Go ahead, make me grey

Well, following the New Year, we decided to get back to work on our walls and broke out the drywall mud materials. A couple of hours later, Sarah, (formerly and affectionately known as "Mudder") said if we continued at our current pace, we'd still be mudding months down the road. Reluctantly, but understandably, I agreed, and we hired Handyman Al to finish mudding and repairing the upstairs...

Being an amateur mudder I didn't subscribe to the "less is more" theory and poor Al spent about a billion hours sanding my thick mud coats down to so they were flush with the rest of the walls.

Bringing the kitchen together has been a learning experience, and a process that I'll say nothing more about other than to say that experience is the best teacher, and it will look uh-mazing when it's complete.

You can see below the amount of patching required in our office but even more impressive was the white, sandy layer of what looked like soot layering the floor and hiding deep in the corners. We managed to get all the upstairs swept and tidied in preparation for this weekend when our friends Lori, Dave and l'il Nina come for a visit and help us begin the arduous task of priming and painting our walls and ceiling.

With my hair matted with a fresh dusting of drywall mud and my lungs screaming for fresh air, (yes, I used a mask but that shit gets into everything), I assessed "the situation."

I plan on closing out the week sanding and finishing up the closets, which I told Al to leave for us. You know, for extra practice.

Ihave to admit, it's been difficult to stay excited about the renos, esp. when (six months in) all we want to do is to be able to prepare, eat and clean up after a meal that hasn't been prepared on our makeshit* (not a typo) kitchen while using regular plates and nice cutlery.

In the meantime, I'm going to step outside and enjoy this nice Cohiba I got for my birthday from our friends Joe and Belinda ...;

A Kamloops country Christmas at The Huston Ranch (With reno photos and bonus materials too)

We spent our first holiday at Sarah's parents at the ranch on Campbell Creek. With no Internet, telephone and ver-r-r-ry limited cell phone service it was homey, old-fashioned and Waltonesque for sure.

"T'was the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a ...

Stella!

Every home should have a staircase something like this ...

And now, for some reno pics shot Jan. 4th, 2011!

Here's the patchjob in the bathroom (this is where the vanity mirror will be placed)

And these white squares are the after-look of where the illegal bathroom lights had to be removed cuz they were IN the shower.

Our "Office" will not feature Dwight Schrute or Michael Scott but it will feature Scott and Sarah Trudeau with the occassional guest appearance--and the walls and ceiling will look first class.

These next series of four photos show the various sections (wall, ceiling and closet) in the master bedroom. Believe it or not, it looks much better following the second coat of mud:

Although they're probably looking the same, this is the 2nd bedroom and definitely the lowest maintenance of the three upstairs rooms.

Congratulations if you've made it this far, here's some experimental vid clips of my journey to the ranch, Christmas day and the ride home on a snow-filled Coquihalla. (first time I've ever shot video on my phone so, could've used a heavy dose of post-editing).