How to keep the kids busy

It's tough when you're up to your neck in poo holes renovations and there's a little pair of hands desperate to get involved with the hammers and power tools.

To keep the red-headed kid involved in construction yet safely out of the way, I schemed up a little project for him using scrap trim from under the cottage.

We needed a storage solution for our screwdrivers. The toolbox was a deep-dark hole that swallowed up screwdrivers rendering it impossible to find the one you wanted when you needed it!

First, the wee lad and I came up with the plans. He counted the number of screwdrivers and measured the fattest one to help us arrive at our dimensions.

Then he measured the boards (measure twice, cut once!) and marked where he needed to cut. When someone doesn't know how to divide fractions, working with an imperial tape measure is a bit of a pain in the butt.

Here's a photo of him cutting his boards. Someone get that kid a haircut!

Once he cut the boards I had him sand down the edges. No photos at this point. I was too busy being hands-on with the construction guidance and supervision.

With the edges nicely sanded, we measured, marked and drilled the holes for the screwdrivers through both boards at once. He really liked this part. Lots of clamping and drilling with a big, fat drill bit.

Then he had to measure and mark the sides to determine where to place the horizontal boards.

While I held the boards in place, he pre-drilled his holes (more fun with the drill!) and then tapped in the nails that held it all together.

He is so proud of his project! And look! He got a haircut too.

Under pressure

Dad let us borrow his pressure washer to blast the outside of the cottage buildings.

I had no idea just how dirty they were until the grime started to wash away!

He washed Slanty. Still not spotlessly clean outside. It probably needs a good scrubbing on the siding to wash away years of bug poop.

He washed the back of the cottage.

He washed the side of the cottage.

Then he ran out of water because the pressure washer was using up water faster than our little pump and holding tank could pull it from the lake. I'm stuck with a half-washed side wall. 

We can finish it off later. Clean is good!!

Mouse poop

Augh!!

Mouse poop!

We foolishly forgot to empty the crumbs of food in the cat's food dish when we left the cottage two weekends ago. When we returned, the crumbs had all turned into mouse poop, like magic!

*sigh*

[adds 'mouse traps' to the shopping list]

Am I pushing too hard?

My parents are doing a lot of work at the cottage.

A. LOT.

Cleaning, fixing, painting, moving, cutting, lifting, more fixing, scheming, washing, supervising, thinking, dreaming, more fixing.

I worry that it's too much. That I'm being a terrible demanding mooch.  Especially when things like this happen.

That's Dad, napping on a chair pad on the porch. He does have a bed. There's even a comfy couch in the living room. He said he liked the breeze, the shade, and the sound of the water in that spot. *sigh*

Am I pushing everyone too hard?

Cool

When the thermometer at the cottage shows things like this (yes, it says 30.7C inside the cottage at 7:23 p.m) it's probably a good time to think about testing the jalope air conditioner mounted on the side of the lodge. This was our situation on July 8th.

H          O            T.

The kind of day you let the kids have a swim right before bed.

You remember the air conditioner, don't you? No? Hmm. Maybe you've never been properly introduced.

Go ahead, take a good close-up look. I'll wait.

Did you catch the precarious perch it's resting on? It's made of chip board (rotten from the expelled condensation). Did you notice the power cord running down the outside wall  to an electrical outlet that was installed just under the edge of the cottage? Did you see the sturdy 1x2's that are holding it up? I've often joked that the former owners added a coat of paint to the supports just to shore it  up.

*sigh* I wish it were a joke.

I truly believe that if a bird had decided to land on it, it would've just crashed to the ground leaving a gaping hole in the wall.

When the captain climbed up the ladder to start assessing the situation he realized that one of the 1x2s isn't even doing anything. It's all wobbly. *facepalm* We (the royal we again) would need to build a new shelf.

Fortunately the unit still works - we needed to test that out before embarking on the build. The first step was to get the unit out of the window and rip out the old "support" (yes, the air quotes are essential here). He had some help with the heavy lifting. I'm no help at all in that department. Here's the Captain prying out the bits of trim that surrounded the air conditioner. Please note: I said surrounded, not "supported". Layer after layer of trim was tacked in around the shelf making it tough to remove.

The captain used some leftover shelves from the master bedroom closet demo to create the platform. That saw he's using is a little scary; there's no safety switch on it. Pull the trigger and it goes! It cuts, though. That is good. Gold star to the captain for wearing his safety glasses.

Once the shelf was cut to size and painted (to shore it up some ☺) he then cut the braces and a bit to attach to the wall out of a leftover length of 2x4 from Dad's dock build.

With some help from another cottage neighbour, he hefted the unit back into place and sealed around it with some of that fun yellow spray foam stuff.

Ideally it would've been a metal shelf that wouldn't rot, but I think this solution will probably outlive the air conditioner itself. Now we have A/C if we're desperate.

More flower discoveries

We've got day lilies at the cottage!

Inheriting a garden is a little like a summer-long Christmas. Every visit yields new gifts. And sometimes that gift is an ugly hand-knit sweater with sleeves that are two different lengths:

Yarrow.

Oh, how I detest thee, invasive weed-like plant! You can't fool me with your cute, nodding clusters of petite white flowers. I know exactly how hard you are to eradicate, with your running roots and tenacious grip.

*sigh*

[adds: "work on rock garden" to the to-do list]

Wanna come visit?

"Yes?"

"Great! Here's what I'd like you to work on. "

 

My sister, Aunt Mlel, and brother-in-law, Uncle Gleg, came to visit the lodge this past weekend. 

I am, quite possibly, the world's worst hostess. If you pass anywhere close to the Lodge, you get dragged into helping out. I'm generally kind enough to let you pick your poison (I have a lengthy list of options), or you can pull something together yourself.

Uncle Gleg headed under the cottage with a drill and some deck screws to secure the cross-supports on the joists to the hangers on the joists (something the inspector encouraged us to do). Of course, I forgot to photograph that, so you have to imagine him down there with the drill.

I'll wait.

[whistling to herself]

O.K.? Ready to continue?

Aunt Mlel, meanwhile, got creative on me and decided she wanted to take a mop to the icky ceiling soffit in the living room. Really? O.K.! Not going to argue with that one. Here's a mop. Heck. Here are two mops. You need a ladder? How about this one...

What surprised me was how effective a mop and some water were at cleaning up 90% of the crud on the ceiling! We still need to replace it eventually with something more.... ceilingy, but at least now it's a bit cleaner.

Once Uncle Gleg was done under the cottage, he helped out with the macrame electrical we uncovered in the master bedroom.

He re-oriented the pointless junction box, found a cover to put on it, and he went on an archaeological dig in the garden shed to find some wiring staples to tack the wires down properly. It's a bit more presentable now. I found the random assortment of wall studs in that wall entertaining. Check it out (I have a non-flashy version but it's blurry, so you're stuck either way):

At least one of those boards might even be load bearing. [claps hand to cheek]

If you're unwise enough to stray too close to the Hodge Podge work vortex, rest assured, we will feed you.

---

*Monty Burns is copyright of 20th Century Fox T.V.

Paint paint paint paint paint

Sometimes it feels like all I do at the cottage is paint.

Paint paint paint paint paint paint.

There's nothing like a fresh coat of paint to make anything look and feel cleaner and the lodge could use a super-sized dollop of "cleaner". Painting is something I don't mind doing because the satisfaction of making something look better is immediate. Also, I'm less likely to pound myself in the thumb with a hammer while painting.

If you're curious, these are my all-time favourite painting brushes:

A 2" short-handled sash (angled) brush with nylon bristles and a rubber grip. I could paint forever with one of these little monsters, and they're great for free-handing trim.


The latest area of the lodge to be attacked with a sash brush and some paint is the pantry/tool closet in the hallway. Someday it will be just a pantry again.

Here's what we got when we bought the place:

Remember these? Pine panelling, retro orange plastic inserts?

Zekzy.

Well, here's what they look like today:

Quite an improvement.

I like having closet doors again (made by Handy Dad and painted by Painty Mom) to hide away the mess. Dad is demonstrating the "how to keep the closet doors closed" technique. Because the doors are flat, and square. And the pantry itself? Not so much. Because this is Hodge Podge Lodge. So we'll be buying some door latches to hold the pantry doors closed.

Happy Father's Day!

A belated Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there. I got to spend Father's Day with my Daddy, or, at least he was buzzing around in the periphery while I spent my day slogging in the master bedroom on the walls and floor.

Here's what he got up to:

A bit of fun with his chainsaw.

One of the prickly hawthorns at the shore is na'more.

And the view is considerably improved from the deck. Though, of course, in my stupor of exhaustion, I forgot to take a decent photo of the improved view.

Was I dropped on my head as a child?!

 Damn you Magic Eight Ball!

TOP QUALITY

Guess what else we found under the bed with the deer clock?

A massive knife set!

And it is TOP QUALITY stuff (so long as you're standing on your head such that "top" is really down at floor level).

You can tell it's TOP QUALITY because the packaging tells you that if you bought each knife individually, this set would cost your $80! (For the record, the 8" chefs knife in my kitchen at home was a little over $100. One knife.) And they're serrated knives, so we know we'll never be able to sharpen them, but that's o.k., because they Never Need Sharpening™. I think they must be made out of adamantium, like Wolverine's claws.

Wolverine. From the X-Men. Ya, o.k. So I'm showing a bit of my geeky side there. Moving right along....

Where do you store your TOP QUALITY knife set? Under the bed of course. With the deer clock. And a couple of boxes of peel-n-stick tiles (giggle), and a newspaper from 2004.

---

p.s. marvel comics doesn't know I'm using this image of wolvie without permission and it's their trademark, so let's just keep that to ourselves for now, because I am not in any way affliated with marvel, wolvie, wolverine, X-men, Alex, imagesbyalex.com or really, much of anything. 

p.p.s. Though if professor X wanted to give me some mutant powers, I might not say no. Crud. My geek is showing again. [tucks it back in]

What time is it Mr. Wolf?

Time for the world's ugliest clock!

Look at this unbelievable specimen we found secreted away under the bed in our room at the lodge.

[OK. Eww. That's probably not the best choice of words. I need to back up for a second here. "Secreted" and "secreted", while spelled the same mean two very different things. I can assure you I am not writing today about secretions under my bed, but rather things that have been concealed in a hiding place. Because writing about specimens and secretions under my bed? That's just eww.]

Right, back to the specimen. Feast your eyes, on this:





Is it not glorious? Come on! It's got a fabric deer on it, and cardinals. And.. .holly? o....k..... and pine cones and other... crippity crap. It's fine. I had great fun pting-ing the barely-adhered numbers from the face of the clock. (You know, you cock your finger back on your thumb and pting! )

But do you know what's even scarier than a hand-made-deer-holly-cardinal-pine cone-fabric clock with numbers that fall off?

A store-bought deer-holly-pine cone-cardinal-fabric clock with numbers that fall off!

p.s. You're getting this for Christmas.

Look what I did!

We are learning so much about maintaining a cottage. This weekend, Eric changed the fried hot-water tank elements. Doesn't he look pleased with himself? We borrowed the element wrench from our very kind neighbour, Doug. Did you know you need a special wrench for this job? No? Me neither.

demolition snowballs

Once we pulled the carpet out of the bunk room and washed down the walls, we moved on to the back hall and the shower/bathroom areas. Imagine my surprise when I pulled up the carpet to find cardboard being used as subfloor! But it's o.k. everyone. It was held in place with duct tape. That makes everything alright. *boggle* Truthfully, I wasn't that surprised. This is the Hodge Podge Lodge after all. I laughed about it for a second, shook my head in disbelief, then debated the merits of checking what's under the cardboard.

Realizing I couldn't, in good conscience, leave the cardboard where it lay (tempting though it may be), I peeled back the duct tape and found....

Seriously? O....K..... Strips of scrap subflooring with 1/4" gaps between 'em. If you look closely, it would appear that there used to be a sink in this location! You can just make out the two small holes for the hot/cold water, and the larger hole for the drain pipe. Looking beyond that you see, well, the dirt under the cottage, because the holes go clean through.  

adds "1/4 particle board" to the shopping list.

Moving on to the scuzzy shower area, we peeled back more of the green carpet and found...

YEEEAGGGHHH!! That is NOT sanitary! This, ladies and germs, is why you don't put carpet in a bathroom. Probably just as well I intended to rebuild the shower. It's looking as though it was going to need to be ripped out anyway so new subfloor could be put down. 

And look, a toilet used to be here! That just makes me wonder what's under the cottage in that particular spot. Ew.

I wonder if the bathroom is any better?

Too much to hope for. *sigh*

adds "lots of particle board" to the shopping list

Now that the flooring in those two rooms needs to be ripped out, I'm starting to think a total bathroom overhaul might be in order. If we can find cabinets/counter/sink on the cheap at the Cobourg Re-store then it might be worth it just to junk everything that's there and start afresh.

Of course, that makes me contemplate moving the sheeter so you're not staring at it when you look into the loo...I wonder how much work that would be? Probably a lot. Would need to move the holding tank, move the vent stack.... *ponder ponder*

Ooooo.. or maybe if I just shifted the doorways closer to the back of the cottage, I could put a linen closet in the nook created by moving the doors...of course, that would involve re-routing the electrical for the small panel in the wall there...

$ chaching

$ chaching

$ chaching

Funny how these things snowball, no? One day you're ripping out carpet, the next you're remodeling the entire back corner of the cottage.

You're all fired.

Yes you. Sitting there, smugly looking at your computer.

I didn't get a single suggestion from you about what I should do with my rustic ropey frames. Are they really that bad?

Well nuts to you all, I've come up with an idea all on my own and it's going to kick ropey-frame butt. And then you'll be all, "gee, why didn't I think of that?" and you'll wonder what you ever did to deserve my greatness.

I'm just saying.

This weekend: cottage. Weather is supposed to be a little wet, but I think we'll survive.
Grand plans:

1. I'd like to scour the stove and apply the white high-heat enamel paint. Maybe when I'm doing that the captain and the kids can wash out the "new" fridge and get it all set up inside. I'm still unsure if/how long the enamel paint will last on the stove, but it's a short term fix until we find/can afford another stove.
2. I'd like to empty the bunk room of furniture and rip out the flooring in the back half of the cottage (=bunk room, back hall, shower and loo)
3. I'd like to wash down all the walls in that area and prep for painting.
4. If I have time left over, I want to wash down the kitchen cupboards to get them painted too. The sooner they're painted, the sooner I can load'em up with stuff.

We realized last weekend that there are no electrical outlets of any kind in the bunk room.
I guess I'll need to get that situation rectified, too.

Cletus the slack-jawed yokel

Dear lord. I'm related to BOTH of them! 

This is my Dad and caro sposo suited up in their spiffy chest waders about to go work on installing the dock. 

I'm so proud. 

"I'm Larry. This is my brother Darryl, and this is my other brother Darryl." Dangit. I forgot how funny that show was. They don't make them like they used to.

That's right folks. They're standing in the "living room" at the Lodge! 

We made our first trip out to the cottage as a family this past Sunday. Very. Exciting. Stuff. 

Our goals for this trip were fairly simple: get the boat into the water, and set up the dock. Marvin at Wood Duck helped Dad and the Captain-o-cheap get the boat into the water while the kids and I waited at Mom's. The Captain called once he and Dad got the boat in and running, and we drove up to join them.

We were fortunate that our neighbor Ron allowed us to moor at his dock for the day while we set ours up. Dad and Sposo got to work on the dock, section by section.

As it turns out, the dock is considerably longer than I remembered. That's a good thing! The wind and waves picked up yesterday, so it'll be interesting to see how well it handles the continual pounding. We need to buy some cleats or rings for it, though, because right now the only place to tie up your boat is around the uprights. A ladder or hand rail is also probably going to be a good idea.

While the boys were up to their middles in icy water, Mom and I remained in the chilly cabin emptying out the cupboards. We wanted to inventory what was there, but also needed remove some items in preparation for painting. I'm amazed that, in such a tiny space, there were three coffee makers (one still had a moldy filter and grounds in it. Yuck), two toasters, 27 coffee mugs, six pot lids that had no matching pot, and eight frying pans. I took the opportunity to jettison the fly swatter and burger flipper that were hanging beside each other. Ick. I also discovered that we have an entire chest of drawers filled to the brim with ancient VHS tapes. Joy.

I generated three bags full of garbage and moved three good-sized Rubbermaid bins of dishes out into peaky for short-term storage. I'm not convinced all of it will find its way back into the cabin, but it's out of the way for now. I also have an extensive shopping list of things I need to pick up.

Whilst Mom and I emptied and sorted, the kids ran amok and fell on their heads. Literally. Mostly they played on the swings. They played off the swings. They rolled down the hill. They played in Slanty. They drilled under the cottage. They drilled into the dirt (scowl!). And then the princess fell off the swings and landed hard on her head and that was pretty much the end of the outside play time.

We enjoyed our first family supper (re-heated chili. Not glamorous, but it was warm) and then packed up to head home before the sun set. (side note: that's not the moldy coffee perk on the counter. It's one of the other ones.)

I think we'll be out again this coming weekend to work at washing off some of the grime before we start to paint. We might also see about getting the former owner out to help us hook up the water supply. Running water = good.

Until next time....

Got Junk?

I don't!

Today we got rid of a mountain of crap from our garage.

Strangely, when the garbage collection dudes arrived, I had a hard time witnessing a lot of those items being tossed into the crunching garbage truck. Not the junk from the cottage, I have no attachment to that stuff. But the purple dresser is still good - just massive, and the desks no longer serve any purpose. Even the computer monitor worked perfectly - it was just dated. The coffee table was still in good nick too. I'd had all of this stuff since my first apartment in university. We had tried to sell/give away a lot of it at garage sales, but there was no interest. *sigh* Sad to see it go. It hurt a little.

Goodbye, my desk *sniff*! I confess I did have a brief moment of panic when they were loading the truck, "I should've stripped all the drawer handles from the dresser!" but the rational half of me talked to the crazy half of me and said "No, you shouldn't have." And the rational part was right.

I think I expected them to cart the things off whole, and donate 'em somehow. I didn't imagine a scary furniture crushing behemoth to pull up at the curb. It was all a little shocking. Caro sposo thought it was cool.

You'll notice the fridges aren't in the heap. They'll be collected next week. I can't wait to reclaim the garage!