Back in January/February
- after the Canadians and Joseph left for Africa -
mum and I were going nuts waiting for closing day on her new house!
It was agony because we had to walk past it everyday - and poor mum just couldn't understand why we couldn't just go in and get started! Granted the house was empty (save for one weekend when the daughter was visiting) because the previous owner was taken away with (bad) dementia (@ 67!!).
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| This is the house before we moved in …not a lot of difference outside (except for mum's patio) |
So my #1 daughter came to the rescue and used her planning skills to make little to-scale models of the rooms and furniture and we spent a lot of nights moving those crazy little bits of paper around (and looking for them on the floor) - trying desperately to fit all of mum's worldly possessions into her new "home" - a room, a bit larger than what she has been living in.
Finally … February 27th … and we were IN - no more little bits of paper!!
We quickly painted; mum's room, put carpet down, had film installed on the windows/doors (so no-one can see in), placed wardrobes to create a bedroom ...
"made" a kitchen … (the sink was already there luckily) and put up the previous owner's beautiful curtains
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| Not sure you can see the beautiful curtains - but you can see the view mum has! |
- et voilà ! …
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| curtains at either end - panorama shows the "house" in it's entirety - bedroom to the right around the "corner" of the wardrobes - bathroom out the door across the hall |
I wanted to use the van to move the furniture!! THEY said it took too long!! THEY said by the time you load up and drive around the street it's just as fast to carry the stuff (There's a sailor's memorial in between the fourth house and ours that creates a circuitous driving route) Urgh I suggested removing the bollards and driving through it (the sailors are dead!) but nobody would help me - so off we went!! … Backwards and forwards, in and out, back to #5, down to #8 - backwards and forwards. Neighbour Mike in the second house reckoned we were making a groove in the pavement for goodness sake!!
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| There's Pablo wheeling down something else! (you can almost see the groove!)¡ |
Ants somebody said - I'm pretty sure that's what we must have looked like from outer space!
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| looking down to the old house there's those bollards I wanted to remove! I kept singing "Two Doors Down" even though it was four doors down and we were not having a party! |
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How to fill those shelves in the bookcase at the entrance …
with some of the 1,000,000 photos mum has (or used to have)!!
But …. for all that walking I must say we are pretty chuffed with the results!
Mum's room (on the lower level) is quite lovely - especially with the beautiful curtains left in the house (poor brother John climbed up and down the ladder at least 5,000 times installing them), and mum's monstrous recliner fits in and so does one of her beloved (!!) green chairs and so does her "china cabinet" that holds 3,000 tea cups and saucers and then when we realized we didn't have a linen closet - Barry (mum's brother) called to ask if we waned their mother's little cupboard! Well yes we certainly did and it works just fine to hold mum's "linen" that consists of; one extra set of sheets, two extra towels, 25 extra tea towels and 300 doilies.
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| There's the china cabinet with the "linen" closet to the right - there's the monstrous recliner and there's the beloved green chair!! |
We rolled down all the blinky plants and they looked quite lovely in the front patio - but the best thing of all turned out to be the crazy "decking" from IKEA that we put down!
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| the IKEA decking that has caught everybody's eye! |
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| Mum is quite thrilled with the passers-by who stop to comment! |
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| OK - we haven't finished yet - this is mum's bathroom … this crazy spa bath has to be removed luckily the skeleton of a shower alcove already exists just the BRICK - yes BRICK!!! surrounds (they love their bricks over here) need to be knocked out then the bath removed and tiles installed. |
I'm living upstairs with enough "things" to get by until Joseph returns mid April.
He's away in Africa feeling guilty but
… hah! …
all of the HEAVY pieces are still waiting for him!!
(Our lease ends mid-May and cassia & Pablo are staying in the old house until then).
The wrap-around patio doors make for quite the spectacular view
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| mostly the same view as before - just more of it! |
... and even though I made the bedroom carpets worse by steam cleaning them
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| boo hoo those stains weren't there when I started!! |
the spare parts for the dishwasher (Fisher & Pykell drawers!) actually fixed the problem !!
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| Fixed dishwasher drawers on left note the corner drawers instead of cupboards! Shame they are only deep enough to hold three plates! I asked if they wanted to keep the stained glass windows - they look nice but I could easily have had plain glass so I can see out! |
I went a bit crazy with the bird decals from IKEA!!
… and this desk area in the hallway will be good for scrapbooking … if I ever get to it!
… at night when the water is still and I look outside at the lights reflecting in the water … I pinch myself and wonder how it happened that I I am living in this beautiful house … on this crazy dock!
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p.s.
This post probably isn't as funny as it could be - but after the sad news from my friend Harry Mah (from Nortel days in Calgary) losing his mother and daughter Whitney (Cassia's age) within seven hours of each other
… it seemed inappropriate to be funny.
Harry said he enjoys my blog (bless him) so this is for Mothers and Daughters
… and Harry!
