the new bedroom

I've had this blog for less than a month and I'm already delinquent. I've gotten behind on my postings and haven't learned how to reformat my page. Sadly I just haven't had the time to put into my blog (blog, blog, blog - that was for you Jim!).

I've been making good progress with my research though. I still have yet to run any anlyses on the data in my database but have completed all my interviews! I ended up having 20 participants for the interview portion of my study and am proud to say I finished transcribing all the interviews on Sunday (my wrists are still sore!). I had wanted to have that part done by the end of March so I met my deadline with 1 day to spare. On the agenda today is running some preliminary analyses (just descriptive data at this point I think) and reading through the interviews again and again. Having never worked with qualitative data before I'm a bit apprehensive of where to go from here. My advisor has suggested I just relax and read through the interviews a number of times, perhaps taking some notes, and the themes will start to emerge. At this point that doesn't sound all that helpful - I mean I don't think it works in the same way as those optical illusion images where if you just stare at them long enough the mystery image will emerge. My advisor has yet to stear me wrong so I'll heed her advice. I have a meeting with her next week so I'll see how far I get before then.

In other news, the bedroom is now finished. Well, the construction of the room is complete and Alex build us a bedframe but I still need to get 2 bedside tables and a dresser.

Here's a photo of Alex putting the first coat of mudding on the new drywall. The next photo shows the walls finished with the first coat of primer on.

Here the walls and the moulding have been painted. Next the new flooring is going in.

Finally, here's the room all done. The darker area under the window (instead of trim) is a poured concrete windowsill that Alex made. It's very funky and functional as a ledge (a favourite spot for the kitties).

The last picuture shows the view from our window. That first building on the left is the Assembly Hall, a community cultural centre. They have a performance hall, community meeting rooms and gallery space. In the summer there are musical festivals and fairs that take place on the grounds just to the left of the building, which is awesome for us - we can walk across the street to see some great performers, sample food, go on rides, etc. In the winter we have the Lakeshore Santa Claus parade that comes by the house.

The other buildings you see further down are part of Humber College's south campus. Just down the road past those buildings is the Lakeshore Yacht Club and a protected park erea. The park includes beautiful walking trails along the waterfront and picnic areas surrounded by over 30 hecters of wetlands and areas of native vegetation. The park includes the grounds of what was the Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital which occupied the site from 1888 until 1979. It's a beautiful area - Max and Eva like to walk the trails and go swimming in the lake.