You may be wondering about the lack of activity here on the blog…well, I’ve been keeping busy—just not here. A lot has been happening…like interlocking brick!

It’s a mucky job, but I am liking the idea of no more sand coming into the house. Yes, most people would have opted to finish siding the place first, but the weather’s still too cold, rainy and damp for painting shingles.

”

I’m heading back outside—there’s O-pipe to deal with (drainage), lots more brick to lay (there’s a bit of a retaining wall happening to deal with a yard that slopes upwards from the back of the house), and later there will be muddy laundry and probably a tub to clean.

Oh…friggin’ great…Martha just informed me her ceiling is leaking. Again. Gotta go.

This is shaping up to be a fine long weekend!

technorati tags: houseblog, DIY, landscaping, futility

If you’re trying to restore or renovate your home, you probably already know that the PO holds a special place in your memory, living on long after they’ve vacated the premises. The painted over woodwork, lack of footings on additions, multiple flooring layers and walls you can see daylight through are some common territory markings of these faux-paneling aficionados.
“Will they stop at nothing?!!” you whine, as you slide deeper in debt fixing the errors of their ways.
No. They won’t stop. And I know this for a fact because against this homeowner was done the most atrocious indignity a PO has ever committed.

Our PO gave birth in our ceiling. To quintuplets.

Now, while I’m sure she completely considered herself the owner, Roxy Raccoon will be not-so-fondly remembered as the Previous Occupant of our kitchen addition.

About this time last year, we’d just finished insulating and hanging drywall. A few weeks earlier—after our windows arrived and were installed—we finally broke through the former exterior wall to embrace our new space. Then a rather brutal late cold snap hit, and with no heat being supplied to the addition yet, we hung plastic between the original kitchen and the work-in-progress, using a portable heater when we had time to work in there, which wasn’t very often.

You could blame the fact that our presence in that part of the house was generally accompanied by the sound of power tools…but I think we were just clueless twits, because it was into May before we realized that it wasn’t only the heating bills that had hit the ceiling.

But by then, it was already too late. Idiots that we were, we thought it was a squirrel we’d been hearing at first. It was actually our daughter—whose lack of stature gave her a bit of an edge here—who spied the raccoon from the window as its tail end disappeared into the rafters one morning. We left a message with a pest control company before heading off to work, and my husband returned home with some hardware cloth and began to staple it around the roof’s perimeter—until pest control returned our call that evening and mentioned there might be a litter up there. They said they’d be by around five the next evening and would survey the situation—so we left some open space where she seemed to be entering. That night, John and I (wearing sweaters) quietly sat reading in the addition and—surprise, surprise (not really)—heard the mewling of baby raccoons.
The following day, John came home from work armed with a flexible borescope (he works in A/V, so he uses them from time to time), impressing the heck out of the pest control guys. They investigated the space and could see what looked like a nest…but no babies. They told us it was possible the mother had moved them. The plan was for us to try and pinpoint the nest location, then they’d probably have to cut a hole in the new ceiling to retrieve the litter. They left us a couple of live traps.

Did I mention that we have a flat roof above this addition? Did I mention that there was no soffit or fascia installed yet? Did I mention that my backyard was, at this point, now strewn with bits of brand-freaking-new insulation? Once again, John and I spent the night fuming in the unfinished addition, trying to guess where the nest was. At one point in the wee hours, we were sure we’d figured it out. But then, we heard a sound somewhere else…then somewhere else.

A couple of days later I was at the side door, rummaging in my purse for keys, and happened to glance upwards. Five cute little buggers were staring down at me, and they didn’t look as small as I’d guessed. No wonder we heard them everywhere—our painstaking work was being used as a ‘coon kindergym. Great.

We were now waging a humane war, knowing that cutting holes in the ceiling would be futile. We tried everything—we shoved lights and an ultrasonic mouse repeller up into the space…we collected hair and pushed it in (hey, it works on deer)...we even rigged a few cheap speakers up and tried to blast them out with various tone frequencies, electronica and pulsating dance crap that tries to pass as music—but it became really annoying…to us, I mean.

A raccoon with kits can be quite aggressive, and this furry fertility goddess definitely was. With a four year-old running around the yard at the time, we didn’t want to chance a confrontation—and we’d had a couple of close calls by this point.

As our last resort, we tried the supreme raccoon Piss-Off, filling a large live trap with a delectable smorgasbord and placing it against the exterior wall near where she gained access. In a few hours, not only was she trapped, but we had her where she could easily see her offspring…and they could see her. Now, we just needed to wait. Fortunately, the place we’d located the trap didn’t get much direct sunlight throughout the day, and we’d ensured that there was more than an adequate amount of food and water (which was topped up several times). We also set another trap up beside the mother’s, in case any of her young ones got the courage to venture down to her.
The plan was not without its downside—which we realized right away when the raccoon began clawing at the house wrap—but we resisted moving the trap and took turns being sentinels at the window to keep an eye on things. It was admittedly a bit difficult to watch how agitated the raccoon was at her present situation, but we waited it out, not sleeping all night.
The next afternoon, we released her and she high-tailed it out of our yard like a shot. At some point that day, she returned and removed her kits, but we never saw her again.

We had won. Kind of.

What R-value remains up there in the addition…will remain a mystery. We still don’t have soffit or fascia installed, but at least any droppings left will have had lots of time to decompose in a well-ventilated space. We’ve never smelled anything, even at the height of summer, and hear raccoons are apparently very clean when it comes to their nesting area.

I’m hoping that’s true, because I’ll be leaving whatever mess is up there for the FO (Future Owner) to discover.

* no animals were harmed or relocated during these events, just strongly encouraged to find themselves another place using humane methods.

technorati tags: Home+renovation, houseblog

Another weekend, another few loads of laundry! Most people don’t get too excited about doing this, but having been without my washer and dryer for awhile last month, it’s sure been nice to fire them up again in their new location in the mudroom addition. We haven’t completed this part of the house by a long shot, but it’s in a usable state.

Future plans for this area will include some wall-mounted cabinets above the washer/dryer—I haven’t decided whether to go with white or stained wood cabinetry at this point, but whatever we choose will also dictate the cabinetry on the other side of the room, which will be coat storage and possibly a broom closet.

We also plan to install countertop above the appliances that will stretch from wall to wall and will include a utility sink. We found the perfect model to fit the space through a plumbing supply house that ‘Fearless Bob’ turned us on to. It’s compact (17”) and deep, and manufactured from a material called Durastone.
The same company (Mustee) made the washing machine pan which we decided to install beneath the washer. This provides extra insurance in the event the machine ever floods, containing the water while allowing it to drain away. Since we have oak flooring within a couple of feet of the washer on two sides (starting on the other side of the walls) it was definitely worth the price (about $150 Cdn).

Two Sundays ago, we ran the electrical for the dryer, pulling the wire from the old location out of the walls and thru the floor joists right back to the panel; and completely replacing that with a direct run of new wire leading to the designated laundry location in the mudroom addition. There was a lot of swearing (my husband banging his head while he ran wire through “the scary place“) and fatigued arms (mine, from holding a giant mag light above my head—for what seemed like an eternity at the time—while John fiddled in the pitch black of our cellar to connect everything at our awkwardly-placed electrical panel). There were even looks that could kill being exchanged. How we’ve managed to stay married is truly baffling at times.

After installing some flexible dryer duct and screwing on a couple of outlet plates (we used electrical outlet insulators behind the plates to minimize drafts), we were ready to move the dryer in and hook it all up.

Here’s to sorting socks, folding clothes and catching up on everybody’s dirty laundry!

Before I go ahead and show off the progress we’ve made on our addition, I thought I should take several steps back to the beginning of the process to give some background.
Like almost everybody else with no architectural knowledge or training, we started out with a wish and a fairly crude drawing (pen scribbles and chocolate milk stain courtesy of Deirdre).

_{(click for larger photo)}

While our budget didn’t allow us to enlist the assistance of an architect, our contractor was able to take that scrawl and make a drawing sufficient to submit for building permits. Below is what the plan looked like after we gave it to James.
I’ve made some notations of my own on this version to help further illustrate how the kitchen/mudroom addition ties in with what we started with. I’ve also indicated the new location of our washer and dryer (which we’ve just moved into the mudroom), and where a utility sink will eventually go once a counter is built.

_{(click for larger photo)}

The oak flooring we just had installed covers all of the existing bed/sitting room (the entire space is not on the drawing, but what is visible is designated in blue), the existing kitchen eating area (specified in green) and the area of the addition labeled ‘Kitchen Sitting Room’. The ‘Side Entry’ area (aka the mudroom) has a porcelain tile floor, and the existing kitchen prep area (what’s visible is indicated in orange) will be getting new linoleum flooring.

Below are these same coloured areas indicated on a survey of our property. The dark purple shows the new addition, and the darker shaded blue of the existing addition show where a bath and the former laundry area are located. The oak flooring for this section covers everything but the bath.

_{(click for larger photo)}

The existing addition and the area in green (which at one time was the back porch of the house) incorporate a flat roof, and we have continued this on the new addition. While I imagine it will prove to be a supreme pain down the road, we chose this route so as not to destroy one of the only exterior architectural features of the original house—a 2nd floor ‘sleeping porch’ at the back which extends out above the kitchen prep area (orange) and basement stairs (light maroon) and is clad in painted cedar shingles.

In our next anatomy class, we’ll look at the backside of my house and some early construction photos of the serious booty we’re giving the Salvaged Beauty.

technorati tags: home+improvement, DIY, renovation

So there was an early knock at the side door this morning. I’d almost forgotten that I’d called Bob (our very accommodating plumber) the other day, hoping he could temporarily hook up our washing machine at its new location in the mudroom (the scene of yesterday’s bloodbath).

Although the space is far from finished, our former laundry area is newly clad in what realtors love to describe as ‘Gleaming Hardwood Floor’ – and since we may have a bit of bad mojo happening here right now, there’s no way I’m about to tempt fate.

The puzzled, tentative look on Bob’s face as he entered our home was soon relieved when we explained the reason for all the blood at the doorway. Personally, I wouldn’t have blamed Bob if he’d turned on his heels at that point and said, “You know, I’m still waiting for a part to come in; I just wanted to drop off this PVC pipe on my way to another job.” But Bob’s a real trooper. Bob is venturing into the ‘Scary Place’ to run plumbing.

The ‘Scary Place’ is our cellar’s crawlspace; and to enter, you have to step up onto a milk crate and heave your body through a hole in the wall that looks like it was created by the blast of a phaser beam. This is where we stash Xmas decorations and other detritus that we’ll probably never look at again, yet seem to hang on to anyway.
If you have the slightest aversion to spiders, or are even mildly claustrophobic, you will never go in there.

I’m convinced that Bob isn’t afraid of anything – not the monsters that apparently live under my house, spiders, or even the fact that the last person I snapped a photo of (James’ young apprentice) suffered horrible consequences less than 24 hours later.

Bob even asked if I wanted a gratuitous ‘Plumber’s Crack’ shot – but I declined, saying that the abundance of people with the wrong body type squeezing into low rise jeans these days has ruined the gag appeal of such photo ops forever.

I’ll bet Fearless Bob has seen some pretty scary shit in his time. Really.

So thanks, Bob, for dusting all those cobwebs out of the ‘Scary Place’ with your head. I’m glad it’s you – and not me for a change – who will be frantically picking bits of web and arachnids out of your hair until you find the closest shower.

We added the final element to the kitchen addition triad this morning when much blood was spilled on the battlefield of home renovating. Not mine, and that’s a bloody good thing, since I’ve contributed a lot of sweat and possibly all of the tears.

I’ll state one of two morals contained in this post first: Do Not Reach Across a Moving Table Saw Blade. Ever.

Our contractor’s apprentice made this unfortunate and frankly, stupid mistake today and was severely cut. James handled the mishap very professionally, and it was obvious his only thought was the well-being of his worker.
I was in the front part of the house with my daughter when I heard A. yell loudly from the mudroom, where the table saw was set up. Before I could even make it to the back of the house, James (who had been laying floor in the bedsitting room) was on the scene, had grabbed a whole roll of paper toweling from off the kitchen counter and had wrapped the man’s arm immediately. In the blink of an eye they were out the door and in the truck (yes, that one) on the way to the hospital, which is thankfully just two short blocks from here. James’ only words were, “don’t worry, I’ll be back later.”

When I looked in the mudroom, I must admit my stomach did a little flip. There was quite a bit of blood on the floor, the rug at the doorway and some large splashes on one of Deirdre’s winter boots, which she’d kicked off at the door earlier in the morning. Since I had to send her off to school in a short time, my first thought was getting the blood off her boot before she saw it. Thankfully, it cleaned up quickly with some cold water. The rug I just rolled up and tossed, and the tiles were sponged up.

Then I looked at the mudroom wall beside the table saw and noticed a straight, horizontal spatter line about eight inches long…shades of RSI: Renovation Scene Investigation. Gulp.

To be completely truthful, when I saw the blood on my very recently painted wall, I kind of went all Lady MacBeth, my only thought being, “Out, damned spot!” I really didn’t think there was much chance it was going to clean up (eggshell finish, you know), but some careful dabbing with only cold water proved me wrong.

Product Tip: The brand of paint we used on this wall was CIL Realife 100% Acrylic Latex Eggshell. I’m mentioning it because John and I actually had a small tiff about this paint when he’d picked it up. I thought, because it’s a fairly inexpensive consumer brand, it wouldn’t perform as well as other paints we’ve used. I have to admit the paint has great coverage (no lap marks) and better scrubbability than just about anything else we’ve used.

The only place where I couldn’t remove the blood was a small drip on the unfinished wood trim around the mudroom door, but since we’re staining it down the road, it won’t be noticeable (and was probably meant to remain). And of course, the snow at the side door looks a bit scary.

Upon his return just over an hour later – after contacting A.’s parents, filling out a WSIB accident report and waiting for a family member to arrive at the hospital – James and I had a short discussion about what had transpired earlier.
He was understandably disappointed, because this injury should NOT have happened had his apprentice been following the absolute basics of what he’d been taught in terms of safe equipment operation.

James also brought up something that I think deserves repeating here: Whenever you hire anyone to do work in your home, make sure they have proper liability insurance and worker’s compensation to cover accidents or injury to themselves or their employees while they are working within your home. Without it, you could be liable under your own homeowners insurance (at least that’s the way it is here in Ontario).
No one needs to have their insurance rates skyrocket because somebody they hired wasn’t using their head while performing their job. Accidents happen every day, everywhere, and what happened in my house today should be all the reminder you need. Hire professionals when required, and get it in writing.

At 6:30 pm (7½ hours after the accident happened) A. came to our door to pick up his walking shoes. His mother was driving him home from the hospital. He’d just had surgery on his arm, and was bandaged from elbow to wrist. So this was more than just a cut.
Please everyone, use commom sense and be careful. This was preventable.

Amazingly, a lot of reno work was accomplished today, but I’m going to leave that post for another time. It’s been a rather long day.

My last post ended with me so excited to be about to spring into action, doing some quick demo work on the floor in our kitchen. Famous last words…

We had a very small window of time to work within, my daughter being out on a ‘play date’. John and I laboured at top speed for almost three hours, ripping up vinyl flooring and some kind of crumbly, particleboard-type subfloor that covered what, at one time, was our home’s back porch. It took a bit of finesse to pry some of the particleboard out, as the finished wood trim was already in place. At one point, John was forcing a large piece of the board out from under the wall (nailed where we couldn’t get at it) by rocking it back and forth, and snapped off a small bottom corner of the doorway’s plinth in the process. Fortunately, I noticed it right away and found the piece before it was sucked into oblivion. The piece had broken off cleanly, and with a little wood glue and tape, the doorway was good as new. We were a bit more careful after that. John also patched the holes in the floor where the old heat registers had been located.

While he was busy with that, I had the glorified task of removing the flooring nails that remained sticking up from the floorboards…and there were quite a few of them as you can see.

This part of the job was critical though, because our kid refuses to wear shoes and never walks, but runs around the house with reckless abandon. We knew there would be no way to prevent her from examining every inch of bared wood in her bare feet. I’m a meticulous sort, so this type of thing is actually right up my alley. Every single flooring nail was removed and the floor vacuumed before she arrived home.
Deirdre got to participate in our last task of the day, which was doing a ‘silly walk’ (her own words, but so Python-esque I had to kiss her for it) across every inch of the newly exposed floorboards to find out where they squeaked, and placing screws wherever we found one.
By the end of the day, we had a squeak-free surface that was ready to accept new flooring.

By the end of the next day, we had one houseblogger in excruciating pain, dealing with the return of her dreaded arch-nemesis, the Herniated Disc.

I’m feeling much better today, after almost a week of lying prone on my back and living off muscle relaxants, an anti-inflammatory, pain killers and ice cream. At least I can sit in a chair for a few minutes without wincing. Don’t you just hate it when old injuries come back to bite you on the arse?

Demolition, while kind of fun at the time, is one of those ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ renovation projects. It’s the lousy job you don’t have to pay someone to do if you’re naïve enough to go for it yourself. So we’ve saved some money, and now I can say in all honesty that I’ve busted my back working on this place.
I’ve also discovered that whether you choose the DIY route or hire someone to do the dirty work for you, the bottom line is you’ll probably pay for it, either way.

As a new member of houseblogs.net, let me say what an inspiration and wealth of information so many of you have been. I’ve been lurking here since the beginning…time to stop being a wallflower. Off the top, hello to Ranch Redo and Bungalow ’23 – two excellent member sites I visit frequently, and thanks again to John down at The Devil Queen for both his digital camera tips and the best head(lines) ever!
A special note of gratitude goes out to Kim at One Woman’s Home Journal, who was the first houseblogs member to comment here, and even added my site to her blogroll of favourites. I’m floored, and honoured. With a U.

And yet, I’m not floored.
The tension mounts here, and since it doesn’t look like this floor will be getting laid anytime soon, I might as well tell you about it. You can see by the photo below that it will, eventually, be a vast improvement over what I’m currently treading on.

The brand of wood flooring we selected for our kitchen addition and bed sitting room is called Satin Finish, chosen after much deliberation. Over the course of a few weeks, we’d taken home at least 20 flooring samples in a range of prices from different manufacturers.
In the end, the Satin Finish came out on top with several things weighing in its favour, most notable being that this flooring is made in Canada by a company with a long and reputable history, and was available through a locally-owned and operated small business.

While this may not seem like a big deal, we think it’s important to support your country’s economy and your local economy whenever possible. The few bucks we might have saved by purchasing a better-known brand through a big box store (and actually, that turned out not to be true once delivery charges were figured in) was more than made up for by the service we received.
Get this: not only did the business owner and our salesman deliver the goods (and schlep them into my home) personally, they did so without having received payment yet. I was impressed that they would drop off a few grand worth of flooring and not even ask for a cheque!

The flooring is ¾” thick premium white oak, and we chose 3” wide planks in a semi-gloss finish called ‘Sandal’. We debated about which way to go here – unfinished or pre-finished – but with a young child, too many belongings and the experience of sanding our home’s entire second floor, dining room, sitting room and parlour behind us, convenience won out.

If you’re buying pre-finished, I’d strongly suggest that you take home colour samples of the actual flooring before making a final decision. I was sure I knew exactly what I wanted, but the shades I gravitated towards didn’t end up looking the best when placed in the room and referenced with the other finishes that would be in proximity. Between the furniture, existing cabinetry (which will remain for the time being) and the trim work, we have quite a bit of wood going on. Most of my initial selections had a distinct orange, yellow or reddish cast that wasn’t so apparent when viewed on their own, but looked like crap when they landed in the kitchen.

We had this same dilemma choosing the linoleum colour for the kitchen’s traffic area – what we thought would look good ended up lending an overall effect of the area being way too orange. We settled on a quartz grey colour (whoa – two uniquely Canadian spellings back-to-back in a single sentence!) that echoes the tile in our mudroom and makes a good transition from one shade of wood floor (the new) to another (original wood floor in our dining room – it’s a honey shade and the wood’s so thin we can’t re-stain it).

You won’t have to guess where we purchased that linoleum from. We’re now a repeat customer.

And here’s some good news – Deirdre’s off on a ‘play date’, and we’re about to spring into action and do some demolition. I really do need to blow off some steam…

It’s bloody freezing again, the wind’s ripping, the snow’s back and I’m this close to being declared officially SAD.
I spent five minutes dressing for the weather, donning coat, scarf, hat, gloves and lacing up my winter hikers . . . all to venture across the road to pick up the mail! The one-minute journey was hardly worth the bother of dressing and undressing – and cleaning up all the snow and salt that I traipsed into the mudroom-in-progress. Which just ticked me off more. I’ve been trying to keep the mudroom clean as there’s still bare wood trim awaiting stain and tile grout to seal. The road crews around here use this lethal combination of sand and salt that spells certain death to just about everything it touches – I’m talking grass, shrubbery, flowers, cars, asphalt, sidewalks, several pairs of formerly nice-looking footwear and the bottoms of my pant legs. I’d be a damned fool to think my newly tiled floor could withstand it.
Someday, there will be heat going into the mudroom (once the ducts are run beneath the floor), and taking off boots will no longer feel akin to licking a flagpole in sub-zero temperatures. Can you sense my impatience?

Oil bill, flooring bill, junk mail . . . oh, and what’s this? The spring issue of Gardening Life, packaged with several mail order catalogs for plants and bulbs.
I may have just cracked a smile. Pass the Chap-Stick.

In preparation for the big day that will be finally saying good riddance to the boxes of flooring that have lived here since before Xmas, we’ve been cutting holes in the subfloor of our kitchen addition to accommodate the heat registers and cold air returns.

We lucked out at a recent antiques show held at the local high school, finding two matching vintage registers in good condition. When it comes to aesthetics, new ones just don’t compare to these babies, and probably would have cost as much.

We also managed to procure two nice cold air return grates from a good friend and fellow hardware-hoarder, who had them bead blasted before dropping them by last week. One (shown above) is located in the kitchen, and the second is going in the bedsitting/family room (which will get some of the new oak flooring as well).
As the day draws nearer, John also decided to relocate the coax that was coming up from a hole drilled in the floor of the bedsitting room. We removed some baseboard along the closest wall, and managed to fish the cable up behind the drywall, so it will now originate from the baseboard and the hallowed oak floor will not be scarred by an unnecessary hole.
Aside from ripping up the horrid ‘vinyleum’ in the kitchen (and at least two layers are lurking under the first) I think we’re good to go . . . whenever we’re good to go.