Jo Edgett

It’s not entirely finished yet; roman blinds have yet to be made, art has yet to be hung, bedside tables have yet to accumulate the detritus common to bedside tables. But we’re in! Sleeping soundly …until the sun blazes in our eyes at 7:30 am. I’ve got to get going on those blinds.

The storage room at the end of the upstairs landing, midway through clearing it in preparation for the reno.

The bedroom, also mid-chaos. I would hate for you to think this was its normal state, but the reno prep mayhem provides a better contrast with the end result.

Bedroom cleared, paint samples up, colour chosen. Paper laid to protect floors. Reno is a go!

First they got down to the plaster, then the lath.

Then they popped the window out to connect a sonotube chute to the big skip parked in the driveway.

It always amazes me just how old our house looks when stripped to her bones.

Check out the lean on that chimney. (It’s capped and unused, for the record.)

The wall between what was the storage room and our bedroom is out, to make way for the walk-in closet.

All plaster gone, it’s now time to straighten the walls and ceiling,

and build a new wall to create a long storage closet on the other side of the room.

Electrics are roughed in, so in goes the Ecobatt insulation to replace all the insulation that wasn’t even there to begin with.

Vapour barrier up. At this point, the room was already improved 100%. Warm, or at least now able to hold heat once the baseboard heater got put back, and quieter than before, if that’s even possible.

A level ceiling!

The storage closet drywall goes up,

as does the drywall in the room.

A new built-in bookcase replaces the door to the old storage room.

The mud-guys did their magical thing.

And Jerry dropped off the headboard B had sketched onto the back of a ripped envelope. B’s original design was good, but Jerry made it amazing.

First look into the walk-in with its newly sanded old floorboards.

The windows get their trim.

And the bookcase is almost compete. Next up were crown mouldings and baseboards, then the clean-up, and then the guys were out. Our electricians put up all the fancy new fixtures, B mounted a new TV to the wall and even ran the wires through the wall, and I primed and painted like a madwoman. The final step before we moved back in was to scrub and finish the floors, which took some effort. So here are the results (I won’t caption anything else, but I will say that the windows and door and bookcase still need their final coats of paint, but we were too anxious to move back in there to wait for all that to be complete):

Honest to Pete, my blogging intentions are admirable even though my execution obviously needs work. I don’t know how people do it with any kind of regularity, unless it’s part of their job description. Nobody is (and nobody should be) paying me to do this, hence its low priority. Don’t take it personally (I sure don’t).

Ah, Christmas! I was touched by how my friend Sophie described Christmas at the Edgett-Johnson’s as being “like Christmas in a box, tied up with a bow.”

All the decorating was done pretty early, to allow for proper focus on making gifts of pomanders and granola, and baking cookies, and engaging in seasonal merriment.

One Saturday at the Winter Farmers’ Market, I found this older Bonhomme ornament in a basket of random Christmas stuff on sale by donation (proceeds to the pool). I was probably disproportionately excited by the find, but what can I say, I love Bonhomme disproportionately. He goes well with my other flea-market-found Bonhomme ornament:

Before the roasting.

And after. I’ve eaten many a better-than-decent turkey in my time, but B, hands down, roasts the best bird.

This year we had the most guests yet, and it was loud and busy and crazy and exactly how I remember Christmas dinner being when mom and dad hosted it at our house on Edgett Road. Oh boy, was Christmas 2010 fun! Little people running around chasing the cat and pausing to bargain for more ribbon candy, adults cheerfully imbibing and grazing and yarn-spinning (but not literally) into the wee smalls, and almost everyone indulging me by wearing the paper hats inside the Christmas crackers.

My first ever pavlova was a short-lived success, but I managed to capture it before the carnage started.

And there’s David almost burning down the house with some flaming-sugar & Absinthe experimentation.

I took only these photos and not a single picture more. They are missing more than half of our guests (sorry guys!), and they are much too dark…but how can I be expected to document something I’m too busy enjoying? And I had a really good time.

Angela made me this great retro-inspired Christmas monkey ornament, and Nadia’s boys sent me this charmer:

I can’t wait for Christmas ’11! Even though B and I will be in NYC, we’ll still get in as much home cheer as we can both before and after the trip.

Photographing cats is hard, especially Rooster. He likes to get too involved.

Monkey is much easier:

I became an official Feeder Watcher over Christmas but so far my only pictorial documenting of this is limited to this sunset. There are birds in there somewhere, I think.

No pics to offer illustration, but New Year’s Eve was another treat of a night with friends. B & I and Jon & Nora headed to Heath Towers (lovely home of The Heaths, David & Sophie) for an Indian Feast. Special rosemary & prosecco cocktails (kudos to Nora), more damn absinthe, some sweet pomegranate drinks, the best samosas I’ve eaten since leaving Vancouver (kudos to Jon), another great curry by David (kudos to David), and delicious chutneys and lemon pickle made by B (kudos to B)…great company in a fantastic dancehall atmosphere = a perfect ringing-in of 2011!

B spotted stray-kitty Clover sitting atop the garden arbour one afternoon. I think she must have been escaping stray-kitty Fiddles, who I’m sorry to report is now a widow (RIP, beloved stray-kitty Faux Rupert!). Fiddles needs a new buddy, but Clover is a loner and she isn’t having it. They fight a lot, and Clover runs up things to escape the non-climbing Fiddles.

She looks like a snow monkey.

I swear, she is the tiniest cat, really small and skinny, but her winter coat is quite impressive.

Up until this past Saturday, this was the state of our bedroom. I’m embarrassed to admit it looks like we’re heading for a starring spot on ‘Hoarders’. This isn’t normal, I promise. I blogged more about bedroom renovations on my other blog (Garden Street Designs), if you’re interested. They start in one week. This is the living room today, full of stuff that will be housed in the new walk-in closet (wooo!):

A very heartfelt thank-you to all our friends who came by to help unload some of our unwanted excess; that helped immensely. Our problem was that we never had that yard-sale we meant to have last summer, so all of the give-aways we had amassed from preparing the house for the ground-floor reno of Fall 2009 (!) had migrated to the guest bedroom. And then in August ’10, with the impending arrival of mom to the guest room, the stuff got shoved into the four corners of our bedroom, where we just ignored it. Until now.

This is where we stand today: a room cleared of everything but the bed, a stepladder, a trunk, a battered Paul Weller poster that B has grudgingly conceded has lived its life to completion, a cat litter box (ugh!) and a couple of dismantled Ikea wardrobes which will be off to their new home later this week (thanks Yaverbaums!!!).

Post-renovation photos will be posted on this blog. You know, eventually.

…look who’s 40! Well, you’ll have to wait until the end of this post to actually see me, but I am the one who is forty. Yay!

This is what it looked like at our place in the universe, days before I crested the age hill. For the record, as I told my friend Erin’s mom Ruby, I plan on enjoying my ride over the hill just as much as I enjoyed the climb. I like getting older, I like being my age, I feel happy to have gotten here.

Unbelievably, I planted these around Mother’s Day, and they survived until my birthday. Those are some hardy pansies.

That’s a big 2 pound box of Purdy’s assorted milk chocolates, courtesy of my brother Jim. They got the birthday party started early in the week.

Now, remember a few months ago, my posts about Norway? Remember how I flew to Trondheim to surprise my best friend of almost 35 years on her fortieth birthday in June? Remember how cool that was, how excited I was, what a great thing it was for both of us?

Yes indeed, that’s Lara, right here in Annapolis Royal. For real!!!!!! She thought it would be fun to come surprise me, her best friend of just over 35 years (this September), on my fortieth. I would love to insert the video she took of me answering the door…and I will post it when I get a copy (hey, Lara!)…but just imagine a lot of shaky camera, a lot of ceiling shots as we hugged, Lara laughing and me trying to catch my breath while hyperventilating, and you’ll get the picture. What an amazing thing, the best birthday gift ever, version 2.0!!!!!!

It’s still hard to believe she was here, staying in the guest room, driving around with me in the torrential, biblical rain, having a girls’ (early) night out at a pub in Halifax, dodging a big wet rat on the rain-darkened streets of the big city, getting up at an ungodly hour to fight through more deluge to get her to the airport on time. It was a crazy, whirling blur of fun! I can’t believe she came, and I really can’t believe that everyone else who knew about it beforehand managed to keep the secret. Great job, everyone!

B asked our neighbour Janet to make my cake, and it was a delicious and gorgeous cake indeed. Those freesias on the top? Handmade with sugar paste by Janet. I know! That she made it while battling potential and actual power outages is all the more impressive.

That blur on the right is B, mad host with the most, here serving chicken vol au vents, and generally ensuring all guests had food and drink in hand.

Look! That’s Lara sitting there in my house at my birthday party! And there’s B with a tray, about to serve his homemade hors d’oeuvres of smoked salmon with dill cream cheese and capers on rye (seriously, the man knows how to throw a party), Lauren talking with Carolyn in the doorway, and Katie braving my atomic brie (you don’t want to see a too-long baked brie…it’s sad, though still delicious). Aside from Lara, of course, Katie and Carolyn & River share the honours of Most Dedicated Partiers, as they hydroplaned for 200 and 100 kilometers respectively, just to help me celebrate. It was colossal, truly torrential, we’re talking 57-year-old record breaking amounts of rain that night.

Side note: not only is Brandon an expert caterer and host, he also spent the evening monitoring water levels in our basement, without anyone (me included) knowing we were at risk of a flood. Thankfully, the rain just rushed right through to the drains like it’s meant to…but it was a close call, and wouldn’t have gone as smoothly without B taking breaks to clear leaves and debris from the outside ditch. I love that guy!

Look! It’s Lara! In my house! Sitting with my friends Erin & Sarah. Yay! (Notice B’s hand, holding a tray, offering them food.)

The other thing B excels at: mingling, making introductions. Here he is with Philip and our neighbours Janet (she of the brilliant cake-making) and her husband Dave.

This is the only photo of me at my party, blowing out my three candles (we didn’t want to wreck the beautiful cake by using the actual amount of candles necessary for this birthday). Notice my dark shoulder, the candlelight reflected in my hair? No? B and I were so overwhelmed, him with work and me with the fact that so many of my friends were here, along with my oldest (you know how I mean that) and dearest friend of all, that we couldn’t be counted on to remember to use the camera. Heck, we couldn’t even remember to use the flash for these few that we did take. It was such a great night, a great birthday. I had the best time, and I really felt the love.

So, ta-da, here I am at 40! This is really for my mom, to show her my new, 5-inches shorter haircut, which I know she wants to see.

Thanks again to everyone reading this who went out of their way to help get this new decade of my life started off just right; I’m lucky to have you people, and I know it!!!