The Kitchen Masters

This is Charline Beaulieu of Beaulieu Designs, she's a designer at CKC. And with her is Cameron (Cam), the master installer... Kudos to both and high recommendations!

Beautiful Kitchen from Carleton Kitchen Creations

It's partially installed, we're waiting for some deliveries (cooktop, sinks, faucets) before the counter is templated. Hardware has been selected - we're going for chrome, a mix of pulls and knobs.

The Fireplace is in and even partially installed

Silver Honed & Filled Travertine

This is the tile we're planning to use in our main floor bathroom.

Pool Liner is in...

This was also a cold wet job for Sebastien who had to wear sock feet in the pool while he installed the lining. Unfortunately, it was below zero and there was several inches of cold water in the bottom of the pool.

And soon we'll have a septic system

John works through a cold wet weekend.

Getting Ready to Install Kitchen

There is a brand new pine floor under the particle board. This is all in preparation for the kitchen installation.

Fireplace Arrives

A visit from Carrie & Brent

Auntie Linda welcomes newest Campbell Girl

Tavia Lorraine Campbell Doidge was born yesterday morning, two and a half weeks early. Her mom wasn't even finished work yet :-) She's lovely... (Picture quality reflects using phone because camera batteries were dead) Bad auntie... :-)

Yes, indeed, there is a pool shed.

Coffee break

Parging

Don't worry I'm told it turns light grey (like cement) in colour.

The marble (with fingers crossed)

Kitchen Update

I will include pics at some point but here's where we're at with the kitchen:
-kitchen cabinets will be installed in two weeks
-all appliances except dishwasher have been ordered
-kitchen counter will be installed in December
-kitchen floor is being laid now
-backsplash is likely slotted for December

The kitchen cabinets will be gorgeous. They are a wide rail shaker style solid maple door painted Cloud White (Benjamin Moore CC-40 if memory serves). We ordered them through Carleton Kitchen Creations in Carleton Place. The designer, Charline Beaulieu, came highly recommended and lives up to her reputation. CKC carries two lines; Acorn and Cuisines Laurier, with the latter being slightly more expensive. But this summer they had a promotion and we were able to get the Cuisines Laurier cabinets at same price. I think they are made by a Quebec company.

The countertop is an engineered quartz by Cambria, the colour is Snowdon. Essentially is a creamy coloured stone with flecks of taupe, mushroom and beige. We selected quartz because it is low maintenance. Its priced similarly to granite and other natural stone products but requires no maintenance. There are also more choices for colours, especially if you're looking for white.

I'll have to post later regarding the appliances because I dont recall the details. Seb was in charge of selecting and ordering these.

The marble backsplash is worthy of a story in itself and hopefully it will have a happy ending. Who knew it would be so hard to match whites? The team (myself, Irene and Charline) have all been looking for the perfect tile. Its hard to select because generally you're looking at very small samples and you cant predict what the overall pattern and colouring will be. Charline found a 12x24 marble tile at Ciot in Toronto. I think its called White Jade. We've seen 3 tiles and it looks like its perfect. Yippee! So the challenge is that we need something like 25 tiles. They have 25 in the store in Toronto, we have 3 samples, and then there are roughly 10 spare with chipped corners. So, we're leaving ourselves with a very small margin of error. But at $7.95 (compared to $22-25/sq ft) we decided to risk it. At best, we have a gorgeous backsplash and at worse, we have a $400 do-over. We're trying to hire an excellent tile guy so hopefully it'll end well. At this point, I've spent too much of my life looking at backsplash tile.

The kitchen, as part of the great room, will have a pine floor.

So we're making great progress here and will ultimately have a gorgeous kitchen, a few months too soon but the boys promised not to ding it in the meantime. :-)

It's true...

In passing this week, Seb mentioned that they had begun work on the pool shed. I bit my tongue. Some may wonder why I have 80% of a swimming pool, 70% of a retaining wall, and now 25% of a pool shed WHEN I dont have a house that's finished. Alas, ye have little faith. All in good time. I'll try to post some photos later this weekend, pool shed and all... (its quite cute...)

Rub a dub dub...

Last weekend we had a visit from the next generation of Marineau men -- here are Felix and Lucas. Lucas is the smaller one on the left. He's going to be one this weekend and he's already walking.

Moving Rocks

Seb complained that my last entry failed to show the rocks that John was carrying. It was either a pic of John or the rocks, I went with John... Obviously a mistake. Here are the rocks.

The Retaining Wall

Construction projects take on a life of their own. There are a number of things happening now that would seem to be secondary priorities but are apparently important to do now. (1) is the pool and (2) is the retaining wall between the house and the pool. Why are we doing them now? Good question. And there is a good answer. We want to get all the heavy stuff done in backyard before we do the septic system, we dont want heavy machinery driving over the "mantle". Here are some shots of the rocks, the retaining area, and moving them. John and his backhoe are featured.

A different angle and a different house...

Here are some pics of the house viewed from the road, coming from the south. Ours is the incomplete farmhouse. Brian Tobin's is the completed cape cod style. His house is a few down the road from ours.

Thanksgiving at Jan and Scott's...

This year Mom is in NC visiting Campbell girl 2, spousal unit and offspring. (See link to "linden's life with jemma too"). Seb and I had a turkey supper hosted at Janet and Scott's with Chloe and Scott's parents. Of course, the turkey plays second fiddle to hanging with Chloe. :-)

The Forest at Mystery Hill

Yes, really, this is the forest. Seb planted 500 trees last spring in the field in front of the hill at Mystery Hill. His mom, Femmy, takes care of them for him. She has spent numerous days wrapping their skinny trunks in cardboard to protect them from mice and many more days placing landscape fabric around their bases to try to manage the meadow engulfing them. The forest is a mix of evergreen and deciduous trees. We have lost some of them to field mice (or some other animal) eating their bark but for the most part, they're intact. We also planted trees along the fence that marks the property line and lines the driveway. I think these ones are all poplars.

To and from the road

More Progress - Drywall Continues

Did I mention that when we tried to get quotes for drywall, a number of subcontractors said the job was too big? Its not just a size thing, it's more about how complicated it is. Serge is a professional plasterer so he's an expert and more than capable of our project. He's finished the ground floor, upstairs and has started on the basement.

Inside Out

This is looking from inside the great room out to the front hall with the double doors. At the end of the hallway, you can see the mudroom. Beyond that is the garage. The hallway from the mudroom has windows on both sides. There will eventually be a window seat on the right hand side (where all the drywall is stacked up). The other area in the front right of the picture is the hall closet.

Drywall in Master Bedroom

Life is good

Master Bath Drywall - shower & shelf

Mr Murphy Helps Out

Here are some pics of Murph helping to make the bed and browse decorating magazines. He's a big help :-)

Temporary Fence

Here's a picture of the pool area - it had to be fenced for construction site safety regulations.

Grey Day

I went to the house on Sunday but my camera battery was dead so I took a few photos with my blackberry. It was a bit of a grey day and the quality leaves something to be desired but here's a pic of the siding -- the front peak is almost complete - just a small space between the windows left to do. And under the front porch.