Mr Blandings Dream House

Coffee and Doggies...

2012-02-01T00:57:00.002-05:00

Some more photos from my trip to Ottawa at Christmas.
Freda and Taz, both enjoying sitting on the couch. Haha!

Tawny looking longingly outside, as if to say: Can we go out and play now?

Freda and Tawny and Taz - all happy on a cold snowy day. It's so funny when Taz sits with his feet off the ground.

Taz is a good boy - he's going to be 9 years old in June.

Tawny is a good girl and she is going to 9 years old in March!

Early and late

2012-01-29T14:01:00.000-05:00

When I was putting the blog entry about the garage together, I realized that I didn't take any photos of the garage itself, so I am including a few photos that Freda took with her cell phone.

This photo was taken after the garage door frames were moved. We asked for 9'6" doors, which was the biggest that could fit in the space so that's what she drew on the plans. The contractor realized that size of doors wouldn't fit because of the chimney, but he built it that way anyway, and then had to go and change it! Doh! Note that the window on the far side of the garage is not installed yet in this photo.

This is after the window was installed.

This is the view of the door to the back yard. Tawny is standing on the steps to the new mud room.

Tawny enjoying sniffing at the Bruce Pit dog park. A gorgeous day.

Taz and Tawny saying hello to another dog at Bruce Pit. You would think their tails would get tired, because they are wagging constantly for the entire time that they are there. Perhaps that's one reason why they are totally exhausted afterwards.

Christmas doggies

2012-01-27T22:24:00.000-05:00

It was really nice to be home in Ottawa at Christmas.

Tawny often came and sat right in front of me. Sometimes she laid down on my feet like she does. She's a good girl. It's hard to believe she's going to be 9 in March. Time has flown by and now she's considered a senior dog.

Snow - Christmas Day
It seemed like the temperature plummeted and the snow started as soon as I got to Ottawa. When I arrived from Regina, it was raining but it turned to snow on the drive home.

Taz, the big whiny cry baby, loves curling up in this chair, so Freda keeps a sheet on it to try to keep it clean... Taz is a senior dog too, as he will be 9 in June. He's been with us for four years now.

Waiting for Freda to come home
Freda was out, either at work or shopping or something, and the doggies were expecting her.

Tandoori Kabab Touch restaurant review

2012-01-24T02:04:00.001-05:00

We were there for the supper buffet on a Saturday. The place was not too busy although there was a large group there for a celebration.

There were a number of selections in the buffet (veg, chicken and beef) and all were very flavourful and the meat was nice and tender. The papadum had a nice bit of spice to it, and the naan bread was really very very wonderful. The hostess brought around a plate of chicken (not tandoori) which was very tasty and very hot (temperature hot).

My favourite dish is usually beef vindaloo (I like spicy dishes) but my favourite dish at Tandoor Kabab was the butter chicken, it was one of the best versions that I've had.

The only negative I would say is that the curries were thinner than I like.

Painting at Christmas

2012-01-22T12:54:00.001-05:00

I had planned to do some work on the house when I was back in Ottawa at Christmas, but I changed my plans on what I was going to do when I got there.

The garage had been framed in and the mudroom was constructed. So it was ready for paint. There were a few nail pops on the wall facing the garage from the construction which needed repair. This was alright, however, since Freda wanted to paint that wall a different colour. I took this photo after I did the nail pop patching, and primed the patches as well as priming the mudroom.

I took this photo when I was halfway through painting the first coat. I took this photo so you can tell the difference in colour. The brown is a nice warm colour and it really looks amazing. Freda did an awesome job of colour selection.

I took this photo after I had completed the two colour coats on the dining room wall, and had started to paint the colour coat in the mudroom. It's a nice, light, warm colour, but looks dark relative to the primer, which is bright white of course....

This is the photo after all the painting was all finished, although there is still some stuff to clean up in the mudroom.

Finally I was able to install the handles on the closet by the front door. I think it looks quite sharp.

Death of America

2011-12-06T23:54:00.003-05:00

In pursuit of the lowest prices, the American consumer has driven manufacturing out of their country, as well as all the jobs that go with it.

No wonder the US is having such a rough time...

Source: http://frugaldad.com

Natural Law and Disorder

2011-11-23T01:40:00.004-05:00

In the dog owner community, there are two separate yet equally important groups. The people who love dogs and take them into their homes, and their dogs who make life interesting. These are their stories.

(da dum) [sound effect] *

Sunday, November 23, 2008

The day dawned brisk and cold. Half of the lake had been frozen over for a couple of weeks, but the chilly overnight air had caused a skim of ice to form on the entire lake. That morning we had walked around the lake because we had seen a deer sitting in the water at the opposite shoreline with a couple of wolves sitting on the beach watching it. When we got near the deer we realized that it had broken its right front leg when it fell through the ice. The wolves would have made short work of it, unfortunately.

After we got back from a neighbour's granddaughter's christening, Freda decided to take the dogs out for a walk.

Taz's story

It was a chilly day and it was fun running and playing with Tawny and Freda. Then Max came out and we had a lot of fun playing. Then Emma took me up to the house and Mark was upset.

Tawny's story

It was a nice day, a bit chilly, but just exactly like the way I like it. I was playing with my mummy and then there were all these big birds, flapping their wings and it was all exciting, and like, it was so fun, so I started to chase them and it was so fun, I was running and running and it was so fun and and then all of a sudden I was swimming and it was cold and it made me frightened. But mummy came to help me get out of the water, but she went swimming too although she helped me get out of the water after a few tries but she didn't get out of the water. I was scared and mummy was scared too and I went up to lick her face to help mummy but she yelled at me to get away. I didn't understand why she didn't want me to kiss her.

Emma's story

I was visiting my friends next door to Freda's and Mark's and I looked out the window and saw Freda with Tawny and Taz. So I went out with Max because my mom was going to come to pick me up very soon. I was talking with Freda and then Tawny took off to chase some Canada Geese on the other side of the lake. Tawny broke through the ice and was swimming and frightened. Freda went to help her and asked me to go up and get Mark. I ran up the hill to the house and when Mark answered the door, he said "Where is Freda?" and we looked out and could only see her head sticking out of the water.

Mark's story

We came back from Lisa's baby's christening and Freda wanted to take the dogs out by herself. A little while later, the doorbell is ringing and there's knocking on the door and it's Emma. I open the door and Emma says Tawny has fallen through the ice and Freda needs help to get her out. I said "Where is she?" and we looked but all we could see was Freda's head sticking out of the water. I grabbed a coat and some shoes and started to get a step ladder to put in the car trunk to go down to the lake. I was almost ready to go when I heard a commotion at the front door and I looked out to see Steve's new truck on the front lawn and Colleen helping a very very cold Freda into the house. Freda was dripping wet, so I ran and grabbed some towels while Freda stripped off her ice cold coat and clothes. I helped Freda into the bath tub to warm up and cleaned up the puddles in the foyer. I have no idea what happened with the dogs but I think Emma must have put them in the back yard or brought them in or something.

Colleen's story

Steve had just got his new F-150 King Ranch truck and I was driving this pretty truck down to pick up Emma who was visiting Freda and Mark's neighbour at Jiulia Lake. As I was approaching their house, I saw Freda in the middle of the lake and - boom - I saw her fall through the ice as I was watching. I immediately drove down to the edge of the shore and ran out to see what I could do. Freda said the ice was thick there but not to come too close and throw the end of the dog leash to her. It was an extendable leash so I extended it out and threw it to Freda. She caught it after a few tries but I couldn't pull her out because her shoulders were at the water level. Eventually Freda managed to get part of her over the edge of the ice and I pulled her towards the shore. Steve Kayser, the neighbour, had run down to the lake at this time and picked Freda up and put her in the truck. I jumped in the truck and drove up to Freda's house, right over the front lawn and parked in front of the front door.

Freda's story

I took the dogs out after the christening for a play. Dear Emma was visiting the neighbour girls and saw me and the dogs and came out to say hi. A few minutes later, Tawny took off across the lake to chase some Canada Geese and fell through the ice. I could see she was scared and was going to need help to get out, so I asked Emma to go and get Mark and I started to go out to try to rescue Tawny. I was on my hands and knees to distribute my weight on the ice and I was doing well but then the ice broke and I fell into the water. That was cold. That was very cold. That was very very cold. That was very very very very very cold!!!! Then Colleen appeared with her stiletto boots but there were no ropes or sticks or anything. Then I saw the leash laying on the ice where I dropped it when I went onto my hands and knees. I told Colleen to extend it out and and throw it to me which she did. Eventually I was able to catch it but I couldn't get out of the water, even though Colleen was pulling because my shoulders were at the water level. Somehow I got partly out of the water and Colleen started pulling me across the ice towards the shore. I lost my mitten and I was so very cold. Steve Kayser picked me up and carried me to the front seat of Steve's new truck and plopped me in there, even though I was soaking wet. Colleen drove me up to the house and on the front lawn and helped me up into the house.

Those were the events of November 23, 2008 - three years ago. This is the photo of the lake on November 26, a few days later. You can read my original (very short) blog posting here.

Freda lost a mitten when she fell in, and it marks the place where she fell in -- this photo shows that location. You can also see the trail on the ice where Colleen dragged Freda to the shore.

These are the stories but these were all written by me (Mark). I do have notes that I made at the time, but I didn't have them with me as I wrote these stories, so there may be minor errors in detail.

Needless to say, I am forever grateful to Colleen and Emma for their part that day in pulling Freda out of the lake. If they hadn't been there, I dread to think what might have happened.

In 2009, I was reading some of the stories of the new winners of the Governor General's awards for Bravery. As I read those stories, I thought that I should look into nominating Colleen for her selfless actions that saved Freda's life. I submitted a nomination and am very glad to say that Colleen was informed that she will be the recipient of a Governor General Award for Bravery.

You can read about the October 2011 awards here.

* Apologies to Dick Wolf, the creator of Law & Order, for taking creative license with the introductory commentary to his show.

Updates soon

2011-10-27T03:20:00.001-04:00

Sorry, I haven't had time to post anything for quite a while. I will try to do something in the near future.

Front walk landscaping

2011-08-24T16:08:00.000-04:00

Torrential train

2011-08-19T01:26:00.001-04:00

We had torrential rain here today, for about 20 minutes. Look how much water is in the wheelbarrow! Wow!

Yummy pie and yummy dirt!

2011-08-15T22:20:00.001-04:00

We bought this raspberry pie from the Metcalfe Bakery at a local deli. It was really good - lots of berries. It was light on the sugar so was a bit tart, but it made it perfect with ice cream! Yumm!

We had 4 cubic yards of garden soil delivered. 4 yds is the same price as 3 yds. We are making a bed for peonies here (for transplant) and also plan on top dressing the front lawn and the back lawn also.

Pretty flowers

2011-08-11T23:47:00.000-04:00

I love that bi-coloured gerbera!

Busy day

2011-08-03T15:31:00.000-04:00

August 3rd was a busy day.

The guy came back from the tree service that we use with the stump grinder - a beast of a machine that grinds stumps.

This is what the front yard looks like with the stumps ground up.

The painter came also. This is his son sitting on the steps.

Do you like the new colour of our front door? The back door is the same colour.

Morris Island Conservation Area

2011-07-31T22:23:00.001-04:00

Om July 31st, we went to Morris Island Conservation area.

It is about 40 minutes from our house and is quiet and beautiful. And the dogs can swim there. We met four people and and saw four other people and four dogs.

The wind storm that blew through recently uprooted this tree. You can see that the root mass and the soil it was on was just sitting on top of this big rock.

Tawny really enjoyed her swimming.

It was a beautiful place to be on a hot Hot HOT summer day!

Playing with the neighbours

2011-07-31T13:16:00.001-04:00

There was a dog in the neighbour's yard that was barking for hours. We took the dogs over to see why and saw that nobody was home and they had left the dog tied up to a tree. Although the dog was in the shade, it had got all tangled around the tree and it couldn't reach the water bowl. So we untangled the little dog so it could reach the water bowl, let Tawny and Taz play with it for a few minutes and then we continued on our walk.

Backyard panorama

2011-07-25T23:06:00.001-04:00

This is a BEFORE panorama of our back yard taken with my iPhone using a free app called PhotoSynth from Microsoft. I expect that it uses the same photo stitching algorithm used in the ICE software (also from Microsoft) that I run on my PC.

Tawny was walking around, as you can tell because she's there and not there at the same time.

It looks like it was a hot day, but it was actually a perfect temperature with a nice light breeze. It was very hot in the sun, of course, so it was best to avoid the sun.

Too hot!

2011-07-22T23:09:00.001-04:00

It have been very hot lately. Too hot, in my opinion, and the flowers don't like it either. This is a photo that I took back on July 7th. I am posting it now because it has been a while since I posted anything. Hope you like it.

Air conditioner installation

2011-07-16T21:20:00.002-04:00

I had to prepare the location for the air conditioner by building up the pad where the a/c unit will sit. I calculated that I needed almost a cubic yard of gravel, so I got four containers of 2 cubic feet of gravel.

Here is the air conditioner after installation.

Tree removal

2011-07-04T20:53:00.000-04:00

Tree removal

We had a big maple tree in the back yard that we had to take down because it was too close to the power line. This is the before picture, obviously.

Partly cut down.

Cutting down the main part of the trunk.

Taking off a piece of the trunk.

Another action shot.

Just a pile of logs. Some friends came a few weeks later and picked up all the logs - it took two trips.

Now there is clear air where the wire is.

This is the stump grinder. The operator is driving the machine over to grind down another stump. We had about five stumps ground down.

This is the stump grinder in action. The machine had a little diesel engine that drove a hydraulic pump that spun the grinding blade as well as driving the wheels.

Sorry to see you go, Mr. Maple.

More pretty flowers

2011-06-26T11:29:00.000-04:00

Sorry I haven't updated the blog for a bit. I hope you enjoy these pretty flowers.

Most of these flower photos were taken on June 17th, 2011.

The roses are in the front flower bed, in front of the living room window.

These are the peonies in the back yard - that is a mock orange behind it that is rather overgrown.

We had a torrential rain storm on June 24th.

Accidental trap

2011-06-24T09:17:00.003-04:00

No photo today, as you will understand why.

We had a lot of rain overnight on Wednesday night, but needed to water the plants under the house overhang. Freda picked up the half full watering can and then noticed that there was something in it. It was a chipmunk that had obviously gone into the watering can to get a drink, but then couldn't get out and drowned.

I used to leave the watering cans full so they were ready to use and won't blow around. I think I will either have to leave them very full or almost empty to avoid situations like this.

Sorry, little chipmunk!

Beautiful roses!

2011-06-16T14:09:00.001-04:00

June 14th, 2011

This rose bush has a profusion of these pretty yellow flowers.

A pretty bud! Next time I will have to make sure that my reflection is not in the picture! haha

June 16th, 2011

These roses seem to last a long time!

The white rose bud has popped open with all its gloriousness.

This was a bud yesterday and is now partly open.

Peonies popped!

2011-06-14T14:02:00.000-04:00

Wow - amazing what a difference one day can make!

These photos were all taken on June 14th.

This is the same peony as above, but the flower is a little bit younger. The pink seems to fade quickly in the sunlight.

The pink is so vibrant that it overwhelms the sensors in the digital camera. If I desaturate teh image so the flower looks normal then the foliage doesn't look right.

A view of the row of peonies beside the carport. All of these will have to be relocated or else they will die.

The beautiful white peony.

Birthday Peonies

2011-06-13T23:51:00.000-04:00

These photos were all taken on June 13th, 2011. The title of this blog post is Birthday Peonies because June 13th was my dad's birthday, and his sister's birthday too!

We had a lot of rain and wind, and it resulted in these peonies getting mostly bent over.

The peonies are loaded with buds. It is nice to see that there a few varieties.

Snow white.

There are more of these deep pink ones than any other colour.

Electrical final complete

2011-06-13T22:28:00.000-04:00

I took this photo through the window from the office - for some reason the camera focussed on the screen - funny! This is the vehicle from the inspector from the Electrical Safety Authority who came to do the final inspection of all the electrical work that I did.

So our electrical permit is closed - everything is complete.

Last of the debris

2011-06-10T13:14:00.002-04:00

There was a small pile of debris under the carport that was left over from when the other debris was hauled away but this stuff didn't fit in the dumpster. The pile was a few sheets of paneling from the basement and the old kitchen sub-floor. Since the plywood and paneling was too big, I had to cut it up before I could put it out with the garbage - and the result of that work is what you see here.

This photo also shows the carpet of flowers etc in the front yard - these would have been growing under the huge junipers or cedar or whatever it was that was growing by the lamp post and totally obscured everything.

The flowers on the ground to the right of the lamp post are pots that Freda put together.

Most of the peonies are almost ready to burst their blossoms and look like this.

Some peonies have bloomed and look and smell gorgeous!

And in other news... I have called for the final electrical inspection on Monday.

No more tarp

2011-06-05T20:16:00.002-04:00

Today, I decided to spend the day finishing off several fix ups around the house.

One of them was to remove the tarp off the chimney. This involved dragging the ladder out of the basement so I could take the tarp off. I took the camera up with me so I could document what the chimeny looked like, just in case I found something that needed a touch up.

But everything looks pretty good!

This is a photo from the other side of the chimney.

Here you can see the ladder sitting by the front step.

This also shows another thing that I did - that was fix the shutoff valve so I could turn on the hose. This required the following steps:

move about 2 dozen boxes so I could access the main water shut off valve by the water meter
shut off the water
dismantle the shut off valve
reassemble the valve
turn on the water and test for leaks

So, it all went well except for the (you guessed it) disassemble the valve. I took off the handle, but then I couldn't budge the large nut that held on the body of the valve. Then I realized that there was a little nut over the valve stem, which is where the water was leaking from, so I took the nut off and went to Home Depot to see if I could get an O-ring or gasket or something. They didn't have anything that would fit because of the age of the valve (52 years old), however one guy at Home Depot suggested rolling some teflon tape and wrap that around the valve stem. So I did that and it worked well to stop the leak.

RIP little squirrel

2011-06-03T14:37:00.003-04:00

We have a dead squirrel in the back yard. Not sure when it happened...... I just saw it when I let the dogs out and they both ran over to this furry lump on the grass.

I was afraid it was the bunny that we have seen around here, but I think it is the squirrel with the shortened tail. :((

From photo taken on May 8th:

Click here if you want to see the dead squirrel.

Crabapple blossoms!

2011-05-29T22:24:00.001-04:00

These photos were taken on May 20th,2011.

Close-up of the beautiful blossoms on our neighbour's crabapple tree.

This is the complete tree. The pretty pink flowers look a little washed out against the brightness of the sky.

My neighbour tells me that when the neighbourhood was developed, the developers planted the same type of tree in front of every house, so it would have looked really gorgous going down this street with all the trees in bloom at the same time. But this neighbourhood is 50 years old and not all the crabapple trees have survived. Lucky for us, the houses at the end of the street near our house all have the crabs still (except for ours).

The petals cover the ground with a pink snow.

And even get on your shoes...

Lights finished, but whoops!

2011-05-20T23:14:00.000-04:00

Tawny likes sleeping on her bed between these two chairs. We have since rearranged the furniture a bit, but we kept this bed in this same general area and she really likes it for some reason. What a good girl!

I finally got around to putting up the pendant lights. The problem was that I needed to run a 3-conductor wire between the two boxes which entailed drilling a hole in a supporting beam between them. The drill bit went astray and made the hole in the ceiling.

This is a closeup. I will have to do a bit of drywall patching and then repaint. :(

Rain rain go away

2011-05-14T23:58:00.000-04:00

We've had so much rain lately that - when it stops and dries up - we barely have time to mow the lawn before it starts raining again. This photo shows the base of the maple tree in our yard, with a number of ferns at the base of it.

At the lower right of the photo, you can see part of the troublesome retaining wall that is collapsing and posing a danger.

This shows a larger view of the area.

This photo shows where the very large shrubs were that we cut down last fall. I say shrubs even though they were more like trees because they were supposed to be shrubs but the previous owners didn't keep them trimmed so they became overgrown.

Both darkness and rain make the worms come out - it was both dark and rainy when I spotted this big worm when I let the dogs out to do their business just before bed. I figure it was well over 5 inches long.

An odd squirrell

2011-05-08T20:47:00.001-04:00

Well, the chimney mason said he would be back on Friday to take the tarp down, but he never showed up. I guess I have to get the ladder out and take the tarp off myself...

Saw this funny looking black squirrel in the back year - Freda has seen him around several times before. He's missing about 3/4 of his fluffy tail -- wonder what his story is??

Chimney repair

2011-05-04T22:31:00.002-04:00

When we bought this house, we knew the chimney needed some work. The inspector said the chimney needed repointing and so that's what I got some quotes for. I had inspected the bricks when I was up on the roof to recaulk the flashing, so I was pretty sure that it just needed to be repointed. I had wanted to put a metal cap over the chimney too, to keep the water off the concrete. The first quote was $1600 for the repointing plus $400 for the chimney cap (plus tax, of course!), which I thought was very high since I thought it might be 4-6 hrs of work.

The guy who came for a second quote said the chimney needed to be taken down and rebuilt. I wasn't here when that guy came but I just didn't believe that because none of the bricks were loose. His quote was $2800 plus tax.

I didn't like either of those quotes, so I called another guy who came and quoted $450, including tax, for the repointing, including some areas in the carport.

Guess who I hired to do the work? Pretty obviously it was guy #3.

I took this photo after the mason had ground out the mortar with his diamond tipped blade. This cleans out the old, deteriorated mortar and creates a deep crevice so the new mortar has a good surface area to bond with.

This is the other side of the chimney. The metal chimney cap indicates the location of the flue from the old oil furnace. That is no longer in use so I just wanted him to remove it and seal up the hole.

There was a layer of mortar on top of the chimney concrete cap pieces that was all cracked and somewhat loose. The mason was going to remove that and apply a new layer of concrete. If needed, we can get a metal cap later.

This is the area under the car port and you can see how the brick is all wet, which I presume is because the chimney was full of cracks so water could penetrate it. Fortunately it didn't seem to come into the house. There were some large holes in some of the mortar here, so the mason was going to repoint those too.

In this photo, the mason has filled the gaps with the new mortar. He had to let it set up for a while so then he could tool it, to shape the mortar between the bricks.

This photo was taken after the mortar was jammed into the spaces between the bricks, but before it was tooled -- in other words, when the mortar was setting up.

It was raining quite heavily later, so I couldn't take any more photos. Because of the rain, the mason wrapped a tarp around the chimney to protect the mortar from getting washed away. He said he will be back on Friday to remove the tarp. I will take some photos then.

Too cold!

2011-05-03T22:50:00.001-04:00

It has been so cold lately that the tulips don't even want to open! And to think that they had been finished for several weeks already at this time last year.

More weekend accomplishments

2011-05-01T22:23:00.000-04:00

When we had the granite countertops put in, the installer didn't have any of the sealer to seal the countertops. It took a few weeks for him to get it in and since we weren't home when he was going to come by, he put some in a bottle and labelled it, "Sealer - DONT DRINK". Freda applied the sealer to the counter and it looks (and feels) really nice now.

Another thing we did was install this storage cabinet above the toilet. It looks pretty good and frees up some floor space in the bedroom :).

Beautiful spring day - a new look

2011-04-30T20:41:00.003-04:00

It was a beautiful spring day today. I took the dogs for a long walk and afterwards they had a nice snooze in the back yard. Taz was trying hard to keep his eyes open here, but was sleeping a few minutes later.

Some time ago, we decided to replace the glass on the front door to update the look of the house, so today was the day. I purchased the replacement glass yesterday.

This is the BEFORE photo. This door was about 3 or 4 years old but we thought the glass was a bit old fashioned. We replaced the house number in December and the old door glass didn't really complement the look we were trying to achieve.

Replacing door glass isn't difficult - the box on the new door glass says it takes 20 minutes but that really is an understatement. The first step was to remove the old glass which was quite easy so I started by popping out the the plugs in the screw holes, removing the screws and then taking the glass out. The last part was the hardest because the caulking held the glass in place really well.

If you look through the window on the right, you can see Freda working in the yard.

The old door lights were two tall skinny pieces and the new door light is rectangular, so I had to cut out the middle piece from between the openings. That took about 30 seconds total - it took longer to get the tool out.

After that, it was fairly straight forward to install the new door light. The plugs for the screw holes were a bit tough to put in, but I was able to do that with a small piece of wood.

This is the after look. We think it looks a lot nicer.

Furniture rearrangement and a mucky puppy

2011-04-27T18:28:00.003-04:00

A couple of friends came over yesterday and helped us take the tv downstairs, and also rearrange the furniture a little bit. This is what the living room looks like now - unfortunately I don't have a 'before' photo. However, 'before' - the tv was on the right where the leather sofa is - that was on the left in front of the window. The sofa on the left was actually standing up on its end (on an arm). There was also a love seat that was moved to the 'office' where I have my computer set up. The two chairs and the other furniture that is in the living room will stay there, although they will be rearranged.

We couldn't get any of our furniture downstairs as it was too large (escept for two chairs), so we purchased a condo-sized sofa and a loveseat. They go well with the colours in the room. The installer from Shaw (formerly Star Choice) came today and hooked up the satellite dish.

We had the dogs off leash a bit when we took them out for their walk this afternoon. Of course, Tawny found the muddiest puddle so she was a real mucky puppy! She looked like she was in blackface, and it was quite funny. She is much much cleaner in this photo.

Stairs are completed

2011-04-24T14:52:00.003-04:00

So, it's time to install the stair treads. To do that, I will glue the treads then put a nail in each corner. As Louis is coming to pick up his brad nailer on Sunday, I need to do this on Saturday night.

This is the last you will see of these stairs. One of the stairs had a slight crown on the tread so I had to sand it flat. Then I swept and vacuumed the stairs to get rid of all the dust so the glue will stick well. You can see the tread for the top step is sitting on the landing ready to be installed.

This photo was taken after all the treads were glued and nailed. I put a piece of paper along the back of the each tread and the carpet below the bottom step, in case any excess glue dripped down. I used all sorts of heavy things to weigh the treads down so they would stick well.

Installing the treads would make the stairs temporarily impassable, so I had to do this at night when we were finished going up and down the steps.

I removed all the heavy items and cleared off the steps. A few drops of glue dripped onto some of the paper so I was glad that I had put that down.

We think the stairs look gorgeous! They are a huge improvement over the previous steps and I am very glad that I put the maple treads down instead of just painting the old treads. Another plus is that the treads are about an inch deeper than the old steps which makes it much more comfortable to walk up and down.

The treads cost about $34 each, plus the stain and the varathane, so it came to about $150 plus taxes.

This is what the room looks like now. Louis won't be able to help any more, which is lucky since I just have a few things left to do. Louis has picked up his tools so now the room is almost completely clear except for the shop vac and my tool bag (by the rightmost post).

PS: You can see that the stitching software didn't do really well with the post on the right.

Thursday update

2011-04-22T09:56:00.001-04:00

It's been a long and busy week. I am (mostly) taking the weekend off, except for cleaning! :)

Trim and baseboard around the front entrance has been caulked and painted twice. The doors have been installed, except for the guide at the floor and the trim piece in front of the sliding door hardware. This is a "medium duty" door hardware, and it slides really nicely. It costs about 4x the "light duty" stuff you can buy at the orange box store. I couldn't really use that since I wanted to hang a real door panel from it and that was too heavy for the light duty stuff.

The back door steps and landing are finished. The box of Coca Cola was there to prevent the door handle from bashing the wall - I have since installed the door stop and that is now gone.

The bifold doors for the pantry are installed. I need to complete installing the trim pieces around the door - only one piece is left to install and it needed to be cut down. I left that as it was too late to be running the saw as Freda had gone to bed.

The shelf supports in the closets have been painted and the shelves installed. The rod has been installed in the coat closet. Most of the doors have been painted once. I will install the door knobs after the second coat.

This is what the basement looks like now. Most of the tools and the construction materials are now gone. The floor can use another sweeping (or two, or three!) and the stair treads need to be installed as well.

Getting-Close Wednesday

2011-04-20T23:28:00.001-04:00

The first thing I did this morning, was to go to the building supply place and purchase four maple stair treads to cover the steps coming from the back door landing down to the lower level. I had been planning on just painting the stairs,but when I saw how nice the floor was at the landing and the lower level, I realized that just painting those utility-grade stairs would really detract from the beauty of the what we had done. So, even though I had already bought the paint for the stairs, I went and got the maple stair treads. The treads have been stained in this photo, after being sanded twice.

The new baseboard by the landing received the first coat of trim paint - one more to go (tomorrow!).

The closets have now had their shelf supports installed. They were primed later and will be painted green tomorrow.

This photo is just to show the somewhat chaotic workshop look to the lower level. It will be nice when it is all cleaned up.

The maple treads that I bought to cover the old steps have a rabbet on them that is 9 inches deep. The current stair treads are 9 1/2 inches deep, so I am putting a piece of half inch plywood in front of the existing risers to fill the half inch space. The plywood I had was rough on both sides, so the first thing to do was to sand it, then put wood filler on the knots or any divots on the wood, then sand it after the wood filler had dried. This photo was taken after the 2nd sanding.

In this photo, the plywood has been installed in front of the existing risers, and I am painting them with primer. I am almost finished that as only the bottom riser (just below the brush) has to be primed. I have to paint the front of the existing stair tread as part of will be visible.

This is an off cut from the new maple stair treads. Maybe you can see that it only covers up about half of the thickness of the existing treads.

And here the stair treads (and the nosing for the kitchen have received their first coat of satin varathane. As you have to wait 8 hours after staining, I just did this before making this blog entry. I did this so that the 2nd coat of varathane can go on on Thursday morning and then I can install the stair treads in the evening.

Louis putting the casing around the door, so it matches the rest of the house. Whoever replaced the door used baseboard for the casing. It looked a bit off but now looks much better

After putting the casing on, Louis grouted the tile at the entrance. The grout had been cleaned off the tile once but needs to be cleaned again, after it dried.

Front entrance tile

2011-04-19T23:36:00.003-04:00

Louis came over today and the first thing to do was to rip up the old entrance linoleum (it was VERY slippery if your shoes were wet) so we can put down the tile. Here Louis has laid out the Ditra uncoupling membrane. This is used to prevent cracks in the tile, which is great. It is expensive, which is not so great, but it can save a lot of work in removing and replacing cracked tiles - and that is great too.

Here the Ditra has been installed and Louis is laying out the tile pattern, and cutting the tile at the same time.

Here the tile has been set in the mortar bed. You can see the tile spacers between the tiles.

Afterwards, I wanted to install the bifold doors, but I forgot that we had to cut them down to fit - oops! We cut a piece off the top and bottom of the doors, and then had to glue in a plug. We used two pieces of wood to make up the 1 1/8" gap we had to fill. I glued the pieces of wood together, then put glue on both sides of that and slipped it into the gaps at the top and bottom of each piece of the door. Once that was done, I put some clamps on the doors to make sure the glue does its job properly.

Trimming out the back steps

2011-04-18T23:51:00.002-04:00

Now that the lower level room is almost complete - it only needs a 2nd coat of paint on the trim, the doors, and then the door handles installed - I decided to tackle the trim on stairs and the landing by the back door.

The first thing I tackled was taking care of the edge of the kitchen flooring. From the landing, you could see the drywall edge, the plywood subfloor, and the edge of the flooring. I purchased a piece of clear maple stair nosing, so that I could cover up the edges so everything was nice and finished. I chose maple because our kitchen cabinets are maple (natural finish), and it will co-ordinate well.

The first thing to do was lay out a straight line and cut out the piece of flooring - which has been done as you can see in the above photo.

I had an audience, when I was doing this work, as you can also see.

I had to remove the plywood subfloor, which was accomplished using a knife, chisels, and a circular saw to make a rough cut near the edge of the piece I needed to remove. As I removed a number of screws that fastened the plywood to the subfloor, I screwed the exposed subfloor down, as well as putting screws in at the edge of the plywood (since I removed the fasteners).

I am lifting up the edge of the flooring here to show this.

This photo shows an offcut of the stair nosing, marked up with a pencil mark of how I needed to change it. I was originally just going to but the nosing up against the flooring, but realized that it would look ugly if I wasn't able to cut the flooring perfectly. Since that would be difficult to achieve, I decided it would be better to cut a rabbet at the edge of the nosing so it would overlap the flooring slightly. Of course, this meant I had to extend the rabbet near the edge side so it would fit over the drywall. This is okay, because it means that, if we decide to install a short railing here in the future, there will be a nice wide piece of maple that we can fit the posts onto.

I had to remove the piece of baseboard on the abutting wall, as you can see. You will see it again later.

Here is the nosing off-cut after I cut the rabbets. I used my router table to do this.

So now the nosing has the proper rabbets so it now covers the unfinished edges of the drywall and the flooring. Now it's time to cut it to length and put the rabbet on the end (to cover the flooring there). But before I do that, I see that the length marking on the end of the nosing is visible. So, before I cut the nosing to length, I will cut a sliver off this end so the marker is not visible.

This photo shows what the landing looks like with the baseboard and shoe molding in place, against the nosing. It looks pretty good, if I do say so myself. This was a bit finicky, as you can guess. I still need to cut the quarter round to put at the edges of the flooring on the landing and the stair treads.

This is a photo of what it will look like when it is all finished. The aluminum stair nosing is just set in place for the photo, it isn't screwed in yet.

This detail photo shows what the stair nosing looks like at the top of the stairs. I put a 45 degree bit on the router to ease the edges on the nosing. I also had to trim about half an inch off the edge of the aluminum nosing - now it fits perfectly! Besides looking very nice, the maple nosing is a safety device too: the slightly raised nosing will feel different under your feet which will give you an indication that you are coming near the edge.

I plan on screwing the maple nosing down for a permanent installation. In order not to detract from the beauty of the wood, I will drill holes for the screws, and then use a plug cutter to fill in the holes, cut off the excess wood from the plugs, then sand and finish the nosing.

This is the detail of the stair nosing where it butts into the wall. You can see that I had to ease the bottom of the baseboard here to get it to fit nicely against the nosing.

What's left to do to complete the trim out in this area:

install baseboard from landing at top of stairs to lower level, caulk
install quarter round on landing and stair treads, caulk
paint trim around landing, need two coats
install maple nosing, cut off plugs, stand, and finish
install aluminum stair nosings - the ones for the steps can be put in as soon as the painting is finished.

Saturday update

2011-04-16T23:09:00.002-04:00

Taz didn't get the memo. The mops didn't work to keep him off the leather couch, so we put other things there - cushions, boxes, etc. Guess that didn't work either!

Dale came over and helped with a variety of things today - mostly he painted the trim, which can go quite quickly but is tiring because you have to be careful all the time. He was painting for about 9 hrs I think, but we did have a few breaks in there, for lunch and then supper too.

The trim in the pantry has now had two coats of paint, and the shelves have been fastened in. All that is left is to install the bifold doors, but I am going to paint them first.

This is a panorama stitch of 5 photos. This photo shows that the trim in this lower level has been completely installed, caulked, and at least one coat of paint on it.

Today was a short day -- only 11 hrs because it was a weekend. I am so exhausted and tired of the 12-14 hr days.

Friday update

2011-04-15T21:27:00.000-04:00

Nobody could come over on Friday so I spent the day returning excess materials (we had two extra boxes of flooring) and finishing the stair nosing. I applied two coats of stain and two coats of satin varathane. This photo was taken after the first coat of stain was applied.

Thursday update

2011-04-14T23:20:00.000-04:00

Eric came over on Thursday morning and we got started by moving the tools over onto the finished floor so we could lay down the 1/2" styrofoam on the rest of the floor. This is a 6' span so we had to cut it to fit and then tape it down.

The closet is done and the book shelf nook is almost finished.

This pano was taken in the afternoon after Eric left and we did a clean up.

Louis came over after supper, and you can see from this photo that most of the baseboard trim is installed.

The casing is installed around the doors.

I am exhausted from these 12-14 hour days.

Wednesday update

2011-04-13T23:31:00.001-04:00

It seems that I spent all day running around getting supplies to finish the lower level.

One of the things that I purchased was the nosing for the stairs - it's a piece of solid maple that was about $5/ft. The nosing was 3/4" thick, which is 1/4" thinner than the thickness of the foam plus the wood (both are 1/2"). So, 1/4" thick plywood was glued to the concrete with construction adhesive, and then the nosing was glued to the plywood with wood glue. The grey box is a heavy object to hold the nosing in place.

This panorama shows the entire width of the lower level, showing that the flooring is now over 2/3rds complete.

Dale was over tonight, as well as Louis, and we completed this other 1/3rd of the floor in 2 hours (total so far is 5 hrs x 3 people, so 15 hrs total).

I forgot to post that the door to the broom closet was installed yesterday. It was 80" high but I needed 78" high, so the door had to be cut and then the hole plugged.

Tuesday update

2011-04-12T23:49:00.000-04:00

I was working by myself on Tuesday during the day, so I decided to finish up the painting. The first thing I did was uncover the flooring to the back door. It looks pretty good. I put green tape on the edge of the steps to cover up edge in case any glue oozes out.

This is the kitchen wall after the painting was completed. I thought I would use about half a gallon (well, US gallon or 3.78 l), but I ended up using almost the whole can.

David came over in the evening after work to help put the floor down. Louis also came over which was nice. The first thing to do was to put the 1/2" Styrofam down under the flooring to act as a vapour barrier and also as insulation so the room is more comfortable.

Then we laid a chalk line to get the first two rows straight and parallel from the wall.

Here Louis is chiseling a notch out of a piece of flooring so it will fit properly in the pantry.

At the end of the evening, we had completed just over 1/3rd of the flooring - in just over 3 hours with 3 people. (I used this flash in this photo and it shows the dust in the air - we had just swept the floor so it raised some dust.)

Flooring has arrived!

2011-04-11T23:29:00.002-04:00

The flooring arrived at 8am. There are 23 packages of flooring weighing 45 pounds each. I helped the driver unload the flooring under the carport (it had been raining although it wasn't then), and then I carried the flooring into the house. Eric arrived at 9:15 and carried the flooring down to the basement.

Since you have to let the flooring acclimatize for a day before installing it, we spent the day doing other things - like priming the drywall patches in the upstairs hallway.

Also primed the wall by the back door. Notice the white lines on the stairs - that is caulking on the cracks prior to painting.

This is a detail of the molding that I put together to cover the gaps at the top of the support posts.

This photo shows the stairs and landing by the back door covered with heavy objects - they are weighting down the flooring that I glued down. If you look at the stringers of the stairs, you can see that they are now white* as I gave them their first coat of trim paint.

* The 'white' is Cloud White, a Benjamin Moore colour.

The dogs aren't supposed to get on the leather couch, so I put the mops across the seats. It's very effective, as you can see...

Waiting for the flooring

2011-04-09T22:26:00.001-04:00

We are now at the stage where we are ready to do the flooring, but it hasn't been delivered yet! So in the meantime, am working on finishing up all the drywall touch-ups upstairs and the touch-up painting.

The corner here got squished in when the oil tank was being removed so it needed a drywall touchup.

This is the wall by the back door landing, by the kitchen. It was also beaten up a bit when the oil tank was getting taken out, and also it had some drywall that should have been repaired by the painters but they didn't do it... (Grr)

This shows the last wall in the basement has now had the second coat of paint. Also, I have all the styrofoam that I need to put down under the flooring.

This shows the wall by the front door. It needed a lot of drywall patching - again that was work that the painters said they were going to do but didn't and then said he didn't mean it. We've used those painters for 10 years, but will never be calling them again.

stairs There was a triangle shaped opening at the bottom of the stairs to the basement, right beside the green wall. I attached a piece of wood to it - had to fasten in some backing behind it so it wouldn't move, and then applied some wood filler. It needs some sanding to smooth it out and may need a second coat. The plywood on the landing has been screwed down about every 6 inches to remove the squeaking. Now those screw holes need to be filled and sanded before gluing down the flooring.

Final stages of painting

2011-04-07T23:11:00.000-04:00

This photo shows some of today's accomplishments:

The last wall to be painted in the lower level has been sanded and primed and will be painted (green) tomorrow.
The window has now acquired casing.

More big things happening

2011-04-07T00:27:00.001-04:00

The PUPS people came and took away the empty storage unit today. We had it for two months and it gave us a place to store some of the extra boxes until the basement was finished.

Eric removed the old flooring material from the landing and this flight of stairs. A lot of the backing from the old flooring stuck to the floor and required first scraping and then sanding. This actually took Eric most of the day.

This photo shows a number of accomplishments:

The lights are on!! That's the last of the pot lights - 19 in all.
The closet door is hung! The opening was just barely wide enough for the door - I had to plane the door a little bit for it to fit.
The grills for the warm air and the cold air return are installed. This was a LOT more work than it sounds because of the complexity of ceiling mounted warm air grills.

Hopefully the last coat of mud on this final wall. I hope to sand and prime this wall tomorrow, and perhaps even apply one coat of paint - it will be green.

Cup of Cocoa!

2011-04-05T23:54:00.000-04:00

The first coat of Cup of Cocoa going on the wall. The wall now has two coats and completely used up the can of paint - not one drop was left!

Tawny enjoying chewing on a stick.

This photo shows a number of things:

The shelves are installed in the pantry.
The light is installed in the pantry (I had to buy a bulb.)
Some of the plates are installed in the basement - the pantry light switch, for example.
The walls of the stairs to the basement area have been painted!
The light at the top of the stairs to the basement has been reinstalled. :)

Eric started cleaning off the steps in preparation for their finish.

Finally, colour!

2011-04-04T23:37:00.001-04:00

This photo was taken half way through the day. You can see the walls are in the process of being painted and the lights are still hanging down.

By the end of the day, two of the three walls that are targeted for green paint had been painted with two coats. The two walls are on opposite ends of the room - one with the pantry and closets (shown here) and the window wall. You can also see that the trims for the lights have been installed and they are no longer hanging down below the ceiling. The third wall couldn't be painted because the trim was stacked against that wall. You can see the trim on the left foreground of this photo, which means the third wall is clear. This evening, I sanded and applied another coat of drywall compound (mud) to the joints on that wall. Hopefully I will be able to sand it tomorrow and apply a 3rd and final coat of drywall compound - then it can be primed and painted.

UPDATE: Forgot to mention, the ceiling has been finished also - used another half a gallon.

Almost painted ceiling

2011-04-03T22:20:00.002-04:00

Applied 3 gallons (US gallon can is 3.78 liters) to the ceiling. That covered the whole ceiling once and most of it with two coats. I need about another half gallon so have to get another can of paint tomorrow. The colour is a Benjamin Moore Cloud White - it's a bit of a creamy white.

Three gallons should have been enough to paint two coats on the ceiling as it is about 480 sq ft. To coats makes 960 sq ft and each gallon is supposed to cover 350 sq ft, or 1,050 sq ft for three gallons.

Priming completed

2011-04-02T17:21:00.001-04:00

Today we started painting the basement. We are unable to paint one wall because the trim and doors are piled up on that wall, but we primed the ceiling, the rest of the walls and the closets.

I did the prime check and found that the far wall did not look very good, so I had to get out the drywall compound and patch the screws and the butt seams (the vertical seams in this photo). Tomorrow, I will sand these patches and prime them before I start painting the ceiling.

Kitchen cabinet improvement

2011-04-01T22:18:00.002-04:00

One thing we hadn't thought about with the kitchen cabinets was the accesibility to the wall cabinet just to the left of the sink.

Because it was over the peninsula, the doors were really in the way when you were trying to access the cabinet. The hinges were the upgraded soft-close type, but only opened 100 degrees.

So I called up the cabinet guy and asked him what were the brand of hinges to get to replace them with ones that opened wider. He said he would take care of it since it was a brand that wasn't available in stores. All hinges have different hole and screw patterns, so it's important to get the same type so you can just swap out one hinge with another. These wide opening hinges aren't available in soft-close unfortunately, because there are 5 pivot points on each hinge.

UPDATE: they are actually 170 degree hinges, not 150. Sorry!

Now this cabinet is accessible quite easily - a nice improvement.

Started painting!

2011-03-31T09:11:00.003-04:00

Wednesday was another 14 1/2 hour day... They guy who I hired to help me called in the morning to say that he was not able to come the rest of the week. Fortunately Dale was kind enough to come over and help me after work. We had barbecue chicken and Freda made some yummy smashed potatoes.

One of the things Dale did was apply the first coat of paint inside the pantry, and also to the shelves (not shown in this photo). It's nice to see the colour coat go on the walls because it signals that the end is indeed near.

This is a close-up of the bulkhead around the heating ductwork. I had hoped to be able to complete the third skim coat of drywall compound but I was too tired last night, so I stopped so I could get a good nights sleep. (Taz woke me up at 6:30 barking at something!)

Amazing antigravity dogs

2011-03-29T22:49:00.008-04:00

The drywall is complete, but there is something funny here...

What drywall ceiling would be complete without antigravity dogs? See their muddy footprints on the ceiling.

I installed the pot lights on the one side of the lower level - one light is not installed because I had to patch the drywall right where the hole is - the wires are hanging down at the left. You can see the entire ceiling has been taped and mudded. All that's missing here is the corner bead at the wall/ceiling joint.

Something not working

2011-03-29T17:28:00.000-04:00

Something has changed with Blogger and I am unable to upload photos.

Still working on figuring it out...

Saturday

2011-03-28T23:38:00.007-04:00

I took this photo early Sunday morning because the basement lights are currently not connected. You can see that the big sheets of drywall are installed on the ceiling. What's left to do for the drywall is to complete the little bits around the ductwork, etc. I hope to do that today, as well as tape and mud the ceiling.

These are the two colour panels again. Freda has chosen the green on the right, with one accent wall in the colour named "Cup of Cocoa".

Ready for ceiling drywall

2011-03-25T11:55:00.002-04:00

On Thursday evening, we completed the preparations for installing the drywall on the ceiling on Saturday. One the last things we had to do was disconnect the old lights (4) and complete running the wires for the new pot lights. There will be a total of 19 pot lights in this space now on two separate switches. If it is too bright then I will install a dimmer. I am going to get the 4" PAR20 type of pot lights as they are on sale at Rona this week and I have a store credit there too for when I returned the excess tile.

Because there are no lights now, we have to install the drywall ceiling in the daylight so we are doing that on Saturday. Since it is all ready, now we can take Friday evening off.

Eco-Energy Audit Follow-up
We had the follow-up Eco-Energy Audit assessment. We will get some kind of rebate for all of the energy improvements we have done, like all the insulation in the walls, attic, upgrading the furnace, the HWT, windows, doors, low flush toilets, etc.

The air leakage test showed a dramatic improvement, which will make the house much more comfortable. Before we had 7.29 air changes per hour (ACH), due to all the drafts in the house. Now, the house is down to 3.76 ACH - almost half!! (51.6% to be precise)

Wall gone

2011-03-24T10:01:00.001-04:00

[Photo taken from stairs to kitchen.]

The wall is now gone and the house is being supported on the new steel posts. It's starting to look like the end product now!

[Photo taken from stairs to basement area.]

Wow - it looks so spacious!

This photo shows all the little framing that we had to do around the steel beam and the heating ductwork. This is so we have something to fasten the drywall to.

Accomplishments Mar 22nd

2011-03-23T09:12:00.001-04:00

This is the attic access to the attic over the living room and kitchen. You can see it is a bit dirty from the insulation guys who added the insulation to the attic. I have caulked it to seal the drafts out.

This is the attic hatch to the area over the bedrooms. It is caulked properly too.

I installed the rest of the shelving supports in the pantry and then David primed it, so it is now ready for painting. Freda is working at picking out the paint colour for the this area.

Look at the top of this photo above, just above the drywall. I couldn't fill the outside header space with insulation because there was only about a 3/4" gap above the 2x4 wall that had been framed inside the basement as there just wasn't enough room to install any insulation properly. Instead, we slide a piece of 1/2" foam into the gap and then I foamed the rest of the gap with spray foam. Today I will staple the plastic up and seal it with sheathing tape.

David primed the laundry room walls where we put up the drywall and mudded. Now that wall can be painted and then the shelving and freezer put into its final location.

Replacing the lower level support posts

2011-03-22T12:12:00.003-04:00

Before. After I took this photo I cut out part of the 2x4 wall (top plate and bottom plate) to expose the steel beam and the concrete floor.

After I cut out the section of the wall, I found there was a hollow in the concrete. I mixed up some cement patch compound and filled it in.

Marc, cutting the posts to length. The base plates were welded to the posts in the shop and the posts were slightly long, so they could be cut to length on site.

Drilling the holes to fasten the bottom plate.

Welding the first post.

This is the post after it was welded, before the slag is chipped off.

And this is the post after it was primed.

This is the after photo, with both posts in place.

It's a dog's life...

2011-03-21T18:40:00.002-04:00

It's a dog's life... well, it would be nice to live a dog's life... a dog who is a pet, anyway...

Tawny, claiming ownership of the bed.

King Taz, ruling the world from the couch.

Cabinets are complete!!!

2011-03-21T16:25:00.000-04:00

Heinz, our cabinet guy, came today and finished up the cabinets.

This is the dishwasher before, with the panel leaning against the sink cabinet.

This is after the panel was installed. Heinz installed a piece of wood for the toe kick, so it matches the rest of the cabinets (instead of the black plastic piece that came with the dishwasher.

This is the ensuite vanity after the doors were installed.

And this is the vanity after the knobs were installed. It looks really nice.

All I have left to do in the ensuite is install the shelf under the sink, install the baseboard (on the wall with the window - at right) - this will require a bit of caukling and painting to finish it up.

Monday - light snowfall

2011-03-21T09:36:00.001-04:00

The snowbanks at the side of the driveway were no higher than 2 1/2 or 3 feet, but they were almost all gone. This light snowfall makes everything look pretty again, but frankly - everyone is ready for spring.

This is the back yard. There is some icy stuff underneath that fresh snow now s o it's a bit treacherous.

Boxing in the heating ductwork

2011-03-20T14:58:00.001-04:00

This is the view from the stairs. As you can tell, all the boxes that were piled up here were taken down to the storage area so we can finish up this room. You can see the ductwork running the length of the room, and the framing around it so we can put the drywall on it.

We will be removing that load-bearing 2x4 wall in the middle of the room (it originally was part of a partition wall that enclosed a bedroom at the left rear). I have found a welder who will supply and install the properly sized posts, according to the structural engineer that we hired. I hope that he can come early this week.

This is the view from the stairs to the storage area. The room is very bright with the two big windows and quite spacious - about 21' square.

This is a view looking toward the pantry so you can see the framing around the ductwork and also the shelf supports that I added yesterday.

Insulating overhang

2011-03-19T23:30:00.001-04:00

One of the strongest recommendations from the energy audit guy was to properly seal the underside of the overhang to stop drafts. The floor at the front of the house on the bedroom level overhangs by about a foot. He recommended removing the plywood that covered the underneath to expose the joists, then add some rigid styrofoam that was properly caulked to seal the drafts and add a bit of insulation. Since there was an incredible draft coming into the basement from that area, I really wanted to do that. This is their story. (Apologies to Law & Order.)

This is the underside of the overhang after the plywood was removed. The black stuff there is called Black Joe - it is like pressed fiberboard (made from wood pulp) that is impregnated with some sort of black stuff, tar or something. If I installed the rigid insulation on top of the Black Joe, then the effectiveness of sealing against drafts would be dependent on how the Black Joe was sealed. Due to the age of the house, it was pretty clear that this was extremely unlikely.

This is what I saw after removing the Black Joe. You can see that the insulation doesn't extend all the way to the end of the joist space. Obviously I needed to add insulation before I put the rigid stuff up.

What a surprise! There was absolutely no insulation in the area under the front coat closet. You can see why that is in this photo - there is a piece of blocking across the joist space (at the back left of this photo). Not sure why the blocking was there as it totally prevented anyone from putting insulation in this area.

This photo shows the empty joist cavity was filled with insulation (Roxul). That's the equivalent of R-28 in this cavity now.

This photo shows the joist cavities were filled with Roxul (R-14 per layer, so it is R-28 for the two layers). Then a 1" thick piece of rigid styrofoam was added, on top of a bead of acoustic sealant - that's the black squiggly line on the rim joist at the left.

After the 1" piece was put in, another 1/2" thick piece was added. These two layers fitted above the top row of bricks. This photo shows the two layers of rigid styrofoam.

Looking down the side of the house. You can see it was so nice that we were wearing just t-shirts. Of course, it was a bit chilly if you were in the shade.

We added another 1/2" thick piece of rigid styrofoam under this, for a total of R-10 for the foam, so the total insulation added is R-38.

I had to rip the plywood narrower because (a) the edge got a bit chewed up when it was removed, and (b) the plywood could no longer fit on top of the brick because that space is now filled with styroam. This photo was taken after the plywood was installed - with screws, because it would compress the layers of foam together, helping eliminate any paths for air to take.

Oh, I had exactly enough Roxul to finish this! I only had a little piece about 4" x 5" left. Zowie!

Lower level pantry and closets complete

2011-03-19T08:50:00.001-04:00

The drywall is now complete on the closets and the pantry for the lower level.

This photo shows that the complete far end of the room. Starting from the left is the book shelf nook, then the coat closet, then the stairs to the basement storage room and laundry, then the pantry, then the broom closet (around the corner from the pantry), and then the stairs to the upstairs. The pantry and broom closet have had three coats of mud and are now complete (except for a final sanding). The stairs to the basement, coat closet and book shelf nook still need to have the first coat of mud (except the stairwell) and the corner bead. I am using regular drywall mud for the first two coats because we are using the drywall sanding sponge which doesn't make a lot of dust. The third coat needs to be sanded, so for that I am using the low-dust drywall compound (the tubs with the purple lids in the center of the photo). I think the low-dust compound does the reduce the dust a bit, but it certainly does NOT eliminate it.

This is the view looking from the stairs towards the windows on the lower level. The floor at the center foreground is exposed for the first time in months -- it has been the location of a pile of drywall since sometime in December. Now all that is left there are scraps. The doors are not yet installed, you can see them leaning against the far wall.

Drywall update

2011-03-17T11:53:00.001-04:00

Still working on the closets in the lower level, but shifted over to framing the bookshelves and the new coat closet, on the other side of the steps to the stoaragae area and the laundry room. After we did the framing, I started again on the mudding while Louis continued with cutting the drywall for the closet.

This is the corner at the stairs down from the kitchen. This corner was somewhat beaten up when the oil tank was removed, and I had to fill the end of the wall with quite a bit of mud. It's pretty good now, almost perfect.

This photo shows tne pantry and a little bit of the closet for the vacuum cleaner and dog food.

This annotated photo shows the layout of the rest of the other side of the lower level. I am putting some book shelves under the coat closet (by the front door), and then another coat closet beside the stairs. That coat closet is for storing winter coats in summer and summer coats in the winter.

Finishing the pantry and broom closet

2011-03-15T21:07:00.000-04:00

After finishing the storage room, and moving stuff down there, I now had room to start finishing the lower level. First on the agenda was to frame and drywall the pantry and the broom closet - that is where we will put the vacuum cleaner and the big bags of dog food.

This photo shows the pantry after it was framed and drywalled. It is a bit of an odd shape because we had to work around all the house infrastructure - plumbing, heating ducts, stairs, etc. You can't see the broom closet in this photo - it is to the right, between the pantry and the stairs.

This is another view of the pantry. We are trying to make the most possible use of the space.

This is after the drywall taping and the first coat of mud.

There are a LOT of corners to tape and mud in this pantry!

Moving boxes

2011-03-14T17:43:00.001-04:00

I finished the workshop/storage area, except for the part of the drywall immediately adjacent to the stairs, by installing the vinyl baseboard and putting the switch plates on (can be seen in this photo). Then I set up most of the shelving units. I made a couple of blocks to put under the legs of the vertical supports for the shelves that were on top of the old oil tank pedestal. This makes that pedestal disappear since you can't really see it (unless you look under the shelves).

The next task was to move boxes from the lower level onto the shelves and in this storage area. This is what it looks like when I was about half done.

I had to put a lot of stuff into the laundry room when I was preparing and painting the workshop/storage area. This photo shows that most of that stuff had been taken out and the laundry room is now usable once again.

The pantry and closet in the lower level were framed in, but I forgot to take photos of that so will save that for tomorrow. :)

Painting the workshop/storage area

2011-03-12T08:40:00.004-05:00

Before I could paint the basement workshop/storage area, I had to prepare it. First, I knocked off the chunky pieces of concrete sticking out from around where an oil tank had been located. After I did that, I mixed up some concrete patch material and filled in these big holes and some smaller holes on the floor.

The holes in the floor were where a divot of concrete came out when a wall was removed (the concrete nails). You can see a line of holes across the room just in front of the little shopvac. I also patched the holes when we removed the partition wall.

Here I have primed the walls and am ready to prime the floor. It took several hours to prepare the floor. First I scraped the floor (I used an ice chopper), swept, scraped again in a perpendicular direction to the first, swept, scrubbed the floor with an abrasive deck brush, and then swept again.

This photo shows the water meter and drain cleanout. You can see the location of the wall of the original closet that was built around the cleanout and water meter.

Everything is now primed - walls and floor. I didn't prime the edge of the oil tank pedestal because I was planning on leaving it red, so it would be less of a trip hazard.

The walls have now been painted. There is going to be a small enclosure around the water meter, so I didn't bother with painting the walls behind the meter.

The paint can is the floor paint - Porch and Floor Enamel - I was just getting ready to do the floor when I took this photo.

Everything is now painted. I ended up painting the edge of oil tank pedestal because it looks pretty grungy next to the new paint. Hopefully it will work out even though I hadn't primed it.

I had previously purchased self-stick vinyl baseboard (like commercial baseboard) for the laundry room. I decided that I would put it down in here to dress up the edge of the floor/wall corner. Because the vinyl baseboard comes in a roll, you have to unroll it and let it relax for a day so it won't try to curl up again and become unglued from the wall.

Total effort: about 11 hours.

Basement update

2011-03-10T19:08:00.001-05:00

So I've been working on the basement, and it is now almost ready for paint and then set up the storage shelving.

This photo is at the bottom of the stairs into the basement. You can see that I have removed the carpet and scraped off all the foam backing that was stuck onto the stairs. You can also see the splint that I had to put on one of the studs. It was bowed out severely, so I cut it almost completely through in two locations, pushed the stud in so it was in line with the other studs, and then fastened a cripple stud on one side to keep the newly straightened 2x4 in place.

This photo shows the basement "workshop" area. It is really a storage area, but it could be used for a workshop. I removed the old light fixture that was wired illegally and installed three pot lights with a switch that is at the top of the stairs - the pot lights are on the stairs, in front of the laundry room entrance, and half way in between (which happens to be in front of the entrance to the bathroom. The pot lights are marked with a ">" in the photo - they don't show up very well in the flash photos.

I also hooked up my workshop fluorescent light which you can see at the left middle of the photo.

Last panel work

2011-03-08T22:17:00.000-05:00

So I had four more circuits to connect to the panel. I completed that today.

This is the before photo. There are two 20A circuits to connect - those are the yellow wires hanging down on the right side (in front of the breaker panel), and two 15A circuits - those are the white wires hanging down on the right side.

On the left side, you can see the coils of wire for the phone connections and the network connections. Yes, there is a lot of extra wire! The DSL modem and the wireless router is hanging down on the left too.

This is after the circuits were connected. Also, I tidied up the phone, internet and video cables on the left side. The modem and the router are plugged into the new plug (bottom left) which frees up the mandatory utility outlet which is just below the huge 100A on/off switch.

Also, note that there is now a light at the panel area, which is really nice to have.

This is what the panel looks like with the doors closed. Nice and tidy, isn't it?

What you can't see is that there is about a 1/2 inch gap at the bottom of the doors and a larger opening at the top, to promote airflow so there is no heat buildup in the cabinet.

My neck is really sore from all the looking up that I was doing today, so I am taking the evening off and trying to loosen up the tight muscles with a heating pad (Magic Bag which was a gift from my sister Mary, I believe).

And with this post, I am all caught up with my backlog of photos. :)

Shower and under-cabinet lighting (Mar 1st)

2011-03-08T21:34:00.003-05:00

Finally, the long-awaited shower enclosure arrives. This is the shower being installed. We had to wait 24 hours before using it so the silicone sealant could cure properly.

We have three areas for the kitchen under-cabinet lighting. One was about 40", another about 30" and the third was only 6"! I purchased some fluorescent strips for the longer areas and a small LED light for the tiny area. This photo is of the label on the LED strip. What does "ludoor use only" mean?? Ludoor???

This photo shows the lights in action! The middle sized light is under the cabinet at the left of the photo, and the LED light is under the small cabinet at the right - between the range and the sink.

This photo shows how I had to install the LED lighting strip under the small cabinet. First, it was a plug-in type with a transformer so I couldn't hardwire the light. Instead of buying an ordinary utility box with a receptacle, I found this hardwire box that had two plugs on it (one on either end). Because of the tight space, I had to install that box at the back corner under the cabinet, and then mount the LED lighting strip on an angle.

The little LED strip had a switch on the wire so I just used a sticky pad and zip tied it to the bottom of the cabinet. I originally used double-sided tape but it was old and the switch fell down overnight. This will work better because it is mechanically fastened (with a screw).

Feb 24th - David's help

2011-03-08T21:24:00.001-05:00

These are some photos I took when David was helping me.

This photo shows after we had taken down some of a partition wall. The oil tank was at the back left corner of this photo (where the wood shelving pieces are leaning), it was on an elevated concrete pedestal about 9 inches high. That concrete pedestal is still there - haha! In front of that, there was a partition wall (covered in paneling of course!) that was in several sections with angles. The piece at the center back of this photo (with the car stickers on the paneling) was about 4' from the outside wall - we took that down to add the space to this room. I put a line of dots in the photo to indicate the location of the wall between the back bit and the small piece on the right. The left side of the room was the same way.

It looks like this might have been a bedroom because it appears that a headboard was against the blue painted paneling. It would have been a very cold bedroom because there was absolutely no insulation on the basement walls.

This is another angle looking toward the laundry room. David and I extended the partition wall over to the outside wall of the basement. We took the blue-painted bit of wall down too, of course.

And this is after the partition wall was constructed and installed. After this, I had to do the electrical which was to install one plug on each side of the wall, and a switch which controls a plug in the ceiling of the workshop area of the basement - that is for workshop fluorescent lights.

Feb 23rd photos

2011-03-08T20:42:00.001-05:00

This corner of the basement has the water meter and the cleanout for the main drain. Of course, that means it must be accessible in case the meter needs to be read manually or if the drain needs to get unplugged. We will build a small square cabinet here with a removable top.

Before, this was a really stupid waste of space area. There was a little closet that was accessed through a narrow opening covered by a type of horizontal blind. You had to step into that area - which was difficult because of the water meter and the drain cleanout -- in order to reach through the wall to access a couple of shelves. It was dark and awkward. Really dumb. We are going to have some shelving on the other side of this wall. Just taking out that dumb closet makes the whole room seem bigger.

Because the house is a split level, there is a half-wall of concrete that is visible. We are framing a wall in front of it, and I put 2" of styrofoam over the concrete (1/2" behind the studs, and then 1 1/2" in between the studs. This was recommended by the eco-energy audit guy.

Oh yes, before I could set up my computer I had to install an electrical outlet and the phone and network connections too. There was no plug on this wall (the longest wall, although it had the window), and the closest plug was switched so was useless. I had to do a lot of repairs to the drywall because the crazy painters didn't fix the drywall like they promised to do.... After I patched the drywall, I primed the patch and then painted the whole wall.

This is a photo of the electrical panel area after we installed some of the drywall. You can see the ceiling light socket that was installed at this point but not energized - I had to use the trouble light to give us light to work in this area.

Feb 19th - basement photos

2011-03-08T20:33:00.001-05:00

These photos are from Feb 19th.

The basement walls are now insulated to R-25. First, there is 1" of styrofoam (R-5) glued to the concrete walls. It is taped on the vertical joints to keep moisture at bay. Then we built a wall inside that has R-20 of fiberglass (2x6, 24" oc). THen the vapour barrier and then the drywall.

This is the wall under the fireplace. The light in this picture is too close to the wall, so I had to move it a bit further away from the wall.

This is the electrical panel section before all of the drywall was installed. You can see the new furnace at the left side of the photo. One of the best things about the new furnace is that it is so much quieter than the old one!

Oh yes, this is our new tankless water heater. The best thing about this is that it doesn't take up any floor space.

Counter delivery - Feb 9th afternoon

2011-03-08T20:20:00.001-05:00

Our granite counter tops were scheduled for delivery on the afternoon of Feb 9th. Of course, it was snowing!

Here's the first piece with the cutout for the kitchen sink.

The under-cabinet lighting wires are hanging down. The switch has tape on it so it doesn't accidentally get turned on.

Feb 9th photos

2011-03-08T20:11:00.001-05:00

These are photos that were taken on the morning of Feb 9th.

This is our kitchen but without the countertops. It was really awful trying to live in this situation. We had to wash dishes in the tiny bathroom sink.

The living room was so crowded - and this was after we rented a portable storage unit and moved a lot of boxes into it. Still too crowded.

This was my surprise for Freda - a heated floor in the master ensuite bathroom. It feels soooo nice stepping out of the shower onto a warm floor!

This is our pantry in the kitchen, and the only food storage area until the lower level pantry is completed. The right most set of doors is a broom closet.

Final inspections complete

2011-03-08T10:36:00.003-05:00

We had our final inspections on our bathroom renovations with no problems. The plumbing inspection was last Thursday and the final building inspection was on Monday.

Only a couple of small things left to do:
- main bath: hang medicine cabinet on the wall
- ensuite: finish vanity (just waiting for the doors to come so they can be installed) then install the baseboard on the wall beside the vanity, put a bead of caulk at the toekick of the vanity, in case any water spills it will prevent it from running down into the basement ceiling.

And I took the building permit off the wall - WOOHOO!!

Computer working again

2011-03-03T08:33:00.001-05:00

My computer is working again thanks to a good friend who had some thermal grease and some know how...

This photo shows the cpu (square green pcb with all the pins sticking up) and the aluminum heat sink - covered in dirt and hair. Believe it or not, this was after I vacuumed as much dust and dog hair (!!) off the heat sink as I could.

This is the top side of the heat sink. Before I vacuumed it, you couldn't even see any of the fins of the heat sink! I cleaned the rest of the dust and hair off with tweezers and with Dust Off.

This photo was supposed to show the bent pins, but it's too hard to see in this photo. There were about 15 bent pins that I straightened out with my tweezers. Everything is working well now, and the cpu is running about 43C instead of 60C, which is good for its long term survival.

uh oh

2011-02-28T12:32:00.003-05:00

One of my goals this weekend was to set up the office and my computer so I can apply for jobs, post pictures to this blog, etc. When I was hooking stuff up to the computer I noticed that the heat sink on the cpu was totally blocked with gunk - dust, etc. I started to clean it and accidentally dislodged a clamp that holds the cpu on the board. When I was trying to manipulate the lever to put it back on it popped off. Uh oh. Since it was off, I cleaned it thoroughly, and managed to get the cpu on the socket on the third try, but nothing happened when I powered it on. Tried again, same thing. Uh oh. A friend is coming over on Tuesday after work to see if he can help, otherwise I will have to buy a new computer, something I can't really afford.

More update - no photos

2011-02-25T08:36:00.002-05:00

It turns out that Louis bruised his right lung, and has fluid build up in it. He will be out of commission for at least a week. He has to be careful he doesn't get pneumonia.

I've been working on a bunch of little things upstairs - paint touch-ups in the ensuite, unsuccessfully trying to put the fan covers on (spring is too springy and not long enough), painting the wall inside the ensuite vanity, priming the wall in the office/bedroom, and starting to put in a plug in the entrance (before the walls in the basement are closed up!).

David came over last night and helped me take down the last of the walls in the basement. I still have a couple of pieces of panelling to take down, but that is IT for the demolition. YAY! Now I just have to get rid of the junk that is under the carport. I will have to cut it up and put it out in the garbage over time.

David and I also framed in the last wall in the basement, and it is almost ready for drywall. Discovered that I needed a couple more electrical boxes.

Getting stuff done...

2011-02-23T23:36:00.003-05:00

My friend Louis (who is helping me with the renovations) hurt his ribs when he was skating on the canal on Sunday, so he is out of commission for a while. Hoping I can dragoon someone else to help in the interim,

Today I did some more work on the patches on the window wall in the office/bedroom. I hope it is ready for priming tomorrow.

I cut and installed the cover for the electrical panel. It looks a lot neater now!

I also did the first drywall sponge sanding in the basement, and then did the 2nd coat of the mud. As I'm only doing 2 coats of mud in the basement level, the next coat will be the primer and the paint.

I picked up the sink yesterday, and the counter guy came and cut the opening today. Called the plumber but no callback yet. Called the glass shower guy and he is going to come on Tuesday morning to install the shower.

Another update

2011-02-21T09:49:00.002-05:00

Freda found the camera but I still can't post photos as my computer isn't set up. Hopefully in a few days.

We ended up taking down the one wall that I intended only to replace the panelling with drywall because some of the wood was rotten (was in direct contact with the concrete and there had been a water leak at some point previously. All of the basement now has R-25 in the walls - and something like R-30 in the floor headers. The R-25 is achieved at by 1" of foam glued to the concrete (R-5) and then R-20 fiberglass batts in a 2x6 wall on 24" centers. I didn't actually need 2x6 for strength so I just used 2x4s.

It is very cold again today, -18C now.

Update on things

2011-02-16T23:27:00.002-05:00

Not sure where the camera is but can't post photos anyway - sorry!

We now have an almost complete kitchen. The cabinets were installed before we moved in, the counters came in last Wednesday, the washer/dryer came on Friday and the plumber came on Monday to unplug the drain and hook up the kitchen sink. Yes, we did one load of laundry and discovered the drain didn't, well, drain, so had to wait for the plumber to come and snake out the drain. Because of that, he wasn't able to hook up the laundry vanity (ran out of time and he had a Valentine's Day thing to get to).

But that's okay, because they will have to come back to hook up the master bath ensuite sink. The counter guy couldn't cut the hole for the sink because we didn't have it, but then we discovered the sink was too big. The faucet is just over 7" tall, and the faucet deck on the sink was almost 3" tall, and that made it too tall so we wouldn't be able to open the medicine cabinet. So we had to find a smaller sink - found one by American Standard but it's 4 week delivery here in Canada so had to order it from the US for a 1 week delivery.

I have installed most of the door handles and some of the bathroom accessories (towel bars, paper holder, etc). Still have more to do. Have to repaint one wall in the ensuite before the shower doors come.

We took down almost the last of the panelling in the basement and discovered pathways and dens and food storage places in the insulation, obviously carved out by the mice that had lived here. We half-expected to find a dead mouse or two in there but didn't find anything.

Thursday update

2011-02-04T00:54:00.002-05:00

The furnace guys came and did the switch over to natural gas, taking the old furnace out and mostly installing the new furnace. (They still need to hook up a line for outside combustion air.) I installed our new touch-sensitive thermostat.

I picked up the grout from Lowe's and that was installed.

I picked up our bathroom faucets, accessories, and the kitchen faucet.

My friend David came over and completed the prep work then helped Louis install the kitchen floor.

I painted the bathrooms. Colour is Sandstone Cover (Behr paint from Home Depot).

Furnace

2011-02-03T08:28:00.002-05:00

Forgot to mention - the furnace didn't get replaced yesterday as originally stated by the HVAC company. They were too disorganized to bring everything needed with them and with the winter storm that we had, it was too late to get started by the time they did get everything. I told them that they needed to add some heating oil to the tank then since I would run out - the tank was almost running on fumes.

Finish electrical and flooring lay down.

2011-02-03T02:27:00.002-05:00

Today I installed the breakers in the panel, and most of the finish electrical. This photo shows that:

the lights were on a new circuit that is now energized
the lights/plugs have the Decora wall plates on them
Trimmed flooring to fit kitchen (not installed yet)

We are moving in on Saturday. What's happening to enable that:

Kitchen cabinets are being delivered on Friday morning and installed starting on Friday afternoon.
Kitchen appliances are being delivered on Saturday.
The bathroom floor has been grouted, as has the ensuite shower walls and most of the main bath walls (I didn't have the right grout for the main bath walls so have to get that this morning).
Still have to fill and sand the screw holes in the kitchen so the flooring can be laid down - must be done today so the cabinets can go in on Friday.
Still have to paint the bathrooms so the finish plumbing can be done on Friday afternoon.

Yeoman service - last night for old furnace

2011-02-01T23:41:00.002-05:00

This is the kitchen floor. I had planned to install the new flooring (it's the long tube rolled up by the vacuum cleaner), but we couldn't get the old floor off cleanly. Since so much of the flooring was just lifting off, I thought it would all lift off, but no such luck. I ended up taking off the old subflooring (3/8" plywood) and will replace it and screw it down properly, so hopefully there are no squeaks.

This is our old furnace. It is the last night for the old lady because the new gas furnace goes in tomorrow.

Good timing too, as the oil tank is almost empty! (It's below E on the gauge!)

last day of January

2011-01-31T23:59:00.000-05:00

Unpacked vanity for main bath so we could see where the baseboard needs to stop.

The new baseboard is a vast improvement over the old. The house is a mess now - please excuse that.

See the baseboard in the main bath? It stopps where the vanity starts.

Also put up drywall in the laundry room. Still have to complete screwing it in, cut out the window opening and tape and mud. Oh yes, prime and paint it too - before Thursday!

Priming

2011-01-31T00:47:00.001-05:00

Another 13 hour day. Sanding, Cleaning up. Priming. Durabond 90. Cleaning tools. Sanding. Cleaning up. Prime check... Kitchen and bathrooms.

Gas hookup

2011-01-28T21:46:00.002-05:00

Thursday: the guys from Aecon came to see what they had to do to hook up our natural gas line. They then left the backhoe in the driveway and a trailer-mounted compressor on the road and went home.

The digging started early, guessing that it was around 8am as that's when the breaker tripped when they broke the electrical wire to the post light.

Working away, doing who knows what.

And now we have a gas meter on our house, ready to be connected to a furnace. The furnace is supposed to come on Wednesday.

PS: Yes, they fixed the electrical wire to the post light.

Inside the house on Thursday and Friday

2011-01-28T21:38:00.002-05:00

On Thursday, Mario and his crew finished installing the doors upstairs and doing the trim out. I think the doors look really sharp, and Mario did a good job with the trim in such a tight space.

On Friday, Louis was mudding all day (drywall) and I was doing running around, getting things, making phone calls, cleaning up, and then cleaning the tile in the ensuite in preparation for the grout. I thought the shower looked pretty good before, but it looks even better after being cleaned up.

Oh yes, a guy from Rossen Glass & Mirror came to take measurements for the shower enclosure.

This is what the floor looks like after it was cleaned up.

When I was cleaning the shower tiles, I accidentally knocked over my bucket of water and a lot of water poured down the drain, which is not connected! So that made a mess in the basement for me to clean up.

Jan 26.4: getting rid of annoyances

2011-01-27T00:15:00.001-05:00

Wow - today was a busy day! with lots of stuff accomplished! It seems to me that I spent a lot of time on the phone ordering our main bath and kitchen faucet and accessories (towel bar, etc), as well as confirming that our natural gas hookup will happen by Jan 31st. That will be good because then we can get our new furnace and new tankless water heater installed.

Besides constantly cleaning up, I did manage to get a few things accomplished.

The eco energy audit identified that there was a big draft coming from beside the fireplace. Mario's guys took off the trim so I could caulk it. There were some quite big gaps so I filled it with backer rod (foam gap filler) and then caulked it. I needed to wait for the caulk to set up so I could go back and fill some more. There is over a tube of caulk in this gap!!

Another annoyance was that the stairs from the main level to the bedroom level squeaked. This is my attempt to fix that. I fastened a 2x4 in place under the stair that squeaked the most. The squeaking is because of wood rubbing on wood or wood rubbing on a nail. The risers were nailed to the back of the treads with three nails. When someone walked on the stairs it was obvious that the risers were moving and the squeak was coming from the nails. I glued and screwed this 2x4 to the riser, and the then screwed a few screws from the front (the riser) to help hold it in place. I also put 8-10 screws in to the bottom of the riser (from the back) into the back of the tread, and then removed the three nails that were causing the squeaks.

I had put a number of boxes of floor tile on top of the stair tread that squeaks to simulate the weight of someone walked on the stairs. I will remove the tiles tomorrow and see if the stairs still squeak or if they are okay.

Jan 26.3: Tiling the main bath and ensuite walls

2011-01-26T23:53:00.000-05:00

Since he couldn't get into the main bath or ensuite because of the insulation guys and the carpenters, Louis decided to lay out the tile for the main bath on the kitchen floor. Not a bad idea as nobody was working in that space.

This is after most of the walls in the main bath tub was tiled.

A closeup of the random glass/marble mosaic. It looks really sharp! All kudos go to Freda for picking out the tile and accent materials.

This is the ensuite shower. Again we have a band of glass tile/marble accent pieces.

And this is a closeup of the accent tile - it is little squares. The tiles have a bit of a striation on them.

Jan 26.2: More doors and trim

2011-01-26T23:51:00.002-05:00

As you know, we had the drafty old windows replaced, and at the time I asked the boss if he would be interested in installing some doors and trim for us. He said yes, because he is not as busy in January as a lot of people don't like getting their windows and doors replaced in the cold weather. This is Nick, and he's a whiz with the caulk, patching the nail holes and caulking around the trim.

This is Mike, and he's cutting back the old baseboard as the new casing for the door is wider than the old stuff that we removed.

This photo shows Mario (the boss) at the bottom of the photo and Nick installing the new casing around the old windows. We replaced all the windows except for two - this big picture window in the living room and the big picture window in the dining room. They actually were in pretty good shape and there were no operators in the living room, and two small awning style windows in the dining room.

BONUS PHOTO: Removing the old baseboard unveils the original wall colour! (or one of the original wall colours). Wow.