The drywall is now all up and the painstaking taping and sanding is underway. This is a big step forward on the inside as the rooms are all now well defined.

Gavin and his drywalling team were hard at work during our recent visit.

This is the view from the road side entry door towards the great room with the 2 sets of sliding doors looking out onto the deck and the lake.

This is the small bedroom/sewing room.

And one of the larger bedrooms has a  lovely view onto the lake from these corner windows. Unfortunately the camera flash is reflected off the window and blocking the lake view.

Hot water tank with the pressure tank for the well on the shelf above in the utility room.

Winter like weather persists in the Ottawa Valley with ongoing snow cover. No ice yet on our section of the lake.

While I've seemingly taken a break from reporting on progress, the construction has been moving along.

A couple of weeks ago, Lindsay and Evans of Elm Enterprises returned to complete the grading outside and start some landscaping. The trench along the foundation for the hydro connection was filled in, pea gravel added around the foundation, gravel for the driveway, top soil for the lawns and with Hugh's help the patio stones that were the floors in the 2 garden sheds, were salvaged for walkways. Unfortunately by the time I next visited, snow had covered all of this up so I haven't seen it yet!

The roof has been completed and the soffit and fascia added.

Inside, there's insulation on the outside walls and cathedral ceiling and the propane fireplace has been installed. 

The electricity is turned on and the furnace is operational.

The floating vinyl tile for the bathroom has been added to our garage supply depot. Another great deal at Lowe's.

We're considering paint colours and settled on the same cultured stone for the fireplace that we have at the farm.

Progress continued last week with significant work on the steel roof. It's dark grey which is a little difficult to tell in yesterday's mid afternoon November sunshine. We're very pleased with it.

The plumbing and electrical has also been roughed in over the last couple of weeks, as evidenced by the dangling electrical outlets and cables in the photo above. The furnace was installed in the crawl space last week, and heating ducts are in the floor. 

Yesterday (Sunday) was a beautiful sunny day after a fairly lengthy spell of cloudy, cool and rainy days. So we spent the afternoon at the lake property to burn the remaining brush that came down off the big maple tree in the mid-September tornado winds. Here's Hugh hard at it. Reminiscent of his days of burning at our Carp home after the January 1998 ice storm. No singed hair this time!

After a several week absence from the lake, Holly and Chase were delighted to accompany us yesterday. We were unsure how Holly would react to the much colder lake water but, as we suspected, she was undeterred from swimming. Her swims were relatively short but she did go in the water several times with breaks in between swims to run around the yard with Chase. 

The water level is back up to its summer level. The fluctuating water levels is possibly related to the extensive damage from the tornado at the hydro generating station at the east end of the lake in Calabogie village.

​Late in the afternoon Chase and Holly welcomed a visit by their buddy Dallas, the golden retriever. He and Chase wore themselves out running around!

We were pleased that Chase and Holly were pretty good about staying on our property on this long visit with only short forays into the neighbouring yards. They also enjoyed their first experience inside the new building.