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...