REDESIGN

Well, it looks like I have found my new involvement that I was musing about last month.  We have sold our Condo and purchased a little old house in the beach.  

This is a good solid little house structurally (good foundation etc).  But being built in 1955 the fixtures and appliances are very dated, but to make it livable it also needs a lot of work and re-design.  

The bathroom needs to be gutted and rebuilt with new fixtures and a shower stall. 

The so-called dining room ( added on to the back of the house, near the back door) will be made into the brand new kitchen, with new cupboards, appliances etc.  

And the now kitchen which is a better situated room, will be gutted.  It will have patio doors added which will step out onto the deck (that also needs to be added) and will be turned into the new dining room.  

Both of the bedrooms are small and exactly the same size, so to make a decent size master the wall needed to be moved to steal some room from what will then be a small office/sewing room.  We will live with this for now
and see what we can do to make it work.

 

The rest of the house (which is just the living room and porch) is just fine and only needs to be spruced up.  So, this should keep me involved and busy for the next few years. 





ANOTHER MAJOR PROJECT WE HAVE TAKEN ON

THE SORTING OUT CONTINUES

Our son Ken came out for the long weekend and the first job on Saturday was to tear down the wall between the two small bedrooms.  I am going to have to steal some space from one to make the other big enough for my bedroom suite.  The other smaller room will end up as my computer/sewing room.  

Today we unpacked all of my books and put them in the bookcases.  I was very reluctant to tell Dan, after we got it all set up, that I didn't really like the set up with the TV in the center bookcase.  He just scoffed and said oh, well! You'll just have to learn to live with it, until we tear it all apart to put in the new flooring.  

The other thing we got functioning was my computer.  One of my dilemmas with this move has been how to get wifi, for myself on the boat and at the beach house.  This rural area is not well served by our big competitors.  So I have been talked into getting a smart phone that can pull in the wifi and create a computer hot spot for me to hook my computer up to whether I am on my laptop on the boat or on my desk top at the house.  Tested it out today and it seems to work fine.  In fact I'm using it right now.  

SO WE JUST KEEP PUTTERING AWAY. 

EVERYTHING IS HERE, NOW WE HAVE TO MAKE IT LIVEABLE

We had lots of help over the weekend.  Lots of people to remove everything from the condo and down to the elevator, load up the elevator, unload the elevator, and load up the truck.  But with many hands it went really fast.  We were finished by noon and out at the beach by early afternoon.  We puttered around and prepped the house for Sunday's unloading and relaxed for the rest of the day.  

Sunday saw more help arrive to reverse the whole process.  We had lots of help to unload the truck and put everything in it's proper rooms.  With all the renovations we want to do to this place there isn't much we can do to settle in.  Just make it livable. 

THANKS EVERYONE FOR ALL YOUR HELP!

Yesterday I managed to get my kitchen sorted out and workable.  

 There are so few cupboards so I salvaged the old TV stand from our condo bedroom for extra kitchen storage.  That'll work for now. 

 

Today we unpacked all my computer stuff   It's not exactly up and running yet, but it's a start.  

We are still living aboard the boat and will, until our pull out date in late September.  Each day we have been going over to the house for a couple of hours to sort through stuff.  Because we had such a short possession date on our condo sale, we didn't purge as we packed, so now that we have the time, we will try to purge as we unpack.  (That is hard for me, because I'm a bit of a pack rat.  Dan is exactly the opposite, he throws everything out, so I have to watch him.  lol )

 We plan on renovating every room to some extent, except the living room, that only needs new flooring, so any set up we do will have to be torn apart again anyway, so what's the use.  

WE WILL BE LIVING IN KAOS FOR THE NEXT COUPLE OF  YEARS

 

WE ARE HERE!

Well, we got everything out to the house.  So, now we are relaxing.  Wendy and Ken are showing me how to use my new iphone.  If you have read my blog before, you know how I hate the learning curve that goes with each new piece of equipment.  

So now we are going to have a few drinks and relax.  Murray is bringing their trailer out to stay overnight and we are going to have a weenie roast and a camp fire.  

Then we will start to unload the moving truck tomorrow.  

 

THE LAST OF THE PACKING IS DONE

Everything is all packed up. All we need now is the volunteers.  To gather around 10:00am. 

Come Saturday morning the U-Haul truck will be sitting downstairs to take all this out to Winnipeg Beach.  Donuts and coffee will be available.  When we get there we will relax, the real unpacking will not happen til Sunday.  We will just set up whatever sleeping accommodations are needed.  The "Bird" can sleep 6 and we should be able to set up another 6 in the Beach house, plus the yard is huge, so if you want to bring a tent, feel free to do so.  

Bring your bathing suits as well, as swimming is available at the end of the street.  We might even be able to fit in a cruise.  (weather and time permitting.)

I am planning a Weenie Roast/Corn Roast for Saturday night, plus a big Campfire, with Marshmallows.  (Also, weather permitting)

Come Sunday, again around 10:00 am, Breakfast "Grand Beach Egg Muffins"  is on the menu.  Then we will unpack the U-Haul and set everything up as best we can.  That is going to take some real figuring.  Then I am planning Roast Beef on buns and more Corn for Sunday Dinner.  

SO AS YOU CAN SEE WE ARE LOOKING FOR (make that enticing)  VOLUNTEERS

THE KAOS CONTINUES

We have been given a very short possession date on the sale of our Condo, so we are scrambling.  We received the offer on August 12th, with a request for August 30th possession.  They were meeting our price so we didn't want to turn it down, so we are busy, busy, busy.  

(No time for pictures.)

We were in town all last week packing.  My Internet at the condo is already shut down, so this is a catch up blog.   We managed to get the Living room, Bedroom and two main closets purged and packed.  We are back on board for the weekend and will go back at it, in town next week and finish the bathroom, linen closet and kitchen.  We should be ready to load the truck on Saturday.  

We plan on doing this in two (stages) days.  Get the truck loaded and haul everything out here on Saturday.  Relax for the evening, then unload and set everything up on Sunday.  We will try to accommodate sleeping facilities for anyone that wants to come out and help in both (stages) days.  

Food and Beverages will be supplied to all workers.

  

THAT'S THE PLAN ANYWAYS

IT'S A DEAL, WE ARE MOVING

Well it looks like we have closed deals on both the House we are buying and the Condo we are selling.  What a stress it is, going through this sort of thing.  First of all you try to buy the new place that you like, as cheaply as possible.  Then you try to squeeze as much as you can out of the place your selling.  Because what you have in between is what you have to work with on the new place.  And the new place certainly needs work.  Oh, well!  We made the best deal we could get on both ends and I guess we are moving forward.  

We have sold our little condo, that most readers will be familiar with from it's description in one of my home pages. (look for header "our little condo") This has been our home base that we transition through each spring and fall, between our summers on board Thunderbird and our winters in Texas. For the last 8 years of this schedule it has worked well for us.  But, we have decided it is time to move on to something else.  We want a real house for when the time comes to give up the boat and become land lubbers.  

  We have purchased # 249, 6th Ave. in Winnipeg Beach.  It's a nice solid little (and I do mean little) house built in 1955, but it needs a lot of updating.  So, this will be our project for the next few years.  Wish us luck.    More details and pictures of our progress will follow.  





THE KAOS BEGINS