Weeks 22-25

Three more weeks, we’ve had sun, we’ve had snow and we’ve had an ice storm!

The weather picked up and we had a lovely day outside clearing up and trying out our new super long ladder. We had a “3^rd Rock from the sun” moment when we all headed up onto the laundry room roof to enjoy the warmth and the view…

 

We also tried to empty the water from off the tarp covering the pool. Every time we got it draining, we had more rain and it filled back up again. We are hopefully getting an old sump pump from the plumber to clear it off.

The ice storm didn’t bring as much devastation as we expected based on neighbourhood trees, luckily we only lost a few branches and some flattened sumac. The power went out for 6 hours, which meant no heat and no running water, maybe a backup generator would have been a good idea after all.

 

 We plodded along doing subfloors for a while and we finally got them all replaced. Next was the framing… We put up a wall, started putting up another, noticed a mistake (we didn’t have all the crowns facing the right way) and took them back down again! Fixed the problem (or is it an opportunity?) then put the wall back up. After much measuring, sawing, screwing, checking for plumb, and overall building, the walls are up, hooray! We had to take the ceiling fan down (no great hardship since it wasn’t pretty) because it was right in the way of where the wall needed to go so now we have no lights in our work area.

 

The plumber came over to install some outside taps after we discovered that the tap outside had been cut off in the basement so we had no water running to it! Another mystery as to why the previous owners did what they did. I’ve stopped trying to understand the logic behind the things we find. We also discovered that the well which was decommissioned a month ago is still hooked up to the pump and bringing water to the house! I had asked the plumber to remove the old pipes and luckily he checked them before cutting them off. We would have had an indoor pool if he’d gone ahead and taken the pipes out. Now I need to contact the well company and find out exactly what we paid all that money for?

We’ve put the snow blower to bed and started up the ride on lawnmower, bring on spring!

After much deliberation we also decided to replace rather than fix all the eavestroughs and downspouts (that’s gutters and drainpipes to all my English speaking friends) so now tha rain will hopefully be diverted away from the basement a little better.

We had the building inspector visit and he’s approved the framing, he must have been here three minutes tops! I guess it must look good for him to not check anything, their next visit will be final inspection J  We can begin hanging drywall next…

Weeks 19-21

You can tell I’ve slowed down, three weeks in one entry!

The plumber and electrician have done their thing and we are ready to build bathrooms.  We also have a whole new water treatment system and water to our fridge. The doorway for the upstairs washroom was expanded and framed, we even reused the old door and hung it J The old doorway has been framed up ready to drywall and hang a wall sink.

This will be a sink...

Old door in a new frame.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We have started clearing out in the floor joists again, filling the gap with insulation and then laying the subfloor. We needed to make sure that there wasn’t going to be any more plumbing or electrical work before gluing and screwing the plywood down.

In Callum’s bedroom to be, we had to support under the floorboards to the adjoining room and now that is done, the subfloor can be laid in there too.

We took the spare door to James’ old bedroom in Ayr (a French door) and reused it for the laundry room. The old door didn’t have a latch to stay shut from the kitchen side but had catches which held it shut from the laundry room side. That meant the dog could get in there but then trap herself in! Now we have more light coming into the kitchen and a door which stays shut J

 

Another reused door, now the sun can come into the kitchen J
 

 

On the wildlife front, more tracks which I can only assume are coyote, two red squirrels (Nutkin -on the left and Tufty-on the right)who visit daily to clear out the bird feeder and a mouse in the kitchen! Did I mention Steve? He’s our resident male red cardinal, and Mrs Steve(the female red cardinal) who we see every day too. There is an abundance of birds out there now, they kept their presence hidden when we first moved and we were worried there were no animals here at all. We also had a whiff of skunk one day, they can live elsewhere thank you very much!  A slightly disturbing discovery, we found a raccoon skull in the barn A: How did it get there? and  B: Where is the rest of it?