Stage of the Game.

Being I haven't posted in awhile you may be wondering...........

"What stage of the game are they at now?"

We aren't sure ourselves.

Geoff borrowed a tall ladder from the West Neighbour a bit ago to use when taking the chimney down. Before he got around to it, the neighbour, unbeknownst to us, borrowed it back, then returned it while I was out working on the gazebo.

"Do you still need it?" he called out from his truck.

"We haven't used it yet and I am not sure when we will" was my reply. "When you have three thousand, four hundred, twenty nine things on your to-do list you are never sure what is next on the agenda!"

But seriously we are getting stuff crossed off the list everyday.

Some things were so small they weren't actually written down and yet it's great when they get done. Like the antique door knob that was missing from one side of the living room door. How do you find a replacement without spending hours in thrift stores?  But turns out when the locked tight, key-less and also very old front door was forced open it had a matching knob on the outside. Being it is an outside door we were replacing the existing knobs to have a lockable version. And TA-DA, the living room door has two knobs once more!

The bathroom was up and running a bit ago. Well, half of it was. Tub and vanity graced two walls and we could shower on site and stopped brushing our teeth in the kitchen. Yay! But the wall with the window was waiting, stripped down to the lathe, for decent weather so that the window might be removed and replaced. That day arrived yesterday. Window is out! Tarp is up. New window going in either today or Friday. (we may need wood picked up on Thursday's trip to town)

The dining room is looking like a dining room at last. Wedges had to be put under the furniture to make it all level, but unless you are looking for them you wouldn't notice. :)  That means our living room is just that. A living room and not a multi-purpose room like it was for months. That's kinda nice and easier to clean too!

The hallway will be finished today. Working on the hall has been kinda tedious. There was so much to do for such a non-room!  A wooden-hide-away-box that hid the plumbing for the up-stairs Jacuzzi tub had to get torn out and re-dry-walled. That was done thanks to the Man-Son and his friend visiting from Penentang. (they also removed the massive tub itself, making the room twice the size it was) Oh, and I can't forget they tore out duct-work that took up a corner outside the bathroom. I wanted that space used for a closet, since the duct-work was useless with no working furnace. Will we regret that one day? Maybe. But for now the closet is wonderful. We managed to find a small, under-sized door for it. It was on a top shelf at Kent and had been there so long it was grey with dust. When the employee tried scanning the bar code he discovered that it had been removed from the system, guess they thought it was never going to be sold. Then we came along.......

Also in the hallway was a large, LARGE hole in the drywall (don't know the story behind that one) that needed patching plus the door that needed convincing that it must open despite it's age and key-less-ness.  Then after all the mudding and sanding and mudding and sanding and mudding and sanding, like for real......then came the priming, painting and then trim painting. Besides the typical seven inch wide baseboards found in old homes, there are SIX door-frames and five doors that need painting in this said hallway. Count 'em! One, two, three, four, five, SIX!  AGH!! I am so glad that today will mark the end of the endless trim and white paint.

Well, my time is up. I gotta get back to work! We have set a date for when the day-care will begin and we have flyers going out inviting prospective parents to an Open-House June 30th. Meaning we have sixteen days to get this place ship-shape.

In those sixteen days we only have the kitchen floor to put down, the bathroom window to install, bathroom to mud, sand and paint, the stairs and up-stairs hallway to paint (need a nice few days for that, it's oil based paint and we'll need all the doors and windows open). The gazebo to repair, paint, screen and door. (that one doesn't sound like an emergency, but we already started and now it looks like a mess) Some cupboard doors on the lower kitchen cupboards would be nice, but I'm not holding my breath on that one. Some footings poured to hold up the front "bay" window, but mostly so the holes the boys dug for them can be filled in again, the tractor tire half buried for a play item in the yard, finish painting my sign for the road and I'm probably missing something but I think that's about it!

And three of those sixteen days I'll be working at my new, very part-time summer job. I'll be serving coffee and crepes at the Sleepless Goat Cafe in the village. Should be fun and also a way to get my "name out" since I can advertise my day-care while there.

So there you have it Ladies and Gentlemen, you now know as much as we do about what stage we're at in this game we're playing.

Not always an enjoyable game, but it's an interesting one at least!! :)