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