Travels of the Agnew Family for 2008.01.01 to 2010.01.31

It's been a busy week. I spent 10 hours on Monday painting the workshop --- with it been white paint on white primer thankfully one coat covered. Ed spent Tuesday hooking up lights, installing receptacles and finishing up the wiring. Wednesday saw some more finishing touches like cleaning the windows, caulking the wall/concrete floor joint and the start of the move. The move continued over Thursday, Friday, Saturday and finally finished today. Turned out to be a much bigger job than I expected as it took time to unload shelves, disassemble the shelves, clean the shelves, reassemble the shelves in the workshop and put the things back on them in a way that made sense. We also had to drive to Hanover to buy some bins to help in the organizing phase. I also managed to find three days mostly without rain to stain the back deck --- tarps came in handy when the thunder storm threatened to ruin the paint job.

Now the builder just needs to come and trim the doors and windows and yes he can still get at them but not as easily as he could have last Monday when he was scheduled to come.

One project down .... three hundred and ninety two to go (or there abouts).


Everything fits .... even the humongous table saw (two of the arms are currently folded down). And there's even some empty space on the shelves.

After a day of cleaning drywall dust and painting I was ready to relax. So it was off to my cousin Rosie's retirement party. Rosie spent over thirty years in the education profession first being a teacher then a principal. She's hoping to spend part of her retirement in a RV travelling to dog shows with her miniature poodles and Jack Russel. It was great seeing all of the cousins, their kids and grand kids though I did have to ask "who does that kid belong to" a number of times.


Rosie, Martin (her oldest brother) standing behind her and Boudy (another brother).


Rosie and Robert, the youngest brother. Robert and Boudy did an excellent job of "roasting" Rosie.


Rosie with her retirement present --- that's a stuffed black poodle sitting in a bath tub. We all chipped in so she could buy a "dog wash".



Rosie and "the aunts", my mom and Tante To


The kids were having a great time. Why is it that whenever a kid sees a grassy hill they want to roll down it? I know I did way back when.

Zaph and I decided to take the day off and go to Burlington to visit my mom leaving Ed on his own to finish the sanding. Not far from my mom's is the Royal Botanical Gardens and being a nice day we decided to go look at flowers. The Royal Botanical Gardens are the largest botanical gardens in Canada and consists of at 5 gardens including a rock garden, lilac garden, rose garden and lilac/peony garden, 4 nature sanctuaries and 30 kilometres of trails. We managed to visit three of the gardens, the rock garden, the lilac/peony garden and the rose garden. Zaph found people to pet him at all three.


If I remember correctly the sign said they have over 550 varieties of peonies.


My mom and Zaph


A Chinese Dogwood.


Some of the roses at the the Rose Garden.

Drywalling a lengthy processes. First you put up the boards then you apply the mud, then sand the mud when it drys and if it's not perfect apply more mud, the repeat until it is either perfect or you have had enough.


All mudded up.

Hard to believe but Anne and Victor returned today. We finished putting the drywall on the walls and Ed and Victor put the first coat of mud on the walls. Walls are much easier than ceilings.


Only a couple more pieces to put on then the walls are finished.


Our supervisor is looking a little bored. Zaph insisted on being in the workshop with us even though we kept disturbing his naps.


Victor starting to put the mud on. They didn't quit till they finished mudding the walls.

Our friends Anne and Victor arrived early this morning to help with drywalling the workshop. Now you're asking yourself why we're doing the drywall and how in the world did we con them to help us. Well we're doing it to save money and conning them into helping was actually quite easy --- the memory of us helping them on their house last summer is still fresh and they are still grateful. When the dry wall was delivered on Friday a loaner dry wall lifter also arrived. This is an extremely helpful tool when you are installing drywall on the ceiling. In fact, I think it may have saved a couple of lives and at least one marriage (mine). By 7pm we had all of the ceiling drywall up and had started on the walls. It's a bigger job than I thought especially when the person doing the measuring (Ed) is used to working with with small things (computer boards) where precision is a necessity not a pain in the .....


The drywall lifter in action. Victor was fastening the drywall in place well the rest of us started organizing the next piece.


Anne, hold that piece in place. It'll only be a couple of minutes to the guys break is up.

My friend Margaret (who luckily loves to sew) agreed to sew some curtains for our "theatre room" in the basement and covers for the couch in the trailer. Today was shopping day.

Step 1 - Go to a store with lots of fabric choices. I picked Margaret up in Elora at 10am and drove to Guelph arriving at Lens Mill around 10:30. Much oohing and aahing occurred as we walked around what seemed like endless rows of fabric. After about an hour we had decided on the two fabrics.

Step 2 - Determine the amount of fabric required. The amount of brain power required for the calculations necessitated refreshments, so we headed to the Tim Hortons on the other side of the plaza for tea and a sweet (sugar is the starting agent for many brains). Knowing the width of the material and the dimensions of the couch, cushions and curtains we were able to determine the amount of material required. 6 yards of one fabric and 17 yards of the second fabric.

Step 3 - Return to the store and purchase the fabric. Sounds easy, but first we needed to make sure that we examined all of the isles in case there was something else we needed --- curtain ties, thread, elastic. The grandma to be (Margaret) did find some baby fabric she couldn't resist. Finally, we made it to the counter. The clerk measured the fabric that we needed 17 yards of --- oh oh there was only 16 1/4 yards. Poor girl, we asked her to measure it a second time but it didn't get any longer. Checked the row where we had found the fabric and there was a second bolt --- we bought a yard off of it so we were good to go. The best part was the 15% I saved by finishing the bolt. There was lots of the second fabric. By now it was 1:40 and we were starving.

Step 4 - Have lunch and regroup. We were both ravenous so we decided to try the restaurant that was in the plaza, Eggcetera. As we were being seated the two women sitting at the table beside us were served a meal that consisted of peameal bacon, eggs, hash browns and toast. Boy did it look good --- barely glancing at the menu we both ordered it. Everything that we saw served looked good, luckily our choice tasted good as well.

Step 5 - Check out the remainder of the store. Yes we had only seen about half of the Lens Mill store so we returned to see what else they had. There was clothes, shoes, picture frames, lots of rows of wool, canned goods, kitchen gadgets and lots, lots of more. We showed great restraint and only purchased a few items. By 3:30 the store was getting warm and we were shopped out --- hard to believe we'd only been in one store.

By the way, Ed says likes my fabric choices.


Good thing the napkin dispenser was on the table as we used several to make our calculations.

I got an exciting job today --- move a pile of wood (a lot of 10 foot by 8 inch by 3 inch maple) from one side of the garage to the other. Ed thought it would make delivering drywall easier if there was a straight path from the garage door to workshop --- something about drywall being really heavy and not very flexible. And yes, Ed did order drywall which will be delivered on Friday and hopefully installed on the weekend.

In the afternoon Zaph and I spent some time gardening --- though one of us doesn't seem to understand what is meant by the term "weeding".

My "flower child". Hope the plants will bounce back.

The new Indiana Jones movie is playing at the theatre in Hanover (about 10 minutes away) and as it's "a must see on the large screen" for Ed we went. In my opinion it wasn't as good as the first and third Indiana Jones movies but still worth watching ..... except for a few scenes. Now I really don't like termites. It was our first visit to the Hanover theatre and it wasn't bad for a small town --- we'd go back if another "must see" movie comes to town.

Ed finished roughing in the wiring yesterday and called the builder to say it was ready to be insulated. To our surprise the response was we'll be there first thing in the morning and sure enough they arrived at 7:15. As it was pouring rain I think they were very happy to be working on an indoor job. The walls are insulated and the vapour barrier is up. Balls back in our court for drywalling.


The workshop with insulated walls and vapour barrier.

My friends Jack and Lori, with four of their neighbours host the Chequegnat Festival each year --- their backyards join together so that's where the party is. Each household invites friends to come and enjoy good music and good food --- probably a couple of hundred people attend over the course of the afternoon and evening. Jack arranges for local musicians, a couple of the neighbours are in charge of the barbecue and pot luck, another provides the stage (their deck). As Ed was happily wiring, I picked up my friend Margaret and the two of us headed to the festival. We were able to snag a spot that was in the shade and spent the afternoon and evening listening to some pretty good folk music. In my opinion Jack was the best performer there --- hmmm.... maybe I'm a little biased.


Jack's on the left. They did a great job on some old Stan Rogers songs.

Right on schedule the workers showed up at 7:15 to finish the windows, remove the old exterior wall and take out the old door. By 9 I was on the road heading to Burlington to visit my mom, pick up the mail and do some errands. My mom and I decided to try an Indian restaurant that is about a kilometre from her house --- good choice as the lunch buffet included most of my favourites. Mom enjoyed it too. We both ate enough that we only managed small salads for dinner. Around 10 pm I arrived home and Ed took me to the workshop so I could see what the new shop would look like. It's huge, so all of his tools better end up in here. He has started the wiring so was showing me the boxes he had put in including the ones for the outside lights and outlet. Standing outside in the dark, the outer walls looked funny. When I touched them I realized the siding was on and when I looked up I noticed the eaves trough. The siding guys had finished a job in the morning and knowing ours was a small job decided to do it in the afternoon.

Looks like the ball is in our court now. Ed has to get the wiring done so the builder can send guys to insulate (Ed hates working with insulation).


Taking down the old exterior wall.


The outsides all done expect for the light fixtures.


The new section of the workshop.

At 7:15 the workers truck pulled up in front of the driveway, one guy jumped out and grabbed a ladder and the truck left --- not a good sign. It was drizzling at the time and I thought that they didn't want to be on the roof in the rain --- I wouldn't. Around 12:30 the truck came back and this time it parked and both guys got out. They were here to finish the roof and start the windows.

I spent the morning planting my new flower bed. Looks pretty good if I say so myself especially when you see the plants that should be there and not the "actors" that are currently there. It's not a good time to split peonies so I've put rosemary, parsley and chives where the three peonies will go in the fall and I have Sweet William and Snap Dragons place holding for the Asian Lilies.



The new garden in front of the addition that's ready for the door and windows.

It was a beautiful sunny morning and the guys showed up at 7:15am to work on the addition. They had hopes of getting a lot done today but were slowed down when Leo (ex owner and father of current owners) stopped by and noticed that the shingles had faded more than expected on the west side of the roof. After a conference with Ed on the roof they decided to replace the shingles on the existing portion of the workshop. By quiting time most of the roof had been shingled.

Around 9:30 Ed and I headed over to the local RV dealer to pick up our new trailer --- a used 2008 Titanium. We think the trailer was one of the first of a new design and regular plywood, not bendable plywood, was used to create a curved wall. As to be expected the wall cracked. After a month away the owners returned home with the "damaged goods". The factory offered them some compensation so they decided to upgrade to another trailer. The wall was fixed and trailer put up for sale at what we thought was a good price so we bought it. We even get the full year factory warranty. Doghouse II is a foot longer than Doghouse but it was three slides so it should give us more living space. I wonder how long it will take me to get use to the new layout.


Interesting place for a conference.


They almost finished the shingling --- took longer than they planned as they replaced the shingles on the existing workshop.


Our new trailer Doghouse II.


For some reason Zaph doesn't like going into Ed's office. Here he is lying in the doorway.