Painted the baby's room

Brooke painted Charlotte's room today. It's a soft pink, very pretty! It is called "Prelude To Pink" and can be seen here (colour #8699)

The paint is still wet, but he thinks it might only need that one coat. The doors (closet and room) need to be repainted eventually as they're kind of beat up, and I imagine he'll do the baseboards at the same time.

Fireplace progress

The fireplace insert was removed on Tuesday. It really is a small job! They were only here for maybe an hour. They took it out, filled in the original fireplace with insulation, and nailed some 2x4s vertically into the hole to frame it, and attached drywall. The drywaller came the next day and did the first coat of mud, and the second coat on Thursday. He came today (Saturday) to do the third coat, but the second was still wet so he's coming back tomorrow or Monday.

It's kind of funny; it looks like someone whited-out the fireplace and mantle.

I want to replace the baseboard heaters in the living room & dining room now. The new ones in the TV room are so much better, it's amazing. You turn on the thermostat, and the room is warm in about 5 minutes, and too hot in under 10. In comparison, the old ones take an hour or so (or at least it feels that way) to make the room comfortable. I just hope we don't need to do anything beyond changing the baseboard heaters (and probably the thermostats) themselves... hopefully the wiring is good as it is. (Hey Dad, wanna come do a project for me?) :)

Let's start a new project

Just for fun, we're going to start a few new projects. The reno still isn't complete (99% and holding) and we will obviously not be hiring the same people... but our first small(er) project is to remove our fireplace. We've already had the propane company come and take away their tank that we were renting for $80 per year, so we're saving money already.

We've had three quotes, two were around $400 and the third was $1160. I want to wait for one more place (the ones who did our flood restoration; we were extremely happy with their work) and should hear from them on Monday. Of the quotes, one of the cheaper ones and the expensive one were over the phone, the other cheaper one was in person so I think I'd go with him since he really knew what he was quoting on, not just guestimating based on what I said on the phone!

Update on the smell

Joel came by last Friday (Oct 10) and installed a/another P-trap in the bathtub. After they had run water last time, the smell came back within a day or two, which shouldn't have happened if there was a trap and that was the problem. So far so good and it's been just about a week. If it does come back, the other thought is it could be related to the vent.

Plumbing issue might be minor

Sean and Joel came by today and checked out the sewage smell. When I had tried sniffing the various drains in the bathroom I didn't feel that it was any stronger in one than another, but Sean said it was stronger coming out of the bathtub. Since the tub and shower are separate and I haven't used the tub in about a month, he figures it was just that the water in the P-trap evaporated. He checked to make sure it wasn't leaking (via the fan hole in the ceiling of the bathroom downstairs) and it sounds like he's going to call a plumber anyway to ask, but he sounded pretty confident that's all it is.

As for painting, he's refunding us half of what we paid for painting -- so $400. Brooke will do what he can, and we'll hire a professional painter for the tricky parts. We wanted Sean to pay for half of the professional painter, and he didn't want to pay anything, so we compromised. After Sean had left, Brooke said something to the effect of, "Well, you know you've had a successful negotiation when no one is totally happy."

Weeks = Days

So after my last post, we decided not to send that email at all (but it felt good typing it) and instead wait and see what happened. Brooke went out the next day and bought some paint, as we had decided to just finish painting ourselves, and hire someone to do the tricky bits. (We had previously got 4 painters to give us quotes and they ranged from $2,500 to $10,000 for the whole job, so we chose the $4,000 quoter.)

After he got back with the paint, we heard from Sean who said that it was actually only going to be one week. So that was a definite improvement, but we decided to go ahead with painting anyway.

Joel came by on Saturday briefly and filled the holes in the grout in the shower that we had pointed out a few days before (and hadn't used that shower since then) and then off they went out of town.

Today, Friday, Joel called around lunch time to say he was back and could he come by in the afternoon. He spent a little under two hours here finishing up some odds and ends, like making the gate outside swing the other (more logical) way, and putting in the countertop above the drawers in the bathroom. I didn't mention that we'd done our own painting, but just asked him to do "everything but painting".

We'll be meeting with them on Monday so we can re-address this issue then.

Another thing that has come up is we've noticed a bad (sewage-like) smell in the bathroom a couple of times. Cross your fingers we don't have a major plumbing problem. *Sigh*

Please excuse me while I scream

Yesterday, Joel arrived around 9:00 as he has been doing faithfully for about three weeks. I left the house at 11:00 and returned around 2:00 and he wasn't there, but he often goes for lunch pretty late so expected he'd return. Nope, and he didn't show up at all today until about 5:00. He spoke to Brooke (I was making supper) and after he left I asked Brooke what he'd said.

He and Sean apparently are going out of town for several weeks, and they'll get back to us when the new window comes and finish up then.

I was so mad when I heard that I was ready to file a claim in small claims court on the spot. Instead we've drafted an email to Sean and haven't sent it yet.

Stay tuned...

Blinds

We have blinds now, and I love them. Which is nice, because it turns out that blinds are expensive! We went with cellular blinds downstairs and pleated upstairs.

The blinds on big window downstairs can be opened from top or bottom, or both.


The tall skinny window upstairs is the same way (top down bottom up) but all the other blinds are just normal.

The glass blocks now have grout. In fact they have more grout than shown in this picture which was taken yesterday, but I didn't take a picture of it today. The black things at the top are shims holding the piece of wood tight up to the trim while the glue dries (I assume). Today those are gone and it's all filled in with the grout.

A week of paint

Joel was here pretty much all week painting inside. It's looking better, but I don't think he's done much around the wall/ceiling line, which is where it is most noticeably bad. I think it's improving, though.

We had a meeting with Sean on Tuesday and he said that everything should be done in, get this, six more weeks. But that's including the time it takes to order a new window for the bedroom. The building inspector decided that the window that opens at the top currently needs to open at the bottom, so a whole new window has to be ordered. It makes me mad because it was built exactly how it was shown on the plans that they approved -- why didn't they catch it then?

The blinds people called this week and our blinds have arrived and will be installed on Monday.

Work was done this week

Since I posted on Tuesday, the rest of the glass blocks were installed (although the wall isn't done yet; there is still grout to be added, and a 1-cm gap at the top to be filled), the towel rack was hung, and the drawers were remade. They are now in a box, essentially, so the drawers themselves miss the edge of the door trim.

The flooring guy came and fixed our lino (the joins were poorly done) but I forgot to remind him to put a piece on the lid for the floor safe. He was also supposed to trim the join in the carpet but didn't have his special carpet-trimming scissors so is going to come back anyway. The lino looks great now, anyway!

Outside, we now have a gate. It's kind of interesting how they did it - we asked for the gate to be able to open 180 degrees so we could swing it right back out of the way the way we did with our original gate - we never closed it. He went us one better and made it so the entire fence opens. So there's the gate part, which is attached to the house by a hinge, and then all of the rest is attached to the big fence with another hinge. The hinge on the fence is the wrong way around though, as it swings out into the driveway (and would hit the car) rather than swinging flat against the other fence, so I will ask him to switch that around next week.

They started fixing the interior paint today, too. First coat of the entry hall was done. It needs some sanding though as it's pretty rough looking yet.

Finally a start on the glass blocks

So, no work was done on Thursday or Friday last week, and none yesterday as it was a long weekend, but today a few small items got picked off the to-do list (like hanging the toilet paper holder; seriously, how hard was it that they put it off for this long?) but they also started on the glass blocks. The plan is to finish them tomorrow, and our bedroom will finally have all its walls in place! The glue is pretty smelly, though, so I'm taking the baby to sleep in the guest room tonight.

Joel also tried to put up the drawers in the bathroom, but it turns out he forgot to account for the trim around the door. They couldn't open so he took them away again to adjust them. In this picture you can see the drawer slider things on the wall. (And our toilet paper holder!)

Shelves & sanding

Yep, that's right. We now have (some) shelves, and they've started sanding. Yesterday Joel built the shelves in the storage room (one small one left to be built) while Sean worked on making the shoe rack open better. It now has a better wheel that probably won't scuff the linoleum the way the original was... but now the hinges squeak.

Today, Joel and Alex sanded trim for most of the day, and Sean put in an hour or two also. Not quite the "all day" hours we were hoping for, but we shall see. I'm keeping track of the hours they spend here to see how it shakes out at the end of the week.

Here's a picture of the cabinets Brooke hung in the laundry room. They fit as perfectly as if they were custom-made. There's actually one more piece that we haven't hung anywhere yet -- the type of double-door cabinets you generally have above a stove.

Showdown

Sean ended up not coming over in person last night, but he and Brooke had a long talk. Brooke gave him a piece of his mind too. At the end of it all, it sounds like we've ended up at a good place - Sean knows why we're getting annoyed and it sounds like he wants to make it right. The two of them (Sean and Joel) should both be here on Monday, and we're hoping/expecting they'll both be here all day every day for as long as it takes to get everything done.

Great deal on cupboards

I had heard of a place called ReStore (run by Habitat for Humanity) that has recycled building supplies, so I phoned them last week to ask if they have any cupboards, and what kind of prices they are. He told me that they did in fact have a bunch, and they were in the range of $20 each. Wow.

So I went in on my own and saw one set that I thought looked decent, and so we went in together on the weekend. There was another set that was better so we bought all four pieces even though we only really needed three of them, but we figured we could probably find a use for the extra one. If not, we'll donate it back. We paid $80 for the set, and it's in excellent condition and is now gracing our laundry room. I don't have a photo of them all up, but here's one of Brooke hanging the first one.

In other news, once again, no one showed up on Monday. I phoned both Joel (finally discovered I had his phone number) and Sean to ask what was going on, and the response I got was essentially Sean was planning to wait for the replacement glass blocks to arrive and then finish everything then. Nice, huh? "Yeah, I'm sure they don't mind waiting two weeks (or more!) for the glass blocks to arrive, because that has absolutely NOTHING to do with painting the outside of the house or fixing the shower, or any of the other 34 things on the to-do list." *SIGH*

So I "suggested" (repeatedly, to make sure the message got through) that really they should do everything else now. However, in the meantime, Sean has taken the roof off the place he's working on next, and so he can't come back to us for a few days. Sounds like it'll just be Joel on Thursday and Friday again. However, we're meeting with Sean Wednesday evening to go over the to-do list. I hope to get a time estimate out of him for the line items... "this will take two hours" kind of thing, so that he sees he can't just give us Joel for a day or two and expect to make any progress on finishing up.

On the painting front, we've now had three painters come in, and the fourth and final is coming tomorrow morning. Two of the quotes are for $2500 and $7000 to fix the paint job, and the third was just here today so will be sending it in the mail shortly. She suggested a compromise and have Sean fix one room and if he does a good job then he can fix all the others, but if he can't then we'll have given him a chance to make it right and failed and maybe he'll be more reasonable about paying someone else to fix it. So we might suggest that at tomorrow's meeting, depending on how it goes. (I'm tempted to leave everything painting-related until everything else is totally finished so if he does walk away, that's all that's left.)

A little more

Yesterday, Friday, both Sean and Joel were here for part of the day. They were planning to install the glass blocks, except for one small problem... they ordered corners but got ends. So they can't actually do that until they get the right parts.

They did fix the laundry room pocket door, filled most of the holes in the grout in the bathroom (I still found one more), and put up the shower heads (although one of them leaks out the side) as well as put up a shower curtain rail because the inspector said we have to have one (we don't want one) -- so I told Sean to make it a tension one so we can take it down after it passes inspection.

A bit of progress

Joel was here on his own yesterday and got through a few items on the to-do list. No one came today though. I'm expecting both him and Sean tomorrow.

So, we now have bolt caps on the toilet, and the window sill is finished in the bathroom; the downstairs hall closet door closes, the laundry room door opens (although noisily and with a bit of resistance, it's still not hung quite right) and the drain in that room has a cover on it so we won't lose things down it so easily. The TV room has a door knob.

The electrician was here yesterday and the day before as well, so now the control panel for the in-floor heating works, there's a timer for the fan in the bathroom, the doorbell works, and the light switch that was located in the middle of the hall is now at the end where it belongs. This last, though, means the drywaller has to come back, of course, but he had some other patches to make anyway, such as repairing the two holes in the wall in the laundry room where the cable and phone wires were left hanging out, and several outlets have too-big holes cut around them that the face plates can't cover, etc.

We had a lady come out to our place a couple of days ago from the blinds company and measured the windows and helped me pick out the blinds, and I gave them the go-ahead to order them today. I wanted to have a couple of days to change my mind, and didn't change it. So those should arrive in their store in 3-4 weeks, and then they'll schedule the installation date.

I think we're okay again

Sounds like things are going to be okay after all, whew! Except for the fact that they're out of town this week so only Joel will be here on Thursday and both him and Sean on Friday. So not too much will be happening this week! The electrician is coming tomorrow, though, to finish off his stuff.

Everything's gone sideways suddenly

Not much has been done this week. They painted on Tuesday outside, and at the end of the day told me they'd be back Wednesday to finish. No one came by at all on Wednesday.

On Thursday morning, Joel measured the closet in the bathroom in order to build the drawers, said they'd be making them at Sean's place, and that they'd return in the afternoon. I gave Joel a list of everything that still needs doing -- about 40 items -- and included a statement that we're not happy with the paint job so far and want to split the cost of hiring a professional painter to come in and fix it. Sometime later that day they dropped off the fence gate, but didn't install it and didn't come in or announce themselves or anything. On Thursday afternoon, Sean sent an email (which I didn't see until today) stating in part that he just thinks the paint job needs touch ups and that he "will not participate in hiring another painting company." In one part of the letter he says they will get to the to-do list "once the balance of our materials arrive" and in another part that he wants to "resolve these issues before the balance of the work is completed."

Judging by the fact that they didn't show up today, either, I'm a little worried. We're at 95% complete here, and he's already been paid (slightly) more than the original quote. We started a letter in response to his but haven't sent it yet. I'm getting the impression that his nose is out of joint over the paint issue, which is kind of silly.

Yesterday, before receiving his note, I called three paint companies to come in and give me a quote on how much it'll be to fix it. One came over right away and quoted $2500 on the spot, the second came today and will deliver a quote this weekend but says to expect it to be in the $5000 range. The third company hasn't phoned me back yet. The two that came in were both pretty much on the same page - it can't be fixed with touchups, it needs to be fully repainted to look good.

We're home!

We are finally home. The reno isn't totally complete, but it's close enough. Our first night back was Sunday, August 3.

We spent most of Saturday afternoon making a big dent in the pile o' stuff in the dining/living room, including moving the dining room table into the new "TV" room. Since we haven't ordered blinds yet, we don't want to put the TV in there just yet. It looks quite nice with the table -- coordinates very well with the laminate. There is also one arm chair in there at the moment, though I think we'll probably move that back out eventually.

On Sunday we realized we couldn't do too much more with the pile until we got some shelves in our storage areas, so we went to Rona and bought some pre-fab, and also had a 4x8 foot board cut into a bunch (eight?) more shelves. On Monday (holiday) we got the hardware to hang them up with, but we haven't actually done that yet. Brooke spent a lot of time setting up the closet organizer in the walk-through closet, so that's now ready to be loaded up with all our clothes.

Since I'm going to be here now while they're working, I'm going to ask them to concentrate on the upstairs now and make sure it's 100% done so I don't have to worry about them wanting to come in there to work if we've had a rough night and want to sleep in.

P.S. Today they are finally putting the second coat of paint on the outside of the house.

Getting there!

We now have a sink in the bathroom, complete with taps and everything. Apparently as of today the bedroom is all painted, except for the walls still needing drywall touchups, so there's just that and the glass blocks to go into that room. I think the TV room is completely done. The outside of the house is going to be painted tomorrow.

The lino people still have to come back -- they didn't put lino under the stairs as Brooke requested, and one patch is poorly done.

I told the builder yesterday that we're moving in this weekend, and several days ago Brooke gave him a prioritized list of what's left to be done (high/medium/low) and it sounds like all of the high priority things are done. We'll probably go over tonight to check.

Carpet at last!

WE HAVE CARPET! Oh, sorry, I got a little excited there.

The end is in sight. There is a lot of finishing that still needs to be done, lots of paint retouching and a few screwups need fixing. (Like the light switch in the middle of the hall, instead of at the end of the hall.) But almost all of the major stuff is in place now. The only major thing missing is the bathroom sink.

We have a lovely railing in the stairwell. (Needs to be painted still.) And the door to the TV room is really pretty.

Carpet explanation

Brooke phoned the carpet supplier today to find out what's going on and it turns out the carpet was held up at customs, so it is legitimately taking much longer than usual to arrive. It arrived in Victoria this morning and they're going to try to free up someone today to install it, and if not today then tomorrow for sure.

No idea why the builder hasn't used this week to finish the painting, though.

Lack of progress

Brooke went by the house tonight and he said it didn't look like anything has been done except installing the toilet. Certainly no carpet has been installed, and that was supposed to have been done Monday & Tuesday. (Well, actually last Friday. And before that, July 15. And before that, July 9th.) Getting a bit frustrated here...

Getting closer

Quite a lot has been done in the past week. Not quite ENOUGH as it was supposed to be move-inable on Friday (with carpet installed) but that didn't happen so we're still not back in the house. However, the end is in sight, I think.

The laminate and linoleum flooring are installed downstairs, mostly. There is one section of the laminate that looks odd (right in the doorway to the TV room) so they're going to fix the joints on that, and the lino didn't get put into the storage space under the stairs. For some reason we have a heck of a lot of left over lino, so apparently they thought they were going to be replacing some of the existing stuff, and then didn't, so that's quite a waste of lino and money. The baseboards are in place, but the quarter-round edging isn't, so there are gaps between the flooring and the baseboard at the moment. The paint needs retouching now, too, because they spray-painted the baseboards after installing them, and over-sprayed onto the walls, which had previously been finished. Hopefully in fixing the walls, they don't over-spray back onto the baseboards, or we'll be back and forth forever!

Upstairs, the tile in the bathroom is done and it looks great. The toilet has been purchased but not yet installed, so it's still in the box in the bathroom. We haven't fully selected a cabinet yet -- we know what sort of thing we want, but haven't found/ordered it. What we want is pretty basic -- just standard cabinets with a either a drawer above cupboards, or a stack of drawers on one side (or in the middle) and a cupboard on the other (or both) side(s). We already know which counter top we want.

In the bedroom, the underlay for the carpet is in place, and it sounds like the carpet guy is coming tomorrow (Tuesday) to install the actual carpet.

Most of the light fixtures have been installed. I had offered to tell the builder which ones belonged where back when we first bought them, but he wasn't ready to know that yet... so when he was ready, he didn't ask and a couple got put into the wrong spots. We were there tonight and put up some post-it notes to say which ones need changing.

We did notice a couple of odd things tonight. One is that the light switch for the hallway downstairs is in the middle of the hall, rather than at the end where you'd normally find it! There's another switch at the far end of the hall, so it's not like it needed to be there so you could get to it from either end. We're going to ask for that to be moved, but it might be a bit of a job since the wall is already completed. *Sigh* The other thing that Brooke just noticed is there is a bit of wall that was supposed to be removed (it even shows it as being removed on the original plans) but it's still there. I hadn't noticed it before, but now that he's pointed it out, I agree it does look rather odd. We're going to check the photos we took earlier to see if there's a beam there, which might be why it was left in.

Bedroom paint colour

I meant to upload a picture of the bedroom's paint colour yesterday, not the living room.... so here it is now. You can see the lighter colour in the hallway and the darker colour in the bedroom itself.

I was talking to Sean today and he said the plumber installed the bathtub taps oddly. The on and off positions were reversed, so it was turned on when they are in the position shown in the previous post. So he's going to have the plumber come back and fix that!

First coat of paint and bathroom progress

We've now been locked out of the house TWICE. We went by on Friday on our way to a friend's house and couldn't get in so just left it as the builder had said they'd be working through the weekend. We went over today and no one was there, so Brooke broke in again, this time using a convenient ladder and an upstairs window. We've asked for a key to the other lock so it doesn't happen again!

The entire new section has all been primed and the first coat of paint applied. The shower drain pan is in place (cement, not tiled yet) and the taps are on the tub. Jody will be tiling the bathroom floor tomorrow -- it's a good thing we were still there when he came by today as the message that we wanted 8x10 tiles on the wall didn't sink in to the builder's brain and he was going to have Jody do the entire bathroom in 12x12 tiles (which were just supposed to be on the floor).

And mud!

Tonight when we went to the house we found that the drywall has all been taped & mudded. Not yet sanded though, as it's still wet, so I guess they just did that today. We know it's wet because Brooke ended up with it all over him... the workers locked us out of the house and he had to go in a window. Good to know how easy it is to get in that window, though, so we'll have to be sure to keep it locked once we're living there again!

More drywall!

There is now drywall upstairs and down!

Drywall!

We stopped by our house briefly yesterday (Saturday) evening and almost the entire upstairs had been drywalled! Not taped, but it was up! There was one section, right beside where the glass blocks are going that wasn't done, so not sure if that was an oversight or what, but that's good progress. I imagine that they were going to do the downstairs today.

I've misplaced the cable for the camera so can't upload any pictures for this post or the previous one. As soon as it turns up I'll update these posts. Update: found the cable! :)

Fenced in

We now have a new fence -- unfortunately it's a bit longer than we wanted it. It was supposed to stop at the edge of the paving stones, but it goes right past that to the edge of the garden. (We wanted to leave a walkway between our house and the neighbour's house.)

There is still no drywall up. It was supposed to have been started on Wednesday according to the builder on Tuesday. We went to the house last night (Friday) and there had been no work done since we were there last, which I think was on Tuesday. Brooke phoned him today and was assured that they were going to be working through the weekend to put up the drywall. We shall see!

Insulation

We went by the house on Saturday and took a bunch more pictures, so here they are.

Here's our new patio area along the side of the house. There is a wooden frame on the ground behind the rhodo which I believe is going to be placed around it to contain the dirt.

The insulation is in place now and it looks really good. Here's a picture of Brooke checking out how it is sealed around the window in the TV room.

The hole in the wall of the landing is framed off, but they apparently forgot to remove the heater. I think that'll be fixed, but if it ends up staying the way it is now, I think it'll look okay.

And just in case I didn't include a photo of it previously, here's my awesome new bathtub. There is a hole in the outside wall above it where the windows haven't yet been installed.

Tele-update

I just had a long conversation with the builder about the state of the renovations (he's a bit of a talker, but then so am I!) although I haven't been there today. He said the framing and plumbing inspections have been passed, and the guy doing the insulation was in there today (and will be tomorrow as well) and the inspection for that is scheduled for Monday. The drywall will go up after that -- originally (early last week) he had said the drywall would have been done late last week, so we've slipped by about a week. Once the drywall is in place, he figures there will be about seven 10-hour days worth of work to do all the painting and other finishing, so that sounds like two work weeks to me. I think he said the outside pavers were put down today (or will be done tomorrow?) and he's picking up the fence tomorrow, so that might get installed tomorrow as well.

When we were there yesterday we saw that the little seat between shower and tub has been framed, which led us to change our minds on where the lip of the shower should be. Originally we were going to have it go straight across, continuing the wall of the shower, but now we're going to angle it from the corner of the wall to the corner of the seat. The bathtub is in place, and the plumbing is all roughed in for the shower and tub. I imagine the toilet and sink are roughed in as well if the plumbing inspection has already been done, but I didn't notice that specifically.

The beam that goes through the middle of the skylight in the closet won't be able to be removed, but Brooke mentioned that we could put opaque glass at the level of the ceiling to just let the light through, and not actually see the beam.

Siding

When we were at the house yesterday, the siding was nearly complete. We haven't gone over there yet today but I wouldn't be too surprised if it's done now. The electrician had just finished installing the in-floor heating in the bathroom when we were there... and luckily Brooke noticed that he'd continued it right through under what is supposed to be the shower, so some of it had to come out again.

Our snazzy new bathtub has been delivered, I'm very excited about that! Too bad I won't be able to use it for quite a long time yet! It's just sitting in the TV room at the moment. We still need to pick out our faucets and such. Oh yeah, and then have it all installed and tiled.

We were originally planning to tile the shower and around the tub and then have lino on the floor, but the flooring guy said that he's seen that done, and it doesn't work so well, so recommended we tile the entire floor, so that's what we're doing. (And I know he really meant it because we would have bought the lino from him, but are buying the tile from someone else so he talked us out of a portion of our purchase from him!)

Photos!

First of all, here is our new daughter, Charlotte!


Here's the front of the house as of a couple of days ago. When we were there yesterday, the siding was starting to go on, so it's already changing.


This is what our roof looks like when viewed from above -- so it's not really V-shaped as it looks from the ground!


Brooke took this picture of me checking out the window in the new bedroom, shot through the wall of the walk-though closet.


When they first put in the skylight, there was a ceiling beam going right through the middle of it.

Then they fixed it.

I'm alive!

In case you were wondering :) Charlotte was born on May 28th and this is only the second time I've found any time to be on the computer since then.

The reno is coming along nicely! The windows are in, the roof is finished, the two skylights are in (there's a story about one of the skylights which I'll share later!) and the paper that goes under the siding is on. The siding is in the driveway, painted & covered with a tarp to dry, and will be attached soon. Inside, the interior walls have been framed, and the electrician has put in the wiring for the lights, outlets, etc. We're still waiting for the plumber -- the original plumber backed out, and I'm not sure if Sean has a new one lined up or if he's still looking. As soon as the plumber has plumbed the bathroom and moved the water tank, I believe the insulation and drywall can go up, so we're getting there!

I've got to go feed the baby, will try to get on again soon to post some photos!

Nearly done framing

I was in and out of the hospital today twice expecting to be induced (but got sent home both times due to them being too busy) so didn't pay too much attention to what all happened with the reno today!

However, the entry hall now is mostly framed -- just the piece at the back where it joins to the existing roofline is missing, and they removed the sliding glass doors from the original bedroom. I took pictures, but they're on the old camera as the new camera is in the hospital bag, so it'll be a few days before I add the photos.

I didn't see the guys this afternoon so don't know for sure whether the inspector did come or not. I was thinking the plumber and electrician were due to start today, but I think it's just that they're due "early this week" sometime.

In between trips to the hospital, Brooke and I worked on finalizing our tile selection for the shower (down to two choices now, and I'd be happy with either one!) and took our carpet and lino samples in to the place we bought them from to be matched, so we're making progress there as well. We still have to pick out the laminate flooring for the TV room, and whatever linoleum we ultimately use in the bathroom -- but that'll come after the final tile selection so they coordinate!

Who's out there?

I've had a couple of people tell me now that they're following along on this blog, but I'm curious who all is -- so leave me a comment on this post and let me know you're reading!

Just beneath the line, you'll see a place where it says "0 comments" (or however many) - just click on that, and then say Hi -- select "Name/URL" to fill in your name, and you can just leave the URL field blank.

Thanks for reading! :)

We have a roof!

Today they put plywood on the entire roof, and also (mostly) framed the wall where the window seat is. It's still missing a few pieces of plywood on the outside. There's still a bit of tie-in to be done in the roofline at the back, along with the final wall around the vaulted entrance, but Joel said they will finish that up on Monday and then it will be inspected on Monday afternoon. Then the plumber and electrician will be starting on the inside, and these guys will start to put on the siding.

So I guess our big task for the weekend is deciding on the paint colour! We haven't decided for sure whether we'll stick with the same dark green colour, or repaint the entire house while we're at it. Last year or so when we repainted the front door we had settled on a particular shade of blue/grey. I wonder if I can still find the paint chip!

More roof beams

The rest of the roof beams are in place now, and the roofer is scheduled for Wednesday of next week to actually put on the shingles and such, so sometime between now and then I imagine that these guys will be putting on plywood. Right now it's still open to the sky.

Sean pulled out the nail keeping the bedroom door shut and I had a wander around inside. Our bedroom is going to be huge! I didn't realize originally (until he told me yesterday) that the roof slope that's visible on the outside is also on the inside -- he could add a flat dropped roof, but it might be cooler to keep it vaulted. Of course that'll make lighting the bedroom a bit more interesting.

Sean expects to begin demolition of the laundry room on Monday, but will be keeping the laundry machines connected (as much as possible) so we should still be able to wash our clothes here! He said the plumber told him moving the water tank will be easy, he'll just need to put it on a bit of a pedestal so no need to rip up the (new) concrete again like Sean was thinking he'd have to do. So that's good!

***

I'm updating this at the end of the night. They forgot (or intentionally didn't) re-nail the door shut so Brooke and I went into the bedroom and wandered around some more tonight. The sliding glass door is still in place so we just locked that when we were done, so the house is secure! We're starting to envision how we're going to finish it -- we'll probably have some kind of wall lights as well as ceiling lights since it is such a large space. I'm thinking one on the front wall and one on the wall on the right (as you look at it from the street) centered between the two windows. Not sure on ceiling lights -- Brooke thinks maybe something along the lowest point, perhaps track lighting pointed some one way and some the other.