Campbell Girls on the Road

Breaking Snow Records

Future Kitchen

Its hard to imagine that eventually there will be a kitchen running along the back wall of the great room. You can see the framing now. The ladder to the second floor is temporary, access will be via a staircase beside the front door.

Seb and team are working on roughing in the electrical, plumbing and ventilation systems. Then its time for a structural inspection. Apparently the inspector will find 12 things that we need to correct :-) Once we're past the inspection, then we move on to drywall.

In the meantime, we've started the kitchen design. I have no idea how I will survive making this many decisions, and its only just begun for me... (as I said to Seb, look at what we went through to pick an exterior paint colour). More fun ahead!

Poltergeist

Does anyone else remember this movie from 1982? There were flies involved, but I've blocked the rest out.

Mystery Hill - The "Bonus" Loft

Those of you familiar with our plans, know that we're building a 2 story house with a loft on the second floor. However you may be surprised to know that we have a bonus third floor loft as well. This was created by putting ceilings in the second floor bedrooms. The alternative was to have these incredibly high ceilings in the somewhat small guest rooms. We all felt it would look somewhat ridiculous, or perhaps disconcerting to lie in bed and look 'way up' to the rafters. Now the debate is what to use this space for -- Seb's office or sleeping loft for our nieces and nephews. Those of you that have visited our current home will understand my reluctance regarding the office... but traffic will be light up there so I'm actually considering it. Ack!

Report from the Hill

No pictures today, the memory on my camera is full and I need to figure out which pictures have been stored on my laptop before I delete them from the camera, assuming of course, that I can figure the latter out. (Yes, Seb is away, my favourite tech support crutch is in Germany again.)

I visited Mystery Hill yesterday with some family and friends and can report the following:

-all the windows are in except for those on second floor in stair case silo. They're waiting to install these til after the front porch has been framed.
-all the interior rooms have been framed, even those in the basement.
-we have stairs in the garage to the room above, as well as the stairs to the basement. And the guys have installed a temporary staircase from first floor to basement (in silo) because they're up and down so often. Unfortunately there is still a ladder to the second floor which means only the brave venture up for a look.
-we have started installing vents and plumbing
-we ordered our garage doors yesterday and we'll have them in 5 to 7 weeks.

I've started working with Linda Chapman, our architect, on the kitchen design, and will be calling on Irene Langlois, our designer, to help in selecting bathroom fixtures. Apparently the guys need to know about tubs to locate drains ...

That's all for now. Hopefully next time will be with photos.

30 cm of Snow!!!

Seb is away for several weeks on business in Germany and as such, "his" jobs are delegated to me. This includes the kitty litter, the garbage and shovelling the driveway. Please note that every year I ask him to pay for snow shovelling service but he declines because he likes the exercise. In any case, he's away and we have no service. :-) Ottawa got 30 cm of snow between Fri afternoon and Sat morning. Here's how my morning went: got up and started shovelling snow plow ridge at end of driveway at 7am, finished at 730am, put on running clothes for 8am class. Decided to take a run for it, from garage to road, trusting snow tires would do the trick. (Only had time to shovel the snow plow ridge at edge of road but not the actual 30 cm in driveway.) Got stuck. Proceeded to shovel car out and rest of driveway. Snowplow came again. Shovelled more. Tried to move car several times but was spinning on ice. Had to call Rebecca and Phil to give me a push. Missed running. Spent entire morning shovelling and cursing husband.