Vulgar humour....a survival necessity when you're floored!

Kee has become my "little crack whore", and I don't mince words on myself...  on my mid-50 knees every day, stretching out over the months.....  I'm the afternoon house hooker, down on my knees more than the Chicken Ranch's bj hostess at a businessman's happy hour special. 

Each wooden floor - four bedrooms, a spare room, one very large living room, plus one long hallway - requires six to eight knee jobs - each.  I've never refinished wood floors before, so I download info and read product information on backs of various products .... trying to form a consensus of action.  Then I end up doing what I do with most heavy dirt and greasy grime - Spray 9 the shit out of it.....straight Spray 9 and hot water, I scrub and scrub until clean, then towel soak-up/dry; followed by a clean water wash, then scrub with the mild wood stripper and then another clean water wash and towel soak-up/dry.  I figure I've got it cleaned up back to at least 1946.  Even this is a great improvement. 

Next is stain and polyurethene, a one-step MinWax product, a colour called Bombay Mahogany, it just transcends the wood to a wine-in-the-pine translucent glow.  I do squares of about 2 feet at a time, brushing on, a short wait for stain sinkage, then blending the edges into the next square, throwing away the rags when the stain gums them to a sticky, smearing mass.  There are just a few small spots of the floors eaten by bugs, reducing the wood to powder... they take a bit of filler, a bit of rest to cure, then get the stain.  In the 30s section, the two older bedrooms take two coats of stain.  The living room... I'm not completely satisfied with the first two coats, so down I go again, and three times' the charm.  Even without wax, after cleaning and staining, the results are so deeply gratifying.  A large percentage of the house's craftsman charm comes from the pine panelled living room and the multiple wood floors.  The time and effort in reviving their translucent, warm glow is well spent.

D, Mr Modern, wants us to sand down all floors, then stain and perma-seal.  But I want the life lines, the wrinkles, the marks, earned through decades and generations of family vacations.  Even after severe cleaning, all those chips, scars and stains and the shadows of ghosts of various sized carpets, showcase the character and life experiences of the 80 year pine and 55 year oak.  The previous owners did a lot to keep the house in good nick for all these years... and for it's age, the old girl/boy [choose your gender of decreption], while showing a load of wear and tear, has solid bones.  Very, very good bones.  Just needs some work, as they say in the cosmetic business.

The oak floors, put in 25 years later in the newer section of the house, are younger, but not in better condition.... the west bedroom had a major roof leak, repaired several years ago, but the floors under the leak are discoloured noticeably. 

The hall was lined for decades with a long braid wool rug that ground itself into the grain..... another major knee job for Dame NeezARekka.  In the hall linen closet, the floor's been eaten by insect attackers and powders to a talc fineness when touched... almost the whole 3' wide closet floor is a write-off. 

To one of many rescues - Habitat For Humanity in Windsor - a complete package of lovely pecan wood for $25!  It won't match the wood on the hall floor, but it'll be behind the wall, so that won't matter.  We create our fantastic, large, hall length major clothes closet by:  (1) in the east bedroom closet, cutting open the wall that backs to the hall bathroom, doorframing it for access into the hall bathroom, we'll make this a true ensuite bedroom; (2) demo'ing the bathroom closet beside the hallway door to the bath and creating a new wall in the bathroom on the hallside, at the same depth of the closet just taken out, so now the bathroom has no closet and no hallway door; (3) installing 2 new door frames along the hall, one about where the original closet was, the other, about 3' further down the hall, right where the old hall bathroom door was; (4) installing a central light, ceiling and wall drywall, mudding, sanding, remudding (aka MSR), painting, installing the HFH wood, then erecting 8' of DIY closet metal.  This is one of our first major alterations - 1:  a long, hall length closet that has closed off the bathroom from the hall and, 2:  an ensuite bathroom for the east bedroom suite. 

We decide that each closet end having an upper and lower shirt length bar would be best, with just one small longer dress space, at "my" end, with shelving from bottom to top on the far right and in the middle of the two shirt length bar sections.  We pack as much shelving in as sensible. 

Even though we've taken the lakeside bedroom, with the small closet that will be reformatted, for our own, most of our clothes will be in this closet.  But in the bedroom, we'll have our bed, reading lamps, our underwear, our robes - and the lakeview.  

Every morning, we'll see what we did this for..... so, when we set up the bedframe, I say - face the bed towards the lake.

As I was staining/varathaning, I was scouring somewhere else - kijiji - for a buffer....  like my mum had years ago.  I found one in Chatham, from an elderly Dutch/Canadian couple, selling their home and 99% of their posessions as they readied their new quarter mil RV to travel across Canada.  For $25, the Hoover double-headed buffer and attachments was mine.  Months later, for $2, I bought a triangular 3-headed Electrolux buffer/washer (with liquid cleanser tank), with all attachments.  I like the Electrolux better, easier control and corner access.

Then waxing.... somehow I've regressed - and happily - to the 50s, buying Johnson's Paste Wax and finding cheesecloth.  Again, the method is a 2 foot square, with knee pads and slide cushion... I try to go quickly so it doesn't dry hard.  Then the whizz of the buffer.  This is just like slow, but still unbelievable, magic.

My god, the look of those floors... the first time I finished half a room - the comparision of the gleaming recovered wood to the unfinished portion.  I swear it felt happy, I know it felt warm, thickly smooth, deeply clear.  I called Kee in to see, I was so proud of the result of all my hard work.  Hard, slow and painful work. The borrowed volleyball knee pads were from the school and the slide cushion a folded-up crib mattress pad left behind.... I'm getting up like a seventy, then eighty, then ninety year old floor finisher.  But worth it.  I have a very special relationship with my floors, we give something to each other.

We put 6 x 8 oriental rugs in two of the bedrooms, sideways under the bed, so there'll be a fabric comfort for early morning feet.  In our son's bedroom, the rug is a very special ragrug, made 30 years ago by Kee's uncle, who took the blue and white men's shirts I bought at the resale store and created, on his loom, a carpet of blue/white seismic bars, three long ragrugs sewn together, each two feet wide by ten feet long.  I sat on that rug for decades, in front of the washer, emptying the dryer, folding laundry, diapers, baby clothes, teen jeans, acres of towels and sheets, work clothes, sports jerseys, skating outfits.....  Thirty years later, that rug doesn't have a loose seam in it, despite being through the washer and dryer five or six times a year for 30 years.  Now, it matches perfectly the washed blue and grey/cream colours of the bedroom, looks perfectly custom cottagey and lives a slightly more upscale retirement.

The living room (from move-in April till present day has the oriental from our former dining room) will eventually wind up with a large champagne/grey short twisted shag rug.  Because the living room is surrounded by the kitchen, sunroom and the hallway of the west three rooms, even with indirect window light, the pine panelling and floor naturally keep it dark.  The light shag will work with the light coloured ceiling, creating, reflecting more light.  A sculptured 40s style runner will go down the length of the hall, approximately 20 feet, helping keep feet warm and echoes down. 
Caveat:  newly-awakened, waxed floors are the devil's slides.  Be careful, be afraid, learn the shuffle.

After tearing out the cupboards, leaving the kitchen absolutely empty, the guys ripped up the ancient linoleum.  D and Kee lay down a new subfloor, walking it again and again, to find squeaks and rolls.  Fast forward wall repair, plumbing redo, electrical reinvention, the new lower cupboards go in.  Then the tiling began.  The pattern is laid on the diagonal, illusioning the long kitchen to a greater width. 

Kee... becoming a Titian of the Tiles, Goya of the Grout.  I pick out the tiles for the kitchen, mudroom, sunroom, small hall and bath - then repick them, repick them, repick them, and he lays down the cream and grey-veined matte finish small and large tiles, diagonally, perfectly... that's the kitchen, small bath and small hall done.  It looks like a perfect cottage floor.  We wait for a sale to buy identical tiles for the mudroom and sunroom, hoping they're still in stock when we can buy them. 

Next I trudge home green bathroom tile samples, then resamples and more resamples... Kee creates a totally modern, yet period-appropriate pattern with the smaller cream and grey, wavy edged, matte finish ceramic tiles. 

The kitchen and small hall, small bathroom flank the living room, with the middle french doors opening to the sunroom.  Tiling with identical, light-coloured, stone-looking tile on all sides gives a traditional yet modern, quiet, cohesive look on three sides of the living room, around the dark wood of the pine floored and walled central room.  When the sunroom is laid with the same floor - a trinity of the same tile - the view from the living room will be a subtle theme of calm unity to the whole.

The floor for the 2BBath will remain oak.

Thank God.
I'm floored.

The Colour of Magic....

The original walls curve up to flow into the ceiling, creating a challenge for painting a separate wall and ceiling colour.  The colours I chose for walls, I paint up to the pencilled, then taped line all around the room, a couple of inches below the top of window and door tops.  Then all the ceilings are a shade of greyish tinged cream.  I'll do this for every bed, bath, hall and mudroom.  I love the impression of higher ceilings that the lowered ceiling colour gives.... and an old-fashioned, Depression era style of wall painting. 

On the advice of my friend Peggums, one of the infamous GGs, I look into Depression era interior colours and decide to go with the greyish tones of blues and greens for the other bedrooms and baths.  The kitchen and mudroom will be some of the taupes and creams of our bedroom with other shades of that colour strip.

The sunroom turns out to be two shades of pale, pale grey green, with the baseboards and rads a much darker shade.  So flippin' close to each other are these pale greens, that one tired night I go to the same paint can, changing brushes and carefully paint the walls one shade, then the 6" boards that are spaced vertically over the walls every 2 feet, very carefully the same colour I've just painted the walls.  I tiredly hand the brush over to Kee......  I just could not go back to those particular walls again.

If I could tell self-painters everywhere just two things, the first would be this:  count the friggin' ceilings you'll paint the same shade and buy in bulk.  Jeez, the amount of cans I bought of that shade.  Also, Rona's top shelf/top price paint is, in my wearied opinion - crap - chips if you give it a harsh glance.  Behr and Valspar are great.  And, harsh, but true - selling you that can of $40/50 paint at Home Depot, Rona, etc, are, almost always, employees who are not career paint counsellors and gurus.  Word.

Secondly - the things you learn... eggshell is not eggshell is not eggshell - eggshell between brands has different sheens, an evil conspiracy to keep you brand-bound!  Paint finishes should be government regulated, with stiff penalties and jail time for ratfink bastards who try..... well, it does piss you off to spend $40, $50, give the exact numbers for the formula, say the magic words "Eggshell" and when it dries, find you've got "Buffed Eggshell" or "Waxed Eggshell" or "Slightly More Glowing Eggshell".

So I pick colours:  Ralph Lauren meets Canadian 21st century Lake Cottage with overtones of Nick & Nora Charles.... see?  Pale blue for our bedroom walls, the cream ceiling, a mid taupe for the baseboards and window sills and a darker cream for the window frame and wood between the panes.

The kitchen, one of the first projects, was originally layers of walpaper, pepto-pink underneath.  The ceiling was texture wall papered.  We ripped back to the walls and Kee began his apprenticeship on plastering.  The ceiling now, painted, is his masterwork, all the lighting shows a smooth, undisturbed flatscape.  Walls were replastered down to a certain height, to where beadboard would meet them.

 The atmosphere I want to creat for the cottage is a melange.... lake casual meets vintage 30s40s Craftsman Tudor Revival with modcons and casual, uncluttered, simple comfort. Starting with the paint, I let the house reveal itself... and us.

Gardener.... 101

How do you find new knees on eBay..... everything I do seems geared to destroying my knees.  You'd think constantly exercising those muscles, repeating the kneeling/squatting action would strengthen them.  But I'm coming to suspect that you only get, say 500,000 bends per lifetime and this cottage reno thing is cutting through my allotment in light speed.  Indoor and outdoor, all my jobs seem knee-associated.

This is a big lot, almost an acre, with about 200' along Lake Erie.  With the original owners being here only 2 to 3 months a year, they were interested in enjoying the property, especially as the years passed.  The maintenance of the yard was minimal, but neat.

While the early fall weather of 2009 continues nicely, as Kee and D rip into the skeleton of the cottage, I occasionally get up from my aching knees in the interior and get down on them in the gardens around the entire house.  As I said before, overgrown and interwoven hostas, lily of the valley and banks and banks of snow on the mountain protect the house's foundations.  In 2009, I plant few bulbs, mainly focussing on clearing out the overgrowth.  The house is our more pressing concern.  I decide to see what comes up in the spring of 2010 before I go all agent orange on the existing growth.

In the spring, I'm loving all the surprises that come up:  the fragrant, old fashioned, lily of the valley, pale, slender mini iris, peonies, daffodils, pink hydrangeas, lots of baby, toddler and teen rose of sharons, different hostas.... along the east side of the house I recognize the thick stems of milkweek emerge.  Very excited about these, because they bring butterflies.  I'm going to let these grow this season, then try to replant them along the east edge of the yard... I want the continuity of milkweed growing here still, but I'd rather it was away from the house.  Ditto for the peonies.  All fall and the following summer the yard is never without monarchs, swallotails, viceroys.  I get great pictures of caterpillars on the milkweed.

After the lily of the valley flowers, I start digging out most of it, except for occasional beds. I'm doing the same to most of the snow on the mountain too... that stuff surrounds the house like billowing pale green clouds.

But, in early September of 2009, I know the colour scheme I'd like to work towards and I want the spring, summer and fall of 2011 to be a vibrant, brilliant blaze of blues, whites and greens, with occasional purples and pinks, so...., in August of 2010...

Online, I go through the Veseys' catalogue, and from Prince Edward Island comes bulbs and roots .... sky blue lilies, iris:  Alida, blue horizon, reticulata; blue and white hyacinthus and muscari.  Giant blue allium, should look like mutant blue dried dandelions if all goes well... sky blue squill, double narcissus Manly... Lord Lieutenant Anemone (jeez, I love that name).  Tulips:  queen of night & shirley, blueberry ripple, angelique, purisima.  In the grid notebook, goes a rough map of each yard area I plant, with circled numbers on them that correspond to the name of the recently buried.  The writing gets messy, because I get weary of taking my gloves off... so many bulbs, so many, so, so many... and the pages get dirty, but I'll have some approximation of where to swear and stamp if things don't come up next spring.

In goes Emerald Blue Phlox, Veronica Prostrata, Blue peonies (but not near the house), Walker's low catmint, carnations, Clementine Blue Columbine, Camestre blue melody, garden daffodil.  Around the front gardens, I inhume, near the blue hydrangeas:  blue, white and peach leaf bellflowers, meadow sage, white gayfeather, husker red-beard tongue (for butterflies), heavenly blue speedwell, stokesia, white passion tulips, prince of orange hyacinthus (orange, blue and white), double snowdrops, violacea pallida tulips and blue and white anemone mix.

So many bulbs, so little knowledge, but so much faith - in Veseys.

I'm an amateur... inexperienced, but I know I want cottage gardens... blues, purples, whites.  Cutting flowers for the house, lavender for drying and to grow under the bedroom windows and along the roadside fence, stages of blooms from spring to summer to fall, a wavy border of English and Virginia bluebells along the west fence.  Under the enormous pine, where we've just umbrelled up 10', we clear the ground and plant a varied ivy garden, surrounded by large and small rocks we find on the property, on the beach.  My youngest sister gives me hens and chicks to colonize the rocks.

We dig out the children of the rose of sharon tree outside our lakeside bedroom window and plant them in a row, to form an eventual rose of sharon hedge, parallel to the lake, about the same distance from the lake as the house.  This will become a more private lounge chair area.

I become obsessed with lawn weeds.  This lawn is not so much a true expanse of legitimate, genuine grass, as it is a true expanse of greenish weeds that are mown to a uniform length.  Creeping charlie, crab grass, dandelion, plantain - shit, especially plantain - I will killkillkill plantain -  and I've got the bleeding calluses to prove the darkness and intensity of my madness.  We even buy a special rooter and do that until blisters break.  I am still out at dusk, leaving pyramids of weedy remains in my wake... the neighbours think I nuts.  I went through this same dementia when our daughter was married on our front lawn at our previous house.... don't talk to me about grubs, I will scare you.

Along the west fence, lakeside of the shed, we umbrella up a mature tree and a few shorter ones, clear out a tangle of tree off-shoots, wires, firelog stands.  A semi-circular holding garden is created, where I transfer moved plants, new plants, strawberry plants, a raspberry bush, moss for between pavers... to be put in a later time.  Along the west fence, I plant two rhubarb plants, likely to be moved when I know where the kitchen garden will be.

I'm all ambition, impatience and no brains... but I'll make up for it in enthusiasm and ignorance.

All the house-hugging gardens are widened and at every corner of this roughly "L"-shaped house, we round-out and enlarge the garden.  Again, using the separate notebook pages for each side or section, I map out where new bulbs go in... once covered, who knows what's there..... besides, if I don't write down what it is, I'll never know at this stage of my horticareer... maybe later.

I reorder from Veseys', planting hordes of bulbs and roots.  I am no gardener, but I'm willing to be taught.  I try to buy the colours I want, in varying heights and blooming time, using plants that grow in this zone.  More and more numbered circles on the pages, for each section of the house, each side garden. 

A former co-worker has a cottage near Rondeau Park, outside Blenheim, with a massive lot, the back of which is untouched Carolinian forest.  She offers the wonderful gift of trees, so one Sunday, we visit with the Jeep and wagon and, wellies muddy, dig out fifteen trees:  red oaks, black walnut, chokeberry, mullberry, maples, ......  We give back with a basketful of homemade jams and a dinner to see where they've been planted in early November.

During the fall, winter and spring, the two old willow trees had a rough time of it.  On two windy occasions, the willow nearest the house broke off major branches, narrowly missing the cars, then the house.  Nearer the lake, the willow limb that broke off embedded itself in the hydro electric wires that run along the shoreline, taking the neighbourhood power out and causing massive overtime as three crews laboured for several hours to get all the branches off the wires.  The remaining  block of wood, fused onto the wires, had to be knocked off with a hammer by the brave hydro technician, up high in his bucket, as rain and waves lashed about him.  They were hollow with rot, worm diggings sculptured into their wood.  The main dividing crotch of the house willow had other vines growing in.  A week after cutting, both willows are sprouting suckers.  We keep the massive truck of the house willow.... it's about 18' high and 5' thick, cut down now, it's no danger, but still alive.  I've planted a climbing hydrangea beside it, hoping it'll take.

We plant five or six trees along the shore, to aid in shading the air and grass.  This summer the hot southern Ontario sun was in full force, frying the grass crispy, reflecting off the lake, then heating up the air.  We'll attempt lake pump watering next year - I want lushlushlush - and I'd prefer not to pay for it.  Also - no a/c here - and we're not that keen on installing it.  The cottage has hot water rad heat.... no ductwork.  It would be either a massive central installation job or several window units.  I think later on we'll look into mini-splits, the type of wall unit a/c so prevalent in Mexico and Europe, for a couple of rooms.  Our former house was surrounded heavily by shade trees that cooled the air fore and aft of the house, so we repeat that eco and wallet friendly approach.

Habitat for Humanity, Kijiji, eBay, Antiques & Auctions...

So I'm thinkin'.... the cottage should be vintage, yet modern, individual rooms with synchronized

threads:  lighting, plumbing, paint.  And to my rescue comes the world-wide catalogues, I go all eBay and Kijiji, for sinks, faucets, old clawfoot tubs, kitchen hardware and multiple other items.  As the only constant location for receiving deliveries, I have e-purchases delivered to the school... it's a thrill to sign and see what the box holds.

I travel to Chatham, Windsor and points in between for the buffers, tubs and cupboards. It's an act of faith, on the part of both buyer and seller, contacting, arranging a meeting, but all transactions turn out low key, easy.  We end up with 2 iron tube beds.... I thought they were both 3/4, but the mattress falling through the refinished bed 6 months later persuaded me that I had one 3/4 and one double.

The tubs are found in a dirt floor cottage barn and in a farmhouse kitchen garden.  Both are in surprisingly good condition.  It'll turn out we only use one.  Kee brainwaves that many people may not be able to leg-over on a high rimmed clawfoot, so we should keep the one modern height tub.  The subversive imp in me wonders if we should do a "Bathtub Mary".... maybe not.

We'll turn a left-behind antique wash stand into a vanity for what we're calling the 2BBath (the miscellany room), so a round ceramic vessel sink comes to the school, followed by a chrome faucet - actually two of the same faucets, one which won't work out because when mounted on the compact English corner sink for the small bathroom, a full turn of the taps fountains water over the rim of the sink..... another notch on the learning curve.  This one will be used later, hopefully.

I definitely envision a bridge faucet for the kitchen sink and find a perfect one from Vintage Tub and Bath online.  When it's delivered, the "Cold" ceramic button is cracked... I email the company who immediately, no questions asked, send out a replacement, but the font is different from the "Hot" button... email again, a replacement again, all is perfect.  Vintage Tub and Bath's service is as excellent as their products.  I'm a big fan.

A little present to myself is the beautifully handcrafted dragonfly handle, of brass, mother-of-pearl and tortoise shell (ethically harvested), to be mounted on one of the kitchen cupboards - which I am diligently searching for in the local kijiji site.  The cottage's old, minimal cupboards have been torn out, some will be mounted on the shed's wall for storage.  Storage is the sun in our solar system now, we revolve around that purpose as we renovate.

I'm hoping someone's doing a kitchen redo and wants rid of, cheaply, a complete set.  I want to faux them to a bleachy, grainy finish, ragrollering low-gloss melamine in the kitchen cream/grey/taupes shades.  I've done this before in our current house and love the finish, and the great durability and washability is a proven factor.  We go look at a couple listings... not in good shape.  Then, I see another cupboard post, emails are exchanged, we arrange a looksee and they're right outside Wheatley!  These are perfect - great shape Hanover cupboards, a large kitchen of them, two lazy susans, a big corner unit, even a built-in, newish, stainless steel KitchenAid dishwasher, great - as our built-in will stay with the current home.  We barter, they're ours.  The handles and hinges will be replaced with brushed steel hardware and we'll do a granite tile top.  They stack up in the shed while demo and reno continue.....

CanPar and it's competitors trudge up to the school, lugging vessel sinks, corner sinks; faucets:  trough, bridge, high and low arch with single and triple holes; a lovely chrome shower/tub filler unit with matching rectangular shower curtain rod for the blue bath, an oiled brass rain shower/hand shower/tub filler unit for the green bath and a white ceramic rimmed shower and hand shower unit for the small bath.... even - just because - an ornate silverplate service for 12.... bit of a future scheme on this one.