Memories of a B & B

 

 

Our guests (God love 'em) say the darndest things. Recently, two of them surpassed all expectations and wrote two poems about their experience of Nelson House B & B and the Shangri-La suite.

 

Since it is Christmastime, I would like to share their gifts with you. Both poets have kindly extended their permissions but please accept my apologies for any damage done in selecting from the whole. For those of you who have stayed with us, these poems may stir some memories.

 

The following is an excerpt from a piece entitled The House by Don MacLean.

 

" Confidently sitting like a pampered prince, The grey-blue wood frame home, shoulder to shoulder with the towering high-rises, three stories of Victorian splendor, our writing retreat in town for the weekend, on the top floor....

We passed through

a black wrought-iron double gate.

Wide steps rose

to a carved oak door,

and a protective

grey and white cat

challenging us to come forward.

 

...Second floor, a thousand miles

away from the first,

water chimes by a vine-adorned window,

captivating to my partner,

who stops for three minutes meditation, I watch her watch the floating chimes, and

feel warm at her stillness.

Old photos of old people,

sepia images in one dimensional poses,

stories of the past imagined for a minute, there on the second floor, carpets everywhere

to absorb the city noises.

 

Third floor is though a smaller attic door, steeper stairs, narrower staircase, slightly mysterious, very quiet."

 

And by Lisa Shatzky, a small portion of her beautiful poem, The Room at Nelson House.

 

"But for a moment there was nothing else

but the memory of the room where we stayed, walking up the long narrow staircase to an open attic hideaway, a chamber extraordinaire burgundy walls and east Indian books and a bamboo sofa and two paper dragons hanging from the ceiling facing us with their fire eyes and wild tongues.

We spent the day writing...

And the room became an inner journey

to a sacred place

revealing the hidden labyrinths of being and we stayed by the fire sharing the poems over wine and chocolate...

 

The room then gathered us in her arms

and danced us into the night

and the poems grew wings

and joined the dragons

flying..."

 

My best wishes for the holidays and may the new year bring you all much peace and happiness.

 

David

 

Shangri-La

The pictures above show the new look of the Shangri-La's cozy wetbar. The last few weeks have involved both an energy retro-fit and a stylish makeover for portions of our top-floor suite. Attic spaces have been opened, insulated and resealed airtight. Not only do guests have the makings for coffee, tea and cocktails(note the built-in refigerator under the counter) but the chimney brick has been exposed for the first time to add more of that heritage warmth that B & Bs are all about. Sexy lighting adds just the right touch for an evening's romantic nightcap.

New flooring and natural wooden baseboard trim has also warmed the ambience of Shangri-La's comfortable bath. Yes, that is a corner jacuzzi tub for two. By day, it is tropically sunny under a skylight.

By night, the tropical artwork on the oval wall mirror is backlit. I sketched the artwork and the mirror was custom built for us in Hong Kong. You just gotta see the cool green and golden glow from the perspective of the tub.

Hope you like! We are not your grandma's bed and breakfast - nor your local Best Western. Please checkout the guest-house website for more pictures of the suite - very nice for a romantic getaway.

Shangri-La - rooftop renovations.

A photo collage of the Shangri-La Suite

This week, we started to renovate our top-floor Shangri-La Suite. This is not the first time. Shangri-La occupies the entire third-floor of the house. The centre of the suite is under the peak of the roof. Originally(c. 1907), this was likely to have been the children's bed &/or playroom. The central area is now used as a sitting area gathered around a TV and gas fireplace. From it, three flat-roofed dormers jut east, west and north out of the sloping roofline. Charming, multipaned casement windows front each dormer.

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There is no south dormer - probably because of the neighbouring house. In the early 1990's, we added an ensuite bath with jacuzzi tub and skylight on the southside. When building the bath, of course we insulated the bath's walls and constructed a hatch inside the closet for future access to the southside attic crawlspace.

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To complete the picture - under the east dormer, overlooking the front door and garden is a desk, armchair & single bed. Under the west dormer is the main sleeping nook with queen-sized bed and glass doors leading to a balcony. Under the north dormer is the focus of our current project.

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When we bought the house in 1989, this small space, just beside and behind the fireplace, was a tenant's kitchenette and somehow managed to contain a gas stove, a full-sized clunker of a fridge, sink and simple custom-built cabinetry. For B & B purposes, our first renovations reduced this to a "galley kitchen" with only a bar fridge, microwave, coffeemaker, kettle and a general freshening up with paint and vinyl. Now, our goals are to turn this area into a sexier "wetbar", obtain access to the remaining attic spaces to prepare for blown-in insulation, make necessary electrical improvements and, once again(fun!), update the decorating scheme.

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