North Glenora Reno

It was a very productive weekend! On Friday morning, the roofers showed up and worked until 10 p.m. and got most of the shingles done. They came back on saturday and finished the job. They roof looks great! The shingles have some variation and texture to them that makes them not seem quite as flat as it was before. The shingles are black and will look amazing with the gray hardie panels and the cedar accents. This must mean that there is another cheque to write in the near future!

The framing has come a long way over the last few days. Rob and Tristan have worked on the interior wall and yesterday got some windows in. R and I were in charge of wrapping and weather proofing all of the openings. We now have both North windows in and the windows and door for the eating area!

The windows are beautiful! And they had better be as, if I knew when we were window shopping what kind of issues and problems we would have with Marvin Windows, I really don’t think that we would have gone for them. Don’t get me wrong. The are high quality, well built, unique and beautiful windows but….we had problems getting clarification on all of the specs and ensuring that they were all correct and consistent from draft to draft, there are now several windows that were not the correct size and don’t forget the screen issue that has yet to be solved. Darryl is a good guy (who talks too much) but is too new to being a salesman I think and has missed details that he simply should have caught. Additionally, the way he speaks to us made him the second person that I wanted to hit in the face yesterday. Don’t get me wrong, he tries hard, he came by within 15 minutes of R calling him yesterday to discuss the current problem with the windows but when you spend as much money as we did on windows, I expect to have a salesman who is at least a touch apologetic for the f-ups. Anyway, when it is all said and done, I will love the windows and be truly appreciative of the unique features that we have and really enjoy how beautiful they are but at this point I will not be recommending them to others quite yet.

Moving on, R took yesterday off and again, it was so nice to have him with me all day. We ran a bunch of errands including investigating the cedar planks we need for the soffet and a bit of siding on the house, we picked up the replacement tile for the main bathroom shower that we had to rip out. We got the backer board, wood stain, etc from Home Depot and also headed over to Payless Wholesale Tile to order the final tile we need for our new shower. The owner or manager (who is always a nice guy) wasn’t there so we ended up dealing with a guy who I have seen there before. This guy is the other guy that I wanted to hit in the face. He was an asshole. There is no better word to describe him. I think that we were taking time from him biting his hangnail and he had absolutely no desire to help us whatsoever. We returned the sample and were asking about the price and wondering if that was the best price we could get. We were not rude or demanding, just inquiring. We would have paid the $3.85 a square foot if he had simply said that he was sorry but that was the best he could do but instead he chewed his fingers and half heartedly called the owner (when we asked him if he would check) and then had to be specifically asked and prodded to take our number and write down what we were looking for to ask the owner when he got back. Needless to say, I did not get a callback. So, I could call but I really want to go back and speak directly to the owner.
“Is this your best price?” “I don’t know. Probably.” “You don’t know? Well, could you check?” “He’s not answering his phone but I don’t think that he will give you a better price.” “But could you check for sure?” “He didn’t answer his phone.” “Could you just get him to call me then?” “I guess.” “Thanks.”
I’m pretty sure that I didn’t paraphrase very much of that exchange. If it wasn’t for the fact that I know that owner/manager is a decent guy…well, I guess we’ll see.

Finally, there was still demo for us to do last night. I am so tired of demo. There us rebuilding in the midst of all of the demo but enough, enough, enough. We haven’t even had to do all of it. Rob and Tristan have had to do a ton of it. We have a bit of a running joke now. Rob is not allowed to add more debris to the pile anymore unless it is someone else’s fault, like the window issue yesterday. The great shining note on the garbage thing though happened yesterday. I called my best friend Chad and asked him when plans to come and get the concrete debris and he said that they will come next week after Rob is done so that they cam take it all! That means that we will not have to haul all of that shit again. Chad will send out a digger and a dump truck and take care of all of it! I don’t even care (very much) how much that will cost, I am just thrilled that it will soon all be gone! See? I get excited about garbage!

Today, I need to harass a few people and go and prep three more window openings for windows and receive our new furnace! That means we are one step closer to heat. It is chilly, to say the least, in here. As I write this, I am wrapped in a blanket and I’m pretty sure that it is warmer outside than it is inside.

Off to get more work done and warm up!

Framers and decent weather greeted us at 7:30 this morning. We are thankful for that. My dad came by after lunch to disconnect the old hot water tank and reconnect the new one but was stopped within 45 minutes when Epcor (who were supposed to show on Thursday and called before they arrived today) arrived to move the services from the house to the garage. I asked them how much time I had to inform everyone who was here, find them alternate power and to call our electrician and they said they were going to just do it. That meant 30 seconds for the unaware. I told all the people, tried to shut down our computer, asked for power from the neighbour, reconnected the tools and they were pretty much done. Within 10 minutes of arrival, they were gone. Poor mike has to crawl into the mouse pit (a.k.a. Mouse grave yard)….I won’t go back downstairs until he seals the crawlspace back up. I warned him.

As for me, I have found myself with a nice quiet (sans dog) day of getting some chili and lasagna made and frozen for the fall. Why have I never done this before? Another A type teacher and close friend of mine (I know, there really are more people like me out there) does this periodically and I had to jump on that pre-planning and organization brilliance! Thanks, K!

A busy day already but the weather is horrible. As of 10:30 this morning Rob and Tristan have left, soaked to the bone. Not sure if they are coming back, they probably will once they are dry and warm. They put sheeting on the exposed parts of the roof and that will help keep water out of the house.

Mike the electrician and his guy are busy working in the garage and along the trench getting the power line into the ground. I guess that we can assume that the inspection went well! Yeah!! With the crazy rain, I decided to watch from afar.

None the less, this is what Rob and Tristan worked in towards day’s end yesterday….(can you see the beam?!?!)

It is only Thursday but it has been a very busy week…we have lined up the electrician to move the services to the garage and then to trench it to the house. Well, he is not going to dig the trench, (the 1 meter deep trench) but he will come and put the cable in the ground and make all of the appropriate connections after we dig it. He starts on Monday. Holy shit, a 25 foot trench through 60 year old clay, by hand, by Monday. No problem.
But wait…we also have to finish demo before Monday as super framer Rob comes on Monday too. I’m sure there is nothing else happening on Monday…

Anyway, today…I have officially changed my allegiance from Chad the excavator to Steve the digger. As I am sure I said yesterday (I did didn’t I?), Steve came by last night to dig the piles for us but the mini digger was in the way with no possibility of moving it. None the less, Steve measured and marked the piles for us anyway and even came up with a solution to create an offset pile over the gas line so we didn’t have to dig two to create a bridge. Anyway, this afternoon Steve came back to dig the piles. He must have made a special effort to rearrange his schedule so that he could do our job.
So, he came with the keys for the mini digger, moved that and the concrete pieces that were in his way and together we dropped the telecommunication lines and propped up the power line so that he could drive to the three pile locations on the south edge of the yard. His words, when we were done “well, that’s about as scary as it gets”. We were so close to the power line that it was indeed a bit scary. WCB would have shut us down, for sure. Love Steve!
Anyway, we go to bed tonight looking forward to an actual concrete floor in the basement, a filled in (with concrete) sewer trench and 7 new piles to support the bit of covered deck and the rest of the deck. I am so excited!

R is taking the day off on Monday, so we will sort out a whole bunch of details that we both need to be part of.

So today, we sorted out the roofing and solved the whole “can’t dig a pile right where the gas line is” crap. After much discussion and thought and more discussion with the guy who came to actually dig the piles, we have come up with an off-set pile to solve the problem. Man, I hope it works.
This morning, my mom and R’s parents showed up to supply some free grunt labour. We, as a crew, accomplished the following by 3pm…baseboard and trim removed from both the spare room and the eating area (plus all of the nails pulled), removed the light fixture and plugins from the spare room along with those in the eating area, pulled the siding off of three of the exterior walls, and pulled out the laminate in the spare room. A few minor injuries and some inevitable soreness and I say a job well done.

We are so thankful for our families, they are making this insanity worth while and not quite so frantic or insane.

Tonight, we go back to the pit and continue getting rid of the extra gravel and the concrete and clay debris from the basement. The fun and exhaustion never end!

Today was a busy, busy day. Dad and Bill came to re-route the sewer main and add a new drain for the furnace and new laundry location. My dad is a crazy work horse, he gets going on a job and just doesn’t stop and he always tells you that it is no problem. Yep, a no problem job that took him all day. Anyway, it looks fantastic and I am so thankful for him and his great work.

Before…

After…

It turns out that it will be well worth all of the work as the old pipe was corroded and thus sewage was seeping into the ground! Yeah! I knew that something wasn’t smelling as rosy as I expected it should yesterday. Anyway, inspection tomorrow and then concrete. I got back on the countertop and blind adventures and requested consultations from Costco for each. We have heard really great things from several people about the products and services for renovations from them so we are hoping for great things. The guy who did K & M.A.’s roof also came by today to estimate and since I called him only is morning, I was pretty pleased with him too. We’ll see.
Despite this, I think that we have unofficially chosen our roofer only 2 quotes in. The people who did R’s parent’s house have been fantastic so far and blew Great Canadian Roofing out of the water with their quote. Two more quotes to go but we really like this little company.
I dug to China to expose the gas line today and low and behold it is exactly where we need to dig one of the piles for the roof and deck supports. Super! We are looking at maybe doing some kind of bridge piles and hope that that will work. Ahhh, another call to Chad.
Finally, mom and I emptied both the eating area and the spare bedroom. All three dogs supervising was super helpful.

I really wanted to move the laundry room. Great idea. No big deal right? Just add a new drain over to the new area, send some water over then and hook them up. I mean the jack hammering wasn’t so bad, was it sweetie? The blisters and feeling that you are still vibrating a week later will go away soon, right? Sounded simple enough to me until I realized that we needed to dig 8 inches of dirt out of the trench, well not really, dirt as I soon discovered…clay. I love clay, especially hard, wet, heavy clay. So much fun. I don’t remember the last time I had sweat dripping into my eyes from so much exertion. Oh yeah, and R discovered that he hadn’t jackhammered quite enough concrete out and got to hack out the rest with a sledgehammer and some choice words.

We finally have access to the new portion of the basement. I came home from a night at the lake and found that we had gravel in the pit and cut lines in the basement walls. The pieces were pulled out by one of Chad’s guys. It was fun to watch albeit a bit anticlimactic. R and his dad built a header for the larger cutout and they sealed it up. This is real now, there is again, no going back. The pool is not longer an option. I guess we are going ahead with this addition thing.

Today the building materials arrived from Rona. They have been awesome so far and didn’t disappoint today. The morning didn’t start well, my truck developed a major oil leak overnight and it needed to be it towed. Whenever anything goes wrong with one of the vehicles I immediately see dollar signs and boy did I see them today. The short version of the story is a good one. It turns out that it was a safety recall and with fact that it happened on our driveway and not while I was driving saved us our engine. Other than the tow, it didn’t cost us a thing. Thank goodness.

Of course, everything happens as once, so while I am waiting for the tow truck, the Rona delivery guy shows us to deliver four pallets of building materials and my truck is blocking some of his access to put it in the garage. The Rona guy was awesome, he helped me push back the truck, spent a ton of time trying to get the materials into the garage and even helped the tow truck driver move my truck into the alley so that he could get it hooked up to be towed.

After all this, I finally took off to the lake with a friend, for a much needed 24 hours of break.

Backfill! The mountain is finally gone. Left behind is a small hill. After 25 days of not being Abe, to see the garage, it has reemerged along with the giant hosta and several amazing grasses. I remember when I was a gardener and not a contractor!