Things got real this week. With the permit drawings submitted, Builder Dean is talking to the lifting companies to check schedules and to arrange for a site visit. It looks like we will be out of the house April 1st and hope to lift before the end of the month. Suddenly after months of waiting, things are moving fast.
I posted on the facebook group for Hastings-Sunrise and got a few leads on places to stay within minutes which was a huge relief. It would be fantastic to be able to stay in the neighbourhood to keep an eye on things. Where we will live during this (and how much it will cost) has been a huge question over the last year. With uncertain timelines, a tight rental market, and high rents it wasn’t as if we could lock something in too early
My back alley neighbour Bruce has been keeping an eye on our project and it got too much for him this week. He had recovered from COVID but was still under quarantine so he texted and offered to come over with his chainsaw and help with taking the shed down. This was a huge help because i had been a little intimidated by it. I thought we were going to work together on it, but during a work call Thursday afternoon i heard some noise out back and looked out to find Bruce cutting up the deck. It was awesome. I am not great at asking for help at the best of times and the work here is endless so to have Bruce just show up and look after it was just great. He got it about half done by himself and we agreed to take down the last portion attached to the house on Saturday. I think the Saturday work only took about an hour together. A big chunk of the rest of the day was pulling nails, cutting up the rotten joists and salvaging what i could before hauling it all to the dump. Another 570 kg if anyone other than me is keeping track.
I also made a trip to Capital Salvage with the aluminum railings, some random pipe, and a bunch of wire i have ripped out of the house. It is only a few blocks away so i strapped the railing to the truck and went to find it. It is located across the road from the Parallel 49 brewery but you enter off the alley and i had no idea it was there. It is a good old fashioned junk yard with odd bits of metal everywhere. You need to provide photo id for each transaction to reduce the likelihood of salvage crime and they have a big scale you weigh stuff on. I wish i had cut the railings a big smaller but we sorted it out. The separate it all up and pay you different amounts for copper, wire, ferrous, non-ferrous and aluminum. In the end i walked away with $110 which was nice. I knew i would get some money for the aluminum railings but didn’t expect my bucket of salvaged wire to be worth $30!
Sunday we went to see a place over be the PNE that was offered by a member of the facebook group. It was liveable and the landlord who lives upstairs was really nice. She is an electrician redoing the bathroom upstairs so the place had been vacant and they were getting ready to rent it out. We have one more place to see but can’t get in until Tuesday so she agreed to hold it as they are not in a rush to rent. It was great to meet someone willing to help out a neighbour in a tight rental market. The only drawback it had was that the ceiling was quite low in the kitchen and bathroom but we know that we are not going to be staying at the ritz and it isn’t forever.
The afternoon was garden work, bike cleaning and tire patching.
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