Fun long weekend! Lorenzo went to the cottage on Tuesday night. I've been thinking how fast time goes. In the spring he was convinced that the cottage would be done by early June. Ha! We've had the cottage for nearly a year. Who knew it would take this long...
Take a look at how much progress we've made... Doesn't this room look like an episode of Hoarders? We have such a long way to go...

He called yesterday afternoon sounding a bit irritable. He ducked out to the Spring Water to watch the soccer game. When Italy scored, he cheered.
Two old ladies at another table hissed, "Ssshhhh!" In a pub. There is a certain brand of old person who has the ability to suck the youth and joy right out of the room. I hope I'll never be like that.

Today, Lorenzo worked on electrical...he called several times asking where I wanted plug-ins, how many inches from a doorway to put a light fixture, etc. Most conversations were cut off because of bad cell phone reception. Lorenzo is pretty good at electrical but there were several things he wasn't sure about. Luckily, his brother is a very smart guy who also happens to be an electrician. Many calls were made asking for advice, so I'm sure it will all work out - unless the house explodes or bursts into flames...

He also gutted what was left of the kitchen...

I'd been putting off choosing light fixtures because I tend to research everything to death. And anything I really liked was too expensive, such as this farmhouse pendant. I love this, but it's over $200...

Then I found a website called Lighting Direct. They were offering 10-percent off all orders, and I found something I really think will look nice. And it was $64. so that was a bit softer on the budget...

Lighting is one of the most important parts of renovating or decorating. Nothing transforms a room the way light does. A badly lit space feels ininviting so it's really worth it to take your time choosing fixtures and figuring out where you want to have light. Incandescent lighting is warm - particularly if it's down-light. Corners should be lit as well; if you light the corners of a room it expands and feels very cozy. Overhead ceiling lights tend to cast shadows, so I've avoided them. Putting lights on dimmers is a good idea as well and it saves energy. Speaking of which - the new energy-saving light bulbs are a great idea but the light they give off is ghastly. I've bought them before but they're all in a cupboard in the basement. I know I should be using them but they're just so awful.

Here is another fixture that I might buy for the entrance ways...

I have bought almost everything for the cottage on Craigslist, and scoured thrift stores for anything I can find that we'll need. But I will not compromise on lighting - it's just too important. You can find good lighting that is affordable if you're willing to take your time or buy on-line. The selection is enormous.

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Well, it's Friday night. I told my kids there would be no sleep-overs this weekend as I'm getting fed up with crazy late nights and kids goofing off until the wee hours. Regardless, my daughter begged me to let her friend stay and I said, "No. Absolutely not." Then I caved. At 10:30 pm, a boy showed up whom I haven't seen in a very long time. My son took me aside and pleaded to let him stay the night. I said, "No. Absolutely not." He said, "Mum, he has nowhere to go." Short pause. "Has he had supper?" 

The next thing I know, there's five kids in the kitchen at
11 pm making popcorn and drinking tea. They're in the basement right now watching an ear-splitting horror film. It's well past midnight and I'm wondering when it will get quiet around here. It's a good thing Lorenzo is on Mayne - he thinks I'm too easy-going when it comes to things like this. If someone needs a place to crash I can't say no. I think it's an Irish thing. You always wonder if it might turn into a good party.

Well...I guess I better find a sleeping bag and an extra pillow.

Ciao for now.

                           
                           (a hundred thousand welcomes)

This is a long blog...

I left for Mayne Island on Tuesday night, leaving behind a freshly-cleaned house and a huge roasting pan of Italian meatballs. I arrived at the cottage around 9:30pm. I looked around at what had been done but the lighting was poor and it was difficult to determine what I needed to do. I made a fire, drank a cup of tea, and read. The next morning I surveyed the work of our painter and understood why Lorenzo fired him. I can't describe how upsetting it was. The vertical wainscoting and window trim that had been meticulously installed was supposed to be cut-in with a narrow brush on all sides before painting. Our painter...let's call him "Dud"... made an absolute mess of it. He clearly has no idea how to use a paint brush. The corners were caked in blobs of paint. I could pick them off with my finger nail. The ceilings were only half done and badly at that,  and there were long drip marks everywhere. I imagined him loading up his brush and just flinging paint around the room. Like Jackson Pollock.

I stood there in a state of shock and then I just sat on the floor feeling numb. I have never seen such a sloppy, careless, paint job in my life. A child could have done better. A toddler. A ferret...

Lovely, isn't it? These pictures don't begin to describe what the rooms look like...

I called Lorenzo and was a wreck describing the mess that had been left for us. He tried to calm me down, but I was feeling rage beginning to simmer. I cannot stand injustice, and the idea that we paid this ding-bat, paid him to cause damage to our home made me want to rail at the universe. I walked around the bedrooms glaring at his blatant incompetence and reached for my cell phone. My text to Dud turned into an essay. I demanded half of our money back, told him he did an appalling job, and basically released my outrage in a 500 word diatribe. Then I pressed "send". My missive took an entire hour to reach its destination. Still not sure what Dud's reaction was, if any.

It's a good thing I had no cell-phone reception because I was seized by an urge to call my husband and demand to know what he was doing while this dunder-head was wrecking our house. I don't think it would have been a wise decision. I would have heard something like this:
"I WAS DRINKING A MAI-TAI!" (*click*)  The truth is, he was on a ladder running wire. Still, though....

That first day was the lowest moment in our cottage adventure. I sat on the sagging couch staring into the cold void of the wood stove feeling quite hopeless. And I had left one of my sons at home with a fever and that was playing on my mind as well. Spent an hour ruminating and plotting against Dud; scenarios involving eggs and other tools of revenge. The problem is, I hate to waste food, so the egg hurling idea was out...what else is there? Fire bombs? I decided I needed to get busy.

On his last trip, Lorenzo decided to fill in a bunch of spots in the bathroom (after I had painted it!) and the walls looked like they'd been sprayed with machine-gun fire. White blobs of filler all over the place. So I sanded it all out, slowly and carefully. Then I hauled the industrial vacuum up the stairs and tried to suck up all the dust. There was still a white film on the walls so I washed them down with warm water and vinegar. In a room that measures 6 by 11, this type of job entails bumping into walls, tripping over tools, emptying pots of water onto the lawn, your light goes out because the crappy extension cord gets jostled, etc. It's an exercise in complete frustration. That first day was the worst. We'd been happily thinking of names for our cottage, but at that point all I could come up with was "Another Hope Crushed" or "This Dump Is All We Could Afford."  Welcome to stinky hollow...

Anyway, I re-painted the entire bathroom, touched up the ceiling, and was very pleased when I was done. That took all day.

Every time I go to Mayne Island I lose at least one pound. Why? Because I am spared the Tyranny of Dinner. For five days, I lived on fruit, tea, and one sandwich for dinner. It's all I need, and it explains why, prior to meeting Lorenzo, I was 25 pounds thinner than I am now. I blame it all on marriage. However, I digress...

Slept poorly the first night, woke up the next day and tackled my daughter's bedroom which received the bulk of Dud's stupidity. If our painter were living in medieval times, he would have been the village idiot. The scope of his ineptitude was mind-boggling. I had to chisel out every single corner to clean his gummy brushwork and I could only do so much; if I kept at it, I started to gouge the wood. Lorenzo suggested that I use his palm sander. But did he leave a fresh piece of sandpaper in it for me? No! I had to take it to Home Hardware and get the owner to do it. Back to the lonely cottage...sanding, scraping, chiseling...  When you're alone for days on end, speaking to no one, your thoughts really get to roam free. At home contemplation is always interrupted, like a train that never leaves the station.

On Mayne Island I found my thoughts could weave and meander and it was very meditative. I thought a lot about my family and how awful it would be to live alone, to have no children. Away from the annoying habits of my three off-spring, I was able to see them through a more flattering filter. I felt tremendous love for them.

At one point I was listening to Joni Mitchell which made me think of my daughter, left alone in a house of testosterone. Just the thought of her makes my throat tighten; she is so precious to me. She is like the little engine that could. Born premature, isolated in an incubator for five terrifying days, struggling to swallow while her robust twin brother was the picture of health. How I marvel at what has become of my strong little fighter. She is an amazing artist, a lightening-fast award winning runner, smart, pretty, funny. She's kind and generous; she is capable and intuitive. She loves nature, animals, art, music. Everything seems effortless to her - what takes someone a month to understand takes her one day. And she writes songs and plays the guitar so beautifully. She's an old soul. So when Joni Mitchell's "The Circle Game" came on my stereo, I lost it. I'm alone in this dilapidated shack, rain pounding on the roof, standing on a wobbly chair painting the ceiling, and I've got tears pouring down my face. Pathetic, really. But I just love her so much - whoever ends up with her will be the luckiest man. I can't believe I created her...

She's a wonder to me...

And here is her little room, before and after...

The picture doesn't do the colour justice; it'a lovely butter colour...

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So the days were somewhat weird for me. I was emotional, frustrated, moody...but there were moments of real joy. I staggered down to the kitchen to get a cup of tea and looked up to see a deer gazing at me through the window. We locked eyes for a long time, then she slowly ambled away, giving me a side-long glance in parting. So graceful and soft. Later on, she came back with a friend...

Lorenzo called at one point to let me know that Marcello the Bunny peed all over one of the beds. He did this the last time I left as well, so the events must be connected as he's completely trained. Lorenzo detailed what was involved: removing the duvet cover, washing the duvet, the sheets, the mattress pad, etc. Who would think that a little ball of fluff can generate 3 hours of laundry? We're going away at Christmas and my cousin Shannon has bravely agreed to take on my annoying pets for twelve days. I think Marcello might have to be stuffed in a cage...sniff...

The evenings were the same: sandwich, tea, fire going. I watched "Practical Magic" which is one of my favourite movies of all time. The house in the movie is my dream home - perched high on a bluff overlooking the sea, surrounded by flower and herb gardens. The kitchen is jaw dropping. I kept pausing the film to drool over the interior...best movie house I've ever seen.

This film is quite silly, but it stirs something in me that is hard to describe. It makes me want to live in an old Victorian house where I could spend my days puttering around the gardens in long skirts, weaving spells, making potions.. It's a film that makes me glad that I'm a woman. If you haven't seen this movie, you should. Lorenzo loves it too. He has a crush on Sandra Bullock...

The next day, I began priming the wood in the upper hallway and stairwell. Lorenzo suggested that I use his ladder. It's an old wooden contraption that weighs 300 pounds. I lugged it up the stairs, only to realize that it was too big to be of any use. Even though I was only able to prime two-thirds of the wood, the change is dramatic. No longer is the stairwell a dark and gloomy passageway. Now it is light-filled and seems to have expanded...

By Friday I started getting texts from Lorenzo.."are you ever coming home?"  "I'm lonely lonely lonely!"  I told him I was leaving on the Saturday morning ferry. He replied, "Yaay! Yaay! Yaaaaaaayyyyyy!"  I had a good laugh. The last night at the cottage I was so tired. I marvel at my husband - he has a tremendous amount of energy. I don't know how he does it.

So, I'm home. Lorenzo was so happy to see me - ran outside and gave me a big bear hug. The dog was freaking out, running in circles. The kids said how glad they were to see me and then took off with their friends. Even Marcello the bunny popped his head out to give me look... 

The house looked nice, the laundry was done, and there was a pot of tea waiting for me on the stove.    

Life is good.

Appreciate everyone you love while they are here, because all of this is temporary...

Our painter turned out to be not so trusty after all...
Lorenzo was completely unhappy with the work he was doing and by the third day, realized that it wasn't going to improve. We have a very methodical way of doing things: you fill, you sand, you use an industrial vac to clean up all the dust thoroughly, and then you begin priming. When the priming is done, you look around at any mistakes and you fix them. Only then, do you begin painting. We're Type-A renovators.

Our painter would do some filling, move to a different part of the room and start priming, begin painting some trim work, then Lorenzo would hear the sander. All this, to the soul-numbing strains of his Barry Manilow collection. Lorenzo would stop what he was doing, go upstairs, and explain repeatedly how he wanted it done. We think our painter has breathed into too many fumes; he just didn't get it. It was making Lorenzo frantic and he called home sounding more frustrated than I've ever heard him. On the third day, he was pretty much fired.

Renovating really makes you realize how much incompetence is out there. Lorenzo is convinced that only about 10 to 15 percent of people are conscientious in what they do. Sounds cynical, doesn't it? Maybe we're just becoming very tired of this entire project...anyway. I'm heading over tomorrow, alone, to paint. How I'm dreading it.

Today Ireland was playing Italy in the Euro Cup soccer championships. Being the spawn of an Italian father and an Irish mother, it's hard to know who to root for in these situations...

I went to Mayne Island on Wednesday night and returned Saturday night. The first thing I did upon entering the cottage was build a fire. It was freezing cold. Then I made a pot of tea. It was already getting late, so I watched a wonderful British film called "Maurice" and called it a night. Had the best sleep ever.
The next day, I began priming the bathroom...

I can't describe how sore my neck was painting the slanted ceiling. After I finished priming, I left the cottage for some fresh air and diversion. First, I sat on my front porch and looked up to see an eagle slowly circling in the sky. The birdsong was amazing - and to hear nothing else defies description. I could feel my blood pressure coming down. Then I went to the Trading Post...

Then I made eye contact with a deer...

Drove home to the cottage up the road that diverges around an Arbutus tree...

I have a renewed respect for painters. It is gruelling work, especially in a small space where you're constantly bumping into yourself. In addition, because we are on a septic system you have to be very careful when cleaning your brushes. I had to fill up a huge pot of warm water and carry it outside. The paint I used is zero-VOC but that doesn't mean you can wash it down the drain. In between coats, I wrapped my rollers & brushes in plastic bags. Anyway, the colour I chose ("Overcast"- Benjamin Moore) looked smashing in my home in Burnaby. I was confident that this was the right choice. It looks nice, but our cottage is surrounded by trees which intensified the green tones in the paint. Also, slanted walls intensify colour - it will appear several shades darker because of the shadow line...

I'm not unhappy with the colour, but I will not be using it anywhere else in the cottage. It's too cool and I want something warmer. Instead, I'm going with a happy yellow/cream that I've used before called "Man on the Moon." I'm glad I arrived on Mayne Island on a cold miserable day. The cottage was dark and rather unfriendly feeling, and it made me realize the importance of colour in such a space. We don't have an ocean view, or a pastoral farm-like property that is light-filled. This was a learning experience. I am satisfied with the results, but I won't be doing any more painting. I'm too slow. Here are some before and after pictures...

Using a semi-gloss finish on the ceiling is important in a small space with a low ceiling; it bounces the light around the room. The difference in brightness alone is incredible. Here is the other end of the space...

I worked until pretty late at night as there wasn't anything else to do, so I managed to get two coats done. Having an i-pod was fantastic - I listened to Irish music for hours on our little stereo system and it kept my energy up.
The next day, I filled in all the nail holes in the three bedrooms and the hallway...

Again, my neck was very sore from looking up for hours. I finished the filling at around 10pm. Then I had a shower, made a cup of tea, and sat outside listening to the frogs. Something really interesting happened. All of a sudden, this deafening chorus of frog singing stopped - instantly. It was like having a stereo blasting music and then hitting the "off" button. The silence that ensued was almost eerie. Fifteen minutes later, it started up again as if on cue. I wonder what makes them stop all of a sudden...and why isn't there one rogue frog who isn't quite in sync with everyone else?

The nicest part of being on Mayne Island, aside from the beauty and the peacefulness, was not having to talk. To spend your day in a monk-like state of continued silence is wonderful. I didn't have a single headache and I never felt tired until the end of the day. It was a really nice mental break. Also, while Lorenzo was staring out into a gloomy downpour, I was basking in a glorious sunny day with a blue sky above. Go figure.

Back at home, my kids seemed delighted to see me and said they missed me very much. The house was clean, Lorenzo had done the grocery shopping, so all I had to do was laundry. And then a miracle happened: our trusty painter, who previously said he was too busy to help us, called to say he was available. I dashed out to buy two 5-gallon pails of paint, primer, etc. This morning, he and Lorenzo headed over to the cottage. I am so relived that I don't have to paint again...

The truck wouldn't start yesterday so my trip has been a bit delayed. Something always happens when I plan to go to Mayne Island. It's unbelievable. I'll either leave tomorrow night or Thursday morning. I bought my paint. I'm using Benjamin Moore's Eco Spec...

Before I leave for the cottage, I will cook up a big batch of meatballs with rice and green beans. Lorenzo has told me not to bother, but I think he'll be tired enough just dealing with the business and the kids, so I'll try to leave things well prepared. You'd think I was leaving on a long journey - it's ridiculous how anxious I get. The bunny will need fresh hay, will anyone remember to give him fresh water, are my son's soccer clothes washed, does the bird feeder need to be filled....speaking of birds!

When we were in Sidney (killing time after we missed the ferry), we walked into a bird store and had an interesting conversation with the lady who works there. She was a bird enthusiast. I told her about the mess my birds make with their feeding, and she explained that they're sorting through the feed for what they want and discarding the rest. She sold me a bag of shelled sunflower seeds and promised that I'd start seeing birds I've never seen before. She went on and on - we couldn't get out of the store. Lorenzo inched away and stood behind her back making exasperated gestures and pointing to his watch. Anyway, I filled up the feeder with the sunflower seeds, and for a few days there was not a single bird. It was as though they'd all gone on strike. Then it happened - all these birds I've never seen started visiting. Usually I get a lot of chickadees, so this is really exciting...

My daughter loves birds and she pulled out one of her bird books and now we're trying to put a name to all of our new feathered friends. I could watch them all day...

I love this time of year. My wildflower garden has suddenly exploded. It absolutely amazes me that you throw down some tiny seeds and up springs a riot of glorious colour. I have Cosmos, Golden Yarrow, Larkspur, St. John's Wort, and many others. I blended butterfly garden seeds with bee-garden seeds. It's great fun to watch all these critters hovering around my flowers...

 If it were up to me, my entire back yard would be a massive crowd of wildflowers - an urban meadow, so to speak.  Here's our girl in a field of Black-Eyed Susans growing on Galiano Island, back in 2007... Imagine your whole back yard looking like this...

But my husband prefers things contained. If it were up to him, our entire property would be a slab of concrete with a few low-maintenance shrubs thrown in - sheared to boxy precision, of course. Then he'd install a couple of lion statues...

 This is one of his jokes - this, and how he'd gleefully chase one lone pine needle around with his leaf-blower just to piss me off. When he bought it I was speechless. I'm going to paste a Green Party sticker on it. Years ago, when my three kids - all under the age of two - had just gone down for a nap, a guy across the street fired up his leaf blower. Something in my brain short-circuited. I ran outside waving my arms and basically terrified him into turning it off. Hell hath no fury like a tired Mom. Suffice to say, I hate the damn things. It's hard being married to an eco-terrorist.

Lorenzo has come a long way, though. Two years ago when I was musing about getting a planter box, he picked up his keys and left the house. The kids said, "Where did Dad go?" I said, "Beats me." The next thing I knew, he had the chop-saw set up and was a flurry of activity; huge clouds of sawdust, arms flying, cursing, chopping, cigarette hanging out his mouth... Within three hours it was there - built and painted and ready for plants. He says he likes the wildflowers...as long as they're contained. He's such a bumble-bee...

My front garden is a bit less wild, and I wish I had known about the importance of planting native species before I started on this. The more I read about this issue, the more I look at many of my plants as being illegal aliens. (ie - Hydrangeas) Anyway, it looks lovely...

I inadvertently planted things that turned out to be native after all, so that makes me happy. On the bottom left, there are Lupins. These are such fabulous flowers! They self-seed, and now they are popping up all over the place. The bright green foliage in the front with the pink & purple flowers is Wild Geranium - this will also spread very quickly. There is a Magnolia (non-native), a Japanese maple (non-native interloper) Columbine, Campanula, Sedum, Wigelia, etc. I regret planting Vinca Minor - also known as Periwinkle. It's pretty, but it's pernicious and it's taking over, so I'll have to cut a lot of it back. One of my favourite plants is growing on the shady side of my front garden...

This is called Sweet Woodruff, and it's the jolliest ground cover. It has tiny white flowers and spreads very quickly. It's a woodland plant, so it prefers a very moist, partially shady site. This would be perfect for Mayne Island. I can't wait to get going on the gardens over there. This year, Lorenzo and I planted a Dogwood. Being the official tree of British Columbia, I assumed it was a native species. This is where it gets tricky..it's native to North America, but it originates in Missouri. I don't know then, if our local insects recognize it or not. Maybe if they're tourist insects. In any case, it's a magnificent tree...

A few years ago, I was driving down Albert Street in my neighbourhood when I saw one of these trees growing in someones yard. I pulled over and just stared at it. The blossoms were so breathtaking - I recognized that it was a Dogwood, but I'd never seen one quite like this. It's a Florida Rubra and these pictures are a poor facsimile of how it really looks.

This tree cost us $150. For the price of a dinner out in a fancy restaurant, you can plant a tree that will outlive you and provide shelter and food for hundreds of birds and other insects for decades. And what a lovely sight it is - I look out the kitchen window when I'm making tea in the morning and it makes me smile.

*     *     *     *     *

I'm reading a really good book. It's called "Trauma Farm" by Brian Brett. I heard him being interviewed on the CBC, talking about the joy of walking naked through the forest on his property on Salt Spring Island. This book is just wonderful...

This is one of those reads where you wished you could sit down with the author and have a really long conversation. This man is an organic farmer, a husband, a father, and a grandfather. He speaks of nature with such reverence and such passion, that it restores my hope for humankind. He talks about big agro-business, pesticides, globalization, the importance of organic farming, etc.

But he also tells really funny stories and it made me wish I lived on Salt Spring Island - it reads like a community of really down-to-earth people who support each other and enjoy a healthy distrust of authority. He tells one story about trying to capture a mouse that was behind his stove. While trying to catch it, with his face two inches from the floor, a giant wolf spider came charging right for his head. He beat it to death with a stick and said the experience scared him so much he nearly moved back to the city. Having intense arachnophobia myself, it made me wonder if I'm farm-woman material after all. Anyway, I highly recommend this book...

My husband came home from Mayne Island yesterday morning and was doing a happy dance. The upstairs carpentry and electrical is finished - it's ready for paint! After this, we'll move on to the main floor which he figures will go much faster as he won't be working in cramped spaces and having to trudge up and down the stairs a hundred times. One of the jobs he did was capping off the plumbing that he installed in the upstairs landing...

He ran the plumbing to the upstairs because he wanted to move the laundry room. Unfortunately, he based the measurements on the existing washer & dryer which are apartment sized; they are totally inefficient for a family of five. If we put in a regular sized washer & dryer, it will take up the whole landing. It was a nice idea, though - he was hoping to do built-in cabinetry around it and create a nice spot for me to do the wash. Something like this...

Oh well. So he capped it off and now it looks like this...

In a way I'm relieved, because I have a fear about laundry rooms upstairs. It's irrational, I'm sure, but I envision a leak or something going wrong...
like a spontaneous flood. Still, it would have been nice to do the laundry upstairs - it makes sense. The other thing he did was finish the trim that joins two of the bedroom doors. Because of the beam, he made one header which looks really nice, I think...

He finished the trim around our daughter's door...

which required some tricky angle cuts...

Then he framed the new window in the stairwell, which is my favourite window in the whole house. I love the shape of this one and I think it looks great...

I hung an old mirror on the opposite wall and it basically doubled the light from this window. I think the ceiling fixture might have to go, it's pretty ugly. You'll notice that the wood switches from horizontal (upstairs hallway) to vertical - here is where the stairs meet the main floor...

I suggested to Lorenzo that we install vertical pine siding on the main floor. The birch plywood with the vertical trim that was done in the bedrooms is very nice, but it's far more time consuming. He agrees, and now he'll be able to continue from where it leaves off to the left of the front door.


I'm heading over by myself on Wednesday to paint the bathroom. I'm really looking forward to it..especially sleeping in our wonderful king-sized bed. I wonder if it might be a bit spooky over there all by myself. I wish the windows on the main floor had coverings - maybe I'll nail up some old sheets or something. At night, when you're looking out into complete blackness, it's a bit unnerving. But the frogs keep you company, so it should be okay. The previous owners left behind their small tv and dvd player, so I'm going to bring over all the movies no one around here ever wants to watch: English costume dramas! Ciao for now...