Rise Up, Rise Up

It was actually several weeks ago, but we learned that for every door that a contractor may need to get through, all keys should be provided rather than just enough for one lock in each door. For reasons known only to him, our foreman decided one morning to lock both the deadbolt and the knob on the back door, which had different locks. Note the past tense – we weren't home the next morning when the crew arrived. So Chris told them to break the doorknob off in order to open the door. We think they used a shovel, given the amount of dirt left behind. Really, this is a lesson for everyone to ensure they install high quality door hardware!

The contractors had ripped down the ceilings and the old roof and now were in build mode… mostly. The first step was to install floor joists across the span of the house so the framers have something to stand on while building up from there.

As they built up, they needed ready access to the space above, which meant they built stairs! For the record, these are temporary stairs as we are still working with Allison (our designer) on the final design.

While building up, they installed a load-bearing beam down the centreline of the house, along with posts to hold up the load of the new upper floor. The original plan was to rebuild the same wall that existed between the living room and master bedroom so as to avoid extra permitting fees from the city. Permit fees are directly proportional to project cost and the amount of renovated floor space.

But then something funny happened at some point between Friday morning, when we left for work, and Friday evening when we came home. Originally there were walls around the kitchen, with ancient cabinets installed on them. The plan was to work around and preserve (or remove if necessary) the cabinets, which we think were original to the house. Unfortunately they had been built in place and could not be taken out whole, which meant that on that Friday a few weeks ago, they were reduced to kindling by the crew. It appears we are in the market for a new kitchen and need to rethink the main floor plan accordingly. This is still a work in progress as we definitely do not want to trigger the additional permit fees the city could charge us!

After the destruction of the kitchen and some other top floor work on Saturday, the construction crew decided to take Sunday off. Which meant it was time for Chris and me to do some much-needed tidying and to provide some assistance with the construction process. This was only somewhat challenging as there is no heat, no wall insulation, hardly any roof overhead plus there are holes the size of fists in the exterior wall AND it was a bloody cold day! I was wearing 4 layers of shirts, 2 sets of socks, a knit hat and cheap construction gloves to minimize the shivers.

My job that day was to pull out all the drywall nails that remained in the walls of the space that was once the kitchen. Chris, I believe, did more technical and advanced construction type stuff that involved lots of hammering and using various power tools. Next time I'll take an action shot of him.

As the house went up, the tarp was also being raised just a bit higher – just in time for another set of major wind storms in Vancouver. We present the "Good Ship Waterhouse" as it existed in the 3^rd week of November.

Eventually came a day that we could actually go upstairs and walk around on the new "top floor".

We, of course, had to check out our new views. Or rather, what we'll be looking at on cold, cloudy days in the winter… If there is a nice clear day, I'll be sure to head up and take photo of our future view. Based on what we have seen from our neighbours' balconies, we have high hopes that it will be nice. The view to the south looks remarkably like the view we used to have – namely the houses across the street.

By the last week of November, the contractors had installed the upper-floor framing for the west wall and were working on the other three walls. It is strange to see the plywood sheathing going right over the window openings, but I guess that's how it's done. I still don't have a good feeling for how big our windows are as the framing is several inches bigger than the glass to accommodate the window frames.

We also learned why we have so many different people reviewing the framing in this phase. Chris and I walked around the top floor, took photos and commented on the future view. Allison came by and noticed that the side walls had been framed out too far to the south to accommodate the "pop-out" wall on the front for a window seat in the bedroom and tub in the master bathroom. Very simple to fix now, not so much later.

I was first confused when I saw this left-behind section until Chris explained what in the world was going on. The crew left a section of the old wall, and it will actually remain up for some time as they work around it with the new construction.

The other side of this piece of wall is the point where the main power lines are anchored to the house. Eventually the attachment point for electricity and telephone wires will shift to a new home. This too is a decision in the making.

But the real adventure of the past few weeks was on the last Saturday of November when Chris lived up to his last name and saved the day…

More walls coming down

We are just coming into the phase when construction on the house is beginning. But in order to get here, there was a lot of destruction!

Since all this work is taking place in November, there are tarps everywhere. This was especially an issue for the front yard where they needed to pour concrete for the porch foundation. I believe the day before and the day of the pour were the only two dry days in the month (or at least if felt like that!)

The final house will have a rectangular (i.e. regular) perimeter – no more weird protruding closet at the back, no more notch in the front corner, and no more uncovered front porch.

 

Actually, last week there was nothing in the front as the crew framed the new front corner, along with the beautiful and inviting and covered porch.

Eventually the extra "bathroom facilities" had to be moved in the parking pad so they could drop off a large construction waste bin. Our backyard got a touch of colour when it was dropped off.

The bin has actually come and gone several times now – there is a lot of waste when doing such a significant renovation.

Last week was strange for us – there weren't a lot of obvious changes on the outside of the house and on a day-by-day basis, but by the end of the week, there wasn't any ceiling left on the main floor and there were significantly fewer walls!

We told the city that we didn't plan on renovating what used to be the master bedroom as permit fees increase with the percentage of the house being renovated. We had expected that the wall around the bedroom would remain – until we discovered that it was built with 2"x3" lumber and we need to have 2"x4" studs to bear the load of the new top floor. So we are left with a rather lonely and ridiculous closet on the main floor to prove to the city inspector that we do not plan on making any improvements to the space beyond what is needed structurally.

In the past week and a half, there have been several major rain storms, wind storms, plus even a thunder and lightning storm complete with hail and heavy rain. Which was perfect for us as our house was covered with an enormous tarp. It was especially fun for me during the first wind storm as I was convinced that vandals had broken in and were trashing the house. "Luckily" what I heard was simply the tarp flying to and fro in the wind until it eventually fell off the house in a major crash, ending up in the side walkway. Fortunately there weren't many holes in the roof at that point, so not much rain came in.

Since then, the tarp has been more securely tied down and has only disrupted our sleep during the major storms as it flapped about in the wind. I am really, really, really looking forward to the new roof that will be installed soon, so we can get rid of this horrid tarp!

When the walls fall down, on your old town, then you begin

In the past few weeks many changes have taken place at the Waterhouse Renovation so this is catch-up posting #1.

Our grand renovation plan requires that we live downstairs in the basement suite. This allows us to be on hand to assist with the renovation (more on that later) and so we do not have to pay rent for the duration of the work. The previous owners rented out the suite and found someone willing to pay money to live in the space, how bad could it be, right? Hmm...

In any regards, before we could move downstairs, we needed to do any structural/foundation work down there required by the city and engineering review of the plans. Luckily, the foundation was deemed acceptable for the additional floor, and we didn't have to shore up the load-bearing posts. We did, however, want to remove a chimney that was in the middle of the house, and for which we had no real need. The chimney was serving as a vent for the gas furnace and hot water tank that sat in the middle of the basement suite. Ditching the furnace was easy, as it was late summer then (how’s that for schedule motivation?) and Chris replaced the hot water tank with an electric unit in the nearby utility room / workshop.

Afterwards we moved downstairs so the serious renovation work could officially begin, better late than never (it was early October by then). Before we let the professionals in, Chris was able to take out some frustration by demolishing several walls upstairs, plus discombobulating the bathroom.

After that, the professionals took over. We came home one day and discovered we no longer had front steps.

A few days later and we did not have a front lawn - it was that day that we also did not have a water connection to the city. Thank goodness for kind neighbours! A word of caution for anyone digging in the front lawn: ensure the excavator checks how deep the water line is before digging to ensure it isn't broken in the process. Luckily, our sewer connection line is much, much deeper or else we would have had a huge mess on our hands. It was at this point that the foreman for our job caught the H1N1 virus so our house looked especially uninviting for an additional week.

Once the watermain issue had been resolved and Johnny got over the flu, the front porch foundation was poured. Update #2 will include phots of the framing for the porch already complete!

Just last week we came home to find new bathroom facilities in the parking pad. Neither Chris nor I have checked it out yet, but it’s nice to know that it is there.

With all the destruction going on, we ended up with a quite large pile of construction materials in the back yard as we waited for the construction waste bin to arrive. In addition to drywall material in the house, we had wood and bathroom bits sitting in the back patio space.

As mentioned above, Chris and I wanted to be involved in the renovation process – partly as a cost savings and partly to ensure value for time spent. Why get the crew to sweep up each day at their charge-out rate when one of us could do the job? One of the more adventurous tasks that Chris took on was removing the insulation in the attic. In addition to a layer of fibreglass insulation (the pink stuff), there was six inches of blown-in insulation foam on top. Chris, with some much-appreciated help from our friend Thomas, spent two solid days shovelling the fluff out of the attic and into oversize garbage bags so the construction crew could then demolish the roof - more on that next time.

What we started with

This house is not something we would have bought if we had been the type of people who didn’t like renovating. It’s not that it’s hideous or anything, but it’s far from stylish and, due to the basement suite, not as large as we wanted. 

 

The outside of the house was painted in the recent past to cover and blunt the broken-glass style stucco. This is good, however it was painted a VERY unattractive beige-ish taupe colour. To compensate, the previous owner also painted the front door bright red, so at least the front façade is not completely boring.

 

When the house was first built, it had a front porch – a small covered area at the front door so that newspapers would not be turned to wet pulp, and people waiting for the door to open would not be rained upon. It probably hadn’t been much larger than an entry mat, but it had existed.

 

At some point in the past 60 years, someone noticed that there wasn’t anywhere to store coats and shoes near the front door and proceeded to build in the puny front porch so they could instead have a puny, awkward front closet. How awkward? It is not possible for two small women to enter the house, take off their shoes and coat in the “entry way” and close the front door behind them. We will not mention what happened when two medium-sized guys came to visit.

 

So right off the bat on our “to make it better, this house must have” list we noted:

• An attractive colour
• A functional front porch, to keep newspapers and visitors dry on a rainy day
• Enough room in the entryway to open the door and have more than one person enter or leave without creating a socially awkward moment 

On paper, this house has three bedrooms, a bathroom, a living room, and a kitchen/eating area on one 867 sq ft floor. It turned out that this measurement was taken from outside wall to outside wall and so includes all exterior and interior walls, plus the hallway and all closets. Obviously someone in sales came up with that lame method.

 

The master bedroom is a good size and probably has enough closet space for some women, but to call the other two rooms “bedrooms” is a gross exaggeration. One measured 64 sq ft (inside dimensions) while the other was 78.5 sq ft. We later learned that a “typical” bedroom in new construction in Vancouver must be at least 105 sq ft. Or put another way, a double bed takes up just over 28 sq ft without taking into account space around the bed to walk – neither of those rooms would have fit more than a single bed.

 

Add to the must-have list:

• At least one “normal” size spare bedroom for out-of-town guests
• A study big enough that we each can work on a computer with a normal-sized screen, as sharing a computer sucks. 

A newly-created wish list:

• A much larger closet in the master bedroom
• The potential for a third bedroom for resale value (which is not happening for at least a decade!) 

The kitchen and eating area plus living room currently take up one half of the house and so in theory should have been sufficient for us – except the proportions were lousy and there is a rather inconvenient wall separating the two spaces. I still find it astounding that a kitchen three times the size of our last one in Kits has less than half the counter space!

 

Add to the must-have list:

• Increased counter-space in kitchen  

Add to the wish list:

• No walls between kitchen and living room, for a feeling of spaciousness
• Change of layout with eating space moved to between the kitchen and living room 

Which brings us to the bathroom. Other than the annoying lack of storage and the complete lack of personality, there is really just one other problem with it: there is only one. We have a happy marriage due to common interests, similar goals, and the fact that we don’t share a bathroom.

 

Add to the must have list:

• At least one more bathroom
• Storage space!

Add to the wish list:

• Powder (2-piece bathroom) on the main level.
• Lots and lots of storage! 

Finally, we have the laundry “room” which is really the entry way to the basement suite. From the main floor, one must go outside, go down the back steps and then unlock the first of two doors to the suite in order to get to the machines. Did the previous owners not wash clothing in bath weather???

Add to the must have list:

• Laundry machines accessible without having to go outside
• New, energy efficient machines that were built in the last decade

 

After adding up all the must-have list items, it was clear that we needed to add an additional floor to the house – which rather conveniently allowed me to have all of my wish-list items, plus more!