poplar road

Yesterday Richard finished the vapour barrier, after applying sealant around the beams that protrude out through the stucco to support those windowboxes he's so fond of. (He's arguing they should stay because he plans to remove all shrubs from the sides of the house. What harm can a little lilac do? He's just decided to move the trellis out of his way at the front entrance, so I guess it's goodbye, climbing rose. He's lucky these aren't truly MY plants. Hmph.) Today he's just stapling the last few window edges and things, and trying to figure out how to lift the stack of 8, 10, and 12 foot sheets of drywall into the house. Might have to call in the neighbour as I'm not enough muscle. It's just before 9am, and he's hoping to be able to start affixing the stuff sometime today…. Still puttering around, but I think we'll get enough done that I'll have pictures tonight. None the rest of the week, though – he's away on his Kelowna-Cranbrook loop with the digital camera.

The bathroom is almost now done except for the "accessories". Yesterday I finished two coats of kitchen&bath white on the tile, door, and moldings, touched up where the blue mysteriously ended up on the ceiling and vanity, and finally unpacked all our stuff. The medicine cabinet is nice; however, its shelves are SHORT. So there are still things on the tiny countertop. Oh, that's one last job this week: we confirmed that we can use the same Teflon-based primer on the old "marble" look arborite counter as we did on the beige&blue tile. So I'll be painting that while Richard is on his road trip – the paint has to cure for a week without water exposure, ie no shaving in the sink.

Next weekend look for one more photo – the difference with our new white shower curtain masking the tub surround is great, and I look forward to getting towel racks and a light fixture. Richard wants everything to be high efficiency, therefore we're holding out for lighting that can use compact flourescents. Hydro will now give rebates for replacing halogens and incandescents with compact flourescents, so hopefully the lighting stores will start carrying products that can use them. I still like halogens best, but in a small bathroom like that, there's no arguing the heat would be a little bit much most of the time. (Mind you, with the heat off overnight the temperature upstairs plunged to 55 degrees F according our thermostat – I'm pretty sure that's less than 15 degrees Celsius. It would be nice if the bathroom had a heat lamp like the one in our apartment. Outside it reached –3, but no snow yet. Maybe tonight.)

Wish us luck today – if all goes well, I'll have more to show this evening.