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