June 15, 2007
Belated deck photos
Yes, the deck is completed, although the mosquitoes are doing their best to ensure that we don't enjoy it too much. We're just waiting for the gates to arrive, which will hopefully be soon. I've got to take some more pictures because the ones I've currently got don't show the finished flower beds around the deck.
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May 15, 2007
Enough posts?
I'll get today's pictures loaded later, but wanted to quickly post the photos from the pre-floor joist stage to show how we've supported the deck. It floats independent of the house on its 18 posts, and butts against the ledger board on the side of the house. The posts were all dug in at least 18 inches (or to undisturbed soil), except for those that rest on the now-buried original sidewalk. Unlike the original deck, this one won't be going anywhere anytime soon.
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May 09, 2007
And so we begin anew . . .
After a hiatus of several months whilst we adjusted to living with a munchkin in our midst, life is now turning to spring and (thus) to renovations yet again. Work began on the new deck this morning, resulting in the addition of several sturdy posts to the ground around the house. Thankfully, the clay wasn't nearly as soggy as we had feared, so digging the holes for the posts wasn't quite so much of a chore. Thus far, we've got one beam in place (but yet to be bolted together) and a number of the posts dug in and placed.
In addition to this, I have begun yet another round of extreme gardening. I spent all morning in one very small corner of the very large hedge, making a monstrous pile of branches in the trailer, and creating a fairly neat section of hedge (trimmed width-wise, but still out of control in the height department). I've come to the conclusion that my little pruning saw just isn't going to cut it, so tomorrow's pruning will involve the chain saw :-)
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December 04, 2006
Almost done!
Our kitchen is fast approaching completion. We now have cabinets, countertops, running water, appliances, lighting, and (as of this afternoon) a tile backsplash. There are still a bunch of little things to do, but at least we're now fully functional--no more existing on microwaved food and takeout for us!
I'll get some more pictures posted once we've cleaned things up a bit, but that won't happen until we're finished dealing with the grout.
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November 04, 2006
Kitchen progress
The kitchen is fast approaching fully functional status. We got the Formica installed on the countertops yesterday, which meant that I got shooed out of the house for most of the afternoon due to the contact cement fumes (not so good for me or baby). Things are looking good! Next up are the upper cabinets, the plumbing, and the rest of the wiring.
Then it's all the fiddly little bits. But, they're definitely worth it. For example, Dad spent two days shimming the strapping on the ceiling (before we drywalled) in an effort to make the ceiling flat (even after we'd installed the new beam and jacked the ceiling up a good 2", it was still out by between 1/2" and 3" in places). You can't even tell, now, that the 2"x6" floor joists (originally over an almost 22' span--insanity!) had sunk, bringing the ceiling with them, and creating a very funky (and not-so-attractive) dished look to the ceiling.
We haven't changed the footprint of the kitchen, at least not overly much. We've just extended the cabinets along both longer walls, adding a pantry on the east wall and another 8-1/2' of countertop (plus sink--coming soon) underneath the large window on the west wall.
We're going to have so many cabinets and so much cupboard space that I'm not sure we're going to know what to do with it all. We'll actually be able to put all of the kitchen stuff in the kitchen, for the very first time! Plus, by removing the old bathroom, we've gained a good-sized eating area off the kitchen, with room for the buffet and hutch. We'll actually be able to eat in the kitchen, and not be in severe danger of becoming human sardines.
In other news, Dad's gone home for a week because we're taking inventory at our store. That gives me a week with no major work on the main floor (aside from the furnace guys, who should be done on Monday), so I should be able to get a few things cleaned up (and get the stuff living in boxes in the dining room packed into its proper home(s) in the new cabinets).
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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.
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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).
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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.
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August 29, 2006
Concrete's here!
We've been waiting nine weeks to get the basement floor poured. Every time we talked to the guy, he'd tell us that he'd do it "next week sometime." Well, "next week" has finally arrived, as the guys are busy placing concrete in the basement as I type.
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August 23, 2006
From garage to office
Having an attached garage is a nice perk, especially here where, in the winter, temperatures can easily reach -40F (-40C). However, in order to be practical, one's vehicle(s) also need to easily fit into said garage, while still allowing room for the driver (and, hopefully, passengers) to exit. In this particular instance, such was not the case, as Dana's car
The new office had to hold both of our primary computers and the piano.* Oh, and at least some of our large library. My dad built a long, two-station desk into the room, and will be making a 2'-wide floor-to-ceiling bookcase to match. We've managed to cram a lot into a small space, as the room is 7' 8" x 11'. The 4' x 5' window really helps, as does the fact that we didn't close the room in, electing, instead, to use a 5' high wall to separate the back door & its hallway from the office.
The "before" pictures:
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And, the "after" pictures:
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* Due to the fact that there are only two feasible spots in the living/dining room that the piano could have lived, both of which would have forced us to constantly walk around it (as we had to do in the rental property), we decided that we'd sacrifice office space to get it out of the way, while still keeping it accessible.
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August 22, 2006
Turtle-like progress
Or, at least that's what it seems like some days. We really are making good progress, but so much of it is fiddly little stuff that, at times, it doesn't seem like we're doing all that much, even though we spent the whole day working. Now that I've finally got my portion of the office set up, I'll be able to post the numerous photos I've been hoarding.
Our kitchen cabinets have arrived, and are now occupying various rooms throughout the house. I never realized how much room cabinets can take up, but having to store our fully-assembled, boxed cabinets has remedied this. Our dining room and front porch have become a bit of an obstacle course, and will remain this way until likely some time in mid-October. You'd be hard pressed to fit more than four people around the table right now.
On the plus side, our cabinets are going to look fabulous. The original cabinets, while functional, were rather impractical, and in need of some significant repair due to extensive water damage. We've chosen to keep the original footprint of the cabinetry, but expand it just a bit so that we can actually wash dishes side-by-side without getting constantly jabbed by each others' elbows!
We ended up unpacking the one set of drawers that made it as far as the kitchen--was it ever heavy! So, now we're at least able to see what the new cabinets will look like, which enables me to pick a couple of colours for the kitchen. I can hardly wait until these are installed!
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July 14, 2006
Overdue update
As my laptop gave up the ghost in the middle of June, and Dana's working from home, my computer access has been sporadic, at best. Combine that with a seemingly constant overwhelming urge to sleep, and you've got a distinct lack of posting. This should change, soon, as I'm beginning to feel a bit better, and am crossing my fingers, hoping that the morning sickness (why is it called that when it lasts all day?) is abating. No pictures, at present, because Dana's computer's USB port doesn't work (for Linux & hardware reasons too complicated to get into here), so photographic evidence is delayed until the return of my laptop.
Anyway, all this doesn't mean that we haven't been busy. The bathroom's pretty much finished (just needs the wainscotting painted, which will happen when my milk paint arrives). The office and mud room are almost complete--they got their baseboards today, along with light fixtures. The basement's been dug out, concrete, sand, and 4" of clay removed (via conveyor), weeping tile and another sump installed, and 4" of new gravel laid. The concrete guy's coming tomorrow morning to do the estimate to repour the floor. My kitchen floor is sitting here in its boxes, getting acclimatized to the house, and the cabinets (Shaker style, in a ginger-stained rustic alder) will be here in mid-August. So, things are coming along, however slowly.
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June 16, 2006
Almost done!
Considering that this is what we started with, I think that we've done fairly well with our bathroom/office renovations so far. I haven't got any recent pictures of the office portion (which still needs more mudding/taping and painting before we can install the flooring), but I do have pictures of the new bathroom (even if only "in progress" pictures).
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June 15, 2006
And in other news . . .
We've been making slow progress on the bathroom/office addition. Dad's right: we would've taken much less time had we started from scratch, but the in-progress results have convinced me that working within the existing framework of the house was for the best. We're almost finished with the bathroom: there's just the skirting around the tub, the removable wall panel (so that we can access the tub's motor, if need be), a bit of wainscotting, and one more coat of ceiling paint, then we're finished with that bathroom. I've got pictures, but must first find the attachment for the digital camera so that I can upload them. It's around here somewhere.
I've been a bit remiss in updating lately because we've just been so insanely busy, trying to get as much done as we can before we have to move out of our other house (July 31 isn't all that far away). In addition, I've been really, really tired lately, and not feeling all that swift . . . but it's all for a good cause, as I'm expecting our first child in mid-January of 2007. We're very excited!
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May 13, 2006
Say "goodbye" to the tub!
Thanks to considerable effort on the part of Dad, Dana, and William, the red tub has left the house. It's still on the property, resting in the back yard until we haul it off to the ReStore, but it's no longer making the house hideous.
What's left of the bathroom doesn't look too pretty (and the chimney bits that are hanging in mid-air are a bit of a concern . . . although they don't appear to be actively moving), but we should be able to get it cleaned up and looking like kitchen . . . sometime in the (hopefully not-so-distant) future.
In addition to this, we've got all of the subfloor in the office, mudroom, and new bathroom laid. We'll get that screwed into place this afternoon (after the guys get back from the dump).
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May 12, 2006
Joists today, floor tomorrow!
Dad & I finished installing the floor joists today, in addition to completing most of the wiring and insulating the ends of the bulk of the floor joists. Dad also drilled a huge hole through the foundation so that we can run the plumbing into the house. Tomorrow, we'll finish the floor's insulation (there's just a few batts of R40 to add on top of the 2-1/2" rigid foam that we've sheeted the undersides of the joists with), cut and screw down the plywood for the floor (no more going 'round the house to get into it!), and finish off a few odds and ends that need to be addressed. If we get all of that done, we'll make an attempt at getting the hideous red tub out of the bathroom. I can't wait for it to be gone!
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May 10, 2006
Slow, but steady progress
Dad & I have been working on turning the garage into house, changing the mudroom, and adding an office space and a bathroom. We've taken out the old windows, replaced the larger of the original two (the next will be done later this week), removed the mudroom, stripped the plaster and lath off of most of the walls, insulated a good portion of the walls, and are set to install the floor joists tomorrow.
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April 17, 2006
Garage "surgery"
We were amazed that we actually got Dana's car into the garage in the fall, considering that we had about 3" to spare. And, Dana was barely able to get out of the car. :-)
So, when we decided that it was time to bring the car out of storage (now that all the salt & snow is gone), we knew that it was going to require a bit more effort. The ugly vestibule on the end of the garage was destined for the dump, regardless of what happened. So, we were completely prepared for the possibility that it would have to be removed before Dana's car could be moved.
Luckily, this wasn't the case. Lorien managed to squeak into the car to (1) put it in neutral so that we could push it, and (2) steer it so we wouldn't hit the walls. We managed to get it out of the garage without hitting either the monstrous steel hinges or the gas meter. After getting it started, we decided that, since it had to happen anyway, the guys would "operate" on the vestibule. But, this required more brute strength than finesse. ;-)
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Now we've got a very large pile of debris, and the garage is, at least at present, wide open. Over the next several days, in between writing the three term papers I need to finish, I'll temporarily frame this in and cover it with something (either plastic or a tarp) to keep the birds and other critters out, as we definitely don't want anything nesting in there when it comes time to turn it into an actual part of the house. No repeats of last summer's extremely pissed off starlings in the house, thank you very much.
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March 28, 2006
Primer . . . that actually covers the drywall!
'Tis an exciting thing . . . honestly. When I painted the basement bathroom, I used Behr's drywall primer. I can't say that I'm impressed with the product, as it took three coats to cover, and I really should've put on a fourth :-( Plus, it'd been frozen at least once, so there were large gobs of congealed paint, which made painting rather difficult.
So, when I went to prime the laundry room and basement (or, at least, that part of the basement that's been drywalled), I ordered some Acril-lok from the Home Hardware in Sutherland. Much, much better product, which covered the laundry room in a single coat. I think that I'll likely add another, as I can see just a few spots that I missed. But, considering that there's almost a whole pail--and one of those enormous ones--of drywall mud on the laundry room walls, that's not too bad.
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March 15, 2006
More tape and mud
I've been conspicuously MIA for the last little while, and it's not going to get any better for the next several weeks as it's almost the end of term. But, work is still progressing on the house, albeit a bit slowly. I taped and mudded the laundry room Monday. I had intended to do this Sunday, but ended up spending the day shovelling out the driveway . . . not a fun job when there's almost waist deep drifts of snow, which have had several layers of freezing rain.
My skills as a drywaller leave a fair bit to be desired, but mud hides a multitude of sins, so it doesn't look all that bad now that the first layer's done. I was hoping to get out there today to get that coat sanded and second layer of mud on, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen at the moment.
We've got a list of stuff to do before Dad comes out again, later this spring. Our primary concern is to get the remaining hardboard off the basement walls and to get the concrete floor broken up. This is in anticipation of pouring a new slab in the basement, and also pouring three new 64" walls to shore up the foundation underneath the front porch. We're also going to have to figure out (1) whether the front steps are solid concrete, and (2) determine how we're going to remove them. And no, William, this doesn't mean that you can blast them out!
In other news, the puppy finally has a name. Dad suggested Snoopy (because he's black and white), then Bob suggested the Red Baron (from Peanuts). The puppy's constantly airborne, and is becoming more and more adept at launching aerial attacks on Tasha and the rest of us. So, we thought about it some more, until Dana suggested calling him after the real Red Baron, Rittmeister Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen. Thus, puppy's name is Ricky, a much shortened version of the Red Baron's last name. Complicated . . . but we really didn't (as we've been asked a couple of times now) name him after Ricky from Trailer Park Boys ;-)
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March 04, 2006
Bathroom's almost done!
I could go on and on about how wonderful the new bathroom is, but I think it's wisest for me to let the photos speak for themselves.
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February 26, 2006
Nearing completion
We're almost ready to put the fixtures into the basement bathroom. I put the last coat of primer on the walls this morning, then Dad filled the plywood on the floor in preparation for laying the lino tomorrow. The vanity's sitting in the basement, waiting to be moved into place, as is the toilet. The first coat of colour is on the walls, and I should get the rest of the painting finished tomorrow (hopefully only one coat, and not two). I left the digital camera out there, so no pictures until tomorrow evening (these will include several of the guys curling in this weekend's bonspiel at the new Aberdeen rec centre).
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February 23, 2006
Bathroom walls!
The basement bathroom now actually looks like a real room, not a bunch of random studs and plates! The bottom half is sheeted with blue moisture resistant drywall (just in case), the top half with regular drywall. Our bargain door (not quite completely stripped) is in place, and the jamb that Dad made looks awesome.
Dad's already headed off to Aberdeen to sand the first coat of mud and add the next coat, while I'm shortly off to class. We're hoping to get to the painting stage by Saturday, after which we'll be able to re-install the toilet and add a vanity & sink. Now I've just got to track down a retrofit kit for the door handle, as the door is drilled for a conventional lock, but we'd like to use a handle set that matches the glass ones in the rest of the house.
The lights are in place in the area designated for the workshop. It's now so bright in there that, according to Dad, we're going to need sunglasses! He installed a series of split receptacles along the base of the new beam (we'll do the same along the old one, as well), all of which will be within easy reach. I can hardly wait to get the drywall hung as, once that's done, we'll be able to move the workbench into this room, and will likely add a series of shelves--no more tools all over the house!
We're also hoping, this weekend, to get the hole dug for the sump (a definite job for Dana). Once that's done, we just have to build the box for it, as the plumbing and electrical are already in place. I'm not sure if we're going to need it or not, but it's better to be over-prepared for moisture issues.
I'll close this post with one last thing that is definitely worthy of mention: yesterday morning's sunrise, which was quite pretty.
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February 20, 2006
Toasty warm!
We've finished framing in the north-east corner of the basement, then added rigid foam insulation, followed by a layer of R-14 in batts (green stuff, whose name escapes me at present). It's much, much warmer down there now . . . and the main floor is also considerably warmer. Once we've got the R-40 stuffed between the foundation and sill plate/floor joists, it should be even warmer.
We've re-wired most of this section of the basement, and installed a sub-panel down there so that we're running less wires through the already Swiss-cheese-like floor joists. We'll have lots of plugs in what will be the workshop, and we've added separate circuits for all of the computer equipment.
The basement bathroom now has a door (pictures to come later, as I neglected to take any this afternoon) and new jamb. We should have drywall within a day or so, closely followed by flooring and plumbing fixtures.
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February 15, 2006
Structural repairs, part two
The basement beam has been raised into place, the jack posts added, and the beam levelled. The upstairs doors that previously were sticking now swing freely. We still have to add shims so that each of the floor joists is adequately supported.
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We've also added a tripartite water filter, just after the water meter, which has (at least in the last several days) filtered out a considerable amount of sediment. This should prevent our hot water tank from getting filled with sediment and, thus, sounding like a percolating coffee pot ;-)
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February 11, 2006
Structural repairs, part one
Dad arrived Thursday morning from B.C. with a huge truck and trailer load of furniture and building supplies. Pictures later, as I neglected to take my digital camera with me.
We spent yesterday morning plotting our first project, then picked up a bunch of supplies (including a $16 fir door to match the rest in the house, 3 light fixtures, and a set of 3-1/2" brass hinges). Dad, Trent, and I put the first of the shoring in for the floor joists, sistering up the farthest east joist under the original master bedroom. Then this morning (after the obligatory Saturday morning brunch) Dad, Dana, and Trent did the same to the other four that needed attention. This considerably stiffened the floor, and will ensure that the joists will be able to hold the weight of the piano.
While they did that, I began stripping the door we picked up yesterday. I made significantly more progress than I'd anticipated because the door was varnished before it was painted. I should have this completely stripped (working in spurts because of the stench) sometime in the next several days.
The guys built the basement beam in place, using 8' and 12' lengths of 2"x10", which they glued together with PL Premium, then added deck screws on 16" centers. We ran out of 5-1/2" bolts, so they'll add the bolts in the morning. We'll then raise the beam into place (as it's currently suspended on temporary "posts"), then add the jack posts underneath.
After that's done, I anticipate that we'll insulate the basement bathroom's walls (as we picked up one bale of 1-1/2" rigid insulation and 2 bales of R-14 this afternoon). While we're at that, we're going to run the plumbing for the sump pumps, but will dig the holes later this week.
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February 04, 2006
Add water, stir, then pour
We now have new concrete to replace the concrete that we dug up last weekend. That is, there are now solid footings for the posts, as opposed to the 80+ year old, crumbling, likely not structurally sound concrete that was previously there.
We'd dug three holes, two 12" x 12" by 9" deep and one 15" x 12" by 9" deep (because of a large tree root). This afternoon we lined the holes with chicken wire, cross-laid with 4-10" spikes per hole, and added Redi-Mix conrete on top, which we mixed (actually, it was Trent & Dana--I "supervised"), with shovels, in a mid-sized Rubbermaid tub. We ended up using just under seven bags of the Redi-Mix, leaving three to take back tomorrow morning (along with several bags of miscellaneous plumbing bits from the last several weeks). Each footing is slightly higher than the surrounding floor (or, what's attempting (and failing) to do an impersonation of floor), to prevent water from pooling around the base of the posts.
If the level of moisture in the holes (before pouring the concrete) is any indication, we're definitely going to have to put several sump pumps in place. Dana cut the large tree root out of the middle hole, and encountered a great deal of difficulty in doing this, as the root was absolutely saturated. I figure that, if we could've wrung it out, we'd have gotten a significant amount of water. But, so long as we get to the sump pumps before spring, I don't think that it's going to be a problem.
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February 03, 2006
Heating the outdoors
You never really appreciate the meaning of this until you've had to pay the energy bill for a leaky, drafty old house. I meant to post about our energy inspection (30 Jan), but have just been far too busy with school to do so.
The bad news is that we failed, miserably; however, this is also good news. How so? The way the energy efficiency rebate program works, the lower our initial rating and the higher our final rating, the higher our federal and provincial rebates will be. The inspector guesstimated that the house is in the mid 20s for efficiency (67 is supposed to be the ideal for a house this age). With some work, we should be able to get up into the 60s (without having to reinsulate the exterior walls on the main and second floors).
The three main areas of leakage were the basement windows/walls, the point at which the sill plate and joists meet the foundation, and the main & second floor windows. We're planning on insulating the basement walls with rigid styrofoam insulation (no fiberglass because of the chance of moisture) and will replace the basement windows. We'll likely use fiberglass at the foundation line, and will re-seal all points at which the services (i.e., gas) enter the house. The main & second floor windows are newer, but improperly installed. Lots and lots of caulking and expanding foam should solve their leakage issues (especially considering that its the areas around the windows that are leaking, not the windows, themselves).
We won't get the actual report for six to eight weeks, but we've got a pretty good idea, at present, about what needs to be done. Now we just need to find the time to do all of it.
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Digging to China
Well, not literally, but I'm sure that Dana thought that that was what I'd asked him to do. Last Sunday, in the midst of an horrible flu, Dana broke three holes in the basement floor and Trent dug them out, all so that we can pour footings for the new beam. We're hoping to pour the concrete tomorrow afternoon, and will likely be putting the new beam in place the following weekend.
We discovered that the trees' infiltration of the space underneath the basement slab is rather more significant than we'd anticipated. On the left hand side of the following photo is a barely visible tree root, which, while it seems a bit bigger than most, doesn't appear to be all that big . . . until you realize that its diameter is larger than that of my wrist. Yikes!
The slab's in pretty rough shape in places, so the holes aren't all that pretty. But, aesthetics are secondary to structural integrity, particularly considering that we'll (eventually) be putting a raised subfloor throughout the basement. On the plus side, when it comes time to dig the holes for the sump pumps, the only place that'll likely be at all difficult will be the hole that we need the least :-)
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January 23, 2006
Of water meters and shut off valves
I just got off the phone with the town foreman, and have tentatively scheduled for the water to be turned off at the street on Friday. He'll check/fix the water meter at that time, but I have to install a new shut off valve, as it appears that the valve, even though it's before the water meter, is mine. However, this means that we should be able to move everything, meter included, inside the new basement wall, which will make insulating much, much easier.
It's hard to tell how badly the meter is leaking, and where. The bottom of the meter is always damp, and there's a damp spot on the floor, directly below the meter, that just never seems to dry out. The fact that the bottom of the meter, as seen below, is in such bad shape doesn't help matters any.
Posted by plainstext at 11:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 22, 2006
Back to square one
Well, not entirely. But, we're now almost at the same point with the basement bathroom as we were when we took possession of the house. Except for the fact that the toilet doesn't leak all over the place, the walls are flat and straight, and there's actually a floor, not just bare concrete with patches of prairie clay poking through. Here's the "before" picture.
Next is where we were at following yesterday's work--subfloor laid, floor levelled, drains installed, and set to re-install the toilet. The subfloor's framed with green treated 2"x4"s, laid on edge, which gave us enough clearance to level the floor, and leaves enough space that the floor won't be impacted by any ground water seepage.
Here's where we left off today. I'm impressed that the only thing we dropped down the open drain was a flat washer, for which we managed to find a replacement. Trent struggled a bit when he went to seat the toilet, because the wax seal was at basement room temperature (significantly cooler than what the recommended room temperature would have been) and because we had a few problems getting the toilet bolts to stay in their proper positions inside the flange.
We won't finish this bathroom off for a few weeks, as we've got to install the new beam directly over top of the toilet. We don't want to have to work around the sink/vanity, walls, or the door, so those will have to wait until after the beam's in place. As well, I'll replace the window as soon as the energy inspection is done, which is supposed to be the 30th of January. It definitely hasn't come soon enough, as the house is leaking heat at an alarming rate, as evidenced by our reading of the natural gas meter this afternoon. Ouch!
We're not entirely sure that the previous owner even had the heat turned on in the house. The thermostat's set at 50F when we're not there and the hot water tank's set to pilot, and we've used significantly more gas than SaskEnergy had estimated, which is not a good thing, especially when the winter's been as warm as it has.
One last brief item is a photo of the pond in our basement. It's shrunk considerably since yesterday, so I decided that it wasn't worth the effort to attempt to mop up what was left of it. Still, it covers a fairly large area, albeit at a much lesser depth than it did yesterday.
Posted by plainstext at 09:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 20, 2006
Bathroom demolition, phase two
We went out to the house today expecting the worst, thinking that we'd be spending a considerable portion of time very carefully cleaning up what we envisioned to be an horrendous amount of mouse poop. It seems, however, that the worst of it was what fell on top of my head last Friday.
We shovelled back the cellulose insulation from the front of the attic storage space, over top of the bathroom, to ensure that, if there were sizable holes between the two spaces, we wouldn't be showered with cellulose (and worse). Then Dana carefully removed the ceiling tiles while I stuffed them into a monsterous garbage bag. We managed to make very little mess during this entire process, and discovered only miniscule evidence of ancient mice.
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While I cleaned up the mess from my previous demolition, Dana dismantled the bathroom cabinets, then removed a good portion of the drywall between the bathroom and kitchen. We've made a bit of a mess, especially considering that the main water shut off for the house is definitely not working, which resulted in a sizable pool of water around the recently cut cold water line :-(
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On the plus side, we stopped at the town office on our way back in to Saskatoon, and it sounds like the town foreman will be out sometime tomorrow to deal with the faulty shut off and, hopefully, the leaking water meter.
Posted by plainstext at 03:51 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 13, 2006
Bathroom demolition, phase one
Amongst my other projects today was the removal of the mirrored tiles and the linoleum (walls and floor) from the main floor bathroom. I will admit that this was done with more than a small amount of glee. I literally tore the lino off of the walls and cabinetry, then pried up the sticky floor tiles with a scraper and heat gun (a smelly, sticky job). Then, I attempted to remove (intact) the multiple mirrored tiles, managing to break far fewer than I'd anticipated.
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There's some mold on the wall behind the toilet, but it's not as bad as we'd feared it would be. It appears that the wax seal has been seeping and, as we're not living there right now, this should dry out, at least to some extent.
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The worst problem, which necessitated an earlier trip back to the city than I'd planned, was the bathroom ceiling. The previous owner, at some point in time, installed ceiling tiles throughout the main floor of the house. Those in the bathroom were sagging considerably, so I decided that they, too, needed to be removed.
This was a very bad plan. I'm not, at this point, entirely sure as to what's going on up there, but it's not good. When I finally managed to pull down one of the tiles, I was showered with seeds and mouse turds. Yuck. So, out came the ShopVac to clean up the mess. Without taking down more tiles, which is going to be a two-person job to keep the mess to a minimum, I can only speculate as to what the problem is.
As the bathroom is below the narrow attic storage area that runs the length of the house, I'm assuming that this is where the debris originated. We know that the previous owner had mice up there (likely because the roof sucked . . . but that's an entirely different story), living in with the cellulose stuff that's masquerading as insulation.
It appears that the original ceiling plaster (in blue in the following photo) was badly damaged, so the previous owner fixed it with his favourite--plywood. The plywood is nailed, with short roofing nails, into what remains of the plaster and it's this, not just the tiles, that appears to have separated from the ceiling. I don't think that we'll really know what's going on until we shovel the cellulose away from the bathroom ceiling (on the attic side) and get the rest of the ceiling tiles removed.
Posted by plainstext at 10:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Closet-ectomy
As it's been over a week since I'd been out to the house to work, I went on a demolition spree this morning. First to go was the closet between the kitchen and mud room, which had irritated me from the day I first saw it. Blech.
After a bit of persuasion, one smashed finger, and a dog miffed about random bits of falling detritus, the closet is gone. I can't believe how much bigger the kitchen feels, especially considering that the closet was 20-1/8" wide by 56-1/2" long--that's not really all that much space (7.9 sq ft).
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Posted by plainstext at 10:12 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
January 05, 2006
Expect the worst . . .
. . . and you won't be too horrified at what you uncover in an old house. Or, at least that's what I've learned so far whilst undertaking renovations on this old house of ours. When I pulled up (via heat gun) a half dozen of the vinyl tiles from the kitchen floor, I was prepared for something similar to what I'd found in the laundry room.
There had been five leaks under the sink when we took possession and, considering the state of the two floor joists underneath the sink, I was definitely prepared for and expecting the worst. We'd even begun considering how we'd save as much of the hardwood as possible, so I was pleasantly surprised to discover that, aside from the two strips closest to the sink, the floor is actually in fairly good shape. A good sanding, and perhaps a coat of stain, and it should look pretty good.
Posted by plainstext at 09:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 21, 2005
Bathroom framing
On the weekend, Trent & Dana demolished what was left of the framing & walls for the original basement bathroom. Trent then smashed out the concrete surrounding the toilet's drain so that we could move it. The new toilet will not lean drunkenly toward the center of the house!
Trent & I spent Saturday afternoon & all day Sunday framing in the new bathroom, which makes way better use of space than did the previous one. In addition, its walls could actually be referred to as "structural," much unlike those of the previous bathroom. We did learn, however, to take more measurements for the walls' float, as what originally looked like a high spot turned out to be a low spot, meaning that our 5" nails weren't quite long enough.
Before
After
Posted by plainstext at 06:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 14, 2005
Drywall & doorways
I managed, yesterday, to finish insulating the mud room, add the last bit of vapour barrier, and get the rest of the drywall hung in the laundry room and mud room. Nothing's even close to square, which made things a bit difficult, but at least it's covered. I'll spend a half hour or so tomorrow to add some more screws (as the ones I had weren't long enough). It's amazing what a difference it makes--both rooms are much, much brighter, which shows just how much light the horrible hardboard panelling was absorbing.
I also added 1"x8" around the doorway between the mud room and the rest of the house, as I had visions of one of us catching our feet (or something else) on the exposed edges of the drywall. Now it's on to flooring, which Dana & I should hopefully get installed Friday, so long as I manage to get all of the necessary supplies this morning.
Posted by plainstext at 08:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
It really does work
We had a stretch of really warm weather last week, which gave us the opportunity to see if the eavestroughing had made a difference to the water problem in the basement. Even with the leaks, most of which I fixed that afternoon, the basement hasn't got any wet spots at the edges of the foundation. Once we've got the grading around the house fixed (which we'll do in the spring), I think that the drainage issues will have been solved, at least for the most part.
There was enough water that I could clearly see where leaky spots were, but this made sealing them a bit of a challenge. I discovered that a prodigious application of gutter sealant worked, even on the big leaks . . . although some of them have rather obvious caulking globs. But, it's the same colour as the eavestroughing and it keeps the water in, at least until we can properly fix these in the spring.
There's one section of downspout that we'll need to take apart, as Dana & his brothers installed it so that the upper pieces fit over (instead of into) the lower pieces. There are a couple of slightly leaky connections that we'll need to caulk, but they're only accessible with the extension ladder and will thus have to wait until spring. And, the highest two sections of eavestroughing (across the back of the house & garage) will need more caulking at the seams.
But, all in all, it does its job, even if the house does look like it's ready to take off because of the extensions to the downspouts, two of which need another 5 to 6 feet in further length because they're draining into low spots that drain back towards the foundation.
Temporary caulking
Posted by plainstext at 08:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The things you do for your dog
Well, not entirely for the dog, but she was definitely the primary motivation. After we installed the new back door, and began using it as our primary entry to the house, we realized that we were going to have to do something to ensure that Tasha could get in and out of the house on her own.
The back stairs have sunk about 16 inches on the north end, leaving a 12" gap between the top of the steps and the sill of the new door. I ended up building a 6" step, which is basically just an open-bottomed box, which Tasha now manages without any problems, bad knee and all. This is one of the few projects that I managed to start and finish in a single day, and its one of even fewer that's actually complete. Hence the rather self-congratulatory post ;-)
Posted by plainstext at 08:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 10, 2005
Bathroom roots?
In addition to finishing off a couple of other small tasks, this afternoon Trent & I dismantled the leaking toilet in the basement bathroom (if you could call it that). As with other projects, nothing seems to have been installed properly.
The flange bolts that are supposed to hold the base of the toilet to the floor were not the proper bolts (with two flat sides), but standard bolts with round heads. Removing them required significant elbow grease, to the point that Trent ended up snapping them off with the vice grips.
Once we removed the toilet from the floor, we had to clean out the partially blocked drain. However, instead of being blocked with what one might expect of a toilet, the drain was occluded by a large number of tree roots. Go figure.
We spent about half an hour making a list of the necessary plumbing, electrical, and subfloor supplies, then wandered back into the city to visit Home Depot. We managed to find pretty much everything that we were looking for (after a bit of searching), except for treated 2"x4" lumber (which Trent'll get in the morning). The only lengths that they had anyof were 12' and over, none of which would (a) fit in Trent's truck and/or (b) fit down into the basement of the house.
Posted by plainstext at 08:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 06, 2005
Weekend Busy-ness
We managed to get a lot done this weekend, including removing the last of the plaster (and plaster keys) from the laundry room walls, installation of a new plug in the mud room, rewiring of the mud room switches and light fixture, and the installation of a new exterior door for the mud room.
It was a good thing that both Trent and William were there, as we discovered that the mud room's exterior door was suspended from the roof, with nothing running through to the foundation for support. This was the same thing that we'd encountered with the mud room, itself. But, we'd hoped that the previous exterior door had been properly installed. Not so.
Between them, William & Trent constructed a much more solid and properly engineered ;-) door frame. The actual installation of the door took a great deal less time. There's now a great deal of light in the mud room, which was previously rather dark, and you can no longer see the outside world through large gaps in the door (never mind the piece of MDF that had been nailed to the bottom of the door in order to keep out the vermin).
Mud Room Before
Mud Room After
Posted by plainstext at 08:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 01, 2005
Cover-up
There are no longer gaping holes in the laundry room's walls and floor. Fitting the subfloor into the hole that I rather inexpertly cut was like doing a rather large jigsaw puzzle. I've temporarily laid a layer of 1/2" plywood over top of the first layer, to prevent us from losing screws or anything else through the few small holes that remain. I'll add a permanent layer of 5/8" plywood sometime in the next several days. Combined with the underlayment and laminate flooring, this should mean that there will be very little difference in height between the original hardwood and the new laundry room flooring.
Yesterday Trent & I ran new wire for the dryer and have set the box up for connection. We won't connect it, or the new plug for the washing machine, until the drywalling is finished. We fished through new wire for the light, and installed a new box & switch.
This morning I closed up the hole between the mud room and the laundry room, then spent the rest of the day cleaning up and organizing stuff. Now I should be able to find things a little more easily.
Tomorrow's project will be to clean up the portion of the basement that's underneath the laundry room, as it suffered from intermittent showers of plaster, rotten flooring/subflooring, and the occasional lost item (including an entire box of 1-1/2" wood screws). Once that's done, I'll likely leave the plumbing for the time being, as I'm not entirely certain as to where all of it will end up. Plus, I don't want to trip over it when I'm doing the drywalling.
Posted by plainstext at 09:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 29, 2005
Remodeling isn't for the impatient
I haven't got nearly as much done as I'd have liked, mainly due to the fact that the weekend was primarily a lost cause. However, things are slowly moving forward. Over the last two days I've installed six blinds, two shut off valves, hacked out a whole bunch of pipe, installed some pipe strapping, and pulled out most of the cable for the previous owner's short wave radio antenna. And those are just the little projects.
In the big picture, the last of the flooring in the laundry room has been removed, resulting in a rather large (and messy) pile of material that has to be sorted through in order to determine what is and what is not salvagable. I've also removed all of the rotten subfloor, leaving a gaping hole into the basement. The edges of the remaining subfloor have been shored up, I've installed a new (treated) floor joist underneath where the washer & dryer will go, and have one cut and ready for installation tommorrow morning, just to give me a bit more to work with when I install the new subfloor.
Only one layer left . . .
