Ideas?

Anybody know what I should do with this?

The good stuff

So, I read somewhere that it takes a professional about 10-12 hours to install hardwood in an average sized room. That seemed like a long time. Especially if one is paying said professional by the hour. Which we're not. What we are though, is developing an appreciation for the amount of work an installer has to do. We're maybe one quarter done laying the floor in the hub room. Granted, the first couple of days were fraught with interruptions - expected and welcome. And a little bit of learning - like when you make a mistake, two-inch staples are not the easiest things to remove. Now that we've developed a sense a rhythm, things should go much faster (and people know that this is about the only place I have any chance of developing rhythm...you've seen me dance).

 

If any of you are looking for gift ideas for the man who has everything...get him a new pair of slippers, would you? You can't tell in this photo, but the soles are literally falling off the bottoms of these ones. I'm waiting for him to accidentally staple one to the floor.

    

Me? By the time all is said and done, I'm going to need a new pair of kneepads.

 Our decision on the type of hardwood for the house hinged on a few things. Colour (Norm leans to red), grain (I like lots of variation) and hardness (big dog = harder is better). Based on this, Norm would have picked cherry (not enough grain for me), I would have picked walnut (too soft for the dog) and Rory would have picked, well, he probably doesn't care. In fact, I'm not so sure what we were worried about, since he hardly spends any time actually standing on a floor. Here he is in his "supervisor spot", surrounded by compressors, nail guns, and other stuff. Yeah, oak, maple, whatever. Just make sure it comes in stick shapes.

In case you can't tell, it's tiger wood (closest we could get to a lion for Rory).

If I never see another sanding block...

Last reno post showed the mudding. Since then, I've sanded and primed. And painted. I'll be happy if there are no more rooms here that require full drywall replacement. The lights are in and working. I think Rory believes that we are engaging in all this effort just for him. He's more than used to laying on the couch now (completely covered with sheets which originally were to protect it from dust and paint, but are now serving double duty as protection from dog hair and drool). Even when I was painting the ceiling and hoiking the couch around out of the way, he'd stay on it. Dust flying, tools going, doesn't seem to bother him. I'd worry he was deaf, but he can hear the fridge open no matter where he is.

 

Hub room - west. You can see Norm's work in the cables for speaker and satellite for wall mounted TV.

  

Hub room - north. Doors out to the foyer (gosh I LOVE that word!)

  

Hub room - east. Door to the basement. And "Rory's" couch.

Hub room - east. Alcove by the window. The hole in the ceiling is for speaker 1 of 3.

Hub room - south and west. Doors out to the laundry, kitchen, garage and back door

  

Rory...wondering when we're going to get to the floor!

Tigerwood (not to be confused with Tiger Woods) 3/4" hardwood. Box 1 of 36. Should be enough for the entire main floor except the kitchen and back entrance.

All you have to do now is imagine all of those walls with bookcases, except where the TV is. Oh, and new sets of glass French doors by two. But first, stay tuned...floor leveling and hardwood installation, aiming for finish by Sunday. But we all know how that works.

Wonders Don't Cease

Given enough cabin fever, Rory fetches. Or maybe he's inspired by watching the other dogs at the park chase balls and sticks. Yesterday as we were about to leave the dog park, we came across a nice big stick that one of the other dogs had been playing with (no doubt the dog that Rory chased with glee while we assured the owner that Rory wasn't interested in the stick, he just likes to run with the other dogs). Anyway, we get to the edge of the park, and Rory picks up the stick. Odd. I call him over and after a couple of evasive moves on his part he does trot over. Odd (not the come on recall, but generally Rory doesn't "bring" things to me). So I take the stick. And throw it. Far away (okay, as far as I could). Rory ran with mad abandon - think of back feet up by his ears - and brought it back. And again. And probably ten more times after that.

Don't tell the other Ridgebacks.

It's a....a....Thing!!!

Although installing the drywall, especially on the ceiling, is definitely a two-person job, the conspicuous absence of the other household inhabitants over the last few weeks leads me to believe that mudding and taping is considered a one man (or woman) show. I'm getting down to the short strokes, literally, on the whole mudding/taping of the hub room. With the imminent sanding and accompanying dust in mind, Norm did some research and spent a considerable amount of time puttering around town and in his workshop (also known as the-garage-where-I- can't-park-my-truck) to come up with this:

I knew he was working on something that would allow me to use the sanding attachment for the shop-vac without clogging the filter or killing the motor. Last night was the big reveal. After the requisite oohing and aahing, well, I still had to ask what it was. Visionary that I am, I also had to ask for a demo (since the picture above is not precisely representative of what I saw last night).

 The idea is to use the garbage can and the insert you see here as a baffle. The dust gets pulled in but goes into the garbage can below the insert, while relatively clear air remains in the middle to be pulled into the vacuum cleaner itself. With the addition of weather stripping (and maybe we'll even have enough left to do the front door, huh Norm?) tonight, the lid now fits tight. So tight in fact that if you cover the head of the hose, the garbage can nearly implodes. Nothing a hammer can't set right again...just bang out the dents and you're good to go.

Anyway, the drywall is up and needs only a final skim coat of mud in a couple of spots. We used drywall adhesive since we had lots of firm backing (see the reminder pic below) which really decreased the number of drywall screws required.

With the plywood, panelling and a new layer of drywall, the walls in the hub room are more than an inch thick. This means we'll need extensions for the electrical outlets to bring them flush with the wall.

Here's Rory...Mr. Fastidious has an aversion to dried globs of mud, so he spends considerable time scraping them off for me. With his teeth.

And here's a before and after showing the bulkhead we built to replace the fake beam that was covering up some pipe from the upstairs bathroom.

 

A Winter Night's Carol

Oh when the weather outside is frightful...

...The sheepskin is SO delightful...

As long as I've no place to go...let it snow let it snow let it snow.
Yeah baby, let it snow.

Rory received an early Christmas gift (or maybe it's a birthday gift?) from my mother's cousins who were ridding themselves of some sheepskin rugs. Their loss. Rory's gain. In fact, if I was a lesser person it would have been my gain, because quite frankly that thing is SOFT and I'd love to sleep on it. Rory loves it. The only thing that made it better was when I put it on top of the inflatable dog bed I bought for him for the bedroom. It already had a fuzzy cover. Adding the sheepskin put it over the top.

I’ll have a Reuben, crispy on the outside, please.

"Too few people understand a really good sandwich."
                                                                                        James Beard

Possibly. But you don’t have to prove you understand a good sandwich by keeping the pass-through windows from the kitchen to the hub room. From old pictures we’ve seen, it looks like the hub room may at one time have been used as a formal dining room (though what they then used the real dining room for, I haven’t the foggiest) which would explain the sliding glass “sammich windows” between the two rooms. There will be a few disappointed people out there (Susan and Christine in particular) who were so looking forward to having sammiches served to them through the windows. The glass was removed, studs installed and drywall hung over the windows. Besides, I don’t know WHO they thought was going to be making these sandwiches anyway.

You wouldn’t know it from this photo, but the house is actually surprisingly cozily warm. We were worried that the original Pella windows would require replacing, but they are holding up admirably. They’ve really been put to the test this week with temperatures stuck at -27C…the only window with any frost is the one where I broke the storm window. It has since been fixed, but that doesn’t help us if we don’t pick it up from the repair place and reinstall it, does it? There is a draft around the front door, but a bit of weather stripping will fix that. However, Rory’s philosophy seems to be the hotter the better. Since we haven’t had the need to dig out the electric space heater we bought for the old house, Rory found himself a substitute in the form of a halogen work light. The discovery of the worklight made Rory’s previous ability to move out of the way of construction obsolete. It’s difficult maneuvering around with a dog laying right in the middle of the floor of the room we’re trying to work on.

Once the carpet was up and drywalling started in earnest, we really had to find another spot for Rory. He obviously wouldn’t lay on the newly bare floor but with some encouragement (snort) made his way onto the previously forbidden couch. Now he’s out of the way and enjoys sunbathing in the glow of the other work lamp which is on a stand at about waist height…perfect for those afternoon naps on the couch. Note the lovely linoleum …that’s what we discovered under the carpet. That and the carpet underlay which had long since dissolved into dust. I can’t imagine vacuuming would have done any good – it likely would have just pulled the underlay dust up to the surface of the carpet. I’ll assume the previous owners never lived with an asthmatic child.

Oh, and Tamzin? Speaking of bobbleheaded dogs…

And when you just can stand anymore….sit. My arms were so tired from drilling into the ceiling and overhead, I was happy to sit in the corner like this.