Stick It To Me

I've spent the last 2 days in the bathroom. No, I wasn't sick, I was relpacing the floor. When we decided to move the toilet, that left a huge hole in the lino which needed to be mended. Since we weren't too attatched to the white and blue diamond linoleum, and it would have to be torn up when we do a complete reno on the bathroom anyway, we figured, "Why not?" Okay, it took me most of monday and over an hour today to take that old (it wasn't that old really) flooring up! I used our new Milwalkee "digital" heat gun on the second lowest setting-450 degrees- to "ease" the papery backing off the glue. I had loads of help.

Once the old flooring was removed, Ella helped me lay down the chalk line.

"What's a chalkline?" the little girl asks her mother.

"It's a line made of chalk, dear." her mother replies.

I had to adjust it a couple times because Ella couldn't keep her end of the line on the mark, but other than that it was smooth sailing. It took just under 4 hours to lay the peel-and-stick tiles down, only stopping to make a lovely quiche for dinner, and to wake the almost not a baby from his nap. It was my first ever tiling job, and it turned out pretty darn good. I did make some mistakes, and it would have been much easier laying it out had I done it when the boys were marathon plumbing.

Yay for me!

New laundry area

We moved the washing machine to it's new location last night. I hooked up the drain for the laundry sink and added a standpipe for the washing machine. We plumbed the water hook up on Sunday, so there wasn't a lot to get it going. The vent still has to be completed, but it'll work for now. We put the dryer back in it's old location for the mean time. We need about 45' of wire to move it, and we need to put in a new dryer vent. So maybe we'll have it done by next week sometime. I hope things start going a little quicker, with the slab poured... there's still so much to do though. Deb is stripping the vinyl floor in the bathroom upstairs, there was a big hole where the toilet used to be, so we're just doing a temporary floor, until we figure out exactly what we're going to do with the bathroom. It's just going to be black and white checkerboard, peel and stick tiles, eventually we'll probably put hexagon tile in there. I found a piece of black coping tile in the wall, I wonder what it looked like when they gutted it?

Concrete is Best

Saturday was the big day, the concrete truck arrived after 11:30, a couple of hours late. We kept ourselves busy by moving the gas line for the barbeque, well it was most Deb's dad Bill. I made sure everything was ready for the pour, all the screed lines, moving all the junk out of the way, so we'd have room to work and various other little things.


We got the truck to back in to the driveway. I had to sign a release, so they wouldn't be liable for damage. Our driveway is mostly dirt, so I wasn't too worried. We managed to get the chute in the basement window, so we wouldn't have to move the concrete too far. We had to swivel the chute as he backed up, it was a tight fit. The driver appreciated working in the basement out of the heat.


Here's the driver preparing the 4" slump concrete (it's the way of measuring how thick the concrete is). You can see the tight fit between the houses. We had the same driver as last year, when we poured the retaining wall. We ordered 4.5 cubic yards of concrete, the same a last year too, to do our 300 s.f. slab, and the small room under the nook.



Here's Billy, floating the concrete. He screeded it as well, as I worked the wheelbarrow and shovel. Deb's dad Bill helped with the shovelling too. And here's me helping to finish the concrete. We went over it 2 times, the first time to bring up the thinner concrete (I don't know how else to describe it), the second time to polish it. Polishing makes the slab stronger, and gives it a nice shiny surface.


Here's a picture after the first round of finishing. In the background, you can see our behemoth furnace, it's over 50 years old.


Today we finished up the gas line for the barbeque. We also plumbed in the hook up for the washing machine in it's new location. We're just using one of the vent pipes as a drain, until we get the laundry basin and standpipe plumbed. Now we're all exhausted, but pumped at the same time, it's just so nice to see concrete, and no dirt in the basement.

Plumbing, Gravel and Concrete...

We've been busy the past few weeks, we've redone almost all the DWV(drain, waste,vent I think) for the whole house. Not that there was a lot of plumbing with only one bathroom, and one kitchen. We've added quite a bit though, Deb's dad came out again, last Saturday, and we had another plumbing marathon. We got almost all the plumbing ready to pour, we were missing a couple parts, so I finished it last night. We got a load of gravel on tuesday, 7 yards. I'm using road base under the slab, I was going to use the same crushed stone that we used for the drainage, I think this stuff compacts better though, and the perimeter drains should get rid of most of the water. I cut a little bit more of the slab on Sunday as well, just to square it out, and get rid of more cracked concrete. I used a diamond blade on a circular saw. It makes an incredible amount of dust. I wore a mask, and kept it on for half an hour after cutting. A wet saw would be a better idea. We pour this Saturday, our neighbour Bill is going to help with the finishing, since he's done it before, and I'm still learning (I have a long way to go).


The dump truck dropping on the gravel in our narrow driveway. At least they didn't hit the house this time.
















And various pictures of the plumbing and gravel floor (better than dirt)














The new door and stairwell.














A view towards the location of our new bathroom


Looking towards the location of the laundry area and powder room.

Out of Comission

Tales from the Garden

I haven't been posting about our gardens simply because it's not very interesting. Don't get me wrong, it looks well tended and is filling in nicely and maybe that's the problem. Too low maintenance. Isn't that what all gardeners long for though? All I've been doing is weeding and dead-heading, and occasionally adding a plant or two that have germinated (inside, on a window ledge) along with store bought plants and flowers. Everything is pretty much where I want, with the exception of some spring bulbs which have to be dug up first, and I shouldn't really do that until September/October. We're trying to grow back the grass (from seed) where the yard was dug up for drainage and for the stairway to hell. We have been very successful growing grass, so I'm not worried about whether it'll grow or not... Here's a before and after of some grass we've grown from seed:


Back to the garden... When the weather was really nice in February and March I did a lot of gardening- moving plants around, adding more bulbs, et cetera, etc. Then the weather changed and spring came in the form of a 3 month long rainfall followed by our lack of sunshine summer (until recently). A couple of weekends ago we found a dead rat (could have been the same one that was in my compost bin) in a little garden by the garage. Derek took some pictures of it, but don't worry, I'm not going to post them... I will however post some pics of the gardens:

clockwise from left: "claret" sunflower- seeds from Thompson & Morgan; gladiolus from my neighbour Laura infront of the butterfly bush; a miniature purple rose that Ella was given by her grandparents for performing in her last ballet show, also a really cool rock from Jody; a beautiful smelling butterfly bush (and yes, it really does attract butterflies!); a cute little purple clematis I found in the backyard when Derek was digging the retaining wall; a corner of the secret shady garden that looks out onto the park (not shown); some sedum, hollyhock (grown from seed) and lotsa pretty little dead nettle. centre: our pumpkin vine is about 6'long and hopefully we'll be able to harvest at least 2 pumpkins for jack-o-lanterns (check back in October)

I guess it's really not that boring... after all, we've eaten a whole whack o' carrots, about 5 green beans, peas, strawberries, 4 blueberries, raspberries, rhubarb (yet to be harvested), and of course zucchini!
mmmm, it was good, too

Plumbing With Your Eyes Closed

It was an exciting day here on Saturday. My Dad, and our neighbour (both named Bill) came to help Derek with the plumbing of the basement. The plan was to replace the main cast-iron stack with new PVC, re-locate the existing toilet, and add in all the "Ys" and "Ts" for the new bathrooms and kitchenette. I didn't get to help too much because of having to take care of the kiddies- and believe me, that was pretty hard once they saw all the excitement- and dirt- in the basement.

Derek got started around 9:30am, after a cuppa-joe and a good breakfast. The first thing he did was cut a hole in the bathroom wall to access the vent to add a clamp so the whole thing wouldn't come crashing down upon their heads. Dad and Billy arrived soon after and there was much discussion about the placement of the pipes and vents, couplings, sawzall blades, sledgehammers, et cetera, etc...

The water was flushed from the toilet and the surgery began. The three of them took turns cutting the cast-iron stack with a good, strong blade for the sawzall, which took about 15 minutes to cut through. There's not much life left in that blade now. The great thing about moving the existing toilet is that we now had the option of putting the pipes pretty much anywhere we wanted. The possibilities were endless, only time was against us. And exhaustion. I stepped outside, dragging a screaming boy carrying a toy shovel, and heard a very loud noise. I'd completely forgotten that it was Sgt. "Smokey" Smith's service that morning and a group of CF-18 jets were to fly overhead in the Missing Man Formation, following the procession from the Armory to St. Andrew's Wesley United Church. Sgt. Smith won the Victoria Cross for single-handedly holding off German tanks and troops in a battle in Italy in October 1944 during the Second World War. He was the last living Canadian to receive the cross. The medal is the Commonwealth's highest award for bravery. The jets flew by so fast by the time I rounded up the kids, they were gone.

The hole was cut for the new placement of the toilet and then the fidgity work began. The joist was luckily in the right place, to just squeak the pipe by. We left a little more than 12" from the wall, so that we had options when adding tile et cetera to the wall.

The next task was the decision to go past the point of no return, and take out the existing cast iron stack with a sledge hammer. The demo always goes quickly, and soon, all the pipes were laying on the driveway. Next was a little more digging, to get all the new plumbing at the proper angle, 1/4" per foot is optimal. 1/8" per foot is minimum. Then we started building backwards from the sewer side connecting to the toilet, and the vent. Of course it didn't all go smoothly, and Derek ended up going to 2 home improvement stores to get parts. The water supply for the toilet had to be moved as well. The kitchen sink is just connected temporarily , since there wasn't enough time to get all the plumbing done in one day. We still need to complete all the branches for the new plumbing in the basement, so we've got another day of plumbing ahead of us. We pretty much left off where we started....

Here's Bill, doping out the connections to the toilet, tub and vent. The precision of this stack will be a thing of legends for years to come.


















The new stack, in all it's glory. (queue god music)


















Here's Dad, soldering the connection to the toilet. He has an old school acetylene torch that burns hotter than propane. We still have to remove the old line, the knob was removed, so little hands don't play with it, and get water everywhere.















Here's the better location for the toilet. The sticky gunk (wax and caulking) and the old flange were removed, the floor was wiped down with paint thinner. A square hole through the top layer of subfloor was cut, by doing plunge cuts with the circular saw. A new piece was cut to fit, then screwed in. We're just covering the floor with peel and stick tile in the interim, since this room needs a full redo, and we're not even sure if we want to keep the current tub or go with a gorgeous claw foot... can you tell which way I'm leaning? Another bonus on moving the toilet is the roll holder location... now hopefully Ella won't pee on the seat while rrreeeeeeeaching for it!

When all was said and done, there was nothing between the boys and the plumbing. They were engaged with the task at hand, and were plumbing with their eyes closed.

Plumbing for the weekend

We've decided to get rid of the cast iron stack, which means we have to replumb almost all the DWV (sewer pipes). Hopefully we can do this in one day, since we don't have a lot of plumbing, with just the one bathroom, the kitchen and the laundry area. We're going to change the orientation of the toilet in the bathroom, Deb doesn't like seeing the toilet when you come in the front door, so it'll go against the side wall. I'll probably cut out the new hole tonight or tomorrow night. Right now, we're just trying to fill the dumpster, which hopefully we can finish tonight. The basement is almost finished, but there's dirt to get rid of on the driveway too, as well as some reminants of the concrete driveway. It's a good thing we're friends with both of our neighbours, since the bathroom is going to be out of commission for a good part of Saturday. With little kids that's a good thing, at least one is still in diapers.

Joe Public

My friend Stevie Smith wrote a book. It's called "Joe Public" and you can buy it here.

A little bit of everything and a whole lot of nothing.
Through parental guidance amounting to a dictatorial father with an unnerving fondness for the Nazis, and a beleaguered, out of touch mother who believes Emily Pankhurst and the Suffragettes are a 60's Motown combo...Joe's choices in life are nothing if not his own.
So facing a world fraught with blinding confusion and fearful, unavoidable evolution, where can Joe go but forward? Sex, travel, education, siblings, crime, sex, illness, careers, and sex. It's all his to figure out via an ill balanced blend of ignorance and innocence.
Joe's journey is a touching, exploratory novel of growing pains and personalised global positioning told with a firm grip on the handles of humour and relation.
A fictionalised biography, "Joe Public" is S. J. Smith's first novel

It's not about home renovations, but I'm sure it's a great read (and I did the cover art)!!!
Congratulations, Stevie!!!

Ironing out the plumbing

We've started the basement plumbing, but now are starting to second guess what we've done. Since the floor is all ripped up, we have a lot of latitude with what we can do. We're thinking of getting rid of a large chunk of cast iron pipe, so we can move the toilet upstairs, and get the basement plumbing back to it's original level, since the house sank about 2" at the back, there is a flat section in the pipe. I wanted to keep the cast iron, because it's quiet, however, we'll never be ripping the basement floor up, so now is our chance to get everything right. We could do hubless cast iron for this small section in the basement, it's just so much harder to work with, and more expensive. I don't think the noise in the basement would bother me, and we could always insulate the pipe to lessen the noise. So we're leaning towards replacing the pipe. It would help with the layout of the laundry room as well. It's just a lot of work, and a major disruption.

We got another bin today, about 5 yards, so we'll be busy for the next few days filling it with dirt and concrete. We need to dig the basement out, so we have 3.5" of concrete with 4" of gravel under it. Currently the concrete is only 2" thick and it's right on the dirt. I'm surprised the whole floor isn't cracked.

Basement Plumbing

We're in the process of finishing our basement, the floor is half torn up, and this weekend we started plumbing. We rented a chain pipe cutter for cast iron on the weekend, and cut in to the pipe in 2 places. It was really hard work cutting the pipe, we moved the cutter back and forth, and kept tightening. It seemed that the pipe didn't want to break. Finally we just tightened it with a rachet, and heard the telltale snap. We'd already preassembled the ABS pipe to tie in, and that part went pretty smoothly, one of the cuts wasn't so straight, but we had enough room with the rubber adapter to cover that up. Next is digging all the trenches. I started it, but after putting 4 or 5 wheelbarrow loads on the driveway, I decided to wait until I get a bin to put the dirt in.
We got a bunch of free lumber on Saturday as well. My boss bought a house that has some used forming lumber on it; so I got 5 sheets of plywood, and a bunch of 2'x4's that we had to cut to 14' to fit in the truck. I may be going back next weekend for more plywood, who knows. The garage is getting full though, so there isn't much room. Plus I don't know what we'd do with a bunch of plywood anyways. I was thinking of using it to make the cripple walls in the basement in to shear walls. We're going to be connecting the sill plate to the foundation wall, with wedge bolts. Some plywood screwed to the walls, would make them that much stronger. I've heard that's where houses fail during earthquakes, the cripple walls on the basement foundation.

Pawz in the Puddin'

The first slab I poured, didn't quite turn out as well as I thought it would. It was a little dark when we poured it, and I missed the line on one side, I picked up a bag of concrete topping, with a bonding agent already mixed in. Almost $22 for a bag, good thing we only needed one bag. I don't know what's in it besides mortar and bonding agent, that makes it so expensive. After around an hour of futzing around, it was much better than before, with everything looking like it sloped to the drain. The cat was still outside, on his leash ( he's declawed, so we don't want him to go far), so I rehung the basement door, and put the cat inside. I was thinking he didn't really like the smell of the concrete, so he'd stay away. I came back about an hour or two later, and noticed cat paw prints everywhere. The concrete was already setting, so there was nothing I could do. I went to put a piece of plywood over top, so he didn't step on it anymore, and bam, I dropped a corner of the plywood on the topping. So now there's prints and a corner mark. Looks like I'll be repairing it again. Luck of the Irish
.

The Case of the Crooked Casing

Chet's jalopy was in the shop, so we took the station wagon to get some supplies. A four foot spirit level, determined that the back wall was more than a little out of plumb. Steve the carpenter suggesting cutting some rather long wedges, so the door would remain plumb, and the casing could follow the plane of the wall. He also suggested some flashing at the top of the door. We used the sawsall to cut a space behind the stucco, then got the flashing in to the gap. After using almost a whole tube of calking, it's not as noticeble as we thought it would be. Just a few more trim pieces to bridge the gap between stucco and wood, a little more wood filler and some paint and it'll be done. We back primed all the pieces, I read somewhere this is a good idea, even the old wood wasn't rotted at all, and I reused it where we could.