Another Gem Uncovered. What’s in our Walls?
April 18, 2025
Michiel has been making a huge headway where demolition of the old kitchen and dining room are concerned. Removing more walls, lath and plaster and ceiling tiles. The dim brown walls and ceiling no longer have a hold on the two spacious rooms.
The large south and east facing windows are pouring in warm, bright rays from the imposing sun.
It is truly day and night what paint colour can do to evoke a certain mood in a room!
We are looking forward to making these spaces light and airy, with a touch of sophistication, holding onto certain traits particular to the era the home has seen.
We are grateful to be able to document our house renovation journey for our friends and family. These posts will be a treasure for our kids. They will one day share these stories with their kids — about their experience moving to Nova Scotia with their somewhat crazy parents.
It is a story about dreams and tenacity, overcoming roadblocks and pushing forward regardless of setbacks. Teaching real life, practical skills — where the centre of all this is character building and trusting God.
As we have all experienced at some point in our lives, living with those closest to us tends to expose the undesirable nature of what lays deep inside our hearts.
When we get agitated living in close quarters — in tight cluttered spaces, and some days having to function without electricity or heat — we have the tendency to revert to the ugly, sinful self who lurks in our shadow and pounces at those who have uttered a wrong word to us, or treated us sub-par to the way we want to be treated.
Learning to change the heart for the sake of becoming teachable is a difficult task.
A reminder to think before speaking is a virtue our family has adapted:
Is it true? Is it kind? and is it necessary? Progress is sought after — not perfection. And these kids are definitely progressing.
Every time we set one foot forward, we see a glimpse of what our house could look like. Set backs are a natural undertaking in such a big project. But, when everything does move well, we are humbled and thankful for the opportunity to dream and create. Over the last two years, we’ve stumbled upon so many unique findings and experienced a myriad of life changing encounters.
Beaded and Beautiful Describes This Ceiling!
Another gem Michiel recently uncovered when removing the ceiling tiles, is what looks to be gorgeous, cream coloured, old bead boards.
He was so excited about his findings that soon after he had finished his day’s work, announced the news as soon as he walked in the door. He told me I had to go next door and see it myself.
I was thrilled about his discovery!
We were both set on another course of envisioning the room’s new appearance: we would allow the boards to stay while incorporating other elements that would complement the vintage look. A fresh coat of slight sheen, cream white coloured paint would highlight the ceiling feature.
Michiel would include some pod lights for practicality. All in all, our plans for this room — which will become our living or family room, is already coming together. The pieces are falling into place. We’ve been inspired yet again!
Something’s Behind the Walls
Since moving into this house, Michiel noticed dark droppings seeping out from a corner of the old kitchen. We know the home has been uninhabited for at least a few years prior to our family moving in. Assuming there has been no human vacancy, it is safe to presume that other creatures have moved in and called it their home.
There has always been a noticeable odour in the room. It was obvious to me and I tried hard not to find it. The odour reminded me of saltiness in the air, yet thick and damp — with a little bit of mud odour in the mixture as well.
It was a familiar odour, yet unrecognizable when standing in the room.
It didn’t take much effort to solve the mystery: soon after Michiel knocked down the wall next to the kitchen cabinets, large amounts of dry, stringy, dark green substances started spilling out.
They fell out of thin, brown paper bags — which kept the matter contained.
Michiel had discovered insulation!
But, not just any type of insulation common to today’s construction — they were dried seaweed, packed between old studs and behind brown paper!
While researching this traditional type insulation, I learned that there are many benefits and advantages to using this in modern-day house construction. This readily available coastal material is non-toxic, fire resistant, and long lasting.
We’ve not seen this type of insulation in Ontario, as would be expected since seaweed is not typically found in non-coastal locations.
This insulation was consistently found along the east and south facing walls of this portion of the house. At this point in time, even though the discovery was fascinating — adding a deeper allure to the home, we do not plan to use it.
Fortunately, disposing it is both economical and environmentally friendly.
Another piece of history discovered during the removal of walls is the location where the first original set of windows were found.
There were two narrow, elongated window openings framed into the east facing wall — with the current, one large window sitting right between the two. There was a small area of lath and plaster beneath the first original window — and behind that, there was no insulation at all.
The bitter winter days must have been quite cold in this room. It must have been necessary to maintain a roaring fire in the wood stove to keep this large home warm through the winter.
We could clearly see portions in the home where the older construction met the newer ones. This house was built in many steps, with major sections of the building constructed at different periods in time.
Batteries Full!
Our batteries have consistently been fully charged by noon every day this week. This is now a more-or-less predictable schedule for reserved power. I decided to switch the use of our appliances — from the gas operated cook stove and oven, to the electric toaster oven and hot plate.
Ironically, the use of electricity for cooking and heating is most needed in the colder, darker days — when the sun is not hanging as high in the sky, thus producing less sunlight, resulting in less power stored in our battery banks.
Come summer time, we have an abundance of stored power, and not enough ways to deplete our batteries. There is only so many loads of laundry I can do until I run out of space drying them all on the laundry line. There is only so much vacuuming I can do in a day — or want to do in a day.
My Trees: Wynken, Blynken, and Nod
My large trees residing in my living room/kitchen have been over-arching its branches, reaching for sunlight across the room, toward the beams of light streaming in through the north and west facing windows. With the help of Lorelai, we managed to carefully relocate the plants to my room, where the light coming in is even brighter.
These guys have been through much trauma this winter. As fiddle leaf fig trees are known to be the divas of houseplants, the steep decline in house temperature over the winter prompted more than half of all the leaves on the trees to drop. I was broken-hearted when they started losing leaves — and they were dropping in heaps!
These trees were purchased almost eight years ago — just a few months before Florence was born. I remember fussing over the location where I had placed them, whether or not they were getting enough sunlight, or whether or not the room was too cold or too drafty in the winter.
With leaves as big as they are, once dropped, made the trees look sad and bare. However, just two weeks ago I noticed a bud sprouting from one of the stems that I was sure had frozen and lost its life. The tip of the stem even shrivelled! I had thought of leaving the tree alone to allow it time to regain life — and sure enough, it did just that!
I was pleasantly surprised, and thankful that my trees are now thriving again! Once they have been acclimated to their new location and repotted, I will attempt a trick I learned to encourage new buds to form.
Thank You Friends and Family!
We are thankful and encouraged by the comments you have left on our posts. Thank you for taking such a big interest in our adventures on the coast. We appreciate your kindness and prayers throughout our highs and lows!
There will be more exciting posts in the coming days and weeks. As summer is soon around the corner, we are expecting our renovation projects to advance at a quicker, and hopefully easier pace.
We hope you have a wonderful night and sweet dreams to you, dear friends and family!
