After we got home from Ontario and Quebec, dad came to visit. Sarah had to go back to work but my company was closed for the week. I had worked 90% of the time we were in Ontario so this was a good chance to relax and spend time with dad. With Omicron raging and some epic snow dumps we pretty much stayed at home, drank coffee and tried to sort out the basement. Dad’s last two visits were work marathons so this time we took it a lot easier. There was no real plan like there was for the trimming of the drywall for soundproofing and we took it day by day. The basic goal was to get all the non-bathroom drywall and walls down but we have 4 or 5 days to figure it out.
Because we have no idea when the building will start for real and we are the mercy of the permit folks, we don’t want to move stuff into storage yet. Every month paying for storage increases the total cost of the reno and we might not really start for another 3 or 4 months the way things are going. It also means we have to make a lot of decisions about what we will need access to while we are homeless and figure out what goes, what stays, what gets stashed at friends, etc. etc. We aren’t ready for that yet. Of course not putting stuff in storage means we have to work around all of the stuff we have in the basement. This felt a little like those tiled puzzle games we used to get as kids where one tile was missing and you had to rearrange them one tile at a time to get the pattern in order. Not horribly efficient.
The remaining walls were around the laundry & furnace room and all had shelves on them so we had to unload the shelves (making room for all the stuff on them) and take apart the shelves. Once that was done we could work on getting the drywall off and taking out the framing. Eventually we figured out that we could put some shelving along the exterior walls because we are leaving those insulated for another few months. This was a huge relief and gave us back our much needed work space.
While dad was working on the shelving, i tackled more of the floor. This involves pulling up all the wood and also a ton of sweeping and vacuuming. One of the problems with old houses is that the concrete was poured right onto dirt. Modern foundations have gravel beds, insulation and usually a membrane of some sort to stop water vapour. The floors had been painted at one point but with decades of vapour coming up through them, under the floor was just full of peeling paint. And mouse nests. Eventually though we cleared and tidied half the basement room which was awesome.
We used this new found space to clear up a bunch of garbage and sort through the salvageable lumber. We have to build cribbing around the trees and there is no way i am going to throw this stuff all out only to buy brand new wood to protect our trees outside. I also plan to add insulation to the walls in our attic based on the advice of our energy audit which will be a great use for all of this. To be honest, i probably wouldn’t bother if i didn’t most, if not all, of the material i need as salvage. It was great to get it all stacked and cleared up a ton of room.
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