Outside painting almost done...

Hi everyone.

Well it has been a very busy few weeks. Tim and I went to the mainland for 24 hours and then went back again for Thanksgiving weekend. And a few weeks before that we were in Kelowna visiting the Zoobs and TJ & Chelsey. I have had enough travelling for awhile.

The house is bombing along right now.. They finished the oak floors onsite just before the long weekend and by the time we got back I had one time to look at them and now they are all covered with paper and old carpets. I didn't get a picture before they were covered so now I have to wait quite awhile before they will be uncovered. Too bad... silly me for not taking a picture.

The outside painting is almost done - trim work still to be finished.

We are finding that we like the colours of the outside more and more everyday. It is really calming to look at. The builder, Tim and I are all in agreement.

We can hardly wait to begin workin in the yard.. But the soffit guys didn't show up last week so they are holding us up from getting the grass in - at least some of it anyway. I would think this weekend we will work to try to get it ready for the end of next week when supposedly that job will be done. The picture don't show the exact color but it's not too far off - but it is much better in real life. lol

Pictures, pictures and more pictures...

Another beautifuly weekend has come and gone. I wish the weather would stay like this forever.

Some misc. house pictures coming your way. The siding finally put on the bottom front of the house. It will be all trimmed out and painted by the end of the week.

This next pictures is showing you some of the detail on the house. The knee brackets are pretty cool. I forget how many there are on the house - something like 21.

This next one is the main bathroom floor.

Master Bathroom

This picture is showing where the clawfoot tub will go.


The tile is not grouted yet but so far so good.

Things are really starting to move fast again...

Hi everyone.. the reason I haven't been posting much lately is because I have a sore shoulder and sitting at the computer really bothers it.

Things are going to be moving along real quickly over the next month... so I will try to keep up.

The hardwood is all down but it is going to be finished onsite - which will be done by the end of next week I believe. How cool is that!

THE LIVING ROOM

Can't wait to see it when it is finished and all the lovely warm oak color comes out - right now it doesn't look like much like it will when the finish done.

LOOKING THRU DINING INTO DEN

FRONT ENTRANCE TILE

This picture is taken from top of stairs looking down.. The light isn't great and most of the floor is covered with a drop cloth... it looks very warm - we are quite happy with it... There is a little strip left to do where the hardwood ends in the doorway.. I guess they needed to leave it for after the hardwood was installed.

Drywall, painted ceilings, and heating in the floor...

Hi everyone. Well, is this just the best time of year with the weather the way it has been.

Things are moving along right now... there will be lots of changes and pictures to put up in the next month..

The ceilings are painted now.. It's kind of hard to tell in this picture what colour really looks like.

The picture doesn't do it justice - but it is a nice warm colour (not white) and the doors and trim are all going to be that colour too.

The picture below is of the front entrance way - they lay these electric wire things under the tile to keep the floor warm...


The last picture is looking from the living room thru the dining room. Some of hardwood floor had been delivered to the house that day.

They are in process of laying it right now so I will get a picture shortly.. It won't look like much until they finish it which will probably be done right after Thanksgiving.

A trip to the Okanagan..

Just a quick note to say hello from Kelowna. As we were driving in yesterday I was taken back to a day 5 years ago when my friend from Kelowna Chris was visiting in Langley and she asked me if I found Langley to be a busy place. Back then I didn't think Langley was too busy at all. So as we drove into Kelowna yesterday I found it quite busy compared to the Comox Valley. I think we have come full circle.

Interesting how your view changes when you move to a new community. And of course, the people in the Comox Valley have seen changes in their traffic in the past 3 years and they think it's busy there now.. we just chuckle to ourselves.

I have this wierd feeling these days.. I haven't lived on the Island long enough to really feel like it's my community and yet it is. Langley feels funny because I don't have a home there anymore. And even coming to the Okanagan felt different than it has in the past. Way too wierd - I don't even know how to describe it - maybe when we get into our new home and are surrounded by our things I may feel different. I hope so.

Hope you have a good weekend.

Another fun weekend with friends..

We had a very nice weekend with our friends and old neighbours from Langley this past weekend. It was very relaxing and lots of laughs as usual.

Tim and Clare went to a business golf tournament on Saturday and get this - there foursome won the tournament. That was kind of cool.

Julie and I - well that was a story. We carried one of our new area rugs right down 5th street to the Benjamin Moore Paint store. Then we carried it back up the street and took it to the new house and checked out paint colours. That was such fun. We laughed and laughed.

This week we are leaving on Wednesday nite after work for the mainland. We will stay the nite at my folks, have a visit in the morning with Tim's folks and then head to Kelowna to see TJ and stay with our dear friends the Czuba's. Can't wait to see them - it has been so long.

It rained very hard last nite and all day today. Yuck - I really don't like the rain. But, I guess the forest needs a good drink right about now.

There isn't much going on right now that I can take good pictures of at the house. The tile guy is going to be there this week so I will be able to get some pictures of floors when I get back from the Okanagan. The rock man hasn't started the posts outside and the painter has done a little more outside but until the front of the house gets the siding on it - I won't be able to get a new picture of the front of the house that looks any different that the one I have already.

Move in day has been scheduled for December 1st. The house will likely be ready before then which will give us a couple of weeks to move. We aren't as young as we used to be which means moving is not something we can do in one day.

Fall is definitely in the air....

Today was a lovely day.. sunny, a bit windy and the leaves are starting to fall. The wind was blowing the leaves all around-- oh I just love this time of year. I read on Katie's blog that you had lots of rain on the mainland today...

Humm... Island life is looking pretty good today..

CHECK OUT THE PAINT

Just has the first coat but we really really like it.

Only this side of the house and a bit of the back are done at this point. We need it to be finished because we want to get the grass in before it's too late. But the siding guy as nice as he is - well he lives on 'Island Time'. They do live a different pace here thats for sure.

The trim isn't on around the windows on the lower level yet and I think you can tell by this picture that the painting is not a finished product. But at least you can get an idea of the colour etc.

I am still waiting for some name suggestions for our new homestead.

I had emailed a church in Scotland asking about the name that my friend suggested. I got a response last week.

This is what he said - "It would appear that there may have been a spelling mistake. The word which I think you are asking about is "Cairistiona" (gaelic for Christina) which can have the meaning "follower of Christ". "

So I will change the spelling on that suggestion and hope that I get more suggestions over the next couple of months. Put on your thinking caps people.. I need your help.

We are having company this weekend so not sure if I will get another chance to post until Sunday. My shoulder and neck are finally starting to feel a little better. Thank goodness.. I was getting pretty depressed having all that pain everyday. But life if good and things are looking up.

Hope you all have a great weekend.

Jessie trying to make a new friend..haha

That dog of mine is just priceless. She would love so much to make friends with anything that breathes. She was really trying this day to make a new friend. It was just so cute.



That cat was just teasing and teasing her - she kept trying to get closer and closer.. She would get just about there and the cat would hiss at her and Jessie would run away and then the game would start all over again. Went on for at least an hour and only came to an end when I called her in.

Sorry I haven't posted...

Hi everyone - I have had a hard week with a very sore shoulder and neck with headaches which has made sitting at the computer not something I really wanted to do.

It's late Saturday nite and I am on my way to bed but thought I would post a quick note to say I am still out here - still not feeling well but I am going to try to put some new pics up tomorrow.

We had our first rain fall in weeks and weeks - I think fall has really started to come on now. And another little tidbit....

THE DEER HAVE FOUND US. Went out to my garden the other day after watering the nite before and enjoying some of the late blooms I had going on. Yep, nipped off - the whole top of the plant which just happened to be the beautiful blooms I was enjoying. I can see their little foot prints in the garden - the little beasts. haha

I have also seen a bunch of new babies recently.. I guess some are born in the late spring and it appears there are other deer that have their young in August. Interesting - I would have thought that all the young would be born around the same time of year.

Tim was at the house late this afternoon and a lady and her little girl driving by hit and killed a deer in front of the house. Tim said it looked young but wasn't a baby. Was pretty sad though - the little girl in the car was pretty upset.

Guess it's about time for some updates...

PLEASE KEEP COMING WITH NAME SUGGESTIONS...

Okay - well I thought I would put a few misc pictures up today.

This one is of the back porch.. A smaller version of the front one - but a nice size. As you can see they have formed the bottom of the posts for the rock guy to come now and start applying the 'River Rock' to the posts.


This is a cool picture. Can you see the first of quite a few knee brackets in the top of the peak. Doesn't really show up all that great in the picture. I will take another picture when they get more of them up. They do look cool.

The painter arrived to start on the outside today - even though the siding isn't finished I guess he will get a start on things that are ready.

I love this picture. These are the french doors that come off of the diningroom and will go out to what will be our patio and barbeque area.

I love the colour and feel of the door. The front and back ones will be stained this same colour.

Sometimes I start to get excited but really I don't think it feels real sometimes at this point. I can't really explain it - maybe it because everything is new living here.

We did finally get the area rugs we ordered.. now those I do like. They are beautiful. Now we just have to pick paint colours for the inside. Hopefully we will have that done this week.

Garratts come to Comox Valley..

Our next door neighbours from Langley, the Garratt's came to visit this past weekend. It was a busy weekend sight-seeing and going to the Comox Valley Fall Fair.

It was five-oclock somewhere. haha you can see Tim in the window as he is taking the picture.


Is the Comox Valley a beautiful place or what. Just one of the beach areas we drove to. Tim and I were reminded again of how lucky we are to live in this place.

After a day of sight-seeing we were off to the Fair. We missed alot of it because we got there later in the afternoon.


Next year I will try to go earlier but we got to see the tables and tables of fruits, veges, flowers, knitting, quilting, photos - everything you can possible imagine that was entered and judged at the fair.

The Comox Valley Fall Fair.

There were all kinds of animals at the fair too.. thought I would show you a few.

Tables and tables of entries.

The animals were pretty cool..

There were some absolutely beautiful horses there too. Didn't get any picture of those.

We also missed the strong man competition. That would have been fun.

How do you like them Thanksgiving Turkeys..... lol

Siding started - but needs painting when done.

Hey everyone. Well the house is just screaming along these days. The siding is underway. It is what they call Hardie Plank siding which has to be painted when it is all up. So don't go by the colour it is now.

The trim is the right colour but that's all at this point. The bottom half is Hardie Plank and the top half is going to be Hardie Shingle. I can hardly wait till to see how it looks when the paint starting going on. I still like that roof. The colour is such a warm brown and it goes with the trim colour really well.

The last picture is just one I took in the living/family room of the fireplace. Well the fireplace is behind the piece of wood in the middle.

There will be shelves on either side of the fireplace up to under the windows. They will run the whole distance from the fireplace to the walls.
It doesn't look like a very big room in this picture but it is quite a good size but not too big either.

The windows on either side of the fireplace look out over out sideyard where we will have the patio etc.

It's all about the porches - as Tim would say

'The Big As_ Timber"

Ha ha - yes that is Tim hugging his big timbers. He loves that wood and wanted to show you how big it is. One solid piece of milled wood.

You can see that the construction at the front has begun. It was such fun to watch these timbers be put together. They were notched and cut to fit with each other. The framers just loved it - because it was interesting work.

WOW - look at the outcome.

It is so awesome.

They really did a good job. The house just comes more to life every week.

I tried to take pictures from underneath so you could see the workmanship.. Under the peak of the roof will be all exposed timber frame like you see in these pictures.

more porch pics..

This is what the underside of the peak over the door looks like. It will be all exposed timber frame like you see. It is so so nice.

These pictures hopefully show some of the cutting and fitting together they did with the timbers. After the work was done they then put up these heavy metal brackets to hold everything together.

In this picture I am trying to show what the overhang on the rest of the roof looks like. The overhang is going to have exposed timberframe also. This was the framers idea. It looks so awesome.
This pictures show that overhang from the front view.

The porch from the side view. Oh am I going to love sitting out there watching the deer.



Ya - watching the deer graze on my front grass and eat at a few bushes likely.

THE COMPLETED PORCH

My room above the garage.....

Hey, are you enjoying the late summer weather as much as I am. I just love these days. Tonite I am going to show you the room above the garage which has been changed from storage to computer, crafts and tv room for Sherry. I can hardly wait to get my stuff organized up there.


There are 4 sections to this room because of the roof - each one has a purpose.
This section is where you come up the stairs - you can see the half wall there with the stairs behind it. The window you see faces out the front of the house.



This second picture is taken to the right when you come up the stairs - this is my craft and sewing corner. The oppposite side of this room is a perfect mirror of this side. The computer and desk etc. will go on that side. Same window etc. and the window looks out over the back door.

The window looks out over the neighbours house and the windows are kind of tucked under the eaves - it's kind of cool.

This picture is taken at the opposite end of the room from the stairs. This is my big picture window that looks over the back.

I am going to put the tv and sitting stuff at this end of the room. It is a great view from here. The tv will go in the right corner from the window.



This last picture is taken at the bottom of the stairs in the breezeway between the garage and the house. There will be a door on the right that leads into the garage and a door behind me that leads into the back entrance.

A hike on Quadra Island........ what a day

Today was the best day - can you believe that Mr. Stewy was actually out hiking on a Saturday in August. Tim and I just chuckled all day thinking about what his life was like last summer compared to this year. It was such a great day - but I know you won't believe it unless I show you pictures to prove he actually was hiking... lol

Bring on the hiking pics. Mr. Stewy on his first hike - he has a 'New Life Now' - isn't that great.

Ha ha - I merged this one together... you can tell but the only way to get us both in a picture together.

Morte Lake on Quadra Island is where we were hiking.

The lake is so beautiful and we ran into only 5 or 6 people on the trail. We walked around the whole lake - it only took about 3 1/2 hours with a short lunch break. We stopped at this beach briefly but then got back on the trail as we really weren't sure how long it was going to take to walk around this lake.

Tim leading the way on the trail. Kids you would have loved it. Lunch is coming up - another beach on the lake.