Busy, busy, busy!

We have been working hard at the house, even getting help from BIL John, Mom, Dad and Michael. With their help, the patio door has been replaced, the kitchen cabinets painted a clean, bright white, a previous door filled in, the bedrooms prepped for new carpet, the rest of the walls painted, and lots of other jobs- Thanks so much!!
On Thursday I did way too much and felt it for the rest of the weekend...but now that Monday is here we're rarin' to go again!
Here's the progress on the bathroom:

Before:
















Nick took out the bathtub and the wall behind it to make the bathroom larger. It will now be like two rooms connected with a pocket door. A double sink and toilet for everyday use, and in the room behind a soaker tub, shower and toilet in our "ensuite". It will have access from our master bedroom. Cool, hey?! The trenches were dug for all of the new plumbing, and Nick had to fill them in with cement and now can tile over it. Tonight he is going to build the walls so the plumber can come back to finish the plumbing and get our bathroom working again....yay! As soon as that happens, we can move in!!!






We took flashlights and had a peek down the heating ducts....YUCK!!!! It looked like they hadn't been cleaned in the whole 30 years the house has been standing. And yes, those are spiders! And lego, rust, cat food...you name it, it was down there! My alleries flare up just looking at the photos. So, my hero Nick decided he wasn't going to put our health at risk by continuing the use of those ducts. The rust means that there is moisture in them, which means mold, which means lots of other problems, so.... Nick filled in the ducts with cement (Robyn loved helping by throwing rocks in first and then helping him smooth the cement over!) and he found a really neat product on the internet to heat the house with. They are flat, square panels that hang on the walls, just above the floor, and use convection to radiate heat. They are electric but are very efficient and economical...and they give off lots of heat without being too hot to touch! They can even be painted the colour of the wall and you can put furniture in front of them, which is great in a small house! No more ducts or baseboards to worry about! It's called "econoheat" if you are interested and want to do a search.






Here are what the ducts looked like:




Have a good week, everyone! I'm off to do the ironing that has been piling up... sometimes the house we're still in needs to be taken care of, too! (:
And just so you don't leave with the horrible image of the ducts in your mind, here are some lovely calla lillies that grow in my parent's front yard: