Let there be Heat

Well, more on our progression on our house. Today, we had our furnace replaced, attached a new humidifier and ran new ducts to our master bedroom and mud-room. Now hopefully this year, both rooms won't be so darn cold. Our plumbing permit pass so Monday, more work on the house. At least for now, there won't be anymore jackhammering.
With all this rain, it has become apparent that our shingles and eavesdrops need replacing and STAT! With a new basement developing, the last thing we need is a flood down there. Our grading doesn't help, but one step at a time. Over the past few days or more so, that one day it rained all night, we had to put our 2 large garbage cans where the eavesdrops were leaking. By morning, both were full to the rim! Yikes! That is horrible. So, now we just dig a little deeper into our pockets and hope we find some cash!

Long Weekend = Hard Labour

Wow, what a weekend!

Well, so long to the idea that we weren't going to touch our landscaping this year. After planting my 2 planters, my gardening side was not satisfied. So, I convinced Wackie to drive us out to Holes on Saturday which sparked new ideas and a vision for our flower beds... well, our soon to be flower beds. This weekend was filled with weeding, forking and turning the soil, seeding grass and planting flowers. Each day started with trips out to the greenhouses around town, lots of money spent on shrubs and plants and finally hard work. But so far, I'm loving what we got.

I believe gardening is an art. Today, I spent picking out plants and shrubs for our front flower bed. It was fun picking out flowers, trying to find other flowers that would complement each other and making sure their sizes wouldn't over power them. Then the fun of planting them in their new home strategically, knowing how big and how tall each will grow when it matures. I started with a blank canvas and ended up with a wonderful starting point.

Tomorrow, we do it all again.
Lets go!

Reno Update #1

We have finally bitten that bullet and taken on the renovations to our basement! We met with the contractor on Sunday and signed the contract to get things going. (As i am typing this there is a ton of jackhammering and sawing going on and I am wearing earplugs!)

Anyways, things started on Monday when the guys came in and started work on the many cracks we had in the basement. It was a long process but they injected epoxy mixed with some other stuff that hardens and seals the crack. The cool, yet weird and disturbing thing is when they filled the crack you can see it coming out on the exterior of the wall...yikes! But they say it helps seal the cracks even more.

Anyways, while that was happening, the carpenter has been busy taking some walls down and creating/fixing the others. So far he has done a lot of the demo that he need to do prior to getting at it. he has taken down the load bearing wall from one of the bedrooms (which will eventually be the washroom and has put up the framing. he is now starting to fix the exterior frames so we can start to get some insulation in there.

We also have someone today jackhammering so the plumbing to the new washroom can be tied in.

One hiccup so far in this project is that they had to take down some of the vents in the basement in order to put the beam for the new washroom. We have to replace our furnace because there is a crack in the exchanger. But before the furnace guy can do that, our chimney has to be fixed first because it's crumbling to pieces and he wants to get that repaired beforehand so he can put in a chimney liner. So things are kinda stalled for a bit until we can get some quotes on those two things.

Oh the bad thing this past week was getting home at 0300 hrs in the morning and they get here at 0800 hrs and start pounding and cutting! Short o sleep but I've been able to sneak in a nap here and there.

Wackie

I'm a Woman, hear me ROAR

Well, I'm slightly sore today but not anything surprising. As some of you know, our renovations has finally started today, but not with some hardcore labour on my part - no thanks to Wackie. You see, on Sunday our contractor, Doug E. Doug did a walk through with us in our basement that day. However, the day before Wackie and Big Pun ripped out the raised floor and the other walls that needed to come down. Well, what they failed to do was remove all that stuff out of the house. So Doug E. Doug pretty much says, oh, we can start tomorrow if all this stuff is moved out. Well, after making some adjustments to the contract and signing our life away, it's hometime for the Dougie and work time for Wackie which leaves me to haul all the lumber (and there was alot!!) and to sweep the floor by myself. You see, the guys don't make my job easier as they left all the lumber at it's full length which I then had to lift, balance, carry up the flight of stairs, down the back stairs and throw into our backyard. Imagine doing this for 1 hour straight. I was not a happy camper. But now looking at that huge pile of lumber in our backyard, I can say, I did it myself! I'll give myself a pat on the back...