For those of you who have seen this blog and think that we’re still living and working in a barely habitable construction zone… we’re not. We finished most everything in Oct of 2011 and have been living a wonderful (busy) life in the great new set-up since. I fell behind in blogging as James stopped napping so this dropped off the face of the earth.
New plan: get up-to-date on blog and then get a few more of the lingering reno items progressed this summer.
Don’t hold your breath, but standby for new material soon!
So much so that it inspired me to post this song from the good Elvis:
Why are we so pumped? We’re now the happy owners of one Mitsubishi ductless air-source HEAT PUMP!
This is the indoor condenser unit "head" of our new Mitsubishi 15,000 BTU Ductless Mini-Split air source heat pump
Our original reno plan had not included a heat pump. We were planning to use just in-wall electric heaters scattered throughout the house. Electricity is 100% efficient right? So how can you get better than 100%? We knew of the conventional heat pumps that run through an existing furnace and ducting system, but we wanted nothing to do with keeping our ducts or furnace. Not only had we already “sold” the furnace real estate to our new powder room, but the existing ducting was full of rat crap (thanks to a breech in our exterior defenses last winter) and I could not think of a way to clean out the ducting so that any air coming through it into the house wouldn’t smell like rat urine.
Oblivious to the existence of the ductless mini-split type of heat pumps, we went into our initial home energy assessment with the idea that the best we could do (within our means) would be to go the route of the various electric heaters. We were wrong. At our initial energy visit the assessor made a number of recommendations – many of which felt a little overwhelming at the time but the one that he stressed to me that was of significant value was a ductless heat pump. When he saw the confused look on my face he realized that this needed further explanation. By the time he left, I found out that it was possible to get a reasonably priced heating system that would be 300-400% efficient that would also qualify for federal and provincial rebates and that it would reduce our heating bills dramatically in the winter and provide us with A/C in the summer – all without the need for a furnace or duct work.
So I did my research, pitched the idea to Al and, with tentative approval, added a ductless heat pump to our budget/project estimate.
My research on ductless (mini-split) air-source heat pumps led me all over the place. Lots of different companies are making them at a variety of price points. Like anything, the quality varies too and determining where to get the best value/bang for your buck is the tricky part. In a nut-shell, I narrowed the field down to:
At the end we chose the Mitsubishi Mr. Slim. Although all of the 4 finalists had a good and lasting reputation (in Europe and Japan, where they’ve been using these systems for decades – because they’re a few steps ahead of us in energy efficiency and use of space), and they were all priced comparably, the decision came down to preferred features of the units (size of indoor unit, noise level, programmability, max cooling, max heating, number of fan speeds, etc.) and local availability of the units. For example, no one in our city carried Fujitsu.
Hooking up the external compressor unit. A Mitsubishi MSZ-15GENA
We considered ordering the heat pump online and not through a local mechanical or HVAC company, but we soon rejected that idea. Recall now that Al’s Dutch and I’m Scottish… after noticing that the actual retail cost of the units was half the price of the quotes we were looking at, we wanted to look into just how complicated the installation process would be. Well, in the end, we hired a local company and paid them their asking price. Why? Because realistically, we could not pressurize and properly install refrigerant ourselves (nor should we, even if we thought we could in the absence of proper training) and the companies that install these units provide labour warranties and sometimes they even extend the parts warranty too if they feel confident enough in the product. We decided that these extras, together with the time saved by having others install it, would be worth the doubling in cost. We did manage to save ourselves a bit of money having Al run the electrical feed himself and by providing the concrete pad for the exterior compressor unit. As it happened, Al ended up helping with the install of the interior unit, but that’s because he wanted to make sure that it was all done to his standard.
Getting started with the hook-ups outside. The compressor is in place and lines are being run.
The pro is flaring the end of the tubing with a special tool so that he can make the connections.
The system is hooked up and is being pressurized with Nitrogen to a level well above what would be experienced with the refrigerant in the lines. The gauges here measure the pressure and allow the installer to see any changes. This test lasts over an hour. The needles did not change their positions at all (this is good).
The installer is testing his connections for leaks by spraying soapy water where connections were made. Any leaks would be indicated by bubbles at the site where air was escaping.
Here is how it looked before it got covered where the lines ran into the house. Al spray-foamed everywhere he could with the window and door foam.
The finished product outside
Inside unit getting ready for install. This is the mounting plate for the condenser unit.
The "head" is being mounted and connected to the lines coming in from outside. This ended up being a 3-man job and then they had to send a journeyman back a couple of weeks later to get the mounting a little tighter to the wall.
We are so happy with our new mini-split heat pump! At last our house is a comfortable temperature all the time. The unit is almost completely silent – both indoors and out. Both indoor and outdoor units are relatively small (one of the reasons we opted for the Mitsubishi was that its indoor unit is 10 inches narrower than the Daikin) and best of all, our electric bill is dropping like a rock!
Let’s time warp again (and pretend that I’m not writing this almost 3 months after the fact because I would never be that far behind!) and look at our most recent electricity bill after the coldest November on record here in over 50 years. The bill was HALF that of last year at this time! Now, I do realize that this isn’t all heat pump attributable… we have since replaced all of the windows, air sealed and insulated the house, but it all adds up to our bills being half of what they used to be. I know that the heat pump contributes significantly.
So how much did it cost us? All said and done, $3752 (taxes in). We are expecting $1500 in energy rebates. Once that money is received, it won’t take long after that for the heat pump to pay for itself in reduced energy bills.
To decide what size of heat pump to get we did our own estimates based on square footage of the area we wanted heated and what the companies recommend for their various units and room size. Then we had the local companies come in to do a proper measure and assessment of where the warm air would realistically flow and we came up with about the same answer. We only wanted to heat the main living level, this is 750 sqft, of which most is all open now that we’ve bashed out a bunch of walls. So to service this space we installed one 15,000 BTU outside compressor together with one “head” (inside condenser unit) centrally located in the living room, closest to the dinning room and kitchen and pointing at the office/guest room. So far it seems like a perfect match.
One of the big appealing factors in the decision to go with this unit was the electrical panel. Traditional electric heat requires considerable amperage, and a lot of circuit breaker slots in the panel. In a new house this is seldom an issue with the standard 200 amp service. In an older house like ours with a 100-amp panel, the slots need to be allocated quite carefully, particularly once the kitchen has been properly wired, and all of the other major loads, like the clothes dryer, water heater, and stove, have been satisfied. The good news about our heat pump? Because it moves heat instead of creating it, the power consumption is much lower than electric heaters of any kind. The panel requirement for our install was 240 volts, but only 15 amps. This would safely power a 2800 watt traditional heater, which would draw 12 amps, and would equate to about 10000 btu/hr. We’re getting much more than that, and for a typical amperage draw of only five to seven amps!
So if you’re looking for something like this, here are some links worth following:
To see what you might get back for a heat pump rebate in Canada see this Federal website and then follow the appropriate link in “Complimentary Regional Programs” on the right side of the main page to see if your province or territory offers additional grants/rebates:
The normal state of the dining room table from about 3 months after moving in (2005) until just before the reno. Disregard the silly baskethead in the foreground.
The dining room table 1 day after the washer/dryer were hooked up.
Al and I both found this to be quite humourous as we have specifically planned our new setup to avoid this ridiculous use of our dining table; especially such a beautiful teak one. The laundry room is low on the priority list and due to all of the wiring and work still being done at the electrical panel, we can’t yet close off that wall and position the washer/dryer in their proper places. So instead of the side-by-side setup with cubbies for folded clean clothes and a folding space for stuff fresh from the dryer, we have our set stacked in a place too small to fit a folding/sorting area – thus the reversion to the dining room table.
Two other noteable things about our ongoing reno and need for laundry include:
1. The need to temporarily stack our washer/dryer was unanticipated. Once we realized that it was going to be at least a month before we could have the units side-by-side again (because you may recall Al is back to work full time and now we’re both working some part-time evenings too) I ran out to get a $40 stacking kit. WTF? $40! You’ve got to be kidding me! Oh well, cheaper than the laundromat for who knows how long. Time-warp to November… we sold the stacking kit online used for $25. Yay!
2. Be careful of where you mount the dryer receptacle… we wired and installed a great 220V dryer receptacle low on the wall close to the baseboard as that made sense at the time for a side-by-side set-up. I think you may already see where I’m going with this… To our dismay, the dryer cord wasn’t long enough to reach said receptacle after it got stacked onto the washer (recall this was not in our plan). Now what? Move the receptacle? Ick! That would mean cutting drywall, rewiring, reapplying drywall, mud, paint and more – No thanks! Instead, for $40, Al went and bought another dryer receptacle and a small piece of 220V cable. He plugged the dryer cord into the new receptacle and then wired a plug with the new bit or cable from that receptacle so that it could plug into the wall. Genius! Sorry, I didn’t get a picture of this brilliance.
Now that we’re back into the house with functioning laundry, a couple of mentalities emerge reno-wise. We flip-flop between the ideas that “now that we’re here all the time we can work later into the night or earlier in the morning and get more progress made” or, the more common do-it-yourselfer perspective of “it’s livable and all the rest is just icing on the cake – we’ll get the trim work done next week or the week after”. Of course next week something else pops up and same goes for the week after that and before you know it months go by and the pile of trim in your living room, the temporary painter’s tape pulls on your kitchen drawers or doors and the make-shift shower rod (a bent piece of copper) that’s supposed to one day magically turn into a panel of glass, are all things that are looking more and more normal and less compelling to act upon.
We’re determined not to have the second mentality get us, but it’s tough. This week J started preschool for the first time, Al and I resumed part-time work with the Reserves and J turned 3! It’s been very busy!
Unbelievable! It’s been 12 weeks since we moved into my parents house so that we could embark upon this massive renovation. At the very beginning we knew what needed to be done and we had a plan to execute it; nonetheless, when you move everything out and start bashing down walls, you can’t help but wonder sometimes if you haven’t bitten off a little more than you can chew. After the pre-reno party Al and I looked at each other with nervous grins and agreed: “Well, we’re committed now. No turning back.”
In these last 12 weeks we have worked almost every day (with many late nights) to get us to the point where we could move back in. And here we are. We now have running water, a functional bathroom with tub/shower ready for use, we have a functional kitchen and we’ve cleared away just enough room upstairs to allow us the use of our beds again. So it’s official, we have achieved occupancy!
Although we still have so much left to do (not the least of which is the install of 12 new windows and a glass sliding door), it’s exciting to have made it this far. It helps to have some concrete deadlines to work towards… for example we have already delayed the delivery of the couches once and we weren’t about to do it again, so we knew that we had to get cracking on a bunch of trim work before the arrival of the couches. Our old couch, which you’ve likely seen in many other reno pictures either inside or out getting full of dust, debris, UV rays and rain, has become the work couch. Although it was tired and was showing lots of signs of wear, what sealed the deal on replacing it was how badly it had been abused by my cats – apparently they like upholstery. So we’ve replaced it with two leather couches from Scan Designs. With a kid around and cats who demolish upholstered furniture, leather seemed like a much more forgiving and family-friendly material. We found a loveseat and sofa combo on sale, last ones left for half price ($2000 for both, delivery included); they’re fantastic!
We also purchased a new-to-us dining set. I found it on a local online used community like Craigslist in June or July and we went to see it, liked it, bartered the price down a bit and then took it to Al’s brother’s house to be stored until we were ready for it. It’s a gorgeous teak set with 6 chairs and a tressel-legged table that expands to seat 8 or more people. In excellent condition, we felt quite happy to walk away with it for only $650!
Without further ado, here are the pictures of our recent steps to occupancy:
The last post was about how I’m so pleased that now, with a kitchen sink and faucet installed, together with running water and a temporary countertop, I don’t have to worry about washing the dishes in the tub. I guess that would have been a more significant concern though if we had a functional tub.
The last big thing that needs to be done before we can move back in is the tub and shower assembly. It’s all well and good to have a house with walls, insulation, a functioning kitchen and places to sleep, but without a facility to bathe (other than our backyard – which may not be approved by the neighbours) we’ll still be entrenched at my parents’ house for a little while yet.
Now between Al’s work, our commitments to part time work with the Reserves, James’ preschool and other volunteer groups, we’re working whenever we can to get this bathroom ready for use.
It started with the install of our adorable and very practical 4′ tub. Yep, only 4 feet long. We hummed and haa-ed over the tub size for a while and came to the conclusion that both Al and I shower 99% of the time and that when we renovate the second floor (in 5-10 years) we’ll include a soaker tub in our future ensuite. We considered no tub at all and instead a 4′ shower, but that didn’t make sense with a 3 year old who still loves to play in the bath. So I went online and searched high and low for the right tub. I found lots with claims to save space, but really they didn’t save much… least of all, money!
Here are some of the kinds I was thinking about:
This tub has a nice tapered end to help save space but it's still 5' long, wide and expensive. Too big for us.
Sure it's small on the inside, but the footprint is even larger on the outside than a conventional 5' tub. I hate to think what this cost.
Yep, this would do. Very small footprint, shower ability (I think). But the high sides... maybe not for the kiddo.
Hmmm... there's an idea, submerge it in the crawl space and then have a lid over it. Oh wait, that doesn't make the footprint any smaller either. This might cost as much as the rest of the house reno budget.
What an idea! The bathtub is the sink. Well, we are cramped for space, but not that badly.
This is likely to be effective and comfortable... but I can see it now - James in there deciding it's time to come out before the bath water is drained. I don't think so.
While the idea of having a tub really is just to be for James I think that he may have already outgrown this kiddie tub. It would save a lot of space though...
So the search carried on… a small, accessible, kid-friendly, shower-capable, 4-foot tub that wouldn’t break the bank and that would be available in Canada without shipping costs that would exceed the price of the tub. We don’t ask for much, do we?
But I found it! At first I was happy to find any 4′ tub. I found a Kholer tub that came in either 4′ or 4.5′ lengths – it was $1200! Not what we were hoping to shell out. So the search continued and led me to find that American Standard sells a basic white rectangular tub in a 4′ length, and it was only $500! Now we’re talking! But… it’s only available in the US. But, being optimistic, I went to Home Depot (being that they carry American Standard stuff) just to see if they could perhaps special order it in from one of their American stores. Nope.
Almost all hope was lost. Then the fellow helping me said “wait a minute, I think we do carry a small tub like what you’re looking for. I stumbled across it in the book the other day when another lady came looking for a 4.5′ tub.” Flip flip flip he goes through this massive ordering catalog for employees only. “Here it is.” Delighted, but cautious, I ask him how much it is… “Well, it’s a special order item that we don’t stock… oh here’s the price. 220 dollars.” I just about fell over. I double checked the book, just to be sure he wasn’t reading the line pricing the overflow cover or the tub-stopper, but there it was. With taxes, delivery, etc. the unit came to $245! In case you’re curious, the manufacturer is Crane, the tub is a simple white enameled steel and it comes in left or right drain orientation.
So with the tub purchased, delivered, and now installed, you’d think we could use it right? Not yet. We still have no tub surround. This is the key to keeping our walls dry and mold-free. We did use concrete board around the tub, but it still needs something more water-happy over top. Most people opt for tile… but, as you can tell by now, we are not really going for the normal here in this reno. So we decided to use Barker Board.
Barker Board is a brand name for a product that comes in sheet format that mimics the look of tile, but doesn’t require tile, grout or any of that other fussy stuff. It’s the linoleum of bath surrounds. So I go to order it from a known supplier but… Barker Board has gone out of business!
Damn it! These bathrooms are a real f-ing nuisance! Sometimes it’s fun sourcing all of these fixtures and components, but sometimes you just want what you need, cheap and easy and in-stock. Anyhow, after talking to a few more people, I found that there’s another company (Designer Panels International) that has a similar product called AquaTile. Available on the mainland to be shipped here in a week. Price: reasonable. Appearance: satisfactory.
A few days later I get a call that the panels were left behind at the warehouse and that they wouldn’t arrive now for another week. Not acceptable. I tell the woman of our need to move back into our house and that the panels are the only hold-up. So she does some hunting and finds another truck coming our way by the end of this week. Great! Friday we get a call that the panels have arrived. Finally our problems are over, all we have to do is pick up the panels and install them! Oh wait, the guy on the phone tells me that one of the panels is badly damaged. You have got to be kidding me! He sends me pictures and measurements of the damaged areas and then tells me that these were the two last panels available and that if we can’t work with these that we have to wait another week to get a replacement panel from Alberta. Well, you guessed it, the damage was too great and we told them to keep it and send us the new one from wherever it would be quickest to get it here.
At last, the replacement panel arrived and away we set to work on getting the last occupancy component completed. Here are the pictures:
It was looking a bit dodgy there for a little while… at least to me. Al and I discuss every night what our next project is going to be, both short and longer projection and there has been a lot of talk about getting the kitchen counter in place soon. But every day something else comes up and the counter gets pushed to the side. But, knowing that lots of other very important and great stuff was happening, it’s been hard to justify nagging Al about the counter. None-the-less, I’ve been asking about it more lately because the idea of washing our dishes in the bathtub doesn’t excite me.
Al assures me though that I will not need to do that and that we will have a functional counter soon. Now, being a bit of an unrealistic renovation optimist, I’ve been picturing in my head a beautiful wood counter made from the Douglas Fir floor joists we reclaimed from the house beside my parents’ place that recently got torn down. This is the plan we have. But, like so many other things, the plan will need to flex and get modified a bit while other things take priority. It turns out that a solid wood counter top is not necessary for occupancy.
But how would we get the undermount sink and faucet installed without a counter? Al, smart man that he is, decided that for more reasons than one, that creating a temporary counter out of plywood would be the best solution to our conundrum. A temporary counter would mean that we won’t have to rush through the process with the solid wood, the plywood will serve as a template and a practice run, and of course, we will have a functional counter, sink and faucet in short order whereby keeping our dishes out of the bathtub. I have agreed to this idea with the solid understanding that this counter will truly be only TEMPORARY! Concerned that we are going to live in the never-ending reno if we don’t really commit ourselves to following through with our plan, I have made Al promise me that we will soon replace the plywood with our intended Douglas Fir, and he did so without argument.
So now, what you’ve all been waiting for… the installed sink, faucet and temporary counter. Also in this group of photos are some random shots of the progression of insulation in the attic, tie-ins at the electrical panel and the awesome work my mom has done on sanding, painting and revitalizing our exterior trim paint.
Many months ago, before the reno started, all of Al’s immediate family agreed to gather in late August for a music day. Foolish us, we thought that by this time we would either be done the reno or that perhaps we wouldn’t be feeling at all panicked and that a nice get-away would be a welcome break and only a minor delay.
Well, now that the end of August has hurtled towards us at light speed, we find ourselves in a bit of a frenzy because the house isn’t yet ready for occupancy but Al has already returned to work. So with the star of the show not available to work weekdays, weekends have become our prime-time progression days. Yes, we work on evenings, but it’s hard to get much done as the time to set up and put away tools leaves precious little actual work time. So, you see, the idea of using an entire Saturday to go and play music, relax, eat and be merry with family, although something we normally crave and look forward to, was feeling irresponsible.
Responsible-smonsible! Al and I agree that family, keeping promises and striking a balance in life are all more important and so although we wanted to stay and renovate, there was really never any question in our minds that we would be at Music Day. Al’s parents are smart cookies though… they understood the dilemma we would likely be having and that by loosing a full day of work it might push us back a whole week for moving back in. So they called us up and offered to help to make up for the lost day of work by coming over the following day to help get us recoup that day. I think they talked to Al’s older brother about it too and he also offered to come and help. RIGHT ON! Another important detail here might be to add that both Al’s Dad and older brother are journeymen carpenters with mad skills and Al’s Mom has had lots of experience on job sites too.
So with that, we contentedly went over to the cottage and enjoyed a terrific Music Day. There were lots of instruments, great voices, terrific food and best of all, lots of family! The weather was just right and we all had a wonderful time.
The icing on the cake was the next day… with Al’s parents and Z, they managed to get all of the water supply line installed and functional, lots of trim work done, more inside doors installed and trimmed out, more trim painted, moved and prepped for install and I even got lots more work done in the attic spaces prepping for insulating the cathedral portions of our roof. My mom and Dad were there too of course, patching, painting and generally being of help to the big guys.
All in all, we got much more done with all those people on Sunday than Al could have done on his own on both days and thus we will be looking forward to moving back in sooner rather than later.
So as you can tell, this was a big win-win weekend. We got to go to Music Day and we got further ahead on our reno than we would have on our own. Thanks everybody for all of your help!
Here are the pictures from both Music Day and the big work day:
Al has many wonderful, talented and helpful colleagues. Most of them have shown up on our work site at least once and for all of them they have done so on their own holiday time – right on you guys! You rock!
Two of these characters go by the abbreviation “G”. Both are skilled and dedicated carpenters and came to help out with the finishing work. With attention to detail and precision work, much trim was quickly installed, kitchen cabinets found their homes and most impressively, a huge hole in our original Hemlock floor was patched.
G came by one day and asked “what can I do to help Al?”. Al thought and hesitated and then cautiously asked if G would be willing to take on one of the most finicky, time-consuming and detail intensive jobs available that, if done well, would never be noticed by anyone and thus would receive no satisfying “ooos” and “ahhs” from visitors (unless pointed out by us – which we do often).
The large hole in the floor was where there was once a cold air return for the forced air system in the house. Our old furnace required ductwork but now, because we’re going to a ductless heat pump, we don’t need the old ductwork anymore and we got rid of it all, sealed up the holes from in the crawlspace and insulated the space where the ducts used to run. Most of the registers were of normal size and were placed at the edges of walls where they are fairly innocuous and where we can patch them later when everything else is done and we’re just looking for more projects to tackle. The cold air return; however, was huge and it was placed along a wall that we tore down. Now that hole is conspicuously gaping and in the middle of our living/dining room area.
So G, without hesitation, said something like “yep, that’s a good one for me to do while you carry on with the big projects” and he set to work.
This is a poor picture, but it shows where the cold air return was and how large it was. It was covered in two white garbage bags so that we wouldn’t get as much cold air or smell coming up from the crawl space.
The cold air return is wrapped in white garbage bags here. The cardboard is cut out around it. It measured about 1′ x 2′ I think.
So G set to work, but unfortunately, you can’t just shove pieces into the hole and expect it to look good. To do a good patch you have to stagger the pieces, colour match, and hopefully find pieces that match the appropriate widths etc.
Luckily, we had a bunch of spare original hemlock flooring available as we removed a section in the old hallway between the living room and kitchen. But, it’s old. So some of the pieces got cracked or broken during extraction and some of the tongues broke off, the colour of the pieces were a bit different and on and on. G had his work cut out for him.
He started by expanding the size of the hole all the way back to the edge of the original floor and even into the living room some more so that he could get the staggered effect.
G has now cut back a bunch of the original floor and has installed about half of the new pieces in the patch.
Well on his way, G got a groove on and developed quite a system and technique for extracting chunks of the old floor and installing the new old pieces. Chisels and a drill were the primary tools.
The utility knife was true to its name… very useful for this project for scoring lines
Drilling holes through the pieces to be cut back provided a place to get the chisels in to do their work.
Chiseling some pieces out without breaking the tongues of the neighbouring pieces was key to success.
Finess chiseling.
Cleaning up. All of the pieces are in and G can look on in pride as his patch disappears to blend in with the rest of the floor.
Wow! You can hardly tell that there was ever a gaping hole there or that this floor wasn’t intended to be like this.
Finito! I know that this wasn’t a great “reveal” episode of fantastic transformation like you get to see on reality TV, but every little project here counts. All of these details take time (often much more than you would think), especially if you want it done right and all of them contribute to the project as a whole. In many cases it would be easier and faster to just rip it all out, tear it all down or just buy a new place, but that’s not what we want. We want to live responsibly and affordably in a central location, making the best use of the space and materials that we already have so that we can better enjoy each other, our hobbies, travel and the comfort that there is a little less waste to manage because of our considered efforts to minimize our contributions.
I am woefully behind in my posts, but most of you know that by now. In fact, I’m exactly one month behind. In the meantime, we’ve moved back in, Al’s back at work and while the reno is nowhere near complete, it’s far further ahead than a month ago. None the less, I will continue to post as though I were writing it at the time it happened as that helps to convey some of the feelings of that time. So here we go with some updates on the progression of the reno:
Personal log: Stardate 19.08.11 Aug 19, 2011
We are now officially back to the bucket brigade! Yay!
Yay?
Well, for 10 weeks we have been without a functional toilet. Our extremely generous and understanding neighbours have been allowing us the use of their guest bathroom for this entire toiletless time and while this arrangement has been far better than squatting over our prickly blackberry bush behind the shed, we’re ready to have toilet independence.
Al and my dad have now completed all of the drain pipe installation. And when I say installation, I mean it. With the exception of the 4″ main sewage line to the street, none of the pre-existing drain pipe was left in place. Everything else was completely redone with new drain vents and all. The two crawlspace critters spent many a quality hour down there measuring, cutting, gluing and holding pieces of 2 and 3″ black ABS pipe so that they would best service the drainage needs of the new layout. This is what it looked like when it was done:
New drain pipe
So now with the drain pipe installed that means that we can install a toilet, then fill a bucket of water from the hose outside and haul that bucket in to refill the toilet tank after each flush. This is a big step forward. With this bucket brigade stuff I’m definitely loving having the low-flush toilets!
Speaking of toilet install… here are some great pictures of Al installing the powder room toilet:
Al is neither passed out nor hurling - he's installing the toilet tank
Al hugging the new Toto was not the result of a rippin' party, but maybe that will be the case after our celebratory post-reno party 🙂
Apparently you need to be somewhat of a contortionist to install a toilet in a tiny powder room
Here’s another song that came to mind as we were installing and turning on all of our new lights:
Although it would seem that light fixtures are a finishing detail that you only install at the very end once everything else is done, I found out that’s not necessarily the case.
Because all of our fixtures are hardwired into “the matrix” and we had an open electrical panel, it was decided that it would be best for us to install all of the fixtures, test them and have no open electrical boxes before tying the rest of the new wires into the panel and turning the main power back on for good.
It turns out this also tied in well with the shortening days and the need to work late into the evenings since Al’s vacation is over and he’s had to return to work on the weekdays.
The lights look fantastic! The space lighting is worlds better than it used to be. We now have dimmers on many of our lights, specific task lighting, general room lighting, a timer on our porch light and on and on.
Amongst some of the first stuff I bought for the reno was our pendant lights and the dining room light. I love the look of some Tiffany glass shades and because we had some in my old condo, and everybody really loved them, I felt that I wanted some for this house too. I wanted a slightly different style this time though and because of our custom hand-crafted kitchen, all of the simple trim, open concept of connected spaces, neutral colours and warm woods throughout the house, it seemed appropriate to choose a design/style of the Mission style or more specifically, the Frank Lloyd Wright inspired Prairie School Movement. So I went for the hunt locally and nearly fell over when I saw the prices of a stained glass Mission style light fixture… $300 for ONE pendant lamp and that didn’t include our 12% HST. The dining room fixture was priced at about $400. No way was I going to spend $1000 on 3 lights.
So I started searching online. Sure enough I found lots of wholesalers who were selling the exact same lights made by the same company as the ones I saw in the expensive showroom for half the price or less. I guess real estate and overhead costs of having a local business with lots of stock mean that they need to double the price of the product. I found the pendant lights for $135 each – that included shipping. And I found the dining room fixture for $125! Wow. That did not include shipping, but the cost of that was worth it.
So for less than $500 I got the very 3 fixtures I hoped to get. Yay for saving money! Of note, they were all a stupidly ridiculous to install, but whatever, they’re in now and no one got zapped, nothing broke and I don’t see any need to tinker with the mounting hardware ever again.
Al and Kay's Renovation 