Two Old People

Last week was exciting, this week was over the top! Now that all the important rules and regs are out of the way, these two old folks are gett’n down with it. Sunday was a little slower paced, we picked up more supplies (plywood, screws, 2x4s and our toilet – on sale) for the week – something like JIT inventory, we don’t want to keep moving stuff around. We also replaced the floor planks in the kitchen – we didn’t want to get too involved as we were taking the day off to enjoy some music in the park with friends Bob & Sue in Crystal Beach. We had a great time and lots of laughs with Bob & Sue over dinner, beverages and music on the shores of Lake Erie. Life is good.

Monday, we smoke into laying more sub floors. We had more than 70% of the floor left to do and with Terri & Mark’s help, we got it all done by dinner time on Monday. Wow, such a small place looking so big! But I screwed up and forgot to install the electrical wiring under the floor for the kitchen island outlets. This is not a big deal for homes with basements but for us with such a shallow crawl space and we don’t have a trained ferret to pull the wires in for us, we’ll have to lift a piece of the plywood up.

Tuesday, Judy & Larry (our cousin) came over for a visit, chit chat, a tour of our project and discussion of their newly purchased condo in Kitchener. It was a welcomed day off – sort of. After Judy & Larry left, we took up some plywood, cut some of the old plank flooring to pull in wires for the island outlets. Replaced the plywood and now we’re ready for some interior walls! Yipee!

We took another day off, again sorta. We wanted to purchase our kitchen cabinets today to qualify for the 15% savings so off to Ikea. We tried the big box stores as I’m sure I may have already stated but we couldn’t get exactly what we (read Barb) wanted but we could with Ikea. I liked the soft close doors and drawers that are standard with Ikea – I’m sure you pay for it in the end but…. After paying, we had to pick up and bring them home and unload it to the garage – wow, we had our exercise for the day, loading and unloading the cabinets. Still some daylight? Let’s get more supplies for the walls – 2x4s etc so off to Lowes in Niagara and hand picked 100 sticks and some drywall – we had to put the drywall on a wall while it was on the floor because there is no room once it is up – only inches away from the furnace. Again, only the two of us old folks to unload our supplies!

 

 

Now, back to work, enough days off playing around! Today we start erecting the interior walls – this is almost too exciting, to see this progress. So, this is Thursday morning and we start, Barb cuts and I nail it. The nail guns are a bit too heavy for Barb to handle. Once we get the wall standing, Barb measures and cuts the wall blocking and I nail it in. It is like an assembly line. By dinner on Friday, we have all the walls up! Matching the flat ceilings and the vaulted ceiling took some ‘MacGyvering’ but it’s an old house so adding one piece at a time, measuring and cutting as required. Barb & I are a good team and soon it’s mostly done.

 

On Saturday, Terri & Mark stopped off for a visit. The War of 1812 re-enactment was playing out at Old Fort Erie so we walked down to watch the happenings. It was very busy and noisy with the cannons blasting and their muskets roaring. A neat experience and a nice way to end a week of hard work. Hope all is good where you are….