A license to shop

Sometimes it seems like half the fun is getting to actually spend money and buy things for a change. Sunday went out and bought all new appliances for the house. Before that, a bathroom vanity, sink, mirror and medicine cabinet. Today it was paint in great quantity. The best thing, though, was an ingenious little roller with a surface that looks like a tangle of rubber bands. I'm going to use it tonight to try to replicate the pebbly texture of the 1950s plaster walls, in the places where we've patched up cracks and holes.

Almost a kitchen

There's still a lot of drywalling to do around them, but the cabinets are on the walls. I've never had new kitchen cabinets before. Too bad I won't get to use them myself.

Doo doo doo lookin' out my back door

Not the most artistic photo, but this picture is for the credit union. My very nice loans officer asked "is there a back door yet?" I can appreciate the concern for the security of their investment. I wanted a French door with a full glass panel, but the components for this were in stock at Windsor Plywood, and much more reasonably priced than the deluxe option which would have taken 6 weeks to get. Compromises, compromises.

As for the title above, it's from that old Creedence Clearwater Revival song. I looked up the lyrics. What does "take a ride on the flying spoon" mean anyway?

Running behind

Yikes. By now I thought I'd have the walls all drywalled, taped, mudded, sanded, all the broken plasted primed, patched and textured, the whole house primed and ready for beautiful coats of off-white paint...Instead I am still painstaking splicing little squares of drywall into little holes during the scant hours that I can get to the house. It all seemed so fast and easy in my imagination, as usual. I wonder how long it takes to become realistic about how long it takes to get things done?

This week I wake up and head straight over around 5 a.m. or as early as I can drag myself out of bed. In an hour or two I seem to average 1 1/2 or 2 pieces of drywall installed. Then it's back home to wake the kids, make lunches and get them off to school...oh, and change and shower and bandage up the latest wounds from scraper and utility knife slippage. Then, after dinner and the ritual nagging of children about homework etc. I head over again most nights and attempt to do something useful for another hour or so.

By yesterday I was so tired I was nearly nodding off at my desk at work. Don't tell the boss.

Will it get done in time for the arrival of my short-term tenant June 2nd? It seems unlikely, but I don't have much choice but to get it done somehow. I also need to get kitchen cabinets installed, electricity hooked up everywhere (I have just one working outlet and waste much time groping in the dark for tools and materials.)

Anyway, today I dropped by the Restore at lunch (plug: proceeds go to support Habitat for Humanity) and scored three gallons of lovely off-white Benj. Moore paint in "light straw" for $28 total. Perfect. Might go back for the can of "natural linen" tomorrow. And got two great outdoor light fixtures for front and back that will fit in with the attempted Japanese influence. I'll post photos of them later.

Here's the best thing about the house at this point:

Amateur Hour part 2

Ordered the kitchen countertop today (It will be finished, but not installed, by the end of the month. Missed that deadline!) We will drywall on Saturday. Rochelle seems to believe I can do this, but I'm not so sure. I've put in small pieces before. I've layered buckets of drywall mud over cracked and hole-pocked plaster walls. But I've never done a full wall where seams mattered, and electrical outlets and pipes had to be accounted for. Wish us luck.
Johnny says the place is starting to feel "cozy." I think that's stretching it, with bare stud walls, floors half-installed and several key conveniences missing (sinks, for instance). But it's becoming definitely house-like.

It's a garage!

It was hard to tell at first. Before the full assortment of boards and studs and rubber foam and styrofoam and assorted crap could be fully removed to make way for the door, a bee hive had to be persuaded to leave. After waiting a couple of days without success for them to move on to another place, I sort of flung it into the garden and then ran like hell.

I didn't install the new(ish) door myself, of course. That's why it works so well.

Plaster repair, trim and paint still to come.

The urge to destroy is also a creative urge

That was one of the graffiti we used to see all over East Vancouver in our younger days. Seems pretty crass to apply it to this endeavor. After all, the graffiti also said, "Property is theft", and my personal favourite, "The urge to buy terrorizes you." But there it is. And here it was:

Amateur hour

It's taking longer than planned, of course, to get things done
(demolition, in particular. Amazing how hard those rotten old plywood
subfloors hold on when you're trying to pull them out.) Then I had the
plumber say he was going to come a week later than originally promised. Apparently he wasn't formally booked to do my job on the week we agreed
on in writing. That's because bookings had to go through his assistant, though
no one told me that. So I booked the floor refinisher, and now all of a
sudden everyone else (carpenter, electrician) wants to be here at the
same time as the floors are being done this week. The floor refinisher
got P.O.'d at me because I was going to get him to patch an area where
the hardwood is missing in the hallway, then changed my mind because
I've now got enough free oak flooring left over from the kitchen to do
that area too....he called me an amateur. Funny how much that comment
stings. Of course I'm an amateur, but I guess I feel that attitude
coming from a lot of the people I deal with in this, including the
plumber and the guy at the "wholesale" appliance store who keeps quoting
me prices that are higher than the ones he gives Morley, my real estate
pal. The appliances are cheaper at Future Shop anyway, so I bought a
stove there today instead.

Anyway, the windows look great with the wood trim installed, and the
awful shed and rabbit hutches are demolished and gone to the dump, and
things are moving along.

Oh brothers, where art thou?

The last and only previous time I had to take linoleum and/or vinyl off a floor, it was in our kitchen at Fallingdowne, and it was dead easy. That's because my brothers were visiting from yonder to play winter golf and they happily saved my ass by doing all the hard labour. How I wish there were here now. That floor scraper tool is torture.

The pipes, the pipes

It was such a stinky day yesterday that today I consoled myself with gardening: Prying up weeds in what remains of the front flower beds, heeling in some rescued foundlings from the garden centre, and hoping they take root. My arms are sore from attempting to remove the old vinyl on the kitchen floor yesterday. A discouraging experience that had me wondering what the hell I've got myself into. The kitchen cupboards refused to be demolished under my feeble flailing, and there was a disturbing rim of dark dampness all along the edge of the plywood subfloor where it meets the walls. Where was the moisture coming from? I felt sick with thoughts of the possibilities. I could hear Mike Holmes in the back of my mind, saying "I've decided now to gut it." I told myself I would only lose my RRSP savings, and I never expected to retire anyway.

This grey morning our friend and neighbor John stopped by. He'd offered to take a look and see if he could offer some advice. What a great relief it was to see him work through my questions, room by room, outside and in the crawl space where I had been delaying the inevitable task of turning the water back on to see if any pipes had burst.

The upshot:
-No burst pipes.
-Moisture upstairs (most of it, anyway) probably due to the fact that there's standing water in the muddy crawl space, evaporating up through the vents and floor. The crawl space needs gravel and plastic sheeting over the dirt to seal out the moisture, and a vapour barrier and insulation between the floor joists.
- A sledgehammer would help with the cabinets, and a bit of strategic sawing. (I thought the sledgehammers on the decorating shows were just set-ups for the cameras.)
- Various other things that are too boring to tell but much less dire than I feared.

Thanks John.

Oh, and here's the house with windows. Still needs a back door. I'm working on it.