Tuesday 24 September 2013

Intermission: Autumn 2013

With the chaos of ripping our house apart & piecing it back together again slower than desired, it's easy to get a little lost, shucked, raw. Then we wake up & see something again as if for the first time, but with the warm comfort of HOME in the mix... and smile. With winter on our coattails, and hunkering down again for the long sleep indoors, there's a few nooks & crannies we want to remember from this dwindling time of season...





Phase III: Family Bath.a.

Family Bath
Here's what she looks like now. 
What you cannot see is how the floor bends (the last remaining tell-tale signs of the previous vortex that existed in this house: where we can only assume behaved like some House of Leaves entity and felt as though it was converging into one sci-fi singularity very very slowly. Inspection could not explain the anomaly, but we have been reinforcing structural as we go, and the changing of the main floorplan remedied the situation almost completely). Which is quite disturbing while on the throne. This will be fixed.

Demolition (complete) will commence in a week or so.

Reconstruction:
When renovating the Master Bedroom we stole some space from one of the rooms to extend this Bath into. Thank goodness... although as is isn't terrible small, it's not conducive to being the only Bathroom servicing 4 bedrooms. So bigger we go!
Plumbing will be shifted to accommodate.

Dreams:
This one was a no-brainer. We saw a magazine photo that was perfect for what we wanted & stopped thinking about it after that. Designwise, not a challenge... patience-wise we've been waiting/putting other urgent projects ahead of her for over a year... so not doing so well with that virtue.

Here's the magazine photos:


We'll be omitting the floor-ceiling subway tile (going in the Main Bath later) in place of bead-board wainscoting plate-rail height. Possibly introducing some colour in the wall on-top... vintage-inspired Robin's egg blue anyone? Also the bathtub/shower will be freestanding.

The previous clawfoot bath, pedastel sink, and "torpedo" throne? They will migrate to the Basement Bath (paired with a diamond checkerboard ceramic tile) and be gorgeous again. 

Other inspiring photos? Don't mind if I do!








Phase II: Library.a. (again)

Library:
(previously Phase I) April 2012 was our last update on this room.
This room (my personal favourite room) has been a point of contention, as the roofing debacle resulted in it's flooding (spring 2013) and subsequent demolition of all the work we had invested to that point. Boourns.
So... here we are again.
Thankfully, we can save the Bamboo flooring (installed 2012).

Newspaper insulation: circa 1971! Oh house...  <3

When this addition was added, the exterior siding was not removed! Holla!

We added extra structural to the walls & ceilings so as to support a "Green Roof" in the future..
Next Up:
Insulation, drywall, yada yada.
Hang in there, baby.

Phase III: Exterior/Yard (update)

Summer blew across the prairie and kept us mighty busy with houseness.

Apart from this, that, and the other things, some projects were noteworthy of completion (or near-to).

old & busted
new  hotness











Fence:
Our neighbours rock. With 9 month old Beth in tow, we ripped out & built a new fence together (no panels here, all from scratch!). New to power-tools, those people were impressively fast learners & good beer-swillers to boot. Thanks, neighbours to the North! Let's chum around again soon :)

Exterior:
We are still painting the Exterior (3 sides this year are almost complete: West-facade, South, and East) and fingers-crossed to update soon on how utterly smashing it looks. There were problems challenges to overcome as we went along (replacing much of the roof joists), but she's a healthier house now even if a little late.
Hey... ya know what? 3 storeys up is a helluva height. Who knew the Missus wasn't a fan of way the fuck up there? Well, a week of crying in fear of falling to death was worth it, that gingerbreading looks incredible (will show ya that later). Here's to doing things that scare you, Bravo!