Antique Bed

I finally cleared out the back bedroom enough to assemble this vintage bed. I found it on Kijiji last year. It was a steal! My husband made a platform to fit inside the frame, as it came without support rails or slats. It's an antique European size, a small single. We had to order a custom foam mattress to fit it. It's in this corner somewhat temporarily. I thought I'd share it with you though, because it looks pretty nice, doesn't it?

Mouse Haiku

Century of Mice

Dusty rodent scat rains down

Bleach burns my nostrils

Parlour Haven, Formerly for Harlots, Now for Mice

A Mousy Hole

Parlour Demo...

We are fully committed to our parlour renovation... Check out the strange studs inside these walls!

Some Interesting Framing

Pulling off Boards

More Mousey-Ness

Wallpaper Layers

Fixing a Hole, Where the Rain Gets In...

Our backhoe operator is amazing. He recently spent a couple of days putting things back where they are supposed to be around our Little Blue House. He was very precise and gentle as he placed 2 feet of gravel around the perimeter of the house, and then backfilled the area with all of the soil that has been heaped around it for the past year.

 The photos below don't even do it justice, and more has just been done to finish it off since I took these pictures. The kids will be a bit sad that their giant dirt pile is gone... It isn't really gone though - it has been flattened into a different, less fun shape. Somehow I don't think the kids are going to dig that explanation. Get it? I know, that was a really bad pun, but I am tired and it made me laugh.

The house doesn't look like it is sitting in a hole anymore, slowly sinking and sagging back into the earth. We are making progress!

I have so many pictures to post, as we've done a ton of work lately. I am behind with my blogging, and I apologize. I will catch up! Lots more to follow in the coming week!

Backfilling Work Begins

Flattening the Kids' Dirt Pile

More Dirt!

New Culvert

We decided that we didn't want a ditch right in front of our LBH anymore! Our new porch (which will be built to resemble the one from our archival photo, will have stairs leading straight up towards the house. We don't want to end up in a ditch as we descend the stairs. We bought a section of 12" culvert and a collar to connect it to the existing culvert to the south of the LBH. Then we had an extra truckload of gravel brought in to cover it. Nice!

A Twin!

Look at the blue house I saw today in Dawson City, Yukon! It's definitely related to our LBH in Atlin. Maybe they're cousins, both born in 1898.

Vintage Storm Windows?

Hello, what have we here? I think these must be the original storm windows from the Little Blue House. We must try them out. My husband discovered them in the falling-down cabin on our property, along with a couple more in the other cabin (now woodshed).

They say that a vintage window combined with a storm window is at least equivalent to a double-paned window, in terms of energy efficiency. Plus , these windows have loads of character. Here's yet another project!

Tarring but not Feathering

Man, tar is nasty stuff. Fortunately, my husband and dad both "volunteered" to apply all of this goop to our Little Blue House. They finished in a day. The first coat was very thick, applied with a putty knife to seal all cracks, knot-holes, seams, etc. The second and third coats were of a thinner type of tar, applied with rollers and brushes to the new plywood and cement foundation.

First Coat of Tar

Partway Through First Coat

After!

The exposed wood you see in the photo above is where the rotten siding was removed from the exterior of the home's original bedroom. That part of the house was sitting in the dirt, with rotten beams and floor joists. The rear corner wall was also rotten, so you could poke a hole in the wall with your hand. We will need to find some cove siding to fill in some gaps...

They did an amazing job - the house already looks much better. Oddly enough, they completed the task right at beer o'clock!

The Final Photo, Before Back-Filling