Oof!

Posted on August 6, 2012 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Friday’s mystery image was a preview of this week’s to-do list. There is only one item on the list. And it’s a doozy. It makes me say, “Oof!”

As many of you guessed last week, the picture was of shingles. The project for this week is the roof. Oof.

You’ve seen the detail shot. Let me zoom out a little bit and show you the scope of our issues.

Shingles are not supposed to look like this

Our shingles have gone beyond curling and are officiallyfried. They have to be replaced.

At this angle, I’m looking above the broken shingles on the house and gazing longingly at the steel roof of the barn

Somehow, our attic is still dry inside, but I’m a little anxious about what the plywood under the shingles is going to look like.

The front half of the roof is as bad as the back

Normally, roofing a whole house is not a job I’d choose to DIY. However, given the long list of must-do fixes we’ve done so far (new geothermal system, upgrading insulation in the attic and the basement, redoing the well and water system, rewiring the basement) the budget is reaching its limits, and so we chose free labour (us) over professional help.

Matt will be the lead on this, as he’s able to be home while I have to keep up with my day job. However, I will be working in the evenings and he’ll have some help from his dad and one of his friends.

The roof is just under 3,400 square feet. That works out to 110 bundles of shingles. Oof.

In addition to new shingles, we’ll be looking to make a few other changes to the roof.

Areas of concern from our roof

Clockwise from top left:

The sea creatures–or moss–that have grown up on the old shingles will be extinct by the end of the week.
The old hook-ups for the solar hot water heaters for the indoor pool will hopefully not be too difficult to remove and patch.
The cupola and buxom rooster weather vane (the only thing I like about the roof) will be carefully removed so that I can reuse them on the attached garage, which we will build some day.
The last remaining piece of the woodstove chimney will be removed and the hole will be patched–with plywood and shingles, not a garbage bag and duct tape.

The other necessary upgrade is to improve the ventilation. Currently, there is not a single vent anywhere on the roof. Hence the reason why our shingles look the way they do–they cooked. No vents is not only unhealthy for our house; it’s also against the building code.

We’re crossing our fingers that we haven’t taken on more than we’re capable of with this project.

If anyone has any pointers or words of encouragement, they would be most welcome.

Guess what

Posted on August 2, 2012 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

I have another Friday quiz for you. It’s been a little while since we’ve done one of these. For those that are new to the game, here’s how it works.

I post a photo, and then it’s up to you to figure out what this is. Leave your answer in the comments and tune in next week for the answer.

Here’s the photo.

I think this is a pretty easy one.

I’m looking forward to reading your guesses.

Have a great weekend, everyone. See you next week for the results show.

A peek of pretty

Posted on July 31, 2012 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Amidst the dust and the upheaval and the tired muscles and the very, very, very long to-do list, I need a little reminder of what we’re working towards. The stack of tile piled in Matt’s future office provides some good encouragement right now.

Here is a little sneak peek at the various pieces that will eventually make up the basement bathroom.

I think the white balance is a little off in this photo, as there is much more white than grey in real life

The white subway tile in the centre is going to be the main feature in the room. It will cover the three walls of the shower from floor to ceiling and the bottom half of the wall behind the toilet up to the height of the vanity. I chose a 4 inch by 8 inch tile, rather than the standard 3 by 6. It’s going to take a lot of tiles to cover the walls, and I’m hoping there will be slightly less labour with the larger tiles.

The white tiles will be accented by a narrow band (probably a strip 3 or 4 tiles high) of the grey and white marble mosaic mini subway tiles at the right. These will run at about eye level in the shower area only. Not an original design feature these days, I know, but hopefully a pretty timeless look.

The marble mosaic hexagon on the left is the shower floor. And the square (pseudo marble) tile at the bottom is the floor in the main area of the bathroom. They’re all sitting on the piece of marble, which you’ve seen already. This slab will top the bench in the shower.

Not pictured here are two more pieces of marble that we’ll be using for the top of the shower curb and the base of the niche.

As a reminder, the inspiration for the basement bathroom is Aubrey + Lindsay’s beautiful bath.

From Aubrey + Lindsay’s Blog

We managed to find tiles that were very similar to theirs. Although there were times that I joked that tile sourcing was going to break my enthusiasm for renovating.

The original tile that I picked for the accent band were back ordered until the end of August. They were another beautiful white and grey marble, but longer and more irregular lengths rather than an even subway shape. I really liked the irregular lengths for the contrast with the regularity of the white subway tiles. At the rate we’re moving now, August might have worked, but at the time I didn’t want to delay the project, so I found another option. Ultimately the colour is what will be most noticeable, and the overall feel of the bathroom will likely be pretty much the same with the tile that we ended up choosing.

For the main floor area, my original vision was to have large format white subway-ish shaped tiles. These were incredibly hard to find. Floor tiles seem to be square for the most part. And the ones that I was able to find were more creamy than I wanted. I nearly placed the order for the off-white tiles, but decided to take one more look at other options and found the square tile in the grey and white tones that work well with the colour palette that I’d established.

Ultimately, we ended up sourcing tiles from three different suppliers plus Home Depot for the marble sills and plus our stone supplier for the bench top. Fortunately, everything works very well together and it looks beautiful, even when it’s just sitting in a pile on the floor.

The bathroom is actually ready for tiling, but a couple of other projects (okay, slightly more than a couple) and the universe’s dogged persistence in only putting 24 hours in the day continue to delay installation.

For now, ogling the cases of tile–and remembering how far we’ve come already (psycho shower, anyone?)–keeps me going on this renovation.

Where do you find your motivation?

Olympic dreams

Posted on July 30, 2012 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

I had hoped today to be showing you the Canadian flag flying from our newly installed flagpole in honour of the Canadian Olympic team. However, the flagpole is still lying in the barn and the flag is folded up in Matt’s office.

However, we did manage to get something installed that has come in handy with the Olympics.

Our new satellite dish

Like everything else at the farm, the job of installing the satellite turned out to be more work than initially expected.

First, we couldn’t install the dish on the house. The satellite signal wouldn’t clear the row of huge pine trees right beside the house. The solution was a post in the meadow on the other side of the pines. Matt spent a couple of hours digging a deep hole while my Dad and I cut a big 6×6 for the post and with Wiley‘s help gathered concrete and gravel to set everything in place. It’s handy having spare construction supplies lying around courtesy of past owners.

Our dish is dwarfed by the big pines

Satellite dishes on posts in the middle of people’s yards is one of my pet peeves. I’m trying to come to terms with mine by remembering that it’s our only solution (aside from taking down the trees) and it’s in the meadow where we’ve let the grass grow long, so it’s fairly hidden.

The second issue was running the wires from the post in the meadow up to the house. Trenching the wire in the meadow and across the lawn was no sweat–well, it’s sweaty work, but not super difficult. However, between the house and the lawn is a large patio. Running wires over the surface, even if we protected them in conduit, was obviously not a great option. We were able to lift the patio slabs pretty easily, but the poured concrete border around the edge was a bit more challenging.

With two shovels and a bit a teamwork from both Matt and me, we each dug from opposite sides to tunnel under the concrete so that the installer could easily feed the wire under the patio.

We also ran the wire through some plastic conduit for extra protection

As the saying goes, bad news comes in threes, so two challenges were not enough in the saga of the satellite.

We decided we wanted a satellite receiver in the basement as well as in the living room upstairs. Installing an additional feed in the basement would have been easy had we done it while the ceilings were all open. However, we weren’t certain initially that we were going for two receivers, so we went ahead and installed all of the new drywall and made no accommodations for the satellite wiring. Argh!

Matt and I had realized we were going to have to cut some holes in our brand new ceilings and had gone through all of the stages of grief about undoing our nearly completed work. For my Dad, though, who showed up with his long wire fish to help us prepare for the installation, he had to get from denial (“maybe we don’t really have to cut holes”) to acceptance (“we’re going to need another hole here too”) pretty quickly.

Ouch! Our poor ceilings. The satellite wire is the grey one at the top of the hole

Thanks to all of our prep work, the actual installation of the satellite went fairly smoothly. And just in time. Two hours before the opening ceremonies started, we had TV at the farm.

Please ignore the drywall dust which is every where

Matt and I enjoy our TV, but we really haven’t missed it since moving in, mostly because we’ve been so busy with renovations.

However, I am a huge Olympic fan, so being able to stay on top of all of the coverage is a nice treat.

Any other Olympic fans out there? What event are you watching for? Anyone have tips for fishing wires or your own story of a challenging installation?

Oh and one more thing.

Go Canada go!

(Feel free to add your own national cheer below).

Change of plans II

Posted on July 24, 2012 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

You heard about one change of plans yesterday, and today I have another for you. This one was a relatively minor change in plans, but it did require a bit of a backtrack, because we were already installing drywall when I decided I wanted to make a change.

Originally in the basement, there was a closet under the stairs. I’m all in favour of closets. This one was a good way to use an awkward space and I had plans to make it a wonderful home for our Christmas decorations. I had nothing against the closet. However, the little alcove at the end of the long room to access the closet always puzzled me a little. What was I going to do with that space?

It took a visit from my youngest sister to open my eyes to the obvious solution. Just square off the room and enlarge the closet slightly. Duh!

So, while drywall installation was underway, I threw on the brakes and demanded that we go back to demo (removing the old doorway into the closet) and construction (framing in a new wall and doorway).

Matt said, “Why does it matter?” and then he just shook his head, sighed and went along.

We had the new doorway framed up in about an hour and drywalled it in one more. We moved the light inside the closet–with only one bleeding bent backwards fingernail (ow!)–so that we could install shelves along the whole back wall. And now we have a nice rectangular room with a very large functional closet.

The new straight wall in the long room. Old wall on the left. New doorway on the right.

Looking at my new straight wall makes me happy. This may seem like a minor change, but it’s one of the things that makes the basement exactly what I want, and is part of the reason I’m able to say that this renovation is turning out even better than I imagined. Isn’t it nice when reality matches up to imagination?

Change of plans

Posted on July 23, 2012 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

You’ll recall that one of the things we needed to do in the bathroom renovation was to increase the storage. This is Matt’s bathroom, and he’s a pretty basic kind of guy who doesn’t believe in a lot of lotions and potions.

However, he is the type of person who changes what toothpaste, deodorant and soap he uses each day depending on how he’s feeling. Some days it’s about the Irish Spring. Others, he’s Ivory all the way. And don’t get me started on the difference between the blue bar and the green one. As well, my husband can’t pass up a deal, so when something comes on sale he stocks up.

We needed somewhere to stow all of his toiletries (that word sounds too delicate for a man’s bathroom stuff) and the small single vanity was not going to do. The original plan was to tuck some built-in shelving into the one end of the shower.

The original floor plan for the bathroom reno showing the shelving unit tucked in beside the shower.

Once we started actually working in the bathroom, though, the space started to feel a bit tight. We were concerned that carving out the storage area would make the shower too small. The bathroom is not huge. However, the hallway outside the bathroom is fairly generous–in fact it’s about seven feet wide.

So Matt came up with the idea to borrow approximately one foot from the hallway to make the storage unit.

Ahhh… much more roomy. The revised floorplan for our new basement bathroom.

We’ll still get floor-to-ceiling built-in storage, so Matt gets to keep all of his different flavours of soap and toothpaste. And making this little bump-out into the hallway allows us also to have a fairly generous shower, complete with a bench.

For your reference, here are some of the measurements for the bathroom:

Bathroom itself: 5 feet by 7 1/2 feet
Storage area: 20 inches wide by 16 inches deep
Shower: 3 feet by 5 feet
Shower bench: 32 inches wide by 16 inches deep by 18 inches high

Planning is an important part of renovating. You should take the time to think about your project before you pick up a hammer and go to town. However, you have to be prepared as well to make adjustments as you go along. Sometimes you have to compromise. Sometimes you can improve on your original plan. I think this modification is an improvement on our original plan.

We have walls!

Posted on July 9, 2012 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

It’s been more than a month since I posted the first pictures of new drywall in the basement. Things definitely don’t move quickly when you’re DIYing–or at least Matt and I don’t move quickly!

I am pleased to announce that thanks to a big push this weekend as of Sunday afternoon all of the drywall is installed. Yay!

The new view in the long room

The total tally was 59 sheets. The entire bathroom, all of the exterior walls, and the ceilings in the main room and long room all got new drywall (click here for a refresher on the floorplan for the basement).

And taping is already underway. The bathroom has its third (and final) coat, the office has its second, the main room has its first. Matt has taken the lead on this part of the project, and my Dad has come up several times to help out. Between the two of them, they are motoring.

My Dad and Matt put the second coat of paste on the office

With three coats of paste plus sanding between each coat, this will be a big part of the basement renovation. Hopefully the next update is less than a month away.

Tool time

Posted on July 5, 2012 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Another Friday, another quiz. However today you don’t have to wait until next week for the answer.

It’s very simple. Only one question.

Name this tool.

We used this a lot when we were demolishing the basement.

If you said crowbar, I’m sorry, but you are very, very wrong.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is a wrecking bar. My Dad trained us all very early. If we were working with him and we asked, “Can you pass me the crowbar?” or “Where’s the crowbar?” the response would be something along the lines of “What are you looking for?” or “What is it you need?” If he was feeling a little more generous, he would perhaps just say, “What did you call it?”

Don’t get me wrong, we used crowbars as well, but a crowbar is a straight bar in our family. A wrecking bar is recognizable by its distinctive hooked end.

The curved end of the wrecking bar can be used for prying, and the fork is also useful for pulling nails.

The other end of the wrecking bar is a chisel.

Like the hook, the chisel end is also used for prying, although you have slightly less leverage.

Wikipedia confirms my Dad’s label and offers an explanation of why this tool is so often called a crowbar.

In the United Kingdom, Ireland and Australia, “crowbar” may occasionally be used loosely for this tool, but may also be used to mean a larger straighter tool.

Ahhh, so my Dad is calling on his previously unknown Australian heritage when he insists that we use the label “wrecking bar.”

How’d you do on the quiz? If my brother and sisters didn’t get this right, I’m sorry to tell you that Dad has now disowned you. Anyone else out there have a term that’s unique to your family?

Mystery marble

Posted on July 2, 2012 by Julia at Home on 129 Acres

Thanks to everyone who weighed in on what they thought was the answer to Friday’s mystery photo. Most people recognized pretty quickly that it was stone of some kind and guessed they were looking at tile or a countertop maybe. Close, but not quite.

Dave got it right: this is in fact marble for Matt’s bathroom shower. More specifically, it’s the slab that will go on the top of the bench in the shower.

It’s a beautiful piece of white and grey marble.

This was my first time buying marble, and finding the perfect piece was not as easy as I expected. We needed one solid surface for the top of the bench. No seams or joints minimizes our risk of leaks. However, none of the tile or home improvement stores that we visited dealt in large (but smaller than counter-size) pieces of marble. The top of the bench had to be 18″ x 32 1/4″, and the best I found was 18″ square tile. That would have meant a seam, so that was a no-go.

As well, I was picky about the colour and veining on the marble. I wanted something mostly white with smooth grey veining (not too speckled). Granite suppliers are common in our area, but in my experience they tended to have a very limited selection of marble. Plus, understandably none of them wanted to cut into a countertop-size slab and end up with a leftover that was too small to use on another project.

Finally, we found a granite supplier that had a larger selection of marble and a good collection of remnants. They let us go through their warehouse and pulled out many pieces for me to examine. In the end, we found a piece that was just the right size and just the right colour. They gave us a good deal on the price and cut and polished it to my exact specifications.

Here’s a sneak peak of how it looks with the marble mosaic we’re going to be using for the shower floor.