Basement progress

Work on the basement began in earnest a little while ago, but I didn't want to brave the ladder to take a picture. (The ladder isn't that bad, but I don't like to go down this one in certain shoes. I know that sounds loony, but there it is.) The pink stuff is insulation, which is laid over a waterproof (Platon) membrane. Our heating supplier is due to install the piping tomorrow, although the place doesn't look ready for him yet. We'll see how it goes. After that comes the cement!

Insulation complete

The insulators came by and finished the job today, filling in the garage walls, the upper basement walls, and the gaps around the windows. There are still a couple of cracks in the insulation, but they don't go through to the outside, so maybe that's alright. The photo is of the garage, which is now ready for drywall.

Railings, part 1

John and I went over to the house today to take some closet measurements, and to our surprise and delight, saw that the first set of stair railings had been installed. These have been a long time coming, and we were thrilled to finally see them. The photo on the left shows them from the ground floor, and the photo on the right shows them from the second floor, looking down. They will have to be removed when the maple treads are ready to be installed, but they look great for now.

Drywall begins

Our first pieces of drywall were installed today in the garage and in the mechanical room in the basement (also known as The House of Jam). These had to be in place for the insulators to complete the insulation, which is expected to happen sometime this week. The empty space above the ladder in the photo is for the end of our canoe, which we'll hang from the garage ceiling. Our canoe has enjoyed wintering chez Papa and Allison, but soon it will be time for it to move into its permanent home.

In other news, work continues on the exterior this week. The guys are installing our soffit, which is cedar. Our interior stair railings are delayed, but coming soon. Once the insulation and the related inspection are complete, the drywalling can begin in earnest. Our mechanical supplier is coming in next Monday to complete his work and prepare to "shock heat" the floors.

Speaking of floors, the saga continues. Once we have found a solution to our woes, we'll fill you all in. Until next time...

View from the living room floor

The living room skylights were installed today, and to get them both in the photo, I had to lie down on the dusty floor. The things I do for you!

The manifold (tentacle-like junction for our heating pipes) was also installed today, earlier than expected! This is good news, because we need it to start the "shock heating" process for the floors. Ah, the floors. That's a whole other entry, friends. Stay tuned.

Skylights!

After a very long wait, our skylights finally arrived yesterday! There are seven in all -- four ganged over the stairwell (those are the ones in the photo), two in the peaked roof in the living room, and one in the third-floor bathroom. It may seem like a lot, but when you don't have any windows on one side of the house and only a few on the other side, roof windows start looking like a good option. We're looking forward to seeing the ones in the living room installed tomorrow. It will be very nice to finally know how much light we can look forward to in that room.

In other news, the water meter has been installed, the siding is progressing, and 18 tonnes of gravel have been poured into the basement. To finish the basement floor, three inches of insulation will be added, followed by wire mesh, the tubes for the radiant in-floor heating, and four inches of concrete. In preparation for the drywallers, the roof will be tested for leaks, extra blocking will be added to some of the walls where we plan to put shelving and grab bars (the things that will keep us from falling in the shower when we're old), the gaps in the insulation will be fixed, and a couple of doors will be reframed to the right height.

Forward, ho!

Quick (photo-free) update

If all goes according to plan, the next few days will be good ones. Our water meter is to be installed tomorrow, so we will finally have a water supply to the house. The guys are working on finishing the siding on the northwest side and rear of the house by Friday. Our skylights -- long overdue -- are supposed to arrive tomorrow and be installed. Once the skylights are in, the drywall can begin. The drywall that is currently stacked in various rooms will then actually become walls, and there will be a little more room for the guys to move around.

The long sequence of work required to get the floors fixed and finished will begin this week. First, all of the connections for the in-floor heating need to be established, and the manifolds need to be installed. Once this is complete, the floor must be heated for three days. After that, the DaroTopp installers can return to correct the deficiencies in the concrete floor. Finally, the finishers will come in to grind the floors down and apply the epoxy and urethane coats. We hope that the floors will be finished soon, since a lot of work depends on them being done (e.g. installation of all of our bathroom fixtures, kitchen cabinets, etc.).

There's more going on this week, but I am typing in a room that is about 100 degrees, so I'm afraid this is all I can muster. Until next time...

Under lock and key

It was a beautiful day in Ottawa, just the sort of day you don't want to spend in the aisles of big-box home improvement stores. Still, off we went to buy our locks for our exterior doors. As we've mentioned before, we have seven exterior doors; eight if you count the inner foyer door, which is an exterior door on the inside of the house. That's a lot of door handles and locks.

Fortunately for us, friends of ours in Kingston clued us into a new product called the Weiser SmartKey system. It's a neat new product that has a couple of big pluses. First, the design of the system protects it against "bumping" techniques. For those of you who don't watch 20/20 or scary YouTube videos, bumping is a technique used by criminals to bump the pins of tumbler locks or some such thing and easily break into your house. The SmartKey is supposed to be immune to this. Second, we can key all of the locks to the same key without having to hire a locksmith.

There was only one style we liked, so it was a pretty easy sell. We chose the "Avalon" model, which is a stainless steel style with levered handles. John is crazy for levered handles. They're much easier to open with an armload of groceries, and they look nice, too.

Sold.

Parging complete

The parging -- the layer of cement that covers the foundation blocks -- is now complete. It encircles the house and the inside of the garage. It looks pretty good.

Siding saga

Our siding arrived last week, and to my dismay, it wasn't in the finish we had wanted or ordered. John and I hate fake wood grain, so we had selected a smooth finish. Our builder phoned to tell us that our supplier didn't carry the Hardie planks in a smooth finish. If we had insisted on them, we would have had to wait four to six weeks and buy 40 per cent more than what we need, since it only comes in standard-sized orders. We had been warned about this months ago, but assumed it wasn't a problem since it hadn't been raised since. No such luck.

Our architect tried to find us an alternative to the Hardie planks and identified a similar product that is available in a smooth finish. Ten thousand phone calls later, it became clear that the alternative product is not available locally, and can't be shipped here from anywhere else. To make matters worse, John was in Algonquin Park for the week and couldn't be consulted. Defeated, I gave in and accepted the fake wood grain stuff. We'll just have to deal with it. We're hoping that the steel panels will at least interrupt it. By the way, in the photo, whatever is white will be painted dark brown.

If a fake tree falls in a fake wood grain forest, does it still make a sound that sounds kind of like wood, but not really?

Canada Day at 96A

The rooftop patio isn't built yet, so we weren't able to check out the fireworks from our roof. Still, we decided to watch the show from the spare bedroom on the third floor. Equipped with a headlamp, we picked our way through the piles on the site and made our way upstairs in the dark. The view was great. The fireworks display was in plain sight, and the house is close enough to downtown to hear the crowds on Parliament Hill. Looking forward to Canada Day 2009!

Condiments compromised

John and I took the ladder down to the basement today to have a look at the mechanical equipment in our cold storage area. John had warned me that the space for my jams, mustards, pickles and other delicious items had been compromised by the installation of the mechanical equipment. To my disappointment, the equipment takes up almost half of the space. There's still a full wall length for shelving to hold the deliciousness, but we will only get shallow shelves in there. We'll have to come up with some creative shelving to use the space under the equipment, too.