Simba the Downtown Dog

[Charlie]

That's a pain @Lisa so sorry. xx

 

[Lisa]

Oh well, in the bigger scheme of things it’s mainly an inconvenience.

Good news is that my daughter has found a temporary place to stay with her uncle. Phew! And she just landed a job - part-time, but it’s something, at least!

She had to grab something from the condo today and sent this pic- the renos have started, yippee! It’s hard to tell from the pic, but that is our living room. The white on the left is the sliding door that leads from the living room to the little patio outside. They’ve put the fridge in the living room while they work on the kitchen, which is to the right of the pic.
The open door is to Sarah’s bedroom, which will likely need new carpet. Glad to see it started, at any rate!

They have told us it could take 3-4 months to get it all done. There were 13 units affected, they are basically doing them all at the same time. OH is due for another stretch of work in the city starting end of Feb, so it doesn’t look like it will be ready before then, but we’ll see. He can stay at his parent’s house if he has to, so that’s ok.

 

[Atemas]

That’s good that work has started

 

[snowbunny]

Wow, with it gutted like that, it looks like an office space!! I hope they crack on and get it properly homely again sharpish

 

[Selina27]

Only just caught up with this @Lisa, what a (very big) nuisance for you.

 

[MellowYellow]

Glad the renovations have started Lisa. Hope it all goes well.

 

[Lisa]

Things have stalled. They have 13 units in all to do, and they’ll do them all at once. So they’ll do all the ceilings, then move on to drywall, then painting and flooring. But before they can start everyone has to get moved out and their stuff put away. So I dunno. They initially said 3-4 months, which would mean we’re back in by April. But as of Monday it looks like this:

 

[Atemas]

Ugh, how frustrating

 

[Selina27]

Oh @Lisa, you must be feeling so glum about this.

 

[MellowYellow]

Oh no...

 

[snowbunny]

Oh that sucks, Lisa! You'd have thought that they'd have been able to do a few at a time just as efficiently as all of them.

 

[Emily_Babbelhund]

Yikes!

 

[kateincornwall]

Oh heck , not good Lisa , you must be so fed up now xx

 

[Jacqui-S]

Not much fun @Lisa

 

[Lisa]

Oh well. It’s inconvenient, but nothing I can do about it. OH’s job in the city starts up again next week, so obviously he’s not staying there. He has a place at his parent’s place though. The worst is that we had it all set up so I could come with Simba and spend more time with him while he was there, but oh well. C’est la vie!

 

[Lisa]

Renos in the condo are all done, yippee! Simba and I are here for the week. It’s interesting - when we were here last over Christmas there were a couple times in basically random spots where Simba actually balked at going in certain places. And when I say balked I mean a sudden application of brakes and a fear reaction...practically backing out of the harness to get away. This happened mainly at night...not sure exactly what triggered it? Except for one thing...we were going to a spot where you can overlook the Legislature building - it has a walkway with a glass “fence” to see through - he freaked out there. Something to do with the edge, I thought. Yesterday I went to go over a little overpass that goes over another road and he was wary but managed to take it slow and with treats and encouragement got over with not too much difficulty. Last night we thought we’d try a walk across a busy traffic bridge that crosses the river - it’s a pretty long bridge. Lots of traffic on one side (separated by a barrier), lots of foot/bike traffic, plus the other side is the edge. He was pretty nervous do we went just a little ways and turned back. No point in forcing it. It is weird, though...he was completely ok in the mountains going right to the edge of a literal cliff and looking out over the scenery, but something about artificial edges freaks him out.

 

[Lisa]

This is the little overpass I took him over yesterday. He balked a bit heading towards today. I turn right to get to the condo. I’ll try him over that again later.

The neighbourhood we live in is right downtown, just a couple blocks away from the busiest street in the city, but you’d never know it, as we are right beside the beautiful river valley that cuts through downtown Edmonton. It’s one of the oldest neighbourhoods in Edmonton. Unfortunately many of the beautiful old houses and buildings were torn down before people thought it might be a good idea to preserve them. But there are still some that remain. This house is a derelict, going to be torn down at some point. But oh what a beautiful view they had, looking out across the river valley!

If you turn right from the overpass above you are on the street where our condo is. This is taken about a block from that corner. The red sign up ahead is where the condo is. To the right of Simba is an underground station - handy!

Condo building is on the left, up ahead at the end of the street is a lovely little park that overlooks the river. Lots of walking trails there!
Our condo from the outside. That’s our little patio, to the right is the lobby of the condo. Our fence has a latch so you can go from the patio right onto the street. Handy!


And here’s a couple pics of the inside, post Renos! It’s small, but it’ll do. The paintings on the wall are all my daughter’s work...she’s working on a commission (on the easel).

 

[Jacqui-S]

Looks really lovely Lisa, both the condo itself and the area

 

[Selina27]

Thanks for sharing Lisa, it's good to see.

 

[Stacia]

Yes, very good to see, so different from here.