Week 4 – Timber!
August 1, 2021|Home Renovation
Full house renovations take time, I know that, but at the same time in my mind I was moving into the house this week. I know, crazy right! Instead, I was trying to feel helpful and productive and decided that my patio furniture should stop killing my grass. I started power washing the deck hoping that I could handle getting it cleaned up nicely. I’ve never had a deck before, so I had no idea how the refacing process worked. Turns out power washing it doesn’t get it even close to ready to be repainted. I do not have the ambition to hand sand the deck right now, so I contacted a few people for quotes for them to do it. $1,000 really isn’t bad but my renovation budget is already really tight, so I’ve decided to put the project off until next spring when hopefully I have more time. Cover the deck with an outdoor rug, patio furniture and deck boxes and suddenly the peeling paint doesn’t look nearly as bad because you can’t see it! Now all that’s left is to get rid of all the wasps living in my fence. I felt a little more accomplished even though it was the most trivial project of the entire renovation. At least we all have somewhere to sit when we need a break or to feed a baby.
Do they look the same to you?
While I was busy ‘designing’ the deck, Grayson was inside laying flooring which was going extremely well. The master bedroom was done in just over a day and he was 90% of the way through the girl’s room when there was a slight hiccup. The flooring was discoloured, it looked like a totally different colour even though the boxes were all labeled the same. He had to stop while I contacted the flooring company because we opened several boxes and had the same problem. They sent someone out to check and they agreed the floor was a different colour (thankfully). They will replace any of the boxes that were the wrong colour as we continue flooring which is great. So long as there aren’t many boxes of the wrong colour, I’ll be happy, because then we’ll have to wait for them to order new ones and there always seem to be delays and I don’t like delays. Anyway, by the end of the week the master, the girl’s room, the bathroom and half of the living room was floored. The other half of the living room and kitchen must wait until after the kitchen is installed because you’re not supposed to install flooring under the kitchen cabinets. I’m not entirely sure why but this is one time where I’ll do what I’m told. So, this concludes our flooring project for almost a month while we continue to wait for the kitchen cabinets.
Timber wall! I'm so happy that it's gone now!
Thankfully, the structural engineer from Eden Hall Homes came out to the house to give us a verdict on the kitchen wall. I highly recommend Mr. Danoff, he’s helped me with both houses now. After he looked around, I got to do my happy dance because he confirmed that the wall is in fact not load bearing! However, he did confirm that the bulkhead needs stay, he was going to see if there’s a work around to give me the same support with less wood, but I’ll have to wait until he has time to look into that. Like I said last week, the kitchen wall is more important to me than the bulkhead. The wall demolition started the next day and WOW, did it make a huge difference! I can see my vision slowly starting to come to life now and I’m loving it! I wish I had videoed my reaction when I walked into the house. That’s the one downfall of doing all the renovations yourself, you never truly get the wow factor from the transformation because you see all the intermediary steps along the way.
Bathroom vanity install and OMG does it make a difference!
Speaking of wow factors, I got a little taste of that with the upstairs bathroom since I wasn’t there when Dad and Grayson installed the vanity, countertop, and light fixture. I was so incredibly happy to see that transformation! I’m getting the decorating itch for the bathroom, but the walls were slightly damaged in the process of installing the countertop because it was technically too big in some spots because the walls weren’t 100% level so once those have been fixed and repainted then I’ll be putting the finishing touches on the bathroom and posting some before and after pictures.
I made some other big decisions this week, one good and one not so great. One of my contractors noticed that the basement had pools of water after one of several of our big rainstorms. There may have been a bit of complaining on my part, I’m not excited that the renovations will now take longer because we have to rip out all the drywall and insulation in the back half of the basement so we can identify the source of the leaks and have them repaired, But at the same time I’m glad that we had such heavy rainfall to show the leaks now instead of after the basement was already finished. The decision to rip it all out sucked, it hurts my budget too. I was not expecting to have to redo the drywall in that huge room, but it is what it is. I also didn’t budget for an ensuite bathroom but that was my other big decision this week. With a little help from you guys I decided to put it in but I serious considered not, it’s going to make the room look really tiny, but I think I will appreciate having my own bathroom space and separate shower, especially as the girls get bigger. I’ll be shopping around a lot to try and keep my costs low because it wasn’t in my budget, but I’ve seen lots of brand new bathroom pieces at Habitat for Humanity so I’m hoping they’ll work for my shower.
Basement pre demolition. Hopefully the leak will get repaired soon
So many up and downs this week but we move forward regardless. Next week will bring new challenges and hopefully new accomplishments in terms of completed room but only time will tell. Now that you’ve got an update for this week, when do you think I’ll be moving in? I think it’s going to be at least 2 more months.
