living space, and includes the living room, dining room, kitchen and pantry, and powder room.

The photo on the left shows the view of the floor from the living room to the kitchen. The stairwell is on the left (see that terrifying ladder extending up to the third floor?!), the dining room is in the middle and the kitchen is at the rear on the left. The door in the middle of the rear wall goes out to a deck. The powder room is on the right nearest the dining room (it has a beautiful curved wall), and the pantry is at the back. Our washer and dryer will also fit in the pantry.

The photo on the right shows the view of the floor from the kitchen to the living room. The stairwell is on the right (argh! there's the ladder again), the dining room is on the left, and the living room is at the back. The living room has a cathedral ceiling, which will soon have two skylights, one on each side of the peak.

We love this floor. Well, we love all the floors, but this one is a beauty.

Jams, chutneys and pickles!

I was on a roll on Saturday and managed to make my way down the ladder to the basement while I was at it. John had already been down there once, and had told me about the crawlspace, but I had to see it to believe it. When the house was originally designed, we weren't sure how much of a crawlspace we were going to be able to get with all of the rock that would have to be removed for the basement. We thought it would literally be a "crawl" space, a spider-infested subterranean hollow with no more than four feet of head space or so. Not my kind of place at all. I had plans to send John down there to retrieve my little jars of homemade jam when I needed them.

It turns out that won't be necessary! The space is huge! It's about seven feet tall and almost four feet wide. Do you know how much jam a space like that could HOLD? Jams? Why limit it to jams? With a space like that, I can make chutneys, jellies, pickles, preserves, relish, and MUSTARDS! I can make soaps, salves, and bath products! I can have a whole store down there and make gift baskets as the need arises! Can you imagine it?! I can. Think of the possibilities!

Lorie vs. the ladder (the sequel)

You won't believe it, loyal readers, but I made it up to the third floor today! Don't tell my mom, but after very kind encouragement from Adam and Mike, I found the resolve to conquer (or at least momentarily suppress) my fear and climb the ladder to the third floor. Unlike the relatively manageable ladder to the second floor, the ladder to the third floor extends over the gaping abyss of our three-story light well. Were one to fall off of the ladder, one could be in the air for entire seconds before hitting the none-too-yielding floor below! Like me, Mike has the sense to fear such a fate, so I had an understanding supporter. After much hemming and hawing, Mike said we should both go up. If he can do it, so can I, I thought, so once he went up, I did, too. Did I feel like throwing up? Yes. Did my knees feel like tapioca pudding? Yes. Do I want to do it again? God, no. Get those stairs in there, boys!

Seriously, though, it was amazing to finally get to see our room, the spare room, and our bathroom. I love it all. Our room is small, but enough for a bed and two end tables, which is all we need. The walk-in closet is glorious. Sure, John will just fill it with his 1,000 coats, but it's still great. Since I was on a roll, I went up the bathroom ladder to poke my head out of the skylight and see the roof. The roof will be like a little park in the sky, among the tree tops. It's better than I had hoped for. I can't wait to see the little patio up there!

New roommate

Our house seems to be attractive real estate for other two-legged species; there is a little pile of twigs in our bedroom collected by hopeful pigeons. Sorry guys, this place is soon to be occupied!

John and I, and our friends Mike and Adam, checked out the place thoroughly today. We had some challenges with the plumbing to resolve this week, and after some figuring out, it looks like we still ended up with the bulkheads we were trying to avoid. We'll see how that pans out next week. We also have to finalize our electrical plan over the weekend, including where all of our switches should go. Pendant lights, pot lights, flush-mounted lights, under-cabinet lights...so many decisions. We're glad that we made the lion's share of those choices months ago and are just confirming the details now.

Cheers to the crew!

We met with our builder tonight and he had a lovely surprise for us: he and the guys chipped in and bought us a great bottle of champagne and a sweet card for our wedding. We were very touched. Guys, if you're reading this, we truly appreciated your kind gesture. Thank you so much. I'm trying to convince John that we should save it for our moving day (in July)!

We're a couple of days behind schedule, but still progressing. We're going to hold off on having our inspector come by until Friday so the guys can get a couple extra days of work in and we can get the maximum out of the draw (installment payment on our mortgage). The dates are a bit off, but the line-up remains the same: plumbing, insulation, electrical, mechanical, bricks and decks (the start of them, anyway) will all happen in May. And, finally, we got the drawings we needed from the engineer for the stairs! Our stair supplier is now ready to go when we are. Stairs = no more ladders. I can't wait!

We thought we would include a couple of photos of the back of the house. We can't get back far enough to get a complete shot, but the one on the left gives you an idea of how it will look. The top right balcony is off of our bedroom. The door floating in the middle of the house will lead out to our main deck off the kitchen, and the bottom door leads out from our office to a little platform.

Looking good, guys!

Come on in!

We now have a front door!

And a back door, too, and most of our windows. Things are really coming together. One lone window remains to be installed, along with the rest of the exterior doors. The sheathing on the roof is now completely installed, and the front of the garage is now closed in.

After some debate about how many doors there are, we finally counted eight, seven of which actually lead outside: entrance, inside entrance, back, garage, basement entrance, second-floor deck, third-floor deck, and third-floor door to rooftop patio. It seems like a lot of doors when you list them like that, but they all have a purpose.

Our builder reminded us that we would have to have a locksmith change the locks so that there are only two different ones for the house (one for the basement entrance and one for the rest of the them). Otherwise, our pockets would sag and jingle quite janitorially.

In great news, our builder has lined up many of the trades who will be working on our house in May. May is going to be a big month: plumbing and masonry (our bricks!) begin May 12, our mechanical system installation starts May 19, and insulation follows on May 26.

For our part, we bought our wall oven, dishwasher and fridge tonight. Once we make our final decision on our washer and dryer, we will have all of our appliances. Luckily, we don't have to pile them up in the middle of our bed (the only space left in our apartment). The store is willing to hold them until the crew is ready to install them.

We promise to start showing pictures other than the front facade soon. Until then...