The Calm Before the Storm
Welcome to Chaos Manor. Watch your step.
Sorry, I have no new photos this week. Honestly, things don’t look all that different from last week to the untrained eye. I know a lot has changed, but it’s not particularly obvious.
But I’ll start with the dog. Her incontinence got abruptly worse the other day. We have to take her out every 2 hours or so now, or the consequences are… damp. We have an appointment with the vet this afternoon to see if there is anything that can be done. Maybe it’s a UTI — she is on an immunosuppressor, after all — but maybe it’s muscle loss from the prednisone. We don’t yet know, and it will require a urine test to figure that out.
Meanwhile, I had to get out the carpet shampooer early this morning, and a dehumidifier is slowly drying out our bedroom floor. Yay.
Tink’s attitude remains good, honestly, but this inability to control her backend is a problem. We’ve ordered some washable doggy diapers for her to wear overnight, but we don’t know how much they will help.
The house is perhaps in somewhat better shape.
The drainage work in the back is basically done. Almost nothing changed except that one downspout was connected to the storm sewer in a different way than it had been, but it should result in less standing water in the backyard and less chance for water to get into the family room / conservatory thanks to the drop in the level of the dirt around the house. There’s also a boatload of gravel in the backyard now to improve drainage as well, and we’re partially prepared for the new retaining wall that will keep the mud off the path. In short, a whole lot of good stuff has happened back there that we hope will keep the house much drier in the future.
On the inside, more demolition has happened, and another truckload of garbage has been hauled away. But here’s the thing: demolition isn’t done yet. We’re still trying to figure out how we’re going to route new electrical wires and water lines around. The house has been renovated so many times it’s impossible to know what you will find when you open a new wall.
But we’ve got a break for now. We’ve officially started the holiday season, and it is unlikely we will have anyone working on the house until January 2nd. That gives us a couple of weeks to deal with the dog and settle into a better rhythm here before it explodes again in January.
But before things paused, the following things happened:
- The head of the electrical firm came by and did a walk-through. He’s pretty sure there are no insurmountable issues here, and we’ll be fine. He asked good questions (Generator? Battery backup? EV? Provisions for a hot tub or pool? Etc.) and we had answers (No. Not at this time. In the future, please put in a subpanel in the garage to handle it. Definitely not. And so on). They do this kind of work all the time, and it sounds like they are ready for us.
- The plumber also paid us a visit and had another look around. He’s going to research new baseboard radiator types and styles, since the typical ones scream “1960” in my mind. He’s also looking into options on heat pumps to drive hot water heating, though I expect it will not be practical at this point. Everything else looks pretty straightforward, I think.
- A drainage crew with the proper camera equipment scoped out our drainage and sewer connections. Amazingly, everything looks good. I was worried the veritable forest of plants in the yard would have roots clogging every single pipe, but that isn’t the case.
- The general contractor’s previous project is winding up this week, as the owners are moving back in today, I believe. So after New Year's we will be their primary focus, and things will get moving right away.
And while all of that is fine, we know more chaos is coming. We’ve been warned that they will need to use a gas-powered saw to cut into the slab to reroute the plumbing, which will result in a lot of noise and a lingering exhaust odour as well. But now we know where most of the existing lines are, and we can deal with them easily enough.
Oh, and we’ve been warned that if we go with spray foam insulation in the ceiling, we will have to be out of the house for some time. How much isn’t clear… 12–24 hours, apparently. But the details won’t be known to us until we talk with the insulation guy and confirm that is the plan.
Oh, and the electrician warned us that code now requires wired smoke detectors in every bedroom on the floor we are renovating and one upstairs as well. And not just wired for power… they have to talk to each other as well. So there will be a minor excursion into the drywall upstairs to deal with that too. Such fun.
But that’s about the size of it, I think. In short, there was progress, and there will be more, but the next couple of weeks will be all about the holidays, so we must exercise patience.
I hope your holidays are peaceful!