8 months later...

Where to begin? We've been busy through the rest of 2010 and into summer 2011, and to show for it? Let's start at the beginning. The main project we've been working on – the strange little back room off the kitchen that had no real purpose, with only a tiny window and no access to the backyard. The goal was to create a sunny room where we could go in and out to the back yard, have a small loveseat and bookshelves, and maybe a place for breakfast. Here are the before shots:

(looking in from the kitchen.)

(that window was only chest-high.)

(looking out to the kitchen and the rest of the house.)

The second and sister project to the back room project is the backyard project. This required some (literally) backbreaking work. The goal was to remove the concrete pad that occupied over 50% of the back yard, put in some grass for the little one to run around on, and to landscape and plant a small vegetable garden. Here are some before shots:

These shots speak for themselves. The place looked pretty dumpy this time last year.

So what did we do? First, a lot of demo and garbage removal. Over $1000 in bins and junk removal services for both the back room and the back yard. The concrete removal in the back yard was one of those hellish jobs you'll never forget and never do again. All the cards were against us, as we rented a jackhammer that was way too powerful for my spaghetti arms to hold, so the man of the house had to break it all up himself. I was on-hand for moral support and shoulder rubs. Then, the following weekend was a freak April snowstorm in which we had to haul broken slabs of heavy concrete in a wheelbarrow through the narrow path between our house and the neighbours (scraping knuckles against the brick almost every time) and across the street to where we had our bin parked (illegally, we later found out). Here are photos of that cold, wet, and memorable day:

(me loading the concrete.)

(me unloading the concrete.)

At the same time, we hired a contractor to put in a door and two windows. This is one of those times when our skills as DIYers can only go so far, and it is time to call in the pro's. Thank goodness we did, we lucked out on an awesome dude who had his crew in and out of there in under a week. Here is what the place looked like after he was done:

(light! air! access!)

(concrete removed, new windows and door.)

Next up: the yard and back room get a makeover. Photos to come and the process getting there.

Finally a room complete! Or is it...?

I just put the finishing touches on the baby's room. It is complete - or as close to complete as we're going to get for the time being. Ideally, we would like to replace the windows and install new trim and mouldings. Currently we have yet to install the quarter round at the baseboards, but we still have to buy a mitre saw. I am currently planning a mural for the main wall in the baby's room, so I have left this empty for the time being.

Before:

What we did:

We took the old fifties hollow door off and replaced it (including hinges and hardware) with the refinished six-panel solid wood door. We filled in some of the chips and holes in the baseboard and trim, gave it a few coats of paint to brighten the light, and picked a fresh bamboo green for the walls. Some light woods and some shelves, and "ta-da!"

It is amazing what some putty, sandpaper, and paint can do. It is the first room in the house that is complete. Well, almost. A mural is in the concept stage right now, and will be posted as work actually commences.

Grapes and Trenches

Fall has arrived abruptly after an intensely hot summer. One day we were sweltering in cotton dresses and shorts, the next I was searching my still-packed boxes for a sweater. With the change of seasons came the need to finally replace our 35 year old furnace. Here is what a 35 year old furnace looks like:

This one was 120,000 btu's, overload for our square footage, and running at roughly 50% efficiency. We looked into geothermal as an alternative to a natural gas furnace, but the cost is much too prohibitive for us at this time. Maybe, like CD players or VHS, both of which started out costing a fortune, geothermal heating will decrease in price as demand rises. Until that time, we opted for a high efficiency furnace at the appropriate btu's for a house the size of ours. We had our new furnace installed for a very good price, but on the condition that we did some manual labour to offset the labour costs. No problem!

This is what we were left with to complete the trench we were asked to dig in order to install the drain line:

It's a big ol' chip hammer. Lets just say with my newly acquired pipes accustomed to hauling a 20 pound child around all day, even I had a hard time holding it up. So the duty fell to D, who managed to dig this in about two hours:

He did an admirable job, not even tearing up the adjoining tiles. So now we have a 2" deep trench in our basement running from the furnace to the drain pipe, which the HVAC installer will be fitting today (he's on his way as I type).

Meanwhile, the furnace is in, and the installer is also putting in a coil so that once we can afford to install AC, it will be a simple enough process. He will also be removing this thing today - a humidifier - that was attached to the old furnace and had probably never been cleaned in the 35 years since it was installed, as can be noted by the wretched stalagmites of pure poison inside:

It looks even grosser in person. The furnace itself is a Goodman, and I admit, as far as furnaces go, its a beaut! I like the retro industrial look:

Happily, we've got a pretty efficient unit at 85,000 btu's at 92.1% efficiency:

This will do nicely for our house and budget, and once we buy a programmable thermostat, we can save even more energy by making sure the house is set to cooler in the nights and daytimes without having to remember ourselves to lower the temperature twice a day.

Also with the change of season comes the harvesting of our grapes! This is a whole other endeavour, making wine, for a blog in itself. Lets just say for now that our efforts harvesting the red grapes:

went south in a heartbeat with a teaspoon of sulfites. Now we've got the white grapes on the go, and we're on the second racking. Just like the house, it's a trial and error sort of thing, and we're learning from the mistakes we make. Lets hope our future mistakes on the house, like the grapes, will be in teaspoons and not in gallons.

Bathroom reno apparently includes the kitchen?

We were surprised a couple of days ago with this in our kitchen ceiling and down the cupboards:

Our bathroom on the second floor, right above this section of the kitchen, apparently leaks now when one takes a shower. This is due to the DIY reno job the previous owner did in a hurry and with only the sale of the house in mind, I can only assume, since the drywall wasn't sanded before it was painted, among other clues. The bathroom is on our list of projects to tackle (enlarging it into a four-piece, using some of the square footage from the office beside it), but we were looking at a couple of years from now.

We have yet to have a plumber in to look at the situation, but we can't see any way around pulling up the tiles and or the shower itself to get to the problem. We aren't sure either if the bulkhead in the kitchen, where this leak is coming through, will have to be opened up as well. So, our conundrum: do we pay for a fix and putting things back together, only to rip it apart again in a couple of years? Or do we bite the financial bullet and tackle the bathroom while it is already pulled apart?

As it stands, we have cut off use of the shower and are now using the shower in the basement for the time being. An inspection by a plumber will give us an indication of problem, time, and cost and we will have to make a decision from there. Stay tuned.

Eco-Gem

D discovered this amazing gem that has made salvaging these reclaimed doors quite easy and toxin-free.

(I should mention here that we are not representing or endorsing any product on the blog for money, products, or anything at all. These companies have no idea we, our house, or our blog exist, and we like it that way).

That out of the way, we have purchased this product called Soy Gel (not a terribly creative name, but I like to think the creativity went into the thinking behind the product). It is exactly as the name suggests: a gel-like matter made of soy that is intended to strip paint and stains from wood, concrete, metals, etc. We needed to strip the hardware on our doors in order to cut them to size and refinish the brass, and we didn't want to use toxic substances with heavy fumes. Soy Gel really came through, even surpassing our expectations.

You apply it to a surface 1/8 inch thick and let sit. The wait time depends on the amount of paint you have on the surface. Enamel takes longer than regular paint, we found.

Then you simply wipe it off. D used a scraper just to remove the goo quickly and easily, but there was no scraping required. You apparently don't even need gloves for this stuff, but we'd suggest it since it does get all over your hands and can be slippery. Once it is wiped away, you are left with this everywhere the gel touched:

Right down to the raw wood and of course the brass. Easy as pie! Now, if only hanging these doors would be so simple...

In Toronto, we purchased Soy Gel at a shop in the west end called Homestead House Paint Company, but it can be found across Canada if you look up their distributers list on their website (see link in first paragraph). And speaking of Homestead House Paint Company, I think this is where we will be shopping for our paints when it comes time. They have a very interesting product based on an old tradition in painting that is completely non-toxic. Milk paints have a beautiful finish, I've been told, and we may grab a pint to test out on the wall. More about that when the time comes!

Don't get too comfortable in this mess

We've successfully moved in, and though two weeks have officially passed, we are still living amongst more boxes than I would like. It's a matter of not getting too set up knowing we will be taking it down again to paint/wallpaper/cut holes/refinish/etc/etc/etc. The baby's room is the least unpacked, since we are in the middle of refinishing the trim and baseboards for painting.

Yesterday a roofing contractor came by to examine our roof and quote on repairing it, replacing it, and refinishing our front with cedar shingles and trim. This is how the second storey with dormer currently looks:

What the roofer discovered after peeling away the vinyl siding is that there is still the original wood trim underneath a second wood trim treatment around the top edge. We won't know for sure until we remove the siding entirely, but perhaps we can refinish and restore it, which would be ideal. Also, behind the siding covering the entire front was a layer of asphalt shingles, and under that the original (I am guessing) cedar shingles painted a turquoise green. These are not salvageable, but it is nice to know that our idea for redoing the front is in line with how the house was originally finished in 1900. The roofer would remove all three layers and install the cedar over the entire front, estimated at $3400. To repair the roof itself would only cost us a few hundred, but to replace it, which we intend to do in the next couple of years, would cost an estimated $4500.

Also, we were looking at getting crown moulding and new heavier trim for the bedroom which currently has your simple trim. Instead, we discovered "backband", which most renovators and builders will already know about. Tomorrow we go to get a couple pieces to bring home and try out on our trim to get the desired look. I will post photos as soon as we give it a whirl.

This just in...

After all the effort and about 1k in tools and materials, our soundproofing was completed. This is how it looked the morning before we moved in:

That afternoon/evening, we threw on a coat of low-odour primer so that the next day when we arrived with the truckload of stuff, we wouldn't be greeted with a strong paint smell. Normally, I love the smell of a newly painted room, but in fact what I am smelling isn't really good for me (formaldehyde? No thanks).

We did a clean up that evening with the help of family, trying to rid the house of the thick layer of dust. The clumping drywall compound didn't prove any less messy than regular compound as you can see here:

We didn't have time to take a photo of the bare, completed and primed wall before we started hauling boxes into the space. However, two miraculous (or at the very least, stupendous) results of our labours: one, we did a pretty decent job of drywalling, if I may say so. This was our first time doing this, and I'm pleased to report the wall looks mighty fine (photos will come). Two, we haven't heard a PEEP from the neighbours! Not a thing. We tested the noise levels on an evening we knew the neighbours would be having visitors, and we couldn't hear a single voice until we opened the windows and heard them. And upon asking, they reported not having heard the baby cry, which we assured them she has done in spades since soundproofing.

Our conclusion: SUCCESS!