Kitchen Reno: Day Zero

Remember how I mentioned I have old house problems?

One

Well, I'm about to tackle the biggest old problem of them all: a massive kitchen reno! We are tearing the kitchen down to the bones and building it up again from essentially stratch. Our plan includes:

• New windows
• Tearing down an inner wall
• New lighting
• New appliances
• New cabinetry
• New flooring

Literally almost nothing will remain from the original kitchen. When we bought our house, Glosette Girl and I planned to redo the kitchen at some point but "some point" became "now" when we realized just how much time we spend in the kitchen and how "ugh" it currently is.

Two

The main problem is that the room is too dark (think four walls and one small window).  Once we tear down that inner wall light will pour in from two sides and we'll be in kitchen bliss.

Grrr three...

My first job this past weekend was getting the original appliances out of the room. Easier said than done when you have a 30 inch wide refrigerator and a 30.5 inch wide door.  Lucky for me, I am getting rid of the door so with some pushing, shoving and heaving Glosette Girl's brother and I were able to get it out of the house and into my garage.

POP! Four

Thankfully, the fridge still works as I really can't see how I would survive without a fridge. No such luck with the oven though. So for the next two months it's cold meals, microwave meals or BBQ time for us.

Actually I don't think that'll be that bad.  It's when we pull out the kitchen sink that will be the most annoying. I am not looking forward to washing dinners in the tub (note to self: don't mistake kitchen sponges for personal hygiene brushes especially when washing those hard to reach places).

The temporary kitchen!

Will we make it? I will let you know on day 30!

Exploring the East: Near Mer Bleue

Hintonburg is in west Ottawa. And that means most of the shopping and hikes I go on are in the western part of the city. It's true: west, west, and...west! OK, well maybe it's debatable whether Gatineau Park is in the "west" (it starts near the centre and then sortof meanders west) but, generally speaking, my life is in the west.

But this past Earth Day, Glosette Girl, Margot and I decided to shake it up a little. We ventured east to the Mer Bleue area of Ottawa for some trail walking. We used to visit this area a lot when we lived at our old house in Quebec. Now...not so much.

That's too bad as the main Mer Bleue trail is really interesting. It consists of a long boardwalk over a tundra-like bog that is normally found in the arctic. I think there are also cool bug-eating plants in there. But to avoid the crowds, instead of the main trail we tried a lesser known one right nearby, which meanders through a forest.*

It was supposed to just be a Sunday stroll but Margot really got into the Earth-day spirit and decided we should pick up any garbage we found along the way. Picking up garbage wasn't on the agenda so I didn't pack any garbage bags. Luckily for Margot eating was on the agenda and I was mighty hungry so...

No that's not what I meant! GROSS! What I meant to say was that we brought a couple of bags of snacks (M&Ms, nuts, etc.) and we were able to improvise a few garbage bags by eating the food in them first!

Yeesh.

It was slow going as it turned out there was a surprisingly large amount of trash on the trail and Margot wanted to pick it all up.** But no one ever said that saving the planet one M&M and pistachio bag at a time was going to be easy!

The fruits of our impromptu labour

* Starts at the P20 parking lot.

** We had to skip some of the bigger garbage items on the trail as we didn't have anywhere to put them. This caused a mini crisis for Margot as she wanted to pick everything up. She really is an all-or-nothing girl.

Season's End

Glosette Girl has just wrapped up the play she has been directing: The Merchant of Venice. She worked really hard, especially in the last few weeks when she was in rehearsals almost every night.

Scorsese and Kubrik ain't got nothing on you babe.

Margot and I both went to see the grande finale and I think Glosette Girl did a kick butt job. As the play unfolded and some of the (ahem) sexual jokes piled on, it dawned on me that Shakespeare can be a bit risqué play for kids. But Margot took it in stride and doesn't seem any worse for wear. I don't imagine too many kids got started down the wrong path by seeing a Shakespeare play!

So with the play over that means...no more Daddy-Daughter dates (Margot and I normally go while Glosette Girl is in rehearsals). Le sigh! Oh well, our "dates" were fun while they lasted. We will start hopefully them up again next September.

To make our last date extra special instead of our normal hang-out, Stella Luna, we opted for going to the Foolish Chicken, the only real kid-friendly restaurant in Hintonburg.*  

If you're in the area, check it out. It's like a slightly more upmarket Swiss Chalet. I like their fries but Margot, well she is all about their mean Shirley Temples!

Look at that smile! She knows I'm taking a photograph. Le sigh encore. Here is too hopefully a few more Daddy-daughter dates in the fall.

* There are other restaurants in the area but few that are expressly marketed as family-friendly, unlike in the suburbs where most restaurants are chain restaurants.

How Did We Do It?

Hintonburg is a happening place.  It's near funky restaurants. There are nice schools and parks. And there are real amenities here, like grocery stores, that make it a neighbourhood where you can not only play but live. And all without having to have a car. For that reason, it's not surprising that lots of people are looking to move here.

Sometimes as Glosette Girl and I wander around the neighbourhood, we wonder, just how did we pull this off? How were we able to find our home without having to pay an arm and a leg or buying a teardown property and hoping it didn't come down on our heads?

Maybe it's because:

• We live on the side of Gladstone Avenue closest to the Highway cutting through Ottawa. Originally we thought that that meant it would be too loud here and we would always here cars zooming by although, honestly we just hear the regular city ambient noise.
• Sadly, our street, Sherbrooke Avenue has less mature trees than some of the other streets around here.
• We just got lucky.

Honestly, we don't know.

An example of an apartment for sale in the area

Hintonburg wasn't always such a hot spot. About 15-years ago Hintonburg was notorious for prostitution and other crime. Glosette Girl and I moved in in 2016 and by then it was pretty well on the route to gentrification. Still, perhaps because it was (and is) still a little bit rough around the edges (which I like) we were able to buy our current home without having to enter into a crazy bidding war.

New build = costs big bucks

Occasionally, while sipping wine, we take a sneak peak at the local real estate websites to see what is selling these days and already it seems the price of many homes are now out of our league. We then take another sip of wine and count our blessings!

Parks Creek Easter

Even though all my immediate family lives within a roughly 5.5-hour drive of each other (Toronto, GTA, and Ottawa) it still takes effort to find time to see them. It's particularly rare for all of us to spend any significant amount of time under the same roof.

This past Easter though we did just that. My parents, siblings, their spouses, and our children rented out a house and stayed together for the first time in...maybe 3 or 4 years? The place: Parks Creek Retreat, a beautiful place in the town of Roslin, Ontario, which is near the metropolis of Belleville Ontario.

The location was actually almost perfect. First of all, Parks Creek retreat is literally by a bubbling creek called Parks Creek (no false or misleading advertising there!). It's in the Bay of Quinte area, which is almost equi-distant between Ottawa and Toronto. That area isn't really a hot spot for tourism but it has a relaxing charm that is hard not to like.

The weather hovered between zero and seven Celsius degrees the whole time we were there, which was just just warm enough to go for a few walks and watch nature groggily start to wake up.

Being typical Canadians, we didn't let the cold temperature deter us from taking advantage of the retreat's amenities like the three-season room with outdoor living room.

Did you know if you read hard enough you'll raise your core temperature?

We ate, we chatted, we drank and we played.

Not posed. Don't tell the marketing departments of the beer companies.

Oi. Go long. I said LOOOONG!

  And of course the Easter bunny made a guest appearance!

Margot and her cousin A showing off the spoils

Let's be honest, holiday family get-togethers can be fraught with challenges. But at the end of the day you don't remember that. You remember sipping the craft beer sitting on the patio watching your daughter have the time of her life playing frisbee with her cousins in clothes that probably weren't weather-appropriate because dad dressed her and not her mom. Memories!