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.

The Optimist

A pessimist and an optimist have fallen off a building.  The pessimist is having a hard time thinking "Oh my god, only 15 more floors to live!".  The optimist on the other hand is thinking: "So far, so good"


Although nothing ever goes to plan, such is life. We have been making steady progress in the attic endeavor.  Jeremy has been building the walls.  After many a discussion as per placement/height/suitability we both agreed that we had exactly the same plan and the other person needs to learn to speak better English. Honestly up and forward are two completely different movements!

Most of the framing is done in the attic.  Jeremy has built for both bedrooms to have a nook in the wall where a dresser can be placed.  He is becoming quite the electrician, with 2/3 of the attic wired.  Pictured here is the proposed walls for the half bathroom.

We have a small (28") pocket door for the bathroom.  We have two new windows for each bedroom as well, now if we could only find the time.

 





While cutting the hole in the ceiling for the staircase Jeremy came across this little jewel.

It was kind of a cool find.  It's hard to argue with those rates!

Moving forward, I was getting a little tired of climbing up the closet ladder which has now been dubbed "the climb of death'.  So we switched to stair building.  This is our first staircase.  Stairs really are not that complicated, the math is simple and there are more than enough stair calculators on the internet... but for some reason it just never makes sense. We argued and calculated, calculated and argued:

Me: "Just because you have big freaky feet doesn't mean we have to build the staircase to fit you!".

Jeremy: "My feet are just like any normal person, we need to build it to standard size".

Me: "Well just in case you haven't noticed there is nothing standard about this damn place!"

Jeremy: "If we want the railing to go like this..."

Me: "Railing! I don't want a railing.  Jeeze, I grew up with no railing on either my mom's or grandmother's. We never fell down the stairs".

Jeremy: "Yeah and none of you are scared of heights either right?"

Me: "Ugh, beside the point.  Here look the guy on YouTube said to do it like this, see, you one step short.  That's why this piece of newly created firewood doesn't fit".

Jeremy: "Fine.  Here jump up onto this landing and see if it feels right".

Me: "Shit! I'm going to hit my head on this! Oh crap now what the hell are we going to do! I'm only 5 feet tall!"

We eventually did come up with a plan that works and with a combination of beer, stubbornness, and creative thinking it fits all our personal criteria.

It's even level

We are just going to put some plywood on for treads for now because there is so much drywall to come.  I keep telling Jeremy that I'm ready for drywall any day ("Sure no problem, I can do that, I'm pretty much a pro now").  It's a complete lie, I'm starting to have nightmares nightly.

Sleeping in the living room is getting really old.  So I'm dragging Jeremy out for at least one night of camping this weekend.

Project List:

• Put plywood treads on stairs to circumvent climb of death.
• Build post under last stair (in kitchen) so safe, comfortable, no railing stairs don't become surprise drop of doom.
• Finish last bits of wiring, framing, insulation.
• Make a friend who will help Jeremy pack drywall upstairs...
• blah, blah, blah, CAMPING! 

Plan B... C...D?

The reason we bought this smelly, small, old, house was the attic.  We tried to buy other, more suitable houses in this small town in the middle of nowhere Saskatchewan, but alas we settled on this one.  We KNEW that we (being extremely talented and perhaps a little insane) could transform the attic into a cool and fun place for the kids to get out of our hair.  

If you have been following the saga of awesome (endless) renovations you would know that this particular project got put on the back burner in lieu of The Studio.  But we are back to the Big House (800 square feet).  

Here is a photo of the attic last fall when we bought this ugly, dated, dusty, house.  It's not hard to see the potential here in adding almost 2/3 more space to the house.  We spent hours in this decrepit, disgusting, spider-infested, attic.  Discussing potential floor plans, heating/cooling options, insulation, plumbing, electrical, and access.   

The Stair hole (stage 1)

We had a plan, a good one.  Too bad nothing ever works out.  Jeremy actually framed half of the attic in preparation of insulating.  We had decided that the best way to go was spray foam.  We don't have a lot of room but you don't need a lot for spray foam, plus all the air tight benefits etc...  

Well unfortunately for us, we (Jeremy) always get a head of ourselves (Jeremy).  Turns out the spray foam guys wouldn't drop their price below $4400!  Our house is pretty small, and the attic even smaller.  That was our entire budget for the attic and stairs.  It just wasn't going to happen. 

Lucky for me, Jeremy (get so far ahead of myself, no wonder that I have to take 3 steps back) is a pseudo-genius and came up with another idea.  The plan goes thus:

• Buy entire truck full of fancy rigid foam
• Cut foam to size and fit between joists
• Bump joists using 2x2's 

•  Create air tight seal using cans of low expanding spray foam

Most seam's were not this pretty 

•  Try desperately not to die of heat stroke or dehydration (turns out beer is not a good hydrater... who knew?)

•  Add fiberglass R-20 on top of foam, and try not to destroy lungs in process. 

Well, that pretty much covers the basics of the plan.  As per any secondary plan, more things went wrong and have had to be adjusted (like taking down all of Jeremy's carefully and meticulously built walls).  

I like to think sometimes that we have learned enough to take on these projects. But the more we do, the more it appears that we have no idea what the can of worms holds... this time I believe it was maggots.  Things like tongue-and-groove planks under the drywall on both outside walls and ceiling.  Not realizing that our insulation caused us to loose too many inches on the ceiling of the attic, so if your over 5 ft 6 inches you have to duck for the last 3 steps.  How exactly do we do this... or that... well, shit.  

Jeremy is presently on days-off (the kids are back in BC for the time being), and we have been working on this big, bloody, messy job for the past 5 days.  We figured out a plan for the stairs to make them a little more comfortable for an adult to go up them, but it's pretty involved.  So, off the mark, we are so far behind I feel like my name is Jeremy (who is destroying my kitchen as I type). 

The in home nightmare has begun I can only hope that we don't loose our minds.