Hello!

We're still here, and very much alive and well. And always meaning to take photos and upload them to the blog, but you know..............usual excuses re a busy life and all that!

We finished polishing the floors, and then we stained the floors. Tried coffee in one corner, didn't like it. Got full on coffee coloured stain and applied it and HATED it. Almost cried, after so much work. Then decided sitting there and crying wouldn't get us very far, so opted to try and fix it. And stayed up until midnight a couple of times in a row spraying and blotting and cursing and doing it again. And again. And again. Until we were happy (enough) with the way it turned out - a FAR cry better than wanting to cry!!!! Understandably, we weren't taking a lot of photos at this point!

Then, we sealed the floors. Over and over and over again. And by the time we were done that, we wanted nothing to do with our floors ever again:-)

After that burst of energy, Jamie went to Newfoundland for work and the kids and I hung out doing summer fun activities with friends, pretending for a couple of days that our lives were not chaos and we did not have a house to finish!!!

Upon Jamie's return, we started sealing the walls with a mineral-based conditioning sealer made primarily for clay walls. Two coats of this on every single wall, which proved to be rather time-consuming (those are some TALL walls which means tall ladders to go up and down, again and again and again!) and also not very exciting as there was no visible difference once we were done!!! BUT they're sealed in and hardier, so that's all good. And they're ready to paint, but I tell you, the grey is really working for me right now as not only do I not want to paint them a couple more times, I don't even have the energy to decide on COLOURS!!!!! So as is works for me for now!!!!

Next we tackled the bathroom walls - since it was a cement-based plaster, that room was a lot darker and neither of us really liked it. But after priming the walls, we agreed we didn't like the glaring white. So I tried to find a warm, soothing beige colour, which turned out to be FAR too peach for Jamie's liking. So for the THIRD time of painting those walls, we found a seafoam colour that promised a greenish tint to the white, but now that it's done, I think it pretty much just looks white. However, there's NO WAY I'm picking up another paint roller, so I'm going to LOVE IT as it is (and assume that once we put mirrors and shelves and such in there it'll tone it down a bit!) Jamie loves it as is, and that's so much more pleasant than the constant, "I HATE it" every time he entered the bathroom!!!!!

And now we're slowly moving back in. Just lastnight we battled the bugs to bring in our couches and coffee table, we have two flush toilets (HEAVEN!) a washer and drier set up, and most of a kitchen set up. We're just waiting for the plumber to arrive one of these days, and then we can have bathroom sinks, a bath and a shower. And then just imagine how clean we'll all be!!!!!!!

Slowly but surely we're adding plate covers to all the switches, finding lights, sealing windows and window sills, finishing up a couple of wood walls, creating our closet room and installing doors. It's all starting to come together, and we can really see the light at the end of the tunnel - I'll start taking photos soon and give you a tour of the house - but the best tour is always the in-person tour, full of animated story-telling and in-depth replays of such excitement as the day Jamie almost broke his back, or the frog that viciously attacked Erica, or.....................

Here's a few photos that we snapped of our floor polishing days. We spent hours and hours and hours mopping and scrubbing and wetting and polishing the floors, and the photos were few and far between the cursing and muttering and frustration experienced during the ordeal. I would be happy to never have to mop these darn floors again, but of course we know THAT's never going to happen!!!

We both definitely gained a new respect for janitors after trying to tame this monster of a machine......the first 30 minutes Jamie banged into walls, cursed, slid around in his socked feet, and at one point did a face plant while knocking the machine over. I ever-so-helpfully stood in a corner and giggled, and then quickly realized that I'd better take it outside after the face plant....poor Jamie! But we survived, Jamie figured it out, and our floors are definitely CLEAN:-)