Add To The Mix...

Folks,
It has been so long since I have updated the blog, I do apologize! My schedule has been really busy lately; continuing to help Richard with the renovations, enjoying being here in Ottawa and grand parenting and most recently starting a contract to do a review of a government IT project.

Our renovations have progressed to the point where we have all of the flooring materials needed to complete the upstairs bedroom floor replacement and the Ceramic tiles are now on hand for the basement Reno. New exterior light fixtures and a new sink and faucets for both bathrooms have been acquired and await installation! We finished the tops of the fence posts in the back yard since we decided against changing the fence top line. We got the masonry work that needed to be done completed on the exterior of the house and are well in line to complete the projects towards "Go For Sale" day!

As for staging, I have purchased or re purposed loads of curtains, curtain rods, bedding and linens to stage the upstairs bedrooms as a family like to see them and my favourite subset is the small bedroom that I am staging for the pleasure of my granddaughters! At a garage sale yesterday I got an antique, small dresser that Richard will spray paint for their room, to match the bed headboard and foot board that I got at another garage sale. Fun! Once the final bedroom floor is complete this week, I will be able to unjumble the upstairs and finally set the stage for the sale. Then we turn our attention to the Banister installation on our stairs and the basement Reno.

I have found some amazing sales recently: 12" x 12" ceramic tiles for 50 cents a piece (we needed 770 of them!), nice lighting fixtures for the basement for $4 each (need 8), exterior lights for $10 each (need 2) and some great garage sale finds for staging.

Some side projects I have to complete: an upholstered bench and headboard for the master bedroom, two roman blinds from fabric I acquired in South Carolina, re-upholstery of one chair and restoration of another antique desk chair...just need time time time now!

As I go I will include some pictures...

The Home Front...

All is well here in Ottawa, as we move into the late spring and summer the city becomes more and more beautiful. This weekend and next (May 7 to 24th) is the 58th Annual Canadian Tulip Festival in Ottawa.

check it out at www.tulipfestival.ca

Work on Fernwood is progressing...slowly...this week we lost Biter our cat to old age (she was 20).

Today Was Sad in one way but Happy in Another!

Brooklyn with a Kolbassa tongue as prompted by Bompa....
Madison wearing a big smile!

We lost our cat Biter today to old age. She was an amazing mouser and a beautiful little cat. We will miss her. As we were watching her closely today, Lisa, Brooklyn and Maddie came over for a visit.

Armen Living - Furniture for Contemporary Lifestyles

The chairs that I found at Home Sense were made in Italy for Armen Art Co. a furniture and Art store in North Hollywood, California. How they made it here to Ottawa is anyone's guess. I have painted them a soft ivory and re-upholstered the seats in an artful material...I only kept two of them after all but with the new look I love them!


Armen Living - Furniture for Contemporary Lifestyles

Brooklyn Having Lunch! or Rudy Having Lunch! Take your pick...

Richard and I were both getting over our colds this week and we ended up shifting our priority to some out door work on the back door and painting furniture for staging the house. The masons came and did such a wonderful job on the chimney and the brick work that we asked them to re-parge the back of the house. They were great workers and very nice people too! Every day I admire the work they did and am grateful that skilled craftsmen are so readily available to us.

News of the horrible oil spill in the Gulf and of the eleven poor workers who remain missing, and are now presumed to have perished after the accident, have cast a pall over our week. We love that area so much and would really miss going there. The beaches may be affected and the sealife and wildlife are certainly already suffering. We are so sad for them.

On the weekend Brooklyn, Richard and I picked up a twin bed and mattress and box spring from a friend of Lisa's. They were making room for their baby and had this furniture to spare. As a proponent of re-cycle and re-store and re-purpose we were so happy to buy it for the staging of one of our smaller bedrooms...and while the house waits to sell, it can be a lovely little retreat for my granddaughter's Brooklyn and Payton. We will post pictures here once I have finished the work on it. While we were out garage sale-ing we dropped by the Airstream (our Airebella) in storage and Brooklyn played while Richard and I checked that all was well and sipped Tim's coffees!

Fernwood Renovations....

This week did not see too much progress...we finished tidying the flower beds, washing the outside windows, shutters and siding, purged and spring cleaned on the bedroom level. But the best thing about the week was the wonderful time I had to spend with my daughters and grandchildren. My son-in-law had a business trip so the "girls" came to our house to hang out when they could.

We visited Louise at her Airstream and although this was an extremely busy week for her with her Yoga business, she took a bit of time to chat with us. Her Airstream is a 23 foot Safari Special Edition 2008 model and it is very cozy...I will try to get a picture of it to add this week...

Week ahead sees Lisa's birthday and our milestone of painting the shutters, getting the masonry work completed and completing the upstairs work (flooring and painting) if all goes well.

I have started to put up Kijiji ads for items for sale..know anyone who wants to buy a great snow blower, looked after meticulously by Richard....?

Renovating on the Home Front!

Folks,

The Airstream Chronicles will be taking a bit of a break from travels since we are home in Ottawa getting our house ready for sale. We have lived here for 25 years almost, it was (and is) a wonderful home in a great neighbourhood, but we don't need all the space anymore and the real estate market in our neighbourhood is hot! Houses are being sold as quickly as they go on the market. Since we have been living months at a time in the Airstream we know we will be happy with something much smaller... As the weeks go by in our purging, cleaning, de-cluttering and renovating we will keep the blog up to date every Sunday as we take a break from the fun!

Staging...staging...staging...my new mantra...LOL :-)

Reunions are Fun!

Since we have been home it has been organized chaos...if there is such a thing....Thursday dinner with Lisa, Louise and the girls; Friday at the Airstream in Storage to bring needed things home and we went to a couple of movies we have been dying to see; Saturday breakfast at Fernwood and then babysit all three girls while their parents went fence shopping; Sunday breakfast club with Louise and Rachel! Rudy is very happy to see Brooklyn again and he is very interested in her teddy bear...

Derek and Madison catching a glimpse of one another after she has made the rounds with everyone else!
Grandpa meets Madison for the second time and is enjoying her happy demeanour. What a sweetie.

Lisa with Payton and Brooklyn in Nana's kitchen.

Auntie Louise with Baby Madison.

Final Leg - Airstream Plant to Ottawa - 12 Hours of Driving

Well we left the Airstream plant after a two night stay there, we had planned a third night but the threat of hail had us "biting our nails" and deciding to hit the road. Hail on an Aluminum skin leaves golf ball dimples all over ... not pretty, I am told, and the only solution is to re-skin the whole rig. Richard and I are working on a quick and ready damage prevention approach for hail threats
and I am pretty sure we have the answer.

Our travels took us from the Airstream Plant, North on I 75 to the border crossing at Detroit/Windsor. What a pleasure that was...There was an involved circling dance that we had to do to get the toll paid for the Ambassador bridge but it went okay so we were happy. We stayed overnight at the Flying J in London, Ontario. From London we travelled to Kingston Ontario and thank goodness our favourite campground there was open, with full hook-ups! Sweet!

Home is wonderful and my next post will include grandchildren photos.

Chattanooga to Bowling Green, KY; Bowling Green to Jackson Centre OH

We took I 24 through the "mountains" of Tennessee West of Chattanooga and on to Nashville and then on to Bowling Green,KY for the third day of our travels. It was a relatively short day for us and we were grateful for that. I 24 was a really wonderful highway, very well maintained, no construction and the one climb we had went from 1000 to 2000 feet but without being too steep in either the up or down portion so we were glad of that. The key is being able to slow the Airstream on the down grade and Richard had no problems at all.

We always enjoy our site at Bowling Green KY, the KOA park there is quiet and restful, the sites are long and level and many have a concrete patio. Sunday morning the park ladies were laying out an Easter Egg hunt for the small campers.

We had thought that we might stay a couple of nights there because we were getting a little tired of the daily routine of getting up, having quick showers and breakfast, stowing anything that could shift position and then hurrying on along the highway for the next stop, whatever it would be... But when we got up Richard thought that with good weather ahead and the Airstream factory as the next stop perhaps we should take advantage of the fact that it was Sunday to get safely through Cincinnati,
and Dayton today, Day 4. We opted to take the beltway around Cincinnati and we were really glad we did. It adds ten minutes to the trip but no big deal...Happy Easter everyone.

Being Easter we were remembering that there was a huge statue of Jesus (at least I think it is meant to be Jesus) at the roadside near Dayton and I got a picture of it.

I thought it was a little ironic that the statue of Jesus was right next to a huge flea market and you can see I caught the sign in this shot.

This is Dayton OH skyline.

We made it to Airstream Factory in Jackson Centre, OH at 5 pm EST and after setting up I made dinner of Joe Patti's Clam Chowder, and we reminisced about the beach a little and about the winter behind us. How quickly the time passes these days. We enjoyed the winter even though it was the coldest Florida has had in recent history.