It's all about holes

Over the past few months, we've been busy filling holes!  In our bedroom we filled a hole where a stove pipe had at one time served a stove in what was the schoolroom (the addition at the back of the house).

In our bathroom the wind whistled through the holes in the bare brick wall!  Brrr!!!  This bathroom/entryway is also an addition, and this wall was an outside wall before the1940s.  The part behind the mirror has a chimney space which backs onto the current kitchen; this chimney now works great for the range hood fan but the holes were very drafty!  Foam insulation solved the problem but the brick, handmade red stretcher brick, is crumbling and needs some kind of gentle sealer to preserve and keep the brick from turning into dust!  

This hole is a mystery!  It's in one of our rooms and probably was created when the forced air ducts were installed or the electrical was updated.  What to do with a huge hole in antique pine flooring?  Well, we found a floor grill at an antique market and screwed it down, removing any danger!  

And here's a neat find!  Our red parlour/dining room was a light green!  This would certainly have been a  brighter room, and still stayed with the Victorian decor.  Instead of going with the masculine red for the parlour, this would have embraced the feminine dining room with a gentle color.  In the meantime, this hole needs some putty and a dab of paint!

Dodged a bullet

So this red building in the downtown core is going to be demolished.  According to the local paper, the owners asked for and received a permit to demolish it after discovering extensive rot from water and termite damage.  They were planning to restore the building and open it as a tea house but ran into these insurmountable issues... Funny thing is, Mom and I were looking at this house last summer and wondering if we could open a doggy bakery or other little shop here.  The upper floor is where the owners could live and there's a yard.  For some reason, after contacting the realtor, we never followed up... PHEW!!!  What a disaster that would have been!!!  

(Note the adorable critter clinging to the light pole?  That's an escapee from Tim Murton's Twilight Zoo!)

Update, March 30th:  The old red building is now entirely gone, there's a huge hole where it was once, and this is a visual of the building that soon will replace it:  The Secret Garden Tea House!

A sense of place

I found these two books at the public library (libraries are wonder-filled!) and found them both to offer interesting things to say about living along a racing river.  Almost every day I walk along the Irvine River gurgling, whirling and dancing at the bottom of the Gorge and it's always beautiful, and somehow mind-quieting. In "A Living River by the Door", Sylvia Galbraith writes, "The act of looking at flowing water provokes instant revery and remove from one's day.  The river water in perpetual departure exerts a relentless tug on the spirit, and instills a constant, if veiled, awareness that over the horizon on all sides lie the vast freshwater lakes that define this countryside, and the imaginative landscape of all living here."  I only partial agree, but it started me thinking about my relationship to the River.  I think the constant arriving and departing of the water creates a very deep sense of "here" and "right now".  I'm not inspired to think about where the water has been or where it's going, or a need to dream about elsewhere, I feel my feet become very rooted to the spot, not letting the flow take me away from a strong attachment and awareness of where I am.

  

Living in such a natural area is easy on the senses and the soul.  I hope to cultivate this appreciation and never take it for granted!

My Christmas present

Perhaps you've experienced this:  when you move into a new home, you want to make it yours.  Especially in the spaces where you'll spend the most time you want to make it as cozy as possible, suiting your particular tastes.  So, for my Christmas present I wished for paint.  Yup, paint.  Since it was approaching Christmas and we hadn't yet set up our living room, I wanted to have it painted before we unpacked all the fragiles, hung pictures, etc... and Mom agreed.  Our living room (as opposed to the guests' living room/parlour) was painted a brown/green color, what I snarkily referred to as an army camouflage, which made the whole room seem darker and smaller than it actually was.  We picked something called "Touch of Midas" and hired a painter as we dreaded the ceiling and, like magic, went from this:  

varnish splattered on the baseboards

 and over-painted

and this dark color... to this:

stripes!

No, this was just after the first coats.  

What a change!  

 Eventually we had eternal sunshine:

The new color has just a little bit of orange in it that picks up the color in the pine floor and now it's a room where I look forward to sitting in my comfy chair, basking in the light and reading a good book... someday!  Maybe soon!

I have to say that our painter Ryley Wright did a lovely job, working around our B&B schedule and making the entire process pretty painless.  Thank you, Ryley!

Google us!

Check out our Google+ page:  https://plus.google.com/110164117182044297585/about.  How's that for neat!?  I have to thank Teresa Renee of Designed to Connect for an excellent session called "How to Get Found on Google", hosted by Wellington-Waterloo Community Futures.  I took the session on December 9th and I'm so happy I did:  not only did Teresa show us how Google operates and how to create a presence on Google, but details on keywords and analytics... Search Engine Optimization golden nuggets! 
  And if you're wondering about the gorgeous root photo, these amazing trees are in the Elora Gorge Conservation Area.  

We're also on Tripadvisor!  If you stayed with us, please do leave a review... You know how important they are and we'd really appreciate it.

rise and set

There's something magical about yeast... you take these wee granules and set them in warm milk and sugar and they come alive!!!  And grow and grow and grow... sometimes to frightening proportions!  It's so very much fun, I love baking with yeast!  











Here's the finished treat:  German streuselkuchen!  If you come and stay at the Flying Leap, you might just get to enjoy some!  



And just as the yeast did rise so the sun did set, a magnificent ever-changing spectacle!  The sunset grew in intensity as I was returning home with Willow from a walk and this photo was taken from our front lawn... Wow!  All my favorite colours!

Creature Comfort

Finally we have good photos of our Creature Comfort room to share, and they're up on our website!  Presenting our biggest and most luxurious room!  

A king bed with a beautiful art nouveau butterfly headboard is just waiting for you to flop down onto the pillow-top mattress.  (Thank you, Lorna, for the perfect lamps, and we wish you an enjoyable retirement although we'll miss Naomi's elegance in the down town core.)

Why not curl up with a good book in our softly padded chairs and enjoy the light coming in through these huge bay windows, or sip tea while you watch the world go by...

And then there's the bathroom, how's this for decadent?  Two pedestal sinks, a glass shower stall and an antique refinished claw-foot bathtub, all for you to enjoy!  It really can't get too much better than this, I think.