New Year's Eve

We woke to this--softly, in the middle of the night, a moist, heavy fall of snow arrived.

We didn't notice until morning that everything had changed. Happy new year!

The End

 

The end of the year:

Bathroom

The window is trimmed up, after existing as a flapping box of Tyvek and vapour barrier since the summer. Jo gave it a fine coat of spar varnish, and for modesty's sake, some pseudo-stained glass appliqué. It makes a nice splash of colour in what is otherwise a most austere room. Now we have the closet to tackle, the area under the stairs, the heater, and some miscellaneous trim.

Progress

 I was troubled to find significant rot in the studs in the bathroom this summer. We had to tear out the windows and rebuild from without, a process that shouldn't have worked but did. This is how things looked:

This was rather discouraging. Jo was very positive, though, which helped a lot. We removed the rotten wood--tricky, but not especially challenging--and then, somewhat to our surpise, successfully replaced it without demolishing the bathroom wall, which by then included not only insulation and gyprock, but a substantial amount of rather nice ceramic tile. Anyway, after lots of structural work, a great deal of expandable foam insulation, and many other bits of detail work, we had the "rework" windows back in place.

The original frames were toast by then. I was not especially troubled; unlike the downstairs frames, which they closely resembled, they were not oak but some softwood--probably spruce or pine. 

It WAS a challenge. I wanted to join the two windows, as before, with a common sill and header. I minimized ornamentation, as the style of the new bathroom is quite austere, but I felt the grooves in the centre trim piece would tone down its breadth. It's not bad!  And now, perhaps, we are almost ready for winter.

Christmas Shopping

 Little by little, the shop looks less like a dump and more like a...well, a shop. I have extended the vacuum ducting to the router table, so that's the planer, tablesaw and router all hooked up. This greatly reduces the amount of sawdust. There is still much to do but since June I've managed to complete many improvements, the greatest being the Stalin-like purge of much of the junk from the place. The huge collection of windows is not packed neatly away in the closet under the stairs, together with most of the shutters. I just have to deal with the overhead rack for long stock and it will start to look like something respectable. More or less.

The Heat Is On

 The old pellet stove is in suprisingly good condition for a relic more than a quarter century old. With the elm tree out of the way, there is room for a horizontal chimney between the sunporch and the window. With a fire on, it looks remarkably cozy. It's still chilly as the dickens, but now there is a place to warm up one's numbed fingers after working with the cold, cold tools!

Tree Go!

The elm by the workshop has been troubling me for years. This morning I set out to dismantle the sump pump because the temperature dipped to about -9C last night; I worried I might already be too late. However, I found the pump churning away quite happily. As I studied the discharge pipe, which emerged amidst the sucker growth on the elm, I noticed that there was not a breath of wind--exactly the sort of day I had been waiting for, and quite surprising after about 18 hours of violent winds, starting in the wee hours of Monday. I sharpened my trusty Husqy, and set to work. I cut an open-faced notch, and then dropped the elm quite neatly between two red pines. 

As a bonus, the butt came to rest above the sump pump line without crushing it in the least!

Soon the tree will become firewood. I'm quite curious about how it will burn. I might just stack it in the "wet" end of the woodshed, because our woodpiles are tarped for the winter. I think we have about two cords of seasoned wood left in the shed--I hope it's enough! Winters are so unpredictable.

Winter Kitchen

The kitchen wall is now wired, insulated, vapor barriered, and drywalled. Now we can start demolishing the interior walls, and that should be rather simpler. 

First Snow

 We made it to the second week of November--not bad! We'll see if this decides to become a permanent resident or just plow on through. 

Foundational

The repair work on the workshop foundation continues. On the 10th, Boris finished the excavation work, and then on the 12th, I poured a footing (25 bags @ 30kg), to which Jo and I added another 25-bag wall section on the 25th. The rebar comes up right under the sill, the stone having collapses inward. 

North Corner

We finished the North corner and took down the scaffolding at last. Already, it seems we have defeated water infiltration. I'd like to paint more of the flashing green, but that can wait. The main point is that it is well before the end of October, and all the scaffolding is stacked away in the little tractor shed.

Last of the Green

 In a few days, perhaps, the winter weather will begin; we sometimes have permanent snow down before Halloween. This seems to be something close to the last of the green: the hydrangea in the garden. Farewell, summer!

Muted Tones

 This autumn, the fall colours are muted. The long dry spell so desiccated the trees that they did not give their best. Some aerial views contradict this; apparently, deep in the forest the trees are more vibrant. Here, this is about the best we saw. 

First Fire

I cleaned the chimney and flue pipe and laid the first proper wood fire of the season--on 15 September. Considering that we only stopped heating in July, this is a bit alarming. However, it was an opportunity to clear some waste wood from the workshop. 

North Side

 We stripped the vinyl siding off the North face of the house--a small triangle of wall--and today I chewed away the old flashing and the stubs of siding that lay underneath. I put up some Tyvek and BOOM! Down came the rain!

Endless Summer

 It is not endless, of course, but sometimes I wish it could be. This was a beautiful deck day, with small and friendly clouds, trees in full leaf, and gorgeous sunshine. 

Bin Lid

It was time. The garbage bin, now in its 25th year, has been relentlessly plowed in winter, whacked by a falling Tamarack, and finally upended (twice!) by a bear. A mother bear and her three cubs haunted the neighbourhood for a few days, and twice upended the bin, tearing out a pair of boards to get at the contents. A bizarre feature of the attacks was that on both occasions, she and her cubs carried away the bags without spilling the contents--it was like a free mid-week garbage collection!

You can see on the right a branch that went through two inches of cedar (a stile as well as the lid lumber) to protrude on the underside of the lid. 

I tore off the old lid and top plate and fitted a new one--made, however, of the same cedar boards from Skinny Green's mill down the road. These ones were rescued from the old dog house we built for Freya. Once I'd planed the old lumber, it looked so good that I used spar varnish instead of paint on it. Then Jo told me the next step was to re-build the entire box, so I guess that wasn't the best approach after all.

 

The Dreaded List: Completed Item

Today we finished final painting and sealing on the North East wall, from the ground to the attic gable. It came out quite well. We finished, took down the scaffolding, and then the rain started. On 21 July the scaffolding was up and we were tearing out the old kitchen windows. We took off the vinyl siding and styrofoam insulation, and then tore off the tar paper. Underneath, as we expected, there was some rotten sheathing--below the bathroom and kitchen windows. This is how it looked back in July. One month and one week later we're done. The Maibec siding was fairly easy to work with. We changed out the rather clumsily installed plastic vent hood with a new aluminum model. I used the metal brake to fabricate a fairing for it, so I could seal it in around the clapboard. Because the new attic window was considerably larger, I designed a new external header for it, with the corbels beside instead of above the window. Well there. That's done.

First Fire

 I cleaned the pellet stove and its chimney. Joanne laughed at this at first but when I was done and asked if she'd like a fire, she said "YES!" It has been quite chilly--7C was the overnight low, and the kitchen was at about 12C. Brrr! The irony is that while this is the first fire of the new heating season, the LAST fire was in July! 

Rock

 While digging out the old chunk-of-stone-with-some-concrete footing, I flaked off this piece of slate with a well-shaped hole in it from the jackhammer.

Gable

 This is the first proper window for the attic, in the North East gable. I wanted to keep the external box style of the other windows, but there was very little room to spare, so I put on a beveled top and mounted the corbels on either side of the window instead of above them. I think it works.

Awning Style Windows

 We rebuilt the kitchen wall and fitted awning style windows. I quite like them, though I suspect we were influenced in our choice by the tendency of the old windows to leak in bitter weather. These look more reliable.

Corbels

There are decorative corbels below the crown moulding and on the exterior headers for the windows. They used to take me ages to make. Today I knocked one off in a few minutes, and I could kick myself for not figuring out the technique earlier. Dunce.

Open House

Open House!

We truly hoped the work on the bathroom would be minimal, after all we'd done in the Spring, but it was not to be. We had to take out all the window framing--and the new windows, naturally--because of the extensive rot. Then we had to build a new rough opening, but fortunately, there was new timber to attach this to. Still, it meant that we finished on a low, not a high note!

July Fire

Isn't that a lovely, cozy wood fire--on July 8?

That's part of the house in there--one of the old rough sawn studs from the bathroom renovation project. Waste not, want not!

It's raining and so dark out we have all the lights on at noon. And it's 16C.

Quite a summer this is shaping up to be!

Side Splitting

This isn't one we planted--it's natural regeneration.

It's time has clearly come! We get very high winds here, so I will take this down in the next week or so. Fortunately, it is next to the woodshed, so it's final (and first) journey will be a short one.

Looks a little like Harry Potter's lightning bolt scar, doesn't it? Tree, I dub thee "Harry."

Digging In

We have actually had some rain recently, so I was driven into the cellar once more. With the jackhammer, I smashed up the old post stone (there was a little concrete involved in that as well), a massive slab of shale which split in layers. Then I chiseled a trough linking the new and old footings along the centre line. Then I put together a simple form. For once, I oiled the plywood sides; we'll see if this makes any difference in ease of removal.

My estimates are getting better. I thought this 18' by 4.5 foot section would take 14 30kg bags of Readymix; it took 13, the 6 that had been stacked in the cellar stairs atrium and 8 new bags that I picked up from Kent on Friday. Wilkins was out of concrete mix--apparently, there is a shortage of pressure treated lumber as well. It seems that in New Brunswick, everyone is using the lockdown to complete home improvement projects. The word is that similar supplies are not moving at all in Ontario--people are afraid to go to lumberyards!






I remembered the anchors at the last moment, and I should really have put in three, not two. Still, it's a far cry from my very first concrete project, the corner kneewall and slab under the pump. .

I took the forms off a little later. It's not a bad pour--I missed a little corner, but that will fill in when I pour the next floor slab.

Ranging

One can't work on the house and grounds all the time. I found a little time to put together the long-anticipated target range. It is just a target on a pair of clotheslines, but it's fun. The kids were here, and they proved to be excellent shots. It is really too short for air rifle with scope, but to extend it I will have to do significant chainsaw work. In time, no doubt I will. For now, it was another of those quick and fun projects.

June: Excavations

Although the bathroom and kitchen were the main focus of the spring, June involved quite a number of projects featuring the workshop cellar, that hideous space of darkness and decay. I opened up the boarded-up window on the driveway side and put in the ramp from the house cellar; Lucy and I used this to haul several fish buckets of wet gravel up using the low-rider cart.

I replaced the temporary carry beam (after a post kicked out and hit me in the face) with a permanent one: 6 by 6, pressure treated. It is supported on jackposts bedded in deck blocks.

I also installed a vent fan with magnetically closed vanes; this required a new window frame. I hope this will reduce the dampness, though the only real solution is to pour a concrete slab and put in a large, permanent sump pump basin.













I haven't done that yet, but I did re-dig the sump pit and install a temporary sump basin; the permanent one will require MUCH more digging.

Spring

Spring arrived at last--very late. The contrast is remarkable: just three weeks ago everything was snowbound, dead, and white. Now it's all green again, the annual miracle given added force by the late and savage storms of the previous season.

Visitor

A little bird dropped by. Plump little fellow--looks like a black-capped chickadee. We don't usually find them on the sunporch windowsills.

May Flowers?

Yet another record-breaking storm! I finished installing the new bathroom sink (and I must say, it was brutal. It is hard to believe anyone who has ever installed a sink had anything to do with either the vanity or the tapset. Madness!), and then went to the village. The roads were at their worst--I don't think they were ever this bad in January or February. I saw several sets of skid marks leading to the ditch, and even a street sign that had been knocked down--it was propped up against a power pole.

Brief Respite

It really looks as though we could have an early Spring--the snow has retreated so much that you can see the debris we hurled out of the bathroom window during the renovation! Overall, we have received relatively little snow; it is pretty thin on the ground in the woods. I recall that the first few years here (about 23 years ago now) were quite dry, so much so that our well pump was always on the verge of sucking air. Perhaps we are in for another hot, dry summer.

April Snows

High winds sent me scurrying from my bed to shut the garage doors last night. This morning, I woke up to this. Throughout the morning, heavy THUMPS told me that it's warming up outside. The snow slides off the roof and crashes down--quite a bit of it for a LATE APRIL FLURRY!
Down with snow!

Taps

This is a milestone, of sorts. Today we finished connecting and testing the hot and cold water AND the drains for the bathroom renovation. All done. Now we really get moving.