We were lucky enough to spend this year’s Thanksgiving day at the school house with members of both sides of our family, young and old.
All eighteen of us enjoyed the beauty of Grey County and the Beaver Valley in autumn.
Here’s a sample of what we saw.
If you want to see some spectacular fall colours, head to Grey County soon — you won’t be disappointed!
Since I’ve blogged, I mean.
Looking back on my last post, it’s been almost a year since my last update.
Crazy.
It’s not that we haven’t been to the school house over the past year (though admittedly we’ve not been up as often as we would have liked), it’s just that I haven’t taken the time to document our adventures.
We been up with family and friends. We’ve played, relaxed and worked.
Here are few of the highlights.
Recently, we saw a gorgeous sunset on our drive up north. I took this photo from a moving vehicle.
And we were treated to an equally beautiful sunrise over the valley the following morning.
I also took the opportunity to snap a few pics of some of the wildflowers growing on our property.
And, as usual, we enjoyed time with family and friends around the fire pit.
Of course, there was also work to be done … some of it less than glamourous.
The shed needed to be completely emptied and cleaned out thanks to the winter activities of some local squirrels. Hopefully, our efforts to seal things up better means we do not have to repeat the task next spring.
We also had to deal with a tree that was damaged in the winter and fell on our zipline. Â The kids weren’t thrilled that the zipline had to come down and felling the tree was a complicated process. Happy it’s down.
And, some of the work we have been doing is actually exciting!
This summer we began to tackle the stair project and I am thrilled to report that we have made significant progress!
If you have been following the blog, you might recall the stairs originally looked like this:
And this:
And more recently like this:
So I am very happy to report that they now look like this:
It’s amazing to see all the different paint that has graced the school house walls over the years.
The new stairs, on the opposite end, are also coming along.
We are very pleased with how these turned out. Can’t wait to sand and finish them.
So, as you can see, there is still lots of work to be done.
Hopefully, there will be more (regular) updates soon.
A couple weeks ago, I was talking to someone about our school house and suggested they look at this blog. Â When I pulled up this site, I was shocked to see that I hadn’t posted an update since the beginning of June.
Admittedly, progress over the last five months has been slow, but we have been up several times. Â We’ve had fun with family and friends and even managed to get a few things done (even if we didn’t get many photos).
The kids used the zip line. A lot.
We actually started and then stopped construction of the zip line launch when we realized the neighbour’s tree was cracked and threatening to land on it. Â Something we need to deal with next spring.
We also spent a lot time sitting around the fire.
And there always seemed to be grass to cut.
We got rid of a crazy amount of garbage and scrap metal from the yard, cleaned up the entryway (not sure why I have no photos of this project), and built some firewood storage.
We also got rid of the broken storm window on the front of the building — such a little thing that made a huge difference!
Inside we pulled back a section of the carpet and started scraping the rubber backing off the hardwood. It’s going to be a huge job, but we’re feeling hopeful that it is doable and we’re excited to get started.
We have also been attempting to (temporarily) improve the storage situation in the kitchen with the addition of some upper cabinets. A new kitchen is still in the plans, but these are helping us keep things in order in the meantime.
As you can tell from these photos, more painting is also on our to do list.
So that’s where things are at these days. In addition to the painting, our winter plans include adding a closet to our bedroom, working on the ceiling under the loft area and getting ready to do the floor.
I also hope to get lots of pictures of our progress and get back to updating here more often.
Can’t wait to get back up there ASAP!
This past weekend we decided to take a day trip up to the school house.
While I spent a few hours of much needed quality time with the mower and the lawn, Dave and the kids finally got to work installing the much anticipated zip line.
It’s not 100% installed (an additional trip to Lowe’s for a few more parts was needed tonight), but it’s close.
The next step is build a “launch” structure using the wood we salvaged from our backyard play structure.
Can’t wait to get back up there and finish this project.
Once again, we spent the Victoria Day long weekend at the school house.
And, once again, I took a moment to marvel at the fact that Queen Victoria was England’s monarch when our little school house opened it’s doors in 1896, and as such, her picture would have hung on it’s wall for several years. Cool.
We didn’t actually get any of our planned renovation work done, but who cares? We had a wonderful weekend!
And, we realized several things over the last few days.
First, we miss this place. Hockey, the long cold winter and my sprained ankle kept us away for too long.
So we simply took care of some basic tasks like cutting the grass, unloading the trailer, and setting up the fire pit, and then focused on family fun and enjoying ourselves.
Second, we remembered how much we love the Beaver Valley. There’s so much to do in Grey County!
Over the course of the weekend, we went to the drive-in and the beach and we canoed/kayaked in the Beaver River. We also squeezed in a couple campfires, a hike and a trip to the local ice cream spot.
Finally, we realized that even though there’s still lots of work to do, it can wait. Even in it’s current, partially renovated, state, the school house is perfect for just enjoying our family.
The proof is in the smiles.
 Can’t wait to get back up there!  Is it summer yet?
So, this past weekend’s planned trip to the school house to work on the main floor bathroom (and follow up progress post) was abruptly cancelled by a run-in I had with my staircase.
Stairs: 1 Me: 0.
Luckily, it’s badly sprained not broken, but I have no idea when I will be back to the renovations (at the school house or at home).
In the meantime, I want to share a neat school house related newspaper listing that was passed along by a friend. It’s the 1965 Auction notice for 3 local school houses (including SS 18 Riverdale). Thanks Cheryl!
Always exciting to discover historical details about our school house!
It also explains why the original chalkboards, desks etc are gone. I guess no one wanted to buy the coal.
Makes me want to do more research soon.
Well, we’ve managed to make it up to the school house a grand total of two times in 2015 (so far).
The first, back in January, was brief because we somehow managed to get hit by a wild turkey on the way there. The incident, which could have been much worse according to our tow truck driver, left us with little time at the school house and a broken mirror on our vehicle.
Here’s the bird that flew into us:
And here’s what our mirror looked like:
A pain, for sure, but we were happy that no one was hurt and that the turkey did not go through our windshield.
We also went to the school house this past weekend. The plan was to visit with friends and ski on Family Day.
Well, we visited and skated and snowshoed, but we didn’t ski. It might have had something to do with windchill values in the minus forties. Brrrrr!
Still, if you find yourself at Blue Mountain Resort in the wintertime, it is worth it to brave the cold because skating on the pond is awesome!
 We also ventured outside to enjoy some Grey County winter weather on Sunday, but purposely stayed close to the school house.
Those who opted to snowshoe faired better than those who didn’t 🙂
It was a great weekend.
And, did we do any work on the renovations?
Nope.
But, we did spend lots of time chatting, thinking and planning as we sat, warm and cozy, having drinks in front of the wood stove.
And we made some decisions about the stairs. We had already planned to replace them, but now we have decided to move them as well. Doing so will both open up the big wall/entry way and free up a corner for a seating area.
The staircase is currently here:
And the plan is to move it here:
The plan is to do a straight, open, wooden staircase. Something along the lines of these:
Can’t wait to get started!
I haven’t updated the blog for a while for two reasons — we haven’t spent much time up there lately and the time we have spent there has been (mostly) fun with family and friends.
Well, that changed last week.
Two of my kids and I spent a lovely weekend at the school house with a good friend and her two kids. We hung out, drank wonderful local cider from the Beaver Valley Orchard and Cidery (this place deserves a post of its own which I will write at some point) and the kids enjoyed playing in the snow.
The only downside of the whole weekend was that it was a little chilly in the school house which, I suppose, we chalked up to the very wintery weather outside. Still we kept the wood stove full and didn’t think much about it. That is until we were packing up to leave.
Then I realized that the furnace had stopped working (likely at some point the day before).
Phone instructions from my hubby yielded no results, so he and my son drove up to meet us to see if he could fix the problem.
He couldn’t. Nor could he properly drain the pipes, given the old, crumbling plumbing. We didn’t want to take any chances with frozen/burst pipes.
So it was decided that my youngest and I would stay until a furnace repair person could get out to fix it.
Thank goodness we had a couple space heaters and this:
In the end, it took four days for the repair guys to make their way to school house, mostly because the weather was like this:
School buses were cancelled in Grey County for the whole week.
Jared and I kept the wood stove going for those four days, venturing out on a few occasions to get food and more firewood.
For the most part, we were cozy and comfy in the school house, if maybe a little bored at times. (I believe that’s what you call a first world problem).
During our extended weekend, we didn’t get a lot work done, but I did have a lot of time to think about our upcoming projects.
You might remember a few weeks ago, we started taking down the ceiling and insulation below the loft space.
As we started doing that, we toyed with the idea of leaving the ceiling open (to maximize height) and painting everything white.
Since, I had the time while we were snowed in, I got out the primer and decided to see what it might look like.
And, guess what? I didn’t like it. At all.
I found it showed too many of the imperfections of the original construction and was too different from the way we’ve been finishing the rest of the interior.
So, we are back to our original plan of a white bead board ceiling with pot lights. Hopefully, we will get back up there soon to get started on this project.
In the meantime, I am very happy the furnace works and so happy to be home.
Last weekend we tackled some of the old wiring in the school house. Not so fun, but necessary.
You may remember that when we bought the property last fall, we were happy to discover that four of the nine original school house pendant lights were there and in decent shape.
Over the summer, I cleaned and painted them only to be disappointed when couldn’t put them back up because of old, crumbling wiring.
Here’s what we found when we opened up the box for the lights.
From what we can piece together, Ontario school houses were generally electrified in the 1930s or 1940s. So, that is likely the era that these paper wrapped wires come from.
It was a long, tedious and somewhat stressful process (messy insulation, bat dung and a ladder on a table) but we are quite pleased with the results.
Doing this wiring also had the added benefit of kickstarting our next project — redoing the ceiling above the kitchen/underneath the loft.
We began ripping that down and plan a white ceiling with exposed beams.
I suspect this project will occupy much of our time up north this winter.
The other thing we did this weekend was put up a temporary solution for our kitchen storage issues. Â I made a sign/pot holder for some of the bigger frying pans etc. Â One day this space will house new kitchen cabinets, but for now it makes the space look a little cozier.
I like the sign so I hope it will work somewhere in the new kitchen.
I just can’t seem to get enough of it. Â Many trees are now bare, but it is still SO beautiful.
We got a bunch of work done this weekend, but that can wait for another post.
In the meantime, check out some of the gorgeous views we encountered yesterday.
In our school yard:
Driving along Grey County roads:
And on a hike to see the views of the Beaver Valley from the top of Old Baldy.
If you’ve never been, it’s definitely worth the drive to experience the beauty of fall in Grey County.
old school adventure 