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.

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.

Two Years And Counting

 Two years.... Well we appear to be approaching the coveted and elusive finish.  We still have endless little things and some pretty massive things at the main house to do but the studio is actually approaching the end.  Jeremy spent quite a few hours in the basement at the Studio installing this dead-sexy manifold plumbing system.  The water hadn't been turned on for over 10 years, so the town guys (Thanks Rob and Dean) came over and... well turned the crank.  Other than a slight leak at the meter everything went surprisingly well....  Jeremy is scowling at my lack of confidence, but it just seemed too good to be true.  I mean I don't think anything we have done has actually worked the first time, with the first plan.  I mean to come off without a hitch is just fundamentally confusing to me.  Then we had to see if the ancient hot water heater would work... and it did.  It's actually quite anti-climatic to tell the truth.  I'm so used to typing something more like:

"So we downed a couple beer and reassembled our thoughts into a new and more extravagant plan than before that would require twice the amount of materials and two more weeks of knee splitting work."

So yeah, now we have both a working bathroom and kitchenette.  Shout out to Clint, thanks for your help with the tub.

I suppose it all wasn't all migraine and fear free finishes.  This tub (which I adore because its soooo cute) almost gave Jeremy a coronary when he finally got his gumption up and drilled the holes for that fancy faucet.  Just to give a timeline to this renovation project I first posted about working on this bathroom in..... September, which means we probably really started in August, wow.  The bathroom still needs a mirror and some art, and that'll be it.... Yeah, that's it.  Weird. 

Imagine a big bright painting above the sink. 

 We decided that the most cost-efficient, and by that I mean most labour-intensive solution to a countertop, would be to tile it.  I originally wanted to do it in screaming red tile but when my parents arrived bearing Christmas presents I was outnumbered 3 to 1.  So large white (ahem, boring) tiles it was.  Luckily I was due for some good karma and I found the only 12 white tiles in town and bought them.

Kitchenette complete, I feel the need to devulge our dirty laundry.  By that I mean tell you about one of the largest pressure points in our marriage:

Jeremy is an average sized man standing at 5'10", I am a short...ish woman standing at 5'2"3".  These counters are 37".  Needless to say I was pissed disheartened.  Jeremy is angry frustrated.  Whenever conversation even drifts toward this topic I swear both our nostrils start flaring............  Seriously we just started arguing about it again just now............. OK done (for now).  During my research I discovered average is 36", but my argument is that I only have so many inches to spare, and it's my Studio anyway so I win.  I have decided not to force a redo, but like hell I'm going to keep my mouth shut (insert evil laugh).

The rest of the studio is slowly but surely coming together.  I need to come up with a couple more storage solutions to really eliminate the clutter but it is functioning at almost optimal capacity.  If you care about what happens in this room you could check out my other blog Quilting Curve.  Well basically all that needs to be done is some trim work, touch up painting, and transition strips between rooms.  I could get all rowdy and get into landscaping plans but I'll save that rant for spring.  I really hope this winter helps us keep up the momentum and we can move onto the massive stuff over at the main house.  I'm apprehensive to state a start, or for that matter finish date on our next project at the main house, but I'm hoping to get demolition at least started just in time to make Christmas an ordeal.  Well I'll leave with a video of the gross water coming out of the pipes for the first time, because that's always fun.

The Lost Summer

Summer is over.  Harvest and school time (as if life couldn't get busier).  I haven't posted all summer mostly because... <insert believable excuse here>.  Well, we haven't been entirely idle, but most of the projects have been little ones.  You know, those type of things that need to get done but never really do.  This whole summer of painstakingly simple and eye-twitchingly annoying jobs began in late spring.  We were sitting outside having morning coffee under the tree when "The Deck" conversation came up.  You know the one...  "We could wrap it around here, under this tree, the bbq could go here, and we can leave a space here for a hot tub."  "Oh, but the railing has to be perfect beer height for evenings (or afternoons)."  "Yeah, and the planters could go here, here, and here."  So with much arm waving and endless enthusiasm we had a plan.  Jeremy priced out materials and called me a day or so later from work with his estimate for the most awesome deck EVER!  After I got off the phone, I started to tidy up the house... and the glaring unfinished-ness of this renovation nightmare became starkly real.  We have been living here for almost a year and a half, and I swear not one room or job is actually "finished".  So with a heavy heart (and a little snicker) I sent him "The List" via email.  It contained everything from base boards to unfinished plumbing, touch-up paint to uninstalled doors; all of which we have most of the materials to complete, just perhaps not the motivation.  Jeremy took it like a champ and came home with the printed out list (still hanging on the fridge) and some paint.

I kicked it off by breaking out some power tools and a pile of 2x4s, and fixed the front and back steps of the studio.  I also painted the steps and all the outside window trim.  Much more work has to go into the curb appeal of the studio (flowers and all the frilly crap) but it looks a lot cleaner and you won't trip and die if you try and knock on the door.

Last Fall

 While I was working so diligently to get the studio looking nice I had a number of neighbors come by commenting on how much nicer it looked, and also how ugly our other house was...  I'm not even kidding! One guy actually said we had the ugly house on the street!  So, with my biggest polite smile, and my sarcasm-free tone of voice, I said that maybe he was right.  Then I took a look, it wasn't even a long or hard look... he really WAS right.  Ugh.

Yeah it's a jungle.

 Well that just wouldn't do.  So I called Jeremy at work and told him to bring home a chainsaw... Great minds think alike, or perhaps he was already aware of the ugly stamp we had, the chainsaw was already in the truck (he bought a BC chainsaw... way overkill for any wood we'll find here in the prairies)

 So with much manic laughter Jeremy got er' done.

Oh, hey look, there is a house!  I promptly ran out and bought curtains.  Turns out we don't need a deck to get morning sunshine! Yeah, it's not the same, but "The List" reigns supreme around here.

Other bits and pieces have been started and some finished.  Jeremy finally plumbed in the sink and toilet in the studio, but the water still isn't on... waiting on a tub so hopefully next week.

Baseboards for one of the kids rooms are painted and almost installed (ahem).

Jeremy buckled down to his most hated job, finishing carpentry.  He can do it but he just likes sledge hammers and chainsaws better... don't we all.  So the inside of the upstairs windows are done as are other tedious jobs hardly worth mentioning.  The types of jobs where it takes longer to assemble your tools than to actually do the work.

But summer wasn't all just hair raising deck battles and paint spattered bikinis.

Sam: "Should there be a caption here?"
Jeremy: " I don't know what you could possibly say..."

It was also an amazing trip home to Prince George, B.C.  Rivers and lakes galore, with beer, great friends and family.

But why not check out a great B.C. music festival?  Like the one my brother puts together just outside of Chetwynd, B.C.
Awaking Music Festival 

 Jeremy had an accident in B.C. He and his brother took a plunge into the lake off a tube and Jeremy's brother ended up putting his front teeth through his lip and into Jeremy's elbow.  10 days later Jeremy is on a take home IV drip for a fairly massive infection... hahaha.  I told him to go to the hospital... it was a great "I told you so" moment! (Jeremy still swears it was the most "wickedest-awesome-tubing-wreck" ever).


But now it's fall, and life begins to pick up it's pace again.  We didn't quite finish "The List" actually we didn't even get close (Jeremy figures I'm sabotaging him by scribbling more chores onto it daily).  But once Harvest is over we will get right into it again.  Winter renovation sucks, but at least you don't get distracted by sunshine and camping.

Payton (7) grade 2 and Jordan (8) grade 3 first day of school photo.