I have another Friday quiz for you. It’s been a little while since we’ve done one of these. For those that are new to the game, here’s how it works.
I post a photo, and then it’s up to you to figure out what this is. Leave your answer in the comments and tune in next week for the answer.
Here’s the photo.
I think this is a pretty easy one.
I’m looking forward to reading your guesses.
Have a great weekend, everyone. See you next week for the results show.
Amidst the dust and the upheaval and the tired muscles and the very, very, very long to-do list, I need a little reminder of what we’re working towards. The stack of tile piled in Matt’s future office provides some good encouragement right now.
Here is a little sneak peek at the various pieces that will eventually make up the basement bathroom.
I think the white balance is a little off in this photo, as there is much more white than grey in real life
The white subway tile in the centre is going to be the main feature in the room. It will cover the three walls of the shower from floor to ceiling and the bottom half of the wall behind the toilet up to the height of the vanity. I chose a 4 inch by 8 inch tile, rather than the standard 3 by 6. It’s going to take a lot of tiles to cover the walls, and I’m hoping there will be slightly less labour with the larger tiles.
The white tiles will be accented by a narrow band (probably a strip 3 or 4 tiles high) of the grey and white marble mosaic mini subway tiles at the right. These will run at about eye level in the shower area only. Not an original design feature these days, I know, but hopefully a pretty timeless look.
The marble mosaic hexagon on the left is the shower floor. And the square (pseudo marble) tile at the bottom is the floor in the main area of the bathroom. They’re all sitting on the piece of marble, which you’ve seen already. This slab will top the bench in the shower.
Not pictured here are two more pieces of marble that we’ll be using for the top of the shower curb and the base of the niche.
As a reminder, the inspiration for the basement bathroom is Aubrey + Lindsay’s beautiful bath.
We managed to find tiles that were very similar to theirs. Although there were times that I joked that tile sourcing was going to break my enthusiasm for renovating.
The original tile that I picked for the accent band were back ordered until the end of August. They were another beautiful white and grey marble, but longer and more irregular lengths rather than an even subway shape. I really liked the irregular lengths for the contrast with the regularity of the white subway tiles. At the rate we’re moving now, August might have worked, but at the time I didn’t want to delay the project, so I found another option. Ultimately the colour is what will be most noticeable, and the overall feel of the bathroom will likely be pretty much the same with the tile that we ended up choosing.
For the main floor area, my original vision was to have large format white subway-ish shaped tiles. These were incredibly hard to find. Floor tiles seem to be square for the most part. And the ones that I was able to find were more creamy than I wanted. I nearly placed the order for the off-white tiles, but decided to take one more look at other options and found the square tile in the grey and white tones that work well with the colour palette that I’d established.
Ultimately, we ended up sourcing tiles from three different suppliers plus Home Depot for the marble sills and plus our stone supplier for the bench top. Fortunately, everything works very well together and it looks beautiful, even when it’s just sitting in a pile on the floor.
The bathroom is actually ready for tiling, but a couple of other projects (okay, slightly more than a couple) and the universe’s dogged persistence in only putting 24 hours in the day continue to delay installation.
For now, ogling the cases of tile–and remembering how far we’ve come already (psycho shower, anyone?)–keeps me going on this renovation.
Where do you find your motivation?
Now I don’t claim to be any great housekeeper, and I admit that while we’re under renovations I let the cleaning routine slip a bit. However, Sunday morning I was a bit surprised to see a very large dust bunny in the opening of the bedroom doorway. Especially because I had run the shop-vac around the main floor just the day before.
I was even more surprised when upon closer inspection I discovered that the dust bunny was actually a dust toad–and it was alive.
Yup. Forget mice, although we have had three of those so far. When it comes to animals in the house, Matt and I start with snakes and then go on to amphibians.
With the help of a piece of cardboard and a tupperware container, Mr. Toad was relocated to a more hospitable habitat outside in the garden.
Mr. Toad, still slightly dust covered, but now safely in the garden
I don’t know where he’d been on his tour of the house, but he was caked in dust, so I hosed him off and then gave him some hands-on attention to remove a few remaining clumps.
He seemed pretty exhausted from his escapade, so eventually he gathered his strength to crawl into the leaves to recover.
I had hoped today to be showing you the Canadian flag flying from our newly installed flagpole in honour of the Canadian Olympic team. However, the flagpole is still lying in the barn and the flag is folded up in Matt’s office.
However, we did manage to get something installed that has come in handy with the Olympics.
Our new satellite dish
Like everything else at the farm, the job of installing the satellite turned out to be more work than initially expected.
First, we couldn’t install the dish on the house. The satellite signal wouldn’t clear the row of huge pine trees right beside the house. The solution was a post in the meadow on the other side of the pines. Matt spent a couple of hours digging a deep hole while my Dad and I cut a big 6×6 for the post and with Wiley‘s help gathered concrete and gravel to set everything in place. It’s handy having spare construction supplies lying around courtesy of past owners.
Our dish is dwarfed by the big pines
Satellite dishes on posts in the middle of people’s yards is one of my pet peeves. I’m trying to come to terms with mine by remembering that it’s our only solution (aside from taking down the trees) and it’s in the meadow where we’ve let the grass grow long, so it’s fairly hidden.
The second issue was running the wires from the post in the meadow up to the house. Trenching the wire in the meadow and across the lawn was no sweat–well, it’s sweaty work, but not super difficult. However, between the house and the lawn is a large patio. Running wires over the surface, even if we protected them in conduit, was obviously not a great option. We were able to lift the patio slabs pretty easily, but the poured concrete border around the edge was a bit more challenging.
With two shovels and a bit a teamwork from both Matt and me, we each dug from opposite sides to tunnel under the concrete so that the installer could easily feed the wire under the patio.
We also ran the wire through some plastic conduit for extra protection
As the saying goes, bad news comes in threes, so two challenges were not enough in the saga of the satellite.
We decided we wanted a satellite receiver in the basement as well as in the living room upstairs. Installing an additional feed in the basement would have been easy had we done it while the ceilings were all open. However, we weren’t certain initially that we were going for two receivers, so we went ahead and installed all of the new drywall and made no accommodations for the satellite wiring. Argh!
Matt and I had realized we were going to have to cut some holes in our brand new ceilings and had gone through all of the stages of grief about undoing our nearly completed work. For my Dad, though, who showed up with his long wire fish to help us prepare for the installation, he had to get from denial (“maybe we don’t really have to cut holes”) to acceptance (“we’re going to need another hole here too”) pretty quickly.
Ouch! Our poor ceilings. The satellite wire is the grey one at the top of the hole
Thanks to all of our prep work, the actual installation of the satellite went fairly smoothly. And just in time. Two hours before the opening ceremonies started, we had TV at the farm.
Please ignore the drywall dust which is every where
Matt and I enjoy our TV, but we really haven’t missed it since moving in, mostly because we’ve been so busy with renovations.
However, I am a huge Olympic fan, so being able to stay on top of all of the coverage is a nice treat.
Any other Olympic fans out there? What event are you watching for? Anyone have tips for fishing wires or your own story of a challenging installation?
Oh and one more thing.
Go Canada go!
(Feel free to add your own national cheer below).
Last month, Julie at Outtakes on the Outskirts nominated me for a One Lovely Blog Award. As a very new blogger, I was quite excited when I read her post and saw my name in the list. The rules for the One Lovely Blog Award are that I need to share seven random things about myself and nominate 10 bloggers for the award.
So here goes. Seven random things about me:
1. I do not like green peppers and will avoid eating them at all costs.
No, thank you.
No matter whether they’re cooked or raw, no matter that I’m at a fancy work dinner and I have to make a good impression, if there are green peppers on my plate, they stay there. Sometimes they’ll be pushed to the side, sometimes I try the random scatter technique in an attempt to say, “No, I’m not rejecting these peppers, they just happen to be left over with along with that one piece of lettuce and that random shred of carrot.”
2. I am distantly related to Lucy Maud Montgomery, author of the Anne of Green Gables series and numerous other novels.
My much-loved copy of Anne of Green Gables
The lineage of the Montgomery clan is well documented, and if my grandmother (née Montgomery) was still alive, she could explain the connection. However, my relationship to LMM is very remote. I am not eligible for any royalties, and I don’t have a special pass to Green Gables. I do however have pretty much every LMM book, including a very tattered copy of Anne of Green Gables.
3. I love to waterski and have been slaloming since I was about 10 years old.
Yes, that’s me
I’ve been part of a waterski pyramid (on the bottom) and slalomed on a paddle (not as hard as it sounds). I’m still pushing to improve my slalom technique and have big goals of mastering a 360 my Dad’s trick skis and one day being able to barefoot.
4. As you saw at the beginning of the week, I’m a sewer and have made a lot of my own clothes.
My favourite prom dress. The pattern is Butterick 5542 in case anyone’s interested. And yes, Matt was my date.
You’ll see this interest reflected in some of the blogs I nominate below. I don’t know how young I was when my Mom first started teaching me, but I made my grade 8 graduation dress, multiple semi-formal dresses, two prom dresses and most recently a bridesmaid dress.
5. I love clothes and have a very special (if stereotypically female) affection for shoes.
My favourite shoes roughing it on the gravel driveway
My top three pairs are grey felt heels with white satin stitch embroidery on the heels and fur pompoms on the toes, taxi cab kitten heels in bright yellow with black toe buckles, and leopard print pony hair with black patent wedges. Completely inappropriate for the farm, but oh so fabulous!
6. I started wearing glasses the summer before I turned 10.
Ugh, the awkward tween years
While I eventually progressed to contacts, I was pretty much lost without my glasses. I could see up to about two feet in front of my face without some kind of visual aid, which is not a good way to see the world. But three years ago, I had laser surgery, and I’ve been 20/20 since then! Highly recommend laser vision correction, by the way.
7. I’m a runner (currently on hiatus as renovating a basement and managing a 129-acre property provide enough exercise for now). Seven years ago, Matt and I completed a marathon.
Matt and me after our marathon
It was a goal, it’s done and now I’m quite happy to keep my runs to 10K or less. My favourite race is the Around the Bay, the oldest road race in North America–older than the Boston marathon even. I’ve done the full 30K, a couple of relays and numerous years as a spectator.
That’s it! Any green pepper fans out there who want to defend their poor maligned vegetable? Any kindred spirits who love their Lucy Maud Montgomery?
And now on to the second part of the award.
My nominees are:
Thanks to all of the nominees. Reading your stories (some for several years) has been inspiring.
You heard about one change of plans yesterday, and today I have another for you. This one was a relatively minor change in plans, but it did require a bit of a backtrack, because we were already installing drywall when I decided I wanted to make a change.
Originally in the basement, there was a closet under the stairs. I’m all in favour of closets. This one was a good way to use an awkward space and I had plans to make it a wonderful home for our Christmas decorations. I had nothing against the closet. However, the little alcove at the end of the long room to access the closet always puzzled me a little. What was I going to do with that space?
It took a visit from my youngest sister to open my eyes to the obvious solution. Just square off the room and enlarge the closet slightly. Duh!
So, while drywall installation was underway, I threw on the brakes and demanded that we go back to demo (removing the old doorway into the closet) and construction (framing in a new wall and doorway).
Matt said, “Why does it matter?” and then he just shook his head, sighed and went along.
We had the new doorway framed up in about an hour and drywalled it in one more. We moved the light inside the closet–with only one bleeding bent backwards fingernail (ow!)–so that we could install shelves along the whole back wall. And now we have a nice rectangular room with a very large functional closet.
The new straight wall in the long room. Old wall on the left. New doorway on the right.
Looking at my new straight wall makes me happy. This may seem like a minor change, but it’s one of the things that makes the basement exactly what I want, and is part of the reason I’m able to say that this renovation is turning out even better than I imagined. Isn’t it nice when reality matches up to imagination?
You’ll recall that one of the things we needed to do in the bathroom renovation was to increase the storage. This is Matt’s bathroom, and he’s a pretty basic kind of guy who doesn’t believe in a lot of lotions and potions.
However, he is the type of person who changes what toothpaste, deodorant and soap he uses each day depending on how he’s feeling. Some days it’s about the Irish Spring. Others, he’s Ivory all the way. And don’t get me started on the difference between the blue bar and the green one. As well, my husband can’t pass up a deal, so when something comes on sale he stocks up.
We needed somewhere to stow all of his toiletries (that word sounds too delicate for a man’s bathroom stuff) and the small single vanity was not going to do. The original plan was to tuck some built-in shelving into the one end of the shower.
The original floor plan for the bathroom reno showing the shelving unit tucked in beside the shower.
Once we started actually working in the bathroom, though, the space started to feel a bit tight. We were concerned that carving out the storage area would make the shower too small. The bathroom is not huge. However, the hallway outside the bathroom is fairly generous–in fact it’s about seven feet wide.
So Matt came up with the idea to borrow approximately one foot from the hallway to make the storage unit.
Ahhh… much more roomy. The revised floorplan for our new basement bathroom.
We’ll still get floor-to-ceiling built-in storage, so Matt gets to keep all of his different flavours of soap and toothpaste. And making this little bump-out into the hallway allows us also to have a fairly generous shower, complete with a bench.
For your reference, here are some of the measurements for the bathroom:
Planning is an important part of renovating. You should take the time to think about your project before you pick up a hammer and go to town. However, you have to be prepared as well to make adjustments as you go along. Sometimes you have to compromise. Sometimes you can improve on your original plan. I think this modification is an improvement on our original plan.
This past weekend was a little different for Matt and me. We left the work clothes in their piles on the bedroom floor and the measuring tapes stayed in the toolbox. Instead, we got dolled up in our best duds and put on our dancing shoes.
What was the occasion for such finery? The celebration of my sister’s wedding.
You know I’m all about DIY, though, so for the past couple of months I’ve been taking a bit of time off from the basement renovation to work on this little number.
I’ve no plans to turn this into a sewing blog, but this was a special dress made with a special fabric for a very special occasion, so please bear with me as I break with our regular program of country living and home improvement to share a little bit about The Dress. For those that want the full project breakdown, see my review on Pattern Review.
This dress is the most challenging thing I’ve ever sewn, and it’s my first sewing project at the farm. The fact that my sewing room isn’t set up yet and has in fact become the holding room for most of the boxes we haven’t unpacked and a lot of the things that we don’t know what to do with yet complicated things slightly. Between a desk leftover by the past owners where I could set up my sewing machine, an ironing board in the dining room and a few square metres of clear floor space behind the living room couch, I made it work.
I probably would not recommend tackling a project like this concurrent with moving, renovating and caring for a large property, but despite a bit of stress about finding sewing time everything worked out very well in the end.
The fabric for this dress is actually courtesy of my sister, the bride. She bought it for me in Malaysia when she was visiting her fiancé’s family. Initially I wasn’t sure where I’d ever use such a fancy, brightly coloured fabric. But when my sister said that she wanted to be the white in the middle of a brightly coloured rainbow of her bridesmaids, I knew this was perfect.
A family wedding is a tremendously special occasion, and I was very happy to be part of my sister’s and her new husband’s special day. Congratulations, Jennifer and Jeremy. I wish you much love and happiness together.
Upon moving to the farm, we made an agreement: no animals for the first year, except hopefully a dog.
Then came Ralph and Bert. Then Ralph had kittens. And the dog became “maybe next year.”
There’s no hard feeling though. These four fluff balls made our first spring on the farm pretty special.
Trying to get four kittens to hold still and look at the camera is a bit of a challenge.
But now it’s time for them to leave Matt’s and my forever home for homes of their own.
So farewell Rex. Farewell Gypsy and June. Enjoy your new families. Make lots of new friends. Enjoy your life of leisure as pampered pets rather than hard-working farm cats. We’ll take care of mom and tug on her tail every so often for you.
Watch out, Ralph! Rex is coming for your tail!
For those mathemeticians out there who are counting four kittens minus Rex, Gypsy and June and finding things aren’t quite adding up, your calculations are correct.
While we’re taking care of Ralph and tugging on her tail, we’ll also be taking care of this gal.
Our new addition
She was our favourite all along. While three of the kittens look pretty much identical, she stood out. She had golden eyes while the others had blue. She was shy and timid and stuck close to mom while the other three were always looking for attention from the humans. Her head was slightly rounder and larger… which led to the unfortunate name we’ve been calling her for the past 10 weeks… Big Head. We’re trying to rename her, but it’s hard to break the habit. Matt came up with the new label of Easter… as in Easter Island. We’re terrible parents.
Can you blame us? She always has this weird petrified look on her face.
Big Head Easter is showing early signs of being an excellent huntress like her mom. She spent a lot of time stalking her brother and sisters and has perfected her pouncing technique on the tufts of grass in front of the barn. We think she’ll be a good addition to the farm and to our family.
So no animals for the first year except for a dog cat. That’s okay by me.
Feeding time is Ralph’s favourite time of the day. She’s a pretty self-sufficient cat and an exceptional huntress. However, perhaps because she’s accustomed to the uncertainty of not knowing when her next meal will be, she gets quite excited when Matt gives her dinner.
Every evening, Matt makes his way out to the barn, scoops a bowl of kibble from the sack of Agri-Cat and sets it on the big folding table in the basement of the barn.
From the look of things when we first saw the farm, this seemed to be the routine that Ralph was used to.
She hops up on the table and devours the kibble.
Sometimes she puts a paw in the bowl to hold it in place (and no, she doesn’t get the whole big bowl full of kibble).
The other night, she was particularly excited. Matt grabbed the dish off the table to fill it, and Ralph made the leap to the table. Unfortunately, she was still under the table at the time.
Cat skull meet table. Thunk.
Matt dropped the bowl and picked up Ralph.
“Are you okay? How many fingers am I holding up? Where does it hurt?”
Being the self-sufficient resilient girl she is, Ralph was fine. She was hungry. So she squirmed out of Matt’s arms, reminded him with a meow he still had to fill her bowl and, once the kibble was on the table, properly positioned herself for the jump to the tabletop.
And then she ate.
Obviously a blow to the head has no affect on her appetite.
Home on 129 Acres 