Exciting Days!

Last week we spent some time finishing up the painting in the Waters Mackie suite. Today they stopped by for a peek and I was relieved when I found out they like what they saw. We used their corporate colors - but I still felt we were going out on a limb! I hope it's not just because right now their present office is done in pinks and purples! Painting and most of the varnishing is done! And we didn't completely loose our sense of humour over this phase of the job!



Like son, like father!

The cabinet for the lunchroom also went it! It's all coming together!

Lunchroom

We also spent many hours this past weekend getting ready for the flooring for Waters Mackie. We made it with lots of help from Cor and Joanne with a few moments to spare for showering, quick supper and making a pot of coffee before people started arriving for our next excitment of the weekend. Once again on this past Saturday Cor was here to do some more finishing details. AND Joanne was here to help out with whatever she could! While Cor did woodworking, Peter did some varnishing and Joanne and myself crawled around on the floor scraping and vaccuming to make sure there are no unwelcome bumps under the carpet come the end of the week!

Scraping drywall mud!

Capping off a partial wall.

Then the day's work was done!

This past weekend was an exciting one for us here at Siding 12! On Saturday evening we had many close friends and family here to celebrate the dedication of the building - one year after we had some of the same people plus others here to commit this whole project to the Lord. Hard to believe all that has taken place in the past year! There is no doubt - we couldn't have done it without God and His leading and protection!

JUNE 16, 2007

Fred Judah & Corban Knip, Mom Nelson, Tony & Debbie Woods, Cor & Joanne Bouwsema, Ron & Bev Nelson, Tony Michelle Chelsea Thomas Makenna & Madison Budd, Norm & Karen Koop, Brent & Kirstin Bouwsema, Eric & Becky Bouwsema, Kevin Bouwsema, Kelsey Wasylenki, Mark & Marlane Archibald, Allen Heather & Justin Patterson (and us)

Before we could even take a breath and grab a cup of coffee this morning - our stucco company was here and putting on the scratch coat in the gable ends! Wow - we've waited a long time for this too! Carpet going into suite 102 and stucco going on outside! We're just moving along! Still have a Grand Opening to get ready for so it's good to see all these things happening!

STUCCO!

Time to Post Again!

It's time to do another posting! Since our snowfall we've been working inside out of the heat. Snow - Heat - must be Alberta weather! Waters, Mackie's suite is almost finished painting - the windows are stained but need two coats of varnish. The doors are hung (thanks once again to Cor's expertise with this!) and the jamb and casings etc need a final coat of varnish. Some of the windows are cased and that trim also needs a finish coat of varnish. The bi-folds on the two hall closets are hung but need to be removed and painted now. I think that covers it for immediate work right now. The lights are in but most of the plugs need to be activated yet. Heating ducts are run but need to be finished off with flexible ductwork to the actual registers. The remaining T-Bar can then be finished installing. So - bits of this and bits of that to finish up. It's supposed to be cooler this week so hopefully we will be able to work more efficiently - both upstairs and down. In two weeks the air-conditioning units will be hooked up! Horray for that one! After that? Cabinet and sink in lunch room, clean up entry doors, flooring and rubber base and window blinds installed. THEN - we will finish up the board room. We haven't even painted in there yet. Made a super working area though for Cor this past weekend! And yes - Cor finished the last bit of woodworking in our suite upstairs - looks super! Those areas will now need a touch of varnish. I think I will say our suite is done!

PAINTING!

MORE PAINTING!

COR INSTALLING DOORS!

Only in Alberta!

Guess what we woke up to this morning! Yah! More Snow! We had snow in October 2006 and here it is May 2007 and we are still seeing a white ground! Our only relief is this won't last. By this afternoon it will be rain so we will have a big puddly mess again. We are so, so thankful to have a paved parking lot. As long as the curbs now cure properly. About 2/3 of our curbs were poured yesterday. They are covered and no one is allowed into the parking lot for now. What a wonderful day to walk across a sloppy wet and slushy parking lot! Snow!




Cool Curb Pressing Machine!



May 24th SNOW!

This sign is old and has seen better days - but it is special! It was posted at the original Lacombe station long since gone. A gentleman, Bruce Deedrick, working for Border Paving gave it to us. He got it from the original building and never got rid of it. He knew once he read the article in the paper about the station being re-built that he should give it to us. Right now it sits in a display area in our stairwell. We think we would like to put it down in the board room once that space is finished. It's fun when people pass on treasures from the former station and desire the article(s) to be in the new/old station. Many people have expressed their amazement that this is not a renovation, but a re-creation. Must mean we look like the real thing!

On the weekend - in spite of the lousy weather - we worked outside. Ron and Peter spent some time installing the handrail in our stairwell. This is a long overdue must! One more coat of varnish some evening and it will really be done. Peter is relieved and it looks good. I think it helped he had someone working with him on it that wasn't afraid to tackle the job! They did a good job, and it didn't hurt at all that they got to spend Friday inside out of the cold wind! Who WAS out in the cold wind you ask? Why Bev and myself. We were up on scaffolding and giving a second coat of color to the tongue and groove soffit under our eaves. By the end of the weekend we were more confident on our swaying perch, tired out from stretching this way and that, all giggled out and had finished painting the soffit across the front of the building. Once the inside work was done Peter and Ron went outside and climbed ladders to give a final coat of color to the brackets, ledger board, beam and back face of the fascia board. They finished just over one half of the front face of the building. Off and on throughout the weekend Kevin and Kelsey worked at coating the trim around the windows and doors. They got about 65 percent of the trim work done. And they didn't have to climb up very high, much to Kelsey's relief.

Enjoy the pics! Sorry Bev - Peter really did not get a picture of us working so hard up high and almost out of sight! Everyone else - use your imagination!

Peter and Ron

Kev and Kelsey

Not Quite All Construction!

Unexpected Visitors

This morning when we came to work (doesn't that sound funny?!) old passenger cars usually pulled by the 2816 were parked just south of our station on the main line. We walked over and saw through the windows waiters in long sleeved white shirts, dark vests and pants serving people their breakfast. Whoa! What's going on here! Then we saw a new engine pulling an old engine backwards on the second track. The engines switched tracks and then proceeded to PUSH these touring passenger cars south. Engine trouble? I think so! If the train was heading back to Calgary then I guess these people have a long "push" home. And if we had slept in half an hour longer we would have missed the whole comical scene!

On the weekend Brent and Kirstin were here and we did some tree planting and line painting. The only reason we could paint the lines in our parking lot is because our parking lot is PAVED! I didn't think we could get so excited about asphalt! But we can - and did!

Friday - a sun-dandy day for paving!

Saturday - equally sunny day for line painting!

Crew of 5 - Sunny but Windy!

Another surprise visitor - Kirstin's Brother

Some of this and some of that!

Tonight while Peter and Kev work at the other end of the office I'll try and get another posting done. I can still faintly smell the aroma of our visit to the Alberta Foundry earlier today. Late this afternoon the three of us left the office early to drive out to Mirror to pick out a light standard for the front concrete pad here at the station. We've seen their work here in Lacombe on our downtown street signs and in Ponoka as well. Peter's been in touch with the owner (Ed) to find out if we could see what he has in stock for street lights. Since he didn't have much for us to see, Peter sat down with him to design something. They sat down at an old table (I think this was HIS office) covered with unfinished business papers and designed something on the back of a scrap of paper that will hopefully meet our requirements and wishes. Now Ed will come up with a light pole to scale and show us before we make a final decision.

Walking into the foundry this afternoon I found myself rushing back to uncounted visits to the Blacksmith shop in Heritage Park. And more recently a cool winter's morning trip to our own blacksmith shop here in Lacombe for a mortgage burning ceremony. There is no scent that remains like the aroma that comes from an age worn building that has witnessed the shodding of horses long gone and the repairing of wagons now shrinking to nothingness behind long unused barns. There is no scent that refuses to disappear, even after walking out into the bright sunny air of a late spring afternoon, like the one that makes it's home in the dark and sooty foundry shop.

This afternoon Border Paving came to finalize the preparations for pavement next week in our parking lot. Everyone in the building is anxious to have it done! Gravel was hauled in and spread around and packed to make sure the grade is one that drains the rain (and melting snow!) where we want it to go - out to the street.

We've been waiting for this all winter!

But even more exciting than this was the arrival of trees last night! We've had a number of trees tagged and potted for us at Centennial Rose Gardens just north of town. Shaun of Trimmed Line brought in five of the largest ones for us with his tree spade. We'll need to pick up more on the weekend that are potted. Last week we brought home eight Columnar Aspens from Costco in the back of the truck. A trip that normally take about 20 minutes took us 45. We had to find every back road possible that would lead us north (and get us across the river) and home. We lost no branches and we still had all the tags labelling the trees and giving us instructions on caring for our new trees. "First step in caring for your tree - DO NOT DRIVE 120 DOWN THE QE2 WITH THIS TREE STANDING IN THE BACK OF YOUR PICK-UP."

Out goes the sign post!

In goes the tree!

Watching- sort of!

Water - fertilize and MORE WATER!

It sure feel good to do some planning and work outside! Before you know it we will need to have it all done - so we have to get moving if we want to meet our deadline!

Work still happens around here!

Reception/Accounting Area



Offices

Thought I better do another blog in case you were wondering if anything more was happening at 4892 - 46 Street. Yes, things are still rolling along around here. Holidays are over and we are back into being "general contractors! As you can see by the pics we are ready for the boarders to come in and install the drywall next week. Roughed in electrical is done, insulating is finished, and we even have the rough in wiring done for the board room and it's media system. Lights are ordered for the board room and this weekend in the middle of lots of other bits and pieces here and there we need to do a bit more backing for bulkheads etc. And at some point we will finish the "finishing touches" in our own office spaces. Right now getting moving on things downstairs again has been a bigger priority. Paving company has been called and so has the stucco fellow. With this wonderful weather in Central Alberta (we might have packed it up in our suitcase after all!) it's difficult not to get anxious to get outside and work on some things out there. All in good time! Remember, this is Alberta - the weather tomorrow can be anything but what it is today!

Ah - warm sunny skies!

You're probably wondering what any of these pictures have to do with our great adventure in re-creating Lacombe's 1911 Railway Station! They have lots to do with it! You can't be involved in something like this and not take a break - now can you. These pictures are just a few of our collection from this past weekend. The first one is a walkway just outside our hotel - the second is a home turned B & B/restaurant just a few doors down from our hotel and the last one is a float plane landing in the harbor just outside our hotel. We enjoyed the flowers and GREEN GRASS, a wonderful brunch in the parlor of the historical home and many moments watching the planes coming in and going out!

Last week Friday morning (in the middle of a terrible snow storm that hit our winter-weary province) Peter and I drove down to the Calgary International Airport to board a plane for sunnier skies and blue-er waters and much, much greener grass! We flew to Victoria for the weekend. We stayed in a hotel across the harbor from the Empress Hotel and spent four days walking and relaxing and drinking coffee and shopping and some more walking. We probably put 30 - 40 km on our shoes those days. But what a wonderful place to do it! We found no less than SIX Starbucks in a one mile radius within the downtown/James Bay area. We also brought home lots of good reading material (they have a Chapters three floors tall!). We took a carriage ride with a spunky 24 year old Belgian named Jack. We also were able to explore lots of side streets behind the Legislative Buildings that protected many old and well restored homes. And yes, we did wander in the Legislative Building - as much as the "do not enter" signs would allow. No high tea in the Empress - we'll have to save that for another trip. The extent of our visit to the B.C. Royal Museum was an IMAX presentation on the Titanic and then a walk through display of the various artifacts recovered and a well done presentation of what it would have been like to be a passenger on the ill-fated ship. If it comes to your town - see it!

The Legislative Assembly

Saying "bye" to Jack

"Pinehurst" - one of many restored homes

Taking this break was probably one of the best things we could have done right now. The only downside was flying back home! At least on the trip home the skies were much clearer and we could actually make out the many mountain tops on the way. They looked like a sea of Lemon Merangue topping or a plate overflowing with Divinity Fudge! We think we could make out Castle Mountain! AND when we drove home Monday night we didn't have to fight snow covered roads, which was a blessing. That would be enough to send us right back until Alberta really smartened up and let Spring have a turn!

Like I mentioned in the last blog posting - we are in the process of developing the last space for new tenants - Waters Mackie Property Appraisers. So ... on Saturday the 14th the signs outside came down - those ones we put up so long ago advertising the building coming and having lease space! We also were able to clean up the yard from winter debris. This was nice considering it decided to snow AGAIN! As well, Peter and Kevin worked a bit more on putting up the windows in our office. Those ones on the partial walls.





DOWN THEY COME

Peek!

Only a few more things to finish up here in the office to be truly occupant worthy and keep working on trades for completing the last lease space downstairs. Sigh - we're at that again. Maybe this time it will go better. I would rather spend money on carriage rides and dinners overlooking the harbor - but we will be truly happy to have the entire building finished and leased. Then we can look forward to finishing outside - planting grass, paving the parking lot (!), putting in some trees and having a grand opening! What will we do with our time when it is all done!

Before and After Again!

I already told you I like before/after shots. Here's some more!



BEFORE - Peter's desk



AFTER



BEFORE - Techie's Desk(s)



AFTER



BEFORE - My favorite spot!



AFTER

Just moments ago we officially went into the general contracting business again. We signed the lease for the last available space! Suites 102 & 103 are now being prepared for Waters Mackie - Real Estate Appraisers and Consultants. So by this summer we will have all spaces completed and filled with tenants! It's amazing how God has pulled together this whole aspect of our adventure. The many times I spent praying at the corner table in Tim's while Peter picked up the coffee is seeing answers! Isn't He wonderful! Aren't we too impatient! Isn't He understanding of our frailties! Again, isn't He wonderful!



Cleaned up and ready to finish!

Lots of Unexpected Pics!

Before I say anything about the weekend activities - a big, big thank you to the kids for helping us get settled in the new office! There is no way we could have done it without them! They've been our cheerleader's the whole way and without their help and encouragment this journey for the last number of months would have been a difficult one!

We've moved! I tried getting lots of pics of the two moving days and settling in. Poof! When I downloaded the camera this morning I found lots of extra ones that I didn't take! Wonder where those came from? That's what happens when you leave the camera lying on the counter!

BUT but before we moved in, we had a few extra last things happening around here that were picture worthy! Lacombe Signmasters (Terry and Hans) came and put up a few signs around the building, outside and in!

Building Sign

Our office sign

Opening between my work spaces

Moving day(s) were an adventure in themselves. Eric, Brent, Kevin, Becky, Kirstin and Kelsey were all around to load up! The weather was cool and clouds hung in the sky threatening to deposit their contents on our little moving party. BUT it did not snow on our efforts - which was a real blessing since we used nothing but our pick-up and the kid's SUV's. It's amazing how much you can pack into a vehicle! The trip across town wasn't long - but we didn't want to make any more than necessary.

Outgoing loads!

Kelsey - "I can lift that!"

Eric and Kev filling up the truck - first load!

Now to unload!

And of course somewhere along the line there needed to be a break of some sort! Saturday morning Becky and Kirstin did a Tim's run! We were ready for one!

Ah - sitting down!

Wherever you can!

Up goes the clock!

In comes the stove!

A large part of Saturday was spent settling spaces. While that was going on Eric and Peter were getting the computers, printers etc all speaking to one another. Brent and Kevin were down on the main floor replacing hardware on file cabinets. We bought new handles a number of years ago - now was the time to get them installed while the drawers were empty. The sounds travelling up from the board room sounded like they were having their own little party down there! I think that's where a few of the unexpected pics originated! I'm glad they were enjoying the job. Brent is the kind of guy to make work fun.



Sample of the fun stuff!

On Saturday afternoon/early evening I gave Kirstin and Becky a mini painting lesson. After all, the paints were just begging to be used again!



Practicing those strokes!

Maybe if I get my work done today I can take a few pics of the "mostly settled" offices! I'll show those another day!

One more picture to share with you! Peter unlocking the door for the first time to go to work! Office work! And yes - I was there - someone had to be taking the picture - I'm the shadow!



Monday, April 9, 2007 (7:30 am)