End of August progress report

Thankfully, the momentum we had before we left for the cottage hasn't slowed one bit.  Things are getting noticeably done every day it seems.

The stucco is now completely done.  

I chose the colour based on only a paint chip, which is never my preferred method for something so permanent!  But we were away, and I couldn't see the samples too well by way of iPhone pictures.  So I just went with my gut and specified Stone Harbour Grey by Benjamin Moore (2111-50).

I practically ran to the house the moment we drove in the driveway coming back from the cottage to see how it looked.  

Phew!!  It looks great!

Really great!!

And that's the bi-fold door installed-- love it!

That motion light won't stay by the way.  We put it there temporarily for security reasons.  We had a small break-in a few weeks back and then, last week, a couple in a van tried to dump a whole load of old carpet on our driveway.  Thankfully our next door neighbour (and friend) heard them from her window and confronted them directly.  They did manage to dump one carpet, but not the whole van load!  Yay, Karin!  The best neighbour!

Apparently that bi-fold door was a nightmare to install.  In hindsight we should have used the manufacturer's installers.  We'll know for the next house!  ;-)

The spray foam was done while we were away as well.

As I've mentioned before, I don't love using spray foam because of potential off-gassing and the permanence of it in case we ever do need to remove it.  Remember UFFI in the 1970's?  Well O.K., neither do I, but I do know the problems it caused for the people who did install it, and I can't help worrying that spray foam will go the same way in 5-10 years.  

But we also needed the high R-value that only spray foam could provide-- especially in the cathedral ceiling of the 3rd floor.  It took a lot for me to make that call, but in the end we decided to use it only in the places where it was absolutely necessary.  

To my happy surprise, though, the installation was done beautifully, and I couldn't smell a thing when I went in a week after.  Hopefully all my fears are completely unfounded!

In the less critical areas, we framed with 2 X 6's and used JM formaldehyde free insulation.

This sun-tunnel was installed in the wrong spot during our last vacation in Scotland.  

With a bit of MacGyvering, the guys managed to stretch it over to the tub and toilet area (where there is no window).  Even on the north side of the roof, it lets in an amazing amount of natural light!

We also got a sample of the new stairs.  

I was quite worried about them because we hired a "2-guys and a saw" kind of company to build them and they had neither seen nor made anything like the stairs that I wanted.  

Something like these:

via  Houzz

I gave them a bunch of pictures and some drawings that I made, and this is what they showed me today.  Fantastic!!  I very nearly hugged him!

The treads and risers are red oak, and the stringers (since they'll be completely hidden by drywall) were done in maple.

I love the zig-zag side view.  

They even got the angle right on the risers!

Our cottage vacation

We just got back from a 2 week vacation in beautiful Muskoka.  The weather was kind of chilly for the first week, but it was just glorious for the second when we had our friends and their 4 girls join us.  Seven girls aged 4 to 10!  They were all in heaven!

We did a lot of the usual cottage things like roasting marshmallows.

Cliff jumping.

Catching frogs and tadpoles.

Kayaking, canoeing, boating, tubing...  But most of all our girls liked the freedom they had of doing whatever they wanted, and roaming around the property as they pleased.  It was really eye-opening for me to hear this from our oldest daughter and I completely understand.  In the city, their lives are so scheduled and organized and monitored.  

The water around our cottage is very shallow as well, so it is perfect for little kids.  

This next picture makes me laugh a bit, because our cottage is in an area of extremely wealthy people.  Most of the boathouses are bigger than our entire cottage--no joke!  But you can't even see our cottage from the lake!  And our dock is smaller than most people's boats.  

My parents bought the place in 1972 from the daughter of the original owner. The cottage was originally built in the late 1800's.  When I was growing up, there were very few cottages in the area.  Now there are mansions popping up all over the place.  

This is one of my favourites that can be seen right from our beach.  Amazing, isn't it?!

While we were sitting by the fire at sunset, we noticed the cottage had golden windows just like a story that I read to my 5 year old.  She loved it!  It sure is beautiful.

Although I didn't get up to any projects while we were there, we did manage to dismantle the old dock (we built a new one last spring).

I thought I could re-use the old dock boards somehow in the Bennett House.  A headboard came to mind, or a coffee table.  But I think we're going to try and make light boxes out of them instead.  Hopefully it works out. 

I hope everyone has had a wonderful summer!  

As much as we enjoyed our two weeks away, it's also good to be back.

When it rains, it pours!

After feeling like our whole project has been progressing at a snail's pace for the last few weeks, we have suddenly had a complete turn around. 

We finished our 200 amp upgrade.

All the ductwork is now complete and we have the amended city HVAC permit in hand.  The last part of this stage was the re-installation of the existing A/C unit.  We had a very bad time with the HVAC, but the installers we ended up with really came through, and did an awesome job for us in the end.  So happy to move on from this now!

We also got a surprise when the stucco guys came by to let us know they had an opening and could start our project the next day!  We had to coordinate with Steve (our stone guy) since his wall and stairs were right in the way--  more on that later, but his wall is one of my favourite parts of the house!  Fortunately he had other jobs he could go to in the meantime, and the stucco work began.

Stucco is messy work!  They have to rough up the styrofoam surface and these little bits go flying everywhere like snow.  The poor guy doing it was sweating in the heat and had all these little bits stuck to his face and arms.  I couldn't embarrass him by taking his picture, but he did look hilarious!

The stucco guys needed the back doors installed to finish their job properly so we were in a mad rush today to get them picked up.  

By the way, we also finished the cedar shakes.  I love the look of them now!  

We used Thompson's Water Seal waterproofer plus clear wood protector.  I loved it so much that we went with the same look in the front of the house and plan to use it on the deck as well. 

These are the back sliding doors that we got today.

The one in our master bedroom just got installed.

Tomorrow the big, black bi-fold door is going in.  I really hope it goes smoothly.  

Tomorrow we also leave for our summer cottage vacation-- right after our inspection.  I hope to actually get some rest up there and not worry about everything that is happening at the house.  I am getting a bit stressed lately.

Our kitchen cabinet plans

Just before we left for Scotland, I finalized and ordered the kitchen cabinets.  I did mention the layout earlier, and have pretty much stuck with that, but tweaked a couple of minor things and figured out the exact  measurements of each cabinet.

We decided to go with a high gloss white acrylic cabinet with integrated, minimal chrome pulls.  Kitchens are one place that you can get seriously carried away and end up blowing your budget.  I ended up reigning in our spending by opting for the high gloss acrylic instead of the matte laquered fronts that I originally wanted.  I do think it will look great in the end and saved enough money to practically pay for all our appliances!

We are still hoping to do wood floors throughout the main level, so I wanted a simple look for the kitchen.  

I won't have those 2 chairs at the end of the island (the kitchen designer put them there), and plan to use a bigger stainless steel hood fan (the current plan, anyway), open wood shelving on either side of the hood fan, and our Rosle rail system underneath.  On the smaller wall (the solid black one in this picture) we plan to hang a large piece of art for now.  

I'm not sure what we'll use for the backsplash yet, but am thinking of a matte grey tile at the moment.

This is the back side of the island.  It will house the garbage and dishwasher.  I have carefully thought out every cupboard and drawer so that pretty much everything I own has it's place already.  We'll also have a few extra drawers and cupboards since this will be a bigger kitchen than we currently have.  

Below is a close up of the fronts and pulls we're getting.  Our's will be white and the pulls won't have that curve, though.  Very simple.

The laundry chute

When I began designing the floor plan of this house, I was desperately trying to shoe-horn in a second floor laundry room.  One of my biggest pet peeves in our current house is schlepping up and down 3 flights of stairs with armfuls of laundry.

Unfortunately, the second floor laundry either meant no ensuite bathroom for us, or no second floor guest room.  We weren't willing to compromise on either, so the laundry went back to the basement.

Then I got this great idea of putting in a laundry chute!  That would save me at least one direction of laundry carrying.  

I decided to put it in the main bathroom since we had the space and it was pretty much directly above the laundry room 2 floors down.  

Our guys had never heard of a laundry chute before so I had to Google "how to build a laundry chute" so I could show them what to do.  There are apparently a number of ways to build one, but we opted to use ducting since it is cheap and simple.  The main thing to consider with ducting though, is that any joints have to be carefully taped on the inside to prevent snagging of clothes on the sharp edges.  

Ideally I would have liked the chute to be a bit bigger, but we were restricted by the distance between joists and I decided not to mess with any of that.  Also, my friend told me that he used to slide down his laundry chute as a child!!!  Could you imagine?!  At least this one is too small to fit a kid.

There it goes, right down the wall behind the future kitchen cabinets.

And out into the laundry room!

We tested it with a thick sweatshirt and it worked like a charm.  I'll have to get a laundry bin to put under there to hopefully avoid a big mound of dirty clothes in the corner.

Ducts and the skylight fix-up

As I mentioned last week, the worst part of this renovation so far (although it's a close tie to getting the city permits!) has been our fiasco with the HVAC.  It started with a lousy HVAC design that had to be re-done and hasn't seemed to yet end.  

The installers we finally ended up getting have had problems with the new design, and have had to get custom ductwork re-made practically every day.  The job has obviously taken longer than they expected, I understand that, but then Tuesday they showed up for only an hour, and Wednesday and today they haven't turned up at all!  The installers explained that they've been pulled to another job (because those people have been waiting and making a fuss with the company) and that I should call the General Manager about it.  I absolutely did and got them back for tomorrow morning --hopefully until it's done this time!  They're seriously holding up the show!  

Once again, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.  

This is the new furnace.  A high efficiency American Standard with a Vanee Gold ERV unit. I'm amazed at how much more compact it is than our current furnace.  It is also much quieter.

We're getting there...

This week we also fixed the 3rd floor skylight.  

While we were away in Florida back in April, what was supposed to be a big skylight at the top of the stairwell that could be opened and closed from the main floor for ventilation went in looking like this.

A puny little thing that was tucked away into the corner!  This was not what I had in mind.  This week we tried to fix the problem without replacing the whole thing and re-doing the roof.

This is how it looks now.

Way better, I think.  At least it looks intentional now.

Cedar shakes

The roofer finished the cedar shakes today.  I love it!  Smells so good, too!  I can't tell you how many people have commented on them in the last few days that they were going up.  It seems a lot of people are fans of cedar shingles!

In a mad panic this morning, I got the idea that I should pre-stain the shakes that were going on the skinny little section between the roofs.  I figured that we should protect them now so that I didn't have to go climbing up 30 feet later on to do it.  Even the roofer said it was a really good idea.  

I looked into the different stains available, and decided on a semi-transparent water based stain in a natural cedar colour.  But now I'm not sure I like it with the red brick.  Kind of clashes, I think.  I'm a big fan of weathered grey cedar and was thinking of letting the front just naturally age and then protect it later on (cedar really doesn't last unless you give it some protection).  Grey would go much better with the windows and with the red brick.  Anyone have any thoughts on this?

This is the back of the house.  Love, love, love it!  The back will have light grey stucco and possibly black siding on the addition. I will definitely leave this cedar natural coloured, because it will add contrast to the rest and tie in with the cedar deck.

On another note, our stone guy, Steve, delivered these beauties this week.  Eight, 4 foot stone slabs that will become eight steps going down the side of the house.

Steve had some amazing ideas to give our retaining wall and stairs some edginess.  What can I say, he's an artist -- seriously, he is!  And artists don't do things the "normal" way.  I'm really excited to see this part come together.  So fun!