Our neighbours, Pat and Darryl, come for Dinner and Week #14 of the Reno that never ends!

Saturday morning was much warmer at 1C and very drizzly outside. Our first night back into our own bed and room. We were so excited, we went to bed at 8:30 pm last night, lol. Of course were up at 5am. What a busy week and Ray was definitely feeling it with his pain. Chris will finish up one of the two closets in the master on Monday so Ray will have his "retreat" back when he needs to lay down.

The lake has come down quite a bit, so with rain in the forecast for the next week I'm sure it will rise again.

This morning the firehall sponsored a breakfast at the Country Grocer for donations of toys and money for kids in the area. Even though it was cold and wet, Ray and I went to support them giving a cash donation.

The guys arrived at 9 am  as we were leaving for breakfast, to do the rockwork on the house and lay the ceramic tiles on the deck. When we got back from breakfast we found out that as usual, Roger, our site foreman did not get the right spacers for the tiles so that job could not be done ... Roger did not have the fireplace wall supported with backerboard either, after being asked four times.... so that stone could not be mortared on ... and all the rocks in the yard were wet so they could not fix the outside work either. The rock guy pulled 3 guys off another job to help us out and get this done as a favour to David Coulson, so Derrick was not impressed and I am sure David heard about it. They left shortly after to go to the job site that they bumped for us. A waste of lots of driving time for naught .... wonder who has to pay for that!

I spent the rest of the day cooking getting ready for our neighbours to come for dinner. We had a great time talking about everything and anything. lol

Darryl, Pat and Deb

Sunday, it rained all night and was quite blustery. Glad we don't have to go anywhere today. All this turmoil with the renovation has me beat ... Decided to do very little today and we had leftovers for dinner. I was all tucked up in our own adjustable bed by 8pm watching a little TV before turning out the lights at 8:30pm. Ray apparently came in about 20 minutes later and I heard nothing.

Monday, Chris arrived at 8 am to start putting together our master closets. I left for Duncan just before 9am for my pedicure. While I was gone, Ray was kept busy with tradespeople and deliveries. The sun actually came out today before the next rain system comes in overnight.

Ken and Jr from Jones Coatings came and started scraping the paint off the downstairs floor. Apparently they will have to do some grinding and re-apply the sealer in spots. They hopefully should be finished by Tuesday night.

Freya checking it out.

Still quite a bit to be scraped off tomorrow.

The roofing company with a crew of three, came to climb up on our peak of the roof and fix the leaking vent pipe. While we were staying upstairs in Garrett's room I noticed water dripping down the PVC vent pipe down the wall when the wind and rain came from a particular direction. This is the second time I have noticed this since we moved in. Sure happy to have this fixed. I was warned that it might not be safe to fix until next spring with better weather as it is so high up on our roof and it takes 2 ladders and 3 men to safely get up there.

Carrying up the second ladder for the upper roof. They had to make the wooden ladder to do this. lol

The roofer told Ray it was poorly installed and was not flashed in properly at all.

Another 2-man crew from the roofing company came to install our deck and stair railings. They look awesome but someone forgot to tell them to make sure we have a gate that we had specifically requested, twice!!! This was not passed down to the subcontractor by the supervisor or general contractor from our design meetings and emails. It is important because when we have Kristi here with her dogs, one of them likes to wander so this will keep Zeus corralled. Also a safely item for grandchildren we hope to have. We will probably have to wait until January for that.

Ta Da!

UPS arrived with the part of our ceiling tile order for the downstairs T-Bar ceiling. Still waiting on the other 75 pieces of flat white edging tiles. The ceiling should be installed Thursday this week.

Adam from Kurtis Electric, stopped by to fix the new bathroom fan that would not shut off. He will be back to put in a timer for it when they are back to put in the potlights in the basement ceiling.

All of this activity before 2pm. lol  By the end of the day, Chris finished a good part of one of two master closets and I moved our clothes in. The fir doors are beautiful but still need staining and handles. The top of the closet has to be finished and the outside trim work but we can use it.

1/2 of the two new closets.

Who knew I would be so excited to have towel bars back! lol

Rock guys will be here on Wednesday as Chris has been instructed to have the backer board on ready for them as of Wednesday morning. No one tells us though. :( Later on Ray was sent an email from the installer, they have the deck issue sorted out as well so we should have a finished sundeck by Friday when we come back home. :)

Tuesday, boy did it rain overnight like they forecasted. Here at the lake we seem to be somewhat sheltered for the winds though.

Chris arrived about 7:45 and immediately went downstairs to get the board up. After that he came upstairs to work on our second master bedroom closet installing the fir doors. The trim needs to be done but the inside is done and more of my clothes are moved in!

By the end of the week hopefully all the trim will be done around the closets and the last two pieces in the ensuite and we can call that room officially done!

Ken and Jr for Jones Coatings arrived and started scraping more of the paint off the basement floor. Fortunately the bedroom paint took so they will just have to apply another coat of the paint in there. The main living area and bathroom will have to be redone. We have decided on a urethane with multi coloured flecks. This will be a smelly project too. This coating will be a little more money to us for the cost of the product but they are absorbing any labour. Making lemonade out of lemons. This hopefully will be done next week and we will have to either keep the furnace off and use the fireplace or leave and stay at Kristi's.

Wednesday we were up and out the door by 8:45 am heading to Victoria to meet Kristi and Jason at some friends of hers for Christmas Brunch. Ivo and Sara are the parents of Kristi's roommate back in medical school in Victoria. Great catching up with them again. There house inspired us to have our own house on the water. They had hosted Kristi and Jason's family dinner before her wedding 8 years ago.

Ray and Sara

I am showing Ivo where our house is located.

Ray, Sara, Jason and Kristi.

Next it was check-in to the hotel. We had some time before Kristi's birthday dinner at the Fireside Grill so we had a drink in the lounge overlooking the harbour. Kristi and Jason met up with some friends to tour the Egyptian Exhibit at the museum. Ray and I kept Kristi's two dogs in our room for some of the time during the two days we stayed as Freya enjoys being in "their pack". Fortunately staying at the Coast Hotel there is ample dog walking areas right beside the hotel so we all took turns taking them out. 

Dog park just up the street.

Love the old architecture in the area.

View out our window to the right, showing the new Johnson Street Bridge.

Looking to the left at the Fisherman's Wharf and houseboats.

The Coho Ferry coming in from Port Angeles, USA

 And they had the most amazing toilet seat ... need an engineering degree to operate it. I was too scared to push anything and spray the bathroom!!! Fortunately it had a normal flush handle.

For dinner, Kristi's "man of honor" and his fiance drove from Nanaimo to attend, Jason's parents and grandmother came as well so we had a party of nine for her birthday.

Ross bought Kristi her favourite game for her birthday, Operation.

Ray, Kristi, Deb, Jason, Joyce, Dale, Nadine, Ross and Leila

Thursday, we met up the kids for breakfast at the hotel and then Ray and I met them at Mayfair Mall for a walk about.

After that we all went in different directions. Ray and I met up with our RV blogger friends, Brad and Katie and service dog Robbie Brad and Katie at 1pm and we all toured the museum. It was quite interesting, but not worth the $25 per head. We had planned to go see the Butchart Gardens light display but with both Brad and Ray having bad backs, they're not up for the challenge after the museum and Ray with the dog walking.

The parliament building, across the street from the museum. It looks really pretty all lit up at night for Christmas but I did not get a picture. lol

Deb, Brad, Katie and Robbie

Here are some of the things in the exhibit. Pretty cool that they are so well preserved.

Beaded necklace. I wonder how they made such small beads.

Nefertiti

3000 year old coffin

After the Egyptian display we took a quick tour through the Natural History part of the museum.

This mammoth was huge.

Robbie was not quite sure what to make of the stuffed wolf.

These stuffed swans are a lot larger that I imagined.

They had many more exhibits of animals found in the coast forests, deer, cougar, bear etc.

After we all left to go back to the hotel, we did meet up again with Katie and Brad and took them with us for dinner in Chinatown. Ray and I had been at this little restaurant about 6 years ago and they have fabulous broth for the War Wonton Soup. The Fan Tan Cafe didn't disappoint again. Back home by around 7 pm and called it a night with them. Hopefully they are coming to visit us here at the lake.

Jason took Kristi out for "date night" at one of Kristi's favourite Italian Restaurants which was across the street from the hotel.

Jason and Kristi

After we got back from dinner, I could hear Kristi's dogs scratching at the door. They could hear Ray and I and wanted out. I ended up going down to the front desk and getting a keycard to "rescue them". Ray took them out for a walk and ended up slipping and falling down a slippery wet slope. (Not the dog's fault.) That definitely finished him even more for the day. Kristi and Jason arrived back from their dinner about 8:30 and stopped in for half and hour or so and collected their dogs.

Friday morning we were out of the hotel and on the road by 7:30 am. Received emails from our General Contractor that I have to check out and decisions made ... anyways, made it back home by 8:45 am. Received a call from Jason just as we were turning up Highway 19 to the Lake. Ray had forgotten his medications in the bathroom at the hotel and could he meet up with them in Duncan in an hour. So after dropping me off, Ray headed back to Duncan and met Kristi and Jason for breakfast, how convenient! lol

While we were gone, the rock work did not happen as the sub contractor had a death in the family. His crew will be back on Monday to do the work. Chris managed to get all of the trim stained and installed for the master closet, so our room is done, other than door handles which Ray will order. He finished the trim for Kristi's closet and had finished putting in the closet organizer and doors in Garrett's room and all baseboard trim. Only the fir trim to finish and my ironing board cupboard door needs to be installed. We are getting there.

Master closet

Garrett's closet

The last closet to be tackled after the one in Garrett's is done on Monday, is my pantry and then the all main floor closets will be done.

The T-bar in the basement is about 1/3 done as of Thursday night and the guys did not come on Friday. Supposedly they will return Saturday morning. They have mounted all of the edges so it should go up quickly. Still missing the border ceiling tiles but they can put up the contoured ones so the electricians can come back and cut in the pot lights.

The lake sure is up with the rain over the past few days, the highest yet this season. Took a picture Saturday morning.

You can see that the stairs to the bottom beach are completely under water and the new stairs up to the yard, the first stair is completely covered. With nothing but rain in the forecast for the next week I am sure it will come up even higher.

Ray is having a tough time this morning ... his back is really sore, I think the fall he had 2 days ago has caught up with him.

That was our week #14!