home is where the couch is

our first house. her big plans. his hard work.

1:35 PM

Ch-ch-ch-changes ♪

Posted by Terri |

Oh, changes. Change of mind. Man, it can cost you.

We thought we would be okay with the bathroom against the inside wall. But we're not. The sink would end up being about 10 inches wide (I'm un-exaggerating, it would be more like 20 inches) and it would just look ugly. So the plumber needed to be called back to make some changes. That means the electrical needs a few tweaks and the insulation needs to wait until the plumbing is done before it can be completed. It's amazing how everything relies on everything else to be done before it can all come together. No, actually it's not so amazing, it's just a pain.

What we planned previously

The changes we want done.

I'm getting a little tired of renovating. Probably because it's at a bit of a standstill and I'm not seeing any progress. I'm sure though that when the few little things happen that need to be done it will start moving along.

I still need to find a place that rents soda blasters. I can't find anywhere in Peterborough that does and there's one person on kijiji that offers it but he doesn't answer his phone or emails. Gah. That really needs to be done as soon as possible.

Tonight the electrician is coming, we'll see how much can get done. Our contractor is here for one day this week to do some things...I sure wish I had Samantha the witch's talent to just wiggle my nose and get things done.

Oh well. There's not much I can do right now to help out. I think I'm just going to go out for a skate...

12:00 PM

Kind of at a standstill

Posted by Terri |

Okay, maybe not quite at a standstill, but not as intense as it had been. Our contractor is doing another job besides ours and is there till next week. In the meantime, I'm having to get things done so that the wall can go back up, well, not actually work, that's the man's job, but coordinating things so that things get done. The project coordinator job.

The rot of the sill plate was all picked out by the man and the contractor came and put in new sill plates.

Rotten sill
New sill

The contractor also put 2x6's on the older joist sections of the addition. They're about an inch and a half lower than the newer section, so they needed to be sistered on to match the other side.

2x6's sistered onto the older joists so that the floors can be even with the newer joists
After they left, we discovered one little problem. The edge of the new section has an end joist that is a smidge higher. So we may have wonky floors. Unless the contractor can think of something to fix that. I really don't want wonky floors.
Can you see the 5th one in is a little higher??
We are having the plumber come in and put in some plumbing. A little more expensive than the man thought, but I knew it was going to be up there in price. They have to drill into our stone foundation and that's not fun and easy. I bought a Schluter (I love saying that word, schluter, schluter, schluter, reminds me of the muppets) Kerdi shower kit. I thought about getting a centre drain, but when I went to measure, noticed that the drain would be right over a joist, so I ordered an off set drain. Not too sure what the difference will be, what's better, what feels better when you take a shower, but we had no other option.

What the plumber will be roughing in.
The plumber also highly recommended that we not put the plumbing in the outside wall, even though there is 2 walls there. I get it. It would have let me have more space for the bathroom - a larger sink - but leaks are why this addition reno is happening, so it's probably for the best that the plumbing will be in the inside wall.

We also got an electrician in to give us some pricing and he was very reasonable. Really. We plan on supplying everything and putting the boxes where we want them and we're getting him to plan out the circuit and connect everything.  We're trying to save money wherever we can. Especially since that bottom sill rot was so unexpected.

I've taken down almost all the siding. That was kind of too bad. Although I hated it, it's going to cost money to put up new stuff. Still undecided as to what to put up, the man wants vertical siding and I know I just want something that requires no maintenance.

Siding on...
Siding off.

Once we get the electrical and plumbing in (which should be by the end of the weekend) we need to finish the insulation in the floor, the floor can go in and then the walls can be done. Yay!! No more living open to the elements! No more moths in my living room!! It will look like we're making progress. I mean, a wall. That's progress.

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