Platitudes are bogus

You know that old saying, "When one door closes, another one opens"? And how it's supposed to signify something meaningful about opportunity or some such?

Yeah, well, in home renovations, when one door closes (FINALLY!), the only door that opens is the door to the fridge because it's time to get a cold beer and stop bloody working for the day.

But I'm kinda getting ahead of myself. It seems that I've been rather lax about updates this past week as we've been making a great deal of progress (well, for US at least) and I haven't posted anything about it at all. Better late than never, I suppose, so let's start at the beginning - or, in this case, Monday - when the electricians showed up to finish the wiring.

We weren't really sure how long it was going to take the electricians to finish all the wiring and put in the lights and whatnot, but we were really hoping they could get it done within a day so the War Department wouldn't have to work from home for too long.

Well, we really needn't have worried. Including a trip out to the Home Despot for a couple of switches they needed, it took them a little less than four hours. Yeah. Nice to work with professionals, I gotta say.

Anyway, here's what the new lights look like in full operation:



And in the bathroom:



Man, I can't even tell you how amazing it is to walk into a room and have lights come on just by flipping a switch. Seriously.

Anyway, once the electricians were done (and it became obvious that they wouldn't require an inspection - bastards) we turned our attention to something I, for one, have been dreading since the day we bought it. If you go back through this blog and look at some of the pictures, you'd probably notice that in a lot of them (like, say this one, or this one, or this one) there's this enormous cardboard box sitting in the middle of the floor where we're equally likely to either trip over it or attempt to use it as a workbench. We've been stepping around or over that bloody box for MONTHS and it was finally time to open 'er up and take out the glass walls for the shower. I had been dreading this for so long, I can't even tell you. The instructions made it seem like a relationship-ending nightmare in a box.

So, imagine our surprise when we got it out, set up, and installed in one measly evening. I don't even have any work-in-progress shots for you, it went in so fast:



Yeah. Took us an evening or so to clean off all the glass, and Amy did all the caulking (fiddly little stuff, drives me NUTS). All that's left is to fine-tune the door and put up the water stopper thingies.

Anyway, yesterday was manual labour day once more, as we turned our attention to the enormous pile of crap in the back yard that's been sitting there all winter, hardening slowly back into the impenetrable mass of clay it was before we dug it up from the ground:



Yes, even the Supervisor Kitty was astonished at how rock-solid it was.

Anyway, four hours with a pick, shovels, two buckets, and three trips to the Victoria Materials Depot (and $40 in drop-off fees) later, and... well, we barely made a dent:



Let me tell you, loading dirt into buckets and then dumping it into the back of a pickup is every bit as much fun as it sounds. No, really, and if you want to try it out, we've got plenty left...

So, finally, we come to the subject of our little platitude: the bathroom door. I'm not going to go into excruciating detail about the swearing, yelling, cursing, and screaming to which this particular task gave rise, and I'm not going to harp on about how long it took us to do (though, to give you an idea, we could have made at least four trips to the dump with more dirt - if it was open on Sundays, of course, which it's not, but THAT'S a rant for another day), but I will attempt to give you at least a hint of the frustration involved...

After trimming down both the door and the jamb in which it came, we maneuvered it into position in the doorway (gouging the ceiling a little in the process) and balanced it precariously in the opening. I was holding it up from the bathroom side, Amy was on the office side, and the door was threatening to fall either in or out, depending on which of us was a little too eager in making sure it stayed flush with the drywall.

It was at this point that Amy said, "So, ... now what do we do?" and we both realized that neither one of us had the foggiest idea how to actually hang the damn thing.


But we got it, eventually:



And let me tell you, when that door closed, I made a beeline for the fridge. It's like they say, when life gives you lemons...uh, it really sucks? But hey - if you have a lime, you can cut it into wedges and drop one in your beer.

And that's good.




I think there's a moral here somewhere, but screw it - I'm going to bed.
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Drywall's done, and we're outta here!

The last thing I wanted to be thinking about while we're traveling was the last bits of drywall that still needed to be done. (Could I have made the tenses in that sentence a little more awkward, you think?) So while the War Department was preparing the house and our housesitter for our absence, I went downstairs and put on the old Carhartts one more time, just for fun.

I'm happy to report that the drywall is officially finished. Well, it's finished being installed, anyway. We still have to get Tony in to work his magic with the mud and whatnot.

Anyway, there were only four pieces left, most of which were small and boring, so there isn't much in the way of interesting pictures for this post. Just so you know...


The piece that required the most work to finish was the last bit of the bulkhead in the laundry room. I had to install a complicated little nailing edge to protect the wires and still leave room for various cables and whatnot.



Looks pretty snazzy, I think. If you're wondering how we plan to tie in that bulkhead to the existing wall and finish off the wall by the stairs, well, so are we.

I also installed the little piece of drywall over the door to the workshop, and the big piece on the workshop side of the entrance. Neither of which makes for a good picture (or any picture at all, really) so let's just move on.

The other complicated task was to finally get the cable lines all squared away inside the electrical cabinet, and put the last piece of drywall over the bulkhead beside it.



That's a whole mess of cables there, but there's not a whole lot more we can do about it.

And just in case you thought I was kidding about the amount of scrap generated by an off-size basement ceiling:




So, yeah. That's the state of the basement at the moment. We're off for two weeks to see my big brother get married in Tasmania. (Awesome! A 15-hour plane ride! Joy!) When we get back, it'll be all systems go to get the drywall covered up, the doors installed, the carpet laid, and the trim put in.

It's gonna look nice. Really.

See you when we get back. Read more...

Electrical update

The electricians came back yesterday to finish up and get ready for the rough-in inspection which, I'm happy to say, went off without a hitch.

According to the War Department, who was working from home to keep the kitties company while strange people tromped around our house, the only comment the inspector made was that we should be keeping our building permit in a plastic bag. Which is funny because she took the papers OUT of the plastic bag to give to the electrician to give to the inspector.

But we've learned not to question the wisdom of the inspectors, and our electrician managed to restrain from bursting out laughing, so we have officially passed the first electrical inspection! Yay! (We celebrated by putting down some more sub-floor. Oh yeah. Fun never stops.)

Full warning: this post is picture heavy.

I have to admit that it's kind of hard to capture the awesomeness that is our revamped electrical system in the basement. I think the best I can do is to just post some pictures of various parts and components and hope that the whole becomes more than the sum. Or something like that. I was never very good at math.

First up, here's the electrical panel, after they moved it to the right about four or five inches, and cleaned up a lot of the surrounding wire:



Sadly, I don't really have an establishing shot of what it looked like before but trust me: that's a vast improvement.

Here are some of the newly installed bathroom bits, in no particular order.

Our new fan:





Our new wall heater:



The wall switches (lights, fan, and thermostat):



It's all so neat and tidy, and secure, and really well done. (I have every confidence that the War Department could have done 90% of that herself, but it would have taken her a whole lot longer!)

And lest you think that we've been hiring out ALL the work, here's the current status of the subfloor:



As you can see, we've got the foam down into the corner, and just - heh, like there's anything "just" about it - have to lay the plywood down over top. Weekend work!

Well, that's about it... what's that? You want to see a picture of my finger? Well, all right...

But I'm not posting it out here in the open. You have to WANT to see it. Like, really WANT to see it.

If you REALLY WANT to experience the gruesomeness, all up close and personal like, in LARGE, living colour, click this link.

That was taken when I took the band-aids off last night, after five days. Yes, it hurt. A lot.


Ghouls. All a ya.
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What long weekend?

Was there a weekend just now?

I think we might have missed it. Oh, no, wait. I remember now! It was those three days we spent downstairs in the basement instead of going to work!

Apparently, we had quite a windstorm, too. Though of course, I wouldn't know. I was in the basement. Working...

So, with the framing inspection behind us, I was at something of a loss as to where to turn my attention next. Fortunately, the War Department stepped in and reminded me that we needed to have the subfloor installed before the electricians came.

Oh, joy! More Tapcons! Gee golly, swell!

Oh, speaking of electricians, we had our friend Danny come by to give us an estimate (a little higher than we were expecting, but then it turned out he was including all of the materials like pot lights, bathroom ventilation fans, and heaters, which was something of a relief) and then he surprised us by informing us that they'd be starting Wednesday. Yes, tomorrow.

And us without a floor!

So, we spent the weekend buying rigid foam insulation, plywood, Tapcons (damn it), and all the other things we needed to get started on the floor. And... well, that's about all we did. Get started.



It's turning out to be a right stubborn bitch of a job, this subfloor thing. I mean, I knew I was in for a real treat when I bought a BIG box of Tapcons, but getting the somewhat-warped pieces of plywood to fit on a bumpy floor is a real trick. We did a little more tonight (than what's shown in the picture above), but we're still not even halfway done, and we just don't have the energy or time to do any more. So the electricians are just going to have to be careful not to destroy our foam as they stomp around installing stuff tomorrow.

On the bright side, Amy did a whole shwack of electrical work over the weekend (saving us a fair chunk of change by not having to pay the electricians to do it), and I learned new and interesting ways to swear at ductwork.

I started by installing the heating duct down the wall beside the closet:



Here's a close up of the top of the run:



But it was when I went to install the cold air return that things got really interesting:



Cutting the hole in the side of the existing cold air return was the easy part (and not only because the jigsaw blade wasn't going to fall into any fans if it broke off again - which it did). The real fun began when I started trying to put the new duct line together and realized that I had NO IDEA WHAT I WAS DOING.

Amazingly enough, the Intartubez were remarkably unhelpful in terms of providing any idea of how to go about attaching one piece of ductwork to another. Fortunately, I has a brain - despite what some people may claim - and I eventually managed to figure it out, and even turned in a fairly passable joint. (Even if it was AFTER I completely munged one piece of duct and came pretty close to messing up another one.)



Here's the back side, where the new cold air return goes into the existing one:



Of the three new joints visible in that picture, please ignore two of them. Thank you.

Anyway, I'm going to bed. The War Department will be working from home tomorrow to supervise the electricians and keep the cats from getting TOO freaked out, but I have to go in to the office and live vicariously through the frequent email updates.

Murky buckets and bonnie sewer, as my dad always says.
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It's almost a real room!

With my back feeling better (or close enough), it was time to return to what is fast becoming the theme of October: framing! I'm already thinking that my costume for Hallowe'en will most likely consist of a couple of two-by-fours lashed to my arms and a Chippendale calender hanging from a tack in my forehead. If anyone asks, I'm a studded wall. Har har.

Anyway, tonight was actually somewhat productive, and I have the pictures to prove it!

When last we visited the corner of the basement by the electrical panel, I had just finished laying down the footers for the wall that will eventually form the back of the closet, and separate the workshop from the office. Tonight I started to install the studs for that wall; here's my progress so far, from a couple of angles:





It's kind of tricky to build that wall, largely because there's nothing there to attach the top plate to. That large clump of wires will be running through a bulkhead at the top of the wall, and the angle of the ductwork there (that's the main trunk line for the furnace) means I have to leave some room at the top - not that there are any floor joists in the vicinity anyway. Most of the structural strength for that wall is going to come from the studs that form the side wall and front of the closet - which I haven't quite got to yet. We still need to figure out where the bulkhead for the vent stack (visible on the side of the bathroom wall in the second shot above) is going to go, and where we have to install the cold air return - which might have to go into the bulkhead anyway.

I'm not planning on doing the bracing in that wall any time soon, either - it's the shortest distance between the saw and the work bench, and I'm really not looking forward to having to go the long way around every time I put something down and can't find it again.

Oh, but I did manage to get rid of some old wires that were just hanging there in the way:



That little chore wasn't without its cost however...

The Injury Report

(This is quickly becoming a far TOO regular feature on this blog...)

• When I was removing that green wire, the very end of it caught on a nail in the wood, and when I gave it a good tug, popped free and stabbed me right in the lower lip. It didn't draw blood, and I don't think it left a mark, but lemme tell ya - that hurt. A lot.


• The wood of our joists and support beams is very old and very, very dense. In the course of trying to remove a particularly obstinate staple, a very brave screwdriver gave its life for the cause:
  
  
  
  The worst part? That was the War Department's screwdriver and now I have to buy a new one. Sigh.

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We've been working. No, really, we have.

Ah, the joys of renovating an older house. It’s a non-stop, never-ending barrel of poo-flinging monkeys is what it is.

Last week wasn’t one of the more productive weeks we’ve had, sadly, which is why I haven’t exactly been burning up the intertubes with updates. Our lack of progress wasn’t for lack of trying, however, with my adventures on Thursday night providing a prime example of how to work hard and have nothing to show for it.

With the War Department off to a barbecue, I decided to start framing the other half of the Dread Wall of Pink^TM. Given my fancy new toy, I figured I could easily do the footer and top plate, and probably get a few studs in before Amy got home. Man, did I ever overestimate my own competence.

I’m still not entirely sure what I did wrong or how I screwed up, but it took me two hours just to get the footer down. Once I did, the top plate was going in fine, until I saw how far away from the wall one end of it was. That is to say, farther away than the other end…Oops.

When Amy returned, I had just finished pulling up the footer plate so lovingly laid down. I was in the midst of trying to re-mark the line for the footer, and had been at it for three hours with nothing to show for my efforts save a few mostly straight smudges on the concrete. It was not a good time.

Friday and Saturday, thankfully, went a little better as I managed to get the wall up, studded, and braced while Amy installed a new dryer circuit (at great personal risk).




While my task might make the better picture, hers was much, much harder. You can kinda see the smudgy bit on the left where the old, frayed, piece-of-crap cable came down the wall. It's a much nicer set up, now.

Also on Saturday, we revamped the gutter system on the garage so that the rainwater off the roof would be diverted farther away from the walls. Now our little garage looks like some kind of grotesque alien life form has infected it and it’s preparing to walk away on spindly white legs:



Heh, that would be so cool...

By the way, the War Department once again did all the hard stuff. I just cut away the existing downspouts and attached the new pipes; Amy went up the ladder and cleaned and re-caulked all the seams and corners in the gutters.

We had been waiting rather anxiously all weekend for the drain cleaning guy to come and he finally showed up on Monday morning. It took him about three hours to snake all of the drains… well, almost all of the drains….

See, our foundation isn’t exactly square. It’s mostly square, but more like a square with a chunk missing out of the southwest corner, where our front porch sits. The porch (though it’s something of an overstatement to call it as such) is concrete, and has its own footer (I would hope). The problem this present for the drains, and the guy doing the cleaning in particular, is that it adds a couple of extra corners to the system, one of which is an “inside” 90-degree bend.

Well, the guy doing the snaking (heh, that sounds dirty) couldn’t quite work his way completely around those corners under the porch slab. Here, I made a picture:



The thick grey line is our foundation, and the black square is (roughly) the front porch. The burgundy (merlot?) circles indicate where we dug the holes below each of the downspouts (the circle at the top is the massive hole in the front yard), and the red lines represent all of the perimeter drains that the guy was able to clean. (He also cleared out the line that leads away from the house to the city storm drains, which was a huge relief.) The thick, nasty, mockingly obstinate blue line is the one portion of the drain that he just couldn’t reach.

Sigh.

We're not sure yet how we're going to deal with it. Digging down to the drain tile in that corner would be prohibitively difficult, what with the giant camilia there, not to mention the high voltage line that runs out from that corner on its way to the garage. At the moment, and acting on the advice of the drain snaker (hee hee), I think we're leaning towards leaving it as is - at least until next summer, anyway.

In the meantime, clean drains mean we can start installing cleanouts and new drain tile, so that's what we did. It only took two evenings!



(I'm always amazed by how shallow that hole looks in pictures. It certainly isn't that shallow when I'm trying to haul my fat ass out of it because I accidentally put the piece of pipe down out of reach again.)

The upward-pointing, gaping holes in the pipe are where we plan to install the cleanouts. We'll have a little family of cleanouts in the front flower bed; two for the perimeter drain in classic white, and one for the sewer in foreboding black. Lovely.

Anyway, I can't promise any progress (or updates) this weekend as I'm having my wisdom teeth out tomorrow, and plan on spending most of the next four days feeling sorry for myself and asking Amy to do even the simplest things in an increasingly annoying whine.

It's gonna be GREAT! Read more...