Well – the Beatles really nailed it…. I do get by with a little help from my friends (and family).

As you are well aware, our house is a bit of a “project”. We knew that going in. Just as we knew there would probably be a few surprises along the way.

When put our offer in, we were sure the place had an updated electrical panel. But on our final walkthrough, we realized it didn’t. (I’m talking fuses instead of breakers, so not the end of the world). Nothing was said about electrical in the listing, so we must have just gotten confused with on of the many other places we looked at. We figured we’d upgrade eventually and put it on the to-do list.

Well… then the heatwave hit. There were already two window a/c units in the downstairs and we had them working fine. We had a couple of spares from the townhouse, so Dave decided to put one on the second level. Only one problem – none of the outlets in the bedrooms were working. He got it going using and outlet in the hallway (this house has a lot of outlets!) …and then we blew a fuse. Turns out the downstairs a/c, fridge, and upstairs hallway plug are all on the same fuse.

So… we got the fuse replaced, no problem, but we really had to address the issue of the non-working outlets. Dave went around with his tester and tested each one in the house. Almost half of them weren’t working. Now we were a little worried…

Happily, my best friend’s (Samantha) husband, Michael, also happens to be a licensed electrician. So on Saturday they came out to the house. While Michael helped Dave assess the electrical, Samantha helped Dad and I load up the trailer with all the garbage from the greenhouse demolition.

The good news is, in just a few hours, Michael was able to get all but one outlet working (it looks like it’s shorted), and can upgrade our panel to breakers. We’ll probably have to wait until the end of July for that, but we’ve got enough on our plate at the moment anyway.

Sadly, I did not take one picture while they were there. Though Samantha and I talk almost daily, we hadn’t actually seen each other since pre-COVID. It was a great visit that really took a load off our minds.

Sunday, Mom came out to help me strip wallpaper.

We decided to strip the dining room and upper part of the livingroom first, before tackling the stubborn wall in the sunken part of the livingroom.

That went exceedingly well and we didn’t need the new steamer at all.

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I don’t have pictures of the stripped dining room but bare walls look pretty much like bare walls.

Finally, there was nothing to do but tackle that other wall. The new steamer was much better. It produced a lot more steam, held a lot more water, and covered a bigger area. But unfortunately, we didn’t get much better results. That green Caribbean wallpaper was just THAT stubborn.

Dave and my Dad had already removed the bottom half of the wall due to some mold we discovered (we knew about some in the house but have uncovered a few other spots). Mom and I looked at the progress we made, calculated the time and effort it would take to remove the green wallpaper vs, demo and rehang…. and well.. what’s a few more sheets of drywall?

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You’ll notice a few other things missing from the livingroom. Dave and I got all the hideous carpet out after Samantha, Michael and Dad left on Saturday. Then we were left with that bare “window seat” under the window. Dave and I had been debating what to do with as soon as we started renovations.

For me, it was one of the things I loved about the place. I envision it covered in plants and maybe a cat or three…. But we couldn’t agree on how to cover it. Dave wanted to use the laminate flooring we have ready. I wanted drywall and paint. Somewhere along the way Saturday evening, we wondered what was underneath it. Dave thought it might have been built to hide something (plumbing or ducting maybe?). So we decided to investigate…

Well.. one thing you need to know about this house is that everything was put together with nails. Hanging drapery rods… 3″ nails. Hanging drywall… HUGE ASS nails. Not a screw in sight. And this window bench… you betcha big ass nails. Now that’s fine to hold it together, but it makes taking it apart a bit of a pain.

It took Dave about an hour to get the top off to discover that it wasn’t hiding anything. It must have just been built as a window seat. We sat and talked some more and decided it would be easier to just remove it than try to recover it. It gives us another six inches of floor space the full width of the room. I can always get another plant stand or two.

Monday, we were back there to continue demolition. Both Mom and Dad joined us, and we got some more demo and some small tasks done. The biggest accomplishment of Monday was the stripping of the wall by the stairs.

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At the top of the stairs, there was a window that leaked, and quite a bit of mold on the wall. Sadly, that wall was lath and plaster (not drywall), so Dave chipped it all out. the wall was also covered in three layers of wall paper. Most of it came off pretty easy, but there are a few stubborn spots I have to hit with the steamer.

(I’d also like to point out that all this work has been done during a record-breaking heat/humidity wave. We have two a/c units going in the house, but with all the going in and out, the best we’ve been able to do is keep the house at a balmy (and sticky) 25C/78F. )

Now we are mostly through our demolition phase (though I still have to pull up the carpet on the stairs, upper living room and dining room.) In the second picture, you can see our new drywall piled up. Dad bought us a drywall lift, and hopefully on Friday, we’ll start getting that up.

Today, Mom and I will be at the house – just us girls. We are going to give the kitchen and bathrooms a good deep clean to get rid of all that nicotine.

Hurrah! The first one is done! As a reminder, the pattern is Mr. Dress-up, and the yarn is some leftover Wollmeise. The second one is started, but I don’t expect it to go any quicker than this one.

If I knit too fast, I’ll have nothing to knit because ALL the yarn is packed up!

If I’m not working on the new house, or working on my day job, this is pretty much my life right now…

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My world is just a sea of boxes and stuff that still needs to be put in boxes. And yes, that’s my pretty little sewing machine (Miriam) all cleaned and put away in her cabinet. All the sewing supplies are in boxes and won’t emerge again until after moving day. I feel a little twitchy about that, but it has to be done.

When we first knew that we’d have two full months between the house closing and it seemed like it would make everything so much easier. And it might have. If we just had to go in an paint and clean before moving, it would probably feel a little more leisurely. But, as you know, we’re doing a fair bit more than that.

Add in the fact that the because of the cats (as well as the lack of internet*), we can’t stay there for long periods, and it’s a four hour round trip each time… the whole thing is downright exhausting. Part of me thinks we should have moved first, then renovated. But then I think of having to move Dave’s (large and heavy) amplifier collection around to renovate his studio… sigh…

At least some one is enjoying this whole thing… just wait until he learns he can go harness-free in the catio!!!

* I called last week to get the internet hooked up, sothat both of us could work from there if we had to, allowing us to go during the week more. It turns out fibre internet is in the town (brand new!) which is wonderful. But as it’s new, it’s only at the street. It gets hooked up to each house as service is requested. It’s a full 10 business days to do the locates and digging required. So… sometime after this weekend, we should be able to get online there!

Last Monday saw the release of the June block for the flower QAL I’m joining with Coriander Quilts.

I managed to squeak in an hour or so during the week to make them. Not having any time to sew has been driving me crazy.

I tend to forget that my crafts are one of my stress relievers.

This will definitely be the last of the sewing, probably until August. After I finished these beauties off, I started packing up all the sewing stuff.

I think Burton was a little sad to see it all go in boxes. He really enjoys our sewing time.

But when it all comes out again, these beautiful will have a bigger room and lots of space to grow!

June rolls on and the flowers are blooming.

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The shasta daisies are opening. I feel like they are little late this year. I always think of strawberries and daisies at the same time, and the strawberries have been out for weeks.

The daisies will be one of the plants I’m not taking with me. A few years back, I tried to split this clump up, and the roots are so thick and strong, it was near impossible to dig them out. That’s ok, I started these ones from seed and they are very easy to grow.

The tickseed (coreopsis) are also blooming. I have two of these – one out back and one out front. They are slightly different shades of yellow

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The one out back is more lemon, while the one out front is pure mustard.

The pink Bee Balm always makes me think of fireworks. I have purple too… but I like this pink one better. It’s more compact, and doesn’t spread like the purple one. It also blooms more.

The daylilies are covered in buds, and this yellow Stella D’Oro was the first to open.

A few of the common orange ones were next

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Soon the front garden will be awash in orange and red.

And seeing all these blooms on the blackberry bush makes me a little sad about leaving it behind. This is going to be the best year for it yet! Of course, they don’t ripen until well after were gone from here. They will be a sweet treat for the new tenant!

Rubba-dub-dub…

Lord Burton in the bathtub!

I have to say… the hardest part of this move isn’t the renovations, or the actual moving. It isn’t being two hours from everything we know…

It’s that I have to leave these guys behind…

The black squirrel in the background is Little Mama, and the grey one in front is Double Stuff. They are the most recognizable patrons at Squirrelingtons. Little Mama because she’s always missing fur (squirrels use their own fur to line their nests), and Double Stuff because he always take TWO peanuts. ALWAYS.

Knowing that I have to leave them behind, I’ve been trying to wean them off the restaurant. Dave took all the bird feeders down last month. And I’ve been slowly lessening the peanut supply. We’re now down to filling it up every other day (as opposed to twice a day when Squirrelington’s was at it’s busiest.).

But… on the days it’s empty… the above picture is what I see as soon as I step out. And those little pleading faces are breaking my heart!

I really wish I could bring these two with me!

First – can I just say that I’m totally annoyed that lately, the weekdays have been warm, but comfortable…but the weekends are blazing, face-meltingly humid.

And I’m annoyed because weekends are the only time we have right now to do stuff like this…

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Okay…. admittedly Dad did 90% of the work, while I was inside the air conditioned house cleaning windows. (Again… nicotine city!!!) But for the 10% of the time that I was outside, helping him clean up… it was like being in the seventh circle of Dantes inferno.

And okay… maybe not quite that bad… but it didn’t take long for me to be soaked to the bone in sweat. It did start to rain as we were finishing up, which was somewhat refreshing (though it was still incredibly humid).

And yes… that is the greehouse dismantled. There’s just a little bit of framing still attached to the house, but Dad wanted to wait until he was a little more fresh to take down that piece. He doesn’t want to get impatient and damage the siding more than necessary.

With the removal of the greenhouse, there’s a nice little concrete pad that may be come a temporary patio space. Temporary because that sliding glass door opens into the space that will be Dave’s teaching studio. Right now he’s teaching by video (and will continue to do so) but as we get settled, and the threat of COVID decreases, he’s hoping to open it up to in-person students as well. That door will be their entrance, so they don’t have to truck through the rest of the house for lessons.

Eventually we will build a gate into the fence on that side of the house, and build a small waiting area on that concrete pad. But that’s a long way down the road.

I mentioned last week that his studio is one of our priority rooms for the remodel. The real estate listing didn’t have a picture of this room, but I did take a panorama on my phone not long after closing

It’s not a great photo (the walls aren’t really curved), but you can see why it wasn’t promoted in the listing. Not only is the paneling absolutely hideous… there was a fair bit of water damage. That meant gutting it.

So while Dad was working on the greenhouse, and I was cleaning nicotine coated windows, Dave was on his own demolition mission.

We managed to get a deal on some flooring on Kijiji, and we have a drywall delivery Monday (we are also both off work that week), so hopefully we can put our noses to the grindstone and get it back in order soon. Dave has said I can pick the paint colour, which I’m very excited (and surprised) about!

That was Saturday.

Sunday Dave and I spent most of the morning arranging for the drywall delivery, and tracking down some other things we needed. (COVID shortages made it a bit like an Easter Egg hunt). It was after noon when we finally got to the house. Dave disappeared upstairs to install a couple a/c units (we only had them on main floor up until now), and I decided to tackle one of the stubborn wallpaper walls in the livingroom.

Given the amount of wallpaper in the house, we had planned to buy a wall paper steamer. But Dave’s family insisted that they had one and we shouldn’t waste our money.

Sunday, I finally got a good look at it. It was half the size of the one we were going to buy, and at least 30 years old (and looked “well-used”). I was dubious. Still it’s all we had, so I gave it a whirl.

This is how the wall looked when I started. (The peeled area is the ONLY part of the wall that was coming off easy by hand)

This is how it looked almost an hour later.

I discovered several things

1. I was right to be doubtful of the borrowed steamer. I don’t think it was steaming as well as it should have been (I think the steam holes are clogged.) But the steam area is way too small for decent progress anyway, as is the water reservoir. I spent way too much time refilling it. I’m heading out to Home Depot this week to get the one I wanted all along.
2. Steaming/stripping wallpaper really is a two person job… one person to steam, and a second person to come behind them with the scraper. Mom is off next week as well, so I’ve enlisted her to help. With luck, we can get it off efficiently
3. There is a special place in hell for people who wallpaper over wallpaper. I was definitely not happy to find that restful tropical island paper under the striped stuff. So far, this is the only wall we’ve found with multiple layers, and I hope it stays that way.

And while I was not very successful with my stripping adventure, after Dave finished his a/c install he came downstairs and tackled the paneling on the adjacent wall in the livingroom.

Yes… the livingroom had THREE different walls…. one with a flocked wallpaper that came off easily by hand (the wall with the window), a paneled wall, and the wall with the striped paper.

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This weekend we’ll get up that red carpet, and as soon as Mom and I get that wallpaper off, it will be ready to be put back together, right after the studio.

Now before I leave, back when I first showed pictures of the house, our good blogger pal Dee was a little upset by a pennant hanging in one of the bedrooms (I believe it was the Buffalo Sabres).

Well Dee… the old owners left us a couple wind chimes hanging by the side entrance. I didn’t pay much attention to them, until this weekend. And that’s when I noticed…

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I hope this makes up for the previous offense!

I said these socks probably won’t go to fast, despite being shorties…

And they aren’t. That’s partly because after I finished the heel and gusset, I noticed a big boo boo on the leg and had to frog all the way back! It’s also because life is just keeping my crazy busy – and not just at the new house. It’s busy in all aspects.

I was hoping to have a chunk of time to knit on it yesterday morning, both Dave and I had dentist appointments (one after the other). But…. halfway to the dentist, Dory started making some strange growly/grinding noises. So we turned around and went to the mechanic instead. She’s getting new struts and a wheel bearing and our teeth (and waiting room knitting) will just have to wait. We need her to get back and forth the new place!

So all of this is a long way of saying… I’m still working on the first sock. Maybe I’ll finish it this week. Maybe not.

The roses have bloomed!

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Navy Lady was the first, and now she’s just covered in blooms. I really hope she’s going to make the move ok.

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The Home and Family Rose is thriving. She was the only rose (other than Navy Lady) that I didn’t move last year. As you can see, she has creamy white blooms. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have a very strong scent.

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I’m happy to say Honey Perfume was one of the survivors. She has a great scent, and such pretty golden flowers that fade as they bloom. When we move, this one will be going somewhere near the sun porch. Right now, I can sit out back and her perfume just wafts around. It’s wonderful!

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Ebb Tide also made it, though she’s not as robust as she was last year. I hope she can hang in there, and get a little stronger.

There’s still two more that survived the winter but have yet to bloom. They are quite small, but hopefully we’ll see flowers soon.