Set backs and Progress

Three weekends prior our plywood subfloor was put in place.  It was pretty fun to get to finish the weekend with a little jig on our new structure while checking out the view from which our bedroom windows will be.

Pictured below is the plywood which has been glued and screwed down onto the joists.  I became proficient at a special stand up drill tool that makes drilling in the hundreds of screws easier. 

 

Pictured above: sis, b.i.l. and f.i.l. working out reinforcing the load bearing beam in the garage.  This involved a lot of manipulating, brute force and some swearing to add the additional 2  2x10"s applied to three existing 2 x 10"s glued and bolted together.  It required a special giant drill to get through the thick 2 x 10" sandwich to allow for the bolts.

 

Two weekends ago we were able to put our first big wall.  The wall is constructed out of 2 x 6"s and the plywood exterior is glued and nailed in place.  The 1500lb wall is constructed flat onto the ground and needs to be erected all at once to become a vertical wall.  To make the "lift" we used to special jacks, raw man power and various lengths of 2 x 4 nailed in place as anchors as we lifted the wall up to rest on the edge of the existing top of the garage.  Dad explained the precautions prior to the lift: if the wall starts to fall beyond the edge of the garage let it go, if it starts to fall towards us run like hell.  I was extremely stressed throughout the procedure and relieved when the wall stood and was firmly anchored down.

 

 

 

It has taken me awhile to be able to write about last weeks disaster.  Last Wed I noticed a small wet spot a the bottom of the kids bunk bed.  While pressing a rag into the spot it mysteriously got bigger and bigger.  I went up on the addition roof/floor which was tarped to find an ocean of water.  I manipulated the tarp to push the water off the roof but realised the tarp could not keep up with all the rain and water was leaking under and into the floor of the kids bedroom.  We discovered half the carpet and underlay was saturated and had to be removed and all the furniture and kids' stuff had to be taken out of the room as well.  The kids thought it was quite an adventure that they got to sleep in mommy and daddy's bed for a couple of nights.  In the end we really didn't "lose" anything as the carpet and subfloor were going to be pulled up eventually anyway, it was just the end to the dream that our inside living space would not be affected by the reno until the very end of construction.

With the flood behind us my team of family members arrived on mass this Saturday while I escaped to spend a beautiful Saturday attending a course.  I panicked when HH texted "call ASAP" thinking someone had been hurt, however, he just wanted my approval on a window placement.  I was pretty excited to come home and see real walls in place.

 

Pictured above:  my awesome HH

Roof removed

I'm a bit behind in blogging our renovation but for the sake of having a complete journal to look back on I'm going to attempt to catch up. 

The beginning of May we completed demolition by removing the roof shingles, roof sheathing and remaining aluminum siding.  The weather was drizzling rain.  We experienced one clap of thunder while I was atop the roof holding a lengthy piece of aluminum siding.  It didn't take HH long to convince me to put the siding down for a few minutes.  What was probably a riskier maneuver was the guys lowering 6 trusses down to the ground while balancing on 2 x 6 joists, 8 feet above the concrete floor.

Above: Shingles removed

Above: Roof and trusses are completely gone, joists and blocks are in the process of construction

The far the garage area is now completely exposed, so far the wet has not leached into the side of the garage closest to the house.

There is hope that we will not only cover up the garage but build some more house.  Our lumbar framing package arrived last week so technically with permit in place, foundation built and demolition complete we are ready to start framing.

10 lb sledge

This weekend things were a little less intense than we've experienced in the past several weeks.  We organized the garage and shuffled all the stuff housed in the end portion of the garage into other spaces.  With this complete HH and his dad formed a temporary wall in the middle of the garage to secure the half of the garage nearest the house while the other portion becomes exposed to the elements.  Yesterday HH and our 7 year old got into demo mode and took down the exterior wall, do not be alarmed - structural supports are still in place.

 

Above you can see through what's left of the exterior wall and beyond to the temporary plywood wall that separates the middle of the garage.  I cringed a little posting pictures of myself and my daughter demoing without safety glasses, luckily we are OK and next time we'll have better protection.  Hopefully the roof comes off next weekend and stud walls go up.

Starting with a good foundation

The past two weekends have been whirlwinds of activity.  The weekend prior to Easter we built the foundation wall.  This process began with HH and his dad working to finish off the formwork on Friday. My sister, bro in law and Dad were all scheduled for the big concrete pour Saturday morning, which should give us plenty of time to finish up before 21 guests arrived at our house for our two year old's birthday party at 5pm that evening.  HH and his dad started at 7:30am, but unfortunately finishing up the formwork took much longer than expected.  With our 5:00pm deadline, the trusty heirloom cement mixer was fired up and churning away while forms were still being put together.  While we had done a family bedtime trip to the big box store for 10 bags of cement the night before, it turns out that our calculations were way off and our behemoth footings and walls were swallowing concrete mix at an alarming rate!  Halfway through the pour, we needed more naavy jack and much more cement - stat.  I raced back to the now insanely busy big box store, attempting to get help loading 15 ninety pound bags of cement - funny how nobody at the store wanted to assist me.  Eventually, a fork lift operator helped with the loading and I zoomed back home before the half completed wall started to dry out.  A rough estimation for 2 yards more naavyjack sent sis off to the landscape supply store in her truck with me following behind hauling my utility trailer.  The landscape supply store was a complete zoo and yet every worker recognized me: "your husband called, we are not allowed to load you with anymore naavy!". I guess the home crew decided sis's one yard would be enough (I picked up ice cream bars instead).

HH and his dad had not eaten or drank anything all day, so at some point I forced them to drink some juice.  At 4pm the wall was finished being poured and the forms held together as everyone cleaned up for the birthday party.  I phoned the rental place explaining that I wouldn't be able to return the concrete vibrator before 4pm closing - she doesn't mind at all since she'll just charge me for Sunday as they are closed on Sunday and I can't return it until Monday.  Awesome.  Time to make dinner and set the table for the birthday party, although I decide to shower off the concrete dust first.  Lesson learned: do not pour concrete until your forms are complete and at least 3/4 of your supplies are on hand.  Do not plan a birthday party for 21 people on the same day you plan to mix and pour a concrete foundation wall.

Below you can see our neighbour pitching in to move the cement mixer into position using his ATV.

 

Below you can see the hub of activity.

 

Good Friday Demo

The next weekend was the Easter long weekend, and we had plans to pop the forms on the foundation wall, demo the back of the shed, and to pour the floor of the 6 foot x 12 foot area that the foundation wall surrounds (my future potting shed).  Before we could start, we were scheduled to help some friends with a few things around their house and were getting a few tools together on Friday morning.  The kids were loaded in the car, HH was in the garage, and I was upstairs grabbing a few final things.  I heard a crash from the garage and yells of pain from my HH, and I ran down the stairs to see him crumpled up in a pile of garden tools holding his nose as it bled like crazy.  Apparently, as he was reaching for a tool over a pile of garden tools, he lost his balance and stepped on the bottom of a rake.  The handle of the rake flew upright and broke his nose.  Not the start to our reno weekend that we were looking for!  After a brief timeout, we headed to our friends' place to do some work until later that afternoon.

HH, his dad, and bro in law popped the forms Friday afternoon and the foundation wall looked great!  Sis took the initiative to start demoing the back of the shed while HH and his dad back filled the inside of the foundation wall with every piece of random concrete they could find around the yard (you'd be surprised how many random pieces of concrete were found around the yard from previous pours, like this one: diy-concrete-retaining-wall-and-patio).  The wall of the shed came down easily and we used a tarp as a back wall for that part of the garage for a couple of days.

On Saturday, HH and his dad completed the perimeter drain around the new foundation wall and back filled around the outside of the wall.  All was ready to go to pour the floor of the potting shed on Easter Sunday, before a combined Easter dinner/birthday dinner for HH's step-mom.  Family members once again converged on our yard to assist with the pour.  Despite a confession that the device used to protect the motor on the heirloom concrete mixer was not in place during some time of rain during the week (the device is a bucket), the mixer rumbled into commission once more!  Everything was much smother this round - no frantic runs to get supplies and the process was pretty quick.  Less than 2 hours of mixing, wheel barrowing, and pouring. It was debateable whether we would need more naavyjack or not, but it turned out we had just the right amount.  HH and bro in law screeded the concrete and worked to trowel the concrete to a smooth finish as it started to dry and harden over the next several hours.  Then our very curious two-year old boy decided to walk onto the newly troweled concrete pad as HH frantically ran over to extract him from the concrete.  A bit more troweling and the small (but deep) footprints disappeared.

It started to sprinkle with rain but a large tarp was put in place before the rain started and the surface stayed perfect.  Then disaster struck.  The heavens opened up and produced a sudden monsoon!  The gutters directly over the concrete slab begin overflowing with buckets of water and gutter debris, which slammed down onto the concrete pad.  Swearing and panic ensued, while bro in law got on the roof to clear out the gutters.  HH and I started mopping up the water from the concrete pad, but there were now bucket sized holes in the once pristine floor.  This was heartbreaking (and a lesson to clean gutters before pouring concrete underneath them).  Somehow HH and bro in law managed to work their magic and filled in the large crevices while removing most of the tree debris that had embedded itself into the concrete.  We ended up being late for Easter dinner.  We returned home at 9:30pm, put the kids to bed and started burnishing the concrete with trowels to try and get back a smooth surface.  This was very hard since it had been hours since the concrete had been poured and it was nearly set completely. I lasted about 30 minutes, while HH worked the concrete for another 1.5 hours.  The next morning, the floor looked great and we were really happy with it!

Screeding pictured below



 

pouring the floor

It is a good foundation.  There is no going back now.

Forming a foundation in the rain

The first major step in our addition project is making the extension off of the back of the house.

Last Saturday my father in law and HH were busy from dawn till dusk building the footing and foundation form work and placing in rebar.   I arrived home from my all day first aid course to find these guys in a dirt hole under a tarp in the rain.  You can see in the picture below that my father in law is smiling and believe it or not he is not posing for the picture. 

Thanks to my two sets of mother in laws who took shifts looking after the kiddies last weekend as well.

Today I met our building inspector for the first time.  He gave the OK to go ahead and pour concrete once we have the re-bar complete and set into the existing foundation.  He also answered some of our questions about perimeter and storm drainage.

We are hoping for good weather this weekend so we can get the concrete poured sometime in the midst of hosting a large family birthday party for our little guy.

The beginning of the addition

Why are we putting ourselves through the time, money and effort of putting an addition onto our 1974 home? We have debated with ourselves over the last 18 months whether we want to take on this project or pick up and move.  We decided to commit to the addition renovation for the following reasons:   -we really like our location

                -we like our spacious private back yard

                 -it is hard to find a new home in our area with a spacious private back yard

                - I like the idea of designing my home and space vs. taking on a builder basic home or

                  somebody else's idea of a renovation

                 -my handy husband wants to build - really build

                 -though our 2 year old son and 7 year old daughter happily share a small bedroom, our

                  7 year old may want/need her own room sooner rather than later

 

The plan is to build out over our garage and six feet out into our backyard to add an extra 364 square feet of living space.  In total, we will gain one new bedroom (so our home will have a total of 3 bedrooms on the main floor) and a larger master bedroom with walk-in closet.  The present kids' room will be converted into a master ensuite bath.  At the same time, we will replace our single pane  windows with double pane windows.   The house will also get a face lift as we will remove the aluminum siding on the front of the house to be recycled on the new side and back of the house.  Board and baton siding will be applied to the front.  Cedar shingles will be used to clad the gables.

 

I describe this project to be exciting and daunting.  With plans and building permit in hand, my husband was raring to demo this past weekend.  Instead, we got to break ground in the backyard and clean out the garage.

 

Below you can see the dug out: over 6 feet wide and 12 feet long and 2 feet deep in which footings and foundation will be formed.

 

 

 

Below you can see the back of our house and attached garage over which we plan to build a second story.

 

Here we go.  Wish us luck.