Here's some of what we've been working on lately.

Mowing the lawn is a bit of a workout, which I really don't mind. What I hate is running into snakes along the way. Yes, they're just garter snakes, and no they're not very big. But they still creep me out. Today I came across three of them. Two were scared by the mower and I was able to coax them into the gutter pretty easily. But the third was not scared and I could have easily mowed right over him. I didn't, cuz, well that's just gross. I guess they made a home somewhere in the yard back when the previous owners let the grass grow several feet high. Perfect for critters. Now, even though we keep the grass short, those little buggers are still living here!

We've been working away on a few projects lately. We made screens for the whole upstairs. It was our first time making them, so you can see the progression as we got better and better at it. The first ones started off with the little handles on the wrong side and so tight that they bow a bit in the middle. But the later ones actually look pretty good! It is so nice to have those done.

R is slowly grinding away at the cement shower pan downstairs. It's very labour intensive and not good for his back. But it's coming along. We've also started pulling out some of the backsplash tiles in the upstairs kitchen where water has seeped in behind the sink. The wall is in decent shape, but there was some mold growing around the tiles. And it's a traffic area for the silverfish. I'll be glad when we pull out the cabinets and clean it up in there.

R has installed make-shift shelving around the spare rooms so we can unpack all of our boxes. Silverfish love to live in boxes, so they all have to go. We would have prefered to keep some things boxed up for now, but that's no longer an option.

We found out how the basement floods. It's when the carport fills up with too much water. Then it leaks in through the laundry room door. There are some thing we can do to improve the drainage so that won't have to be such a worry in the winter.

This whole week is much cooler than last week, which is a HUGE help!

We're praying for R's sister Tamara who is overdue to give birth to her son, and being induced today. We're also praying for her anxious family (Dan and Roma in particular!) who are very concerned about her right now.

What to do on a sweltering hot Saturday? Spend it at Home Depot, of course!
They had another sale on this weekend that we just had to take advantage of. And boy did it pay off. We've ordered the bathroom vanity for downstairs, purchased the shower surround for downstairs, and the bath and surround for upstairs. We had planned to do tile on the upstairs bath originally, but this surround is quite nice and was a good deal. We used that exact model in the last place we rented before we bought this house, and it was great. Plus it will really speed installation up, which is becoming more and more of an issue. We also picked up a part for the toilet, a faucet for the new vanity (hugely on sale!), and screen parts. Now we get to make screens, yay! lol. But in the end we'll appreciate having them. Ru jumped out the dining room window again last night, so that window will not be opened again until it's got a screen in it now. That may not be for a few days as we now have to find a place that sells decent screen clips. Anyway, we're very happy because our purchases qualified us for a nice big rebate, which will really help things. We've now purchased the most expensive items for the renos. We still have flooring left for the downstairs (and the upstairs bathroom), cabinets, a sink, and a counter top for the upstairs bathroom, faucets for the upstairs sink and the bath and tub, glass for the broken windows, a used fridge for the downstairs kitchen, trim for the new exterior door R installed, the rest of the paint, and possibly new lower cabinets (just basic ones) for the upstairs kitchen. The current ones are real wood and in good shape. But we're concerned about the silverfish living in the walls behind them and the moisture behind the sink. So they'll have to come out. And if they have any rot they'll have to be replaced. Plus that will allow us to pull up the rest of the subfloor that will have to go eventually. Down the road we'll be putting proper flooring in the kitchen. But that's not a priority.

The roofers came bright and early this morning to start on the roof. One of our neighbours was very unhappy about that as it was his day off and he did not like hearing all the noise at 7am. So he came over to let the guys know. He didn't yell or anything, but it wasn't the best start! But man did those guys hustle! They were completely done by 2:30 and just had a bit of clean-up to do in the yard. R came home early from work so he got to check things out as they were cleaning up. Looks great! We're very glad that is taken care of now. The roof was in such bad shape before that every time it rained we were a little on edge. Now we can relax. Actually with the current heat wave we're really looking forward to a little rain. As I type this it's nearly 8PM and it's still just below 30 degrees out. I don't know how the guys can survive being up on roofs all day in that kind of heat. And tomorrow is supposed to be hotter.

Last week was a heat wave, but we're getting a little break from it this weekend. Yay!

The downstairs bathroom is almost completely gutted now, so we can start looking at flooring and a shower surround. Exciting stuff! There was a fair amount of rot and mold, but it's out now.

R also took down the rest of the branches in preparation for the new roof. That should be going on this coming Friday, depending on weather. We were very sad to discover our trusses are not wide enough to allow for skylights. We had already found a great deal on them from a family friend at Sunburst Skylights, and were ready to go pick them up. But now it doesn't look like that will happen. So we've decided that whenever we're ready to replace the windows, we'll try to add a couple of new ones to the living room to get that extra light we were hoping for.

Some pictures of our adventures:

We did renos!!

R removed the old door from the carport/laundry room entrance and replaced it with a new frame and custom fit door, and I started demo on the downstairs bathroom. It was a long day!

Here is a before picture of the shower:

Here is the shower after the first layer of tile was removed from the floor. Unfortunately, with most demo work, surprises are rarely good. Our first surprise with the shower was that they never removed the original layer of tile (which was wet, of course). They just tiled over it and let mold and rot develop underneath. I'm sure they left the original tiles because they're those little ones that take hours and hours of painstaking work to remove.

Here you can see the threshold, which is badly rotted out. The baseboard fell off when I grabbed it. Moisture makes some of this work easier, but it's really sad to see the state the place is in!

Next surprise. I pulled the trim off around the shower, and discovered wood behind it, not proper bathroom drywall. Of course it's totally rotted at the bottom from all the water that has leaked through.

And the last big surprise for the day. I pulled out some of the rotten wood at the bottom of the wall. And what did I find behind it? More of the original tile!! I think Mike Holmes would have a thing or two to say about this reno job. I wonder if it was done by a contractor or the previous owners.

Close-up of the tile behind the wood, behind the tile. Here you can see on the left some of the top level of white tile. Then on the top the wood wall with mold and glue. And near the bottom the original tile behind the wood.

Door pictures to follow. We need trim first, and then we'll post before and after pictures. It already looks a lot better! And we feel a lot more secure having a proper door and lock in place down there.