Some fun times between the renos

In between all the work with the renos we have managed to squeeze in a little bit of fun...

Mmmm marshmallows

Heather with her perfectly cooked marshmallow

Ooey gooey good

Mattea, Sierra and Nella cooking up their own

Aayla hoping to get more ooey gooey gooness

Nella likes em uncooked best...but the stick makes it more yummy

The house from the backyard before the new windows

Ed and Ian putting up the gutters...
missed this photo in the last post

Nella making a peg fairy

Aayla drawing on her peg fairy face

Sierra adding some wings

the peg fairy family grows

Sierra and Mattea with their fairy family

The fairy family

Proud of their creations

Nella playing with her fairy

Nella and Aayla's fairies move into a tree stump home

Everyone moves in :)

And of course there had to be time for gathering of acorns and pinecones from the yard for some yummy mud pie play

We've enjoyed lots of visits from family and friends...

Cameron and Aayla head down to the river

Aayla gets a ride back up the stairs

raking leaves and pine needles

Lucas feeds the fire

yeah for shoulder rides!

And we celebrated Aayla's 5th birthday amid the construction

Dancing in the leaves with Liz

we even let Andrew and meadow have a break :)

Jay and Liz enjoying a dance in the backyard

We've even enjoyed some beautiful rainbows, herons and watching the baby deer in the nature preserve right across the river from us...life is good...hectic...but good!

Wasaga Beach flip...yeah right!

As we settle into our new home in Barrie we bought a cottage to renovate and flip.

The view from dining room to kitchen

The view from the kitchen to the dining room

The view from the living room to the kitchen and dinning area

The living room from the dinning room

The only bathroom

1 of 3 bedrooms

2nd bedroom

3rd bedroom

Full but unfinished  basement

View of the basement from the other direction.

Our plan...to renovate this 3 season cottage to a year round home and sell it in the spring. It's about 1000 sq' up and the same down. It's really outdated but the bones of the building are really good and we see alot of potential in it.

But....

The best plans in life sometimes are unplanned...

After working on this cottage for only 2 weekends we decided we had to move here. Although our place in Barrie was in a great neighbourhood with amazing neighbours it just didn't feel right.

This...

Just feels right! And can you blame us??? Who wouldn't want this peacefulness in their backyard?

The view from the living room to the river

So we moved the camper here and are living in it while we renovate.

Here is some of our progress...

The hallway view with the paneling all down 

Changing the hallway a bit to enlarge the master bedroom
to accommodate our bedroom set

Ed helping to remove the wall between the 2nd and 3rd bedroom
to create 1 larger master bedroom with a walk in closet

Bye bye wall

Wall be gone :)

The expanded bedroom

The kitchen with the cupboards gone

The beginning of the removal of the fireplace...

Down comes the fireplace. It just took up too much room
and was so awkwardly placed in the room.

Don't worry we are saving the bricks to reuse outside...
so let the chipping begin

After many hours of chipping the clean brick pile starts to add up

The chimney is down and the roof gets repaired

Ian fixing the roof

New gutters go on

Andrew takes advantage of a beautiful fall day to dig out
the base for the cement slab for the hot tub

Meadow helps to wheel away the excess dirt

Sierra tries her luck at moving a full wheel barrow

Finding grubs

Picking out small cement rubble to add to the new slab base

Sierra and Charlie breaking up the scrap cement pieces

Almost ready to pour the slab

Adding vents to the attic

Upgrading the insulation

Aayla helping to pull nails from the paneling befor the vapour barrier goes up

My dad helping to remove the old ceiling slats
after all the tile was removed

New pot lights for the bedroom and the living/kitchen area

Mark chipping up the tiles that were infront of the fireplace

New header above basement windows for new bigger windows

Windows arrive

Making room for the new windows in the basement

All new windows and patio door but the glass didn't come in for
the big picture window so we have to wait for that one.

Insulation done, vapour barrier up in kitchen/living area

Sierra enjoying the balance beam :)

The basement is gutted

The exterior walls get a make over

Electric baseboards disappear and a new furnace
and ducting goes in

And last but not least new drywall is on it's way up in the kitchen.

So as you can see we've been busy!!! It's getting cold here at night and we are looking forward of moving out of the trailer and into our new home and thanks to all our friends and family who have been helping when ever they can...we will be moving in soon!

With our decision to move here we changed our plans a bit. While we have been searching for land to build our earthship we decided that the land we want is too far away from friends and family...leaving us isolated. With our plans to travel most winters...it will leave us isolated from friends and family. So we decided to move to Wasaga so we are close to friends and family and we will look for land in the states to build our earthship and live there in the winter...that way we get the best of both worlds (funny how the best laid out plans evolve).

We are really looking forward to getting into our new home, to the down size, to getting back to the basics and enjoying our little gem and it's natural surroundings.