Sunday, October 11, 2015

Taking Shape

A LOT of work has been done this past week. First off, my man cave is taking shape. They have the frame up and had just started sheeting the exterior on Friday. I'm crossing my fingers that today's 100 km/h winds didn't scatter their unused plywood all over the neighbourhood. The garage structure should be finished by next week, and hopefully another week to have the gas line plumbed in, the 100 amp electrical wired from the house, and the interior insulated and drywalled. All in all, this 26 x 26 beauty is going to be one hell of a man cave!


The contractors also brought in a concrete company to remove the concrete foundation that supported the old deck. The way they had poured it back in the day was way overkill; a one foot concrete perimeter around the entire deck complete with six inch diameter footings. And it looked ugly as shit. But it's all gone now! The plan next year is to replace those areas (and the entire yard) with sod and build a flagstone patio. with a fire pit on the end. Another piece of good news is that the ground underneath the deck was layered with pebbled rock, so I can salvage that and use it as liner around the spruce tree, making it look a lot nicer than it currently does.

As for the interior, the contractors have demolished the bedrooms, bathroom and kitchen. The water damaged wall is a bit of a tricky issue: the rotted 2x4's cannot be removed because there is a layer of old stucco on the exterior of the house that was never removed, instead they installed vinyl siding over it, so the stucco is fastened to the house by staples in said 2x4's. If we were to removed them, it would mean another $5k of removing and reinstalling the exterior of the home. Instead, we're going to dry everything out, liberally apply mold killer, replace the crown and part of the floor, and reinforce that wall with new 2x4's, making everything guaranteed to be structurally sound. I knew there would most likely be complications, but 15 years of water leakage guarantees that.

As for this coming week, the concrete people are supposed to show up to fix a crack in the foundation, the granite counter-top company is coming in to measure the counters and give me a quote, and I should be finished the basement, which can facilitate finishing the mold removal in time to kick on the furnace just before mother nature brings the frost!

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