End of the season...

 Yesterday and today I've been doing THE BIG CLEAN UP.  After removing all my tools I swept, vacuumed and mopped the wood floors and they're looking pretty good.

This afternoon my friend Martha came for tea -- a challenge without a functional kitchen. So I lit the wood stove and boiled water in the "new" kettle I found at the free store. Brought some cups and saucers and cookies from the trailer and we had a nice cuppa and a chat. She's a realtor and has seen a lot of houses on the island. She was very impressed!

 This is a view of the entry showing the new dividing wall that hides the fridge and kitchen cabinets.









Yet another view of the spiral staircase...













I call this shot "Creative Veggies" taken at the Cortes Food Coop, one of the nicest little stores you'll find anywhere.

Kitchen cabinets and first fire

For the past week I've been focused on installing the doors and drawers on the kitchen cabinets. (plus a whole lot of other stuff). As you can see they are pretty complete and ready for the counter top. We are in the process of choosing a laminate design and will get a local company to fabricate and install them.









There is 30ft of counter space in the kitchen. That's about three times more than we are used to. But I'm sure we will get used to it:)











Today was a big day because the wood stove inspector came and gave his stamp of approval to my installation work. So I celebrated by lighting a fire of course!

How nice it is to see wood smoke coming out of the chimney!

October 17th 2012

October 17^th 2012

Started the day with a breakfast/ smoked salmon packing session at David’s. We bought the fish – chum salmon -- directly from Gary, the fisherman who had his boat at Mansons dock. I helped fillet it and David did the smoking. We had dual (dueling) FoodSavers (vacuum packers). It was fun and I came home with a bunch of very delicious smoked salmon.

Today I completed the T&G wall by the entrance. Very happy with this project. The T&G is 2 x 6 pine, premium grade and is lovely stuff.

Christian came by and worked on the bath tub. It is now almost operational and if I knew which breaker to turn on I could have a hot bath!

I also worked on the stairs down to the living room – installed the two metal stringers and cut temporary treads. More work on this tomorrow.

Today I also installed the rotating shelves in one of the kitchen counter corner units. Now I’ve overcome my anxiety about tackling this job I feel confident to move on to the other two. BTW I love Ikea instructions. They are so clear and so beautifully wordless.

I was invited to play music with Rick and Brian but am too beat to drive up there and back.

Instead, I am enjoying a (another) quiet evening at home in my trailer. Supper tonight is three cheese tortellini with fresh tomatoes, onions, garlic and kalamata olives. Plus a touch of Thai red curry paste. What can I say? It’s heavenly! My salad is a mix of different lettuces with grated carrot and red onion. The dressing is a store bought Blackberry and Fig concoction that gets a thumbs up from me.

After supper I plan on playing a little music on guitar, flute and my newly acquired accordion.

Oh and I forgot to mention the wine… tonight I’m drinking a 2010 Portuguese red from Perequita, the oldest winery in Portugal and the first to put wine into glass bottles. It was a recommendation from Amy at the Squirrel Cove store as a low cost wine that actually tastes good. I concur. Thanks Amy.

My time here on Cortes Island is drawing to a close for this year and I confess to being a bit sad about leaving, even though my lovely wife Danielle is waiting patiently for me in Vancouver.

I guess I’m growing used to this place where you can buy fish straight from the fisherman who publicizes his dockside sale on Cortes Radio and pays the DJ in fish! Where my young friend Russ is starting an enterprise to sell his homemade chocolate that is simply the best I have ever tasted – and I’ve tasted quite a bit. Where the walking group meets at 9am Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays all year round for a two hour walk. Where we have one of Canada’s first community forest association which manages a big tract of forest in partnership with the local native Indian band.  Where my 85 year old neighbour just commited suicide by paddling his kayak out on the ocean and deliberately flipping it. (He left a note at his home stating when the bed linen had last been washed). Where the quiet is so deep you can drink it and the air is so clean it wakes your sinuses up with a big “Howdy!”

And of course, Cortes Island is just another scene of human drama, stupidity and ego. Oh bla di, Oh bla da!

Much love, Andy

Spiral staircase complete

 I've been "off-island" for 10 days during which time David, the local craftsman who built the treads for the staircase, came and installed them. I knew they would be beautiful because David's workmanship is legendary, and I was not disappointed.

Each tread is made from three pieces of wood, carefully joined to make a strong and aesthetically pleasing unity. It is now a pleasure to walk up the stairs and a pleasure to look at them.

This beautiful spiral sculpture in the centre of our house is definitely a work of art.

Warm house. Cool cabinets.

 Big day today... the electric baseboard heat was turned on so now we have a heated house! Timely too because there;s starting to be a bit of a chill in the air.

Today I installed the fancy shower system that has a hand held sprayer on a sliding bar... soooo cool:)

The little bench is from Ikea and matches the style of the cabinets...



 And here they are... vanity, sink and upper cabinet all from our good friends at Ikea. I actually like putting their stuff together. The instructions are brilliant; no words, just pictures and yet they are far better than most wordy instructions.









Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, we got the sexy range hood installed and operartional. It's fairly quiet too. The little base cabinet to the right of the stove shows the door style we have chosen. There will be another tall narrow wall cabinet to the right of the range hood cabinet but Ikea screwed up and sent me a box that was missing a key panel. Bad Ikea!

It's fun to see things coming together but I have to keep reminding myself, there's still a heck of a lot to do....