Let there be light

Thanks to a gift coupon from my brother Chris and Rebecca (and Home Depot), we now have lights for the suite! The walls have been painted, the light switches work, the heaters are in... it's starting to look livable. Next up: kitchen and bathroom. It's a real race. The baby is due on 13 July. I reckon if she's late we might actually be in before then :)







Here also are some pics of our builder hard at work in the 'kitchen', and the funky ceiling in the suite's bedroom, where the stairs to upstairs cut into the wall.

Bath and switch

So here's a funny story... We go to the store, pick out a bath, buy the bath, the name of the bath on the box matches the bath we wanted, and we pay the right price for the bath we want. We bring it home. The builder (Stef, I think) puts it in. A week passes. My parents come up. I peel back the cardboard to reveal our.... uh, that's not the right bath.

After much confusion, we have established that the 'kidney shaped' tub is no longer being made, and instead we have been given the next model. Apparently it's worth $200 more than we paid for it, so I guess I won't complain!

Day off for flying

In the midst of all that shopping, we took a day to relax in the sun (me) and go paragliding (Stef). Here we are at the Mackenzie launch. I just took pics and then drove the car down, did the crossword and took a nap. Stef stayed in the air for about 4 hours. Little Freya didn't seem to mind the bumpy road!

Shopping spree

On Saturday 5 May we had an epic shopping spree day. First stop Rona for a shower head for the master bath (a lovely 'rain head' that will make it feel like you're standing in a spring shower). I just hope there's enough pressure to get shampoo out. If not, we can always change the head later. We've picked out matching taps for the Roman tub and sink, but they didn't have them in stock.

Next stop 'King of Floors', the hilarious shop in Surrey advertized by a 'king' in full regalia with a miniature dog (see pic). Cheesy place. Great prices. We picked up an awesome discontinued laminate floor for the suite (which, by my knife-dropping tests, seems indestructable) that looks like Cherry wood, for just 69c per square foot (!!!). We also found a real Brazilian jatoba (cherry) engineered click-fit board for our house, on sale from 6.99 to 4.99 / sq ft. It's in budget, lovely, a great colour with a little bit of 'distressing' done to it to hide scratches and dings, and random lengths to make the room look nice and un-regulated. But I'm a bit worried about the fate of the Amazon, so I'm trying to check to see whether it's Forest Stewardship Council certified. If not, it is a very thin layer of wood on top... but I'm not sure that's really good enough.

Next stop IKEA for our suite's kitchen. We picked out cupboards in Beech, which match the lighter streaks in the new floor, and a 2-compartment sink.

On Monday I went trawling for carpets, tiles, and appliances (whew!). Looks like it'll either be Home Depot or BRICK for appliances. Both are putting together quotes for me for a ridiculous haul of: 2 stacking washer/dryers; 2 fridges; 2 stoves; 2 dishwashers; 2 microwaves. Should come out to something like $8,000!!!

We already picked up bathtubs the weekend before... a 'Romance' tub for the master suite (lovely deep elegant sucker) and a 'peanut' tub for the kids' bathroom - so that, one day, when there are 2 kiddies, they can each have their own end of the tub and fight over who gets the taps :)

That's enough decision-making for now.

Meanwhile our doctor in Squamish, Louise Martin, who'll be delivering little Freya, says all looks well. The baby is lying sideways at the moment (across my belly, rather than with her head down), but there are weeks yet for her to sort herself out. If she doesn't, then apparently they send me to a specialist to try and massage/coax her into place. And if THAT doesn't work then we'll be c-section bound, but the chances of that now are slim (2% or so).

Pour it in

After the insulation was finished (horrah!) the next step was pouring a 1.5 inch layer of concrete flooring onto the main floor. We did this to help provide sound insulation between the suite and us, and the garage and us. Stef was understandably nervous -- you can't really watch the concrete going down, as there are few vantage points to watch from, and if it winds up bumpy or slanted then it's a nightmare. But all went well -- apparently it's smooth as a baby's bottom, and a lot more level than one.

Sound insulation is an interesting thing. The concrete, apparently, is excellent at damping out air-transmitted noise (like music or voices), but does nothing to stop footfalls from resonating through our floor down into the suite below. On the garage side of the house, this isn't important: we only want to stop the noise of drilling, sawing and pounding in the workshop from wafting upwards into my office. No one cares if the sound of me typing / throwing my computer to the floor in frustration (or more likely little Freya throwing her toys about) penetrates into the 'quiet sanctum' (ha ha) of the garage. On the suite side, however, though we are now protected from noise by them (unless they dance on their ceiling), they are not yet protected from noise by us. Stef plans to suspend their ceiling on little metal brackets that apparently helps to deal with this. We don't want to be too too precious about our tenants, but from experience we know that sound transmission can be the thing that drives away otherwise-perfectly-good paying customers.

Spray it on

As of 5 April, the insulation team has arrived and started to spray insulating foam into the walls. Stef is very pleased; it makes the whole house seem more solid, he says. The spray insulation is more expensive than the old-fashioned batting type, but it doesn't hold water (in case of leaks), won't let through bugs, helps to hold the whole house together, and, surprise, is a better insulator. We're having that in all the outside walls (not the garage), and batting in the attic and garage etc.

Aloha babymoon

It has become tradition for couples to take a 'babymoon' -- one last romantic holiday for two before the baby arrives. So we went to Oahu for 10 blissful days of sun, surf and snorkling, from 20-30 March. Here's me immitating a beached whale:



We stayed in Kailua, a laid-back town of locals without highrises or hotels or beachside cocktails, where Obama apparently spends his holidays. We stayed in a cute little place called D&D's B&B, just a 5 minute walk from Kailua's beach and park (a steal at $75/night). The water was actually cool (bizarrely, it had hailed in Oahu the week before we got there), and the weather too windy for paragliding. But that didn't stop us from getting around and getting a tan.



We saw a macadamia nut farm (Stef is adept at breaking open nuts, as well as at eating free samples), hiked up the hill in Lanakai, the rugged Olomana '3 peaks' hike/rock climb (I only did the first peak, Stef did the second, and we skipped the third, for a 3-hour humid return trip), and the muddy Maunawili falls. We kayaked out from Kailua to Mokolua Island on a wavy day (it was very entertaining watching novices try to land without tipping into the surf), snorkled at Hanauma Bay (which is much less impressive than it used to be, back when they let tourists feed the fish! Now it's far less colourful and popluated by reef fish) and off Electric beach on the west coast (the best spot for snorkling by far -- fish are attracted to the warm water outflow pipe, which has become an artificial reef), swam with dolphins from Ko Olina resort (expensive at $120 each but worth it), and generally mooched about the beach, shops, and highways of Oahu. A highlight for Stef was Bookends, a new and used book shop in the heart of Kailua (every restaurant seemed to be locatable in terms of 'steps from Bookends'), where he found a book he'd been looking for for 10 years!

Now it's back to the grindstone... more literally for stef than for me.

Pregnancy highlights from the trip:
Freya is kicking like a boxer now, the little fighter! Sleeping became a real pain, with hip ache waking me every few hours and getting me up at the crack of dawn. But by the end of the holiday that had much improved. Long flights with a big belly are not comfy -- those seats are a pain in the back, literally. Otherwise, Freya caused no problems and enjoyed her time in the sun.