comme la terre en guerre

If anyone out there is interested in putting together a re-enactment of one of the many battles that formed defining moments of World War I or II, they are welcome to come on over. Our garden is the perfect landscape for a Sunday afternoon revival of, for example, Vimy Ridge. Trenches and mud are included in the deal and I'm sure we could whistle up some mouldy old biscuits for authentic refreshments. For a small extra fee, the fans currently at work in the interior of the house, trying desperately to keep the damp from invading too deep into the central space, could be diverted outside to provide a windswept ambience, perhaps even gusty. Rain is forecast for the weekend, allowing keeners a rare opportunity to tell their granchildren, they were pretend "there".

This opportunity will not last, as the trenches will be filled in within a week or two with pipes, gravel and soil, and the water will be diverted through the aforementioned pipes into a new sump. There is even a rumour that the rain might let up and the sun might return for a day or two This, however, is treated by jaded locals as a cruel hoax and not to be taken with much seriousness.

Interested parties are to reply to this post. Fees vary from the 'helping us out with the ultimate cost of this drainage disaster' to the 'saving our bacon' options.

yeah right, eh?

We thought putting hockey pucks under the claw feet of our heavy bathrub was a great way to protect the new tile floor, and celebrate our Canadian heritage. We were all ready to have our first bath with a cold one to celebrate the return to bathing as a winter sport However, the plumber - that hoser - didn't agree. He said raising the tub means he can't get the drain to work. What kind of a plumber is he anyway? Hasn't he heard of duct tape?

Seriously, something has to go there that's easy on the eye and the floor and the cleaning. Solutions anyone?

anyone want a kidney?

Just kidding, sort of. We got the quote for doing the drain tile and I think I could put myself through Harvard or Oxbridge for a year for the same cost. Held our noses and gave the green light. Permit goes to the city tomorrow and the digging starts Monday.

Good thing we like lentils. We're going to be eating a lot of them soon!

trying to find a silver lining

Well, I guess it was something that was going to happen sometime and maybe, in the distant future when we are sipping mint juleps on the porch in our swing chair, we will reflect back and say this was the best time for it to happen. But right now it's pretty crushing to find, only 1 week after it was laid, that our lovely and expensive oak floor is damaged and will have to be replaced. Painted gyprocs walls will also have to be replaced and maybe some insulation too.

But the biggest disappointment of all is the fact that the cause of this damage is our old drain tiles, which have never given a speck of trouble since they were laid nice and deep over 80 years ago. Inspection found that the old clay tiles are full of soil and silt so that water can no longer flow through them. With the exceptionally heavy rains we've had the water table has risen and now flows into our basement through the cement foundation.

The entire drain tile system will have to replaced, now, in the middle of November, the very worst time to do this work, and with more rain forecast. It will add a high ticket item to our already bulging budget, force freshly completed work to be redone and delay the whole reno. project until well into December.

The only good part of the story is that we have a contractor on hand to help us take it on, and he is over his recent bout of H1N1.

Not much, but we are desperately trying to be as positive as possible.

water water every where....

.....nor any drop to drink.

Sorry. but Samuel C. is still on my mind as we survey the results of Vancouver's recent 'Pineapple Express". After suffering through days of heavy rains and winds, we have found that our luck of always enjoying a dry basement no matter what the weather has ended.

The new storage space under the front porch is waterlogged, and - worse - the north-west corner of our new workspace is damp.

There is damage to our new oak floors

and the gyproc for about 6-8 feet in both directions is soft.

What this means is digging to investigate the drain tile situtaion. We had all thought our preliminary investigation in the summer was conclusive, that the original clay tile had been replaced with PVC at some point and all was well. However, now we need to know if the entire length is PVC or just the downpipes, how deep it goes, where the water table is and what is causing the water to flow inside instead of down and out. It may mean having to replace the drain tile around the entire house, an unexpected expense and horrible timing, as it's mid-November with winter on the way.

The only good news part of this is it is caught before the job was completed when we'd be on our own. As the saying goes, it never rains but it pours. Oh, I shouldn't have said that!

Doldrums

We feel like house bound Ancient Mariners:

Day after day, day after day,

We stuck, nor breath nor motion;

As idle as a painted ship

Upon a painted Ocean.

Every project has them, those days when, well into the job, there's little going on. There have been few days when there was nothing going on, but the days of men climbing over each other is a memory of summer. The tiler spent a few quiet days doing his thing, and now the wood flooring guys are spending the week doing their thing. There's been a bit of work on the outside window casings and the tool storage area under the front porch, and the posts at the foot of the stairs are in place. We have completed the first coat of paint on the walls, ceilings and what inside trim there is. The cabinetry design as been worked out and confirmed as has the countertop choice and design. The interior doors have finally (finally) been ordered. The shower doors have been chosen, measured for and ordered, and the appliance order has been confirmed. We bought the hardware.

None of these have merited photos (other than progress photos - but a photo of wet paint is a bit dull) and nothing has been competed so we can't quite built a blog entry. Our bathtub is still sitting in our dining room, and every cold, wet evening run is just a little less anticipated not having a hot bath to look forward to afterwards. Our new windows are doing their job, but now we start to notice their casings more, which have not been cleaned up and so our paint brushes sit idle. We still must walk around the house to go downstairs as the outside back stairs remain unbuilt and the inside stairs remain unfinished. November rains pace the days (Water, water, every where, Let's hope the boards don't shrink, Water, water every where, there's lots of time to drink...(apologies to Sam Coleridge on that last bit) ) and we wonder if the job will ever finish.

We know it will, but still......