The church has new floors! Well, not new exactly, but newly sanded and refinished. Thanks to Serge – a magician with a sander and a lover of dogs – our old church floors have been given a new life. They look spectacular.

We have had a few setbacks. The tiling looks great, but the shower enclosure from Jade Bath was delivered with the wrong doors. Some of you might remember that last year we had a major kerfuffle over the shower pan (which put our bathroom tiling efforts off until the very last moment). I think we essentially finished the tiling of the floor and locked the door for the year. I really hope the new shower doors arrive before we leave (and that they fit with the work already done). I have no Plan B on this one.

On the plus side of our bathroom effort, we have a flushing toilet and a working septic system. I think we can now think about taking up residence next year. No more rental cottages for us. As a brief aside, the cottage we are renting is really quite cozy. It has a full kitchen, apparently endless hot water, and a washer and dryer. In the midst of a construction project, grubbiness is the name of the game. We love being able to wash both ourselves and our clothes. Cooking means we save money and we eat more healthily. Unfortunately, it appears a pair of skunks are living under the house (spotted twice now) so Toby has to be kept on a leash to avoid a real disaster!

But the big news: we have spectacular floors. We totally cleared the place out and in came the floor sanders. Their vacuum cleaner weighed more than two of us put together! Two full days of sanding and then two full days of laying on coat after coat and Voila! We were allowed in after a day (in stocking feet only) and swooned. It is hard to consider putting anything back in, the place looks so beautiful with just the floors. But tomorrow we install the stairway. It arrived just before the floors were underway so it is stashed in the loft waiting for us to put it up.  Quite thrilling.

We really feel good about our progress over the last few weeks. Our neighbors are helping too. In addition to pitching in when our energy flags, they remind us that all work and no play makes for a pretty lousy vacation. So we haven’t been neglecting the beach. Luckily we’ve had great weather and lots of sunshine. (And the warmth helps the floor dry.) A little sunshine coming through the windows has an amazingly uplifting affect – funny that. 😉 Even Toby is getting in the spirit of things by wearing socks until the floor hardens a bit more. What a good dog!