A Rain of Frogs

One reason Toronto rocks

2009-07-02T15:11:16Z

One of the reasons Toronto really is an amazing city is that this beach is only a 15 minute walk from our house. It’s a Blue Flag beach, and is perfectly swimmable, like several others in the area.

This was not always the case. When I was younger, these beaches were too polluted to swim at, which was sort of sad. A massive cleanup of the Toronto waterfront over the last two decades has rendered Toronto – the largest city in Canada – home of several beaches clean enough to swim at. I wonder how many other major cities can make such a claim.

This was taken yesterday, on Canada Day. Unfortunately because of a civic worker strike, the city was not able to celebrate such a beautiful Canada Day with fireworks as it normally would have, but at least we had sunshine. All the surrounding areas were drenched with rain.

Angry sky

2009-06-30T14:40:47Z

This was the sky yesterday.

I can’t remember the last time I saw a sky so angry.

Walls!

2009-06-25T13:41:01Z

That, my friends, is a picture of walls. And a ceiling. Last night, actual reconstruction started in our kitchen.

All the electrical is done, the plumbing has been updated where it needed to be updated, and all the other little things that needed to be done (roughed in central vac, for example) have been done. Pay no attention to the extra circle beside the kitchen sink drain pipe, or the diagonal crack near the top-left of the door. Accidents happen, okay?

95% of the ceiling is up, barring the edge where we still have to put the vapor barrier up, and the walls have been started. The ceiling is tough, because 5/8” drywall is heavy! The 1/2” drywall on the walls: a) is lighter, and b) does not need to be hoisted over one’s head.

It’s very exciting to see a room turn back into a room!

Electrifying

2009-06-19T17:53:58Z

This is the breaker box in our new house. When we took possession, there were breakers in 11 of the 24 slots. Some were single-pole breakers, some took up two slots (oven, hot water heater, dryer all use double-pole breakers). Now 19 are full, and the wiring is nowhere near done yet.

Some of the breakers in the upper row were moved from the lower row in order to have a more logical layout. You see, the upper row of breakers are breakers that haven’t been changed yet, they were in the box when we got the house.

The lower row, on the other hand, is the kitchen. Yes, the kitchen by itself takes up half of the space in our electrical panel. This is because the kitchen now boasts fully up-to-date wiring.

There’s a double-pole 40A breaker for the cooktop, and a double-pole 30A breaker for the wall oven. Then each of the fridge, dishwasher and over-the-cooktop microwave/hood vent/convection oven gets their own 15A single-pole breaker. The kitchen lights are on their own single-pole 15A breaker. That makes for 8. The final four are single-pole 20A breakers, each one powering one of these:

That’s a 20A ground-fault countertop-height outlet.

It’s amazing how much breaker panel space a kitchen can take up, but it makes sense. It’s where most of the high-current appliances in the house live.

I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted an update on the renovation, but that’s partly cos we’ve been busy as hell, and partly due to the fact that most of the changes being made are structural or infrastructural in nature, and don’t photograph well.

We had to re-route the sink vent and plumbing in order to relocate the sink, which necessitated a trip to the attic with a reciprocating saw, and a pile of galvanized pipe in the back yard.

Sarah spend many thankless hours with a chalk line, a cordless drill, three batteries and two boxes of deck screws firmly attaching with two screws each 1×4 subfloor plant to each floor joist, in preparation for the plywood that will go on top of them, and the slate tiles that will go on top of that.

But we’re really close to being able to drywall the ceiling and walls. All the wiring in the back half of the house (which required access through the opened kitchen ceiling) has been replaced – no more knob & tube back there! Just have to get the conduit for the central vacuum in place, and the kitchen sink drain pipe and water supply pipes in place in the wall, and we’re ready to close it up and make it look like a room again.

Good times!

Main floor hardwood

2009-06-10T14:51:07Z

The hardwood floors on the main floor have been sanded, and the first coat of urethane has been applied. The upstairs floors are being sanded today. I caught a glimpse of one of the back bedroom floors, and it was coming up really well. Bill, the flooring guy, said that it was in even better shape than the main level floors. I cannot overemphasize my extreme pleasure with the results so far. Check out the living room:

Then there’s the walnut inlay around the fireplace. When we first pulled up the broadloom in the living room and dining room we were expecting to find run-of-the-mill hardwood in middling to poor condition. The wall-to-wall had been down since the 1960s, and we thought we might actually have to replace the hardwood. It is, after all, 80 years old.

Amazingly, the red oak floors seemed to be preserved by the application of carpet. After a few more coats, this is going to be one of the most beautiful hardwood floors I’ve ever seen.

The main floor hallway featured green carpet when we moved in. Even after pulling the carpet up in the living room and dining room, we figured the worn carpet in the hallway was probably hiding worn hardwood underneath. And then we got the carpet up, and Sarah had to scrape the green foam underlay off by hand, since it had chemically bonded to the original finish. We were somewhat skeptical that we’d be able to keep the floor in the hallway, that they’d simply be in too bad a condition to save. Turns out this was not the case, and the hallway, like the rest of the main floor, has sanded up brilliantly.

Imagine what it’ll look like when the next two coats go on!

Cake or death?

2009-06-04T15:01:25Z

For my British friends, but mostly for my wonderful wife.

Courtesy of deviantArt.

Basement door

2009-06-03T16:24:22Z

They take that asbestos stuff seriously. This was our basement door yesterday. Today, it’s the cleanest basement in the universe. I think it’s safe to say the basement will never again be as clean as it is right now.

Kitchen Reno - Day 5

2009-05-30T17:54:32Z

Lathe is gone! Pretty much at the point that we can start rebuilding.

Like all major projects, there’s a list of dependancies. The asbestos guys are coming on Tuesday, should be done on Wednesday. Once they’re done, the plumber can come in and remove the kitchen radiator. Once he’s done, I can get the plywood down on the subfloor, and once that’s done, there’s nothing stopping us from putting the tiles down.

In the meantime, there’s wiring to be done and plumbing to be moved from one side of the kitchen to the other.

And completely unrelated to the kitchen, we’ve booked the guys to come in and sand and finish the hardwood on the main floor. As much as we’d love to have the upstairs done now too, it’s too difficult to schedule at this time, so it’ll have to wait till later. Thankfully they’re in pretty good shape upstairs.

Kitchen Reno - Day 4

2009-05-29T00:05:51Z

Plaster is all gone! Nothing left on the walls and the ceiling but lathe, and that’s coming off next. I have to say, removing plaster is a dirty, heavy, and hard job. Thankfully the ceiling came off far easier than I had expected it to.

Note the knob & tube wiring in the second picture. Part of the next great adventure!

Kitchen Reno - Day 3

2009-05-27T15:31:57Z

I know I missed a day. but that’s because there was little discernible difference between the end of Day 1 and Day 2. This was largely because I used Day 2 to finish removing the floor. It was a tough slog, but it’s down to the original floorboards now.

Sarah spend most of the day in the hallway, painstakingly scraping ancient carpet underlay from the hardwood floor. After decades of traffic, it had bonded to the varnish.

So last night we started taking the plaster down. We’re about half-way through the walls, and then we’ll get the ceiling down.

Despite the dust, I really am enjoying this!