home is where the couch is

We're onto the second room now, the one we used as an office and junk room. It leaked in this room too, but we were still hoping there would be no carpenter ants. Alas, there is. So far we see them above the door just like in the other room, but we think they'll be further up in the ceiling too.

This is the back wall of the addition. The fish eye look is because I'm using Photosynth, a free app that allows you to stitch together photos. So if they suck, sorry.

The view from the fireplace room. (There is no jut out of that wall, it stitched together oddly)

The view from the patio door. The cardboard box is covering up a door to the kitchen. It's going to be closed up in this renovation.

The little hallway that separates the fireplace room from the office.

At first, we were going to leave the side walls covered with drywall, but I think we're going to end up gutting the whole thing and try to salvage what we can. You can salvage insulation, right? There's a bunch that looks good. Part of me wishes we already had a garage so we could store all of this stuff that we're taking apart, but that's number 2 on the list; after this is all done.

Oh gee, what's under the plastic?? Besides mold...

Little ant tunnels, with the few dark spots being carpenter ants. Great.

I feel kind of bad, I started playing Roller Derby and they warned us that it takes over your life. The man is getting stuck doing a lot of the work, he complains, but I think he likes it. And hey, isn't coming up with the ideas/plans/design just as much work? That's how I've fallen asleep for the past year, thinking of what needs to be done and how we're going to accomplish it.

I was so excited. All I wanted for Mother's Day was to start ripping apart the inside of our addition. We recently had the roof done. There were 2 skylights and a fireplace vent sticking out of the roof and I recently got them all removed and roofed over. The skylights had been leaking for years. I'm not even joking. We've owned the house for 10 years and its leaked all that time, and I know that it leaked a ton before because the flooring underneath was ruined before we temporarily (7 years temporarily) replaced it.

So, the roof was redone and they didn't do that great of a job; you can see an indent where the skylights were and some of the shingles are lifted. It's not leaking though and there may be a chance we have to take up some of it anyway because of what we found when we pulled away the drywall.

Now, I know that letting things continue to leak can create horrible issues in any house and, yes, we should have dealt with this years ago - but I was rooting for ripping the whole thing down and rebuilding it. This might actually be the cheaper option in the long run, but right now we're here, I've given into not ripping it down and just fixing as we go. Because "everything can be fixed" as the man likes to say.

Outside the addition at the back of the house

Fireplace Room: The view from inside the house looking out

Fireplace Room: The view from the fireplace outward

The addition is one long building, about 11 feet deep and 20-something feet long, divided in the middle with a 2 piece bathroom. We used one room as the 'fireplace room'. It had a gas fireplace, futon and books in it. The other room was the 'office' with all of our computers and rubble that goes along with computers - desks, printers, scanners, parts in general...and anything else that we could shove in the room.

The plan is to gut the whole addition, take out the bathroom and everything and move the bathroom to a far wall so that we then have one big room; a rec room and a bathroom with a shower, instead of two random rooms and a piddly bathroom.

The other day, we had emptied the fireplace room of all our stuff and it was now time to take it apart. Now, remember it had been leaking for years, and the skylight in the fireplace room was the worst.

This is what it looked like before

And here is what was hidden underneath.

I had gone out for a few hours while he was taking the drywall out, so I missed the roiling, seething mass of carpenter ants that I'm told were nesting underneath. Supposedly there were thousands.

The carpenter ants chewed through the header

A little closer look...

It's a little bigger than just ants and rot. Mice lived in the corner above the fireplace (I always said I heard rustling, but I thought it was bats.) and they've shit and peed in there. We're pretty sure some of the wet looking wood in the corner is from their pee. Yuck.

The rot continues.

You can see how the roofers filled in the skylight

We wanted to try and salvage the ceiling. The man is now taking down some of the tongue and groove ceiling and it's coming down quite nicely - he is a perfectionist and does things well like that, even though we had lots of guys telling us it would just crack and splinter. We were planning on only removing the boards just past the skylights, but he's been chasing ants. They keep crawling further up and he keeps taking down boards...Poor guy. I can't even begin to help, I'm so grossed out.

The corner where the fireplace sat

The fireplace and base are now gone and the previous parquet flooring is visible.

Other fun surprises that we've discovered is that the whole addition has about 6-8 inches clearance from the ground, that it's being held up by bricks, blocks and rocks and that the insulation that is under the floor either has wood or chicken wire holding it up and that the chicken wire section is saggy. No wonder it was so cold back there. We're leaving the rocks/bricks/blocks - it's been that way for probably 30 or more years and it's settled. Plus we don't really have money for the foundation.

It's been a mixed bag of feelings - excitement that it's getting started, grossed out by ants and mice in the house, disappointment at how much it will cost/time it will take to fix the rot, but happiness that the tongue and groove is coming down so easily.

Well, it's just the start and I'm sure we'll find more pleasant surprises. Wish us luck.

I have a thing for lamps. Drives the man nuts. The crazier they are, the more I love them. I like their curves and different looks. I like how they're unique, you can't just go to the store and pick one up. Well, you can when it's St.Vinnies or Value Village.

Here's one lamp that I found last year.

I took it apart and spray painted the gold accents black. I added a white shade and added a white drum lampshade. When I get old lamps, I like to redo the electrical. Don't feel like having a fire in my house because of some old lamp.

So here's the new lamp that I found:


It needs a good scrubbing, I think it was in a smokers house. It looks white in the photos, but it definitely has a yellow tinge in real life. I bought a lampshade for it, Peterborough has no good place to buy shades, so I bought it at Walmart, but I think it doesn't really go well. I'm going to return the shade and I've ordered this shade instead:

White Cotton Drum Cylinder Shade

It's 8x8x11 and I just think that little bit taller and skinnier will look better. I may go to a fabric store and redo the shade, we'll see. The girl doesn't want me to paint the lamp and I kind of wanted to. I really liked what this blogger did to her lamp: Navy Bean Lamp Makeover. I'm kind of torn.

But, the man hates it and that's all that matters ;-)

For the last 10 years, I've lived with this Thing in my living room. Yes, it looked kind of cool. It would have been even nicer if I had painted over the hunter green paint that covered it...but honestly, I've been craving some calmness and space in my house. This Thing provided storage space, but it was super awkward, no square corners, just some weird shape that never really held stuff very well. My cat really loved the Thing and feels so displaced without it. It allowed him to walk from window to window without having to jump up and down - I honestly thing it encouraged him to be lazier than he already is. The fat cat cow already weighs 20 pounds and he's super peeved he now has to exercise to see out the window.
How it started:
The man was going away for a few days. I forewarned him that I might get into a 'bit of mischief'. Sure, I may have squeezed that into the middle of a lot of chat, but he should have known.
The day he left, the boy was sitting on the Thing, swinging his legs on one of the doors. The boy knew about my mischief and what I wanted to do.
"Can I swing this door off?" he asked.
"Sure." I said, not really thinking that he would. But he did.
"Can I swing the other one off too?"
"Sure." I figured, oh well, what's a few doors off this ugly Thing. Then I pulled out some crowbars and hammers, left them on the Thing and went out the door with the girl. I swear I was only gone 20 minutes. This is what I came home to.


Oh.
Well, too late to go back now. What's done is done. Pick up the crowbar and join in, I thought.



It once was a window seat. And now it's not. YAY!!

It was a mother to get out. Very well built. I had thought maybe I could salvage it and put it in my bedroom, there is a ton of room in there. But once we started trying to take it out, it wouldn't go out without a fight, and we just had to destroy it. I had to call my brother to come help me get the base out. They used, I don't know, 10 inch nails to keep it all together. I may be exaggerating, but probably not. They were long. It took the two of us, some crowbars and tons of our strength to heave the bottom out of the floor.


I could always smell mouse shit when I walked in the house on damp days, I still can. (The kitchen is next. I know they're there...) This is a super blurry photo of all the crap that was underneath that Thing.


As always, the neat part is seeing how things are built and what's behind them. Like the wallpaper, that we knew was there, but it's kind of cool to see in the daylight.

Any guesses as to the year of the wallpaper? I was thinking late 1950's. I kind of like it, too bad it really smelled musty.

So, when the weekend was over, I went and picked the man up at the car park with my mittens on so that he wouldn't see the paint that was all over them. He didn't even notice the giant pile of wood in the trailer the was parked right next to the car. I think he only noticed our mischief because it smelled like paint. We were expecting a freak out, but he took it really well. We were a little disappointed, he's kinda fun to watch when he's spazzing out.

*NOTE: I didn't start taking photos until we were underway with our reno. I'm horrible at remembering to do that.

Our house was built in 1885. It's pretty old yet beautiful. It also needs a lot of work. It's interesting when tearing your house apart, trying to figure out how they did things and if walls were torn out or ones were built a few decades after the house was built.
We have a bathroom upstairs with a clawfoot tub/shower. I love that thing. One of my favourite things to do is read in the tub.

It was time to renovate the bathroom. We had 'discussions' about ripping everything out including the tub and putting in a newer one, but I was pretty dead set about keeping it. Sometimes it's the only thing keeping me sane, the ability to go escape in the bathtub!
When you first walk into the bathroom, you would see the toilet. It was really awkwardly placed, not really great feng shui, nor pretty to look at as soon as you look toward the bathroom.

That was one issue. The other was that they put the sink right beneath the window.

The bathroom itself is really narrow. Four feet by twelve feet. When we started removing parts of the wall, we could see that one of the walls seemed to have been built later than the rest of the house. We could tell because the baseboard wasn't removed when they built the house. Neither was the little pieces of wallpaper that was left behind. They kind of just continued behind the wall. We also think they took down a wall because there's a really wonky section of the wall the juts out a bit. With a bit of detective work, we think that our bathroom door opened into a closet and the rest of the bathroom was part of my daughters bedroom - her room is super tiny - and it must have been bigger at one time. The window also looks like it was a later addition. They must have had an outhouse, but in our digging, we haven't found the remains of that...

WHAT WE DID:

• We ripped out everything except the tub and most of the walls. They're plaster and we wanted to keep them. The man is a perfectionist and the slight wobbles of the walls drive him nuts but I just remind him it's 'character'.

• We bought a new sink/cabinet from Ikea, which I love. I love the drawers under the sink and the way the plumbing has to be set in the back to make room for the drawers. It's such a non-waste of space and in our small bathroom every bit of space counts. Our drawers hold so much, it's amazing!!

• Put up two wall sconces.

• We bought a new tap. I was trying to mix old and new. I love the shininess of the tap and that it has an old fashioned look but it's still modern enough to fit into the bathroom.

• Ripped out the tiles and put new ones in. This wasn't really in the plans. The man wanted to keep them to save money, and I hated them because it limiting what I was able to do with the bathroom - I was set on a grey and white soothing room and the tiles were terracottaish and gah, I would have had to paint the bathroom beige. Then the plumber came and moved around the plumbing and it would have been a pain to replace the tiles, especially because the floor underneath was a mess and needed to be redone. Bouncy and missing planks. SOO, out came the tiles. Not before I ripped the ceiling in the kitchen apart so that the plumber could get at the plumbing. Because hubby wanted to keep the tiles. Long story short. Huge hole in kitchen ceiling, new tiles in the bathroom.
  
  

  At this point, I'm not sure if we had replaced some of the bouncy and missing planks.

  I wish he would stop placing limits and trying to salvage things that just needs to go, it so ruins my plans. The man doesn't really care for the tiles, but you'll find I win a lot of the discussions. It's not because I'm a total bitch, well, I can be, but my logic is that he only notices things for a week or so and then he doesn't notice any changes after that, whereas I notice things forever and if something doesn't look right, it drives me nuts and I drive him nuts complaining...so it's better for everyone if he just gives in on things like design. I give in on things for him too, it's not all one sided. That's why there's a giant mitre saw, router table and treadmill in my back room. Anyway, we put down 2 inch octagon tiles.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Gross tile before. Man, that was fun smashing it out.

  We also laid the tiles on wood. I know some tilers think this is a big no-no, but that's what the tiles were on before and there was no mold or damage. Also, it's debated all over the web - some tilers say they've been doing it forever and it's been fine. Anyway, this is what we did. You don't have to do the same. We'll let you know if we have any issues. So far, so good.

  My first time laying tiles. Charcoal grout.

  I had sand blasted the tub legs and painted them silver, but I the colour did not go well in the room. So I repainted them dark brown and they look wonderful. We replaced most of the plumbing with chrome, but kept the gold bathtub plumbing due to money. Those things are expensive!!

  
  It was my first time laying tile and I think I did okay. There's a few spots that are noticeably wider than they should be, and they show up really well because I used charcoal coloured grout. But otherwise I think they're beautiful!!
• Bought a new toilet. Have you ever taken out an old toilet?? Disgusting. New toilets are the way to go.

• Put up bead board and trim. I love this stuff. It makes a plaster wall so beautifully smooth and easy to clean. We have a few regrets, things we kind of wished we had done, but we're still unsure if we would have done them. We cut the plaster out around the tub because there was tiles around the tub and me ripping them off sure made a mess. We replaced it with that green mold-proof, water-resistant drywall (is that an oxymoron?). So at least around the tub there is some sort of protection to water and moisture. But what we think we should have done is insulated behind that. Our old house doesn't have a ton of insulation in the walls. We've read such mixed reviews on this. My favourite point of view is here, where the guy has worked on old houses for years. If we listened to him, we did the right thing by not insulating the wall. I wanted the trim above the bead board to be deep enough for me to put things on, like a ledge. I thought I would put all our shampoo and stuff on the end wall, but we haven't done that. 

• Put up a medicine cabinet. Storage, storage, storage!! I went through all of my bathroom crap - it's amazing the stuff you keep, I think I threw out 3/4 of a garbage bag! Crazy!!
• Put up shelving for towels next to the tub. Again. Storage.
• Put up a hook next to the tub.
• Put up coving around the ceiling. It's everywhere else in our house so we were aiming for continuity.
• Bought a new chrome shower ring.

THINGS LEFT TO DO:

• Put the trim along the bottom up and paint it.
• Strip the door and window trim, sand it and paint it. I'm pretty sure it has lead paint on it. Well, don't yell at me, but we've stripped and sanded things for years now that may have lead in it. We wear a mask and make sure we're outside or the windows are open. This is why this isn't done yet. Winter is long in Ontario.

The new view from the hallway.

So yeah. That's our upstairs bathroom. I'll post more photos when I get around to it. We love it. It works well and I think we did pretty good for a really awkwardly laid out space.