Laura and Gerard's amazing, delicious, beautiful, bountiful, earthly victuals!

Photos of our friend's amazing farm, a mere 5 miles (as the crow flies) from us!

Friday photos

Laura's last day at the house...  she took a few photos of stuff around the property.

School.

I had a brief conversation with Laura this morning. She had the opportunity to visit with the school principal...

Morning update.

Photos from around the property.

Commenting on the blog...

I have received some feedback that people are having difficulty commenting on the blog. It seems that that verification process (whereby you type in the distorted letters to verify you are a human being) is not working properly.

I will disable this feature, as I vet the comments before publication anyways...

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Regina vs the Valley

I put together this little table to outline the temperature differences between our place in Regina and Occidental Acres.

April vs August

Apparently it doesn't take long for Nature to reclaim her own in Nova Scotia.  The August images were taken by Laura today.   If you click on the images, they will expand.

The logging road.

Looking out over the meadow. Our house now stands where the bare twigs obscure the right foreground of the April image.

Logging road, south side of bridge.

Stitched panorama, house to road.  It's a bit closer than what we wanted, but we had to weigh the cost.  Nothing that a few fast-growing, Nova Scotia trees can't fix!  Oh, and apparently we have a large apple tree just out the basement door! I hope Laura brings some of "our" apples home with her!

And some photos from the inside.

The boy's room - looks small, but is almost the exact same size as his current room.  Laur stated that the window is "huge" and dwarfs the rest of the room.  Perhaps it is a good thing to have a lot of light, as it faces due north.

Looking through the "public/boy" bathroom, into our bathroom and through to the master closet.  The baths are small, but it's not like you're spending a lot of time in there!

Standing in the "hall" pocket door, looking south-west through the living room into dining.  The late afternoon, late-summer sun falls into the dining room. Because of the angle of the sun, these rooms will be very brightly lit in the winter.  This also happens to be the path we will follow on our way to breakfast every morning!

Don't fall!  Entering via the kitchen door, the stairs to the basement are directly in front.  The black thing in the middle of the picture is the roughed-in shower drain, for a downstairs bath to be installed at a later date.  On the other side of the wall to the right is the kitchen.

Live from Nova Scotia...

So, Laur is in NS for a few days to finalize some house stuff.  According to her latest IM, she's had a productive morning. The kitchen close to being finalized - with off white custom cabinets and cork flooring. She just needs to need to pick a counter and pulls.

Whilst finalizing the kitchen, she met the cabinet maker who was puzzled by our choice of wine rack, but had some recommendations.  He apparently also really likes the addition of the small bar (to hide the sink faucets) which functions as a sort of built-in buffet.

The rest of the house will have laminate. This is a cost effective compromise as we would like hardwood but really want a sense of the light throughout the seasons before we pick something more permanent.

She's selected the wall colours and is meeting the GC, job site foreman and electrician this afternoon.  

She says some of the weeds on the logging road are taller than her, and that there is one down by the creek which is surely 10' tall!   Apparently it smells amazing - she loves the smell of the trees - and everything is green and lush, aside from some of the trees which already have a reddish hue.

It's a lovely, breezy sunny day there and she sounds altogether excited.  It's nice to hear her so happy.  When I asked her if it's a place where we will be happy, she replied confidently, "I KNOW we'll be happy here!"

Stay tuned for some photos and perhaps a video.

In the mean time, here's a snap of my dog.  :D

Laura thinks it's hideous, but I rather like this chair.  I'm not sure what it's about for the dogs, but until Aida's knees went, it was her favourite place to snooze.

Things I will miss, the Third Act.

- The Amazing Regina Public Library (with province-wide catalogue,  holding items reserved online at the branch of your choice and a willingness to find and/or purchase any item not in the collection).
- our fantastic vet
- Houston Pizza
- fields of summer flax

Progress

We're making some decent progress on the Regina house... we just might be mostly ready for Sunday!

Interior framing, continued..

Doorway, centre right, will be a pocket door to separate the bath, boy's room and entrance to our room from the public space.

The pocket door, "hall" and doors to main bath, our room and the boy's room.

"Hm, I wonder who is coming down the drive," I thought as I peered out the dining room window.  "Oh, it's our good friend P.A. Potty!"

First two banks of living room windows. And, of course, the meadow/pasture.

The master bedroom door and window.  The view from the road is largely obstructed by trees, but you can see the power lines because of their height.  I like that we can see someone coming up the drive from our room - or at the very least will see lights sweeping around the bend.  There will be two 11' x 11' decks and pergolas (off the master and dining room). These two decks will be joined in front of the living room by a 4' walkway.

The interior framing has begun...

The wall for the master bedroom is up.

Dining room on the right, living room to the left.

From the dining room into the kitchen, with stairs leading down (on the other side of the leaning plywood).

An Occidental Acres exclusive!

This just in from our foreign correspondents embedded with the troops in the middle of the front-line action! The house wrap is on and the windows and doors are in.

Who is that handsome devil? Laur named this photo "Gerard Regard" - clever, n'est-ce pas?

Laur has suggested putting some solar twinkly lights on one of the evergreens along the meadow. I think it's a grand idea!

The new guy...

We interrupt this regularly scheduled house blog to bring you the latest dog-guy photos.

Ehr mah gerd! I lurve this therng!

I know it's not fair to compare Tru to Pete, but they just look so similar.

Ideas for some finishing touches.

The architectural rendering.  Take a look inside, but keep in mind the following - our floor plan has been reversed; there are two doors in the living room, whereas we've eliminated the left-had door, and made a hallway with a sliding French door to access the bedrooms; ours has a fireplace centred in the living room instead of a television; and we have a U-shaped kitchen, rather than the island in the illustration.

I like the openness of this hand/guard rail.  This is what I will put together for our deck.  I prefer the hog panel for a few reasons - it's economical, it will not visually interfere with our view of the meadow and by gum I just plain think it looks cool.

Another example of the "hog panel" rail.

Our kitchen cabinets will be similar to this - antique white, shaker style with the faux bar.

The super ugly, yet visually representational kitchen rendering.  What is not shown here is the sink, which will be on the right side of the illustration.

Instead of having a "pigeon hole" type wine rack on the corner of the cabinets, we've asked for something like this. It holds the bottles quite nicely, but eliminates the need for dusting individual cubby-holes ('cuz the dust just falls right through!).  Until we asked for this type of wine rack, neither of use realized that we were getting custom cabinets.  Like from a guy.  Who makes them. In his shop.  In Annapolis County.  Not pre-assembled.  In China.  I'm so happy!

Typical U-shaped kitchen, complete with ugly computer appliances!  The faucet and sink are barely visible bottom left.

As small as this kitchen is, it will have twice the storage space of our current one!

 

Because we needed a bit more space in the kitchen (in which to fit the range), we decided to add a pony wall.  This served a couple purposes - allowed us to put the range at the bottom of the "U", and widened the walkway between the two counter tops.  We will have our book cases nestled into this bump out, so it will likely be unnoticeable.

We have a roof...

Monday morning update.

Welcome to our port-a-potty! Er...let me fix that...

Welcome to our home!  Main entrance and kitchen garden will be on the left, behind the red truck.   A large deck with two pergolas will also welcome guests at the front.  Under the pergolas will be the dining room door and the master bedroom door.  I think that's the plumber walking around on the phone.

A kitchen/dining room window on the left by the ladder, and the dining room door left-middle by the propped board.

The living room ceiling.  There will be a wall dividing the master from the living room - it will run from the guy on the ladder to the left.  This same wall will have the living room fire place centred upon it. Lots of light for our room and the living/dining/kitchen.

The rear portion of the house.  This view cuts through the boy's room (with window), the two bathrooms, hallway and the master closet.  I like how there isn't a main load bearing wall...  if for some reason we ever had to do renos, makes it super easy!

The view of the meadow from the living room. This is the shot I've been waiting for!  Too bad the scaffolding is in the way!  This would be the view if you were standing with your back to the bookcases.

Ah yes, the beloved meadow!  This is what we'll see when we're sitting on the sofa in front of the fire!

Puttin' up walls.

The walls are going up, and some of the roof trusses are already up, too (but we don't have any photos of that yet).

Dining room and two of three living room window banks are up.

Gives you an idea of how tall it's going to be.  I can't wait to stand there and see the view from the living room and deck.