Sod, deck, fence... and the party moves inside!

Clearly it's been a long, long time since our last post. It's not that we haven't made progress, but instead it's because we've been so busy with renovations (and getting married) that we haven't taken a minute to share our milestones with this web audience.

Here's the rapid summary of what we've done in the past 3 months:

- a new electrical panel was installed in the basement
- sod was laid and our yard took root
- Jon's dad and friends built a deck off our kitchen into the yard
- Jon and dad Happy (not kidding, that's what everyone calls him) built a tall, gorgeous fence around the yard and stained/painted it
- got a new, working fridge!
- hung dry wall on every inch of the main level and the stairs to our new basement
- designed our kitchen and ordered the cabinets, cork flooring, counter-tops and appliances
- demolished our existing kitchen cabinets, counter and sink
- wired the kitchen for the aforementioned appliances

The relocation/basement portion of our endeavor is now as finished as it's going to get for the next year or more. Onto the next stage!

By far the biggest sense of accomplishment from the past 3 months came from the construction of our fence. Choosing the height, style, lattice, post caps, was one thing. Digging the post holes was another thing entirely. After the beating our property took from the house relocation, with all the heaving equipment that was in and out, the ground was rock hard and not willing to acquiesce to our shovels and picks. We ended up renting a post hole digger, but even that took some serious sweat and 3 grown men to operate. Add in the effort to get everything square and even, plus an overly demanding spouse who decided that the stain wasn't the right color AFTER it had been applied to an entire 20 ft side, and then insisted that the lattice frame HAD to be white (and thus removed from where it had been nailed in, in order to be painted and re-installed) - it was a long, hard piece of work.

It was all worth it though, because we now have a gorgeous, dark brown and sharp white fence that affords us great privacy from the walking trail, and more importantly keeps our adventurous basset hound Arrow out of trouble.


As you may have guessed from the summary above, we've already moved on to some interior work. First we needed to fix up the areas that were exposed from the removal of a few walls and the creation of the basement stairs. Unfortunately, in a very old house, nothing is square. So Jon and Hap experienced more fun and frustration working to get dry wall hung in every shape and size you can imagine.

Tomorrow we're heading to Australia for a belated Honeymoon. While we're gone a contractor will be crackfilling the entire downstairs. When we get back, all efforts will be focused on the kitchen. My next post will introduce our kitchen reno with the "Before" images, the post-demo images, and hopefully by Xmas time, the "After" shots! As always, our Picasa site holds many more photos the sod, fence building and more. Thanks for reading!

Leaps and Bounds

It's been nearly a month since our last post, so these pictures will look quite foreign to some. The good news is that the contracted portion of our reno's is 99% complete! We've got an electrician coming in next week to move our panel and make some wiring adjustments (due to the walls we removed), but the house is essentially ready to move into clean and touch up mode! Umm...after the wedding.

Reno Project - Inside peak

To give you the quick summary, over the past month we completed the siding, tore out an inside closet to make the legal width for a staircase into our new basement, connected the interior plumbing to the city service, cut out and installed a sliding door and new front door, re-routed the plumbing from the 2nd floor to the basement to allow for the removal of the kitchen wall, took the wall out, levelled the yard loosely with topsoil, built the front steps and cleared the debris.

Tomorrow we're getting sod delivered and Jon's friends are arriving to help us lay it into our new yard. We can't wait to replace our brown views with a lovely lawn.

With functional plumbing and temporary electricity, we were able to spend a night in the house last weekend. It was glorious to sleep in our own bed again. But since the stove and fridge have been disconnected and the main floor is quite covered in construction dust, we've reluctantly chosen to wait until the electrical has been sorted out to make the final move back in.

What's next you ask? Dry walling the interior, installing a fence around the property, bringing in a new fridge, building a kitchen island, installing all new cabinets and countertops, striping and painting the living room, a full bathroom renovation, moving the upstairs wall, building in a closet......

The owners dig in!

Since much has happened over the past two weeks I'm going to cover it all in short order. After the Carter crew brought our water relay to within a few feet of the house , our contracting team got to work pouring the floor in our basement, including a reinforced center strip. They also completed the critical task of affixing our floor joists to the new sills which had a dramatic impact on our main floor pine boards. No more lost marbles! The beam pockets were also filled in, our exterior walls were insulated, particle board mounted, and then our siding (old and new) was installed! We think the house looks fabulous now that the exterior is a bit cleaned up!

We've also decided to sweep a few other little projects into this reno, since the house is in quite a state and the Casa des Parents has been pretty comfy. We've had the back door closed in (the post pic), purchased a new front door and side lite to have installed, purchased a sliding glass door to lead from the kitchen into our new yard, and have knocked the hall closet out to help make room for our basement stairs. We're also going to take the kitchen cabinets down and knock out the kitchen wall while we're at it!

Jon contemplated removing the chimney that's closed into the wall between the bathroom and bedroom upstairs, but at this stage we've decided to keep the bathroom reno as a treat for next year.

One frustration we've experienced is with NB Power. When we requested that they reconnect our power, we were advised to submit a wiring permit. Our GC Mike thought that was a strange request, but his electrician Adrian submitted the paperwork anyway. After waiting for many days, I tried to contact our Line chief to no avail. A call logged to the Call Centre didn't help either. Yet a crew turned up this Monday to reconnect the power, only to determine that their work order was wrong. We need service extended to a new pole, in order to avoid crossing the roof line to get back to our power meter. They haven't returned all week. Calls to multiple numbers at NB power has yielded no response either. So we're a little perturbed.

What next? Mike and crew will finish building our basement stairs, help with the kitchen wall, install the new doors and basement windows, and work out our plumbing reconnection. Jon's started some aesthetic work, spending some quality time with a scraper and his iPod to prepare Foxhall cottage for a coat of paint.

We're still enjoying the process, and more excited than ever with the eventual end product!

Pics of the various stages are here:

Reno Project - Insulating and sill work

and here:

Reno Project - New siding

Fredericton's Finest at Foxhall

Today at Foxhall cottage Fredericton's finest water and sewer pipelayers reconnected our services. Led by the one and only Master of Disaster, Carter Brewer, the boys were in and out in no time flat. There was a little bit of disagreement about how things should be done, and a few "Holy Blue Ghosts!" thrown in for good measure. It was just like I (Jon) remembered it from when I worked there 3 years ago. All in all it's been a productive week here on Charlotte street. Next week we hope to start the exterior work and get the power and internal plumbing reconnected. We're looking forward to moving back in, even though we'll be living in a construction zone. Special thanks goes out to Susan's parents for putting us up in luxury accomodations during this whole process.
To see today's picture click on Carter's smiling face!

Water and Sewer Relay

House + Foundation = BFF!

This week seems to be flying by. Our trusty excavator operator Harvey has put in our drain tile and dry well and also backfilled the foundation. This morning (Thursday) Brent and his crew arrived to lower the house onto the foundation. By lunch time it was in place except for a few minor adjustments and some fine tuning to try and level out our floors. They also installed jack beams in the basement so that the carpenters can start replacing the floor joists. The house is in its final resting spot now and the finish line is just coming into sight now. A few more weeks and we should have the first part of this metamorphosis complete.
To see more pictures click here.

Reno Project-House and foundation meet one another.

The new foundation revealed!

So here it is in all of it's glory, our new foundation! The guys showed up first thing Monday morning to strip the forms and start covering the walls in tar. Taking the forms off revealed a little issue though. One of our windows was put in the wrong spot. What seemed like an issue early in the morning was quickly resolved. A new window will be cut in and the hole already in place will be filled in. Apparently it's no big problem. The rest of this week will consist of getting a pre-backfill inspection from the city and relaying the water and sewer to the foundation. Once that's done, we can backfill. Then lower the house to meet it's new friend, the foundation. Updates will be posted on the weekend.
To view pics click here

Reno Project - New Foundation

The final turn / Foundation work

This has been another productive week. Brent and his crew took the house from it's semi-turned state and got it aligned in the proper direction. It was nerve wracking to watch, but they made it look quite easy. On Wednesday morning Trainor surveying came and marked out the four corners of our foundation in the hole dug the day before. On Thursday Brent and his crew slid the house over the hole and got it into perfect alignment with the corners laid out by Trainors. At this point Tim Larlee and his crew from Capital Construction came in and poured our footings. With the house high over head they made short work of their task and waited for the concrete to cure. On Friday morning Capital came back and put up their forms for our new 8 ft foundation. After lunch on Friday Mira Construction Concrete trucks and a pumper truck showed up to fill our forms. By about 4:00 the foundation was in and the crew were sent home for the weekend. Everything that was supposed to be accomplished this week was finished. Our project seems to be right on course. Hopefully our luck will continue, cross your fingers!
To see the photos of the week click here.

Reno Project Final resting place

A productive Monday!

What a difference a day makes! After a quiet week last week, with only one day of work performed (due to personal circumstances with one of our contractors), Jon and I were amazed to watch the house get raised 6 feet and turned about 45 degrees around all in about 8 hours!

Brent's team laid 10+ levels of railways ties in order to get the house up to the height needed to get under it and set it up to spin. Then they placed two additional steel beams under the house, at wide angles to the existing pair of beams holding up the house. The two new beams were lubed up with Sunlight dish soap so that the existing beams could slide smoothly, steel on steel. The house beams were chained together, then the excavator got linked in and pulled the house around. Once they reached roughly a quarter turn, the bottom beams had to be repositioned to allow for further turning. The new supports have been set up, and tomorrow Foxhall Cottage will complete her revolution!

See how it unfolded here:

Reno Project - Jacking ends

and here:

Reno Project - Moving the House

Up, up and away!

After securing the corners of the house with solid steel reinforcements, the compressor was brought in, connected to the four jacks, and away she went! The house was jacked up enough that an additional railway tie, plus some shim pieces have been added to the jack base, putting our house roughly 6 inches into the air clearing the stones on the driveway side of the house. Tomorrow they should be able to continue the jacking to gain a few more feet of height.

NB Power did make it by to disconnect our power supply and to confirm our temporary power permit. Reconnecting the power with our house in an entirely new location will be interesting to tackle, once the major work is finished.

Pics on Picasa as always:

Reno Project - Jacking begins

Jacking Beams are in!

Jon and I continue to be amazed by the pace of our project. On Friday our jacking beams arrived and were slid into the trenches and under our house in a matter of minutes! They then refilled the trenches and spread the additional soil around the yard to level the slope. On Monday, the jacking will begin!!

Pictures of the beams can be found here:

Reno Project - Beams in

Progress

We/our contractors have now logged 7 days of work on our reno project. We now have 3 new sills, and a moat around the house. We are also short one porch and 3 trees! The trees came down in a matter of minutes this morning, and we now have a full sized excavator in the yard! We've organized for our power to be shut off either tomorrow or Monday, so we're now packing to move out! The crew has been digging two trenches under the house, by hand. Luckily, the ground is almost 100% sand so while cramped, the work isn't heavy. Arrow (our basset hound) has already jumped ship (out of necessity - there's a gaping hole at our back door, and our front door has been boarded shut) to a luxury kennel (aka my parents' house).

It's been hinted that the beams to support the jacking will be put in tomorrow. With any luck, Foxhall Cottage will be airborne early next week.

Pics of the porch removal, tree removal and trenches are posted to Picasa here:

Reno Project - Beam trenches

here:

Reno Project - The trees come down!

and here:

Reno Project - Porch demo

We're legit!

Yesterday we learned that we are "Appropriate"! The city granted us our heritage certificate - just in time as the porch received more abuse today. It's completely gone now, so we'll load up pictures soon. For now, here's the demo in progress:

Reno Pics - day Four

Day 2 + 3 - Porch begone!

I'm really encouraged that our contractors have been arriving before 8am each day, and seem to work straight through the day. At this rate, we should certainly have this project finished in time for our August celebration!

Day 2 and 3 have consisted of:
- digging around the yard side of the house
- securing the house with a jack and boards
- removing the first sill
- initial demolition steps on the Porch
- and the installation of our first new sill

The porch looks much nicer with windows on the driveway side. Removing the porch roofing tiles must not have been fun work in the pure sunlight we've had today. We've also noticed a considerable amount of bumble bees around the house since the digging started, and are keen to find out where they're coming from. Perhaps the retro pop can we found under the house was the attraction!

One last interesting note - in a few places the house seems to be held up by a stone wall, that's up to two rows thick in places, going about 2-3 feet deep. We may try to salvage some of the gorgeous old stone for a walkway/patio, if we can find any corner of the property that will remain undisturbed throughout this work!

More pics here:

Reno Project - Day Two/Three

And we're off! (kind of)

Imagine our excitement when our general contractor knocked on our door before 8:00am this morning, ready to start our renovation project! At last! He had brought a worker with him to remove the siding from all sides of the house, so that they could check out the state of our sills and joists. We are thrilled to finally get underway.

We've learned that the city will require us to bring our joists and joins up to code. Our joists appear to be 2x6, but code calls for 2x10s. There were sections of serious rot in our sills, particularly on the west side. They also found issues with some of the actual house frame, where the vertical 2x4s meet the sills. That will certainly add to our expenses, but not excessively.

Today was also the day of the Preservation Board meeting, to decide on our application for a Certificate of Appropriateness. Unfortunately, not enough members of the board showed up to the meeting, so they didn't have quorum to decide on our case. The manager advised me that the members have been urged to attend the rescheduled meeting, this Thursday. He also assured me that those in attendance today were supportive of our application, so we're optimistic that the result in two days will be positive, because...

...our porch is coming off on Thursday afternoon! Our contractor would prefer to remove it tomorrow, to give them further visibility and access to the sill on the front end of the house. If the Preservation board doesn't come through this week, our timing will be compromised.

One of my favourite moments of day one was the arrival of the (mini) excavator! Having a piece of heavy equipment in the backyard makes this project feel real. We've begun, and there's no going back now. Pictures of the first step can be found in the slideshow below.

Foxhall vs. the Flood

The great flood of 2008 (as they're calling it here in NB) has given Jon and I pause as we prepare for our renovations to kick off. We're quite thankful that we don't have a basement currently, as our neighbors have been pumping water out all around us for the past day or so. They say floods like these only come every 100 years, don't they?

Hopefully the soggy ground won't impact all the digging our crew will need to do. And as I've been watching the water creep toward the house, I'm mentally factoring in more and more sill damage... I've included a link to pics taken at 8:30 and 11:30 this morning of the growing flood pool in our yard. It's currently about 6 feet from the house, and seems to be easing up. For once I'm feeling lucky that this project hasn't started on our original target date of May 1!

"Before" Pictures

I've linked in a slide show of our "before" pictures, showing various aspects of the house and lot before any excavation or digging begins. We're hoping to capture lots of great shots as the trenches are dug, the house is raised, the foundation is poured, and of course, of the final product.

Check the snaps out via the link to the right.

I'm also going to try and scan our Survey Plan to show both the current and proposed location of the house, as I think it gives the best sense of the space we're working with. I'll attach it above the PAC agenda when ready.

PAC Success!

Our variance application sailed through the PAC. Unfortunately, this came after nearly 2 hours of sitting through public concerns over other zoning and subdivision cases. Regardless, our first hurdle has been overcome!

Armed with this achievement, I contact the Manager of Heritage and Culture Affairs for the city to learn more about our next challenge - the Preservation Board grant of a "Certificate of Appropriateness". This gentleman has been very pleasant to deal with thus far, and has assured Jon and I that our request is one of the simpler ones facing the Board currently. Still, our conversation on Thursday uncovered that I had more work to do, as he asked about the new elevation of the home due to the foundation; the source of siding materials; the number, position and type of basement windows being installed - all things I couldn't answer.

So we put in a call to our general contractor, Mike O'Regan, and arranged to meet him at the house on Friday. Mike confirmed that on the rear side of the house, we would have 6" of "new" exposure, and 36" on the yard side. He confirmed that the windows would be egress windows, 24" x 36", and that any siding purchased to replace the siding that was removed to facilitate the jacking would be matching pine shipboard from Kent's orders.

New tasks for Jon and I were also assigned. We'll ask NB Power to cut down the branches on the two trees to be excavated, and we'll make inquiries to the city's Engineering and Waterworks groups to see if they have any requirements related to our building permit application. I'll return to the Manager of Heritage with my new information in the hopes of securing further support for our project. The Preservation Board meets on May 13th and so he has asked for all our information by May 6th in order to update the members ahead of the decision.

In the meantime, Mike O'Regan will contact the city to determine which inspector will review and approve our permit application. With any luck, it will be one of the more accessible inspectors, who's straightforward and easy to work with, and who is familiar with Mike's work. We're aiming to have the building permit in hand just after the Preservation Board grants our Appropriateness Certificate, so that we can break ground in the 3rd week of May!

The PAC

Tomorrow night we go to the City of Fredericton's Planning Advisory Committee (PAC) meeting. Their approval of our request for a variance is a pre-requisite for our Building Permit application. See the link to the left for the meeting Agenda.

Here's the scoop: Our property is an unusual size, with unusual characteristics. We have no street frontage. Our laneway belongs to the province, so we simply have a right-of-way on the path. City by-laws for properties in the "Heritage District" of Fredericton require that buildings conform to 1.8 metre setbacks from their side lot lines, and a 6 metre setback from the rear lot line. Conforming to this requirement would see our home nearly in the middle of the lot splitting our yard into two pieces too small to be functional. So we've argued that the setback requirement wasn't made for properties like ours, where our neighbor to the rear would only need to conform to a 1.8m setback, and that our proposed location represents the safest, most appropriate correction of our current non-conforming situation. We have asked for a 2.9m variance to be approved.

The staff report has rejected that request, but in it's place has supported a 2.4m variance. They would like us to allow for a "driveway" space on our lot, which would need to be 3.6 m X 6m, thus making our rear setback 3.6m. We're ok with this, and are hopeful that it will pass on Wednesday evening. Fingers crossed!

Getting Started...

We're about a month away from the start of our renovations, but it's been an interesting few months just getting to this point.

The hardest part was deciding what exactly we wanted to do. We knew when we bought the house last November that the foundation would be our first priority. Our house was built in the late 19th century, and we think it's still resting on the original sills and piles of rocks that the Railway Brakeman himself slept on!

So our first decision was whether to dig a crawlspace, partial basement, or full basement. In reviewing the survey on file, it was clear that our house was sitting over our property line. We talked to a number of knowledgeable folks in construction and determined that moving the house to a new location on our lot would give us a great yard, and maximum privacy from the busy walking trail that runs the length of our lot and driveway.

We had our plan: remove the porch (rotting and unsound) to facilitate the jacking up of the house. Turn the house 90 degrees. Dig an 8-foot basement in the South corner of the lot. Bring the house over to the new foundation, lower and voila!

On the recommendation of Jon's good buddy Adrian Pembridge, we contacted Tim Larlee to help with the foundation, and Brent McLaughlin to handle the complicated jacking, turning and moving manoever. We also engaged Mike O'Regan to excavate the two trees that needed to go, to replace any floor joists that need replacing, to handle the siding removal and replacement, to provide the crushed rock and to serve as General Contractor with the other parties, using his expertise to secure our building permit and keep this project to our timelines.

We've estimated that this project will take roughly two months, starting as soon as possible in May, and with any luck, ending by mid-July. Stay tuned as we take pictures and memorialize every step of this ambitious project!