Hello folks!

Well, we've had a busy day. But first, a bit of history.

Jill is staying with Dave and Paula, two farrier friends of hers in Saskatchewan. She's having a marvelous time out there. Dave and Paula were here last week for a Farrier competition but they were also here because they have two rental properties in Hope. One of their tenants was moving out so they were needed here to check up on the place. While Jill lived here at home, she was hired by Dave and Paula to check on the houses every so often, just to be sure they were still standing.

Anyway, Paula mentioned to me that they had a little house in Hope that was for rent "The cottage" she called it. That perked my interest and I asked a few questions while trying not to be nosey - rent, square feet, yard, etc. I went home from that supper (we were chowing down at mom and dad's) and called Jill immediately to ask her opinion of the house. Jill said it would be perfect for me! I called Dave the next day to ask him about the house. He was so stunned he didn't have any words for me besides "yes" and "no". He eventually suggested that he and Paula take me up there to have a look. And gosh, folks, I fell in love.

Here's the floor plan. Ignore the little numbers - they correspond to pictures other then the ones I posted here.

Unfortunately for me, there's quite a hike between this little house and downtown Hope. Its technically in Silver Creek which is just so darn pretty and mountainy! Downtown is about 3km from the house and I could handle that if it was a flat 3km but there's a very, very big hill between me and Hope. I could deal with that in the summer but not the winter when its covered in snow and ice (Jess, Jill's bff in Hope, said that particular hill is nasty in the winter to walk because there's no shoulder to walk on - it gets piled high with snow). So that was the dealbreaker for me.

I'm still in love with the house. Dave and Paula have asked me, Mom and Dad to clean it up (it was a bit of a disaster when we arrived). So today the three of us spent a full day cleaning, scrubbing, washing, etc. The entire house (all 500-700 square feet) got a wash with TSP! The last lady lived there for three years and she smoked inside all year round... so needless to say, everything needed a good scrubbing. It could probably handle another half dozen scrubbings but Dave and Paula have someone interested in renting it sooner rather than later. They let me pick out the paint for the house too, which was very nice of them! I picked a butter yellow for all the walls and a wind-swept blue for the cabinets and trim (darker then a sky blue with more grey).

Tomorrow we're going to paint the ceilings. Dad wants to get two coats on it tomorrow afternoon. The only thing we didn't scrub today was the stove/oven... so tomorrow we're also going to pull out the stove and wash behind it.

Just think! I could have gone from a green toilet to a pink one! ha ha. The bathroom is teeny tiny. You kinda have to scoot in sideways between the hotwater tank and the bathroom sink. The shower was disgusting. We thought it was rust but mom scrubbed it with some TSP and other bathroom cleaners... turns out it was algae! GROSS!

The fridge is now in the back room (just off the kitchen, to the right on this picture) and it lets in so much more light to the kitchen and living room (I was standing in the livingroom while taking this picture). Mom brought all the curtains home to give them a good wash. They were pretty nasty.

The living room is quite dark as there's only one window. We put in a regular bulb (instead of those energy-saving ones that give us headaches) and it sure made a difference. Also helped by the scrubbing I gave all the windows!

Dad powerwashed the outside of the 'cottage' and took a huge load of garbage to the dump. There was enough in that one small yard to fill his truck up above the sides of the box! Dad made a few friends at the dump too... mind you, dad makes friends everywhere he goes!

Mom and I scrubbed the cabinets and peeled off the wallpaper decals. They were quite ugly!

Me, getting more wash water. That TSP stuff likely isn't good for the environment but it sure works like a hot damn to scrub away years of tabacco smoke and gross-ness.

Dad did all of the yard work today. He went great guns on the piles of garbage and then pressure washed the house. If its dry again tomorrow, dad's going to mow the law, too.

The white in this picture is the part mom washed with the TSP water and the beige in the middle is the unwashed part! gross!

I'll take more pictures as we continue our clean-up and will post them here.

Talk to you soon!