Wednesday 20 August 2014

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

Sunday 17 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!