When The Bough Breaks…

Posted on 22 December 2013 by boomanor

All of the weather forecasters were clear and unequivocal: We were getting an ice storm, and it wasn’t going to be pretty.

This was, in our view, moderately problematic. Dianne and I had arranged to have a potluck dinner with friends in Toronto. Dishes were being made, wines were being paired, and excitement was brewing. All we had to do was get to Toronto. And all our friends had to do was navigate the City to where we were all assembling. Really, how hard could that be?

The ice storm cometh…

Based upon the weather forecasts, it might be very hard indeed. We were already at the point where, if we went, we would be taking the train. My car was still downtown after finally getting winter tires installed, so there wouldn’t be a problem travelling home. We just had to get there from here. Of course, trains are relatively straightforward; it would also depend upon whether or not our friends could travel as well. That might be a different challenge.

We left it with an advisory that we were ‘monitoring the situation’ and would make a call in the morning. And so all at Boo Manor went to sleep as winter’s icy tendrils clenched much of Ontario in their frigid clutches.

Waking the next morning, I tried to figure out what was going on. You would think that would be easy in this day of universal internet connectivity, but not so much. For starters, our internet was down; not a good initial sign. And it was Sunday, and the media outlets weren’t jumping on the situation to let everyone know where things stood. It vacillated between ‘might be OK’ and ‘looking pretty tenuous out there’, with no really definitive suggestion of what to do. Finally, with reports coming in of streetcars in Toronto pulled off the roads and downed trees in the city, I figured that discretion was the better part of valour.

An ominous looking break. What damage would be revealed on closer inspection?

I had only just pressed [send] on an email, suggesting that we postpone our dinner, while delighting in how well Boo Manor had weathered the storm, when I heard an almighty ‘whumph’. My initial thought was that a load of snow had slid off the roof with all of the rain. Looking out the kitchen window, however, revealed a much more immediate cause of concern: our giant spruce had lost a massive limb. Apparently it had succumbed to the weight of the ice, and had simply snapped.

That is one massive tree branch. Thousands of pounds and close to 40 feet long.

The ‘humph’ was loud enough to wake Dianne. We both were concerned about the house and the tree, so I quickly pulled on jacket and boots to head out and inspect the damage. My first look was not pretty; the limb that fell off was about two feet across at the base, and nearly forty feet long. It had basically fallen in the direction of the kitchen, home to a number of Boo Manor’s essential services.

Incredibly, for what it looks like, nothing was damaged. Falling by design.

Incredibly, though, the tree—in deciding where to drop its forlorn limb—managed to choose a location that, by mere inches, avoided any real damage. Thousands of pounds of wood plunged to earth, and yet left the kitchen, the dining room porch, the main porch, the driveway, the wellhead and a decorative polar bear surprisingly unscathed.

A bit of snow scraped off the roof, a bent eavestrough, and some inappropriately placed sprigs of spruce.

The branches had struck three roofs on the way down, but each appeared to have only experienced a glancing blow. The eavestrough on one roof was bent, and was twisted on another. Pine boughs stuck out at odd angles from the eaves, and snow was scraped off. But apart from a rebuild of one eavestrough, and the need to inspect the shakes on the roofs that were hit, the rest of the house was untouched. You couldn’t drop that branch any better if you had planned it.

Given that we were no longer going anywhere, there was nothing for it but to settle in for a cozy day in the country. I lit a fire in the hearth, made my second coffee, and settled in for a protracted read. Calls were out to contractors, I had already talked to our landscaper about getting an arborist in, and there was nothing else to be done but let Mother Nature take her course.

I didn’t really want to do any washing today, anyway.

And a fine thing that we did. One friend’s front door is frozen shut, and the chain has come off the garage door opener. Another friend has been without power since approximately 2am, their potluck contribution of fish now of questionable ingestability. More than 250,000 houses in Toronto are currently without power, and some may not be restored until Christmas day.

Boo Manor channelling ‘The Shining’ a little too closely… “You’re not going anywhere.”

In this particular instance, Mother Nature’s hint is not overly subtle: stay home.

Decorating For Christmas (Part 1)

Posted on 30 November 2013 by boomanor

We seem to be just rocketing from holiday to holiday here. In between, there has been travel, work, and the eviction of squirrels. But the holidays seem to be the big landmarks marking the year.

This will be our first Christmas in the new place. So we will need to spend some time figuring out what it takes to decorate it appropriately. Given the quantity of decorations that we’ve accumulated over the years, you would think we would be well supplied. And yet, with the size of Boo Manor, I’m not entirely sure.

We used to think these were alot of Christmas decorations. Now we’re not so sure.

The Christmas decorations had been stored in the garage crawl space when we lived in Edmonton. Which meant, when it came time to pack the house, out of sight meant out of mind. We both remembered them just as we watched the moving truck drive off in the distance. So, on a subsequent trip to Edmonton, I proceeded to pack them up and ship them eastwards by bus. From there, they were stored in the crawl space above Dianne’s brother’s garage. Where they have stayed until now.

A major stash of lights, courtesy of last year’s post-Christmas sales.

We also took advantage of post-holiday sales last year to stock up on strings of Christmas lights. Meaning, specifically, that we bagged about 24 strings of lights from Walmart for a ridiculously small amount of money.

Today, it’s time to start decorating Boo Manor for the holidays. We’re starting off simply, and we’ll build up from there. But for now, we’ve chosen to decorate the old gate post at the driveway, the porch framing the dining room doorway and the main entrance way to the house. And we have polar bears. Because, well, bears.

The decorating starts easily, courtesy of pre-installed hooks.

You would think that a house the scale of Boo Manor would have plugs outside to deal with this sort of thing. And yet, you would be wrong. Of course, they didn’t actually do Christmas lights back when the house was originally built, but you would figure that someone had installed some exterior plugs in the intervening century or so. Sadly, this was not to be. Fortunately, we had the presence of mind to get an outlet wired during the renovations. So we have one electrical plug. Only one, mind you, but one will have to do for now.

Thirty-one new hooks later, and the dining room porch is starting to look pretty damned festive as well.

There were hooks in place around the main door to hang lights, although for the life of me I do not know how they were plugged in. But that at least made one task a little easier. And the polar bears, once assembled, were easily placed on the lawn. The gate post was wrapped. And that only left the dining room porch to illuminate. There is nothing quite so mind-numbing (or finger-numbing) as screwing thirty-one hooks in place, but fortunately you only have to do it once. And the results are pretty spectacular.

Welcome to Boo Manor. Friendly to bears and lovers of the holidays.

We still have a few more decorations to take care of outside, particularly an exterior tree, but we’ve made a good start. Boo Manor is starting to look festive.

Hallowe’en At Boo Manor

Posted on 31 October 2013 by boomanor

Dianne adores Hallowe’en. It is, quite possibly, her favourite holiday. Or at least, a close second; Christmas arguably edges it out for first place. Whether this is because of pumpkins, costumes or leftover candy, I am not entirely sure. But she enjoys it enormously nonetheless.

Preparing for Hallowe’en, however, we had no idea what to expect. We have now moved to a small town, that has—at best guess—about a thousand residents. We live on the edge of town. Actually, we live beyond the edge of town. While there are several clusters of houses across about four developments, we live near none of them. Head out of town, across the river, past the cul-de-sac of about a dozen houses, and then you come to us. There is one more house, the golf course, and farmers’ fields beyond that.

So how many trick-or-treaters is it reasonable to expect? If I apply the calculus that I employed as a small child, I wouldn’t darken our doors. Why take the time to go all the way to the spooky old house on the edge of town, when there are so very many more houses, all built together, in the subdivisions? At the same time, it’s Hallowe’en. And we have a spooky old house. What’s not to like about that?

This year’s theme: A Clockwork Pumpkin

With no understanding of what to expect, therefore, I stocked up as best I could. Meaning I bought about five boxes of chocolate bars, for a sum total of about 132 pieces. That way we would be at least prepared, regardless of what happened. Worse comes to worse, you start giving out three or four pieces per child (which is the other part of candy-collecting-calculus that really needs to be factored in, if you’re a kid).

Pumpkins were carved, candles were lit, candies were waiting, and we waited. And waited. And waited. After a couple of hours, a car appeared in the driveway, with Keelan, Sarah and Wyatt, their boy. Our first trick-or-treater! They were making the rounds of friends and family, and so didn’t stay long, but we were thrilled they made the effort to come out and see us. And give that a) Wyatt was a known quantity, and b) he was our first trick-or-treater, he scored pretty well in the candy department.

From there, we set to wait once more. And wait. And wait. And wait. It turns out that not only was Wyatt our first trick-or-treater, he was also our last trick-or-treater. Or, if you prefer, our only one.

Sadly, Hallowe’en was a bit of a let down. Although it was also a total win in the left-over-candy department.

Thanksgiving At Boo Manor

Posted on 14 October 2013 by boomanor

October rolled on surprisingly quickly, leaving us on the verge of our very first Thanksgiving in Boo Manor. Of course, this requires food. And wine. And food. And did I mention pumpkin pie?

Three pie pumpkins await their fate. The knife is admittedly gratuitous.

Some years ago, when we last lived in Ontario, Dianne and I had been out in Bayfield for a long weekend, and driving back through Seaforth we passed a little kid selling pumpkins. Pie pumpkins. Wee, little bundles of orange goodness. It was an enjoyable experience pulling over in a (rented) Lincoln Town Car, popping the trunk, giving him a couple of twenties and saying “We’ll take the lot.” The look on his face was priceless. And we had a lot of pumpkin that year. In fact, it lasted for about two years, if I’m completely honest.

Pie remnants. Or, if you prefer, the pre-measured makings of eight pies.

This year, I’m pleased to say that I’ve learned restraint. Well, sort of. Out for groceries, I stopped at the Woodstock farmers market for some baking pumpkin, and picked up three of them. Which seemed entirely reasonable and manageable. Except either the pumpkins have grown, or I’m not remembering well how much a pie pumpkin actually produces.

This used to be a rosemary bush. Well, it still is a rosemary bush, if you want to be technical about it.

Now, if you’re wondering how to actually do this, it’s achingly, brainlessly simple to do. Take a pie pumpkin, wrench off the stem, cleave it in half and scoop out the stringy pulp and seeds (an ice cream scoop works best for this, in my humble opinion). Place the two halves face down on a cookie sheet, and roast in a 350˚ oven for about an hour (or until it gets ridiculously soft and gooey and the skin is starting to brown). Scoop out the remaining pulp (or alternatively peal away the skin; same net effect) and puree it in a food processor. Bam. Fresh, homemade pumpkin. Which beats canned pumpkin hands down, in part because canned pumpkin is usually actually some form of squash.

When dismembered, it yielded a surprisingly small—yet adequate—supply of rosemary.

Anyway, the net result was that my three pumpkins gave up sufficient yummy goodness to make eight pies (which I subsequently put pre-measured in small freezer bags and, well, froze; it last nearly forever).

Donald and Dianne tackle veggies and smashed taters.

Thanksgiving, of course, also involves turkey. And, at least the way I do it, this also involves a stupid amount of herbs. Particularly sage and rosemary. Having been to dinner at my mother’s in Guelph just before Thanksgiving, she mentioned that she was actually getting ready to replace her rosemary plant, so I should help myself. Doing what any self-respecting chef would do, i essentially took the whole plant. This looked fairly impressive at first blush, but actually reduced down to a surprisingly small amount of actually usable rosemary. But it was enough, and that was what counted.

All too delighted to know that Thansgiving dinner is imminent.

For Thankgiving itself, most of our family and friends were away or otherwise committed to other events, so we found ourselves in a smaller group that we might otherwise welcome. But we were more than happy to have Dianne’s brother, Donald, join us for the day. He and Dianne set themselves to making smashed potatoes and veggies, and I took on stuffing, turkey and gravy. Between us, we produced a pretty damned impressive feast. Although it is always astounding how long it takes to prepare, and how amazingly quickly the meal disappears.

The turkey, she is done. And looking scrumptiously moist and well cooked.

But it was a yummy meal. With family. In our home. And that is what really counts.

The table is set. Let the feasting begin. It will be over surprisingly quickly.

A Busy Boo Manor Summer

Posted on 30 September 2013 by boomanor

Updates have admittedly fallen off since we’ve taken possession of Boo Manor. Not that there aren’t any number of update-worthy topics to discuss. Maintaining a 140-year-old house takes work, and effort, and money. Not to mention patience, tolerance and persistence.

There have been any number of challenges that we’ve had to deal with since taking possession. I’ve already written about the rebuilding of the ducting in the basement of the old house to accommodate the ridiculously over-powered furnace. And replacing the air conditioner. While those were the first major undertakings, they certainly weren’t the last.

Since then, challenges have lurched outside. A significant and enduring issue has been the pool. By the time we opened it, it was a green, seething, algaeous mess. While we finally got the water to clear, we never—despite our best efforts—got rid of the scale on the bottom. Theoretically, this is easy; you just have to make the pool less alkaline (by adding acid) and the scale should just disappear over a few days of diligent brushing.

Of course, this would be far easier if there wasn’t a leak in the pool, losing water at the rate of something like 1/4″ per day. Which is, in case you were wondering, a lot. In fact, it’s an exceptional amount. Which requires replenishing on a regular basis. This, sadly, increases the alkalinity, thereby perpetuating the scale problem.

After a summer of one-step-forward-two-steps-back pool remediation, I finally found someone to actually work with me to solve the problems. This involved first repairing the pump (again) after the pool spectacularly lost three inches of water in two days (so a bit of a surge), resulting in the pump melting the feeder pipes and no longer behaving in a pump-like fashion. From there, we were able to locate the leaks (two great big gaping wounds in the liner; obvious once you knew where to look, but awfully difficult to find prior).

Of course, by the time all this occurred, we were well into September, and things were a little chilly. So when the pool guy looked at me and asked “who’s going swimming to fix this, you or me?” I was really hoping it would be him. For interests of expedience (he didn’t have his wetsuit with him) and cost, I went swimming. It was a wee bit frosty, and some shrinkage may have occurred. However, finally, we have a leak-free pool. A closed leak-free pool.

Next year we will tackle the scale once more, and hopefully move forward a little more constructively. At least as far as the pool goes. I’m sure there will be other maintenance challenges in the meantime.

Canada Day at Boo Manor!

Posted on 30 June 2013 by boomanor

We finally moved in to Boo Manor at the end of May. Although, truth be told, I have yet to spend as many nights in Boo Manor as I have spent away. But I’m working on it.

Our first holiday weekend (that didn’t involve moving cats, clothes and foodstuffs) was this past weekend. Apparently, Canada Day is a big deal in Innerkip. Certainly the local events calendar would imply as much: parade, beer gardens, slow-pitch tournament, a firefighters’ breakfast and a soap box derby, to name but a few of the events on the weekend calendar. You can pretty much be busy from the time you wake to well past the time that you should have been in bed.

The long weekend was also the first weekend in a good long while for Dianne and I to just stop and unwind. Which meant that by 9:00am on Saturday morning, we had done very little indeed. I was having coffee, the cats were fed, and it was as yet unclear whether Dianne was even a wake. A few minutes later, however, the phone rang; Gene was inviting us over to watch the parade from their place. When did it start? “10:00am.” And how late can we actually get through and be able to park in their driveway? “Oh… around 5 minutes to 10 should be fine, but if you’re later you can probably just tell the cop blocking the road that you’re going to that driveway right there.”

Five minutes before the parade. The main drag is still astonishingly quiet.

Dianne went from zero to caffeinated with remarkable speed, and we were actually out the door at about 9:45am. Which had us pulling in Gene’s driveway at about 9:47am. It really doesn’t take long to get anywhere in this town. We were, in fact, the first ones to arrive.

It’s time to get this party started.

For a 10:00am parade, things were awfully laid back. People started drifting to the roadway to take up a viewing position a few minutes before the hour. The OPP officer that was there to block traffic finally pulled up to the side of the road about 2 minutes to 10:00am. And sure enough, at 10:01 am, he pulled out across the road to block traffic for the duration of the parade.

An entirely creative maple leaf, made of vegetable boxes.

The parade was a delightful mix of floats, vehicles, marchers, bicycles, firetrucks, tractors and just about anything else that you could imagine wheeling or walking down the main thoroughfare. I’m not entirely sure what the criteria are to march in the parade, but I imagine they are fairly liberal. There were ancient tractors spewing exhaust. Antique cars ferrying local MPs. Local folk driving their hotrods and pickups. Kids on bicycles. Floats that ranged from the amusingly hilarious to the hilariously amusing.

He’s going to be awfully tired by the end of the parade, I fear.

Impressively, Innerkip has a bagpipe and drum corps.

The local bagpipe and drum corps. With kilts and aviator shades.

We also saw Oxford County’s Queen of the Furrow (aboard a tractor advertising the Oxford County Plowmen’s upcoming plowing match in July). And a local farm had very creatively assembled a giant maple leaf out of vegetable boxes.

The Queen of the Furrow. That would be a farming reference, just to be clear.

The highlight for many of the kids along the route was the firetruck that came at the end of the parade. The local fire brigade’s pumper, it featured a member of the volunteer fire department wielding a very active fire hose. Many of the local children gleefully went out of their way to get as completely and utterly soaked as possible, and within minutes looked like drowned rats—ecstatic drowned rats that were eager for more.

A firehose, an mused fireman and eager children. What could possibly go wrong?

A little while later, and the parade receded into the distance, wet pavement and the odd popsicle left in its wake. It was a pretty awesome welcome to the local community, and a hilarious way to start the weekend. Innerkip may be small, but it has a massive amount of community spirit, and it isn’t afraid to show it.

And that about wraps it up for another year. The parade recedes in the distance.

And We Have A Dining Room

Posted on 30 June 2013 by boomanor

The dining room has been an on-going source of uncertainty since we bought Boo Manor. Not that we didn’t know it was a dining room. Just that we weren’t sure what to do with it.

We had the cabinet from the kitchen refinished over the winter, and that would serve as an anchor for the dining room. It had been stained a rich, medium brown and had turned out fabulously. The colour fit the room well, and the cabinet had the weight and stature necessary to hold the room together.

This defined the essence of our problem: the dining room is huge. Probably about 16 feet wide and 20 feet long (and with six-and-a-half doors in it, must to complicate things a little more). Not just any dining room table was going to work here; it would need to be something of stature.

We had a dining room table and chairs, of course. But they were in storage, and had been for nearly two years. We didn’t know the dimensions of the table, all we knew was that it was oak, had four leaves and would not work in its current colouring (it was natural, unstained and far too light for the new dining room). The thinking was to wait and see how it looked in the dining room, and if it was big enough then we would get it refinished as well.

Come moving day, once we were finally reunited with our old table, the answer quickly became clear: there was no way that the table would work. It was almost embarrassingly small, sort of like it was the little kids’ table in the adult dining room. There was no amount of refinishing that would actually make it work.

So began the hunt for a new dining room table. We wanted something with a rustic feel to it, because the house—while formal—was still a farmhouse. The table needed to have presence, and it needed to be big enough not to be swallowed up by the room. Our original thought had been to search out some of the mennonite furniture builders in the area, in that their furniture was of the style we were looking for and we might be able to find something in the size we needed.

As luck would have it, however, during a trip to Toronto we happened to see a television ad for an imminent sale at Stoney Creek Furniture. We’d been there before, and had ordered a couple of chairs and both of our desks from them. They had good furniture, good service, and they were offering 40% off anything on the showroom floor.

And now we have a respectable looking dining room table.

At 8:20am that Saturday morning we walked in their front door. By 8:30am we had found our table. There were really only two prospects, and the first was still too small. The second table we saw, however, was perfect. It had a trestle base, and a hand scraped finish that reflected the rustic feel we were going for. And the chairs were immensely comfortable. Apparently, the table had only come in the previous month; in normal circumstances, it wouldn’t have been on sale. But when you put everything on your showroom floor up for sale, even the new stuff comes under the category of ‘everything’.

A table of substance! No longer the little kids’ table in the big persons’ dining room.

The dining room was one of the last rooms we had to finish. We’re pleased to say that it is looking well finished indeed.

My Mike Holmes Moment

Posted on 26 June 2013 by boomanor

Well, it finally happened. I had a ‘Mike Holmes moment’ of my very own here at Boo Manor.

You know the drill. Mike Holmes descends on a hapless couple in a helpless house that desperately needs fixing. The small problem that started it all soon leads to larger problems, and then the crowbars come out. Rip down a few walls, and the really big problems emerge. Then Mike Holmes manages a sincere look of sympathy for the camera, and says, “I’d better go talk to the homeowners.” That look is always very, very expensive.

Through much of the renovations, we have in fact been very fortunate. Sure there was the infestation of raccoons in the garage, and the rotted corpses they left behind. And there was the 10-foot wide room that managed to have a floor be three inches off level. And wallpaper was discovered under the paint in the dining room—as we started painting—meaning that the wallpaper needed to be removed, the walls needed to be skim coated and the room had to be repainted. But really, in the grand scheme of things, these are the problems you expect to encounter. Or at least, you should.

Finally, however, I found myself in the basement of the old house having a conversation that will sound very, very familiar to frequent viewers of Home & Garden TV. It started when Jason, the furnace guy (and he actually calls himself the furnace guy) was charging up the cooling system for the wine cellar. He had 15 minutes or so on his hands, and happened to hear our nearly-new furnace sounding a little unhappy, and decided to take a look. That’s when all the trouble started.

In the home inspection, this furnace was particularly singled out as being a fine example of the species. Brand new, two stage, with an awesome motor, it should give us years and years of happy service. Or so we were told. And this is not to fault the home inspection; everything that the inspector said was true, and they are generalists—they don’t specifically know everything there is to know about everything, and certainly aren’t experts in all things furnace.

Jason, however, is that guy. And what he saw concerned him. First, there was a cold-air-return grill directly installed on the ductwork leading to the furnace, which is usually an indication that the furnace is struggling to get enough air. A quick check of the ducting revealed that there were a lot of cold air return grills in the house, and many of them were no longer connected. At all. The intake in the furnace was much smaller than specified in the installation manual. Jumpers that should have been cut based upon our installation weren’t. And while the furnace might be appropriately sized if we were heating the entire house, it was entirely overkill in order to heat the half-side of the house it was responsible for. In fact, it was so overpowered that it was sucking the air filter into the motor.

I’ll stop there. It pains me to go on.

The question, then, was what to do about it. And the answer, apparently, was to keep the furnace but get rid of just about everything else. And so, on Monday of this week, Matt and Josh showed up as scheduled with their Tim Horton’s coffees, a boatload of sheet metal and looks of grim determination on their faces. So ensued two days of banging, crashing, hammering, sawing and more hammering, as our previous ductwork disappeared, and new ductwork took its place.

The furnace needed to be raised eight inches to put in an intake for a larger air filter. Two new cold air returns appeared in our floor. Useless cold air returns were covered up, rather than being gaping holes to the basement. Ducting to the outlets was upgraded to six inches. New outlets were created out of old and not-used cold air returns. And the result, two days later, was a magical transformation of the old basement from something scary and slightly hideous to a new, clean, relatively modern-looking heating system.

A few dip switch settings later, and Jason the furnace guy deemed us good to go. Our super-duty furnace had been dumbed down to a much more moderate heating unit, with appropriately sized ducting and sufficient return air for the furnace not to starve.

The moral of this story is that furnaces need to breathe, just like we do. Smother them, and they’re going to desperately try to suck air as well. If you have heating problems, that doesn’t mean that the problem is your furnace, it may be your ducting. A bigger furnace will not solve the problem, and it will likely fail faster because it has to work harder, ironically, to do the same job as a smaller furnace. You need an appropriately-sized appliance for the ducting that you have, and the ducting will tell you how big the appliance will be.

Which is really good to know, because now we’ve been told that the air conditioner in the old house has finally died as well.

Still Here

Posted on 23 June 2013 by boomanor

Wow. Then that happened. And that. And that. And that.

When last you heard from us, we had just finished moving day (part 1), and the repatriation of all of our stuff from storage. Some of which we remembered, some of which we did not, and some of which just plain confused us.

What has past since has been a whirlwind of unpacking, more deliveries, scratching our heads about where things should go, deciding, undeciding, business travel, more unpacking, and trying to find normal on the other side. As you might infer, I’m not sure that we are all the way there yet.

But we are still here, and so is the site. It’s now transitioning, in a way. We built it to share the story of renovating Boo Manor. But now we are in, and getting settled, and there are still lots of stories to be told. So going forward , the site will focus on living in and maintaining a 140 year old house. In a small town. While leading busy(ish) lives. And did I mention maintenance?

Stay tuned.

Moving Day

Posted on 8 May 2013 by boomanor

After several months of excitement and anticipation, and several weeks of frenzied work to finish up the house and prepare it for our arrival, the day we have been working towards is finally here: we are moving in.

On 23 September 2011, all of our furniture and possessions left Edmonton on a truck, most of it bound for a warehouse in Mississauga. There it has sat ever since, as we waited to sell the house, and then find a new one, and then wait for renovations to be completed. Finally, the waiting is over.

The truck rolled up at 9:15am, pretty much right on schedule. Opening the back doors revealed that it was packed, quite literally, to the rafters. There wasn’t an inch left of space unused. In fact, the movers had to be careful opening the doors so that the last pieces placed on the truck didn’t actually fall out.

A full truck A very, very full truck.

Dianne and I had worked out a moving-in plan, based upon our recollection of what was to arrive, and our plans of what would now go where. The challenge was that we were working with recollection. Nearly a year-and-a-half later, we had only a general understanding of what was there. Worse, because we hadn’t actually packed the boxes, we really didn’t know where everything was. The result was a best-efforts basis to get things in rough proximity to where they needed to wind up.

Halfway there. And still a great deal more to come.

The challenge facing us was quickly driven home. A floor lamp came off the back of the truck, one that was clearly ours. It was on the inventory, and it looked like something we would own. At the same time, none of us had any recollection of it actually being ours. Neither of us were entirely sure where it had been in our previous house, and had no clue where it was going in this one. It wasn’t until a half-hour later that one of us finally remembered it having been in the media room.

At the same time, there was furniture that we expected to see that didn’t actually show up. Specifically, we were missing an entire bedroom set. We had given a number of furniture pieces to good friends of ours in Edmonton before we left. While it was entirely plausible that we had given them the guest bedroom furniture, neither of us remembered doing so, and both of us thought the set was on the truck. At the same time, the inventory didn’t show it being loaded in Edmonton. The only thing to do in order to confirm was ask. While apparently we did give the furniture to our friends, and are entirely happy that it has found a good home, there is nothing quite so awkward as asking, “So… stupid question, but… did we give you this furniture?”

Eight hours later, we are in.

Six hours in, and the last box made it off the truck and into the house. A couple more hours, and the furniture that had disassembled was now reassembled. Finally, after long last, we are in. Our furniture has arrived, and we have officially taken possession of Boo Manor. It feels good to have reached this milestone. In the months of construction, there has been a progressive building of excitement. The waiting is over. Almost two years to the day after deciding to leave Edmonton, the journey is nearly over. We have a home.

Home, at last.