The Demolition Continues

Larry tosses stuff out of our future bedroom window

I want to bring you up-to-date about the renovations. These past two weeks have seen remarkable progress; or is that regress? It’s kind of a glass half empty, half full kind of situation.

Plaster everywhere

We started out with a beautiful old house that was in need of some updating. Somehow one thing led to another and what started out as removing some ’spongy’ plaster took on a life of its own and now half the walls are on the floor. Well, not really on the floor. That was last week. Now the walls are in the dumpster.

The Dumpster will soon be full

Larry had some willing accomplices with him in this demolition. Peter and Don attacked the plaster. They left up most of the lath work and in removing the plaster we discovered that the house used balloon construction. That means that there are no cross pieces in the wall studs and it will be MUCH easier to blow in the insulation from the inside.

Don and Larry late Friday night

Most of the lathing runs horizontally, but there were two layers of it in the kitchen and the top layer was placed vertically. I really liked the pattern that it makes. Yes, that’s past tense. Don and Peter got carried away and took down the lath. And then they removed the layer of lath behind it too. There was no stopping them.

Vertical lath work

So we asked them to help tear down the chimney. Oh yes. It seems the chimney had outlived it’s usefulness and was in the wrong spot anyway, so Robbie came over and tore it down with help from the others.

Who took the chimney?

And before you could ask “Didn’t there used to be a chimney there?”, Robbie and Peter had reshingled the roof and made it look like there never even should have been a chimney there!

Covering the hole in the roof

While the roof was being attended to, Larry tossed lumber and plaster and stuff out of the window.

And as for the very, very long ladder that was used to reach the former chimney?  Well, that was on loan to us from Carol. That’s what people are like here in Bear River. If they figure you need something that they have, they ask you if you can please borrow it from them. In fact, before we had a chance to thank Carol, she was phoning and thanking us for returning the ladder the following day. 

Carol's ladder reached to the top!

In the meantime, the chimney inside the house had to be dismantled all the way down to the basement.

Some of the bricks will be reused around the new woodstove

The combination of crumbling brick dust and plaster dust is so filthy and dirty and gritty and fine and a nightmare. Those men are heroes for persisting and for being so upbeat and positive about it.

It’s all been a very rapid-fire kind of head-spinning experience for me and I’ve only been an observer. I made the following video at the beginning of last week and it’s already out of date! Still, it will give you an idea of the state of the house. It’s rather shocking in a way. But like Greatgrandmother Emma used to say, “You can’t make an omelet without cracking some eggs.”

I figure that it must be all uphill from here. Well that’s what the guys keep telling me. Next they will be framing in a bathroom, putting up new beams in the basement, rewiring, plumbing, insulation, and building a new chimney. Oh, and I forgot the drywalling, mudding and painting. Piece of cake really when you have such willing accomplices.

My favorite uncovered wallpaper so far

Have a dust-free day!

Men in Trees

As if it wasn’t enough that Jay came over and cut down a huge maple, this morning we needed some fast trimming up on an ancient cherry tree so the dumpster could land. Our tree-planting friend Jon came over in a flash with his hand saw to do his magic.

Jon trims the Cherry tree

As you will see in the next posting, there is a lot of plaster that needs to be hauled away. Plus ‘we’ (that would be Larry and Pete) removed a couple of walls that need to get scrapped. As well, there is other debris like 20 year old furnaces and 40 year old stuffed chairs. The good stuff is gone and there is only so much that can be dragged out to the road. We’ve rented a dumpster. We’ll sort the garbage, to make it easier for the recyling at the other end.

After the dumpster excitement, the plumbers arrived to cap our kitchen and bathroom pipes in the basement…all except for a tiny bathroom toilet and sink in the front hall. It will be a month or two before a kitchen sink and bathroom will go into new locations. I’m thinking of hauling home dirty dishes every day and bringing back clean ones.

The dumpster truck needs a 20' tall clearance for the hydraulic part.

It is VERY EXCITING that all this work is happening. During all the action the weather changed from sunny to cloudy outside. Then it rained, then it hailed, then the sun reappeared. Sort of like renovation weather!

Planting Leaves and Old Carpets

The day before the world changed and Barack Obama was elected (yeah!!!)  we were very busy at the new place and it felt like progress was being made.

We started out the day with a talk about heating systems and Larry was kind enough to put our options onto stickies so that we could look at the different scenarios and really cost it out. Any major appliance that is coming from the US has gone up in price due to our lower-valued dollar. So the heatpump for instance, has jumped in price by 15% almost overnight. It’s a good news/bad news thing. It raises the price so high that it eliminates the choice. Fewer choices make decisions a lot easier!

Decisions, decisions

At the house while we waited for some insulation / drywall / wood delivery, we took a look at the ploughed garden. There seems to be a natural ‘water feature’ happening!! I have to laugh here because ‘water feature’ was always on my list of ‘must-have’ for a property, but eventually it slid to the bottom of the list because it seemed so rare. Bear River is notorious for underground springs everywhere that feed into the tidal river. It looks like there are a few running through the field where our huge well sits.

This means that I will have to rethink the garden location and perhaps I can even dig out a small pond without affecting the well level. I wouldn’t have been able to see the water pattern without the ploughing so it’s a good thing. I am wondering what that part of the field looks like in spring…..maybe it’s totally flooded? We shall see. We are actually perched on the edge of quite a sharp drop down to the road so I am amazed that the land holds water. I guess that accounts for the huge willow tree in the yard. The land is dry around the tree.

Touring the wetlands with Larry

Finally the delivery came. 

Larry and the fellow from Robichaud’s carefully unloaded the supplies that will turn the garage into a warm, insulated studio.

The first of many deliveries?

I worked outside raking leaves and really appreciating how many there are. For once in my life there will be more than enough! For years and years I used to troll my Toronto neighbourhood for bagged leaves that neighbours had put out for recyling. I would bring back a dozen of them to mulch my garden with or to use with the compost that I kept feeding all winter long. Now that we have so many trees and leaves, there is no need to go beyond our yard!

Lovely, fragrant fall leaves

This year I am taking a leaf out of Jane’s garden tricks. I am trying to create some flower beds where I won’t have to first remove the sod. She says that if you make a pile of leaves and then place old, discarded carpet over it, the worms will work on the leaves and the sod underneath all winter long.

The wind played games with my raking!

By planting time there will be soil under those rugs. It sounds like a great idea, doesn’t it?

A good way to reuse discarded rugs!

We’ve had some beautiful, warm days and it was so good to be working outside. I saw over a dozen robins working their way across the yard. As a city kid, I never realized that robins hung out in groups at all. It’s so great to experience so many ‘ah-ha’ moments when it comes to the natural world.

While I was reveling in nature and smelling the crisp, brown oak and maple leaves, Larry was inside the house on a plaster removal mission. You can see in this short video just how easy and addictive it is to remove plaster.

When he was finished, there was a fine coat of plaster dust everywhere. Larry has a good mask, but it didn’t stop the dust from getting into every fibre of his clothing and body. I thought the pattern of the lathing slats was really interesting in terms of texture.

Interesting geometric lines happening.

 

We drove home that night feeling pretty accomplished. First though, I had to stop the car beside someone’s recyling bags. Although we don’t need leaves anymore, now that we are using a combination wood/oil furnace, we are having a shortage of paper to start the wood fire.

Hmmmm. I wonder if leaves would work?

All the Oak and Maple leaves are on the ground waiting...

The Best Laid Plans…

Yesterday Larry and I got serious. We went to the studio and spent the afternoon mapping out the renovation steps we need to take in the next 5 months. It was pretty exciting because I got to use some of the workplan/ project management skills that I picked up in my last job in Ontario. As well, after looking at 4 different kinds of heating systems, and dragging 3 different heating specialists through the house, we had finally narrowed it down to the one that would be most efficient and cheap to run.

It felt so good to finally be making headway and I proudly looked at my charts and our cost projections and time lines. Life felt orderly.

Larry's Hallowe'en costume imitates life.

I should have had my antenna up when I got back from mailing a letter today. There were several trucks and cars parked in our long driveway. The owners were some Bear River male friends who currently happen to be involved with renovating their own homes. When I stepped inside I could hear their muffled voices coming through the floor. They were all in the basement with Larry and it sounded like a wonderful social event. Now I know this will sound sexist and perhaps it is, but there is something about men and their fascination with basements that I will never understand. Most men, upon visiting us here will make a b-line to the basement and most women will skip it entirely. I really believe this behaviour is hardwired genetics from the ancient days when people lived in caves and men had to ensure the group was safe.

Layout for a new kitchen

Anyway, something magical happened down there because when they all came upstairs, Larry’s life and my life had changed. Larry seemed really excited and said

“I’m so glad you’re here Flora because I want you to hear what John has been telling me”.

From his tone, I thought I was going to hear about some government assistance with home heating. I smiled while John described his very thorough research and calculations about the heat pump we were about to order which proved that it would not have the BTU’s necessary to heat an old house like ours, because our house is limited in how insulated it can ever be in comparison to a new build. Then he said that our plan to blow in insulation from the outside would also miss lots of unseen areas and leave cold spots. While all of John’s assessments were well explained and logical and correct, I felt a wave of anxiety in the pit of my stomache. Partly it was due to the thought that we almost squandered our hard-earned money on an expensive, ineffective heat system. Partly it was due to the thought of

“Can we ever actually figure out what the correct thing to do is?” and “How long are we going to be working on this house?”

While I was having an anxiety attack, Larry was feeling euphoric, like a weight was being lifted from him. It’s funny how the identical stimulus can effect 2 people so differently. John’s shock and awe treatment wasn’t over though. Next he told us that we could blow the insulation in from inside the house, we only had to remove one layer of plaster from the lathing first.

This wallpaper took HOURS to remove.

Now this thing about removing plaster from the walls has been a huge source of discussion with every guy who has gone through the house. It’s right up there with going down into the basement. 90% say “remove the old plaster as it will eventually crack and fall down anyway”. We have resisted this so much, that it has become a power struggle. But by the time John mentioned it, we were so mesmerized by his talk, that we found him a knife-cutter and said “show us how that would work.” With hardly any pressure, he cut a rectangle and then tapped it with a hammer and away it crumbled like an oatmeal cookie.

The first plaster cut

After John left, I felt like selling the house and finding an easier project and Larry felt empowered. Why? Because the message that he got out of the experience was:

• the real experts out there are friends who have learned shortcuts and techniques along the way through their own experiences
• it’s possible to do a lot of the work yourself
• when BTU’s and R-values are better understood, it’s way easier to decide on the heating
• it’s possible to have a woodstove without an expensive, brick chimney
• basement friends are there to help you (well, I’m just guessing that one)

So now we are researching cook stoves, wood stoves, direct vented oil furnaces, and dumpsters for old plaster. And I’m trying to look at the bright side. When I revisited the list that Larry and I made yesterday on the blackboard in our studio, there was nothing much on the list that has changed.

The only real difference is that now I have to add a new section to the beginning of the list. Something like:

• remove all plaster from the inside of all exterior walls 
• remove any damaged plaster from all interior walls or ceilings
• rent a humungous dumpster and fill it to the top at least once
• demolish the unusable chimney by tearing down the bricks and throwing them into the chimney as it comes down
• design a cute garden feature to use up the discarded bricks
• permanently lock the door to the basement

Outside is still way more fun