The Raging Queen

After some tinkering, a few F-bombs, a friend taking apart our kicker motor & putting it back together, minor bloodshed, and some cajoling, the Raging Queen II took to Atlin Lake once again. Oh, did I mention that our retro motorboat (it came with the house) is named after the boat my family owned when I was a kid? She was named the Raging Queen, the original and one-and-only (I think).

Boats are like racehorses, right? You can call them absolutely anything.

Atlin Lake, August 2014

The Ceiling Comes Down in the Parlour

My hubby went to town with the crowbar in our front parlour. Now the rafters are exposed, along with the attic... It wasn't as bad as we expected, although he was covered in dirt from head to toe afterwards. There are a myriad of ancient wasp nests up there, but at least this time there weren't any bones in the attic! Our contractor was lucky enough to experience that in March.

After removing the rough hewn lumber ceiling boards, my husband cleaned up the room and hauled most of it to the dump. We will have our contractor raise the ceiling in the parlour, just like he did with the home's original bedroom ceiling. It will be insulated and vapour-barriered, and we'll end up with a foot or so of extra headroom. He is going to re-install the parlour window for us, too. That will all happen before mid-September, so we can spend some time insulating the room with styrofoam insulating panels... 

One of our main obstacles now is finding an electrician to install new wiring in this part of the house. We had an electrician come in, and he promised us a quote within a week. That was about 3 months ago now... It's a trick in the small town of Atlin to find people to do work like this. We really can't afford to bring an electrician in from Whitehorse to do it. I'm not sure at this point how we will overcome this challenge.

Front Door of Little Blue House, from Parlour

Some Wasp Nests

Parlour Attic Exposed!

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.