circa 1887

Wow I really need to update this blog.

2010-12-20T18:09:00.000-08:00

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......

2009-01-30T15:44:00.000-08:00

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.

2008-10-17T16:10:00.001-07:00

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??

2008-09-05T18:14:00.000-07:00

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

2007-07-15T12:30:00.001-07:00

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.

2007-05-20T08:58:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-03-18T21:32:00.000-07:00

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.

In other news

2007-01-21T21:47:00.000-08:00

We have received some of the last building materials we will need for some time. I went and ordered the last (hopefully) of the hardwood flooring for upstairs. As it turned out we were very unimpressed with the stuff we had gotten. Don't get me wrong it looks nice now that it is down but....It was laced with open face knots through out. The sample at the store had 2 little (maybe the size of a dime) knots in it. Well the stuff we got had tonnes of knots. Big small broken open faced. You name it. Faced with the need to get the floor down I sucked it up and installed it as it was. Kept telling myself it is an old home this is well suited to it. When down it looked pretty nice overall. Just hard on the bare feet if you were to catch it the wrong way. I still plan to fill the holes with a syringe of verathane when the warmer weather comes so that it will cure faster and better. Now I ordered less floor then needed on purpose because the last thing we wanted was to be stuck with extra that we couldn't return due to it being a custom order. So I needed another 80 sq feet. Fast forward to last weekend. I go and pick it up as it has come in. We get it home and open a box. There is not a knot to be found. The boards look like the ones on our main floor very much like the sample. We still have 2 boxes of the old stuff which is a good thing for 2 reasons. I now have proof of what we received aside from the flooring that is already laid. As well I'm going to need to mix the old with the new to get a more rustic look to finish the upstairs. Now in all of this I have made a few calls to the building center we bought the flooring from to complain. On 2 occasions I was told a date that I would be hearing back from someone. Both times nothing. Well finally after my third try now having the new flooring in hand to prove that the first round was the pits we got a call. I talked to the guy whom was very pleased at our patience and willingness to work with the stock. He told me he would call us back by the end of the day to give us some sort of compensation for our troubles. That was almost a week ago now. I called and left a message for him on Friday and still no word. I know anything could have happened like say a death in the family or something so we are trying to keep our cool. Will post more on this when I know more. The one advantage to all this though is the wood in the original batch had plenty of mixed species of maple including lots of birdseye pieces. We have many curly maple pieces on the main floor but few with birdseye.

In other wood news. We have gotten about 100 linear feet of the baseboard topper seen in the previous posts picture custom made. A guy at the local lumber yard made it for us at a reasonable rate. Took a little while as I gave it to him before Christmas. I must say it is very nice looking stock. We only need some 30 or so feet. I figured in case we need to repair or replace something in the future or choose to build off the back of the house that it would be good to have the extra stock. That way any other work will flow better with the house. I can't wait to install this stuff. My only problem is the old stuff takes on a nice honey hue when verathane is applied where the new is more blond in appearance. Hopefully it will darken up with time. It is in behind the couch in the picture below as well as the 4 boxes of flooring above it. I know the stairs look a little funny but we have cork under the treads to cut down on the noise for the time being as the treads are still not secured down yet.

Then there was fire

2007-01-21T21:10:00.000-08:00

Well it has been a while since our last post. Many reasons for this. Mainly I found a job and I'm still trying to get used to it. I am working 4 on 3 off 12 on 12 off 2 weeks days and 2 weeks nights. Needless to say when the weekend arrives I am slightly pooped. Being on nights right now and having gotten somewhat used to the hours I still can't run a sander or table saw while Jenna is sleeping so. I surf the net and watch tv. So here I am to share some more pics and progress. Most importantly the fireplace is in. There was a whole saga surrounding the installation and the really decent gas plumber that came to run the pipe and turn it on. He came on the morning like he said he would and was able to tell me what he needed on my end to be done. Namely popping the hole through to the great outdoors. Told me he should be back by 2. He called at 4:30 and was sorry for the delay but still planning to come. He got here just after 5 and we got the pipe run stove in place and vented and turned on. All that went relatively smoothly. Then he went to turn it on. Welll the flame was far less then desirable. Looked very pathetic to be sure. Little blue flames no more then 1.5" high. Not a think like either of us expected. So we started to trouble shoot this problem. It was pretty cool. Me with minimal knowledge in gas learning plenty as we went. Was it a blockage in the line? Was it getting enough pressure? Was it the valve? there were a few theories going around. He stayed till almost 9 o'clock. We pulled a good portion of the stove apart and reassembled in the quest to solve the problem. Finally I had to send him home. I felt for him, it was late and we were not getting anywhere. I told him I would call him if I got to the bottom of the problem. If I required any warranty work from a gas fitter I would do all in my power to get him to be able to do it as he had been so helpful already. We left it going all night and it kept the house very warm but the flame looked terrible.

Fast forward to the next day. I get up call my friend that I bought the stove from. I had already called him the night before to see if there was something we had missed. Seemed there wasn't. Told him we didn't fix it and asked if he could contact someone to help figure it out. He agreed and was going to call me back. So I turned off the stove in case I needed to take it apart again. Well after an hour or so of reading and re reading the manual I decided to pull the stove apart further. I dig till I find the orifice and the venturi. Look at the gapping and of the venturi and have an erueka moment. It wasn't spaced for a gas stove but rather for a propane one. Excitedly I call my friend back and ask if this could be the problem. He figures it is and wants to check something and will call me back right away. At this point I happen to look down at the bill and notice that the model number includes a "P" in it and not a "G". All the lights go on. My friend at this point is feeling really bad as it was a keying error on him part. DOH. So he scrambles to find out what can be done on such short notice. (this is the Friday before Christmas and everything will be shut down for a little while) Finds out the Napoleon sells a retrofit kit to convert the unit back to NG but I'd need to drive to get it. Wanting this little bad boy running for christmas I agree to take the tour and get the part. 5 hours of driving (should only have taken 2 or so) in horrible traffic and I get the parts that take all of 15 minutes to install. Right off the top it fires up and the flame starts to look amazing within a few minutes. They have come a long ways with fireplaces in the last several year. I called the plumber whom happened to return my call while at Napoleon and had me ask the million dollar question. Why was the unit not marked anywhere that it was LP and not NG. Napoleon had no good answer for this. That aside though this little unit is very impressive. Dollars to Donuts it is a great deal. It is small but packs a decent punch perfect for our little house. We can't leave it running on high as it gets far to warm. I also worked it out. If left on high all the time it would use 360 cubic meters of gas in a month. That is as much as we used in Our 2 highest gas usage months last winter. Unless it was minus 20 all month long we wouldn't need to run it at high all month so we already will save over using the furnace which I have now turned off. Anyway here is a picture of it installed and running. You can also see some of our now restored baseboards as well as window frames in the living room. They look great to us.

New fireplace.....

2006-12-19T16:04:00.000-08:00

WE have bought and picked up our new fireplace. It is a gas stove with the log set in it. We would have preferred to have bought an actual wood stove but were advised against it. Not because of all the red tape required to keep our homeowners insurance valid. Rather because the heat from a wood stove would be so hard to regulate that we would likely not be able to stay in the same room while it was burning. Even with a small unit. So we made the next logical choice. A small wood style gas stove. It is a 20000 BTU unit that outputs a variable 10000-15600 BTU. http://www.napoleonfireplaces.com/Webshare/gas/gas%20stoves/gds20.html

Chances are we will operate it on the lowest setting as our electric fireplace rated at 4500BTU already keeps the living room @ about 25 degrees Celsius if it is left on all the time. Sometimes it is warmer then that even. We have gotten in the habit of turning it off at night as it is. Anyways on Thursday we will likely be getting the gas hooked up. I intend to do the venting install myself but want to wait till the guy whom will be hooking up the gas is here so I can be sure I do it to code. Doing the vent should not take long. Nor should the gas line I hope. We really can't wait to see what this thing will do for heating and ambiance. Again we have still yet to turn on the furnace to heat our house.

On another note. We have found some cool places within a hours drive of here that are great for finding old building materials. The one place is where the stain glass window came from. These places specialize in going into homes or building destined for demolishing and salvaging as much as they can. From door knobs and electrical plates to whole gables are wrought iron gates. http://www.legacyvintage.com/
http://www.timelessmaterials.com/

These are the 2 places we have found so far. I'm sure there are more around and I hope to find them as I am looking for an old armourer that needs to be refinished so we can have a closet in our bedroom. There are some deals to be had at these places if you are willing to do some of the work to bring items back to their former glory. However you can also pay a premium to get items that are already refinished. Often it is a sizable premium.

Window roughed in

2006-12-12T12:29:00.000-08:00

Well I spent about an hour so far today getting the window roughed in for the bedroom. It looks very nice. I picked up the thermal pane of glass yesterday and fitted it today. It was a perfect fit. Measure twice cut once. Not bad only taken me 31 years to figure that one out. Anyway I need to make a frame for the inside so I can fit some insulation and drywall. Then I will need to come up with a plan to make a window frame. The bottom of the window should be easy. The rounded part on the other hand will be a challenge.

We went off and visited a friend yesterday and ordered a gas stove (wood stove style) from him. Hopefully it will be available for me to pick up later this week. After that we are hoping to have it installed quickly. We are still warming the house sufficiently with the electric fireplace however the few weeks in Janruary and February will likely be a different story. Plus we want the ambiance of the fireplace.

Anyway here are some pics of the window roughed in. It will really change the front of the house when the flashing is done.

Oh and yes I fixed the string of christmas lights that fell down in last weeks wind storm.

Window is here.

2006-12-07T09:51:00.000-08:00

Now granted I have had the window for about 2 weeks now. I really should have posted a picture of it but hey I'm lazy. I can admit it. We love the look of it and are waiting on the needed thermal pane of glass that will install directly behind it before it goes in. Further progress includes a functioning door on the bedroom to keep our former roomates (the felines) out at night and to keep the cool in. When we made the master bedroom we installed SAFE AND SOUND in all the wall cavities that weren't exterior walls. As a result one can now watch the television or do things in the rest of the house while the other is sleeping. Also it makes this room much cooler then the rest of the house when the door is kept closed. This makes it ideal for sleeping and we suspect ideal for a window airconditioner in the summer. I have yet to put a thermometer in there to get the true room temperture but I suspect it is keeping around 12 or so at night. Great for sleeping!!. Here we are on December 7th and we are still able to use the electric fireplace to keep the house warm and toasty. Our gas bill came in yesterday and their estimate for the prior month was way off. WAY WAY off. We are currently investigating tankless water heaters to further reduce said bills. Anyway that is about all there is to report. Heres the window.

2006-11-22T21:57:00.000-08:00

In taking on the task of renovating a house you learn many things. For instance.....if at all possible do your renovations prior to moving in. When we started this house we were able to do a tremendous amount while living off site. Perhaps near half of all the work we have managed in about a year was done in that first month. So in effect we have spent 11 months doing not even the second half of the house. The reason for this. Logistics!!. When you live in your work site everything needs to be planned and choreographed. In order to do A you first need to move B but to move B, X needs to be completed however X is contingient on Q being ordered. So things go much slower. With the overn ight temps getting ever colder I need to empty the items from the Atic so we can go through them. (All storage items till after the reno is done) We need to be sure nothing will freeze or damage from the cold. I can think of a couple things up there that will do just that. In order for me to empty the attic we first need a place to put things and sort them. Given most of the bedroom stuff is all over the house I need to get at least one bedroom ready. Many little things needed to come together to get the room together. So realizing time is running out for the weather I have put a push on getting the master bedroom ready at least to the point that we can use it again. As of Sunday I painted, laid hardwood, installed %75 of the baseboards we have been restoring, and framed two of the 3 windows. With Jenna's dads help we moved the 3 dressers back upstairs and all that stands between us sleeping upstairs is the moving of the bed and installing some blinds. I still need to frame the one window at the front of the house but need to go pickup a half moon window first. We have found an antique stained glass window that I am pretty sure I can make fit. I also installed a window over the door on the main floor. That allowed me to frame around the door finally as well as bring the baseboard over to the framing. All in all there has been a tonne of progress in the last week and a half. As a testament to all the hard work we have done insulating. We have yet to turn on our furnace. The house has been kept warm by our electric fireplace. Currently at 1am as I write this it is 24 celcius. Meanwhile it is minus 2 outside. Got to love it when a plan comes together.

been a while.

2006-11-07T13:16:00.000-08:00

I have been busy trying to get many things done on the house. We are trying to get the upstairs finished so we can move our bedroom out of the basement. This has been going slow despite my having some free time due to being laid off. I have been dragging my heels on getting the baseboards ready. I've done much brainstorming on ways to make the refinishing of them easier. Finally I came up with a plan that involved buying a thickness planer. This tool has proved invaluable. I really should have bought one months ago and saved many more hours of refinishing work. I was able to use it to refinish a good portion of our window frames in the living room. I am most pleased with how they have turned out. I have included a picture of them. Try not to mind the mess. Those are the boxes of our flooring for the upstairs. I cannot put that down till I finish with the baseboards however as I am refinishing them in the master bedroom. I also need to finish the laundry closet by tiling the floor to make it water tight. Given it is not in the basement I don't want there to be any unexpected surprises damaging the ceiling in our kitchen directly below. Another thing that is done or at least the majority of it is done is the bathroom. It looks quite nice in our opinion however almost anything would have been an improvement over the pre-existing one. I have include a couple of pictures of this as well. We are hoping to have a few more pictures to add soon....

Futher progress

2006-09-13T20:42:00.000-07:00

It has been a little slow latley as we are waiting on our mudder to finish. He is doing this between his other jobs on weekend and rainy days. (There have been suprisingly few rainy week days around here) Since it was raining today he was able to sand the Bathroom and the spare room. We Primered those this evening. We have also hung two solid pine doors and are awaiting the arival of our hardwood flooring. It would apear that there will be lots done soon as I am facing a layoff. It likely will be for a few months or more. This means I will likely have to find another job in the interm. However I do intend to get a fair bit of work done on the house while I am looking. Will take some pics soon and post them. We are very happy with the progress.

2006-08-23T18:39:00.000-07:00

Here is a view the same as below with all of the drywall up as well as some of the tape and mud in place. As you can see we are making some progress. We also have replaced the original floor with a new subfloor. Actually it is old plywood from my work. IT is 20 years old and 3/4 in. Dry as can be and was perfectly flat. The old pine boards that made up the original floor were in such bad shape. There were places that had holes clean through. Some time back someone covered these with sheet metal. It is nice not to have fears of falling through those places now.

2006-08-21T20:21:00.000-07:00

Upstairs progress

Though I don't yet have an up to date photo of the upstairs this is how our master bedroom was looking as of 3 weeks ago. We now have a new subfloor down. All pre wiring is done. Insulation and vapour barrier is up as well as the drywall. We are currently waiting on the person that is doing the mudding and taping. We have done all the rest but when it comes to the mudding and taping it is not a job that Jenna nor I have the finesse or patience to do. So we hired it out. We need to go and order the hardwood soon and have been working on stripping the baseboards that you can see in the picture. We have removed them which makes it much easier then stripping them in place. The colours that were considered fashionable over the years scare us. There must be 15 layers of paint at least. Anyway they are coming along and we hope to have enough to redo the upstairs minus the bathroom. We plan to us painted baseboards in there to acheive the look we are after. I will try to find my camera and get some more up to date pictures soon.

Mark

2006-07-27T07:13:00.000-07:00

Here is a great site with links to some amazing homes and restoration stories.

http://www.oldhouses.com/old-house-restoration-stories.htm

2006-07-26T13:55:00.000-07:00

Here is a couple of pictures to show what we have done to bring the beauty back to our stairs. We plan to add old with new for the finished result. The hand rail is all sanded at this point and is white oak. It will be stained very light in colour or perhaps left natural. Under the lip of each tread we will be installing 2 LED's, one per side. They will be hooked up to a pentometer. This will allow them to be dimmed. Instead of wood balusters we have procured wrought iron ones that are finished in copper. Upon test fitting some they have proved to be just stunning. One real advantage to this whole process has been the freedom of creativity. We get to do what we want for the effect we want. It is just great!!

2006-07-26T13:43:00.000-07:00

Here is a before and after for our livingroom. These pictures are a little older now and right now much of our upstairs furniture and possesions are over running this and other spaces in the house. We are trying to salvage as much of the original trim as is possible. Those magnificent baseboards are in fact 13.5 " high. They are pine. As a matter of fact the whole house is or was trimmed in pine. The only other wood in the house is the Banister and knewl post which is white oak. currently they are being sanded and repaired. The carpet that was in the living room was brand new and most of the paint was too. Sadly it didn't last too long. Another of the elements we have added is the lovley maple hardwood. We positively love the way it looks.

2006-07-26T13:42:00.000-07:00

Here is a comparison of the original bathroom and our current work in progress. The new bathroom will have a low 4.6lpf toilet as well as a pedastel sink. It also has a custom made marble shower. This has turned out very nicely. However anything has to be an improvement over the shower we were using in our basement. At a ceiling height of about 6' in most places one can imagine the bending required to get under the shower head. The new shower has a very organic and earthy feel. Something we are trying to maintain in the house with the use of stone and wood and earth toned colours.

2006-07-26T13:18:00.000-07:00

THE CHANGES MADE

We'll start with the Kitchen and how we have made this project happen so far. We bought the house and held our apartment with a month of overlap. This proved to be a godsend. Granted this month was December. Of course it has Christmas and Newyears in it to complicate ones efforts at renovations. Living off site is well worth the extra money and had we known how much easier it would make doing reno's we may have opted to do it for 2 months and done the upstairs at the same time. Our goal was to rid the home of all the ugly colours (exhibit A see left) and make things more pleasing to live with. During December we gutted the whole main floor rebuilt it from exterior walls all the way back in. When people say they don't build them like they used to is an expression we now better understand. The amount of wood in this home could easily build 3 more by todays standards. So now with fresh wire, insulation, and new plumbing we basically have a new old home. All the charm on the outside remains while the inside has been freshened up. For the kitchen we opted to remove the tired old laminate floor to make way for the lovely black granite tiles. The old cabinetry was ditched in favour of some IKEA's cabinets. The counter top too is Granite that was installed from a local suplier. For what it is worth we will never use this person again. It was a horrible install that still remains uncomplete to this point some 7 months or so later. We bought new appliances as the house was sold without them. We opted for a gas stove which we just love and a new Samsung fridge bottom load freezer equiped with pull out drawers. As a result of all this we have a kitchen perfect for the 2 of us to cook in. Feels well laid out and brings a smile to our faces when we walk into it. It can also be noted from the picture the window frames which we made. They were modeled from the exsisting frames in the living room. The old original ones for the windows on the right hand side of the house were long since removed and replaced with a very basic style that did not suit. This is another feature of our home that we are most enamored with.

2006-07-26T12:34:00.000-07:00

guitar lesson

2006-07-26T12:24:00.000-07:00

ONTARIO GOTHIC CIRCA 1887

This is our home. We bought it in December of 2005 and are in the midst of repairing 119 years worth of mistakes. We are proud of our work to date and have plenty more to do. As a result of our endevour we have learned a great deal and grown alot from the experience too.

About the house. It was originally built according to our research in 1887. This is the second dwelling built on our this particular lot of land. It is a "carpenter Gothic" or more commonly known here in Ontario Canada as a "Ontario Gothic". It is a frame house of almost 1100 sq above grade. Very basic for its time it would have been a working mans home. It started its life as a 4 bedroom home. No indoor plumbing and a summer kitchen off of the back. From what we have gathered a bathroom was added in the early 40's if not before. They took over the smallest bedroom for this. Our clawfoot tub which was removed and will likley be restored and put to use in our basement bathroom is dated from February 22nd 1943. This is inline with the sheetrock that was patented from 1942-43. In and around late 1962 there was a renovation that changed entry ways to the remaining bedrooms and apeared to remove a wall between 2 of the rooms to make one large bedroom. This left the home as a 2 bedroom house. This second bedroom was a decent size of roughly 9'x17'. At some point in the late 1980's the basement was partially finished and allowed for the home to again have a 3rd all be it virtually windowless bedroom. At this time the house was divided in a fashion that we are still not entirely clear on into a duplex. It remained this way from our understanding for some 15 years. The summer kitchen is long since gone. Likely in the early part of last century as the wood the boarded up the exterior wall with was very wide planked. some peices as much as 15" .