Weather and renos

Hell froze over last week. 

Ack, is this a burglar??

Run, he has a weapon!

OH, its OK. Lucky has confirmed that under all that clothing is actually Mr. Hunter.

The coast is clear!

It was so cold out, that the vehicle did not want to start. Due to the scary electrical issue we no longer have power to the garage / car plugs so Mr. Hunter had to stop work on the kitchen to get an exterior power source out there. 
Cheers,
Carolyn

The Stairs Are Back!

No longer do I have to traverse the ladder to get to between floors. No longer pass the dog up and down while balancing on open beams. 

 Yeah!

Here is the stone I picked for the chimney and the stair wall. Not sure if this wood shelf will be on there or not - I'm sure Mr Hunter will advise me when he feels like it. Oh to renovate!
Cheers,
Carolyn

How I cook in this mess!

Gawd I miss sewing. 


Here is the land mine I have to traverse to get to my "kitchen" set up.

Its a good thing I am thin as the space to squeeze though the plywood and the table is very tight. Here I have my microwave and my flat top plug in grill. Its limited, but it's also better then nothing!

As you can see, not all of the floor is in yet, so I have a plank to walk across, I set the plates of food on the ledge and then either pass them to Mr. Hunter, or climb down the ladder - clinging to the chimney to not fall - I am not that coordinated. In this picture, the path is pretty clear - it is not always like this. Sometimes there are piles of tools and building supplies that I have to step over or move to even get into the fridge.

Oh, and here I am busted eating take out!! Mr Hunter brought me African food. Have you ever had it? This was amazing. He could not remember how to pronounce the restaurant name, but he promised to take me there. Its a new place some place in the McCauley neighbourhood. I cannot wait, man it was so tasty!!

Cheers,
Carolyn

Scary Electrical

I forgot to mention the other day how Mr. Hunter almost got one hell of a shock and not the first time! 
When he started to take out the old stairs, we discovered that the thick power cord for the sub panel was routed in the door jam. Seriously!! Check these picks out:

Just that little piece of door trim was concealing the cord. Mr Hunter said look where they put this and look how close they almost nailed into it! He moved the cable just slightly and sparks and smoke flew. Scared the crap out of us. I raced to the panel to make sure the breaker was off. Then he removed it as I showed the other day.. ... minor omission?

You cannot really see the screw in this picture, but Mr Hunter almost screwed right into this fixing the door when we first moved in. We had no idea the power cord was right there! That is so not code!!

The brown box above the hubby on the wall behind the plastic is the sub panel. The only thing still wired to it is the garage and the yard lights. Thankfully, we had a new panel put in within a week or so of moving in. Had to, the electrical was so bad, if you wanted to do laundry, you had to turn every light off, unplug every appliance and sit in candle light till it was done!

I'll be so glad when this house it done! Mr Hunter found more live wires in the wall as well, the ends were wrapped in packing tape! Packing tape?? Its a wonder we are still alive and this house has not burned to the ground!


Wish us luck,
Carolyn

No stairway to heaven at my house

In fact there are no stairs at all!

Here Mr. Hunter is disconnecting the sub panel - after I turned off the breaker of course!

Here is the view from "under the stairs / utility room"

The old platform which was so small you had to stand on the bottom step to close the door was removed and made bigger.

Here is the first new stair stringer Mr. Hunter template and cut himself. 

Isn't he cute, even the dog is impressed at his mad carpentry skills!

This is how we get upstairs now. To let Lu out, one person has to go upstairs as we pass him up. Too much reno debris to let him out the back!

I started to make this silly video but it did not go as planned. I thought it was, well silly! So here it is even though it is not as I intended it to be.

Cheers,
Carolyn

The floor! The Floor!

We have ourselves a little delay in the kitchen - so far it has cost us a week. When the house was first built, the builder thought it was great idea to put the interior support posts on dirt. That did not fair the house too well. Mr Hunter poured proper cement footings, reset the posts and raised the house a good couple of inches in the centre. This however was not enough to compensate for the damage done of the house settling and not being supported in the centre. This past week has been a little scary as the kitchen floor was removed to the joists - living in a house in which you can look into the basement while standing in the upstairs living room is a little nauseating - at least to me. Mr Hunter has sistered all the joists which was needed as we discovered they were all twisted, cracked and warped. He also levelled the floor so we can lay the beautiful tile I bought.
Here are the photo updates:

Since we took the toilet and sink out from the upstairs bathroom - it is really important to not drink water before bed. LOL.
Oh and if you are wondering - yes this was and is still open. Not the entire floor, but you can still see down into the basement. 
Cheers,
Carolyn

Bee blues

I joined months ago the Orange You Glad Bee, and I fancied that I would design my own blocks for my turn. 
The gal whom was to have January had to leave the group and myself and a couple of others were asked if we could take it. No-one had responded and I sadly suffer for Taurus guilt. I couldn't let the group down! So I volunteered to take it. I then went straight to work to design my blocks as my month was June or July, I had time. Hm, No longer! But I got them done, all my blocks were sketched, my Wonder Under was cut, fabric was ordered, but then I ran into a major snag. CHRISTMAS! Rrrrr Darn Christmas! None of my fabric got to me until a few days ago. I had to scrap my whole project and come up with something I could do with what I had. 
Here are some pics of the blocks I created. They are all applique blocks, and I want to embellish with buttons, embroidery, ribbon and what ever turns my fancy.

I was thinking if any of your are interested - we could make this together. I could email you the block pattern, we could do one a month, and post picture of the them on a Flickr group. What do you think? Want to play with applique and embellishments with me? Let me know with a comment. Even if just one person wants to play, I will gladly share and make my blocks with you. 
Cheers,
Carolyn

Mr Hunter's Canuck toast

Mr Hunter got a toaster for Christmas - I've never seen a man so excited over a toaster before. 

Mmm toast.
Cheers,
Carolyn

Best Pizza EVER

It has taken many years and a lot of bad pizza to find the best pizza in town. Let me introduce you to Mona's Pizza. I highly recommend their East Indian Pizza, but I'm confident you will enjoy any of their selections, as it is super tasty!

 If you live in Edmonton, and want some tasty pizza, give these guys a call. Its a small shop and the family that own and operate it are super sweet and the ordering process I found was great just like the food.
Cheers,
Carolyn

Kitchen update

I should have a kitchen in a couple more weeks! Hooray, Horah!

Here is everything that Mr. Hunter completed yesterday:

The inspector approved and loved all of the base cabinets. 

Cookies?? Ohhhh Mr Hunter!!! Sneaky sneaky, I found your cookies!!

Its getting there.

Cheers,

Carolyn