Chilly weekends = chills from a head cold

The view from the apartment on Monday, after the snow last Sunday

Last weekend was a quiet one around the house - no major updates just small things that needed to get finished. These included putting the two basement windows in, installing the sliding patio door & the front door and cleaning the house of wood scraps/construction waste. The kitchen cabinet person came by for measurements. We were supposed to start shingling the roof as well - all the materials were on hand and the elaborate staging was in put in place. But then it started to snow, which hampered the shingling. This is the last step that needs to be complete prior to out second draw for our mortgage, which means we can't get money until it is done. The options were to take three weekends and do it ourselves (weather permitting) or hire someone to do it for us for $1000 in a few days. We went with the latter, and they are almost all done. The plumber was in this past week and has pretty much finished the rough in too. As soon as the roof is 100% complete, we will contact our mortgage person for an inspection.


One piece bathtub, with robin's egg blue finish


Just kidding. Blue protective film, which will be removed to reveal white finish, from the other side


Playing in the snow at the house last weekend. My mother-in-law and I made a big box out of scrap plywood to hold excess wood (headed for the fireplace, one day soon). We put Tyvek on the bottom of it so it would slide easily on the snow. It turned into a sled when I jumped inside and my husband gave me a push.

My in-laws have been visiting and helping every weekend for almost two months. My mother has offered her help as well, but feels she is better suited to indoor work like insulating and drywall (although I'm sure she would kick ass at anything we asked her to do). So...I want to get her/my uncle/other family members up here to help March 1st weekend to drywall. Many, many things must occur before this can happen. Namely, the electrician must come in (which he will only do when the home is roof tight) and finish his rough-in in time for a municipal inspection. It will be a tight squeeze. But if it happens - we'll be rocking, time-line wise. Although we closed on the lot in mid-October, we really only started building the first week of January, so it hasn't even been two months yet.


Roofing

And despite battling a head cold, I was out helping install vinyl siding on the house. Not my personal fav as a siding option, but cedar shingles are time-consuming and expensive so we'll save those for our "real house" and not the one we plan on selling. It was nice to do something that gave observable progress. After last weekend, we needed a psychological boost and siding was the way to go, even though it really didn't need to be done now.


Installing vinyl siding on the back (I'm on the very left)


Vinyl siding from the front,with basement windows


A picture of the two walls of vinyl siding that I measured, cut, and installed all by myself!

The weather was mostly cold, but sunny (except for the last hour on Sunday). The wind was chilly, maybe - 15 Celsius and I had to warm up in the car every 45 minutes which was relatively often compared to colder days when I could stay out for longer. I blame my illness - it makes sense to me that my body would be hoarding blood for sick internal organs and view my limbs as expendable. Fucking freezing though, my feet felt like frozen stones the whole weekend, and would hurt when I would thaw them out in the car (picture included of our set-up; a plug-in portable heater sitting in the front-seat of the van. Hmmm...toasty).

Toe-defroster

And the neatest part of the weekend: our neighbours went skating on the pond behind out house. Yay!

Skating neighbour.


Check it out (narration provided by yours truly, nasally from the head cold no less...enjoy!):