Window Phobia

Living Room Before

 So, basically when I finished writing my last post Jeremy put a 2x4 through the back window of his new truck... Hahaha, it's funny now but at the time his devastation was morbid.  I'm so happy it wasn't me who did it because I would probably be divorced or dead in a ditch.  Long story short he was able to locate a replacement and get it installed promptly, which was good considering the raging blizzard.  Accidents are bound to happen when you take on such massive demolition.  One window is not too bad since we took 14 loads to the dump.  Although it has made Jeremy extremely window shy.  Seriously he won't let me load the truck, and I didn't even do it!

Living room before.

Nothing is ever simple.  I remember when we first bought the house, the conversation was so positive and optimistic.

"We could remove this wall and extend the kitchen, it would really be simple and so effective".

Translation: "We need to move this wiring, oh hey look we have a built in vacuum here, oh sh*t the chimney sticks out here, hmmm, I don't think that wire goes anywhere, OUCH, damn it's live.... well... We should crack a beer and think about this a little more.  This thermostat has five wires coming out of it, but there are only three in the basement, wonder where those went?"

"Oh yeah, all new drywall completely fresh start.  Green for sure would work awesome with this room!"

Translation: "I hate drywall... Hey there used to be a window here, wonder if they... nope no insulation,  No wonder that draft was so bad, hey look no insulation here either.  Another random wire... Awe f*ck it's live too!"

"We could put in a great ceiling here with a beam and some natural stone, Ohhhh and some pendant lighting above an island".

Translation: "More blown in insulation! Ugh *beep* *beeping* mother *beeper*".

Kitchen wall into living room, before.

Kitchen... 

In all reality we knew there would be issues, it just never seams like a huge deal until your elbows deep in a sea of insulation, and more stuff needs to be done before the next thing.  A 'simple' kitchen renovation turns into a raging storm of demotion and a reallocation of energy into projects you didn't even knew existed.  But with endless tenacity and an insurmountable extenuation of stick-to-itve-ness we completed the demolition.

Wall gone between kitchen and living room.

Living room to kitchen.

I swear Jeremy has almost reached the end of his sanity.  I took 3 videos of him running wire, playing with floor demo, and scooping blown in.  None of them are fit for the public.  But he seems to persevere (that's why I love this guy).  The kids are coping well enough parenting themselves.  Payton came to the construction area the other day and sat in my lap for a good half hour... poor kid, I gave her a chocolate and sent her on her way.

New insulation... drywall ready... I think so.

So the list of things to do is neither shrinking nor growing we're just switching things out.  But the inevitability of completion is a looming reality.

We are having a race with some friends of ours back home in B.C. and everyday I shake my head at our optimism at the beginning of these endeavors.  We won't even be in the same month as them.  There are too many jobs to list at this point, but we are making progress daily.

Blizzard of Demolition

Just when I thought it was over it is actually only just beginning.  Happy New Year to all, by the way.  It's new years day today and we kicked off 2015 with a sledge hammer.  December was no joke either.  between Christmas concerts, dinners and decorations we started the main floor demo and floor plan.  First we had to remove the door and build the new walkway between the stairwell (our old bedroom) and the living room.  I must mention now that the layers of this house must make up for half the damn insulation!  Seriously once we started to take off the layers it became abundantly clear that this demolition was going to be the biggest of all.

Door into stairwell: before

• Layer One: Panel board
• Layer Two: 1/4 inch plywood
• Layer Three: Weird textured 'wallpaper'
• Layer Four: Old crumbly dusty dirty drywall.

We are gaining an inch to the whole room just by taking down all this crap.  I haven't even told you about the ceiling (about as bad as the walls...).  

The Onion House

Completed Walkthrough

The fun continued when we invited some friends over for dinner, with ulterior motives of hanging a particularly painful piece of drywall... So how many men does it take, three.  Yep three.

Jeremy, Bryce, and Clint

It may have been the wine, but damn did I laugh.

 So Christmas went of without too much drywall dust getting into the chip dip, but there is no rest for the DIY renovators.  The time had come.  It was time to throw in the towel get out of the mess and get er' done.  Time to move.

 As you may have noticed I'm gung ho and ready to rip in the video ( I actually had to do another take because the first was a bunch of whooping and swearing).  Now what I didn't film were the tears of loss as I packed up my beautiful and peaceful studio.  All sewing and tranquility has left the building.  We had been preparing for this day pretty much as soon as the ink was dry on the ownership papers.  But nothing could really prepare us for the reality of living in a house of 400 square feet with 2 adults (who both really enjoy their space, hence the house, studio, shop setup we've been working on for two f-ing years), and 2 kids (little whirl winds of crumbs and any projectile toy they can find or build).  But the food is drywall free... even if it is cooked in a microwave.

Living in such a small space is challenging but also strangely satisfying.  Everything is always clean and tidy.  There are no doors to close or corners to hide things in.  It took a couple days to get everything in it's place to really make everything run smoothly, but so far so good.  That said I can't wait to have the big house back.

Half a kitchen.

The day after we moved we took a trip to Edmonton, Alberta in search of most of the makings for a new kitchen... During boxing week.  I can't even start to tell the horror stories of shopping, it's just too fresh.  Yet we came out with a good deal and half a kitchen.  The other half is on order and will be here within the month. 

We have accepted a challenge from our friends back in B.C. (Steve and Robyn).  They are also ripping out their kitchen and a wall (or two, I'm not positive of the details), So its a race to the finish.  I doubt we will win because our demo is becoming more and more complicated as we 'progress' (blown in insulation in particular in the entire ceiling). 

But for now I'll let the photos tell the tale.

The layers are unbelievable.

After the cabnets were removed we finally had confirmation of the wood floors under the entire kitchen.  This was thrilling to say the least since we had planned the entire renovation around this one unknown.

• Layer One: Lino
• Layer Two: Sub floor
• Layer Three: More lino
• Layer Four: Back breaking scarping of the floor to remove ground in glue while somehow preserving the existing wood floors.  Ugh.

So all in all the demolition is in full swing and the blizzard outside is a nightmare but the dump is open and weather waits for no one.

Michael Finnegan Begin Again

From the stairs.

Well the time has come.  Why relax when there is demo to do?  Jeremy got the itch, he just couldn't leave it alone.  Hahaha jokes on him though, it's not as much fun as it used to be!  I started this blog in September 2012... We have been hair straight back pretty much since then.  Jeremy spent his evening last night reading through the blog... I peeked over his shoulder every once and a while and I get tired just looking at it.  But as I said Jeremy just couldn't let it be so here we are again renovating.

The second bedroom on the main floor of the house (our room) is pretty teeny so with a couple of long conversions filled with animated over zealous gestures we decided on an action plan.  Step one was demolition (as always).  We took our the closet between the bedrooms and decided to (with a suggestion from Jeremy's dad) to move the door into the bedroom to the stairwell instead of the living room.

The closet.

From bedroom

After packing endless amounts of drywall out of the room we gained an extra two feet to our bedroom.  

We are sleeping in the living room again... sigh.  Jeremy promises that this is the last time... until we do the floors...  Speaking of floors how lucky are we that the hardwood runs seamlessly throughout.  Drywall overtakes my every spare moment and mostly because it's been sitting in a neat little pile in the living room (also where I sleep).  It's been there so long that the kids have drawn targets on it and proceed to shoot their Nerf guns at it whenever I leave the room.  Jeremy has been preoccupied since the weather took a turn toward Spring (a balmy -15C). 

My much repressed objections towards this recent lapse in renovation bliss is stifled by his sending me to Peru in November with various members of my family... I just can't bring myself I force him back to it... although it was he who started this whole process again.  Well for the moment I will keep my seething silence (with the casual dig veiled in sarcasm once in a while).  Hopefully the weather will co-operate soon and we can get outside and keep the momentum rolling, although I foresee many more hours in the shop working with his other wife (motorcycle).