Mom and Dad's moving crew

The moving crew that moved my parents out of their home and into a nomad life.
this post was taken at Drumbo pub.

My new office.
before and almost after. 

Things done:
- foam wall paper border removed
- carpet and underlay removed, staples and nails removed
- walls painted, trim painted
- furniture removed
- blinds removed



Still needs:
- another coat of paint on the window sill
- base board quarter round trim
- new light fixture.
- ceiling painted
- patio door replaced
- frost window and install blackout shade

Details:
walls: Benjamin Moore Aura paint simply white in semi-glass (for durability). The expensive paint and glossiness covered deep burgundy in two coats!

trim: Benjamin Moore simple white in gloss

floor: refinished original wood, with minwax oil based (smelly) stain, 4 coats

jam making update

jam updates"

before we went to italy, I made rhubarb ginger jam with some leftovers from ginger beer making and a donation of rhubarb.

It was good, but very very ginergy. oops.

last week I made Strawberry hot pepper jam, it was eh. not especially hot, but just deeper in flavour.

And strawberry lavender jam, from here.

using lavender from my Guelph garden.
loved it. loved it. loved it.

Painting on Wellington St

Andrew's painting in the 3rd bedroom, the former blood red nursery,  that will become my office.

We're transforming it from "blood red baby dungeon",
into "fresh clean sewing room/office".

 I tested the following three Benjamin Moore colours:
- oxford white, which was too blue
- cloud white, which was too creamy
- simply white, which was a goldilocks colour
i.e. not too blue, not too yellow, juuust right


So far we've:
1. removed foam "a,b,c," wallpaper border
2. scraped glue off wall
 3. tsp'd and rinsed the walls
 4. painted one coat of Benjamin Moore Aura "Simply White" over the red.
The sales lady assured me that two coats, no primer, would cover red, so I'm anxious to see.

one coat

Now I'm waiting for paint to dry, but it's hot out here & its quick dry paint, so in about another 1.5 hour it should be good to go. :)





Update 1 hour later: coat two has gone on.

Update 3 hours later: two is enough. time to rest, painting trim tomorrow!

Vacation pictures: part 1

Italian Vacation pictures: part 1

Finished Harris St. Bathroom!

On March 17th, St Patrick's Day, the bathroom was officially launched as done. Here is a video of the year process in the house, including jam making from the grape vine, work on Andrew's house, the landscaping, kitchen and bathroom work. The house evolves

Almost there??!?!

It's now into March and lots of things have been happening.

Today I finished painting 2.5 doors, hallway, 4 frames. the rest will wait until after the furniture moves.

On Sunday, my Dad enjoyed the sun and hauled away all the renovation garbage. This involved an old toilet, metal scraps and scraps of wood. Replacing the baseboards was easier than putting back cracked old boards. Also, the old upstairs toilet was put in the basement bathroom, so now all the toilets in the house are low flow. yay for energy savings!!

I also finished sewing and mounting the shower curtain. This fabric was the first thing I bought for the bathroom renovation and the only thing that looks exactly how I pictured it in my head.


It has been a month at the "almost done" stage. Where mirrors need to be bought and mounted, toilet paper racks mounted, towel racks ordered, etc.  I'm sure people who have previously renovated couple tell me that this stage of being bored with all the details and wanting things to be done will end, but it feel like it is dragging on forever.

Two more window frames to paint before friday.......

bathroom posting

There has been much progress going on and the bathroom is almost done.

here are today's featured improvements:

there is a setting inside the shower control that's anti-scauld. that is now set up. you now can turn it on so that "full blast" is "hot", but not "scalding".

These are the original taps for the bath tub. the drain and overflow drain cover are new.

The taps where not set correctly, so dad had to grind them out and reset the insides so that they worked and did not leak.  a big, tedious job.





The outside of the tub, you can see the new drain and overflow pipes and the lines that feed the tub.

This is the vanity and the new sink.

This is the new low flow toilet. I bought it at the Home Depot/ City of Guelph instant rebate day. Hello $25 toilet.

The medicine cabinet above it is the flaren model from ikea. It has anti-slam hinges.

 in the corner where the old closet was, there is a new cabinet. it is the ikea akurum kitchen high cabinet. with one small door and one large door.

the hardware clips on with pressure expanders, so there are no screws in the door.

it's bolted to the wall in the back and caulked so that water can't get behind it. The side of it though will need painting with melamine paint, to ensure the water stays out.

 so Dad went to a plumbing place called Stan's in Guelph and the person who bought this unit returned it, so it was on sale for $60. SOLD!
I'm unhappy with the way it interfaces with the shower head, so i'm on the search for a longer bar, but it will do for now.

I better get sewing up the curtain!

The vanity came with a teeny, tiny cut out for the plumbing and I thought the entire shelving system was going to come out, but dad plumbed it with only a small circular cut out! yay!



there are only small things left to do:
- make and hang shower curtain (done Mar 16th)
- install double towel bar (done April-ish)
- re-insulate and replace the ceiling below it in the basement (May 2012)
- paint the frames and install doors (done Mar 16th)
- install the blind (done Mar 16th)

The launch is March 17th!

 and then it's done

Getting there

I got an email today from IDoneThis.com

Three months today the new tub was lifted into my place. Today I got reconnected.

Bathroom details

alot of this renovation is fixing details that the previous owners may have overlooked.
Today dad replaced the 1" thick door fame with a 3" door frame to match the rest in the house. He used fancy wood that's grooved at the back to avoid warping.

So now, when you look from the kitchen towards the bathroom, the door frames match.

I like that.

now the lights and the frames match throughout the kitchen and bathroom.

I really like that.

Also, the floor still looks good. yay.

 The window is now being framed in.
The old window had no frame, so the sill was only 1.5" wide. This is too narrow for a plant to sit on the window sill.

This is wrong, all windows should have the ability to have a plant on it. And all winds in the house have sills and frames, so I want them to be consistent.

Well, almost all the windows, the rest are on the list to be fixed, eventually.

The new bathroom window has a frame and a sill that is 3" wide.

The wood is also grooved to prevent warping and the front of the sill is straight and the back of the frame that touches the window,  is cut to accommodate the way the window was installed (crookedly).

There is also a detail where the tile is cut around the frame.
Like the frame has always been there. Nice.

The blank spot below the window is for the wood bottom of the sill.

Dad needs a planer to make that part and it is at his house, not at mine. It seems that the right equipment makes a good difference.

 

 This is the top line of tile. These "bullnose" tiles have a glazed white ceramic edge at the top.

So the edge will be glazed and finished, instead of just the side of a tile.

Trust me, it's fancy.

Why is Dad wiping his glasses?

It's because under that pail are the connections for the tub. While bending over to measure the wall and set the tile lines, the water line switch was opened and Dad  got hit in the face with water, which shot up to the ceiling.

That empty pail is now over the connections, so they won't get switched on.

Glad we used up the small container of tile glue first!

Luckily Dad had good humour about it!

After the fuss, we started the third wall.

The final wall is in the other post.

You might think that all I do is work, but I do have fun as well.

 Both Dad and I made wine this year. We both got wine from Magnotta. I got Festa red and Festa white to make. Today was the red taste test. Dad put his in a week after mine.

Dad mixed Festa red with granache juice.

His wine was smoother than mine and slightly darker in colour, but both were good.

Cheers!

The bathroom - in panorama & a question

The bathroom now needs another decision.

This panorama tries to show you the next question to be answered.

The back wall is tiled floor to ceiling.
The wall beside the window is tiled floor to ceiling.
The opposite wall is not, but should it be?
Should the two walls be symmetrical?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the bath tub would be closer to the back wall and the wall closest to the window, there will be a 20" gap between the other side wall and the tub. There will also be a free standing cupboard in front of the wall as well.
So will that part of the wall need to be tiled to the ceiling?

Floor is done, and the walls begin

This is what the floor looks like after grouting. I'm not sure if the grout is supposed to dry the lighter grey or the darker grey. In any case, it will be sealed in two weeks.
Which do you like?


I've practiced sealing grout on the kitchen, so I now know what to do when I seal the floor.

I like how they echo the direction of the wood in the rest of the house. They are also being used as baseboards in the bathroom.






Now that the floor is done, the wall tiling is beginning.

 
 That rag in the wall is covering the showerhead, so dad doesn't bonk his head on it.

Dad's been in this room with the glue too long I think. (Mom and I went to a Tafelmusick in Toronto and took the day off.

you can see the grey tile as a baseboard behind the cardboard at the bottom of the wall.








I am making a face, as dad is taking a picture instead of looking at how we're going to deal with the wall/ceiling gap. I am a stickler for tiling details.

Also, i'm standing on a chair.

Yes my toque is on inside out. That is so the hat is not wrecked when dad drops tile glue on my head.

This happened twice. eeeew.

The back wall of the bathroom is now tiled floor to ceiling.

The light is waterproof and recessed.


















The next wall.

Notice the way the staggering around the corner is done so that there is no "sliver" of tile and the pattern from the back wall is maintained.

Nice shot of the baseboards. 

The tiling will go up to the window, where a larger frame, and a wider sil is going in. What use is window ledge if it's too narrow to put a plant on it ?!?

bathroom floor is progressing

Bathroom floor update:

after the electrical inspector from ESA left, the radiant heat wires were covered with cement.
Here's what it looks like in the hallway.

Friday 5pm

It takes 24 hours to dry.

 Here it is 24 hours later, Sat. around 5pm.
Not dry.

 So a bright painting light was applied throughout Sat. night and throughout Sunday and Sunday night to use the heat to dry the floor.

Sunday's plan to begin tiling the bathroom floor was disbanded.

 But in the area that was mostly dry, we put down the testing strips for the pattern.

diagonal vs. length-wise.

It was determined that running it perpendicular to the hallway would make it seem narrow and the diagonal was too modern for the house (remember 1919) . also the length-wise layout matches the wood layout in the rest of the house.

Do you agree?








So what happened on Monday - the room had tiling lines places, and the cement dried. A new trowel was also purchased.


Tuesday the tiling finally began.
 

 

Emergency Bathroom Memories!

With all the work on the Harris street bathroom, I thought I dig up my pictures from the emergency renovation that I made to the bathroom in my Wellington Street house five years ago.

I been living in the house for a little over 5 years, and had allowed myself some willful blindness about the potential problems in the bathroom.  I had assumed that the framing in the shower was made of wood and was coated in naval paint.

It was actually pre-painted MDF, and had been soaking up water all those years.  A quick fix for the previous owners who had flipped the house to me, which turned into a nightmare for me when I finally investigated why the window framing was swelling...

Water seeped in below...

Water got in behind the tiles...

And below that horrible frame.

So I pulled down the tiles, and inspected the damage.  Then fell over:  I'm quite allergic to black mold as it turns out :(  After a quick recovery the "dry"wall, vapor barrier and other mold infested materials were removed and they were replaced with stone board and other non-permeable materials

Out with the old...

In with the new.

I managed to dig up subway tile that matched the original tile locally, and I was even able to get a nice bull nosed tile to finish a waterproof frame for the bathroom window.  Overall, not bad for an emergency repair.

Subway tile going in...

Window framed in ...

Complete!

Despite the rushed nature of the repair, it's held up well over the years.  I wish I had had the time to tear everything out and start again, but it has lasted well enough that a full replacement has been pushed out well past the kitchen renovations.

The Wires that bind you

Today the radiant heat flooring system, Part 1 was installed.

I'm still in a naturopath assigned detox diet, so I'm cranky. This did not bode well.




In any case, Dad and I installed the sucker.

Here are the steps:
1a. vacuumed the floor
1b. sponged down the floor



 

2. learn how to use a multi-meter to check resistance. Spend 15 min. on youtube watching a video.



3. install the lead from the wire to the thermostat holding area in the wall

 

4. measure 2" out from the walls and 1" out for objects (and potential future objects). measure 6" out from the toilet. I used orange highlighter for giggles.

doesn't that shadow on the wall look like a nose?







5. begin layout out the wire at 4" increments. have a rule close by to double check your spacing.




6. realize there are some weird spots and try laying it out a different way.




7. run out of cable too early and remove 1/2 of it, to the doorway and start again.

8. finish it and take a break. a well earned break.

9. have someone who owns a meg-ohm-meter test the cable to make sure it's still intact.

note: the spacers that are not screwed down are placed there for stabilizing the wires tomorrow. We ran out of screws and were tired of crouching and balancing over wires.

Friday Feb 3 Update: dad screwed down the rest of the wire holders today. The installation passed ESA inspection and it was covered with mortar. Now it sits for 24hours and hardens and dries.

ETA: It is now Sunday night and the floor was put in Friday afternoon, it is still not dry, so the heat is cranked and a heat lamp has been applied.