We made our traditional trek up to my brother Gus’s cottage at Lake Rosseau. Last year JT went golfing, this year it snowed!

Sudden snow storm across the lake.

Of course, I am bundled up like a snowman, and the kids barely have a sweater on! It was quite chilly, no really!

A nice afternoon walk. No, we didn’t bump into Martin Short, but I think he was there – his gate was open!

As an add-on to last night’s post: On the front lawn I put out all the decent sized lumber pieces left over from our project (minimum size 3′ maximum size 5′) hoping that someone with a smaller project would pick them up. Well, during cocktails, a guy pulled up in his sedan and did just that; and then he came back and picked up MOST of our lumber from our previous deck!!! I am SO GLAD. Both JT and I had concerns that Billy would have to make several trips (and that just means more $$$$ for us!). I just LOVE that this guy thought our lumber was good enough to reuse (he actually asked if he could and he mentioned he had a cabin up north that he was building, so the lumber was great for him!).

By the way,  it did rain last night.

Trip #6 to The Depot and oh, look…rain!

We only had to build the steps today, so we were done by 11am! Check out the finished Steps:

The Finished Steps

The new view from the living room:

The Room with the View

And finally, the finished deck:

The FInished Deck

Today is Canada Day, therefore everthing is closed (thank goodness we stocked up from The Depot, the LCBO and Metro!).  We got off to a great start and skirted the back of the deck. By 12:30ish we had the arbour up and capped. Lunch was a tasty wrap and a tower of tomatoes and buffalo mozarella….YUM.

Wraps with Tomato and Buffalo Mozerella Tower

Although the weather forecast called for rain, we didn’t get any! YIPEEEEEE. We worked like crazy to get the top box finished for the steps from the living room and by the end of the day, JT was skirting behind the BBQ and I was cleaning up.

The deck is done, but the steps to the patio still need to be done, and you know what that means…Trip #6 to The Depot tomorrow morning!

The Cocktail Lounge Arbour

The Cocktail Lounge

The Reclaimed Dining Area

Cocktails with Hungarian Cheese Sticks (my Aunte Agi’s recipe) will be served promptly at 5:30 on the New, Mother of All Mothers, Cocktail Lounge (furniture is TBD, we will use this in the meantime). Shortly thereafter, dinner will be served de plein air (as they say) in the newly reclaimed dining area! Cheers!

The morning started out to be quite sunny. But clouds did manage to float in and we had a few minor showers, which didn’t stop us from working.

We got most of the uprights put up, ready for the lattice and we got the bottom box made for the steps from the sliding doors off the living room. The we broke for lunch.

Build Day 5 - the rain continues

During lunch, the skies opened up again and poured like there was no tomorrow. We decided to make our 5th trip to The Depot to pick up a few things. My bet was 4 JTs 5.

By the time we got home it was after 2pm and still raining, so we had to call it a day because tonight we are picking up our new Diesel Jetta and trading in the poor old buglette. Unfortunately, it is directly in cocktail hour. Cheers, anyway!

The New Diesel Jetta

The New Diesel Jetta

Paul and T are on vacation and they are in Hawaii. What the heck was I thinking that on MY vacation I would build a deck? There is not one muscle in my whole entire being that is not screeming and writhing with pain. Hawaii? Pain? Hawaii? Pain? Oh ma goh!

Today we got off to another good start: Trip #4 to The Depot. We ran out of screws (we have already used 300 and need another 300, or so!) and step stringers. Thank goodness for the drill with a screwdriver bit, otherwise I think I would have thrown myself onto a large sword by now!

We got on a roll and finished the decking by 1pm, at which time, we broke for lunch. During lunch loud, cracking thunder. I look up and the skies are black. We ran to get everthing in the garage, but just before I was able to grab the tray of food, the skies opened up and buckets of water poured down. Rain like no other. Then hail. It lasted about 10 minutes and then petered out to a light rain.

Sunny One Minute to Teaming Rain the Next

It rained pretty much the entire afternoon, but we managed to skirt the deck and get the stringers strung. Lowes sent the wrong deck boards for the steps so, guess what? Yep, another trip to The Depot!

Day 4 Deck Skirt

We’re also trying to figure out the steps from the sliding doors; they will be very tricky because the gas line for the BBQ comes our directly where the first step up is. We’ll figure it out. Here is a rendering.

Concept for Steps from Sliding Doors

And it’s that time of the afternoon again, yes, it is cocktail hour. Cheers!

Build Day 2 Weather

We started off OK at 9ish, but very overcast. We made a rookie error which cost about an hour and $20 but really 5.5 hours because it started teaming rain! And, of course, Trip #3 to Home Depot.

Mother Nature Hates Us

Rain, rain and more rain. At around 2:30 the rain stopped and we immediately got back into it.

We did well, but time, energy and screws ran out (the wood kind, get your mind out of the gutter). Here is our progress today:

6:30pm Progress

Weather permitting, we should be able to have cocktails on the new deck tomorrow! Cheers!

I am just getting too old for this type of sillyness! OHHHH my aching back.

To say Build Day 2 got off to a slow start is an understatement. Not for a lack to trying. One challenge after another. I won’t bore you with them, but suffice to say that we made our 2nd run to The Depot by 10am. JT bets 5 by the end of the build, I’m hoping for far less, but we already have the list for the next one (dare I guess 4???)

Here we are at 1pm…see what I mean about slow start?

Build Day 2 at 1pm

We got the old fence post cut (by hand), some more demo, I moved 9 cement blocks into position, blah blah blah blah blah!

But eventually and fortunately, we got on a bit of a roll, and by 5pm we had the base box accomplished (plus dug an extra post for support).

Build Day 2 at 5pm

Hopefully Build Day 3 will be smoother. For some god forsaken reason, both JT and I have this inhumane urge to finish quickly, even though I have the entire week off. Cocktails anyone?

We decided to get as much pre deck work done during the week as possible to allow for concentrated deck building during my time off.

Tuesday June 23 – Demo Day 1 (actually it was evening): Remove overgrown shrubs. Now THAT is manual labour. The root ball of one overgrown evergreen shrub was intensely embedded into the earth. On the plus side, we are quite fortunate that our soil is actually sand so digging isn’t that difficult!

Demo Day 1 - Remove Overgrown Shrubs

Demo Day 1 - Shrub Removal

JT did all of the demo himself during the day. It was horrible mainly because the deck was solidly built, but the temperature was absurd +30°C with high humidity. UGH!

Demo Day 2

Wednesday June 24 – Demo Day 2: I couldn’t believe what difference removing the pickets could make from looking out the living room doors — we could actually see our beautiful garden!

Demo'd

Jt brought the deck down in record time!

Demo Day 3

The space we gained was incredible!

Friday June 26 – Demo Day 4: JT spent removing debree so we would have space to work. That entire pile made its way to the driveway. All the new lumber which was delivered to our side yard on Thursday morning was moved into the garage to keep it safe and dry! Thanks JT, that was not the fun part!

The New Post

Friday June 26 Evening – Build Day 1: Building a deck onto an old house does not come without its challenges. We designed the deck with a large ‘arbour’ covering our neighbour’s brick wall (see photo above). For this we planned to sink four 6″ x 6″ posts (trying to keep consistent with the existing arbour) — no-can-do! It would seem that 3 out of the four existing fence posts are directly, exactly, couldn’t be more exact space where we wanted our new posts. In cement. Did I happen to mention that the existing posts were cemented into the same exact location where we wanted our new posts! UGH! (I may be saying that and perhaps a few choice words over the next week!).

Back to the drawing board, literally! What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I had planned to use my brawn over the week, wanted to turn brain off….

We came up with a plan. We will retrofit the existing posts to make them ‘look’ like 6″ x 6″’s – Obstacle 1 averted.

Unfortunately, post #2 was in the wrong place and fortunately, there was enough space to the right of it to dig a proper hole to sink another 4″ x 4″ so that we can have equal space for our lattice ‘arbour”.

And that is what we did Friday night. Of course, cockails thereafter!

When we decided to add onto our kitchen, we knew we had to give up our lovely cocktail deck JT and I built about a year or two after we moved into our home. But we had bigger plans! A new, bigger, better cocktail lounge to replace a semi useless, puney little deck off the living room! The mother of all mother cocktail lounges!

We had planned to put on this new and improved deck during the reno, but because of timing and such, we were were not able to then. We decided it was time, so I am taking a week off to help my husband build a deck. Believe it or not, I love this type of manual labour, blue job or not! A few photos for a general time line:

Pre Cocktail Area 2001 at the time we purchased the home

Cocktail Area Before Reno around 2002-3

Cocktail Area During Reno 2007

Cocktail Area after the Reno 2008

Site of the Upcoming Mother of all Cocktail Lounges

Last week we celebrated our 23rd wedding anniversary in the Big Apple and it was lovely. We drove to Buffalo Tuesday morning and caught a very inexpensive flight to JFK ($270 Can for the two of us). The weather was amazing mid to high 20°C (which was a bit warm). We arrived on Tuesday May 19 (which is our anniversary) around noonish and found a great Mexican restaurant for lunch – Cafe Frida (Photo from their website). They made the most excellent guacamole and home made chips. I had the Mexican Chicken soup and JT had soft torillas with pulled pork (or maybe chicken!). Both were amazing.

Café Frida

Guacamole Presentation

Our apartment was on the upper west side (on 81st between Amerstdam and Broadway) and it was actually someone’s apartment who rents it out when they are traveling. It was really strange because they didn’t even move their personal belongings out of the way. When we mentioned it to our friends Marla and Claude (Marla is a New Yorker) they said that it was quite normal). The actual place could have been nicer, but the bed was a king and very comfortable (brand new apparently), and it was clean. It was nice to be in a more residential area, but we did discover that everything we did was downtown, so we’ll not be coming back!

200 West 81st Apartment

We did quite a bit of walking around town after lunch, wasting time to get back to the apartment so the cleaners would be done!

Times Square

Our anniversary evening JT booked Jazz at Lincoln Center where we enjoyed Bill Charlap Trio with Peter Washington and Kenny Washington. The music was OK (the last time we were here with Geo, the group was a bit more upbeat). We had Sizzling Artichke and Spinach Dip with Crisp Pita Chips (baked not fried!) and the Artisnal Cheese Plate (which was disappointing, since there were only two types of cheese on it).

After dinner we went back to our hood and had some drinks at McAleer’s “Irish” Pub (it was more of a sports bar than Irish Pub – but the drinks were good).

McAleer's Pub

The upper west side is a the cool residential side of NYC (upper east side is the hoydy-toydy side with the splendid brownstones and the upper crust). Young families live in the upper west side so there are lots of cool restaurants and shops. The one shop in particular we stumbled upon (mainly because JT noticed that our apartment had some olive oil in the shops brand – no we didn’t try it, ick!) Zabar’s is a gourmet cheese shop, grocery store and kitchen store all in one. They stock almost everything from really expensive espresso makers to copper pots from France – and the food selection was amazing! I would recommend a trip to this shop if in NYC. We bought breakfast goodies on Thursday to have in the park!

On Wednesday morning we went for breakfast at JK and Sons, a local diner (poached egg on toast), and then we ventured up to Central Park to rent bicycles. We rented for 3 hours (which turned into about 3 laps around the park and a wicked sunburn!) The park was PACKED – doesn’t anyone work?

Biking in Central Park

Lake in Central Park

We returned the bikes and walked up to Rue 57 a French restaurant we discovered once a few years ago with Paul and T. I had a warm mushroom salad with shaved parmesan and JT had the Tuna Nicoise Salad (which was enough to feed about 3 people!!!). It was hussle and bussle loud, New York French! We continued to walk around the town (boy it was hot!). We found Jim Lahey’s Sullivan Street Bakery (we bought a small bread for breakfast in Central Park) – Jim Lahey is famous for his no knead bread!

Sullivan Street Bakery

Wednesday evening was our night at Susur Lee’s new restaurant Shang. The restaurant is lovely. Our waitress was a woman from Toronto, who grew up in the same neighbourhood as JT and I. She recommended 3-5 courses which are sharing courses. We had 4 but could have done with 3 – they weren’t huge portions, but enough for two! The chef decides what order to bring out the food. We first had the Singapore Slaw with Salted Plum Dressing (delicious! of course, I will say that about the entire meal). Then shortly after, our waitress brought out the Lobster Lettuce Wrap with Lemon Balm, Shallot, Chili Lime Juice – which was fantastic, unbelievably delicious! The third course was the Fresh Ground Coconut Curry, Cauliflower, Lentils, Potato, and Stewed Fruits – really reall rich, but very tastey. And last but not least we had the Caramelized Wild Sablefish, Mustard Green Relish, Miso Mustard and Salmon Caviar which was the weakest of all the four, and frankly could have done without. Tastey but not as tastey as the others. No room for dessert. Highly recommend this place.

Thursday was shopping day and after our bread and cheese breakfast in Central Park, we split up. JT went to a custom packaging show in the morning and I shopped and shopped. First stop was Daffy’s at Broadway and 57th, then a quick subway ride down to another Daffy’s at Madison and 44th, then off to meet up with JT at Filene’s Basement (which is in chapter 11, sadly) at Union Square. I also hit DSW (Designer Shoe Warehouse in the same place). Lunch was a salad from a grocery store nearby and JT had Sushi at Union Square Park (we had a hard time finding a seat, it was so crowded). After lunch and an iced coffee at Starbucks, we headed down to Century 21 (no trip to NYC would be complete without a trip to Century 21!). It was exhausting, and sadly, not so fruitful! We’ll have to go back to finish off! JT spent some time taking in some sites.

We subwayed back to the apartment just in time to get ready for dinner with Claude and Marla at Balthazar’s (JT knows Claude from business and he now lives on Long Island with his wife Marla).

Dinner at Balthazar’s consisted of garlic butter escargo and steak tartar (for me) and JT had the creamed avocado soup and Fresh Tuna Nicoise. It was an experience; it is a very French restaurant – all the wait staff spoke English and French! We stopped off for a nightcap at a local Italian Restaurant.

Thursday Night Nightcap

Friday morning was breakfast at McDonalds – egg mc muffins (Balthazar’s was very expensive – over $200US for the two of us!) so we wanted cheap! A quick ride on the subway (yes, you guessed it, downtown) we went to a new find (thanks to Marla) called Loehmann’s. Loehmann’s is a much more civilized version of Century 21, really good bargains too. Did a bit of shopping but not much. We had to check out at noon because the apartment was booked for the next people, so we taxied it to JFK airport. All taxies seem to have little TVs:

Taxi TV

We ate lunch at JFK at Deep Blue Sushi not bad for an airport restaurant! We shared a Pad Thai and wine, of course!

The drive back to Toronto was relatively uneventful, with the exception that we were stuck at the boarder for an hour – just volume, it was the American’s Memorial Day long weekend! Oh, we got 2 1.14 litres of Smirnoff Tripple Distilled Vodka for $25 – the deal of the century!

I am dieting for 2 weeks, no booze – period.