And so it begins...

This is the first post of what will be the final major renovation project we'll need to take on with Cedar Crest for a long time. This renovation will entail turning the first floor of the barn into a garage as well as studio space and a laundry room. We'll be adding a four-season solarium and the carriage house is going to become the main entrance to the house. The kitchen will be expanded and completely renovated and what is now a parking area is going to become a small courtyard. Our contractor - Holleman Heritage Woodworkers - has provided us with a video that we've uploaded to ourYouTube channel. Click on the link below to see the animation walk-through of what we plan to do:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z6a6dxC890&index=1&list=UU9AnyRdk_rjJ3ew_L2FRwlQ

Our New TV Room

After the major deck reno we decided to hold off on any further work for a while. Then, one day, I noticed a piece of wallpaper starting to peel back from the wall in the that we knew would eventually be our TV room. I couldn't help myself and started peeling the wallpaper. A few months and more $$ later - we have a new TV room. So much for taking a break. But, it's winter now and we spend a lot of time in here so the investment was worthwhile. Here's a few pictures of the project.

After I finished peeling all the wallpaper away the painters arrived and gave everything a fresh coat of primer. The white paint was very bright and was not looking much like a home theatre. You can see the wires hanging from the ceiling where the projector will be installed.

Here is another view of the primed walls. The old TV has a 52" screen. It's sitting in front of the wall where the new screen will go.

This is the wall to the right of the screen. At this point we're still waiting for our new theatre light fixtures but we needed to have the wiring finished so we just installed bare bulbs to tide us over until the new fixtures arrived.

And this is the wall to the left of the screen. Those patio doors open up to the deck. We bought heavy, room darkening curtains to put over those doors and the window. I also bought some limousine window tint film and tinted the large triangular window and the skylights with 95% tint - almost blacked out. The result is a very dark room - excellent for watching TV.

We had this riser built at the back of the room. It's about a 4" lift and creates the platform where the theatre seating will eventually go. It will be covered with the same carpeting as the rest of the floor.

This is an example of the theatre seating that will eventually go on the raised part of the floor. This is a set that we saw in a showroom. We liked everything except the colour so we're still looking around to find something that we like. We both agreed that the bottom lighting was necessary given the darkness of the room and the carpet.

This is the carpet we decided to go with. A local flooring store found a distributor in Georgia who specialized in theatre carpeting. It is exceptionally durable and was exactly the look we were after. We weren't disappointed.

 

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Here we are with the walls painted (dark brown) and the theatre light fixtures arrived and we did a decorative panel around each one. The framing around the fixtures is actually black. They just haven't been painted yet in this picture. |Also, in this photo the ceiling hasn't been painted yet. The projector is obviously up and we projected an image on the wall so we'd know where to paint the screen. We opted to paint a screen on the wall (using Home Depot's Silver Screen paint) instead of purchasing a projection screen. The image you see here is simply projected on the dark brown paint.

Here's one of the painters masking off the area of the wall where the Silver Screen paint will go. Once that's done then a black frame will be built around the whole thing to finish it.

The finished room. Mike got a popcorn machine for Christmas that gets a lot of use. We still haven't purchased our theatre seating yet but the treadmill fit nicely into that spot. It's a great space to walk and watch some TV. Our Holly Carr silkscreen painting of a NYC street is still waiting to be hung along with all of our framed Broadway playbills. You can see our Panasonic projector suspended from the ceiling and the blacked out triangular window. What you can't see are the cracks in the window. On one particularly cold day we must have had the volume a little too high (we got a new sub woofer too) and managed to crack the glass in the window. Opps.

Here's another view of the finished room with the screen painted on the wall and the framing done around it. We have a couple bookcases full of movies which never get used now that we subscribe to NetFlix. Our desk and chair are to the right so the room doubles as a TV room and an office. Another room down but we're really done for a while now.

Outdoor kitchen is a hit!!

Here are some pictures of our first Pizza Party with the wood-fired pizza oven. Except for a bit of landscaping and some plantings and 6 back-ordered outdoor light fixtures (that will be here and installed in a couple weeks), we are officially proclaiming the deck project....FINISHED!!!

Mike checks the fire before beginning

The first meal from the new oven - corn on the cob roasted in the husks. Very good.

Then he brought the oven up to temperature for pizza. As you can see, 771.5 degrees Fahrenheit. At this temperature a pizza cooks in about 2 minutes.

Prep begins for the first pizza. Ashlee was the designated sous chef.

The first pizza. Check out the video below to see it when it emerged.

Our first design flaw. It never occurred to us to have lighting for the kitchen area. Luckily the headlamps that we use for snow shoeing worked just fine.

July 30 - Nearly there!! Finally.

Well, it's been over a month since my last post but I think things are finally nearing completion. The weather didn't cooperate a lot and we were both away for a while in July so things really slowed down. But, we got back and things started moving along again. We have a few small things left to complete - some painting and some light fixtures left to go up. Anyway, here are the latest pictures of the progress.

The bathroom/changing room is ready for business. You can just see the built in bench on the left. There is a line of hooks on the wall above it for folks to hang towels or clothes while they're swimming. Mike found the light fixture at a shop called Atlantic Lighting in Wolfville.

Here's the counter for the outdoor kitchen area. I'll eventually plant some creeping Thyme or shrubs around the edges. The counter top is granite but we left the edges rough. It just seemed to look better outside with that rough look against the bare boards. Of course the ends of the counter and the cedar shingles will all eventually grey naturally and match the counter top.

The cabana finally came together. The interior is white-washed so to allow the natural texture and knots of the wood to show through. We wanted to go for a New England beach sort of feel. The three little pictures on the right are small seascapes I bought in Provincetown earlier this summer. The wall hanging is not very New England or nautical. It's an antique from Thailand that we found it at a little shop in Annapolis Royal and thought it would look perfect there.

This is our outside dining area. The table and benches are all made of Ipe - a Brazilian wood that is resistant to pretty much everything. It's so dense it will actually sink if you throw it in water and it weighs a ton. So far we've had 12 people around it and had lots of room to spare.

Mike's new toy arrived yesterday. This is the finishing touch on the outdoor kitchen area. He really wanted an Italian wood burning pizza oven. There are some sold locally but they're not Italian. So, he found an importer in South Carolina who had lived in Italy for several years and had set up a business importing these things. Mike called and discovered that he offered free shipping to Canada. That was all it took. It arrived yesterday and I assembled the bottom part yesterday afternoon. Then our friend, Tim, dropped by with some donated plants for the yard and he and I were able to manhandle the actual oven into place (all 300 lbs of it). The oven itself is fire brick surrounded by stainless steel. I guess the Italians are really good at building cars and pizza ovens.

I got the planters filled with plants a couple weeks ago and they're starting to take off. I put in some Pony Tail Grass and some Black Potato Vines. The Pony Tail Grass is a tender perennial so I expect I'll be treating it as an annual if we decide to use it again next year. I can't imagine it will survive our winter but we'll see. The shower tiling is finished but it now has to be grouted and then the plumbing hardware installed. We'll probably find some little Cedar or Ipe platform for people to stand on while they rinse off in the shower.

The new pool liner made a huge difference in the look of the pool and the whole deck. When we had the old liner removed we had the entire pool resurfaced. We've also got a new pump last year and a new filter the year before so, although it was installed twenty years ago, it's virtually a brand new pool now.

I have to show off my baby. I had some Canna Lilly bulbs tucked away on a shelf in the barn last year that I'd forgotten about. I thought for sure they wouldn't be viable having been out in the cold. But, as luck would have it, every one of them sprouted and are growing like crazy. I'm looking forward to the bright red blossoms that are only a few weeks away. In the background - behind the hot tub - you can see a veil of green as the grass seed we put down only a couple weeks ago is starting to take off. Friends with plants are dropping by all the time with plant volunteers to help us begin to fill up the huge expanse we have to fill.

Not sure if the Holly bushes will ever forgive me but we had to give them quite a hair cut to make room for the patio stones. We made a small patio just on the other side of the hot tub to avoid grass clippings being strewn all over the hot tub area. The black iron fence in the background has a gate that leads to the back lawn and the old horse paddocks that we now mow and treat as lawn as well. Bill, the previous owner, told us about the battle he'd had with a particularly resilient Wisteria that he'd dug out of the ground three times before he'd finally managed to destroy it. This is our second summer here and guess who's back. I'm thrilled. You can see some Wisteria leaves in the upper left of this photo. I'm hoping to be able to train the vines to come over and drape around the hot tub gazebo. It will be pretty spectacular to have Wisteria blossoms hanging around the perimeter of the gazebo.

Thanks to the miracle of iPhone technology, here's a panoramic picture of the deck taken from the cabana. The shape of the pool is a little off but you get the idea.

And this one was taken from under the hot tub gazebo.

June 20 - Almost at the End of Week 10 - Getting Close!

Although there is still lots that looks unfinished, we can see the end from here. All of the construction is done. The low voltage lighting just needs a bit more wiring and the fixtures installed and that will be done. The bathroom and shower just need a bit more plumbing and the fixtures installed and they'll be done. The old pool liner was removed today and some small repairs were done. Hopefully the new liner will go in tomorrow. The counter frame is built and just needs the granite that will sit on top of it. However, we're still waiting for the sink so the stone mason can cut the hole in the granite. Understandably, they want the sink so they can measure it themselves before they cut a hole in the granite. After that it's just some painting and then the long task of landscaping but that will likely be something that we do over time.

Interior of bathroom. Still waiting for the fixtures

The new door (that Jonathan built) will be stained with an opaque white stain (the same as the inside of the cabana) and will give some symmetry to the structure with the white subway tiled shower on the other side.

The structural work is finished on the gazebo. The lattice trim was the final touch. Everything (except the cedar shingles) will be stained with the same opaque white stain.

The guys from Holland Home Leisure arrived today and removed the old liner and did the repairs to the pool. I wasn't home when they pumped out all the green water but Jonathan (background) said it smelled like rotten fish at low tide. That's pretty bad.

Repairs all done. Just waiting for the concrete patches to dry.

It won't stop raining

After a fantastic Apple Blossom Weekend, the weather took a turn for the wet and cold. The guys were able to get the fence post holes dug and the main fence posts inserted into concrete before the rain started this week. Then the rain came. In one of the pictures below you can see the fence posts in the background as well as the tent the guys had to set up to protect the power tools from the rain. They were restricted to working in areas that were undercover so they installed most of the pine, tongue and grove wall covering.

The tongue and grove wall covering looks great and offers a cottage-like feel to the enclosure. I think the plan is to paint it with a white-wash once it's all up.

Jonathan attaches more pine and manages to stay out of the rain.

I think Dorian is under the tent chopping more pine panels. In the background - behind the Cedar - you can see one of the fence posts. Once the privacy fencing is all up it's really going to change the look of the back yard.

June 7 - the hot tub arrived

The driver found us but didn't think he could get the truck through the pillars but Matt was able to back his truck up to the back of this one and we just slid the hot tub from the larger truck to the smaller one. Okay - it wasn't quite that simple but that's basically how it happened.

Matt was able to easily drive into the back yard and back his truck pretty close to where the tub needed to go.

At about 650 lbs there was no way we could handle it so we used the excavator and lashed some straps around the tub and lifted it up. Then Dorian simply drove the truck out from under the tub. Matt gently set the tub on the ground until we devised the next step of the plan (which, yes, we were making up as we went along).

Once we got it on the ground, we removed the straps (which also were wrapped around the palette that the tub was shipped on. We got the straps just around the tub, lifted it with the excavator again and slid the palette out of the way.

With some guidance from Dorian and Trevor (the electrician) on the left and Johnathan (on the right) Matt (driving the excavator) was able to set the hot tub exactly where he needed it to go. I have a video of that feat but I'm having trouble uploading it. I'll keep trying.

The tub is in place and Matt takes the excavator out of the gazebo.

Then we discover the flaw in my deck design. We had ordered the hot tub to come with a Sirius Satellite Radio and it did. I had assumed the radio controls would be on the top of the tub (with all the other controls). I was wrong. The controls are on the side. Matt is opening the cover to the control panel in this picture. The issue is that the tub is sunken into the deck which is being built around it. If we continue with the original design, we'd never be able to access the control panel for the radio.

Matt stands next to the tub contemplating how to redesign the deck to accommodate the newly discovered radio.

We put the cover on the tub and called it a day. Our timing was perfect. Twelve hours later the remnants of tropical storm Andrea hit (and is "hitting" as I type this). We're getting drenched.

Watch a video of the hot tub being set in place.