So as I mentioned last month, Bill is on holidays for 5 weeks, and boy are we busy!  You know that our oldest DD moved to Waterloo, after working for us two years longer than planned, LOL, and we sure are going to miss her help!  But she's excited about the move, and has a lovely new apartment, so we're hopeful she will find a new job that will be both challenging and rewarding.

However, that leaves us with an apartment to rent... so we have to do some fixing up there  - we've bought new cabinet handles for the kitchen (some elegant brushed pewter ones), and we're putting new counters in both the kitchen and the bathroom.  Someone is coming in to clean and paint, so it will be all fresh and presentable when we put it on the market.  It's not even listed yet, and we've already had a couple inquiries, so we're hopeful it will rent quickly.

In the meantime, the plan for this time off was to fix up the little house behind us (where my parents used to live), and put that out to rent as well.  We were going to remove an upstairs bedroom, to form a high-ceilinged livingroom, and a loft bedroom.  But then my folks decided they would like to move back to that house, as they are finding the larger house a bit more work than they expected, and of course, being larger it also costs more to heat...

So that changed our plan for the little house, LOL.  Instead of taking out a bedroom, we took down all the old ceiling tile in the kitchen and livingroom, and were pleased to see it is actually pretty well built - except the joists are too far apart, which is why the downstairs lights shake when someone walks upstairs!!  We're going to put in some cross-bracing, but nicely done, LOL, as we are going to leave the beams exposed and paint it all white.  New kitchen cabinets and flooring all through, and a slight change of floor plan, and it will be lovely (wink).

Right now we are in the demolition stage, and have filled 2 construction dumpsters with materials we pulled out of the house... though I must admit we also did some shed cleaning, and got rid of a lot of stuff that has been accumulating.  Next week someone is coming by to quote on painting the ceiling, and we hope to be ready for them to come in the following week - wish us luck!  I'll give you more progress next month...

Meanwhile, a quick update on our house... we have the counters installed (I think I told you that last month), and have selected the backsplash tile.  This consists of metal 'bricks' behind the countertop stove, and mixed glass and metal strips (on sheets), all black and grey and silver, for the rest of the backsplash.  We have the stove section pretty much done, and the first strip of the glass / metal section done... but we have company from out west, so all work is on hold until Monday, and tomorrow we are hoping for sun, so we can go to lunch at a Victorian restaurant in Deseronto, then on to a short cruise through the 1000 Islands.  Sounds like a great way to spend the day with good friends, and I hope you plan some fun activities too... talk to you next month...