Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Resignation

Chimney Sheeted in

 I uploaded the photos for this blog post and promptly told Jeremy I had no idea what to rant about... Things are moving quickly around here,  At least in weekend warrior reno time.

Jeremy sheeted in the chimney (I know it would have been awesome to keep it Jenny, but the marriage came first).  Once the final finishing materials are decided upon we will pick some stacked stone to cover it with.

My lovely (if not necessarily compromising) husband has also been throwing hours into wiring... the entire house.

left to right: chimney, built in pantry (barn board door?), bump out for fridge. 
A year and a half ago (July 2013) we stared the attic renovation on the big house, and the electrical has all kind of been.... temporarily wired into the grid.  It's all properly done but hasn't been properly run into it's own circuit breaker.  And this theme pretty much sums up the rest of the electrical.  I would love to have met our 1950's counterparts just to ask them what the hell they were thinking...  Pushing bafflement aside Jeremy keeps plowing through old junction box spiders and is almost finished  What a relief it will be to know that all the electricity in the house is running though proper channels, also not showering in the dark will be a bonus.  Living in Canada can be a real pain during winter when the electricity isn't working, it gets too dark too fast to get anything done!

So as Jeremy wrestles with drilling holes in seriously old hard wood, I start to pull up the floor in the kitchen... dun dun dun, the defining moment!  We have planned this renovation since day one when we pulled the carpet from the living room and found extremely well preserved gorgeous wood floors.  We knew they would carry throughout  the house, and damn were we stoked.  So with a heart full of optimism and a mind full of 'shabby sheak country kitchen'  the battle for the floor began....

  • Layer one: lino circa 1990's 
  • Layer two: particle board circa 1990's
  • Layer three: lino circa 1945 - 1950
  • Layer four: sticky glue possibly made of tar
  • Layer five: a lot of black crap
  • Layer six: ENDLESS BLACK SH*T!

One of many spots filled with plaster, averaging a quarter inch deep

I spent 4 hours on hands and knees scraping with a 4 inch metal drywall knife one of these past days (so far the best tool, and yes I even tried an attachement for the resiprocating saw, too sticky).   Jeremy came home from work and asked what I had done all day... I didn't stop ranting for a good 20 minutes, it went something like this: 

"LOOK AT THIS! No, come and look.  See. See. Hahaha, I think I may be loosing my mind to this floor.  Damnit get down here and look.  I've been in this spot for 4 bloody hours and this is it!  Oh my gosh, I totally zoned out I haven't even cleared off 5 square feet! This is ridiculous (tool throw)!  Ugh, well maybe I'll just try another spot..... Ahhhhhhhhhhh (explicit swear words telling a floor where to go and how to get there)"


How we found the living room floors
Floors in the kitchen after 14 hours of labour.

So it is with a heavy heart I regret to say I have decided to scrap the original kitchen floor.  My heart is literally breaking, I wanted this so badly.  This renovation has been completed in my mind for over a year and I always saw these floors.... I based all my design decisions up to this point on the restoration of these floors.  But it just cannot be done, not because I haven't the tenacity but because the floors themselves are in just too poor of condition, so many broken boards and splintered holes.  Spending another week on hands and knees is a waste of time and effort (snif).  We didn't even really have a plan B for this eventuality.  Every time I walk into the room I take a look at the floor and start thinking... maybe just if I... But it must end here, not everything is going to work out the way we want but damn I'm sad.  Tonight we are going to yank out the boards and start prepping for tile.

In other news we had a friend of ours come in and texture the ceiling in the living room and kitchen.  He did a great job and we learned a lot from him (don't you just hate it when you learn that you have been doing something the hard way for years?).  The kitchen should have enough light in it, 1 light above the sink, 2 pendents over the island, and 4 pot lights.  Well I suppose if the floor can't go the whole way at least the ceiling does.


The race has been on since just after Christmas!  We have been racing to the renovation 'finish' with some friends of ours back in B.C.  So just over a month and here is where Steve and Robyn find themselves:

They decided to remove two walls on their main floor and turn their U shaped (extremely small) kitchen into a open concept living space.

As with any renovation they had some surprises.  No insulation, construction garbage in the walls, and general head scratching WTF moments.  Both Steve and Robyn work and they have two kids, and they had to live in the construction....   How the heck did they get so far so fast!  I have a couple of theroys but so not to appear as a bitter cow I'll keep them to myself hahaha.


I's a huge difference and a great reno.  I'm so beyond jealous I should really just end this damn post.




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