Warm and cozy... almost

I was talking with my niece, and she said as long as the house was warm for Christmas, she could handle anything! So the long anticipated day finally came to turn the heat on in the basement. Room by room the underfloor pipes pressured up nicely. But then the front bedroom with all the pipes in the corner wouldn't cooperate. Thoughts of having to destroy our concrete floor came to mind... and we did have to break it in one area.



I have no idea how the plumbing/gas guys knew where the pipe was punctured, but I'm really glad they found it quickly, plus it was in the corner.

Of course, this was never supposed to happen because the concrete is supposed to be ~4 inches thick everywhere. But in this corner with all the sewage pipes etc, the rock had not been cut very effectively and so the framing screws punctured the pipe. Grrrrrr... You can see how thin the concrete is in the picture. We'll need to ask JF to come back and patch things up (and guarantee that the concrete really is the thickness required).

After the excitement of all this, we now have a wonderfully heated basement which also helps heat the rest of the house (although don't worry - we've got heaters on the ground floor too).

Connected and Flushable

We have stairs!

They're just temporary, but it means the two floors are now connected.




We also have a flushing toilet. Although it's not what I'd call private...



And running HOT water. So it's almost time to move home... (just need a shower)



That's the gas heating system and the pipes in the right hand corner. Almost ready to go!

Getting the plumbing connected has not been without it's trials, there was a pipe going through the purple insulation stuff that was too close to the outside of the house and managed to freeze, cutting water to our top floor tenants. As you can imagine, they were thrilled. Of course, I'm writing this after the issue has been fixed. I'll let you imagine the fun that ensued.

Brick work

A little post after a busy week on the JTW project...

The masonry work is almost complete. It still needs the "ferblentier" to finish the metal work on the top edge of the roof. But it's looking good.



We've cleaned up the interior of the house and moved things around in preparation for having the hole cut for the stairs to the basement. We also cleaned the floor of the kitchen as we need to get the plywood floor in (hopefully this Friday). Another milestone came from taking down all the plastic inside our storage room (the former purple room!). It was amazing to see the space really open up now that all the studs and plastic has been removed. Marc's dad has almost finished framing the new bathroom and walk-thru closet on the ground floor. Once that is done, there won't be any more walls to move (except the entrance - but that doesn't count coz we're not touching that until next year!).

Framing and the Roof

Finally, I'm posting some pictures of the basement which now has a floor!





In the basement we are using a gentleman called Yves (Karukera Construction) for the work on framing all the rooms. He also made the steps down into the English courtyard, which is now complete!





All the rooms except the mechanical room have their interior walls framed now. We're really getting the feel for the space now that all our plans are coming to life.













You'll also see the purple insulating foam that has been sprayed all over the exterior walls. It feels positively warm to the touch.



Marc and his dad have also removed all the old pipes and wiring, which was a huge job. The ironmonger that came down the back alley the same day must have thought he'd hit the jackpot!

And let's not forget all the brickwork that's well under way in the front. They have put the new cornice on top and it's just about visible under the green drapes. (Our house looked fabulous for Halloween ;)




There is a (hopefully small to rectify) problem with the water seeping through the wall in the front wall. It's right next to the end of the delta membrane. I've no idea why the contractors didn't do this area. It looks like they ran of the membrane and figured it'd be OK. Hmmmm.... no idea. Anyways, we will have to figure something out.

The problem area

The roof was completed today - yes, it's a Sunday, but it has been beautiful weather (although pretty cold) so the roofing company finished off the work from last week. It was a good surprise since we didn't expect it until tomorrow, however we learnt from our not so happy tenants that they arrived at 7am this morning.

As for our living conditions, we have moved in with Marc's parents! This is working well except for the hugely long commute in the morning. What should be a 45 minute journey is taking a good 2 hours and more. :( It's good to get to know them better, and helpful for my French! We were going to move into the caravan in the back garden, but a leaking water pipe in the house, led to a decision to remove all the pipes and so now we've no sink, shower or toilet. What this means is that I think we'll stay here in Les Coteaux until the house has somewhere to wash and somewhere warm to sleep (I'm not too worried about waiting for the kitchen to be installed). Don't ask me when this is going to be! We're just working hard on making it happen...

Talking of the kitchen and bathroom, they have been the most difficult rooms to demolish. The kitchen had 2 layers of drywall on top of plaster and the ceiling had a layer of drywall, lots of wood with really long screws (that had to be individually removed) attaching it to the old plaster ceiling. When we ultimately removed the ceiling a huge amount of black soot came down, but no pictures to show the state of me after that!


Going...


Going...


Gone!

Yesterday I rented a jack hammer and removed the tile in the kitchen floor (this was fun!) while Marc and his dad started to frame the new bathroom on the ground floor. Marc also used the jack hammer to remove a few pieces of rock in the basement that would have caused problems putting walls up.

Lots of progress, but still soooooo much to do...

The Concrete Floor has Landed

Yesterday it really did happen! The concrete arrived early in the morning. The English courtyard stairs were laid and the floor of the basement was poured. Since we'd like to keep the concrete floor showing, JF had a special finish included in the concrete which gives a nice glazed look. Unfortunately, with this glaze being in such large quantities and in a closed space, it was giving off such noxious fumes that we had to put our tenants up in a hotel last night. But JF will cover this, plus he had his guys bring in some huge fans to ventilate; this morning the odour was pretty much gone and we were able to walk on our lovely new floor for the first time :)

Marc took today off work to finish off the bedroom demolition. Tomorrow we have a new dumpster arriving and we've both taken the day off to get a head start on the demolition of the kitchen and bathroom ceiling and walls.

Next week, the roof is being replaced on Monday. Framing of the new interior walls should also start (maybe even as early as tomorrow), then gas and electricity on Thursday, followed by plumber on Friday. Plus the masonry work continues...

Photos to follow...

The Generosity of Plan D

Since I last posted, we purchased the kitchen cabinets and gas stove from Ikea (to be delivered November 20), rented the largest container (dumpster) possible, demolished the dining room, most of our bedroom and the big kitchen cabinet (that housed the washer/dryer), removed all the kitchen cabinets, filled a container with all the crap, had it removed and ordered another one, and last but not least, we moved out of the house. The original plan A had been to move into Marc's parents caravan. His dad drove it here and while it would have just fit into the back garden, it would have taken at least half an hour to move it in and out. This just wasn't an option given we were going to need to move it every other day while the basement work is still very active. So, plan B, we considered a hotel, which is still an option, but we need to save every penny we can, which led to plan C, the "Lenny" option. The first couple of nights were spent in my beloved campervan which had served me well on my 3-week trip across Canada last year. It's small but perfectly formed, and since we've not demolished the bathroom in the house, works OK for us. However, we now have a plan D due to the generosity of our neighbour, who offered to put us up this week. THANK YOU, Gilbert!

Now we just have to figure out how to get things to the point in the house that we can move back in... But at least once all the basement work wraps up at the end of this week (REALLY, Joanna?! Are you pulling my leg?!) we then go back to plan A (the luxury caravan). Marc and I have been talking about what's the absolute minimum we have to have done before living in our home is a real option. It involves completing the demolition, then insulating and dry-walling the bedroom. Given our current rate of progress, and all the help from Marc's dad (and not forgetting his son too!) we think 2 weeks, yes, just two weeks, is enough to make this a reality. However if plan A works for us, it takes the pressure off, and allows us to focus on the real goal of being ready for Christmas.

That's just the things we've been working on. On the contractor side, the mason work has finally started! Our house is ready for halloween as it's been covered by mesh and scaffolding. In the basement, the back wall for the house has been framed, the courtyard stairs have been made ready for the concrete, and the concrete will be poured for them AND THE BASEMENT FLOOR... TOMORROW :) I think it really is going to happen. At last!

One other piece which happened at the last minute, today to be precise, is that we had Delta Membrane put up all around the walls of the basement. Marc had thought we may need this since the beginning, and long and the short of it, it got put up today. So all good.

I'll let you know if we really did get a basement floor... tomorrow...

Shopping!

It's been a fun filled couple of days. We got up early for the purpose of being first at the stores both Saturday AND Sunday! I may be unable to get out of bed most days, but for shopping... well, that's a whole other incentive ;) A rather large dent has been put in our personal credit cards, but just think of the Aeroplan points we're earning. Australia here we come!

Saturday involved a trip to buy the shower column, chrome p-trap, kitchen sink and kitchen faucet. The Kohler faucet I've been eying up for months was even available on sale. But at well over $800 I still couldn't bring myself to buy it. (But don't ask how much the one I eventually decided on still cost.) The rest of the day involved cleaning up the wood (2 trips to the dump - we're now all out of free trips - renting a container next weekend) and doing the last bit of demolishing in the corridor. We also spent an inordinate amount of time cleaning up the area in preparation for moving all our stuff in there from the dining room/bedroom/kitchen/bathroom. But still not quite finished, the plaster gets EVERYWHERE. Next weekend the massive demo begins (and we move into the caravan to live for a few days... errr... weeks).

Sunday morning involved yet another trip to Ikea (actually 2 trips today, because we ran out of time in the morning as Marc had tickets to see the Alouettes CFL game with his mate). I returned in the afternoon to pay for the kitchen (including stove) and received 15% back in gift cards. Nice bonus! It was very reasonably priced, but of course we have to install the thing ourselves, which is going to be quite the feat... It'll be delivered November 20 (I put it off as long as possible).


Piles of wood...


And yet more of the same.


The English Courtyard
p.s. The Alouettes won their game!