Hello We Are Trendy!

Though we are not quarantined and can actually cross borders for essential errands, we have mostly been confining ourselves to our home and our island. Since business is not gonna happen, we are using our time on home projects. I have mentioned our greenhouse project earlier and with a sunny day today, we rolled up shirt sleeves and dug in. Previously I had completed the concrete and cinder block foundation.

Taking shape

The sifted dirt

But a huge pile of dirt with a lot of stones in it was now heaped within the foundation. We had set up a sifting frame and siftet most of the dirt, which was then moved to a spread out tarp. After leveling off the remaining dirt in the greenhouse, it was time to lay out the center walkway. For that I had a stack of pink concrete tiles which I got last year from a neighbour. Left and right of the walkway I placed a row of cinder blocks. They are gonna be filled with dirt and used as a row of small planters, while they also serve as retainer for the soil we are gonna use in the plant beds. Before the siftet dirt is moved back into the greenhouse we will have a layer of old used straw spread out underneath. This straw was used in the community garden last year and has been saturated with nutrients. Our siftet dirt will be mixed with sheep manure and compost.

Next step in this building project will be the wooden frame.

When I sent the picture to a friend she wrote, you are right in the trend. Good now that we are trendy, for once!

Quite a different home project was the renovation of a bedroom upstairs.

The old bedroom 

With wallpaper stripped

New Insulation coming in

All done

While doing the walls and removing old plaster, insulating and dry-walling was a big job which actually took weeks to finish, the last job was the sanding down of the old hardwood floor. I borrowed a belt sander from a friend and worked my way from one end to the other. I hate to be on my knees for hours on end, but finally I was done. 2 coats with a clear high-gloss polyurethane finished the job. While I got the floor ready we moved out of the house and slept in our trailer. While modern day floor varnish does not contain solvents, it does produce a special odour which certainly feels uncomfortable, thus the move into the trailer. Looking back at the reno process I feel good that I finally did it. It shoulda been done years ago. The actual reason for starting this project was not the Covid situation, but the fact that we expected visitors from Germany this summer and this would have been our guestroom. Unfortunately, they recently canceled their Canada vacation due to travel restrictions imposed because of the pandemic. We hope they will make it next year.

So far we have not been bored and I have a hunch we will stay busy with the completion of the greenhouse.