Spring Thaw at the Creek

The little waterfall built by the beaver.

Suddenly the snow and ice is melting and today the sun shone bright and the sky was a beautiful blue.

Today was a stay-at-home and bake bread, make soup, plant leek seeds, make granola, hang laundry on the clothesline day. In between I took a little walk down to the creek behind us and saw that much of the ice was gone. 

The beavers have made a little waterfall back there and I waded into the stream with my high rubber boots on and headphones too so that I could record the rushing water sounds. It’s so exciting that spring is really coming!

Melting

Here is a quick weather report for you. It’s late on Monday night and it is pouring rain outside. The mountains of snow have shrunk so quickly as to not be believed. There are probably many basements with puddles in them tonight.

I took a walk around (with icers on) outside the house that we are renting in Bear River East and listened to the sounds of the ice in the trees melting and dripping on the crust of snow underneath. I rushed back into the house to get the recording device and the camera so that I could share this with you.

Last night we had an ice storm with freezing rain pellets, but all the ice has melted.

This morning Larry pulled our garbage and recyling down the driveway with 2 sleds.

Back from garbage duty.

Spring is on it’s way. I know this because I can smell the earth again!

Electricity, Plumbing and Snowshoes

I know it’s been way too long since my last post, but I’ve had a February cold that dragged on and on that ate up my time and sapped my energy.

Snow, snow and more snow.

 Meanwhile, the house renovation work continued even though both Larry and David took turns having colds too.

Lighting for the future studio.

Our big house news is that as of last Friday, just hours before another snow storm arrived, Nova Scotia Power inspected the roughed-in wiring and it passed!

Now our electrician Ron Schnare and his son Todd can close up the electrical boxes and attach the light fixtures. Then there will be a final electrical inspection and we’ll be done.

Figuring out where the plugs should go.

The 2 electricians blitzed the house in less than 2 weeks. They rewired the whole house with more outlets and switches and lights than we have ever had anywhere we’ve ever lived! It’s quite ironic actually that we’ve come to this sleepy little village to live frugal lives, but have 200 amp service and more plugs than things to plug into them.  That’s what life is like living to current electrical code!

Catch 22 means you need 200 amps to operate the electrical tools!

As well last week our plumber, Brad Isles, was busy installing air vent pipes and drainage pipes.

Peter and Larry framed in closets and bathroom things and finished building out all the wall studs in order to fit more insulation in.

There are thousands of steps yet to take.

David leveled up the strapping that the drywall will attach to – a job that requires lots of stretching to the high ceiling and holding up heavy stuff higher than your head!

You're looking at new wiring, new chimney and a new closet space.

While all this house activity was going on, Bear River saw a series of snowstorms with a winter carnival thrown in.

We haven’t had the usual mid-winter heat wave that teases us into thinking spring has finally arrived. In spite of that, I’m really not finished with winter yet. It is so beautiful here when the snow swirls and the aftermath is gorgeous. I am enjoying my snowshoes so much because they enable me to explore the great outdoors in deep snow – something I’ve never done before. This is a little video of my big snowshoe adventure around our house.

My icers (that strap onto my boots and have metal cleats) have also been totally life transformational. I can’t tell you enough how wonderful it is to walk down our long icy driveway and never slip at all. 

Larry shops for a quiet bathroom fan. Details, details.

I am proud of the efforts and hard work that all these men are putting in to restore this house that hopefully will still be overlooking Bear River long after we’re gone.

Meanwhile I cook a few lunches and get to spend wonderful creative time in the studio. How lucky am I? Extremely lucky! But more on that next!

After lunch in the studio.

Renovation update

The sunporch entrance- one of 4 entrances into the house.

For those of you who need a new renovation fix, here it comes!

I’ve had quite a few friends from afar ask me for a layout of the house, and I have a not-to-scale one for you today.

Although the photos make the house look humungous, inside there is rather a lot of space taken up with grand front hallways and mudrooms and such. But you can see for yourself.

It certainly takes up a lot of blog space, but there you have it. A fatal flaw might be the 4 entrances- lol- but the building is so long that it makes sense to access it from every side. The original kitchen was where the downstairs bathroom and washing machine area is, but we wanted to create a weather-proof entrance that would allow room for coats and boots and be heated. As well, it was also a way of getting rid of an extra room. I didn’t want people walking right into the kitchen, because I’m a pretty messy cook.

Here is a video showing much of the ground floor;

Tomorrow Larry and I are driving an hour ‘up the valley’ to a new Home Depot to buy some bathroom pieces for downstairs and for upstairs.

Upstairs.

Upstairs, the walls are also the roof so the space is smaller than downstairs. There was no bathroom upstairs and we are adding one. The placement of it was tricky and you can see that it will have 2 doors. We couldn’t figure a way around this, but the large room has back stairs. We didn’t want to cut into the upstairs hallway because although it is really a waste of space, it’s such a beautiful one! The staircase is gorgeous and is a real work of art.

We will add a few skylights. We removed a wall to make a large room upstairs. The view from it of the houses dotting the other side of the river is quite pretty. It’s odd that these fabulous views weren’t incorporated into the original positioning of the house. There is only one upstairs window that actually faces this!

This video is also a couple of weeks old, but it shows the upstairs. The guys have actually gone way beyond this and even the electrician has started his work.

Again let me repeat that we HAD NO IDEA how many zillions of things have to be done to a house to make it sturdy again. This house was in fantastic shape compared to many but still, wood is wood and it deteriorates when it is allowed to get wet. Larry and David and Peter and Robbie have replaced lots of beams and studs and pieces of flooring and it goes on and on. At the same time, little by little, the house is getting put back together, much stronger and ready for another hundred years.

This side of the roof is green and new, the other side is black and old.