Portulaca still blooming....

and doing beautifully.....

There are dozens of tiny plants that just appeared as if by magic this year.  I wonder if it was a milder winter...or did I maybe not dig one or two of the pots much or ...what?  Anyway... they all sprouted and now..are blooming way late and looking so much healthier than the leggy and dead looking others.

I hope they all grow again next year..... this is great.

the boxes are open....

the banging, sawing and hammering began on Monday....and so far..... the cabinets are more or less getting to the finishing stage.

Not without some hiccups ....of course.  Why would they be any different than the rest of a renovation?  Or, for us... why would it be any different than every darn thing we ever order so carefully.... and finally buy.... and wait and wonder what will be wrong with it.....

The opening for the microwave.... which is in the butler pantry area..... is big enough to fit another wall oven into.  Some idiot, in his infinite wisdom... plucked some numbers out of the air I guess.... but, why?  They had the microwave and trim kit measurements and specs.  They had designs and pictures.  They didn't even choose the measurements of our oven that we will be getting in the actual oven opening...just some random measurement.  How weird.

Which will make the pantry cupboard beside it all wrong on the door faces... they will not line up to the other cupboard doors on the right hand side of the microwave...  sheeesh...now we have to decide ... with the kitchen police when they show up to do the final walk through... what will be our options to fix the problem.  My question right off the bat is ...why continue til we get the proper sized face for the microwave.  Why put all the rest of the things together at all? ...  Apparently not the way they do things.   Good grief!  why us?  Why does every single thing or service we buy have a problem?   Must be some sort of energy field or grid we live in or something.  Enough to make a person tear out her last three hairs..


The contractor, who did see our original cupboards and who commented at the time about how nice and how well constructed they were, asked us why Mr. BV just didn't build our own .....  which, if he had time or inclination any more.... would be easily as good or better...as we see now after we have torn out the ones we built 15 years ago.  Sh**!

House of Turquoise would definitely want to put up our photos if she sees this shot......  but, I do think I will be changing the colour to something a bit lighter.

And, now....back to the couch.... I am hacking, coughing and feeling pretty out of it.  My ribs are hurting already.  Got it from Mr. BV....who got it from his old boss.... who got it...well, who knows where ...but, I wish they had all kept it to themselves!

it's December ....

hhahahah...no it's not!  But, it seems like Christmas to me!  And, I want you to know that I risked life and limb clambering over plenty of "stuff" in the crammed storage space to find my tiny tree for this shot!  It just had to be done didn't it?

Mr. BV said no way will you ever find it and if you do see it...you definitely won't be able to get to it....hah!  Oh, yeh?!

Boxes were delivered.... but, they are tightly wrapped ....and then...nobody came to open them the next day or to install the cabinets inside ....sigh.

The contractor showed up later in the day and seemed surprised that I hadn't opened at least one to get a sneak peek at my new kitchen.  It is strange I suppose.  But.. with some things? ....I AM patient....  not many, but some......

As you can see, there is some colour on the walls.  They add colour to the primer coat .. so you get an idea of how it will look.  Too dark for me...too blue-ish for Mr. BV...   back to the drawing board.  Or paint chips as it were.....don'tcha hate how tiny they are ?  Who can tell what a whole wall or room will look like ....  I mean really?  Yes, you have sort of an idea...but no, not really.

Doors, casings and window mouldings were also delivered...

As you can see.....the "dust bunny" as they called her, was also around.  She vacuumed all areas to remove most of the drywall dust after the taper left.  Wow... it looks darn good in photos ... real life, ..... nyehhh.....  not so much.

Still plenty of mud, dust and stuff all around..

The hardwood has been patched in all the areas where we extended rooms and moved walls ...we pushed the walls back almost three feet in the master bedroom.........

oh, and yeh...where the kid with the skill saw got careless....

All patched areas just very lightly sanded for now....the whole floor will be sanded and refinished closer to the end of the reno.......it's tricky to keep up with the progression of steps really.... like painting a first coat before hardwood being done etc.  But.. apparently it is better to paint the primer onto the newly taped and sanded drywall...for protection during the rest of the things being done.  There will, of course, always be damaged areas that need touch up.

This area near the front door.... ..... you can really get the idea in photos perfectly.  It has always been a danger zone.

Can you notice that there is a step down from the living room onto the foyer area?  It is pretty much invisible with the grain of hardwood going in the same direction .... and several people have taken a misstep there.  So...this time we had a lighter strip of Maple wood inserted into the area,  I hope it is enough to give people the clue.  It had to be repaired anyway as we widened the doorway.  The doorway below is my hobby room.... which also now has a wider doorway and some French doors will be hung there instead of just the original pocket door.  Here is a shot of the bottom of the step.  You can see the step from the lower side no problem.......still needs a piece of hardwood inserted there as well...

.......... it continues.......................................

September.... already.....

..the summer has flown.....

And, yet, they say, (those 'they' guys yet again!!  Who the heck are 'they' anyway?) usually it takes about 2 more months til completion from when the drywall sanding is complete.... it is not yet complete...

The taper did his bit during the past week, along with some sanding..but apparently, now another dude comes to do final sanding.   Oh, man....that dust is everywhere.  And, I mean... EVERY.WHERE!  I do know how it goes, believe me; I'm not naive ..... we've done this before.  However, when Mr. BV and I did our own renos...it definitely was not this messy.  Of course, I guess I also have to admit, it was not as extensive as this either ... .well, it was in respect to the detail in each area, but, we also only did one room at a time..and kept it confined because we were trying to salvage every other area of our happy little home.  Nothing being confined or salvaged this time...even the finished bathroom is suffering big time..... I hope those cleaning ladies promised at the end can work miracles.

Doesn't it already look like there is colour?  Did you know there is a lovely soft grey colour that is exactly the colour of unfinished drywall?   It was one of the colours I had chosen for two rooms....hmmmm..... tossed that idea.  Now I've gone to Russian Olive..... quite green ...... with blueish grey undertones... let's see how that looks after the primer coat, to which they add colour.  "They" (the contractors and painters) say that "most" home owners change their minds after the primer coat.... wow.... that's a lot!!

Guess we'll see............................

Then...hardwood guys come to check damage, and fix, feather and otherwise repair things before the casings and baseboards go on..... .... then... cupboards installed ......then....... well, as I said.... another 2 months or thereabouts....

Mr. BV is already getting antsy and saying things like....I just want my life back.....hmmmmm....and I thought I had no patience.  He even was going to 'settle' for some less than professional rock cutting on the very front of the house..... not so me....I was outspoken right away...he was embarrassed by honesty and threatened to send me to Portugal.  Hey Maria.....I may be coming back to visit !!   ...sooner than planned.   Hahahahhahahhah........

Porto, here we come!

And...on that note, I'm now going to bake him some lemony blueberry muffins just to show him what he'll be missing while I'm gone for the duration of the renovation ...  hahahah....I really should pack a bag big enough for two months and head out.....