Electrons

I guess those wee electrons are all corralled in all of the right places now. Man, those little suckers are expensive! We knew that our bill wouldn't be cheap, and I suppose it's about what we expected it to be...

Our electrician said the original wiring wasn't all that bad, which is good to know, but I'm happy it is safe and up to code. He only has a few small tasks left to complete, including wiring the heater in the crawl space.

We now have baseboard heaters in our back bedroom, bathroom and entrance (otherwise known as the grand "foyer" ha ha ha). We've got extra outlets and the exposed old-school wiring in the kitchen has been remedied, I think. We have wiring for smoke detectors in each part of the house, as required by code, all connected together. We have brand-new wiring, including spots for the ceiling fixtures, parlour heater, and lots of outlets in the parlour and front (original) bedroom. Oh, and a baseboard heater in the front bedroom as well.

Plus, we will have a light next to our front door, the original front door to the LBH. I ordered one from House of Antique Hardware, and it's going to look really good! You can see it by clicking here.

The next steps are drywalling, mudding and priming the walls in the parlour and front bedroom. We do not possess the skills to do this well, and nor do we have time, so our contractor will be starting next week. He will also put up the 1/2 inch plywood ceilings that will eventually be covered by tin ceiling panels. Yay! I hope to have some photos to show you soon.

January at the Little Blue House

I thought I would share a few recent photos with you. The LBH is hunkered beneath a small layer of snow, catching rare glimpses of the northern sun.

The Woodshed, Formerly Brothel "Room"

Winter Sunshine

LBH from First & Rant

The Boat Launch

Light!

Once again, we've lucked out with Harris House Antique Lighting's gorgeous vintage fixtures. I found a circa-1900 two-light fixture that will go in the original bedroom. It's perfect.

The beautiful pendant in the last photo will go in the side entrance of our LBH. It'd be a joke to call it a "foyer," but maybe someday it will look like one. This light will help a lot!

The company is located in Nova Scotia, on Canada's East Coast. They will open a showroom on the West Coast in the near future. Their website is listed here on my blog (the sidebar at right).

More to follow on lighting and electrical. Our electrician is on the job!

Who's This?

What's This??

Spode Rosalie

I took these before Thanksgiving dinner. Here are our new (old) dishes, Spode's Rosalie. I think they suit our LBH perfectly.

Spode Rosalie

Thanksgiving Dinner Table, Complete with Our Youngest Child's Turkey

I must mention that my mum and I found this pattern in North Vancouver's Echo's China. It's an amazing little shop with a huge selection of beautiful, discontinued china and silverware. It's most certainly a dangerous place to visit.

We Finished Insulating the Parlour!

The parlour at our Little Blue House is pretty much insulated now. My husband deserves credit for this, as he's the one who did all of the work cutting styrofoam panels into the quirky shapes you see in these photos. After our contractor raised the ceiling and insulated it, we were able to finish off this next phase.

Now we are waiting for the room to be vapour-barriered and strapping installed. I am "cautiously optimistic" that our electrician (MIA since early summer) may get our wiring done. When? I don't dare take a guess. I simply do not have time to learn to do it myself. Once we have new wiring, our contractor will be able to put plywood ceilings up and drywall on the walls. After that, we plan to install tin ceiling panels (nail-up) and wallpaper... eventually.

You can see the windows leaning against the wall in the picture below - the one on the left is a vintage storm window we found in the falling-down cabin on our property. The one on the right came out of the bedroom. I cleaned, primed and painted them to use as storm windows. More to follow on that later!

Parlour Chaos

Front Door

Mostly Finished