We’re in it for real, now…
Greetings, fellow humans.
Today I get to share a report on the progress of our renovation. Oh joy.
First, last week the contractors came and built a ramp up to our balcony:
That’s because we’re going to be living in the house during the reno, and we can’t get into the ground floor during the hazmat abatement process, at least. There may also be a time when we can’t get in due to floor levelling work as well, but that remains to be seen.
It’s a ramp because the dog hates stairs. We’ve stapled bits of rubber mat to it, and it has cleats spaced about 12" apart. We even put up Christmas lights on it (and along the path to it) so we (and the dog) can see it at night.
Getting Tink to use the ramp was a challenge. Finally, I had to drag her up it once or twice to break the ice. Now she goes up it just fine, but down is less fun. She creeps down it like a 102-year-old lady, taking little, tiny steps, one foot at a time.
But at least we are getting her to use it.
Then we had a day with one of our general contractors here doing initial demolition of the kitchen and some other stuff. There’s a huge pile of cabinets in the side yard, all to be gotten rid of. Sadly, they are terrible quality and really cannot be reused. That said, one of our contractors is supposed to take away the upper cabinets, the old range, and the microwave for his own use, which is great. Everything we can divert from the landfill is a win.
During that first round of demo, we came across this behind the fridge:
We didn’t know that M. C. Escher was also a Canadian plumber, but it seems he was. Or maybe he visited this house as a child and took inspiration from the plumbing he saw? No? Probably not.
And speaking of the kitchen, the drain for the kitchen sink was not at all where we expected it would be:
The kitchen sink was on the right side wall in that photo, and the black (ABS) pipe that runs around the corner and nearly to the other side of the kitchen is the drain. It connects to a badly corroded fitting in the slab, and we didn’t even know there was anything over there. Even better is the belly in the pipe. They’re not supposed to do that. Standing water in the drain is a bad idea.
Oh, and the other thing about that photo is that you’re looking at the back of the fireplace wall. That’s all coming out eventually as well.
There is also some nasty rot in the laundry room:
Interestingly, it was not caused by a leak in the washing machine or from the laundry tub. No, instead it appears to be water that comes in through the foundation on the left side of that picture. This is a place where the original foundation meets a patio that was enclosed. Somewhere in the mess that is the meeting of the two foundations (which includes a level change) and the enclosing wall, there’s a path for water to get in. And it’s been doing so for decades. We think it’s still happening, but we cannot confirm it until we finish the demolition, and we can’t do that until the hazmat guys are done with their work.
We have plenty to repair in there, but the job is bigger than that. The floor in the laundry room (and what we called the “conservatory”, where Anne kept her plants) is raised above the old patio, and it creates a low step as you move from the living room into that space. So we’re going to drop the floor in the laundry room/conservatory down to be level with the rest of the house.
Then there’s this:
That’s some sort of black stone set at the same level as the concrete slab. It’s in the old entryway of the house. Well, we’re guessing it was the old entryway, but we honestly don’t know that for sure. At this point it’s inside the house, and the current entryway is to the right of the photo, where you see the opening in the plastic. We had no idea the stone was there. It’s fine, though. We’re going to put an engineered wood floor down over top of it, and we’ll probably have to apply self-levelling concrete to a lot of the floor first.
Another surprise was the front door. It’s decided to warp. Quite a bit of warp, in fact. Months ago, Anne and I discussed raising the level of the entryway (to the right above) to the same level as the rest of the house. It would get rid of another step and tripping hazard, but we rejected that idea because it would mean installing a new front door, and we didn’t think that was a requirement. That’s changed, so now we’re going to raise the entryway and get a new front door as well.
Thankfully, we were ready for significant change in the project given all the unknowns we expected to find during demolition. And we are finding the issues as expected. But demolition is not over. and nearly every major system in the house is in bad shape or done improperly. There are walls we still have to open, a chimney to remove, a floor to remove and replace, and more.
There’s no turning back now.
But enough about that. You’re probably really here to learn about Tinkerbelle.
She’s OK. Last Friday, her bloodwork wasn’t great. Despite two weeks on both the regular dose of prednisone and the new cyclosporine, her hematocrit had dropped a few percent, so it was below the normal range. In consultation with the vet, we decided that we had to drop her prednisone dosage a bit and give her another week on the cyclosporine. There’s a chance that she wasn’t really worse but instead was drinking more water than normal (and thus diluting her blood) due to the drugs she’s on. And the prednisone is definitely causing a number of side effects, which we need to reduce.
She goes back to the vet this afternoon for another round of blood work and possible drug adjustment. We’ll have to see how it goes.
So that’s my life. Well, it’s our life. Anne is obviously living through this as well! At the moment, my office is also the living room, her office is also the kitchen, and the outer upstairs bathroom is also the kitchen sink and storage area (over the tub). Our bedroom isn’t too affected, but there are plants in the main bathroom and in the hallway as well. In short, the three of us are living in a very cramped space, and we will be doing that for quite a while.
Oh, and this morning Anne turned on the tea kettle and popped a breaker. We know that both offices shared a breaker, but it appears that the baseboard electric heaters in the offices are also on that same circuit. If they’re both on, there’s not enough power available to drive them and the kettle (or the microwave, or the toaster, or any other significant consumer of power). So now we have to turn the thermostats down while we’re cooking.
Speaking of cooking, our US Thanksgiving dinner was leftover chicken and gnocchi in a red sauce and a salad. It was quite good, but not what most Americans would expect on that date. Oh well.
I’ll end with a number of pictures of the kitchen from before the demo began. Well, mostly before it began. I had removed the dishwasher before I remembered I needed to take the photos. These were requested so people can compare before and after. I’ll do a side by side comparison when this is all done, sometime in 2047.
Cheers!