The new deck!

A deck we can indeed be proud of!After repairing the back wall, because of rotten wood it gave us the incentive we needed to re-do the tired old deck that had been standing for many years (scroll down to see the 'before' pic).

By the end of summertime the wood will have cured and we can then paint the trellis and railing white to match the front veranda.

Mid week we celebrated with a family BBQ, using the basic table Craig put together last year and the rickety kitchen chairs. On Thursday our teak patio set arrived to complete 'the look'. Although personally I prefer a lighter wood, it will fade in time to a lighter shade and I am NOT allowed to paint it!!

Over the next few weeks we hope to soften the surrounding area with lavender bushes against the railing, sweet peas growing up the trellis and a couple of strategically placed planters.

The project I did tackle mid week, with sandpaper and paint is this small chest of drawers picked up for just $12 at a yard sale on the way home from Halifax last weekend. OK, it is perhaps a little more 'shabby' than 'chic' and has found a nice home in my laundry.The laundry incidentally seems to be the stop gap for any second hand piece of furniture entering our house, before it gets moved somewhere else! I decided to paint it a pale Robin's egg blue (following a little mid week live chat with my uncle Tony in Spain!) The drawers are perfect for storing beach towels, sunglasses and citronella candles in Summer, or mittens, hats, brollies etc in Winter.

Only a few days now before the girls finish another school year. Amber moves up to the high school in September after spending 3 years at middle school, where she seems to have become a fully fledged Canadian :D

Jemma will be in her final year at high school, before hopefully going on to University!! Jemma was given the good news that she has been accepted on 2 more AP (Advanced Placement) courses; Chemistry and Calculus, having completed her AP Biology this year, she realises that a hectic year of studying lies ahead. Jemma is the only student with 3 AP courses in the school and we are very proud of her. Major hints have been dropped that she would like a cell phone for her 17th birthday in July. Amazingly (for a teen) she has managed without one so far, so we can't complain. Craig will be taking an in depth look at all the plan options so we don't get diddled with a long term contract that has the dreaded 'small print'!

Still fighting the bugs! A few are hanging in there, even though it has soared to 29 degrees some days. I now have quite a collection of citronella candles and torches and some excellent mosquito cream from a company called Watkins. It doesn't pong as much as some of the sprays, the fumes can be pretty horrendous.

In case you wondered what became of the little shelf unit a couple of blogs ago. I painted it the same shade of blue, (my favourite at the moment) after removing some of the partitions first.

Hmmm those little animals do seem to get around a bit!!

Phew did I perhaps overdo the photos this week?

Hazel xx

One blustery day.......

.....we put up our lovely gazebo to protect us from the mosquitoes.

After writing such a chirpy post last week I can now tell you that our gazebo didn't get a lot of use this year! Craig and I spent over an hour assembling it and managed to sit inside for one cup of coffee before an unpredicted super strong wind blew in the following day, and did this!! It took us much longer to dismantle the tangled collapsed version, as all the screws and metal bits had buckled and jammed. There is also a huge tear in the canopy :(
However, on a more positive note, the building of our new deck is now in progress. The back wall of the house has been repaired after the wood was found to be rotten (hence a few leaks from driving rain in the Autumn last year) The pink and white blossoms look very pretty this week and opened up 'after' the strong wind, but just in time for the apple blossom festival in the village this 
weekend. Amber left this morning bright and early on her Duke of Edinburgh award hiking trip up in Kejimakujik National Park. I drove her to school to meet up with the other 

participants. She looked a little nervous, as did her friends. They didn't seem too excited about the 5 hour hike or spending the night in a tent with the predicted heavy rainfall. The biting insects are out in full force so she is armed with a strong repellent spray and a rather fetching mosquito head net! This weekend was supposed to be her 'official' birthday (postponed from Dec 1st) so actually she is 14 and a half tomorrow! But, because of the hike we will celebrate next weekend instead by taking a drive into Halifax and having lunch out.
I began my painting project (the Old Canadian Crate Company shelf unit) yesterday. This turned out to be a mistake, those sneaky little black flies were quietly landing on me and I am now sporting some huge and ever so itchy bites on my neck face and arms. I am told that I will gradually build up a tolerance to them and create my own antibodies? Not sure I am entirely convinced of this theory.
The HB's are still managing to feature in my posts after I sold two of my 'new design' this week ;) Hazel xx