Checking in ….. cruise in 2 more sleeps

It’s Fall Teen Retreat weekend … My day is full of laundry and movies and Shannon popped home to check us all in on the cruise …. We’re all starting to count down!  Chris is still really sore and definitely excited for his finish line tommorow at 2:30!!

Kids art …

The hand painting was from my boys… Rachel had them do it for my 40th… Very sweet but it got mouldy in storage

And the yellow marker was from a morning that Elliot and I did art together when he was smaller… Again very cute, but got mouldy in storage… So here it will live in the blog….

Aug 15 - Sunday - 2.5 weeks left

It was ROUGH getting going this morning:  

Once we got rolling though….. kitchen setup for Carrie and paint and floors for me.  

She started me out as the detail at the start is important….

See what I mean?  No trim around the fireplace means exact placement is key.  She’s so good ….



Start of the day …. Goodbye pink walls …

Carrie …. The girl is an artist.  It’s been fun talking out the dream of the kitchen … where to panel, where we’ll put the air fryer for Hannah, how far out does the bar need to go …. Hannah sent us the picture of stools she has and they’ll be perfect!  

We try to never ask this guy for help but tiday after dinner we asked him to make the cuts on the concrete countertops because Carrie wasn’t terribly comfortable doing it and we’re both so tired that making an error at this point would be tough.  He did it quickly after dinner.  

After dinner I went back to finish my rows ….

Carried in the finished countertops for Carrie to wrap up the kitchen ….

She sent me the finished picture around 8:30!!!!!

Huge day!!! It looks so good!!!  Wait til the sink and induction go in!! Will be gorgeous…

Isaacs letter to Elliot on his 16th birthday

July 17th - Nitinat

Carrie and I both did things we hate today.  Hers was more arduous and important to the project:

She got rid of the concrete lip that was below the basement wall where we are putting a door to the second bedroom.  Do you see it?  On the left door….

In the same visit, Paul completed the opening to the new living room ….

Here she goes ….. 

It took her less than an hour and she hated every minute of it …. Hands down the worst part of the renovation so far she said.  

Upside?  The nasty nasty carpet the was glued to the concrete was only glued around the edges!!!! So we pulled together and now it’s off to the dump!!!

Plumbing and electrical are coming this week … all the peg boards got ripped down last night and a very happy couple down the road brought their minivan and took it all away!!!!  

Blank slate!  She’s very excited….

First it was green, with the orange underneath….and a weird cover over the fireplace hearth …

Now clean and bright and open!!!

Naomi, our tenant got married Sunday!!!  Very fun to be building and renovating and waiting for them to arrive!

July 16th Nitinat projects

Carrie painted the exterior doors because they were annoying her.  The big “bear door” aka dog door that damnit Tony put into the nice wood door was very irritating and unsafe since a bear could just crawl into the house.  So she patched it and painted it.  Then she moved everything to the shop so she could have a blank slate to build the apartment in.  

I continue to paint upstairs.  Today it was finishing up the grey in the kitchen.  I surprisingly spent much of the day behind appliances that nobody would ever see. Fridge and stove now have solid grey walls behind them. 

Her beautiful blank slate!!!  She’s got the plumber, electrician, heat pump guy…. Everyone lined up.  

Our contractor gift of a guy is coming today to build the openings and take out the walls properly….we’re excited for his arrival.  

And Carrie wastes no time - kitchen getting framed in immediately…. All built in her flip flops lol

Paul came and helped Carrie remove some walls!!

The project irritating me was the beige/smoker yellow textured wall in the dining room.  So that went away last night.  I barely had enough paint but I scraped the bottom of the 5 gallon bucket and got it done.  It’s not much better but it’s better.  Silly wallpaper.  

July 15, 2022 - more Nitinat project and camp update

It started a little after 7 AM this morning. Picked up another truckload of plywood to prep for the apartment at Nitinat. 

I think we have enough now…. Now we need to round all the edges….

The bear visited …. 

Jacks been busy….

Isaac was busy too …. Day before camp started he parked too close to a curb and shredded the new winter tire we out on last winter ….

Elliot seems to be having a great time at the Leadership Training Program these last few weeks:

Chris has been getting mouth sores as he does when he’s stressed.  Marg and Gord sent me home with meds that help marg when she gets them from chemo.  They were laughing as they gave me an unmarked bag of pills as I left “don’t get stopped!” Lol

Been driving for campers this week and got a shift with this guy in my boat. 



He’s been speaking this week and really has connected with the campers.  It’s been awesome to watch.  

Also this guy caught everyone’s attention too ….

Nitinat 6 weeks in …

We swear Tony’s name a lot in this bathroom.   He did the worst job “renovating”. Carrie has had to rejigger a lot of things….

This is our lives now.  Pictures of measurements, comparing them with what we need …. We’ve gotten some estimates from a couple of window companies which has made it very helpful. We keep the screenshot of the windows needed in our favourites photo album and refer back to that photo many many times a day these days.  

Last nights project was working on switching over the weird pink in the kitchen over to Gray… Right side of the kitchen is officially done. We will move onto the far side tonight. It looks great with the brick I think.



And last nights job for Carrie was the floor in that far room now that the carpet is gone. The house smells so much better.

Our laziest foreman …..



Sis changed out the bear door out of that far door yesterday…. Remember that huge dog dog “Damnit Tony” (as he is now called) put in?  Such a cool door but huge hole in it!!!  She did a great job fixing it.  Now I’ll paint it…. It’ll look good.  

We’re all exhausted…..