Problems

Well we had to know that things were going to well. Everyone warned us that there would be problems and while we knew it was likely, it was going so well we thought we would buck the odds.
After the cupboards, membrane and NuHeat 2 and 1/2 weeks ago pretty much nothing has been done. The granite we selected wasn't available at 2 of the places we went to and since we actually do have to work for a living it took a while to get to somewhere we could look at it. We have it now but...
Then we ran into some contractor issues. Not a shock to those of you who have done renos but still disheartening. The painters (you remember them the ones who caused the flood) actually did a really bad job painting and they used semi-gloss everywhere. What were they thinking? In addition they are not planning on coming back until the very end. We all know how tricky it is painting around all the woodwork in our homes and since Susan and I are quite picky about the paint job (since we will be looking at it for a long time) we have decided we will just paint it ourselves. This way it will be done before anything else gets installed and we know it will be done right. Add to that some cost overruns and a couple of surprises regarding decisions they made without talking to us and the last 2 weeks have resulted in not a lot of work done. We think it is all pretty much good now. We will paint this weekend, finish varnishing all the woodwork we have stored in Marni and Meg's garage and the next round will begin. Stay tuned I am sure things will start to happen now.

more catching up

So I thought that I would get all caught up with the last post but sadly no such luck. Life just gets in the way.

So where were we? Ah the boxes. Yes the bottom boxes are in and then the guys came and installed the membrane in the shower to ensure no leaks, and a lovely orange it is.

Then the NuHeat pad was installed in the floor. We can hardly wait. A shower my head won't stick out of and a warm floor. It is mighty chilly in the basement in the morning when you are wet from the shower.

catching up

Sorry for the delay between posts. Life has been crazy at work for both of us and by the time we get home there is time for food (something/anything will do). We have been lucky that a couple of our friends have taken pity and cooked for us. I love our George Foreman but I miss having a burner. Enough whining :)

So where were we...

Ah yes boxes. So the bottom boxes for the cupboards are installed. Wow it sure looks like a kitchen again.

With the bottom boxes in the granite guy could come and do the measuring. He seems to think we have a big kitchen which I guess it is if you go by the look of the front of the house.

Now we have to pick out the slabs

Boxes

So we found out last night that the boxes for the cupboards will be installed tomorrow (Wednesday). Wow. Once that is done things will move quickly. We will go to pick out our granite this weekend because once the boxes are in they come to measure for that. After that tiling and we will be back in the kitchen in a blink. Hard to believe we are there already. We keep saying it goes by in a blink but who knew how accurate we were.

And then there was a flood

So everything seems to be going well, construction has stopped and the painters are coming... this is good news. Margaret was working late but when Susan arrived home on Thursday night she can tell that the kitchen and bathroom have been painted (and they look great) but something just does not seem right. A quick trip downstairs makes it easy to figure out what the problem is water. It is everywhere!!!!!! Susan soon discovers that the pipe at the back of the house that connects to the tap that shuts off the outside hose, is spraying water like crazy. Out comes the shop vac and the towels and so the cleanup begins. By the time Margaret gets home the water has stopped flowing but it is still at least an inch deep everywhere.

Our brand new mattress and box spring that we bought for the downstairs room is soaked, (had to be tossed), the bottom layer of all our boxes and boxes of kitchen stuff, (moved to the basement to allow for the reno), multiple boxes of Christmas ornaments, carpets, general basement stuff and under everything, is soaked. We worked for hours (I think we stopped at 1 am) and sucked up what we could until we could no longer bend over. The ruined stuff went outside, the wet stuff was moved to the top of things to dry out, carpets were cut into pieces to make them light enough to carry outside and fans were turned on in an effort to dry the rest out.

5 days later it is still wet downstairs but it is getting better. Hopefully we won't grow our own crop of fungus in the walls.

We did discover what happened. It seems that when the painters finished up the painting they went out side and used the hose to cleanup the brushes. What they didn't do is turn off the hose at the wall. All they did was release the lever on the hose itself. The pressure built up backwards and where the pipe was weak inside the house, (old plumbing after all), it burst.

Now we need to add "upgrade the plumbing" to the budget.

All we can think is it could have been worse. If this had happened last weekend we would have been away and it would have run the whole time we were away.

A place like home?

With Doug and Ron having agreed to keep their eye on the kitties and the house, off we go to Portland. Really, there is nothing like a good road trip but travelling after a stressful day at work, in the dark, later than we should have been starting probably not our best option. By the time we realized that we were starving we were in the middle of nowhere on the I5 searching for somewhere (anywhere) to eat. Thank heavens for Denny's you can always count on them. After a quick bite (breakfast at night has got to be one of the top comfort meals) we were back on the road and heading through Seattle. We made it as far as Tukwila before deciding it would be a great idea to stop. All we can say is at least it seemed clean.

Thursday morning we are once again on the road.

We arrived in Portland and found our hotel (the Hotel 50) and what a treat that turned out to be. Very European boutique like.

Of course what we were really interested in was the bathroom. Just think no sump pump, no heatless basement, no construction debris.

Our reason for this trip was to find lighting for the kitchen and I guess we can say we had some limited success. What we discovered at the store is that they don't stock their ceiling fixtures as they allow so much customizing. You order it and it is delivered. Sigh, now we have duty and shipping to add to the already weak Canadian dollar. Oh well still good to actually see the lights rather than just a picture. Mission accomplished, ceiling fixture ordered now on to the fun stuff.

Portland is a great city. They have a HUGE bookstore that you can get lost in for days and more restaurants than Vancouver. We had a great time and hope to go back.

Sunday brought us back to reality and back home to the question of, would we have a toilet when we got there???

Not a pot to pee in

Well we should have known the time would come... The toilet came out today. A bit of a shock since we didn't know that was today. Imagine our surprise when we arrrived home, doing the "have to go now" dance and there was nary a spot to go. Thank goodness for the kindness of neighbours. A quick run across the street to Doug and Ron's and our problem was solved (at least for the moment).

Luckily, we had been planning on going to Portland to look at light fixtures at a store there that sells excellent reproductions. The plan had been to leave in the morning, time for "plan b". Let's pack and leave now shall we? The up side is we can get to the other side of Seattle before rush hour and stay in a motel which will make the rest of the drive easier.

Portland ... here we come.

Walls

January 28th

Today we came home and the drywallers had come. WOW what a difference a wall makes. It amazes me how much more real this seems now. At the destruction stage it looked so different with the old wall behind the fridge gone. It didn't have a real shape. With the walls up these are real rooms. It astounds us how it can look so small knowing how many folks can fit in the kitchen at Christmas.

Of course now that we have walls up, our bathroom is no longer the biggest room in the house.

The new bathroom takes shape

January 26th...

The bathroom started to get more real today. We cam home and the carpenter had been here and the frame for the pocket door is in. YEAH after all these years of that blasted door being in our way we will finally have the door we want.

Along with the door they have framed the pony wall and header for the shower. We had some fun stepping in and out of the new space. We knew we were installing a shower instead of a tub but it is real now and boy it is going to be great.

They sure know what they are doing. The framing at the top of the shower is slanted to allow the steam build up to run down the wall rather than forming cold drips that will fall on our heads. Who needs that.

Dishes

So, of course it isn't just us that needs to stay clean. We are still living here, and that means dishes need to be done too. Thank goodness for basements and laundry sinks and camping know how...

It may not be the best and we may be back to dishpan hands, but at least we aren't having to use paper plates.

The clean scene

So as you know we are well into it now and without a bathroom. We promised details about how we are staying not so stinky and here they are.

When we were planning the reno we knew that we were going to have to figure out a plan of how we could keep clean so that we would still have friends and a job by the end of it all. With only 1 bathroom and that 1 room going away it was going to be tricky to say the least.

After some serious thought, Margaret came up with a plan.... we could put a big Rubbermaid bin in the basement with a sump pump in the bottom to pump out the water, hang up some plastic curtains, run the hose from the laundry tub and voila a shower would be born. When we described this to our contractor we got kudos for ingenuity but they didn't think it could be done. Ha, never say never.

After they gave it some thought they came up with a variation on a theme and the shower was born.

A 3 foot square shower basewas placed on some boards to lift it off the floor, a sealed drain was put in the bottom, 3 plywood walls attached and screwed into the floor joists to keep it in place, attach a wooden dowel to the front for a curtain, connect an old shower head to the wall tied into the hot and cold water lines, connect up a sump pump that drains to the laundry tub, and a shower is born :) When the site manager said that "in all my years of construction I have never had to build something like this", Margaret felt vindicated in her original plan.

As most of you know, our basement is not that tall (maybe just over 6 feet). With the shower raised it doesn't leave much room for tall folks but it is still doable. It may not be pretty but at least we are clean

Week 3 WARMTH

Ah what a concept, insulation. We knew we had little if any but we were shocked to see what was there. The insulation guy figures it was MAYBE a R1 and most of that was paper value :). Seeing it come out and seeing the wood that is the outside of the house makes it very obvious why our house is cold.

The new insulation will make the kitchen and bathroom the toastiest rooms in the house. What a concept, warm rooms... gee these modern conveniences would be easy to get used to.

Week 3

So now we have new wiring, plugs everywhere and no worry about the house going dark if we use 2 appliances at once. Gee what a concept.

Our other exciting piece of news was that the plumber managed to move the heat ducting that runs to the upstairs, from an awkward bumpout in the corner of the kitchen, into the wall. It seems like a small thing but gaining back that 1 foot square of floor space feels like we enlarged the kitchen by a lot. Small thing but big impact.

The seat was installed in the shower stall today. Suddenly we are realizing what it is going to look like in there.

Week 2 Let there be light

So we have figured out where the lights will go. Funny how that seems so easy to type but somehow was tough to do. Oh the things to consider... How many people in the room, where will our "workstations" be, should it be period sensitive??




Finally a decision, put plugs everywhere you can think of, install pot lights outside the bathroom and 2 in the run down the main kitchen, leave a box to install a period piece for mood lighting in the middle of the room and and a box for our old pan light above the kitchen table.















Whew who knew that would be so tough?

Week 2

So week 2 begins with construction rather than destruction. Framing starts.

Once all our false ceiling bits came down we discovered high ceiling did exist in the kitchen, 9 ft 6 inch ones to be precise. What a treat. Since it isn't the biggest room, we had previously decided that if we had more height available we would only go up to 9 feet so it wouldn't feel too high. The framing gives us a good idea what this will look like.

The carpenter also begins the process of framing in the new shower stall. We have decided to remove the tub and install a steam shower. A different look for sure, but one that will work for us. We can hardly wait.

Of course we also discovered the thinnest possible insulation in the world. I guess the good news is there was some, which explains why it was a little warmer in the back of the house.

Week 1 part 3

So today we come home from work and the walls to the bathroom are gone. It is more real now.

No shower and no walls, hmmmm did we really know what we were getting ourselves into??? Luckily Les and Ken have managed to rig us up a shower in the basement, more on this later.

Week 1 Day 2

So... more gutting and the installation of a "door" to help prevent some dust getting through to the rest of the house.