Update on things

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Gas hookup

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

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

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.