Bright, Fresh, and New!

Bright, fresh, and new! The photo shows the kitchen and utility room taken from the bricked-in terrace that lies in the L formed by the sitting/dining room and the kitchen/utility room. Although there's only one coat of paint on at this point (and it was rainy when I took the photo), you can get an idea of the new colour (a light grey-green called "Putty") and appreciate how much nicer it is going to look than the old dark brown. Also note the lovely new roof line. Originally, the kitchen had a flat roof and the conservatory (which was in a portion of where the utility room is now) had a slightly sloped roof (so water would run off). Adding the new pitched roof considerably added to the time and expense of the job but will not only be much more aesthetically pleasing, it will be more efficient and sound as well. You also can see a new window and an old one, which will be replaced soon. (The new one still needs to have its facing put on and the protective film removed.) All this to say we will leave on our trip to the States feeling optimistic about much of what has been done so far and the decisions we've made even though we wish more progress had been made prior to our leaving.

We are not happy about the fact that no crew of joiners came, as had been promised, to finish the utility room this past week. Nothing has been moved out of our kitchen. The joiners will have to do that although we will pack up and put away the items sitting out on the worktops.

What's worse, none of the required work by brickies, tilers, and joiners took place to roof the sitting room extension and render it watertight. That was to have been done so that on Monday, they could break through between the existing sitting room and the extension and get all that finished in addition to the other areas. We met with our contractor at 1 today and he thinks that when we get back in two weeks the breaking through will have occurred in all areas and the most disruptive work will be behind us. Much carpentry and finishing will still need to be done but he expects the house will be habitable. We remain somewhat skeptical based on experience to date, but we will go away hoping for the best.

This morning we delivered the quilting books and large quilts to Margaret and Alec Coll who will keep them safe and dust-free for us until we can safely bring them home again. Don went into our attic and got down more boxes for packing the last items in the kitchen. Many of the boxes had bubblewrap and other protective materials which we can use to cushion the artwork we take down from the walls in the sitting/dining area. He also got down our suitcases for the trip.

I will get my basic packing done this afternoon. This morning I began putting away extra items from the powder room so that it (a) can be used by the joiners while we're away and (b) will be ready to be made into a shower room. Don is off playing golf with Gordon because we'll have too much to do tomorrow for him to be off playing even 9 holes.

Last night's jazz concert and supper was lots of fun. I got the name of the band wrong in yesterday's blog; it's the West End Jazz Band (not the West Coast). The band has an interesting age range. The trombone, trumpet, and keyboard players looked to be in their late 70s or perhaps early 80s. The banjo player looked to be in his late 60s. The clarinet player is probably in his 50s. The upright bass player is perhaps in his early 40s. But the drummer…[May I have a drum roll please?] is only 18. The front line (clarinet, trumpet, and trombone) weren't all that great but the rhythm section was terrific, especially the drummer who reminded us of Ricky Nelson. The crowd enjoyed the evening and the dance floor was put to good use. Our party of 6 (Helen and Gordon Rae, Helen's brother Jimmy up from Edinburgh, and our friend Christine Dick) had a great time.

We had some snow showers last night and woke this morning to find a dusting of snow on the lawn and quite a bit of it on the higher surrounding hills. Right now, however, the skies are blue and the sun is shining. This morning's forecast called for heavy snow showers tomorrow but by this afternoon that was revised. Now it's calling for sleet showers today and sunny intervals tomorrow. That's good; no one wants to drive to Edinburgh with snow showers in the offing. Of course, no one wants to play golf in a sleet shower either. Perhaps that won't happen until later...or not at all, as is often the way these predictions pan out.