Puttering in my garden: I'm back from the West

Calibrachioa - million bells

Well, I'm back. I had planned to post a few pictures before our family left for the West to deliver Julie and Christine to their perspective colleges/universities but time got away from me.

Anyway, we managed to squish everything and everyone into the van (much to my surprise and Fred's confidence) and drove straight to Iowa, settled Julie in, continued into South Dakota for a few more hours then crashed. We toured through South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana on the way to Alberta , spent the weekend in Calgary where we settled Christine in. Then we drove straight home with one overnight rest at Thunder Bay, and were home Wednesday night.

I may go into more detail in later postings, but let's get to the renovation details.

Before we left, we arranged as many salvagable kitchen cabinets into Esther's bedroom to create a temperary kitchen, along with the fridge and stove. Esther is bunking out in Julie's room and her room furniture is divided in Brad's and Christine's rooms.

we reduced the table to seat four

Rene later added another base cabinet from the portion of the kitchen we didn't attempt to remove

the microwave moved to the other base cabinet to give space for food prep

it's very manageable, but hot when the stove/oven is used

The next couple of pictures show what the kitchen looked like before we left

view of the kitchen

view of the dining room with the new window and door ready for installation

When we returned home, the back outside wall was completely redone, the inside was still at stud stage because the wiring, plumbing and heating duct work was in progress. Apparently, it was quite a sight with the whole back wall laid wide open right to the studs. It was also quite a job breaking out the cement steps at the back door.

backyard - before

backyard - after

cleaner look, eh?

So, the last pictures will show how things are today, Sunday. The drywall is up in the kitchen but not on the living room side because we have to figure out some wiring issues first.