Archives for the month of: March, 2008

Demolition of a Nineteenth Century Room: A Case Study

March 27, 08 //
6

First, the room (in this case, the dining room) as it was a few days ago. Note the cracked/patched plaster on the white wall.

Dining room - before

DAY ONE

We start removing 100-years of layers, including (but not limited to) plaster, drywall, strange cork board, paint, wallpaper, and wood paneling.

Layers of wallpaper

Before sheets of drywall/gyproc existed, plaster was mixed with horsehair and spread onto the wooden slats (”laths”), and the plaster dried and became one’s walls.

Removing the plaster from the walls is by far the messiest and most time consuming part of the demolition. Once disturbed, the plaster turns into a powder and horse-hair mass that weighs a TON and creates a giant dusty mess.

Here I am coaxing the plaster from the wooden slats (”laths”).

Laura-Jane working

Next, we remove some of the laths in order to be able to squeeze the insulation inside the wall cavities. Here I am using our neighbour’s reciprocating saw (one of the many handy tools that have been offered on loan by our favourite PEIers) to remove a few stray laths.

Laura-Jane reciprocating

The latter half of demolition day is a massive clean up!!

DAY TWO

In an old house such as this, every wall cavity is a slightly different width because the beams are all different dimensions. What this means for us is that every piece of pink insulation has to be measured and cut before it is placed in each cavity.

Cam at work

DAY THREE

Once all the insulation is in, a plastic sheet (the vapour barrier) is installed over top of the insulation.

After countless discussions on this topic that invariably ended with a confused expression on my face, I think I finally get it:

Air in your house is hot! Hot air is strong, it can carry lots of moisture in it! Air outside is cold; cold air is weak and it can’t carry much moisture! When the hot air (sadly) leaves your house, it turns cool, of course. As this hot air cools, it feels exhausted and it just can’t carry the moisture anymore…so, the cold air gives up and abandons the moisture. As a result, we get moisture/water/condensation where the warm air becomes cold. (So, if you want vapour barrier to protect something, the vapour barrier should always be installed on the warm side of your precious item.)

Apparently, I neglected to take a picture of the dining room’s vapour barrier, so here’s a shot of the kitchen wall. I shouldn’t be too surprised that I forgot to take a picture, because I detest putting up vapour barrier for a variety of reasons, namely, it’s awkward, takes forever, and at the end of the day you look around and think, “This is all we’ve done today? Put up this sheet of plastic??”

Vapour barrier

DAY FOUR

Next, the easy part–up goes the drywall! So satisfying because it’s the icing on the cake!

Drywall is up

At this point, our goal is to do the above steps (demo, insulate, vapour barrier, and drywall screwed to the wall [as well as lay plywood on the floors, not mentioned above]) to all of the downstairs rooms: kitchen, dining room, living room, pantry, utility closet, front hall, and staircase.

Once we have accomplished the above, we will putty, paint, and lay flooring in all these downstairs rooms.

Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? It’s at times like these that we’re glad that we relied on our foresight and bought a house that it only 1000 square feet!

————————————–

Laura-Jane: “I just wrote a step-by-step entry on how to renovate a room!”

Cameron: “Very nice.”

Pause

Cameron: “How about a section entitled ‘Fix Structural Problems?’ What about an ‘Assess Bug Damage’ section?”

Rural Living Must Include a Mail-Box

March 26, 08 //
1

We finally squeezed in fifteen minutes to put together a mail-box and throw it at the end of the driveway.

Our mailbox

We have officially arrived!

Kitchen Reno (Alternate Title: “Bugs, Bugs, BUGS”)

March 18, 08 //
8

For a variety of reasons we have left our plumbing project 90% complete but untested, and have moved on to working on the kitchen. As many-a-home-renovators have said, one project leads to another, and so it has been for us.

My well-intentioned plan to leave the kitchen untouched has been tossed out the window (along with the window itself, I might add).

Installing kitchen windows

In concept alone, I adore the kitchen’s style and decor; the teal paint, vintage wallpaper, brown linoleum, cookstove and porcelain sink.

Whimfield kitchen - before

Unfortunately, in reality, the kitchen was beyond repair: rotten linoleum, rusty cabinets, leaking windows, and at least forty years of accumulated scum—even the wall moulding had disintegrated into a crumbly mass. Yes, I am sure some brave soul could have taken some Ajax and a box of Q-Tips and saved this kitchen, but with our desire to insulate the walls and our need to make the house livable as soon as possible, we started to dismantle the room.

Carefully removing and saving what we could (most notably the moulding around the doors and windows), we began stripping the room down to its basic elements so that we could insulate the walls.

As the removal progressed, we kept noticing that integral pieces of wood—let’s say, for example, important beams that hold up the house–were missing and in the beams’ place was merely a pile of sawdust. Likewise, the original hardwood floors underneath the kitchen’s linoleum were disturbingly thin, sagging,  and eaten. Note the hole in the floor!

Kitchen floor - hole!

Who has been eating the floors and structural supports, you ask? Why, the “powder post beetle”, that’s who! After much cursing and many calls to pest experts, we decided to remove the entire floor right down to its bare bones and lie down particle board in its place.

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With the new and improved floor in place, we’ve moved on to insulating the walls.

Insulating the kitchen
Insulated kitchen

Insulating has been pretty straight-forward and quick. We’re just waiting for our door and over-sized windows to come in from the manufacturer, and then we’ll install the vapour-barrier and cover it all up with fresh drywall.

In general, we’ve been spending all day at our house and sleeping in a nearby hotel. We haven’t quite figured out when we’ll give up the hotel and make the transition to living in the house full time, but we anticipate that once we can turn the water on that we’ll make the switch.

The days are long but things are good! We don’t have access to the Internet at our house or the hotel, so computer use is few and far between…

Thanks for all your positive comments!

Pssst: Since this entry was published, I later posted a sort-of “after” photo of the kitchen here.

About Cameron

March 17, 08 //
5

In the words of Laura-Jane:

Cameron’s body and soul is built around one founding principle: he has a quest for learning that is unrivaled in anyone that I know.

The brevity of life–the mere 80-year lifespan–is frustrating to him. He wants to learn Spanish and plant an orchard and sew a very nice pair of pants and read everything written by Karl Marx and learn how to play the banjo and spend time with his family and write amazing computer programs. He wants to plant, and grow, and cook and build–to listen and counsel and advise.

In all honesty, he’d like to live forever and try everything.

Cameron

When we ski, he waits for me at the bottom of every turn. When I need a sympathetic listener, he listens. When I need a prod in the right direction, much to my chagrin, he prods. When we walk, he lets me set the pace. When I write a story, he tells me that it’s the best he’s read yet.

Cameron

Cameron has a heart of pure goodness but will never let up when he believes that he is on the right side of an issue. He can be shockingly honest–to me and to his bosses alike. He has a memory for facts and can tell you the history of anything. He firmly believes in the good of the collective and in the potential for good in this world. He will never put someone down to make himself look better. He will never take credit for another’s efforts. He is a patient teacher.

He could, however, really use some tennis lessons. And his tetris skills leave much to be desired. Other than that, he’s perfect!

Cameron's Graduation from University (BS in Computer Science)

About Laura-Jane

March 16, 08 //
6

Laura-Jane is the writer of this blog. She lives with Cameron at Whimfield Farm in Prince Edward Island. Here are some tid-bits about her.

I was born in 1982 in a log-house on a small acreage in Parksville, British Columbia, Canada. Although I only lived in our family house until I was five years old, I have many fond memories of our property. And as I grew up I remember pledging that if I won the lottery I would buy our family house back.

I’ve always had a desire to live the rural lifestyle, and I am excited to be on the brink of making this dream happen, albeit not in the house I lived in as a child.

I had a happy childhood, and some good (and some rebellious) years as a teenager. When I was sixteen I met a certain captivating soul named Cameron, and we’ve been together ever since. We both attended University (first Malaspina College in Nanaimo, BC, and then the University of Victoria), and I majored in Criminology and Political Science.

University graduation

Throughout University, I was a very active ‘blogger, and I absolutely loved writing and sharing my life with the few who were inclined to read my stories. I wrote for five years, and I am so glad that I did. For me, the most incredible benefit of ‘blogging was to be able to track changes in myself; my grammar, thoughts, ideas, and goals transformed so much throughout those five years that it’s striking to look backwards–but that’s the beauty of the passing of time!

After graduating from University, I worked for the Langford City Hall in the Engineering and then the Planning Department, where I met a lot of fabulous people and I really did enjoy my job.

City of Langford

Cameron was working full-time as well, and we settled into life. We were avid hikers, geocachers, and letter-boxers, and we enjoyed our weekends immensely. My ‘blog was virtually abandoned by this time, and I missed writing whole-heartedly, but did not have the time nor the will to get back into it.

Cameron and I would often discuss the difference between our “work lives” and our “home lives”. We both enjoyed our jobs, but we felt very compartmentalized and felt that work left little time for much else. For a couple of years we mulled over the idea of making a major change, but it was hard to imagine really making it happen. The idea grew bigger and bigger the more we spoke about it, and eventually one day we suddenly vowed (yes, pinky swore) that we would change the way we lived our lives. From then on, everything was easy; it was coming to the decision that had been the difficult part.

And so we set the ball rolling… We sold our condo, sold our furniture, quit our jobs, left everything we knew behind (including every member of our beloved families), and drove across the country to our new home: Prince Edward Island.

Driving across Canada

For me, leaving everything behind was, in some respects, easy. I am a very quiet home-body and I had very few friends. I have a passion for people as a whole and to me there is nothing more interesting than meeting someone new, but sustaining friendships has been hard for me as I have a tendency to be flaky and to disappoint.

I had always known that I’d have to leave my job sooner or later, so I was mentally prepared to leave those beautiful people behind (although that’s not to say that it wasn’t hard!).

I seem to have a problem with commitment so I didn’t belong to any groups, although I dabbled in playing the cello with a local orchestra on and off. We didn’t have any pets, and I’d given up on house-plants years before.

My family is incredibly loving and I knew that they would support me no matter what. I miss them all, but I know that we will always be there for one another, and I firmly felt that a major life change was needed for me to really be there for my family; working long hours and feeling stressed left me pretty incompetent when it came to staying in close connection with my family.

Laura-Jane and neighbour Angel

Now, let me call your attention to the fun stuff:

Us at the Jelly Belly factory

I play the cello! I love word games! I love baking sweet goodies! Heaven to me is a bag of All Dressed chips. I speak French. The less I pay for something, the more proud I am of it. When I read books I never read the dust-jackets. I love Broadway musicals. I’m terrible with everyday friend stuff, but if you need me in a pinch, I won’t let you down. I have played on a curling team (and, if Cameron has anything to do with it, I will again). I love elderly people, especially my Grandma Connie. I can’t sew/knit/crochet but I make a mean rag rug. Hot chocolate is my comfort food. I don’t drink alcohol. I’m a vegetarian. If I am ever inclined to get another full-time job, I’d like to work in social services. When I consider going back to University, I consider taking sociology or social work. I love swimming. I love music from the 1920s and 1930s. I’m a bad liar. I don’t know my times tables. Cameron is my best friend. We don’t have a TV, but I have watched every Seinfeld episode ever made. I love riding public transit, and if you tell me your life story I’ll listen.

Laura-Jane on tractor

Project “Running Water Please”

March 11, 08 //
7

Unless we do some major work, our water pipes will freeze in the winter. This post details our plan to fix this problem.

Our house is serviced by a well. The water pump, water pressure tank, and all of the water pipes are located underneath the house, an area which is uninsulated and exposed to the elements. What this means is that in the winter, the water in the pipes will freeze.

In order to ensure that the pipes won’t freeze, the first project we are attempting to tackle is to reconfigure all of the plumbing. We are not plumbers, but, out of necessity, we are becoming plumbers—perhaps becoming very bad, incompetent plumbers, but plumbers none the less.

To combat the freezing, we debated between trying to warm the area under the house versus simply bringing all of the necessities up into the warmed house. We decided on the latter; we are converting a bathroom into a utility closet, which will store the pump and all the necessities for the water. The pipes will run directly underneath the floorboards but be surrounded with insulation.

Bathroom - before

Our initial plan to leave the house in its 1950s glory is falling by the wayside, as we are encountering rot, sagging, bug infestations, and severe disintegration. Thus, the project of converting a bathroom into a utility closet to house our water pump starts with renovating the small room.

Demolition

Stripping it down to a frightening mess.

What a mess

And then cleaning it up again.

Water soon

This room saw us go from “How are you supposed to attach these pipes??” to creating a crazy mass of plumbing gadgets.

Working!

Meanwhile, we are reconfiguring the plumbing elsewhere in the house, which means getting rid of extraneous pipes and simplifying the water in the house.

We have reduced our plumbing needs to one bathroom (toilet, sink, shower), a kitchen sink, and one outdoor faucet for the garden. In addition, we will be laying the framework for a washing machine. Where possible, we have rearranged room layouts to shorten the length of required pipe.

We’ve been flying by the seat of our frozen, clay-covered pants over these past two weeks as we scramble in and out of the dirt-floor crawlspace doing the plumbing.  But we’ve been guided and helped immensely by two amazing neighbours, both who have renovated their own century-old homes. We are pleased to have had a visit or two every day for the past week. Thank you neighbours!

More Adventurous

March 3, 08 //
6

Well, this has been a much more emotionally draining week than anticipated!

We took possession of our new house about a week ago, and there was a honeymoon period of, say, three hours, after which point we realized that we have purchased a dilapidated, drafty, bug-fraught farmhouse that has been sitting empty for two to three years and has zero insulation.

Much worrisome discussion ensued, including the words, “I think we may have made a big mistake.” and “Whose idea was this anyway?”

Whimfield - Our house

By far the biggest morale-crusher has been the temperature, which has been in the -16 degree celcius range. For those of you non-numbers people, that is run-really-fast-from-the-car-into-the-house weather.

We had always assumed that once the woodstove was lit that the house would warm up, but with no insulation, exterior doors that don’t close, and cracked windows, the house is a frozen mass. On cold days, all liquids everywhere (including this bowl of vegetable soup) in the house are frozen–even with the woodstove roaring.

Frozen soup

After taking possession, we stayed in the house for a week—braving the sub-zero temperatures (that’s inside the house, friends) and lack of running water. I experimented with melting snow on the wood-stove, and I learned that a large bucket of snow reduces to barely a cup of grainy water.

To produce enough water to wash a few dishes was a massive undertaking.

Melting snow

The novelty of all this quickly wore off and we found that functioning productively in such an environment was not practical. Not only were we trying to survive, but we were trying to work on the house as well. Keeping ourselves warm (or should I say keeping ourselves from freezing) and melting enough snow for us to use for daily living took the better part of the day. This was problematic because we knew that we had to get to work on the house–not spend our days just surviving.

In Sickness and In Health

Furthermore, Cameron had a terrible flu when we moved in. I have never seen him look so ill, and he wasn’t getting any better. Sitting right in front of the woodstove wrapped in quilts, he would just shiver. We measured the temperature right in front of the stove, and we could never get anywhere in the house higher than 6 degrees celcius because of the bitter draft that whipped through the house.

Big Decisions

It was a tough decision, but we have now rented a hotel room at the Lobster Shanty hotel (!) for a month, so we are now in much higher spirits and able to work super hard at the house during the day and warm up at night. Thank you, heat! Thank you, running water!

The first project on our to-do list has always been to insulate the crawlspace where the water pump and pipes are located, because until we insulate this area the water in the pipes will freeze (and burst). We quickly realized that our plans to insulate this area were far too simplistic and will not keep the pipes from freezing. After hours of brain-racking and some hysterics, we have decided to relocate the water pump and pressure tank into the house, and move the pipes directly under the floorboards.

Project Creep

We fear that this over-simplification of the water situation may be the tip of the ice-berg, as all the small projects that we knew had to be done are, in fact, not small but very gargantuan projects. At this point, our spirits fluctuate greatly: from elation to utter terror at the amount of work to be done.

Fear not, our inspiration has not left us completely. We have been gob-smacked by the friendliness and generosity of our neighbours who have taken us under their wing. Another neighbour’s dog keeps us company. The snow is beautiful. The house has so much potential. I still feel right about what we are doing and am not afraid to share our insecurities and troubles that may arise along the way. Even though it’s cold the sun shines daily. I love looking out our kitchen windows. Painted floorboards make me smile!

A bedroom