Saturday, March 20, 2010

Reno Day 3 and 4

Well, I survived the week. Here it is Saturday morning and I’m still here to write about it.
Not a lot happened on day 3. Okay that’s a lie…the permit is ready to be picked up. I didn’t know I could be so elated about paying over $300. for a piece of paper.
The tear down went swifter than Josh had planned (money saver #1) and so it was only a half day of work. The work included accidentally putting a crowbar through a kitchen window. Surprisingly, it was the only window in the house I hadn’t replaced with the new energy efficient ones. Reason was, back then the window guy couldn’t measure it properly because tile was installed on the ledge of the window and at that time I hadn’t picked a contractor yet. I just told him to leave it and I’d get him back to install the new version when the house was completed. So, it was time to call him. He came out and measured and it’s now on order. No biggie.
I decided to do some laundry tonight but what I didn’t count on was deciding to wash my concrete floor in the kitchen. As the washing machine went through the cycle of emptying of water it spurted onto my kitchen floor. With the dismantling of walls the pipe had been disturbed and had formed a leak. I had a small heart attack when I saw the lake on the floor. I quickly mopped it up with some rags but I knew the washing machine was going to fill up again with water to do the rinse cycle. I held the pipe with a rag while it did it’s second drain and withheld the water from spilling onto the floor once again. I chuckled to myself, threw all the rags outside when done and new Josh could fix the pipe in the morning. I’m still grateful I have a washing machine.
Day 4
The sub floor is now done upstairs or should I put it the way Josh did when I came home yesterday… “Cori, we have your dance floor finished”. It looked a whole lot better up there with a consistent floor. I joked that I thought to save money I should just stain it and not put flooring on top.
The framing is now done in the exercise room and most of Heather’s room and all the room walls have been laid out. Just looking at it I thought my bedroom looked a little small so I gabbed the tape measure and measured it out and it’s 12’.2 X 13’.3. I know that’s not huge but it’s a bit bigger than my last bedroom which was plenty for me, plus I’ll have a 3’ X 8’ closet and a large master bathroom.
I went to the door store yesterday morning and have decided on my exterior doors. I’m going with fiberglass flat finish doors. I’ll get two single pane window doors, one for the dining room out to the patio and one for my master bedroom out to my deck. Then I’ll get a plain flush fiberglass front door and have my retro window lights installed in it.
Josh measured my kitchen for me (my piece of mind) to make sure my IKEA kitchen and my appliances fit in. They do, although, I’m wavering on appliances again. I’ll go to the appliance store today or tomorrow to make a decision. I’m questioning the Fisher and Paykel appliance servicing in Canada.

When I got home from work yesterday my neighbors came over to see what all the hullabaloo was about. It was funny to see their reaction. These are the same neighbors who helped me take down the hideous playhouse that was in my backyard a few days after I moved in. I had let them know back then that I was going to gut the place. Obviously Brad the hubby hadn’t taken those words to heart. Brad’s exact words when he walked in today…. “You weren’t kidding about gutting were you?” I smiled. “Nope”.
In my mind it was always the plan. He just looked around the house and said… “I love post and beam construction.” As he said that I thought, so do I!! They had been in the house before and made a comment that this poor house needed some TLC. Brad asked if everything was sound, as in, were any surprises found. I told him not a one. Everything is solid as a rock except for the minimal rot by the bathtub. They asked how I was doing living through it and I said I was fine. I told Angela I would be without “facilities” for a few days possibly next week so she gave me a key to her house so I could use the bathroom. I really appreciated that.
I’m heading out of town on Monday for two days. It’s going to be hard to leave the reno. My mind is totally intertwined with the fundamentals of constructing this house. Heather will have to hold down the fort.
We are both doing great with regards to living through this (and my cats are even getting used to it). We both know it’s worth the end result and so far, with no help from negative statements from well meaning people who try to scare you (or warn you) with their “oh, just wait, it’ll get worse” comments. We are excited and are looking at this as a process. Yes, there will be times that will be uncomfortable but I can’t help it. I love the challenge of it. I get off on the flurry of decision making and discovering the stages of the progress.
Bring it on!!...Okay, that is, with regard to living through discomfort bring it on…not having to fork out more money. That I don’t want to bring on!!! (I’m nervously knocking on wood as I type that)

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