MY NEW BEACH HOUSE BATHROOM

We now have running hot and cold water and ........... a flushing toilet. I'm happy!!  The new bathroom in the beach house is coming together much faster now.  It's always the things that don't show (like the plumbing & electrical) that take all the time. 

I've painted the walls in certain areas and the toilet is in.

 

The vanity is installed and the medicine cabinet is hung. 

The final thing we just did was to build that missing wall where the old bathroom door used too be.  It was not exactly a private facility with that gaping hole.  Once the water was hooked up and the toilet was in, that was next on my list, and Dan, tired of hearing about it, was teasing me saying "Now you're just being spoiled.  You sound like Donald Trump.  I want a wall, build me a wall."  LOL
 

Tomorrow I will start staining and varnishing both the doors to the bathroom.  

 We still have the big tiling job to do in the shower stall.  And, the shower door to hang.  We should manage to finish that in the next week or so.  


IT'S GETTING THERE. 

THE END TO ANOTHER SUMMER SEASON

Today Lake Agassiz Marine pulled the Thunderbird, Gator, Loafhaven and 2 other boats out of the water and tucked them away for the winter. 

This end of season ritual actually started last week when John West decided to head back to RMYC to put the Gator away there.  They only got as far as the mouth of the Red River and had to turn back, as there is not enough water to get through.  

 

So, he decided to winter in Gimli with the rest of us.

 

We all headed out early this morning.  It was really cold, I had the stove going all the way to Gimli.  The trip was a little rough, certainly not the nicest trip to Gimli I have ever had, but certainly not the worst either.  We were first out, so we had to be there by 9:00am.   .  

We left the harbour with "Thunderbird" at 7:45 followed by John in the "Gator", also on the schedule for today.  Sharon and Casey had booked to have "Loafhaven" pulled out today as well.    

We all made it to Gimli by just short of 9:00 am when "Thunderbird' would be pulled and sure enough there was the trailer sitting in the water at the launch ramp all ready for us. 

This was a new experience for me as normally Dan would pull into a dock and await the trailer and when the trailer arrived I would get off the boat with the dog and wait on shore.  But today they were waiting for us so we just drove straight onto the trailer.  I must admit this made me nervous.    I covered my eyes as we got close and only peeked here and there.  I guess I could even get used to this.  Lets face it when we first bought the boat I was always too nervous to follow behind when they were taking it down to the harbour.  For some reason I always thought something bad was going to happen.  Now it doesn't bother me at all.   

SO ENDS THE SUMMER SEASON LIVING ABOARD THUNDERBIRD

FEEDING FRENZY IN THE HARBOUR

We woke up this morning to gulls screeching and swooping all around the harbour. 

There were hundreds of them.   

Whenever I see this I am always reminded of some of my favourite characters in the "Finding Nemo" movies.  The gulls swooping and screaming "Mine", "Mine", "Mine". 

 We soon found what was attracting them.  

The harbour was full of all kinds of small fish very visible, even for my camera, as the water is becoming clearer and clearer since the zebra mussels arrived.  

There were small "Jack", Northern Pike to the non-Manitobans "Pickerel", Walleye to the non-Manitobans and assorted other species.    

They didn't look to be doing very well.  I think something un-natural has found it's way into Boundary Creek again.  

GGGRRRR.....THIS INFURIATES ME

 

DIY: BEACH HOUSE PROGRESS

 Well, Dan has been very busy the last couple of months.  First we stripped everything out of the original  bathroom. Then we opened up two new doorways into the bathroom.  One from the kitchen and one from the bedroom.  Since then he has been working  down in the crawl space under the house.  He has moved the well pump to a more convenient position for maintenance, Ripped out all the old cobbled together plumbing, drains and water supply.  Then started the process of installing all new lines water supply and drains.  He has been like a prisoner trapped in the dungeon. 

But we were finally starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel.  Everything is ready for the final hook up, but I wanted to get my flooring installed, so that we could bring any pipes up through the flooring rather than having to install it around them.  And that has caused many delays. 

This is custom ordered flooring, which I first ordered July 31st and they said "that will be 3 to 6 weeks for delivery, we will call you when it comes in."  OK, we will carry on until it gets here.  Then August 26th  we get a call to say "Your flooring is in."  Wonderful, we go to pick it up and order more of the same for my porch on August 28th  and it is the wrong damned colour.  So we make them take it back and re-order the double order for both bathroom and porch and of course are told again,  "that will be 3 to 6 weeks for delivery.", now we are thinking should we go ahead with the plumbing and lay the flooring after ? or ?  But we got a call on September 9th that our new flooring order is here.  Unfortunately it is still not the exact colour I wanted, but it's better than the first error, so I settled for it, as we have to get on with this.  So I got busy right away and the flooring is finally installed.

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The bathroom door into the kitchen is hung and the fibre glass shower base is in,  protected by an old shower curtain for now. 

The utility closet for the hot water tank and water softener is all wired up and the water supply lines are all in for the hot water tank.  The water hook up should happen this week.  If all goes well we should be ready to move back into the house by the end of this month.  

I'M REALLY LOOKING FORWARD TO THAT.  

I USED TO HAVE BEAUTIFUL GARDENS

Still plugging away at the beach house, so I sorted through some old pictures for a post.  

The last house that Dan and I owned, before we moved into our condo, was a 2200 sq. ft. split level on a 1/2 acre of Red River property at 5454 Henderson Highway between Winnipeg's perimeter highway and Lockport. We had put our boat "Lindan" aside and we were concentrating on the new house.  The construction site that I started with was nothing but a barren clay mess.  The clay that is brought up to the surface during construction of a basement is the real heart breaker and back breaker for gardeners.  By the time we sold the house 10 years later, I had a beautifully landscaped property.  

The year after the construction, we put a nice big 20 X 32 ft deck on the back .  Then I started my gardening.  I never really got into vegetable gardening.  Everything that I grew was decorative, with the exception of a small Strawberry Patch behind the garage and some Raspberry Cane beside the composter.  

My first flower bed was around the septic tank, to block it from my view.  And a hammock overlooking the river, with morning glories climbing up each end of it.  That was the start of it. 

Then later, in front of that I even added a fish pond with 6 Koi, that of course we had to over winter in the basement.  A used Lobster tank from a restaurant that was closing, served that purpose.  

I bought two barrels and cut 1/3 off of one and flipped that over and put spouts on all three of them and added a circulating pump.  

The water was pumped into the tallest barrel and when that overfilled it spilled into the next and then the next and down into the pond and back to the circulating pump.  It worked great.

 

Then I moved on to the front and side yard.  We had a secondary driveway, for which I made a visual barrier with movable posts and rope, for the nautical look.  I planted a few trees.  A couple of Pines, a triple Birch and a Maple.  (We happened to pass there today and those trees are thriving.)  Then I filled in the beds with all perennials.  

Then I returned to the back yard again, to put in something to look at when sitting on the deck.  

This was one of my favourite gardens as it turned out so lush and colourful and easy to maintain.  I planted all perennials except for a stone planter that was built into our front step.  That I used to fill with annuals.  

I was constantly starting another flower bed.    I would say, "I need something over there that I can see from the dinning room windows", or "I need some colour behind the garage."

or "I need a bench overlooking the river, and some rose bushes and spring tulips that you can look passed when you're sitting there. "  And so it would go, and GROW. 

I enjoyed creating it, I even took a landscaping course, and learnt a lot.  But I just kept adding and adding more and more flower beds.  A lot more than I am showing here.  And that is a lot of work.  After two knee replacement surgeries, I think it was time to give it up. 

It was a very enjoyable hobby, while it lasted, but once we got back into boating and the big projects of restoring the "Thunderbird" my gardens were taking away from our new interest.  After a spring of working so hard on the boat and the gardens, once the boat was launched and we were enjoying living on board the boat, we had that pull of the garden and house maintenance that started to disrupt our new pleasures.  

That was when we decided to sell the house and move into an apartment, so that we could just lock the door and walk away, with no maintenance to have to worry about.  That is what has allowed us to boat all summer and winter down in Texas without worry about maintenance on a house or gardens.  




AND NOW WE ARE GETTING BACK INTO HOME OWNERSHIP  ????


(But I will never put that much work into gardens again, I will  plant a few perennials, but then they gotta make it on their own.  If they don't survive, boo hoo  :)


  

Re-Post : DIY: RE-BUILDING THE PILOT HOUSE ROOF

Seeing as how we are busy with the Beach House and not doing much boating here is another re-post.  From our re-fit. 

One of the most damaged parts of Thunderbird when we purchased her was the pilot house roof.  This roofs interior was very decorative, with beautiful inlays, (visible at the end of this blog) but was originally built with a huge hatch in the centre of it.  This hatch was located right up above the engine hatches, so that with engine hatches and roof hatch removed the engine could be lifted straight out with a crane.  Well, this upper hatch had been leaking for years.  The leaking in fact was starting to show up on the mahogany interior finishes.  So, the roof repair became our top priority

The boat was sitting in our yard at the time.  Because of the weight of the centre hatch, the entire roof was sagging slightly and therefore the water was laying on it and not running off.  Dan tried to figure out ways to straighten, reinforce and strengthen it, all to no avail and we had to face the inevitable, the roof had to come off.  In researching this project we found out from a couple of diesel mechanics that her engine was in good shape but if it ever died, it could be stripped down, and would be able to be removed out one of the side doors.  But it didn't look like that was ever going to be necessary.  So the decision was made to rebuild the roof without a hatch. 

This is a picture of Thunderbird without her fly bridge.

That fall, we started the process of deconstruction.  First we removed the fly bridge, arranged for it to be painted as it was still the original bare aluminium, and we ordered the huge decal for her name to go on that fly bridge.  

Then we started removing all the interior ceiling woodwork.  As we removed each piece, we numbered them in the hopes of salvaging as much as possible and putting this puzzle back together again.  We took the large hatch down into our basement to salvage what we could of the decorative inlays that were on it.  When we got to the main cross bracing beams we found a few that were undamaged so Dan carefully removed them and took them, some pictures of the original roof shape and many many measurements to a custom carpentry shop to have them reproduced.  She ended up totally open to the sky.  Then we tarped her down for the winter and hopefully we would solve this problem in the spring. 

 

Armed with our new beautifully shaped structural beams we started the re-building process that next spring.  Our new carpenter JCK Millworks did a fabulous job.  Everything went together perfectly.  Then came the process of many thin layers of plywood kerffed and glued into place onto those beams to form the curve of the roof, as the original had looked, only with out the hatch.  Layer after layer kerffed, glued and screwed.  Another old expertise brought back into use.  Dan learned to kerf boards to bend them around corners when we built our Motorhome many years ago.  So the roof started to take shape and it was stronger than the original.  It still needed to be fibre glassed, but that would be done when we got the boat back out to Gimli.  For now it was time to turn our attention to the interior. 

We had a huge pile of interior pieces that needed to be sorted and hopefully put back into place.  So, we started on the outside edges and worked our way in to the centre board by board.  We had managed to strip the inlays off of the badly damaged hatch and were able to glue them onto a thin layer of plywood in the centre, where the hatch used to be.  Then we were only missing about 2 or 3 inches that we were able to fill in with some decorative trim boards.   

When Thunderbird was returned to the storage hangars in Gimli, we arranged for the roofs (pilot house and galley) to be re-fibre glassed and repainted.   And we have no more leaking. 

These are the lovely inlays the Dick Watt added to her ceilings. 

And in our travels down around southern ports, we have since been able to find a decorative brass item to compliment our beautiful ceiling inlays and I am very pleased with the results. 

 

 

THIS WAS A MAJOR STEP FORWARD IN OUR REFIT

 

 

 

 

 



LOW WATER IN THE HARBOUR

We awoke this morning to extremely low water in the harbour.  It's been up and down, but mostly down for the last week or so. It is hard to believe that Lake Winnipeg is affected by tides.  Not as the ocean is affected by the gravitational pull of the moon, but here it is affected by the North and South winds.  This huge lake is divided into two parts, being the north and south basins separated by the narrows.  Strong north winds can really hold back the movement of water through the narrows and make a lot of water build up in the south basin and raise the water level tremendously.  Of course a strong south wind can have the opposite affect pushing the water out of the south basin, faster than it can be replaced by the flow in from the Red river.  This is commonly known as wind tides and can affect water levels as far up river as Selkirk.  Therefore this morning, after very strong south winds overnight, the water levels are exceptionally low.

Some boats have been left high and dry.

Our dock mates will not be going anywhere with out a change in circumstances.  

And our neighbour the "Alexandria Anne" is  sitting with rudders and possibly props in the mud.  

 . 

Without a little more water in the harbour I don't think these Sea-doos will get much use and John and Annette's "Gator" has quite of list to it.  They are obviously sitting in the mud. 

We are still floating free, but just barely.  Our keel touched the rock bottom, one time when we went up the Manigotagan River to see the falls.  We had 2ft showing on our depth sounder at that point.  This morning we are sitting with 2.5 ft under us. So I guess we still have 6 inches of water between our keel and the mud.  

 The ramp to our dock is so steep it's actually feeling dangerous.  And once down the ramp our first dock is sitting in the mud and very crocked.  

It's raining now.  Not that a little rain is going to do any good, but with the change in weather, maybe we will get a shift in the winds.   We are going to need some good strong north winds to fill this harbour back up.  

IT'S ALWAYS SOMETHING.  

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