Wow I really need to update this blog.

Well lots has happened over the last almost 2 years. We finished our stamped concrete. There is over 800 sq feet of it in total on 2 levels. It surrounds the koi pond that I am still working on. I hand dug it. It is 2100 gallons and home to aprox 25 Koi and 10 gold fish. It is really relaxing to sit by and watch them troll along. I need to finish the waterfall and can hopefully make that happen in the spring. Most recently I gutted the ceiling on the dining room and kitchen side of the house. This was done to repair a failed joist. It had sagged by aprox 1.25 inches which quite honestly is alot worse then it sounds. It felt like you were walking up and down a hill on the second floor. After reinforcing it I installed a beam and boxed that in with drywall. While having the second floor open I replumbed some stuff and redid some electrical. We added a light over the sink. Dropped from two lights to one in the kitchen. I also added electrical for a island mount exhaust fan. Doing that also required a 6 inch exhaust duct to the outdoors. The new plumbing was so that we could return the claw foot tub to the bathroom after a 4 year absence. We refinished the outside of the tub with the wall colour ourselves and hired the out the refinishing of the inside to a pro. There was a couple of hicups with that but all in all it turned out alright in the end. We bought new fixtures and a drain for the tub. We also got the last peice of granite needed to finish the kitchen. When all that was done I repainted the house in the same colour but with Benny Moore paint this time. It is so much nicer then the behr crap we painted with before. All in all everything turned out well. Here are a couple of photos.

A better picture of the stairs......

I have wanted to post a picture of our stairs that better show the LEDs that I installed. Now that we have a tripod for our camera I can better take pictures. Especially low light shots that require a very steady hand. You get a better idea of the light these little guys can put off. These stay on all time as they require only about .05 cents to operate in a year. They give off enough light that one does not require any other lights on to negotiate the stairs at night.

The deck is here.

A great big thanks to our good friend John and his family for making this happen. Thank you John for all your hard word and thank you Caroline and the boys for sharing him with us for a couple of days to get her done. It truely looks lovely and come spring will be well used and enjoyed. Getting this far took a lot of hard work. Mostly backbreaking ground moving and prep work. Then in about 3 short hours the cement is poured and the stamping done. It really is all about the prep work!!! Now we have a lovely peice of rock to enjoy that will require little to maintain. Doesn't need to be mowed nor raked. Is very easy to clean with a leaf blower and only requires being sealed once a year. The overall visual effect of the stamping is truely stunning. We have already gotten a load of dirt into fill up the sides. It makes it look much better now then it does in these pictures. We are ready to get bulbs to plant in the next couple of weeks. Here are some pictures.

Wow has it really been over a year??

My bad. It has been a busy year. Much progress has been made on the house. We have focused on replacement of our rotted sill at the back of the house. This has initiated other outdoor projects some direct and some indirectly relating to the sill replacement. Firstly we needed to lower the grade along the rear of the house. Since the backyard sloped from the back of the lot down towards the back of the back of the house and where it met the house it was above the height of the sill/foundation. We needed to remedy the grade on the lot. We removed the earth from the back 15 feet of the house and moved it further back on the lot making it all one level consistent with the level of the shed and driveway. We installed a retaining wall to establish the difference in grade. We then set up a form to do our concrete pour. We will be putting down a stamped concrete pad as our primary deck. Likely in the spring I will dig our pond. We also have some plans for doing some flower beds around the deck. I have run some wiring for electrical and speakers. We also have setup for drains in the concrete pad. That is with the intent to carry water away from the foundation. We have had an exceptionally wet summer. This has allowed water to get into the basement. Hopefully with the pad in place this will stop. I have also started ripping out the basement back to the field stone walls. I am unsure if I will refinish the basement or not but till I am convinced that the water issues are resolved nothing will be done down there. Anyway for now here are a couple new shots.

Keeping busy

Lots of progress has been made since the last post. We have also had a rather major set back too. I'll start with the bad. In an effort to prepare for our wedding which we planned to have in our backyard we removed the old concrete pad at the back of the house. It had been there for many many years. It also appeared that it had been done in more then one pour. It was over a foot thick in a few places. It was in very rotten condition and was going to be partially replaced with new stamped concrete in two different levels. I had to pay to have someone break up and remove the pad because of how thick it was. When it was pulled up the sill was revealed. The concrete had been poured right up against the sill without any protection from moisture. As a result the wood became a easy target for carpenter ants to take up residence. They did a fair bit of damage over a very long time. We will likely need to replace the sill piece meal or as a whole. I have called in a specialist and am waiting for him to get by to tell me the scope of the damage. This is delaying any outside landscaping unfortunately. On the upside this forced us to change plans and have the wedding indoors. That in itself was kind of a blessing as yesterday it was rainy and we would have gotten soaked. Also it put pressure on me to get more work done inside the house. As a result the stairs are now %95 done. As is the half wall behind the stove and cabinets in the kitchen. The whole upstairs now has finished floors everywhere. The painting is done through out the house now too. For now I will put up a couple of pics of the stairs. I installed the balusters treads and LEDs. I still need to get a piece of wood turned for the knewl post to raise its height to the hand rails new height. The LEDs are able to be dimmed which is a nice feature. We love the look of the wrought iron and wood mixed together. Without further ado here are the pics.

Back at it.

It has been a while I know but lots has gone on. Jenna and I got engaged, I started another new job, and some work has been done around the house.

Jenna and I will be getting married over the summer in a very private ceremony. We will have a party later on in August. Also I started a new job. The other one was not one I was too pleased with however I wasn't yet actively seeking a new one as I was trying to give this one a chance. Jenna's uncle let me know that his company was looking for someone and put me in contact with the right people. I was called in for an interview and hired on the spot which was pretty gratifying. I am back to working Monday through Friday days doing work I like. I now work for a company that does insurance repair work on houses and properties that are damaged and require repair through insurance. It is right up my alley. From fence repair to rebuilding houses destroyed by fire this job constantly is different day in and day out which I love. I also come home from it and have enough energy to work on the house vs. the old one where I was a write when I got home. That said there has been progress on the house.

Yesterday I made a table for our living room. It was made out of an old window shutter that came from the old segrams building in Kitchener. The wood is said to be over 100 years old. I made the sides from a board that was of the same age or older. The legs to were turned from wood of that nature. All the wood is douglas fir. All has nice tight grain. I have only put varnish on it. It took on a nice honey glow. The top which sat out exposed to the elements for oh so many years still retains many of the distress marks even after a moderate sanding. This is the effect I wanted. The picture is not the best but it will give you an idea of what it looks like.


This next picture shows some of the baseboard we installed in our dinning room. This is the wood we had custom milled to match the mouldings in the remainder of the main floor. we also installed it in the hallway at the top of our stairs. There is no finish on it yet. I am letting it sit to yellow up some naturally before sealing it in. Here is that picture.












We also have made some plans for the outside landscaping. I'm sure they won't be to cheap but we hope it is not to bad since we are doing the work ourselves. I have a friend coming with stamps to do stamped concrete in the next couple of months. Can't wait for him to show us how to do it. We also can't wait for the finished results. We are almost set to do the tile work at the back of our stove and kitchen cabinets. I secured the two cabinets directly to the floor at the right height proportionate to the stove and installed the kick plates. They look so much more finished now. As well I did some custom work on the baseboard in that section of the kitchen. It really is the little things that do make a difference. I started the patch on the wall behind the fridge that I have needed to do for over a year now. Out of sight out of mind. I framed the window in the peek of the bedroom in for the most part. I need to do a little more to get the stained glass seated right but it looks great. We bought a armoire for the bedroom as well to solve the issue of where to hang our clothes. It is from 1920 or so and made from birdseye maple. It looks great with our Heywood Wakefield furniture. I'm sure there are many other little things we have done that I have yet to mention but those are the ones that currently come to mind. Stay tuned for further progress.

Haven't posted in quite a while. Not really much has been done however. With my new crazy work hours and the bitterly cold temperatures my work has ground to a halt. The few days that have been nice didn't coexist with my sleep schedule. Nights will do that to you. Anyways with the weather destined to improve in the next few weeks I become impatient to get back to working on the house. Many of the things I want/need to do revolve around the use of saws and other power tools. Ones at this point I want only to use outside to limit the dust in our otherwise mostly completed house. Stay tuned as I'm sure post will be made soon.