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October 26, 2006
Prairie winters & exterior doors
When we took possession of our house, it had all its original exterior doors, not a single one of which was in very good shape. We had to remove the raised panel, cedar door from the mudroom in early December. We replaced it with a new, nine-light, insulated, pre-hung steel door.
But, there were good reasons for this seeming sacrilege. Our primary concern was air leakage. It's not uncommon, here, for it to get to -40C (-40F) in the winter, and it is perfectly capable of hitting temperatures as low as -65C (-76F) with the windchill. In short, it can get pretty damn cold. And, while I loved the look of the original back door, it just wasn't practical to keep it . . . especially when, in early December, it had a good 1/2" coat of frost growing on it (and it hadn't even hit -20C yet).
Next came the front door. We bought a pair of heritage storm doors from Emco, both of which have self-storing glass & screens. They're not an exact match to the 12-light cedar storm doors that the house originally had (of which we currently only have one, as the back storm door is mysteriously missing), but they're as close as we could come and still get all of the advantages of the newer storm doors.
The original front door is a craftsman style door, with a single, almost-square, window and three recessed panels. The center panel is cracked to the extent that you can actually see the outside world through it while sitting in the old front porch. It's entirely fixable (with more than a little work), but the thin recessed panels provide little in terms of insulation . . . a fact that we discovered early last winter. So, with yet another sigh, we purchased yet another insulated steel door, although this time with a 9-light-sized stained glass-style insert.
We dearly would have loved to have kept all three remaining original doors, but it just wasn't practical to do so in this climate. Even once the house has achieved a good frost seal, it was still far too cold in here last winter. The two entry doors were going to continue to present a problem, even with insulating the basement inside & out, replacing all of the basement windows, and the planned insulation of and sealing* around the main floor windows that aren't presently being replaced.
So there, I've admitted it, we've committed one of the sins for which people often curse the previous owners of their homes. But, at least we'll re-use the doors elsewhere. The one remaining original storm door is in really rough shape, as the door-handle side stile is nowhere even close to sound. Unfortunately, I don't think we're going to be able to salvage this one. However, despite their rough shape, we're going to be able to re-use the original back and front doors. The back door, a heavy cedar raised-panel door, will go on the basement workshop, once it's reassembled from the bits and pieces to which it's currently reduced. The front door, once the center panel has been fixed and the glass frosted, will likely reside upstairs. In addition to this, we've obtained a functional fir storm door, which is destined, after stripping, refinishing, and glass frosting, to become the door for the new master bedrom. So, it's not as if we're shipping them off to the dump or something . . . we're just giving them new jobs to do.
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* A brief note re. sealing: We've been using a product that is often referred to as "blueskin" throughout the course of our exterior renovations. It's a self-adhering flashing, blue on the sticky side, that seals out drafts better than any other product we've seen on the market (and, considering that my father's been in the home improvement/building supply industry for 37 years, that's saying a lot). It's worked wonders on the areas of the house that we've managed to seal thus far.
Posted by plainstext at 05:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
It's official . . .
. . . I've become a politician. Not that I really particularly wanted to be one, as I can count, on one finger, the number of politicians I've met that I could actually stand to hold a conversation with--and that particular man, an honest, down-to-earth, and honourable man, passed away not that long ago, and will be missed a great deal.
I'm now one of six newly elected council members for the Town of Aberdeen. Considering that I flat out admitted at the candidates' meeting that (1) what I know about farming might fit into a teacup (if I'm really lucky), (2) I've never lived in a small town before this, and (3) I don't really want to be a politician, I'm a bit surprised that I was actually elected. ;-) Just wait 'til the townspeople find out where my politics really lie.
In a little less cheeky tone, I really do think that community involvement, particularly when one lives in a small town, is important, especially at a time when so many Saskatchewan small towns are fast losing their populations as my generation (and those even younger) move away for bigger and better things. I allowed myself to be persuaded to run for council because I think that my community has a great deal of potential, potential that I really don't want to see ruined as a result of apathy and insularity. I've seen that happen before, and it's not a pretty sight (nor is it good for business). Regardless of what happens, I'm sure that it'll be an interesting three years.
Posted by plainstext at 04:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 25, 2006
Culvert!
Several months ago, our neighbours across the street had a culvert installed, draining from their yard, across the street, and into the ditch on the other side. Dana wandered out, in the midst of this, to ask what we had to do to get one of our own. He was rather surprised when our town foreman told him that he'd order one right away, and make sure it was installed before freeze up . . . all at no cost to us. Having lived in larger cities my whole life, the idea that the town would do something like this and not make us pay seemed rather astonishing.
This morning, a backhoe showed up and began digging. The culvert was delivered. We discovered a substantial foundation for something (16" wide walls, formed on both sides, plus a concrete floor) beginning just outside of our hedge and continuing well into the street. We're not entirely sure what it was for (or why it's in the street), but it appears likely that it was a cistern of some sort. I'll have to check the town's archives to see if there's any mention of a structure having been there at some point. Considering that a significant portion of the town burned in the 1930s, anything's possible. The guys dug a huge trench right across Main St., installed the culvert, filled the now very muddy hole, and were done in time for a slightly late lunch. Thanks!!
So, we now have a nice shiny culvert, which will hopefully prevent us from gaining a temporary lake in the front yard come spring melt. And, with all of the other improvements we've made to our drainage, I'm really hoping (with crossed fingers) that this means we won't have any water in the basement either.
Posted by plainstext at 02:41 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
October 24, 2006
Of suspended ceilings and other things
Yes, putting a suspended ceiling in an old house is sacrilege. There. I've said it. But that's exactly what we're going to do. We need to retain access to the space between the ceiling and the second floor's subfloor so that we can run the bathroom pipes (when we get around to building the third bathroom). In addition, we have to have access to the cleanout we've installed in the plumbing stack, to make sure that it doesn't get all clogged up again. The old ceiling's a mess, which we won't finish dealing with until the bathroom project gets underway, but we don't want to live with the mess it's going to create.
Considering that we're going to have to drop the ceiling, regardless, in order to leave room for the plumbing, we're going to create our own suspended ceiling with crown moulding, industrial ceiling track, and 2-foot wide pieces of drywall. Not exactly period-appropriate, but it'll suffice (and won't involve using those hideous ceiling tiles).
Posted by plainstext at 06:25 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
October 20, 2006
Kitchen progress
It's been a while, for a number of reasons, but I'm hopefully back on track (at least for the time being). Little remains of the old kitchen except its footprint, which couldn't be significantly altered without moving exterior walls around--something we're not prepared to do. We're making progress, but there are some days where it seems like this project will never end.
So far, the guys have completely gutted the kitchen, revealing that the wall directly behind the kitchen sink had no insulation, which might have been why the plaster, floor, and floor joists had pretty much rotted away to nothing--especially when it's able to reach -30C inside your house. We've got new windows that actually open. The originals were long gone, and the fixed ones prevented any ventilation, making the kitchen an oven in the midst of summer. We've put in new wiring and plumbing, added a central vacuum line so that I can actually vacuum all of the house, run several sets of phone and CAT 5e cable, and plumbed in the range fan so that it actually vents outside, instead of into the basement stairwell. We've added R14.5 insulation, a significant improvement over the wood chips (and lack thereof) in the previous walls, and finished hanging the drywall yesterday evening. At present, we're waiting for the drywall mud to dry so that we can sand. Hopefully, this means that sometime in the next week or so the fully-assembled cabinets that are sitting in the living room, dining room, and porch will actually come to inhabit their new homes in the kitchen. I can hardly wait.
Posted by plainstext at 07:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack