Day 291 - Election Day in Canada

Did you remember to vote today?

These were some of the better ads in this year's campaign.





This was the scene when I arrived at the house. The sun was setting, and there was a whisp of fog settling in over the lake.

Peaceful. Serene. We are looking forward to a bit of that!

Today, Sean and Patrick primed the master bath and the closets, which Dave and Chris installed a couple more window build-outs.

Dave estimated he would have all the build-outs installed in 2 or 3 days. I don't think that is in the cards... Even though the crew knocked off work early today so they could go and vote, not even half of the build-outs are installed. And this would have been the end of day 2.

Day 290 - Vinegar

As the saying goes, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

I am going to try to make a long story short, but suffice it to say that we absolutely do not recommend Carleton Insulation. The owner of the company, whose name I won't write but will refer to as TD, seemed very nice and all that when he was doing his sales pitch. Even though he was expensive, he had been working with Charles for over 20 years, and we thought that was a good indication he was trustworthy and would do a good job.

The first insulation (batting) was done on Dec 15th and the blown-in insulation was done Dec 23rd (later than promised). Charles called TD on Thursday (Jan 19th) to say he had a cheque for him, but couldn't get it him to him for a day or two. TD seemed to have a meltdown, even though it was just barely over 30 days for the first bill and under 30 days for the 2nd bill, and called us threatening to lien our house. What a jerk! Incredibile that our first contact with TD after having the insulation installed was to use heavy-handed threats.

It's pretty clear that TD has ignored the old saying, that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

I wrote TD a cheque to get the jerk out of our lives forever. Then he has the chutzpah to go the bank to try to get the cheque certified. I had told him it was a line of credit cheque, so please deposit it right away, so he tried to get it certified. Well you can't certify a cheque on a LOC. He was so rude and abrasive at the bank that they called me afterwards about it.

I find it incredible that someone would throw away a relationship of 20 years over a small amount of money.

Nobody can take away your good name except yourself. Like TD did.

I hope it was worth it to him.

Day 289 - Getting stuck is no fun!

We had a heavy snowfall today. We left home around 10am to go out to the house to empty the dehumidifiers. The roads and weather weren't too bad around home, but as we got closer to our new place, the roads and the weather got worse. This photo was taken on Jiulia Lake Private, the road down to our house. The road hadn't been plowed yet, our plow contractor was just starting. As we were driving down the road, we would hit a snow drift and - poof! - a cloud of snow would blow over the hood. We only got stuck three times, which shows its a good thing to carry a small shovel in the trunk. The trees were very pretty, however, with all the snow on them!

We had originally planned to rent a panel van to take the fragile items out to the land. We were very glad that we did not do that!

Packing up. Boxes everywhere. Freda has done most of the packing.

Day 288 - Dust!

Dust. It's pervasive. It's everywhere. The drywallers sand between each coat of plaster, and the dust is exceedingly fine.

I purchased a new filter for the shopvac from Lee Valley that is supposed to trap the fine drywall dust. I believe the filter is actually made from Goretex or a similar material.

The crew was busy this week fabricating the build-outs for the windows. Here they are all lined up like soldiers in the basement, ready to be installed.



Here are Dave and Chris preparing to install the build-out for the big window in the master bedroom. Every window has a few complications so it is not as simple as just jamming the jamb extension into the slot and fastening it in place.


This is the finished product, with the build-out for the window jamb extension in the master bath. That's Patrick outside, taking advantage of the +6C (a new record temp for Jan 20th) to apply some caulking above the window, to make absolutely sure that no water gets in.

Day 286 - Good Things and Bad Things

Well, we have had a few Good Things happen:
- Ottawa Hydro said they will pay $100 towards the cost of the blower test. Yay!!! That's all we're ever going get from anybody for building an energy efficient house.
- We found a place to live! It's clearly obvious from the photos that there's no way on God's Green Earth that we will be able to move in at the end of January. Fortunately some neighbours are letting us rent their small cottage. It really is small, about 350 sq ft!

On the Bad Things front:
- the weather was really bad today. It started last night with freezing rain and turned to rain this morning. The road into Jiulia Lake was incredibly icy even before today's weather -- I hit a bump on Monday afternoon and started sliding sideways down the road. Today's rain made the road 10 times worse. The crew and drywallers left around lunch time and it took over an hour as a combined effort to get everyone out.
- Surprisingly, the garage doors have not arrived yet.
- Freda and I feel like we've been taken advantage of by some people. That is very disappointing.

The movers come next Saturday to take our belongings to our new house. We plan to store them there until we can move in, which we expect to be the 3rd week of February.

This weekend Freda and I are renting a van to take some fragile things over to the house.

Day 284 - humidity

The house is quite humid because of all the drywall mud that has been applied over the past two weeks. The solarium windows almost appear frosted because of all of the condensation.



Chris is ripping a sheet of MDF into strips for the build outs. Dave is having a confab with Sean and Patrick. Sorry this photo is fuzzy.

MDF is fabricated from sawdust and glue, so it makes follows that it is very dusty when it is cut. That's why Chris is very wisely wearing a mask.


One of the build-out (jamb extensions) in a basement window. This is made from 3/4" thick MDF, and was primed once. It looks pretty slick, doesn't it?!?!




Charles is repairing an alarm wire that had the insulation exposed on two of the conductors. The boarders had covered over the security wire and then it was pulled out, which caused the insulation problem.

Day 283 - CC306 emerges

It was a painting weekend - CC306 made its appearance. CC-306 is the Ben Moore colour code (name: Cable Knit) that for our trim. The doors look pretty good in it, don't they?

Today I sanded the primed doors, and painted both sides of the 1 3/4" thick doors, and one side of most of the 1 3/8" doors. I don't think I really like the paint - it is so thick it takes a long time to spread it around. Note that it is a Ben Moore colour, and not Ben Moore paint.

Upstairs, every window was dripping with condensation - a result of the drywall mud drying. I opened a couple of windows a crack to let in some cold (relatively dry) air.

It's pretty obvious that I will be collecting on the bet with Dave. I am thinking about possibly revising the wager - maybe increasing the stakes for Dave. Will see if he goes for it.

Looking ahead for this week:
- buildouts of the window jamb extensions starts
- garage doors arrive (to be confirmed)
- drywall mudding completed (I hope)

Next weekend Freda and I are renting a panel van to move some fragile stuff to the house.

Day 282 - a busy day

This is a photo of the arch from the great room looking towards the kitchen. The entire house has received the 2nd coat of mud.

The problem now is for it to dry. Renee brought in two huge fans (from furnaces) to blow the air around to help things dry.



Bob, the alarm installer, came to correct the prewiring installation, which was not done properly.

Dave the foreman had asked where the wires were going to go since there were just sticking out of the woood by the drywall, and the crew is preparing to install the build-outs, or jamb extensions. We are using MDF for this as it paints nicely as costs 1/2 to 1/4 of other options.

I went to the house today to prime and paint the doors. The two missing doors and the replacement for the damaged door were delivered on Friday. When I was arranging the doors so I could work on them, I discoverd that one of the doors was a demo door - it had curved panels on one side and rectangular panels on the other!

I spread the doors out so I could work on them, but first I had to prepare the doors. This meant a light sanding with a sanding block on the edges of the door and the flat parts of the door, then a light sanding with steel wool or 220 (fine) sandpaper. Finally, a brushdown and priming. This prep took about 7-8 minutes per door, then priming the doors took another 5-6 minutes/door. I did one side of all the doors, and then prepped and primed the 2nd side of the 1 3/4" thick doors. Note the maple french doors on the right -- these are for the foyer.

Dave has set up a workshop in the basement in order to speed up production of the trim work. The miter saw (center - blue with red blade) has supporting tables on left and right. (My coat and lunch bag are at the end of the table.) Behind that, there is a table saw with an outfeed table to support ripping the 4x8 sheets of MDF.

Jan 23rd - election day

Text: Every time someone votes Conservative, Steven Harper kills a kitten.

Okay, now the Liberal attack ads have gone too far.

Remember: vote early, vote often.

Day 281: Painting pains

First, I forgot to mention that John has ordered the replacement sealed unit for the office window. See post from Jan 2nd for a photo and the story. Thank you John.

The delay in the drywall completion has thrown the whole schedule for a loop. The drywall still has to be completed, will likely take a week at the rate it is going (so that will be a total of 4 weeks, not the two weeks promised!).

We had lined up the flooring for Wed Jan 18th installation start - that will probably have to be delayed until at least January 30th, if not later. The cabinets were scheduled for production the week of January 30th. We were trying to get that moved earlier, but clearly it now has to be delayed, probably a week, perhaps more. Since nobody has a clue about the schedule, we don't know what to tell these suppliers. It will probably end up causing us a delay.

The problem we have is painters.

Charles had a quote from a Ben Moore painter early December. When I called him to ask for the requote (exclude priming the basement and garage) he told me he hadn't heard anything about the job so assumed he didn't get it and was busy until the end of January. When I spoke with him, I thought we would need the painting done in January, but said I we would like to hire him and would check into the schedule in case it would work out. I wasn't able to get in touch with him this week. This afternoon he called to say he had been at a job in Cornwall and had taken another job and was busy for at least two more weeks. Aargh!

The other painting quotes were from (a) a couple of guys who we turned down - the job was too big for them and (b) a painter we have used before who is almost twice as expensive as the other guy.

It was +8C today, so when I got home from work today Freda and I took all the deck furniture and put it in the garage (before it freezes solid to the deck), as well as the wheelbarrow, and the barbecue. I also took the Christmas lights down and only broke 3 or 4 bulbs. Whoops!

I am in a bear of a mood today. I only have two more things to say today:
(a) if you ever think of building a house, shoot yourself in the foot - it's much less painful. And if that's not too bad, keep shooting yourself in different places until it hurts too much.
(b) I think I'm going to take up heavy drinking. And none of that beer or wine stuff - that's for pansies. Just the hard stuff. The stuff that makes you choke and gag and sputter.