we've been framed!

The framing is done! What a big job those guys have, right down to leveling out the joists so that the ceiling can go on flat.

Framers are rock 'n rollers- raucous jokes and guffaws - wielding tools like guns - and proud of preparing a perfectly framed out cupboard or wall edge.

we're covered

When we realized how big renovating the basement would be, it was because we finally grasped that the basement is the engine of the house and everything except a roof would be impacted.

We were wrong.

There was even a roof involved!

Putting in French doors slightly below the ground level facing south meant that inclement winter weather had to guarded against. A drain was placed in the centre of the cement pad, and a little roof was built over the space.

Not so little, actually.

With EJ's advice and diagrams, we had the struts mimic those supporting the main house, and the roof shape mimic the 'shelf' that overhangs both the front and back stairs. The framers had a run of exceptional weather and were so quick the thing was built and covered before I could get a photo of the framing, but I was given time to do the priming myself before they returned and put the roof on.

Once the roof was in place we were better able to determine where to put the exterior lighting. We want to replace our handmade iron trellises and so wanted to find a spot that would worked with a rambling rose (Royal Sunset if you must know) on either side. We developed a Plan A and a Plan B, as we realized that fishing wires up the south-west corner might be impossible due to the fact that it was well up the wall shared with our kitchen nook. The other side wasn't a problem of course as the wires would run up into the new porch wall which was still exposed. Plan B was to have the lights placed lower than the kitchen and so easy to wire, although less ideal due to the fact that the lights would be blocked on one side by the supports and would also have to share space with the rose. And everyone who grows roses knows that roses don't like to share anything with anybody!

We love George. George is old-school. While everyone else kept telling us Plan A would never work and there was not enough wire even if it could work, George quietly worked on the project while we out doing chores and avoiding the house during its spray insulation festival of fumes. And when we got home, there they were, wires coming out of Plan A. Thank you, George, you deserve a little piece of heaven all your own.

Now bring on the doors and bring on the stucco!

makes you feel warm all over

I want to know if anyone else has experienced this.

Every once in a while, by about 10:30am the smell of freshly made bread is overpowering. Half an hour later Robert the electrician, who brings his bread machine over on days when there are lots of things going on and he's here all day, slices up a loaf of fresh bread for everyone to enjoy with butter and strawberry jam in their break. He brings us a couple of slices too, which we eat at our desks while the bread is still warm and yeasty.

One sunny day, foreman Jonathan brought his litle Webber barbeque, as well as hamburgers and hot dogs, buns and condiments. We were asked if it was ok the day before so we made potato salad and nanaimo bars to add to the melon also on offer. At about 12:30 the group of electricians and framers and plumbers and general workers and we all sat down to eat lunch and talk hockey.

A couple of times when things are quiet downstairs with work sans sawing or hammering, Eric starts singing a cappella. Out of the blue we hear Amazing Grace wafting up through the floorboards, a few other tunes we don't know and even a gentle O Canada.

Amid the chaos, human connections are made.

a night out

On Wednesday we found out we would have to vacate the premises the next morning for 24 hours while the spray insulation was being sprayed and cured, due to the fumes it emits. A mild panic ensued given the fact that we operate our business from home and it would mean preparing to move the business as well as ourselves, let alone wondering where we would sleep.

It was partly our own fault. On Monday we had been given the insulation proposal and there on page 2 or 3 it outlines the needs and ramifications of the entire process, including the fact that occupants must be away from the site. We didn't have time to read it until Wednesday, but to be fair it would have been nice to be given a bit of a heads up.

We hastily packed up our things the night before, phoned my parents to see if we might stay at their place and saw the benefit being we could also do a load of laundry there at the same time.

The next morning we found out that the inspector hadn't yet completed his work (we're not sure if this was the electrical inspector who had already come by previously and was due to make a return visit to check out the changes requested or if it was the city inspector - we are getting confused with the surfeit of inspections being done aroudn here these days) so we had a day respite. Just as well. We were able to set things up that much better from a work and personal life perspective.

Friday dawned. We were packed and ready to go off at 8:30 or so when everyone had arrived. We did some work, made some calls, blah, blah the usual, while waiting and waiting.
We had set ourselves a list of chores to do in the outside world (collect the refurbished stained glass window for the living room, renew our home insurance, order the flooring tile, check out some IKEA things, groceries, paint, lightbulbs, etc.) and it got to the point where we either had to leave to get them done, or it was too late for the insulating proces to happen that day anyway. If it didn't then it would have to wait until next Thursday, as we had people coming over the other days and couldn't move them at this stage. It was no big deal to us, but tough on the contractor who has lined things up like a magician with plates spinning on sticks - a few days delay meant everything crashed a bit.

We left, doing most of our chores and then swinging by the hosue to see the truck parked on teh street, so we just kept going.

Dinner at Watermark on Kits beach while watching the sun go down, two loads of laundry, reading the most recent New Yorker, good nights sleep despite torrential rain (thanks Mom and Dad), up to join our running group, coffee with running group, then home to check out the results.

It was like a Disneyland version of the north pole, all foamy green dollops along the uppper ceiling permieter, within the mechanical room, bathroom and entry, laundry room and under the new back porch (which has slightly shallower joists and so required a different kind of foam. My favourite was looking up the space under our kitchen cabinet above - like some kind of institutional coloured matterhorn.

porch development

Don't do it!

Seriously folks, our back porch floor, which is now a roof because the space underneath has become part of the office, requires rebuilding bigger and better than it was. Being a roof is a very responsible job, almost as responsible as being a floor.

A microlam beam was put in below along with new joists, noticably differenrtiating between the side under the kitchen nook and the new bit.

For a while we had an odd view of our back door overhead, a suicide door if opened and exited accidentally from the inside of the house. I felt like a character on the old CBC TV children's show "The Friendly Giant"... "look up, way up...."

Well, before you could call Rusty and Jerome, a plywood 'roof/floor' was installed and a drain set in the middle, with a plastic pipe leading through the joists, down the south-east wall and outside where the original eavestrough will go back.



Last week there was the stong smell of adhesive creeping into the kitchen and, peeping out the window, we saw the weather proofing membrane administered.

Mommy, there's a hole in our house

What is that dear?

There's a big hole in our house!

Oh my yes, there is. And look, there's another one!

There are two over here Mommy. Does this mean the rats are back?

Now don't fret yourself dear, I'm sure that wasn't made by a rat. Look, the edges are too neat for one thing.

I hope not. Those would be really big rats.

Yes they would. Oh look, there's a window lying on the ground against the side of the house. It looks like it fits exactly into the hole!

It does, it does. Look Mommy, all the holes are getting filled in with windows!

Now, don't they look nice!

One, two, three, four. Aren't there supposed to be six windows down here in the basement?

Yes, dear, but the nice window man forgot to make two of them so they have to come later.

How much later?

I'm not sure exactly, but hopefully not long.

Oh, okay. As long as the rats aren't back.

like found money

Having to move a wall further to the south (to accomodate the larger than expected ducting coming out from the new furnace) meant we will have a slightly shorter laundry room, but it also meant we have a new cabinet for storage. More room for storage! It's like saying "I've found gold!" The question now is how best to design that space so the framers can get in there and finish their job.

Our options include one deep cabinet that opens into the alcove (adjacent to the mechanical room and opposite the bathroom, or we could have a slightly less deep cabinet open that way, with an even shallower cabinet backing it that opens into the laundry area. We could also have one large cabinet open into the corridor instead, which would make access to its contents even easier.

In the end we like the idea of 2 cabinets back to back. The bathroom-facing one will do for storing towels and cleaning supplies and lightbulbs and toilet paper and other such items, with the laundry-opening one sized to act as a broom closet. That one might end up being a bit thinner than the other one so as to avoid the newly wired box beside it (to house the laundry lights switch), but should still allow enough width for relevant storage without impacting the opening doors of the washer and dryer. For a little nostalgic moment we thought about having an old fashioned drop ironing board that levered down built right into the cabinet, but it seems folly to add even more expense when we have a perfectly good ironing board already. Besides, I like to watch TV while ironing so being able to move it into the nearby workspace will work just fine.

a reno kind of morning

I awake to the sound of someone moving around in the basement. I check the clock. It's 6am. If this was a few months ago I would have guessed it was rats, but today it must be electricians. They are usually early risers and generally don't have to worry about the city noise bylaw section 16 thing outlawing construction noise before 7:30am.

At 6:30am I get up, shower and change, grab a yogurt, put on the kettle for tea and check email.

At 6:44 I hear a tap on the front door. Could I come down and go through the electrical plan? Of course I can. I switch off the kettle, grab my notes and go down the front steps, out the front gate, around the house, in the side gate and through the basement door, a crescent I could do in the dark these days. I miss the back stairs.

Room by room we go. How many lights here? 5 inch pots or 3 inch pots? What about switches, how many and where placed? 3 way? dimmers? Outlets now. Where, what kind and now many? Smoke detectors. Outside lights. Motion sensored? Accessed from downstairs or upstairs?

During this time the contractor arrives with his eldest daughter who has brought cookies for everyone, including a plate for me. We have never met before. I wish her happiness and prosperity until the end of her days.

We also nod to the duct guy, the framing guys, the electrician's son (why are electrical businesses most often operated by a father and son?) and the regular team of workers who immediately start in on their tasks that have been marked down on our new framing. Should someone in the future remove the walls to this project they will find these talismen to a 21st century
Canadian working man's day.

9am. I go back around by the front door and relight the kettle. Pick up 8 phone messages and return all those that require returning (security company rough-in appointment, window guy, parents, etc.). Drink four-fifths of one mug of tea.

9:15am. A light tap on the door. Can I come out and see about moving a couple of plants that will be in the way of new windows? Of course I can. I suspected I'd have to move them but didn't want to in the height of summer until I knew where they could go. I put on gardening clothes and go out to move two plants, one easy (climbing hydrangea) and one hard (New Dawn rose), both which I hope live, but secretly say good-bye. I take the opportunity to water the outside boulevard plants which have been shamefully neglected this summer. Come inside dirty and wet and hot. When and where am I going to go to do laundry this week? New washer and dryer are weeks away. The sun has come out through the usual late summer morning marine cloud.

11:05am. Drink a full mug of tea and eat one cookie.

There's a light tap on the front door. Can we sort out the new electrics on this floor? Of course we can. Smoke detector to go here. Heated towel rail in Hollywood bathroom and shaving plug to go here and here.

While this is going on there is the sound of a swarm of men moving about downstairs, a radio station playing hard rock relatively quiet accompaniment to saws and hammers and drills and guffaws. The chorus under the lead actors, their various tools and boxes of equipment shining and glowing like holiday ornaments.

11:59am. Go down to take a few photos. See old hot water tank sitting lonely by the gate, its guts sprawled on the grass. Recognize oldie rock tune from first time around. Think maybe I should grab some sort of real food before the afternoon kicks into high gear. Dump out rest of pot of now stone cold tea.

make that "as cold as ice"

Drat - so much for an inaugural hot bath.

The only water coming out of the bathtub spout , and any spout for that matter is cold. It was working earlier. Hmm, hope it gets sorted out tomorrow!

later that night.....

Jonathan saved the day by replacing whatever the framers had unplugged - too late for a bath today but good for a shower tomorrow!

Still in Hot Water

Today we said goodbye to our stalwart old hot water tank and hello to the world of on-demand water heating. Our new Navien water heater takes up less space, doesn't spend the energy to keep several gallons of water hot and idle waiting for us to use it and, with the supplemental tank we included, allows us to have showers back to back without the famed on-demand "cold water sandwich". The delay of getting hot water to emerge from the taps from the various sinks dotted around the house is no longer than it used to be (we have to have a little more patience at the top of the house than we do at the bottom).

As the two of us are not major water hogs in general, we're not sure if its energy efficiency will actually pay off financially over the number of years we intend to stay at Touchwood, at least according to our calculations. It is, however, no doubt the way to go with regards to the future of water usage and energy accountability and will be a positive feature of the house for whoever takes it on after us.

In fact, I think I will test it out on its inaugural bath right now. If you don't hear any screams, then it worked just fine.