poplar road

Since Chris came up to do the gas-fitting on the 9th, things have hardly slowed down around here. Richard continued with plumbing so that we'd have hot water for showers, laundry, and the dishwasher, which we had to time around power outages as Kevin, our electrician, worked four mornings last week on the electrical upgrade. Our neighbour with the backhoe came by to dig a trench through my flower beds for the electrical grounding plates, and Richard took the day off work on Friday to get a head start before Jason arrived for the weekend's heat pump installation.

In addition to Kevin, at work on the new panel and the mast in my office, and me hammering away in the ensuite bathroom on the last of the demolition, we had Darryl, concrete repair expert, filling in the fissures in our foundation in the basement and at the front steps. The filler stank and I apparently made more of a racket than the three guys combined, but Richard, Kevin and Darryl worked away in the basement all morning. As Kevin removed old aluminum wiring, Richard drilled holes in the joists for the new copper wiring. (The old stuff was often looped underneath and sometimes stapled, sometimes not, with the usual complement of hidden junction boxes and dead end wires capped with tape.) He also drilled through the foundation for wiring and ducting to reach the heat pump.

Then when the guys finished up around lunchtime, Richard started pulling out the remaining ducting. He also found time to drive into town to get more parts, and a roast for Saturday night's dinner with Jason and the Adies. We brought in all the new ducting, heat pump, and furnace components, and then loaded the truck full for a trip to the dump the next morning. Jason arrived late Friday evening. Once they started talking excitedly about the job ahead, I worried the were going to start work on the spot, but after such a long day for both of them they were ready for bed. They certainly burned the midnight oil the rest of the weekend, though!

Saturday morning began early. Jason and Richard started setting up the furnace and heat pump in what will be the mechanical room, behind the downstairs bathroom. But when I got back from a half hour run to the transfer station at noon, they sent me out the door again, already short on parts. We were expecting the Adies to arrive early in the afternoon, so I raced into town and back with a front seat full of sheet metal. I came home to find one of my lilacs resting limply in the dirt, and in its place, the exterior half of our new heat pump. I found a new spot to re-plant the lilac. No sign of Kahlyn, Bob, and Anika, which gave me ample time to sweep up the huge amount of dirt these construction zones create throughout the house. (Earlier in the week I toyed with the idea of mopping the floor. Not worth the trouble given the matter of minutes it takes to get dirty again!) Richard took a break to get the roast on the rotisserie, and I began preparing vegetables for dinner. The Adies arrived and got the tour, just as things began to look dramatically different in the basement.

We had a great dinner and stayed up quite late talking. As we were sitting around with my magazine images and colour swatches, Richard came up with a great solution for the lack of natural light in our main bathroom. (More on the bathrooms another time.) And we decided a tissue box I found at the Safety Mart was the perfect colour scheme. We might have put ourselves to sleep at that point, had a mouse not darted out from under the couch near Bob's feet. It ran into my office, looking for a way out, but the escape routes via the old ducting were all gone, and the hole in the foundation that let the mice in and out via the front door had been filled on Friday. I briefly felt sorry for it, but ran to fetch the poison anyway as Richard found the hole in the wall where it had squeezed through. He put the poison in and blocked off the hole with plywood. Tonight it sounded like it might have got its revenge for being trapped in the wall, chewing on the new wiring for the thermostat above its hiding place. The best part of this latest reno might be the gains against both the mice and the mosquitoes as the house becomes less inviting for them. It's definitely getting more comfortable for us.

On Sunday as I visited with the Adies - during which Anika got sneezed on by one of the llamas, and Kahlyn uncovered cherry tomato plants growing in our courtyard - Jason and Richard got the ducting in and vents cut out for the living room and office, and determined which other vents needed to be added around the house. The four different zones allow us to set separate temperatures in the downstairs main area, guest suite, upstairs bedrooms and baths, and the office and great room. Jason will need to come back to set the zoning for the remaining two areas, but since only the one small upstairs bedroom is in daily use right now, it can wait. And the furnace isn't working yet for heat, but with sunny weather finally, in the 30s all week, all we care about is the AC.

The last thing the guys did was pull the large vent out of the wall between the existing master bedroom and the spare room. (The material looks brand new, so we'll probably sell it. That's the first image in this post.) With this space freed up, our plans to open up the two rooms and bump out the bathroom walls into the existing master bedroom can go ahead when the new bathroom fixtures arrive. The electrical upgrade is just about done after Kevin installed the new meter base and mast today. Richard spent his third day off wiring new outlets and lights in the basement to replace the aluminum wiring removed over the weekend. (I spent most of the day gardening. Am avoiding the next trip to the dump with all the master bedroom's drywall.) It's all coming together. My office is in chaos thanks to the electrical work, which is making my job-hunting tasks a little more of a hassle, but I look forward to sealing up that wall soon and finishing the paint and molding properly so we can get on with using this space to the fullest. Like bringing in Richard's desk. With all the technical specs, manuals, plans, receipts, contacts and doodles he's been accummulating, using the kitchen as his office space doesn't cut it any more.

It's been overwhelming the past two weeks, but we're making progress. And it's been great to see Chris and Jason and all our other visitors, who keep us excited about what we're doing here. Thanks again for all your help.