Time for Carpenters and Stonemasons!

Hello dear friends, time for another renovation update!  We are in the final stages with less than 3 weeks to go until completion.  We are in the finicky detailed stage of work and have various workers on site that are meticulously looking after the little touches that are going to make our new old house stunning!

Our house is such a hive of activity.  Our dogs Abby and Vera alerted me to two suspicious gents walking around outside one day and it turned out to be Thomas the stone mason with his apprentice Will.  Although not part of the formal renovations they were here to repair some cracked mortar above two of our second floor windows.  There was a warm-ish and dry-ish break in the weather so they spent part of 2 days looking after repairs.

Our morning routine is that Abby and Vera like to say good morning (and get a treat) from the visiting workers.  We are often asked how the dogs respond to all of the noise and activity and the answer is they are doing better than we had expected.  We never leave the dogs in the house unattended when workers are here and we keep the door between the addition and the stone house closed.  Our dogs can be protective and just like people sometimes a dog may take a dislike to someone.  We dont want any mishaps so other than the first greeting of the day we keep the dogs out the way.  They do however like to peek through the door to see what is happening.

In the meantime, all of the woodwork for the finishing was delivered.  Pocket doors, baseboards, window casing and trim and the doors for the upstairs rooms were all staged in the living room.

We then had a lovely husband and wife team of carpenters here for 4 days working on finishing woodwork for each of the rooms.  The windows have had new trim and casings cut to measure and installed, and new wood baseboards have been installed in each room.

All of the doors have been replaced and the passageway between the living room and laundry room has had pocket doors and trim installed.  The workmanship was beautiful!  So much precise measuring and cutting.

The carpenters finished their work last week then this week our beautiful new custom mantelpiece was delivered and installed.  We have made so many decisions over the course of this renovation that I had forgotten what a lovely piece of work was commissioned for the mantelpiece.  It arrived and was installed on Monday of this week.  The mantelpiece is made of walnut and very coincidentally almost matches the colour I had previously stained the wooden windows. 

With the mantelpiece installed it was time for the stone masons to get to work.  Thomas and his apprentice had already come to our house previously to do some exterior repointing of the stonework and now they are back to install the stonework for our new fireplace.  Selecting the stonework was just one of many decisions we had made over the course of this project.

It seems that working with stone and completing jigsaw puzzles have a lot in common!

The stonemasons will be back for one more day to add mortar to the stonework.  The stone hearth arrived as one solid slab of stone and was carried in by 3 fellows. The hearth is made of Indiana Limestone and weights approximately 350 pounds. All together the stonework for the fireplace will take 3 days of work.

In the meantime many other little details are being attended to.   The new wooden staircase going to our old basement was moved to its permanent position.  In the course of excavating dirt to level the staircase Liam uncovered a pair of children's boots!  What a great find.

Matt the painter has been back this week as well.  He has previously been here for 2 days priming the walls before the carpenters started their work.  So far this week he has primed all of the woodwork upstairs and has been busy painting the trim.  He won't move down to the main floor until all of the other workers have finished as he doesn't want any dust on any of his work areas.  It is interesting to see how professionals tackle such a big job and he has given me a couple of pointers that I will use when I get around to repainting two of our bathrooms.

Our lovely contractor Tyler has been back every few days to check on progress, say hello and answer questions. This week he had to measure the radius of the cathedral window in the upstairs hall.  The trim for this window is being custom milled at a workshop in Toronto.

The tile installer has finished his work in the upstairs shower.  All of the accessories have finally been delivered and are waiting for installation.  The plumber should be on site next week to install the toilet and pedestal sink.  The electrician will install the light fixtures for each of the rooms including the pineapple light fixtures that were a special order for the bathroom.

                        

The laundry room is going to be a separate big project that my husband is responsible for completing.  When we first moved into the old stone farmhouse this room used to be a very small kitchen.  When we had the addition built we wanted to convert this room into a main floor laundry room.  Ironically it was not getting the laundry room finished that was one of the big factors in deciding to hire a contractor for help.  The flooring in the laundry room is down and I have stained a big butcher block counter for the area that will have the big cast iron sink. Although this room was small for a kitchen it is a great size for a laundry room and the large window allows lots of natural light.

 

Up until now our dryer has been in storage and we had set up a temporary area in the barn for the washing machine.  Laundry was very much weather dependent as I had to hang everything on the clothes line.  What a relief to have the washer and dryer back in the house!  The HVAC fellow hooked the dryer back up for us and next week the plumber will permanently hook up the washing machine.

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We will be using reclaimed brick on one of the laundry room walls and we are trying to salvage as many of the old pine cupboards that were part of the old kitchen as possible.  

And that my friends is the update as of this afternoon.  Thank you for following along on this journey.

Our Old House Is Taking Shape!

Hello dear friends, things are progressing here at the farm!  Lots has happened since my last update and I am quite behind so lets get to it!

The first big update was framing the rooms and upstairs hallway.   Ductwork for heating and cooling has been installed and the area of the floor that shows open was waiting for insulation to be added to cover the dirt floor and the stone foundation.  A spray foam insulation was blown in followed by a fire retardant covering. The old ductwork under this section of the house was badly corroded so these changes will make a big difference in the comfort of the house when winter arrives.

This is the library.

This is a view looking through what we are calling the passageway into the laundry room and  pantry area.  The metal frames are in place to allow for two sets of pocket doors to separate the passageway and staircase to the old basement from the living room and laundry room.

The living room is framed and ductwork is in place.  An electrician had been on site for two days getting the house ready for power.  The old fireplace has been cleaned by a chimney sweep and is waiting for stonework and a new insert.

This area was formerly two bedrooms.  It took some discussion but we finally decided to combine the two small rooms into one large new bedroom.  

We named this room after our dog Kodiak.  It is now going to be the smallest bedroom and will serve as an additional guest room when needed.

Lots of work is happening to upgrade our second floor bathroom.  Heating and electrical work as well as plumbing is well under way.  We decided to replace the bathtub with a walk in shower.

The upstairs hallway with cathedral window has always been one of my favourite parts of the house.  This will become a little reading nook.  Or snoozing nook.  Possibly hand quilting nook.  We shall see!

After framing batts of insulation were installed.

Our old windows were removed so that new ones could be installed.  The "old" windows were part of an upgrade we did about 30 years ago to replace the original windows which had lovely single pane wobbly glass but were very drafty and frightfully cold during the winter.  A more detailed blog about our new front door and windows is in the blog archive.

The new windows were manufactured by the same company that made the windows for our addition.  These windows are aluminum on the outside and wood on the inside.  We dithered over the cost of this upgrade but in the end I think it is a very good investment.

Next up was drywall.  We had 4 installers here and over a day and a half they installed all of the boards.

Once the drywaller installers were finished a different worker came to do the taping.  He spent about 3 days taping all of the seams and sanding the mud to prepare the boards for priming.

I was pretty happy to have a railing installed again!  The stairs, railing, spindles and banister are all made of red oak and will be stained to match the flooring.  

I am beyond pleased with this selection and love how the railing curves to meet the post at the top of the stairs.  At this point the staircase had already been installed but is protected with heavy plastic and temporary treads.  The staining of the staircase, railing, banister and spindles will be one of the very last stages of the renovation and wont happen until the very last week.

Next was the flooring.  We selected a glue down laminate flooring for durability.  Although hardwood flooring would be lovely we have dogs, cats, live in the country....and we know that tracking in dirt and grit is a fact of life in our house.  We hesitated over this type of laminate but in the end went with the recommendation of the contractor as this type of flooring is not only more durable but is also more stable.  (and we love our contractor and somehow always go with what he recommends ).

 

The flooring installed in what is now a bigger second floor bedroom.

The bathroom has vinyl tile flooring.  I dont remember why we did this but we did.  Perhaps we thought it was more bathroom-y.

And a glimpse of the flooring in the living room.

We are in the home stretch!   All of the flooring is now covered with a protective barrier to protect it while the walls have primer applied.   The paint colours have been selected and we still need to have the new mantel and stonework installed for the fireplace as well as having woodwork and trim installed.  We are looking forward to having everything done just before Christmas.  Then the work of unpacking the storage containers will start...and then we are working towards a Christmas in January!

New Windows and Front Door

Hello dear friends, I have been a little busy lately and as a result I am sharing a couple of updates out of order!  First, I spent a couple of lovely days last week visiting my dear friend Brenda.  We enjoyed food, wine, shopping and getting caught up.  Part of the shopping involved refreshing the supply of stuffies for Abby and Vera.  Abby, being a very responsible German Shepherd has been very engaged with her stuffies and carries them around respectfully.  Vera on the other hand....well let's just say there is now a small collection of eyes and noses that dont have stuffies attached to them.

Our renovation is suffering from scope creep.  On a renovation this size it is to be expected.  When we had the addition built about 11 years ago we selected doors and windows from a local manufacturer.  Unlike the windows in the stone house the new windows for the addition were aluminum clad on the outside and wood on the inside.  The theory was that the aluminum cladding would be a much lower maintenance option as it wouldn't require regular painting.  The wood on the inside would be stained and not only provide a feeling of warmth and tradition but would be similar to the windows in the stone house.

In the photo below the addition is on the right.

As part of the renovation of the stone house it made sense to replace the windows.  Although we had actually replaced the original windows in the house about 30 years ago we felt that it was time to upgrade them.  We used the same manufacturer as we had selected for the addition including the same style and colour.

All of the windows in the stone house were carefully removed so that we could use them on another project.  The replacement windows were custom made for each window opening.

Replacing the cathedral window is going to make a huge difference to the energy efficiency of the stone house, especially in the winter.  This old window has taken such a beating from the sun with the wood drying out and allowing drafts into the house.

We are very excited about our new front door.  We had previously replaced the derelict front door that was in place when we bought the house with a similar version to this.  Our new front door has more glass which will allow in more light.  The inside is wood and will be stained Mission Oak to match other doors in our house.

And the outside of the door is the same cranberry colour we had selected for the addition.

The insulation was installed over the course of three days.  Different types of insulation we used depending on its' purpose.  Foam insulation was sprayed in around all of the windows and the front door.  This is an exciting development as there was previously no insulation at all.

We love the space around our house as well as our views.

And here is a view from the front veranda!

Thank you for following along!  I will have more updates to come.