Apropos of Nothing

If a tree falls...

noreply@blogger.com (S and N) — Thu, 17 May 2012 16:26:00 +0000

We are lucky enough to live in a leafy urban neighbourhood where a high canopy of sugar maples casts sun-dappled shade on the gardens and sidewalks. But the graceful giants are all over a century old, and several more seem to fall every year. Everyone is becoming increasingly protective of the trees around here, glaring indignantly at the sound of chainsaws. This spring, WE are to blame for the new gaping hole in the canopy. We did it advisedly, for safety, but even so we feel sick about it. Here's what we've lost:

The gorgeous, irreplaceable sugar maple canopy, before

And the gap in the canopy, now

And here's why we did it:

The devastating split in the trunk

The tree, earlier in its life, suffered an injury that created a 20' long split in the trunk. Although the tree was making a valiant attempt to close in the split, it continued to trap water and rot from the inside out. Five years ago, we had an arborist assess the tree. He performed a weighted stress test that revealed quite a bit of movement at the base. The tree lacked a root flare on two sides of the trunk, another possible indicator of risk. However, the canopy of the tree was still strong. He said the tree would continue to weaken, but he couldn't tell us how long we had. We waited, possibly foolishly, another five years.

Can you blame us?

The canopy looking southwest (it's the middle tree that's doomed)


And looking north and south (the trunk illuminated by the sun)

If we'd kept our heads in the clouds, we might've been okay, but every time we walked by the uneven terrain caused up to watch our step, and when we looked down, we saw this:

Sawdust (in increasingly large chunks), rot, insects, lack of root flare

And we worried.

Knowing we were gambling with the advent of every major storm, we finally agreed we would take the tree down this year. We wish it could've happened before the trees leafed out.

The beginning of the end--the view, forever altered, from my studio

going, going, going, going....

The final pass with the big chainsaw

They felled the final piece of the trunk

The rot was bad, especially half way up, where the tree could've snapped...

The man who felled it said he could tell by the way the chainsaw went through the trunk that the wood was soft and said we could sleep easier now.

but perhaps not quite as bad as we'd hoped

All of the darker area in the trunk was quite wet, and much of it spongy. Who can say how much longer the tree may have lasted. Now we'll never know. Alas.

Five hours to fell what took 120 years to grow.

We still feel a little sick.

Still, maybe our little 10 year old tulip tree will take advantage of the gap. And we can enjoy redesigning our newly light filled side yard.

The Long and Winding Stair, Part 1: Flipping the Stairs

noreply@blogger.com (S and N) — Sat, 05 May 2012 03:57:00 +0000


Looking up the narrow stairway

Our old house was converted to a duplex in the late 1940s. As part of the conversion, the main stairs were walled off. Worse, the stairs began immediately at the front door with no breathing space at all. When we first bought the house, the font door opened onto a tiny vestibule with one door leading to the main floor apartment and directly to the left, the stairs, narrow and airless, leading to another door to the second floor apartment.

Looking left from the front door

The initial vestibule walls and the doors are long gone, but several years ago we hatched a plan to open up the stairs and flip their orientation to give us a much more open front entry hall. Last summer, we began to execute our plan.

Looking down the narrow stairway

As we have with all of our house renovation projects, first we drew. Some careful site measurements led us to the realization that if we wanted to flip our stairs within the same footprint, we would need to make use of two split landings to get the necessary height under the stair at the front door. Here's the new floorplan:

The new "flipped" stair plan

Pages of freehand sketching (not shown), were magically transformed into SketchUp drawings by N.

The new stair plan in SketchUp

The main floor view from the front of the house

The second floor landing

The side view (note the split landings)

Then we visited many stair builders to find someone who could build what we wanted (which was a saga in itself) and gathered bids. And then, on a scorching hot day in July, came the point of no return:

Demolition day 1

Many more demolition days followed, and most looked very similar. I'll spare you the mess. The problem with a stair demolition is that we still required the stairs. So at the end of each day of tearing out the stairs, we rebuilt the stairs and climbed, exhausted, up to bed. We enacted this daily Penelopean feat (only in reverse, and with more machismo), over the course of several weeks. Here's just one shot of some of the strange geometry of both having and demolishing the stairs simultaneously:

Escheresque. Old stringer and new, temporary stringer, side by side

Bit by bit, we tore out the old walls, framed new walls, and one day, everything was made new and bright with a deep coating of pale pink spray foam insulation.

Pink foam insulation and framing for a possible future window in the stairwell

And then, just one day later, a day that had us contemplating an elevator instead of stairs, the new stairs appeared!

The new, reversed stair

It would be several months before the railing installation could begin. In that time, we installed a glamourous temporary railing of clamps and 2 x 4s, had the room drywalled and taped, framed the under stair closet, and painted the room.

Next: The Long and Winding Stair, Part 2, The Railing

Riches to Rags

noreply@blogger.com (S and N) — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 04:00:00 +0000

Or, in like a lamb, out like a lion.

Our Star Magnolia (Magnolia stellata) obviously didn't know that old adage about the changeability of March weather.

March 22, 2012

On March 21st, the day before I took the picture above, the magnolia broke bloom (a full month earlier than its typical bloom time). A day later it was festooned with stunningly beautiful white flowers and abuzz with flying insects.

Almost full bloom

March, 28, 2012

Then two successive nights of below freezing temperatures withered the blossoms on their stems, and there they remain, brown and bedraggled like dirty rags, yet still firmly attached! No petals will blow gracefully from the tree and litter the ground this year. Can't say what became of all the insects.

March, 28, 2012

In yesterday's Globe and Mail, gardener Marjorie Harris warned, as ever, of the dangers of rushing the season and the wisdom of letting the garden rest until the soil has truly warmed. If only she could speak to the trees! I confess, like my magnolia, I couldn't wait and was out pulling the shoots of garlic mustard--my current nemesis--while the magnolia bloomed. Today, snow and sleet returned to weigh down the heads of dozens of my early blooming daffodils who've given up and are having a little lie down in the snow.

Same tree, last year, May 5th!

Backyard thugs unmasked: Sciurus carolinensis

noreply@blogger.com (S and N) — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 01:41:00 +0000

We've had our share of losses at the teeth of the local rodent population. Just before bloom time each year, squirrels decapitate my spring bulbs, and rabbits have decimated many of our small trees and shrubs while searching for food in past harsh winters (see here). This year's mild winter had lessened our worries about more property damage. But then one balmy February morning we looked out the window to see this:


Can you spot it? Look for the tree limb with its bark completely stripped

That limb belongs to a beautiful basswood tree (genus Tilia), which although it appears behind our fence is actually our tree. We hope to reclaim it when we re-fence the property, but only if it can survive this current onslaught. At first we suspected raccoons because the damage seemed so extensive, but then we caught the true fiend in the act!

Caught in the act

It was a grey squirrel (well, a black grey squirrel, but same species, Sciurus carolinensis).


Oooooh, you varmint!

Now, I abhor violence, but at this moment I was really longing, like Alfie, for a Red Ryder carbine-action, 200-shot, range model air rifle BB gun. Unfortunately, as you can see, we're in an urban area (note the alignment of neighbouring windows and offending animal) that precludes any violent action--even against known felons. And so, we plot. Squirrel catapult? Squirrel scarecrow?

Apparently, pregnant female squirrels have been known to strip the bark from several favoured tree species, especially basswood--well known as a source of cordage*--in the search for nesting material. So, we can look forward to a rapidly expanding population of squirrels who by genetics or observation will continue to strip the bark from our trees. Squirrel taxidermy?

*I didn't actually know about basswood's cordage potential until this year and neither apparently did the local the local squirrel population, because in twelve winters here this is the first time I've witnessed this specific form of destruction. My source was Google, but theirs?

A dropped bundle of freshly stripped basswood cordage, now apparently sullied by snow and unsuitable for nesting

the damage done

What we do know, through experience, is that this behaviour is certain to spark copycat crimes. And I would like to nip them, so to speak, in the bud. Any suggestions of just desserts for bark-stripping squirrels would be welcome.

Kitchen Seating: our hunt for the perfect banquette

noreply@blogger.com (S and N) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 00:51:00 +0000

Our slumbering cat on the banquette

During the many years we spent planning our kitchen renovation we would often refer to something we called our future dining sofa. We would say, "It will be so wonderful to sit here when we have our dining sofa!" To our aging cat who loves to lie on the floor between our chairs at mealtimes, risking accidental kicks and all of the dangers of being underfoot just be be nearby, we would say, "When we have our dining sofa, you'll lie right up here between us and save yourself the cumulative effects of being trodden upon daily," or words to that effect.

All this time, we didn't really know what form this dining sofa would take, or whether such a thing specifically existed. We'd certainly seen sofas pulled up to dining tables, imparting an air of luxury and cosiness to the scene, but we wondered about getting the proportions and firmness just right for the quotidian task of dining. After all, this was to be our daily perch for all our meals, and not mere set dressing.

When we began searching in earnest for the dining sofa of our dreams, we discovered that our terms weren't quite right. What we actually wanted, apparently, was not a sofa, but a banquette. Banquette to me had always conjured an image of something built-in and quite often badly built--like something cobbled together out of plywood in a new chef start-up restaurant. You know the kind of thing: the back and seat meet at right angles, the seat is far too short for comfort and upholstered with meager cushions that do nothing to save your spine from the jolt when you sit, and the base, also constructed at right angles, leaves no room for your heels, so you wind up kicking it every time you move. Of course we'd also sunk our tired bodies into beautifully upholstered, plush restaurant booths, with properly sprung seats and everything at the ergonomically correct angle. Could both extremes be called banquettes? We'd need to define our version.

We decided we wanted a piece of furniture that could be moved from the end of the table to the side--depending on the table orientation and how many were dining. We wanted a sprung seat, bare legs, durable upholstery that could take a beating, no arms to impede access from the sides, and simple elegant enduring design that would perfectly complement our new kitchen. Eventually...we found it, the perfect thing: Hickory Chair's Bistro Banquette.

The Bistro Banquette by Mariette Himes Gomez for Hickory chair

Hickory Chair allows you to customize your banquette right down to the size and finish of the upholstery tacks. We chose a smooth black leather, and dark stain for the legs, very much like the chair version shown below.

The Bistro Chair by Mariette Himes Gomez for Hickory chair

We'd found it, but we also found we couldn't have it for about 12 weeks. Since the kitchen renovation had taken so many years to come to fruition, we decided several months for the perfect banquette/dining sofa was not too long to wait.

And now, the wait is over:

Here it is in situ with a lambskin over the seat (luxurious cat claw protection)

When the banquette arrived, it made our much abused Duncan Phyfe dining table (purchased very cheaply via an ad in the Pennysaver, long before the days of Craigslist or Kijiji) look very shabby and out of place with it's medium brown scratched finish. But the table dimensions were so perfect for our space that we decided to refinish rather than replace it. I scraped all the peeling veneer from the edge of the table with a razor, sanded the top and the curvy tripod legs, and stained it all with a dark Minwax oil based stain that I mixed to match the legs of the sleek new banquette--so dark that the missing edge veneer is not at all apparent. We we surprised by the effectiveness of the transformation. I wish I had a picture of its state prior to refinishing.

Another view without lambskin and refinished Duncan Phyfe table

We now think that the two pieces live quite happily together in the space. The table gets to stay. We still need to find chairs. Right now my wicker-look black resin outdoor IKEA chairs are sitting across from the banquette. They're quite comfortable, but maybe aren't quite the thing.

Hickory Chair Bistro banquette, Duncan Phyfe table, and IKEA outdoor chairs

But who knows? It may be sometime before I get around to changing things.

Tile Backsplash Update

noreply@blogger.com (S and N) — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 01:43:00 +0000

Our renovated kitchen has existed in a nearly complete state for several months now, but we're still several details short of proclaiming it fait accompli, so I'm going to post about some of the interim stages before revealing the full thing.

the bar sink corner now grouted

When I left off telling the tale, we were in the process of tiling our backsplash (read about it here). We did this job ourselves and we're very pleased with the results. We used now ubiquitous subway tile in an ivory colour, but we think it goes well with our house, which was built in 1889.
Our looming decision was grout colour. We wanted one to contrast with the tile enough to show the pattern but not so much as to be distracting. What we really wanted was something like the shadow line cast by the ungrouted tile. After much debate and vacillation, we chose a slightly cool gray called silver (from the Mapei line of sanded grouts). Our reasoning was that the cool gray would provide some opposition to the ivory of the tile and prevent the wall looking too warm or muddy. We think we made a good choice. Looking at it now, the grout is a good match for the shadow line of the inset cupboard door--just what we'd hoped for.

Serendipity was at work for us. The ogee trim tile we had left over from our bathroom renovation was an almost perfect match for the moulding our cabinet maker used for the under cabinet light valance (although we did have to order 8 more pieces from California), and we were able to file down a special little corner piece to finish off the line of ogee tile without having it stand proud of the column.

serendiptious match of ogee tile and light valance moulding

We'd originally thought we would clad over our cement and brick column (read about that epic saga here), but in the end we liked the cement and decided to let it stay and just run the tile all the way up to the ceiling on the other side. I love how this corner turned out. Our cabinet maker did a beautiful job of scribing the cabinet to the very uneven wall and, now tiled, the corner looks seamless.

tile to the ceiling at the glass corner cabinet

We decided to forgo any special tile pattern over the range, because we thought it would be largely obscured by the plate rack (our modified IKEA Grundtal rack). We're thrilled with our hacked IKEA rack. We're not the first to do this, but really, it couldn't be better. N cut each stainless steel rod of the disassembled IKEA rack to the correct length (42") with a pipe cutter, popped out the little piece meant to the recive the screw using a dowel and a mallet, and epoxied the little piece back in the newly cut rod ends. The brackets were mounted in chiseled-out recessed niches in the studs behind the range. We tiled right over the brackets and now we have the best over range shelf anywhere. We mounted it high enough for plates to catch the most rays from the heat lamps on the range hood.

behind the range backsplash and tiled-in, cutomized IKEA Grundtal pan/plate rack

What you can't see in the photograph is the line of cigar tile pieces that we put behind the pot rack and which allowed us to configure the layout so that we could end with a full tile under the hood (yet another serendipitous point in our tile layout planning).
Even though we chose a medium colour, and sealed the grout, we do have a bit of staining on the grout above the grill on the range from our daily cooking dramas, but it's really barely noticeable.

another view of the corner cabinet and tiled wall

So ends the tile and grout saga.

Not last night but the night before...

noreply@blogger.com (S and N) — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 03:20:00 +0000

forty-two robbers came to my door. Okay, it was last night. And they all asked very politely.

pumpkins, washed, and awaiting their fate

The first swarm of 6 little girls were costumed as Dorothy, a bee, and various princesses.

Next came a tiny walking Jack-o-lantern,

and then two social workers (really) asking for non-perishable food items (they got the best haul of the evening),

followed by a witch with a glowing blue skull on her hat.

Then came not one, but two Freddy Kruegers (they were going to dress as a Teletubby and a nerd-ostrich combo, but couldn't muster the energy or so they said)...


Carving in progress--deadly nightshade and poisonous toadstools

The next loud twist of the doorbell was from a stormtrooper.

Then our across the street neighbours arrived with a new babe in arms all dressed in pink,

followed by a witch and a pirate,

a mad scientist,

a leprechaun (self described as the Lucky Charms guy),

a spy,

a sparkle witch,

tiny Papa Smurf,

a ninja,

an alien,

a clown,

a superhero with an H on his chest (Hyperdrive?)

a glamrock zombie (fantastic costume!)

a witch,

a lamb,

a Scream-masked ghost,

a much bigger smurf,

a vampire...

my out of focus, but favorite, barn owl pumpkin

Then, at 8, there was a lull.

...

Then arrived a panda bear and her very young mom who was also eager for candy, signalling a change in tone.

Next came Super Mario and his teenaged parents,

a marijuana leaf emblazoned flag wearing "green party" member (who liked my magic mushroom pumpkin),

a biker,

a boss bear (sporting a moustache),

a girl (or was it?),

a lingerie model in an overcoat,

and a cowboy (a pimp cowboy explained his friends).

the rechristened magic mushroom pumpkin

And then, like that, they were all gone, bump, into the night.

We survived the onslaught and even have leftover chocolate, mostly of the 70%+ cocoa variety...

as planned.

Regular house-related blog posting to resume shortly.

Tackling the Backsplash

noreply@blogger.com (S and N) — Sun, 01 May 2011 19:33:00 +0000

backsplash tiling begins

Although we have a wonderful tile setter, he is often very busy and didn't return our phone calls when we asked him about tiling our backsplash. Our guess is that ours was too small a job for him to make multiple return trips (he lives over an hour away). And so, we are tackling the job ourselves. As I write I can hear the whine of the water tile saw outside. It's a remarkably efficient tool for cutting and shaping the tiles. We are using the same subway tile we used in our bathroom. We purchased it originally from Country Floors before they closed their Toronto showroom during the recession and we had to do some sleuthing to find enough extra tiles for this job.

Yes, Will and Kate are lending a hand. So much for the Globe and Mail keepsake wedding insert

We'll soon be in a quandary over grout colours. We have matching grout in the bathroom, but I think we might prefer to emphasize the subway pattern in the kitchen. I remember being vaguely disappointed when our bathroom walls lost their definition to the matching coloured grout.

the ungrouted corner showing clear shadow lines


A shot from across the room showing the window trim

What do you think? Should we use a contrasting or matching grout colour?

oh, the glamour of diy

I've included two photos of our master bathroom tile, in progress, and grouted with a matching grout, to illustrate how much the subway pattern is minimized when the grout coordinates with the tile. I'm not sorry we blended things in the bathroom because there is so much tile in that room, but maybe the relatively small tiled area in the kitchen could handle more contrast. We debate.


the master bath tile during installation with subway pattern quite apparent

the same wall after grouting

Soapstone wins and Marble gets its edge

noreply@blogger.com (S and N) — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 19:25:00 +0000

Soapstone counter and sill (left) and marble inverted ogee edge (the gray paint is primer)

In the end, we were brave. We invited some high contrast into our previously calm, neutral kitchen scheme, and opted for some drama on our island edge. Thanks in part to the comments on this blog and to the advice of many on the amazing Garden Web kitchen forum, we chose soapstone for our perimeter kitchen counters and we decided on an uncommon, inverted ogee edge for the marble counter top on our two-level island.

Soapstone, for all of its popularity in theory, seems infrequently used in practice. But we are now complete converts to its beauty and robustness. We used two separate supplier/fabricators, one for each stone surface, and each did a beautiful job. On this count we feel extremely fortunate. We did our homework and it paid off. We've been living with the new counters for a few weeks now (it's taken me all this time to get these photos together) and are thrilled with our bold (to us) choices. We've come so far with the kitchen that it astonishes us that so much remains to be done. But for now, here's a glimpse (in about a million pictures) of the countertops:

this was the first piece of soapstone to be installed--perfect fit

after oiling

the main sink slab coming in on a custom-built trolley

the corner sink--before oiling

and after

the astonishing caramel veining

the perfect, zero reveal, sink cut-out and soapstone window sill

the long view after oiling (the oil sinking in in places)

another window sill (with window jamb and trim tacked up)


bar faucet, and filter tap in polished nickel


the main sink faucet with side spray (snow now gone)


and here's the soapstone as it looks today--last oiled about a week ago

A couple of weeks after the soapstone was installed, the marble installers came. The perimeter soapstone counters included two sink installations, onsite drilling for faucets, and several seam. The installation took two men a full day. The marble, although for a two-level island, had no seams, and our plywood substrate supplied by the cabinet maker was so perfect that the entire installation took less than an hour.

the marble countertop being installed on a plywood substrate

another installation shot with N providing another set of hands

An L shape in stone, especially with such a narrow side, is inherently prone to cracking and we were very relieved when the piece was in place and intact. The piece of marble that forms our bathroom vanity upstairs was a piece salvaged from a bar top that had cracked right in half during the installation, so we knew what could happen.

another shot of the island edge (painting in progress--lest you think we're leaving it this way)

the lovely honed marble


and again

Although we've seen a bullnose edge over a recessed ogee, we haven't seen this particular edge (eased square over recessed ogee) anywhere else, have you?

We love the island edge for a few reasons: first, it provides maximum usable counter space which is especially important on the narrow part of the island where the peninsula is only 15" across (if we'd put the ogee on top, the edge would've cut into the counter by an 1 1/2"); second, it allows us to have a built-up edge without any visible seam; third, the flat edge up top allows us to sweep crumbs or mop spills without anything getting stuck in the edge; finally, the profile echoes the baseboard on the island, the sills throughout the house, and the ogee detail on the soapstone sills. If you're considering a built-up edge on a 3/4" slab of marble (which is by far the most common thickness of marble slabs in the GTA), we wholeheartedly endorse this one.

Our most recent kitchen steps included installing the dishwasher (which arrived dented first time around. Any nostalgia I felt for handwashing evaporated within a week and after almost two months without the crucial machine, my hands were desperate for a break from soapy water), and installing the window jambs and trim. I'm currently working at painting all of our beautiful new cabinetry by hand (it was my big idea to have a hand painted, rather than factory, finish, and it's now my big job). More kitchen posts to come.

Stainless Steel or Soapstone?

noreply@blogger.com (S and N) — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 20:24:00 +0000

Just when I thought our final kitchen finish decision involved a mere edge profile, another quandary.

we couldn't bear to do this with marble

We want our perimeter kitchen countertops, the ones where all the action takes place, to be capable of withstanding all of the ravages of cooking. To be, in a word, indestructible. We are wanton, messy cooks around here. Butter, wine, lemon, curries, vinegar, pot lids encrusted with browned bits from long braises--the countertop must take all comers, and the counter must win, hands down, every time.

We thought we had our winner in stainless steel. Stainless has lustre, strength, incorruptibility, and a fantastic pedigree. It is, after all, the surface of choice in almost all restaurant kitchens. But then the quoting process. Stainless is expensive. In the hands of an inexperienced fabricator it can look a little rough around the edges and wobbly in the middle. Plus, we were getting conflicting information about gauge and type of stainless: 16, 14, 304 or 316...we just couldn't get the definitive answer. And while this was happening, our eyes began to roam.

Initial finishes palette (plus brick wall, not shown, see here)

Cruising the amazing GardenWeb kitchen forum one day (here), we saw a post about someone's ss countertop. Thinking ss meant stainless steel, we followed the thread and discovered stainless steel's possible nemesis: soapstone. Soapstone is similarly incorruptible. Its structure is inert--undamaged by acid or oils. And although it can scratch, its softness allows it to be gently buffed back into uniform smoothness. And soapstone can do something else. Unlike stainless, which can only reflect what's around it, soapstone has its own inherent beauty. It can provide a subtle but strong anchor to a white kitchen, a counterbalance to a neutral colour scheme.


Revised palette with cast iron pan as proxy for soapstone

What do you think? Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of the soapstone we might use, so I used a cast iron pan as a poor substitute for the soapstone. We'd been planning to allow our eclectic dishware and enamelled iron pots to provide the colour in our kitchen, but lately we've been thinking things might be a little washed out, and in dire need of some contrast.
Here are some other things that will be in the finished kitchen:

this marble, called calacatta carrara (more about it here)


our wall mounted stainless steel gas fire place


one of three Franklin pendants in antique silver, brick in background


shorebird carvings whose neutral colours guided some of our finish choices

Maybe, just as the shorebird's bills and tails lend them a lovely graphic quality, the dark soapstone would give some definition to our neutral kitchen. We have yet to go to see the available slabs of soapstone, so we can't judge how well it go with our marble, but we will very soon. We like the idea that soapstone changes a little--lightening and becoming grayer--in between oilings. To make matters worse, in the last couple of days we finally found a steel fabricator who says he could make the counters we want with integral sinks and marine edges. The prices for stainless and soapstone are neck and neck. What would you do? We'd love to hear your opinion.

____________________________________

And this s.s. vs s.s. decision doesn't even touch on the new dilemma regarding the marble island top. Just as we thought we had committed to building up the edge of our 2cm marble slab to give it more presence, along comes Paul Anater, kitchen designer and blogger extraordinaire, freshly back from an influential furniture show in Cologne, Germany with a report about the new sleek trend in countertops: thin is in: 1 cm thin to be precise. Aack! What to do?!. Read about it at his blog: Kitchen and Residential Design.

The tyranny of choice (or why I can't choose my marble edge profile)

noreply@blogger.com (S and N) — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 18:46:00 +0000

the built-up ogee step edge in honed statuario on the bathroom vanity

With only a few weeks to go before the cabinets get installed, the remaining kitchen decisions are looming large and we have lost all perspective. This kitchen renovation has taken years to come to fruition, and during that time, while we attended to the behind-the-scenes infrastructure, we dreamed. Our dreams were big, the possibilities endless. And we took advantage of the freedom dreaming offers: changing our minds about some appliance or finish every couple of weeks. But now, most of our decisions have been made. The flooring is in place, new windows installed, appliances purchased, backsplash tile stockpiled, cabinets being built, sinks and faucets ordered, perimeter counters selected, trim refinished, light fixtures mostly in, and suddenly the option of changing our minds is gone...well, almost.

noisette grigio, white medusa, calacatta cielo

We have yet to choose the marble for our kitchen island. And here's where we find ourselves confronted once again by almost infinite choice. This time, though, the choice doesn't feel liberating, but stifling. We have three weeks to decide. After that, the cabinets will be in place and, unless we want to camp out in a makeshift kitchen in my studio forever, the counters will have to go in, and life go on.

our currently tagged slab--calacatta carrara extra (calacatta and carrara in one slab!)

So, really, what's our problem? We are in the midst of a luxurious kitchen renovation. How can we complain? Are we dragging our feet because it will really make a world of difference whether we choose the calacatta carrara, the arabescato extra, the calacatta ondulato, or the white medusa? Will we be forever dissatisfied if we get a mitred square edge instead of a built-up ogee? We've invested this decision with so much importance that I'm beginning to think it's symbolic of something else entirely--as though the island countertop decision is a metaphorical door closing on possible worlds. Once this final choice is made, the once in a lifetime dream kitchen is no longer a dream, but a reality.

Sigh.


The first slab I tagged--an arabescato--vetoed by N as too purple

So I guess choice is not the real tyrant at all. Choice allows the dream to take place. It's coming to a decision that turns on all the lights and wakes us up from the dream of possibility. No wonder we're so indecisive.

another option--calacatta cremo dorato extra (extra for extra $? calacatta as a prefix is always dangerous)

No wonder houses, especially as they are being built or renovated, are so often used as metaphors for life, and these light decisions that we have the luxury of making feel so heavy.

Half Bath Tour

noreply@blogger.com (S and N) — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 02:31:00 +0000

Doorknob salvaged from former main floor bathroom

Just down the stairs and around the corner from that orderly tool wall we wrote about here, is our new two-piece half bath. Shall we go in?

Here we are on the outside. The tongue and groove boards and exterior marine lights make it look a little cottagey out here, so we sometimes refer to this half-bath as the indoor-inside-out-house. Much remains unfinished out here: ceiling, trim, cabinets above the washer and dryer, stairs, etc, but for now, I will try to focus on our (very nearly) completed project.


First glimpse...

Further in...

Shut the door

This doorknob and lock set is also from the former main floor bathroom. It is not original to the house, but probably predates the conversion to a duplex in the 1940s. This one still has some of its original nickel or silver plating. At first we thought we required a rim lock because our door wasn't thick enough to house the old lock mechanism, but N ingeniously encased the lock in a box, carved out a niche for the strike plate, and constructed his own rim lock. It works beautifully.

Through the looking glass, right and left

It's difficult to photograph a small space. The mirror reflects the nautical chart of our beloved St. Margaret's Bay in Nova Scotia, and the rustic "Z" pattern door constructed by N and my dad out of tongue and groove boards.

the faceframe cabinet with inset door reclaimed from our original pantry

original Eastlake latch hardware from our old pantry cupboard

We were fortunate to be able to reuse the door and latch hardware from an original pantry cupboard to construct this little cabinet over the toilet. I gasped when I first saw it installed--it looked so perfect in its space. Honestly, when I saw how quickly N and my dad built and installed this little faceframe cabinet with its inset door and exposed hinges, I wondered why we needed to hire a cabinetmaker for the kitchen at all.

To give you an idea, here are some before and after shots:

during, and after--stairs and plumbing now neatly hidden away


the original cupboard door already hung in its new frame

chiseling a niche for the new hinge and clamping the cabinet box


And now a perfect little cabinet nestled under the stairs

In the shot above, you can see the expanse of brick wall. It's not real brick, but the same brick veneer I used in the kitchen and which I described in detail in the previous post. We think it does give some much needed warmth to this chilly little basement bathroom. The wall is bare now, but once we have fewer things to do to the structure of the house, we look forward to perusing antique stores for an old porthole to hang on this wall.

I noticed that Restoration Hardware had introduced a porthole medicine cabinet, but although I like their fixtures and their washstands--their functional items--I don't like the idea of decorating with their objects. I like to be my own collector, so we'll save the porthole as the object of a future quest.

the space saving washstand...

with weathered oak base from Restoration Hardware

RH Bistro toilet roll holder --simple, perfect

RH Bistro faucet

We offer one little caveat about the Bistro faucet, which looks beautiful, but comes with the wrong handle cartridge. All of the Restoration Hardware faucets are shipped with cartridges for lever handles. This works perfectly for faucet styles with lever handles. Lever taps open by having their handles pulled in towards each other. In other words, the hot side opens with a counter-clockwise motion, while the cold opens with a clockwise motion. With cross handles, both taps should open with a counter-clockwise twist (right-y tight-y, left-y loose-y). So, after several days of deciding whether we could live with it (we couldn't), we contacted Restoration Hardware, who were a little slow to comprehend the problem, but helpful once they understood. They put us in touch with Newport Brass who manufactures their fixtures, and who sent us the correct part. Now order is restored and we have no more fights with the tap.

I'm going to wrap up this post with a few progress shots, just for the record. We've learned that a small room requires just as much planning and almost as many resources as a large one, but the rewards can be great too.

An early progress shot showing framing, plumbing, and my hardworking dad

during construction, bricks partly mortared

and after, from similar perspectives

the cabinet niche under the stairs and N hoisting the cabinet into place

For reference:
Faucet, toilet roll holder, tilt mirror, and towel ring, all Bistro in polished nickel
Weathered Oak sink console
1920s factory sconces polished nickel --all from Restoration Hardware
Toilet Toto Eco Drake
Paint Farrow and Ball shaded white on walls, pointing on ceiling, slipper satin on trim
Porcelain floor tile, Casa Dolce Casa Pietra/2 'Fiora' from Stone Tile International
Door and cabinet hardware and cabinet door reclaimed from this, our very own old house

Thanks for coming on the half bath tour. I'm determined to write a post about our master bath renovation as soon as I take some good photos. Until then, here's a glimpse...

Our new old yellow brick interior wall

noreply@blogger.com (S and N) — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 03:16:00 +0000

Our house is an 1889 yellow brick Victorian. Outside, the brick is painted (we posted about that here), but we've long entertained the idea of exposing some of the brick walls inside. This idea seemed especially plausible in the kitchen, where a large part of the space was once a back porch and two of the walls were formerly exterior walls albeit clad over in the 1940's with wire and plaster. However, when we started gutting the kitchen prior to the renovation, we discovered that the brick was not in the greatest shape under its mask of plaster. In one place, the column of brick holding up the laminated beam that supports the second story of the house was in dire need of repair (read about that epic saga here). We were concerned that pulling the wire mesh and plaster from the other wall could weaken the mortar and damage its structural integrity.

So, not wanting to give up on the rich texture a brick wall can give, but not wanting to harm the house, we looked for alternatives. At first, we had thought we might cover up our original brick column (now reinforced with concrete), but ultimately we decided we loved it--it had history, and instead of disguising it behind soulless drywall, we would use it as reference and try to match it.

Call me crazy, but I think the patina on our original brick wall is beautiful

The brick has a gorgeous patina of age typical of yellow brick houses, and is now more gray than yellow. In fact, the brick and concrete column has shifted its role from something to be disguised to becoming the basis for our whole kitchen colour palette. Now, every new material entering the kitchen has to get vetted up against the brick wall before it gets the okay.

There are many options for cladding your walls on the market: brick or stone veneers sliced from the real thing, flexible panels cast in foam or vinyl from real stone (the outside of Centro Restaurant on Yonge St. North of Eglinton in Toronto is clad in this product, and it did turn our heads at first, but it didn't really suit our house), or gypsum products, also typically cast from the real thing.

stone veneer on Centro Restaurant exterior

We wanted a product that we could easily install on our own, and one that we could customize after the fact to match our existing brick. In the end, we settled on a product from a local Toronto company called Soho Brick. They have taken casts of century old brick walls, which they use to mold thin "brick" veneers from gypsum and pigment, and then mount them onto a flexible mesh backing. The bricks are lightweight and very easy to cut (or break for that matter).

A panel of the brick veneer on mesh backing from Soho Brick

One of the veneers -- front, back,


and side

At first we were put off by the bright clear colouring that seemed to scream fake, but the Soho brick people showed us how readily the bricks absorbed any patina you can concoct, and we, or at least I, was sold. I am a visual artist, and I knew I could make these bricks look the way we wanted. N remained slightly skeptical but agreed to put his faith in me.

Once we got our brick home, we promptly stacked it up in what will be the future dining room and let it sit there collecting dust and forming an awkward immovable obstacle for a good year. Fellow renovators, please let this be a cautionary tale. Do not purchase a product until you plan to use it. This is a lesson we have yet to learn. Our house is full of supplies for upcoming projects. But we did get started on the brick wall this past summer, and finished up, well, just a couple of days before hosting Christmas celebrations. I know.

Here is a much abridged description of our brick veneer installation:

Individual bricks

Since we were trying to approximate the look of our existing brick wall, we made a couple of changes to the installation process. First, the spacing of the bricks on their mesh panels wasn't quite tight enough, so we decided to remove the bricks from the mesh backing and apply them individually. This made the job a little more labour intensive, but gave us much more control over the final result.

It's a start!

We used a laser level to mark guidelines at appropriate intervals around the room. Then I began the slow process of applying the veneers. Because the existing wall was quite irregular, I coated both the brick and the wall with mastic adhesive using a toothed trowel.

Corner pieces for corners

One of our walls (the same wall that once was an exterior brick wall, but is now a brick wall covered in wire mesh and plaster, and recovered in fake brick) included an outside corner which required special corner pieces.

The faux (fake is such an ugly word, don't you think?) brick wall, pre-mortar

If you've ever pulled down the interior walls of a double brick house, you'll have noticed that the inside layer of brick will have a piece of wood replacing a course of bricks every so often. This wood would act as a nailing strip for supports for the lathe and plaster walls. I thought we could incorporate this feature into our brick wall to act as a nailing strip for hanging art. We happened to have a couple of the original roughsawn

The added nailing strip, cut from an original stud, complete with Thanksgiving turkey

With the bricks adhered with mastic to the wall, our next step was mortar. We wanted to try to match the original mortar joints as closely as possible.


The original lime mortar, pale and soft, note inscribed convex 'u' detail

We set about educating ourselves about the differences between mortar historically, and mortar today. Mortar plays a crucial structural role in the life of masonry buildings, but today, most masonry is decorative, not structural, and the traditional art of the mason is almost lost. Old lime based mortar, although soft, had an ability to absorb water and mend tiny fissures to maintain its structure. Modern mortar, with portland cement as a main component is brittle and dark and can actually damage soft clay bricks because of its inflexibility. This is why repointing a brick house, if not done correctly and by someone knowledgeable about traditional mortars, can actually damage the structure. Nonetheless, despite the fascinating information we were gleaning about mortar types and properties, what we were really after was a way of duplicating the look of our original mortar joints. After much searching for an appropriate pointing tool to duplicate that line in our original mortar, we found the website of Dr. Gerard Lynch, a master bricklayer, historic brickwork consultant, and lecturer in the UK. He also makes traditional and custom jointing tools. A few emails, photos, and a money order later, we had purchased our very own custom jointing tool.

Our custom jointing tool inscribed with its maker's initials, GL

Dr. Lynch, who goes by the moniker of Red Mason (I believe he was a redhead in his youth) had informed us that our mortar joints had been ruled and tooled after the fact with that detail in order to give our irregular clay bricks a more even appearance. The tool he sent us does not produce the convex bead, but a concave groove--he did warn us that a clay impression of the wall would be better than photos at conveying the tool needed, but the ruled detail looks very similar the original from any distance.

more of our mortaring arsenal, minus the mortar bag

Mortaring was a messy business. We used a mortar bag, which is like a giant cake icing bag, and N tried several different ratios of cement, sand, lime, and water before striking on the perfect consistency and colour (lime lightens the mortar considerably).

the perfect mortar consistency for good flow is quite stiff as shown here

Achieving the right consistency for the mortar to flow freely from the bag is tricky and counterintuitive. You'd think, as we did at first, that mortar should be wetter to flow better, but the opposite was actually true.

wet mortar above, dry mortar, already tooled and ruled, below

Despite the labour and mess, the project was becoming more and more satisfying. But there was still the pressing issue of colour.

The original brick right, orangey fake on the left

Could I ever make that orange brick veneer match our original wall?

A trial patina concocted from leftover house paint very diluted with water

Here are two details of the wall as it is today under two different lighting conditions, and with some of our original house trim, stripped, restained, and tacked up. I think I'll go a little farther with the grey patina in places. I stopped just before Christmas because of time, not a sense of completion, and haven't resumed my efforts, yet.

warm light...


cool light, but neither quite accurate

Another view, more confusing lighting, facing the French doors

And here's the facing wall, the once exterior wall, looking a little as it might've if we'd torn off all the plaster, I've already toned down the orange tone, but haven't applied any grey patina of age just yet:

We liked it so much (and had so much brick leftover from our original purchase) that we repeated the brick wall detail in the new half bath downstairs. Final pictures of that room next post, promise. I'll post final brick wall photos when the entire kitchen is finished. We can hardly believe it, but it appears that we're on the final stretch. Our cabinetmaker tells us that installation of our cabinets should begin in mid-February. Yesterday I tagged a slab of marble for the island counter (I'll post about that, too). I'm about to order our sinks and prep sink faucet. It's all beginning to come together. We are excited.

Organization for a New Year of Renovation

noreply@blogger.com (S and N) — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 21:35:00 +0000

This was a low-glamour project, but so satisfying. While struggling for the billionth time to find some job-specific tool we knew we possessed but couldn't locate in the ongoing renovation upheaval of our home, something snapped and we knew we needed to get organized. And so we decided to channel our inner grade nine shop teacher and turn the outside (and out-of-sight) wall of our basement bathroom into a tool wall.

The new tongue and groove wall during construction

The dry run

A place for everything (note hacked IKEA plant stand for safe chisel storage)


A little visual punning: cans for cans

We used outdoor light fixtures from Union Lighting in Toronto (under $20 ea)

Once the wall was organized there was no stopping our quest for order. We decided to put a bank of drawers across the corridor from the tool wall. We purchased IKEA base cabinets: four drawers per cabinet--3 shallow, one deep, Harlig drawer fronts (plus added soft close mechanism which is non standard only for Harlig), a Numerar countertop, card bin pulls from Lee Valley tools. Et voilà:

Our bank of drawers (the pink glow on the walls is F&B floor paint primer leftover from the floor)

labels!

No more futile searching for the perfect drill bit

Tool wall and drawers were in place, but we had more organizing to do. One small parts storage unit (steel case, clear bins) from an industrial supply store in Mississauga, plus several oddly satisfying hours of sorting and labelling our small parts, and:

Our very own home depot

Truth be told, "a place for everything and everything in its place" has not been a mantra of ours. But for now at least we can face the new year fully confident that we can find any tool or small part we need for our future projects.

We'll see how long order reigns.

Goodbye Ferns, Hello Winter Urns

noreply@blogger.com (S and N) — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 20:28:00 +0000

tropical upright fern/winter urn

I bid a reluctant goodbye to my three tropical upright ferns that had performed so spectacularly all summer and fall. I brought one of them inside, but their gigantism forced me to send the other two to the compost heap, where they look very forlorn. Even a Victorian home can only handle so many ferns on stands. In their place are three berry laden Blue Princess Hollies, well insulated with extra soil and lots of cedar and dogwood boughs. With luck they'll survive the winter and join the far less showy Blue Prince holly in the garden in the spring. The lovely brown of the underside of the magnolia leaves makes a nice compliment to my rusty iron urns (rust initially from neglect, now turned purposeful strategy).

Blue Princess holly, cedar boughs, red osier dogwood twigs, magnolia leaves

For the two concrete urns at the top of the stairs I impaled two moss balls on dogwood stakes and thrust them into into my existing pots of ivy with some white pine and salal. For all of the violence of their making, they have a calm formal look and the moss balls echo the size and shape of the ball finials on the newel posts at the base of the stairs--another subconscious design coup (I'm that good). So, that's the fun part of putting the garden to bed, done...now I really must get back to the real chores before the final deep freeze.

The impaled moss ball topiary (slightly askew from this angle)

The Half a Bath

noreply@blogger.com (S and N) — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:37:00 +0000

A schematic rendering of our basement half-bath, by N using SketchUp

One of the reasons we've taken so long to get to the cabinet ordering stage is that in commandeering space for the kitchen, we eliminated a full main floor bathroom. Then, unwilling to live without a useable bathtub (our existing bathroom had a broken down jacuzzi that we use only for showers), we appropriated an upstairs bedroom for our new master bathroom (a process I plan to recap shortly). Now we have two upstairs bathrooms: the new one and the original, mostly redundant one (original to the time of purchase, but not to the house). But for now we have no main floor bathroom--nowhere to dash quickly when in midst of dinner preparations, or to offer to an unexpected guest. To solve this pressing need for an accessible and less personal bathroom, we had first planned to put a tiny powder room under the stairs in the front hall. But we eventually decided that to confiscate the only possible spot for a front hall closet would be foolish, and so we began to scout for territory elsewhere.

The basement, with its newly soaring ceiling of 6'4" (gained in the replacement of the sagging kitchen floor joists), became the obvious choice for a two-piece bathroom. The new half bath will be just down the stairs and to the left, beside the laundry room, and en route to the wine cellar. As with everything in an old house, this half bathroom presented some real technical hurdles for us to overcome. In particular, the toilet, being lower than our ancient sewer connection, requires a pump to propel the sewage up to the sewer line. Fascinating, eh?

The Liberty "Low Pro System"

At the recommendation of our plumber, we chose a Liberty "low pro system". In a typical installation, you could set the "low-pro" directly on the concrete floor and build the finished floor up to meet it, but we couldn't afford any loss of height, so to set the pump reservoir flush with the floor (pardon the pun), we had to excavate a 26" x 44" hole in the concrete floor of the basement to a depth of about 8". Then we levelled the pump and set it in concrete. And we did a beautiful job too, but you'll have to accept my word because the photos have gone astray.

Toto Drake

We are getting the pump appropriate toilet, a Toto Drake (not nearly as sleek as the Toto Nexus we have upstairs), next week, and if the plumber can come by to install it, we should have a report on how our gravity defying system works very soon. We laboured hard to create a layout that would allow access to the pump in the future should anything go wrong.

The half bath plan, rendered in 3-d by N using SketchUp

You'll notice in the floor plan above that the area between the bathroom and the stairs, and into which we will put a removable pull-out pantry, is strategically located to provide a narrow access route that a plumber (or an unfortunate apprentice) could squeeze through to get to the pump in emergencies.

Fixtures and Finishes

In keeping with its humble location in the basement, we decided to clad the half-bath walls in tongue and groove boards, both for the slightly rustic yet still period feel, and also to avoid the drywall taping and sanding. We found these bargain boards in 6' foot lengths at the Home Depot.

Tongue and Groove boards--great price for 6' lengths

N and my dad made a beautiful door using the same tongue in groove boards. The 'z' support and general style is the same design as the original basement doors.

The lovely simple new door, and a glimpse at the tongue and groove paneling in the background

Two of our original cellar doors

The new door turned out beautifully and has stayed remarkably true despite the fairly wet wood. The hinges are from Lee Valley tools. We haven't yet decided whether we'll paint them or leave them black (but I'm leaning towards paint).

Most of the bathroom fixtures we chose are from Restoration Hardware, including the vanity:

The Weathered Oak Single Console Sink from Restoration Hardware

the faucet ( a less expensive alternative to the Waterworks Easton we have in the main bathroom):

The Bistro Faucet from Restoration Hardware

two sconces:

The 1920s Factory Sconce from Restoration Hardware

We are still looking for a mirror. The small recessed cupboard over the toilet will have a door cut from the original door to the small pantry that was demolished in the kitchen renovation.

We are going to frame, or at least plaque-mount, a nautical chart of St Margaret's Bay, Nova Scotia, to hang on one wall. N and I visit Nova Scotia every summer and spend hours kayaking and boating in this little part of the world. We'd like to find a library lamp with a short extension to illuminate the chart.

Library Picture Light from Elte, also available in polished nickel

I did find one I love at ELTE in Toronto, but at almost $400 for a single sconce it may be a little much for a modest half bath.

Tongue and groove paneling carefully scribed to the brick veneer wall

We covered one of the bathroom walls in brick veneer, a process I'll write about in detail in a future post. I know that fake brick sounds like it might look contrived or, well, fake, but since being mortared and patinized with a dilute paint paint solution, it looks surprisingly good and understated. We love how it plays against the texture of the tongue in groove panelling and adds some warmth and a sense of age to the basement space. I installed the brick myself, and even I can't believe it's not the real thing.

Pietra/2 'fiora' from Casa Dolce Casa

The floor was tiled by our tile setter with tile left over from our kitchen floor. It's a gorgeous Italian porcelain tile from Casa Dolce Casa in the colour fiora. It's meant to mimic limestone, but I think it's beautiful in its own right, and it's indestructible.

We've made good and, for us, quick progress on the little half bath. We've filled all the holes with wood filler, shellacked the knots, primed with a shellac-based primer, sanded and painted. We used Farrow and Ball's shaded white on the walls and pointing on the ceiling--the same colours we've been trying out in our kitchen while the renovation is in progress. We're still looking for an appropriate door trim molding and baseboard, but I should have some photos of the nearly completed half bath in the next week or two.

The Cabinetry Bids Are In!

noreply@blogger.com (S and N) — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 22:49:00 +0000

And after agonizing for several days, we have made our choice. Next week we'll hand over our deposit and, with luck, our new kitchen will be installed early in the new year. It's taken so long to get to this point that we're astonished at how quickly things will move now that we've actually set the ball rolling.

Although we decided on the custom cabinetry route, we did seriously consider using IKEA cabinets, with some additional custom cabinets, especially after reading this excellent and informative post: "Why I Love IKEA Kitchens!" by Toronto interior designer Carol Reed, who offers up a wealth of design information on her blog. Our temporary unfitted kitchen is all IKEA and we've grown to love the drawer hardware and spacious interiors. We have knocked down and set up our IKEA cabinets many times over the course of the renovation, and they are still going strong. In fact, we like them so much that we just purchased a bank of four IKEA base cabinets for our laundry/tool room. In the end, though, it was apparent that our kitchen layout would require so much customization that IKEA would not necessarily be advantageous either economically or practically.

Not to mention, we won't have to do nearly as much of this:

N assembling base cabinets for the basement

So, fully custom it is. The small cabinetry company we've hired from Stratford, Ontario does beautiful work--as both their portfolio and extremely happy customers attest--and has the expertise to build and install the kitchen we've designed exactly as specified. The custom route is expensive, but possibly no moreso than the semi-custom options so widely available at the big box stores and larger kitchen cabinetry manufacturers, and we both the believe that the attention to detail will be worth it. A kitchen is so seldom renovated that we plan to get it right this first and (we hope) only time.

We had three very high quality bids from three small cabinetry shops. Although there was a bit of a price gap among the bids, price was not the determining factor in our decision. I believe that any of the three cabinetmakers could have built us a beautiful kitchen, and I wish we could've hired all three, but we chose the one that filled us with the most confidence because of excellent communication and amenability to our design requests. We designed the kitchen to have both face frame and frameless cabinets to get the look we want without compromising on space. Most of our base cabinets will have drawers and we believe that frameless constuction will make the best use of space.


A detail of our bathroom vanity showing the sleek, stainless Blum tandembox and face frame construction

The cabinetmaker we have hired can build both frameless and faceframe and seems to like the idea of blending the two in the same kitchen. So the base cabinets will be frameless boxes with full overlay shaker style doors, Blum softclose hardware, and Blum's stainless tandembox drawers. Maple dovetail drawers are available for the same price or possibly a little less, but we like a little high-tech along with our tradition. The upper cabinets, and part of the island cabinets, will be faceframe with inset, glass-paneled, shaker style doors.

A detail of our temporary IKEA cabinets showing frameless cabinet boxes and full overlay doors
--details we will duplicate on our new base cabinets

We far prefer to work directly with the builder of our cabinets than to coordinate things through a third party, which would be the case with most larger firms. The cabinetmaker will be here next week to confirm measurements and then things will begin! It's an exciting, nervewracking time.

Trick or Treat

noreply@blogger.com (S and N) — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 02:02:00 +0000

Forty ghouls and goblins--a record for our neighbourhood!

Butterfly ballerina
Bat
Mad Hatter
Shark Victim
Baby Bumble Bee
Bumble Bee
Grim Reaper
Zombie
Storm Trooper
Ballerina
Pirate
Vampire (with Pirate Mom)
Lady Gaga
Jason
Storm Trooper
Zombie
Dinosaur
Cat
Witch
Ghoul #1
Ghoul #2
Ghoul #3
Nerd
Clown
Jack-o-lantern
Happy Gilmour
Rasta
Bert
An old lady
Vampire
Pirate
Scary thing
Princess #1
Princess #2
Everything ... ghoulish
Baseball player
Stepford wife
French maid
Dead WWII soldier
Jeannie

The Balletic Art of Drywall Taping

noreply@blogger.com (S and N) — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 23:44:00 +0000

The rented drywall lift in action

Hanging sheets of drywall is not difficult, especially with the aid of a few tools easily rented or acquired from your local hardware store: a drywall lift; an electric drywall screwdriver with an integral bit that dimples the drywall just enough to ensure that the screw head is below the surface of the drywall, but not to rip the paper surface; a good long straight edge for cutting--a 4' drywall square works best; a foot jack for wedging the drywall up off the floor enough to firmly abut the piece above; a knife with lots of replacement blades, a rasp for filing ragged edges, and a level.

DIY drywall toolkit part 1: drywall screwdriver, foot jack, t-square, knife and replacement blades, ear protection, rasp

Oh, and a rotozip type router is also invaluable for cutting around outlet boxes (always cut-counter clockwise or the cut can get away from you), as is a shop-vac style vaccuum that won't be harmed by the fine gypsum dust. And, now that I think about it, we also used two telescoping poles to help support the drywall at ceiling level, So, yes, it requires lots of tools, but hanging your own drywall is a feasible task for a homeowner.

DIY drywall toolkit part 2: Rotozip, telescoping support poles, level

For our kitchen renovation, we decided to hang the drywall ourselves and then hire a professional to tape the seams. But here's something we've learned: if you plan to hang your own drywall, be sure to do a good job--no small scraps of drywall, no ragged or uneven seams, no exposed screw heads, no broken paper--or you may have difficulty finding a professional taper to complete your job. All the tapers we've seen in action work with such balletic efficiently (some even work on stilts to avoid having to break their stride to move a ladder around the room!), that they resent any glaring errors of the prior boarding crew that might slow them down. They seem to have an instinctive idea of how long a room should take and how much trouble it should be. Ask for more, and they'll often turn your job down. Believe us, a good taper is a necessity. We've learned that taping is a fluid artform, not a job for plodding amateurs. Like beautiful calligraphy or sumi-e painting, excellent taping requires fluid motion and a deft hand. We've been amazed at how little sanding an expert taper will need to do after the fact. We tried taping a room--once. It was enough to make us recognize that book-learning can only go so far. Some things are better left to skilled professionals.

With angles like these (and this isn't the half of it), this kitchen needed a professional taper

N, who is the perfectionist around here, is always pleased when the drywalling contractors comment on his excellent job hanging the drywall.

Kitchen Renovation Update--We've Come a Long Way

noreply@blogger.com (S and N) — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 22:15:00 +0000

Sometimes, when we think about the seemingly endless number of steps remaining in the kitchen renovation, we begin to lose heart. But then we think back on how far we've come. ...And we've come a long way, baby.

Then:


The original floor plan of the back of the house as it was when we moved in

Now:

It's taken over five years, but after gutting the original kitchen, addressing structural concerns, adding windows, restoring the house to something close to its original 1889 floor plan, and building a new master bathroom so we could remove the bathroom from its inconvenient location within the footprint of the future kitchen without losing the convenience of a second bathroom, we finally have a clean slate to proceed with our kitchen renovation.


Looking east in our new blank slate of a kitchen space

Looking West

Looking East (fireplace)

Last year, when I left off describing our kitchen saga, we'd come to a difficult decision about replacing the joists of the kitchen floor. If we wanted tile, especially tile with under floor hydronic heat (which would mean embedding water tubes in thick concrete), the century-old sagging joists riddled with ill-placed holes would have to go. They did, and with the tremendous efforts of N and my Dad they were replaced with perfectly square, structurally sound laminated beams.

Replacing the floor joists

An engineer and home builder couple once told us that over-building (that is, using materials far in excess of code) was the mark of true amateurs. That's us!
And we do love our house--too much not to use the best materials we can.

Not only did the new joists reduce the floor deflection enough for us to lay tile, they also gained us almost 2 inches of headroom in the basement (which had been lost to the sagging of the old joists).

Luckily, while my dad and N were doing that, I was far away looking at castles, wandering through ruins, art galleries and cathedrals, and enjoying the beautiful city of Krakow, Poland, with my friend E.

A castle in the Pieniny mountains, the courtyard at Wawel Castle, and a self portrait walking
through an art installation at the National Gallery, Krakow

Sigh. Okay, back to work.

After joists came the subfloor: 5/8" tongue and groove plywood secured with construction adhesive and then screwed down into the joists.

Tool Tip: If you have a project that will require a lot of glue, or are engaged in long-term renovations, we recommend you spend the $100 or so it will cost to buy one of these guns:

Foam gun and sub floor adhesive canister

If you clean the nozzle with acetone and store it upside-down when the canister is in place, you'll never regret it. We used a foaming glue specifically for subfloors that doesn't leave a raised bead of glue (like PL), especially in cool temperatures, but spreads out evenly on contact with the applied surface, assuring even coverage and good adhesion. Trust us, we have learned from experience that any tool that saves wear and tear or prevents injury to any body part is worth its price. We wish we'd made this purchase several years earlier.

After the subfloor came framing. Then wiring--for lighting, speakers, outlets, range and hood, and future wi-fi (the lighting/wiring required a detailed plan). At the same time came plumbing for two sinks and a separate waterline for unsoftened water. Plumbing costs, if you don't already know, mount quickly, and are a bit of a wild card. Budget for more than you expect. Oh, and then a new gas line for the range. And after all this came insulation--sprayed-in foam to a depth of 3 1/2". Did you know that every insulation company has a proprietary colour of foam? We've had icy cool blue, but this insulation was pink.

Pink foam insulation

Pretty, huh? Considering that most of our walls were previously uninsulated and where we did have insulation, it looked like this:

Insulation circa 1880--Yes, paper bags of straw!

--any insulation would be wonderful. The R-value of the sprayed insulation should be about 5 per inch, which might just make up for the new large window and longer replacement windows we added. And, since I'm on the topic of insulation, I'll mention that we also applied sound insulation, in the form of mass loaded vinyl, to the toilet stack which still runs through the wall in the kitchen.


The toilet stack insulated with a sheet of mass loaded vinyl

It seems to have worked. Then, after months and months of this tedious infrastructural work, and many cheques to many trades, we hid it all behind big blank expanses of drywall. And, like a bad dream, it was all forgotten...except of course for the photographs. You know, I can hardly stand to write about it..it's like dredging up a murky past.

To be continued...

Apropos of nothing...

noreply@blogger.com (S and N) — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 19:40:00 +0000

I think I might just quietly revive our neglected little blog. To be honest, I've missed writing this semi-public chronicle of our home renovations (among other things). Because we're acting as our own general contractors and more often general labourers, our renovations are still far from complete. Looking back at the blog, I see that I never did post any photos of our completed bathroom, and now we're in the midst of collecting quotations for kitchen cabinetry, so I'll have much to tell. And maybe, just maybe, there will be someone out there to advise us when we need it. More to come.

Sugar maples glow outside the sunroom windows and scarlet Boston ivy climbs our gray brick walls.

The long and the short of it

noreply@blogger.com (S and N) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:14:00 +0000

The backyard as meadow (or meadow mullet)

Dear ?
We apologize for our recent lapse in lawn maintenance. We know two and a half weeks of moderate spring weather can have an encouraging effect on the various species of flora that make up our lawn. Two and half weeks was the timeframe given us by the small engine repair shop where we took our languishing 10yr old mower to be serviced after it putt-putted to a halt on its first outing of the year. During that time we borrowed a high-end European-made battery-powered electric lawn mower from the neighbours two doors up, but because that mower was itself borrowed, sans recharging apparatus, our mow (but not our lawn), was cut short (ahem). Then, after a trying time of avoiding eye contact with passers by and attempting to appear extremely busy/preoccupied on every dash to the car, we confessed the cause of our furtiveness to our next door neighbour who that very evening mowed all of the yard visible from the sidewalk (short in front and sides, long at the back—a veritable mullet for the lawn). What neighbourly generosity! Front lawn mown, we took to holding our heads high and even greeting people as they walked by.

Imagine our dismay then when emerging from our front door one fine morning and strolling across the lawn to investigate the state of the peonies, we saw, parked accusingly in the middle of the front lawn, an electric lawn mower! What were you thinking, dear neighbour?! Was this intended as a subtle witticism, a gentle reminder, a contemporary art installation, or (since the mower, as it turns out, doesn’t work) a cruel joke? The problem with attempts at humour is that without proper context they so often fail. Maybe we’re giving you too much credit. Perhaps you were just a drunken jokester moving a discarded item from one property to another; perhaps you didn’t know about the secret source of our shame (i.e. the mullet meadow flourishing in the backyard). Perhaps we put too much stock in analysis. Perhaps we’re just a little sensitive.

After the first pass with our newly tuned mower

In any case, our mower has returned, tuned-up and shiny, and our property is well and truly shorn. If you’d like to retrieve your broken little black mower for another lawn installation, it’s at the side of the house.

With heads held high,

Your neighbours

The shiny red 5 hp mower that could, and eventually did

“Half the floor was missing; we were all huddled together in one corner for fear of FALLING!”

noreply@blogger.com (S and N) — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 00:14:00 +0000

--Four Yorkshiremen

When Utilatub is your kitchen sink, you know the renovation isn't going according to plan

I know I sounded an optimistic note about renewing my blog posts, but a small change in circumstances has thwarted my plan. An unforeseen event has put our renovations on temporary and brief (I hope) hold. Since I returned from my latest trip to the EU, we’ve been without a kitchen sink, dishwasher, stove, and, perhaps most troublingly, even a kitchen floor! N’s last project was to replace all the badly chopped up joists in our kitchen (which had been riddled with new holes and gashes for every new plumbing, wiring, and heating project over the past hundred and thirty years) with new laminated joists. The new joists are in (it was a huge job I’ll write about later in the kitchen saga), but we are awaiting plumbing, gas, and electrical conduits, as well as a few other things, like reconciling the major difference in levels between different areas of the kitchen floor, before we finally screw down the subfloor.

When your pet loses his mind and begins ambushing you from above (or posing as building inspector)...

I’ve been doing the dishes in the laundry tub and finding creative ways to cook using the microwave, the barbecue, and a small butane powered single-burner stove. I thought the little pause might give me a chance to continue the kitchen renovation story up to this point, but I’ve been funnelling my creativity into life without floors/sink/stove. It’s a challenging Dali-esque environment we’re inhabiting now. I’ve scaled back my dreams a little. A kitchen sink?—Luxury! I can’t help but think of that Monty Python skit—you know the one: four well to do Yorkshiremen compare the hardships of their youth. The original was actually pre-Monty Python. See it here.

Interstice

noreply@blogger.com (S and N) — Wed, 20 May 2009 18:31:00 +0000

Well of course there are REASONS for our long and unannounced trajectory away from the blogosphere.

Somewhere over the Atlantic

We’ve been away, for one, making six virtually unplanned cross-Atlantic flights over two months at the beck of both business and friendship--a little April in Paris, a few strolls along the lake in posh Geneva, a hike along the Polish/Slovakian border in the Pieniny mountains, an evening sipping Prosecco in one of Europe’s most beautiful squares in Krakow, the pleasure of looking at art and architecture, old and new, in and out of the EU, and many unforgettable meals, but also a stomach wrenching plummet into grief at the unexpected loss of a young and accomplished good friend—one of the best people anyone could ever hope to know. Things either so light as to dissipate instantly when I tried to catch them in words, or so leaden that they crushed my thoughts before I could write them. Nothing apropos at all.

One of those world-between-world intersticial airport spaces

I attribute our absence to existential imbalance. Plus inertia.

The YYZ tarmac--home

Now we are back on more solid ground (but not quite so solid floors). So, if you’re still with us, stay tuned for some harrowing renovation tales, lightened with the odd travel memory.

The Tale of Our Multi-Year, Live-in Kitchen Renovation (Episode 2--fixing the brick column)

noreply@blogger.com (S and N) — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 17:32:00 +0000

The kitchen layout between episodes 1 and 2

Between episodes 1 and 2 of the kitchen story, several years elapsed.

In the meantime, we

Decided to restore the layout of the house to something close to its original floorplan
Built a fully temperature and humidity controlled wine cellar (there’s no accounting for some people’s priorities)
Had extensive hardscaping done outside—new front porch steps, brick path, brick lined driveway, huge swinging gates, new fence, new crushed gravel paths etc.
Planted many trees and boxwood hedge on the property
Had all the asbestos insulation safely removed from the hot water pipes in the basement by a licenced asbestos abatement company
Removed the fluorescing and crumbling parging from the basement walls and had the whole thing painted
Began the master bathroom renovation, (still ongoing) which involved adding a new sewer stack to the house
Laid the groundwork for a hydronic radiant floor heat system throughout the entire house
Insulated several exterior walls with spray foam insulation
Re-fitted the laundry room with front loading washer and dryer, counter and storage cupboard

(some of these other projects will get their own blog entries later on)

When we finally turned our attention back to the kitchen we were determined to tackle the crumbling brick wall that we’d faced every day for years. Finally, N had a plan. After much thought and consideration of various solutions, N settled on concrete as the answer to neaten up the broken brick edge and provide structural support for the laminated beam holding up the second floor above the kitchen.

The process required

8 bags of concrete
a rental cement mixer
custom bent rebar, and lots of additional rebar tied into a grid,
modular forms (made from some melamine coated ½” particle board sheets we'd had lying around for ages)
a noisy hand sander to produce a lot of vibration
a spray bottle to wet down the bricks and the form
spray foam to fill the gaps where the form met the rough wall to prevent the concrete from pouring out and compromising the forms
many power and hand tools and
a lot of effort

Concrete forms usually need to be coated in some kind of releasing agent so they don’t stick. Outdoors, there are all kinds of unpleasant and messy agents to choose from, but indoors, the choices are limited. The melamine particle board proved to be an ideal solution. The melamine itself was slick enough that we didn’t need any additional coating.

The process itself was involved, and proceeded in stages. It went something like this: we tied and secured rebar to the brick wall;

A blurry close-up of the tied rebar

we built the initial form from three pieces of precisely cut melamine board screwed together and attached to the wall with screws and spray foam insulation at the base of the wall;

The melamine forms secured to the wall

mixed cement,

N and my dad mastering the art of late-night cement mixing in the backyard--or how to lose friends and alienate neighbours

poured and troweled the cement into the form, tamped it down and used the hand sander to vibrate the form to get rid of any voids. Then we added to the form and repeated the process up the wall.

The prepped wall showing the rebar and the form about halfway up

Of course things became much more difficult as we approached the ceiling and ran out of room to pour the cement and get a tamper in from above.

Tamping down the concrete

I think we mixed and poured cement four times in total. After the concrete had a little time to set up, we removed the forms, misted the surface of the concrete with water to keep it from curing too quickly, and replaced the forms. We repeated this step several times while the concrete cured. When we finally removed the forms, the result was fantastic.

The brick wall that had disgraced our home for so long had a new perfectly square, concrete edge, dead straight and smooth. The heartbreak is that we’ll be covering it all up when we finish the kitchen.

The finished concrete column

The concrete column looks beautiful and would be perfect in a modern space or a loft conversion, but it’s pretty incongruous in our old Victorian. Still, I’ll enjoy it while I can (which, given our track record, may be longer than I want to).