Unglamourous but necessary

= ventilation.

Second Floor update 1

As of today,

Windows galore

We got new windows! from Gorell! Triple-paned!

Second floor gut job

Husband Dan, our resident demolition-er, has been hard at work weekdays after 6 and weekends gutting our second floor. Now that everything's been cleared out, carpenter Dan has been able to start leveling the floors in the old bathroom and old kitchen, and plumbers have finished their rough-in (approximate locations of drains and water pipes.
But before we could get to that stage, there was a LOT of work.

Dining room moulding

Carpenter Dan came by today to put up the ceiling moulding we picked out from Home Depot.

AllState grrrrrrr

That deadline for fixing all of our "major" issues for AllState (grrr) is this Friday, September 14.

More lemonade

Norm (again, shirtless guy) had this brilliant idea to turn a sunken in hole in our yard into a ~*rock garden*~ with our old bricks.

Dining room electrical

I upped my electrical challenges for the dining room: three-way light switch (light switched from TWO different locations) and chandelier. If you recall, we really wanted to put a chandelier into our parlour, but couldn't get the wire to it without ripping down our tin ceiling. This time, we pretty much ran into the same problem, but because I think a chandelier in the dining room is absolutely essential, I was dead-set on finding a solution, even if it meant tearing out the wood flooring in the floor above.

The Veritable Plumber

Not for the weak of stomach, I suppose. Of course I would usually put myself in that category.

Storm door

Home Depot showed up with our new storm door this morning. It took the guy about an hour and a half to install it and it looks grrrrreat. Cats love it as much as I do.

Old door from the inside

Slight hiccup, but I'm willing to make some lemonade

WELL. We've been pretty happy with our progress in the dining room, so far. But earlier this week we got a letter from our home insurance provider warning us that they're gonna cancel our insurance in two weeks because the inspector found a bunch of issues.

PLANS

Second floor renos are right around the corner. Our contractor Kim estimates he'll start last week of September~first week of October. And I am starting to feel the pressure!

Dining Room doorways

Today our carpenter Dan (not my husband) opened up our two dining room doorways by about 6 inches to the side and 3 inches up.

Next up: dining room

We're not quite done with the parlour yet - we have to fill in some gaps with caulk, barf - but we thought we'd just move along anyway (caulk can do itself, eventually).

Parlour: DONE (practically)!!!

OK, so, since drywalling, much has been accomplished.

Country living

So one convenience that city people take for granted

Parlor almost ready

Oh baby, have we got a blog post brewing for you. The parlor is almost done! We want the next parlor-post to take you pretty much to the end. Eventually, we'll also give you the cost breakdown, in case you're curious.

In the meantime, I've gotten started on the second floor demolition...

"Last weekend we drank some beers, hung some drywall, played some poker..."

Remember when kids used to say "I hung some drywall" along with a list of other manly activities to joke about being manly? I never really got it back then, but this weekend, Dan and I hung some drywall, and I guess I feel manly for it.

Wall Sconce!

We've been visiting this lighting shop near our house, which I call the Lindt chocolate shop because they have a bowl of delicious Lindt truffles sitting out for customers (yumm).

Insulation: the end is in sight

 So...we tackled insulation on Friday despite lingering uncertainties as to the type of insulation. We decided to go with fiberglass (as opposed to blown-in cellulose or foam), because it's the easiest and by far the cheapest (maybe not the best reason). You have to be very careful to get all the cracks so that required a lot of measuring and cutting the batting to the right size. You also have to be completely covered (goggles, mask, long sleeves and pants) with fiberglass, which gets really uncomfortable pretty fast. After we put up the insulation, we further covered that with plastic as a vapor barrier. gah. Hope it's ok.