Getting ready for Christmas Holidays

We are working towards trying to spend some time out at the lake over the Christmas break.  We will not be having the big Christmas dinner out there this year.  Maybe next year.  Time just sort of ran out on us and the thought of hauling all the presents and food out at the last minute is too overwhelming.  We will go out for a bit and I get two weeks off, so that will work out fine.
We now have a new area rug in the living room.  I was not sure about it, but the salesman at the carpet store talked me into this one and we both really liked it once it was put in place.

Taken from the loft.

Zooming in a bit.  We have throws down on the couches for our poor cold Dexter Dog to lie on.  That dog is one really pampered,  spoiled pooch.

The outside basement walls are framed and insulated halfway down.  The temperature difference in the basement is four degrees with insulation only part way down the walls.  We will be getting the wiring done for the rooms soon and then the carpenter will come out to finish the walls and put up the interior walls to finish the basement rooms.  

We do not like having a tv in the living room so will move it downstairs once the basement is complete.  The piano will sit in the spot that the tv is now in.  Or maybe the piano can go in the loft or basement and the cabinet radio I have that my Mom bought for my Granny in 1946 can sit in that spot.  Hmmmm........decisions, decisions.

Herman installed the pendant lights this weekend.  The painter finished up on Saturday with some touch ups and we decided that it was not worth it to have someone come out all the way from Manitoba just to hang three lights.  So that is done and we had fun doing it,  as you can see.  I did learn about how the wiring for the lighting ran while holding some of the thingys for the lights!

 I do not think that an occupational health and safety committee on a job site would approve of this set up while installing the lights.  

Herman was really close to the edge of the island when he installed the middle light.  I was a lot nervous about that situation.  Stood very close to the island and the chair he was sitting on while being his assistant.  Thankfully he has great balance and was very careful.

We still need to get a few items and the furnace needs some tweaking this week.  But all in all we are very happy with this cottage and look forward to spending more and more time out at Pelican Pointe.  Just hope the coyote that we saw on the lake the other day stays away from our place.  The ice fisher people are now out so the coyotes will be on the lake eating the stuff that is left from the fish and the fisher people.  

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Winter is here.

Well...it looks like we will be settling into winter mode for the next few months.  The lake is pretty well frozen over.  The ice fishing shacks are starting to spring up and we heard the first snowmobiles on the lake today.  Guess the total silence is gone till about mid March.  It is still a lot quieter than the home we have in Regina though.

We have everything hooked up.  The furnace is running, the septic and cistern system is performing well.  We have a glitch with the new dishwasher, but it is under warranty and should be fixed soon.  The painter from Conquest is scheduled to come out this week and touch up the mudding and painting he did previously.  The carpenter is also coming out this week to frame and insulate the basement.  We hope to peck away at the basement and have everything completed by next summer.  The basement will house two bedrooms, a bathroom, a workshop for Herman, a utility room, a rumpus/living room and a wine room/second kitchen.  We will use the appliances and gas fireplace from the pink palace to outfit the basement rooms/guest suite.

Dexter on the lake waiting to have his ball thrown.

This is pretty much the same angle from the frozen lake as one of the first pictures in the blog of the pink palace.  Just to think that the old place was still standing in this spot five months ago.  The cottage looks grey in this light.  But it really is a pretty blue.

 The almost completed kitchen.  Once the ceiling is finished being painted we will have the pendant lights installed.  We are also still waiting for the table top to come back from the furniture refinisher.  He is getting two leaves made to match the table top.  We are hoping to have it by Christmas, since we will have a lot of kids and grandkids out at the beach for the holidays.

 Another view of the kitchen.  We need to extend out the microwave shelf, since I purchased a honking big microwave that does not quite fit in the space.  More new home glitches I guess.

We will be pumping water from the lake into the cistern.  Herman bought an auger this week and is doing a test hole in this picture.  We also bought a cute little pump that will sit on the ice and fill the 1500 gallon cistern in about an hour.  This place will definitely keep us busy this winter.   But we love the sun glistening on the snow and the clear, clean fresh cold air.  There is a path to the lake behind the cottage that is the perfect toboggan run for the kids and grandkids.  And another path to the lake fills with snow and packs in so that you can take great big blocks of snow out of there and build forts for snow ball wars.  Some people cannot stand the cold and snow of winter.  We love it.