Category Archives: House/Moving/Repairs

Deck progress

House/Moving/Repairs,

I can’t do much to help Jeff with his heavy work this weekend, but I can do my good wifely duty by bringing him a cold one.

deck progress

Jeff likes these new cans.

(He looks like he is impatiently waiting for his cold beer.) (He was.)

So here is where we’re at.  Jeff has the L brackets bolted to the house foundation to support the deck.  Now he’s laying out fabric to stop weeds and covering it with a layer of gravel.deck progress

Here is what the top of the brackets look like.deck progress

See this innocent looking downspout?  Jeff took the extender piece off yesterday, and this afternoon when he went to work on that bracket, a SNAKE came out of the downspout.

deck progress

WHAT THE HELL WAS A SNAKE DOING UP THERE AND HOW DO I CONTINUE TO LIVE HERE WITH THIS INFORMATION?

Good thing I was napping.

Third row of landscaping fabric.  The roll did 3 lengths in front of the house and was only $20 at Lee Valley.deck progress

Short intermission when I was distracted by these beauties.deck progress

I think it hit the spot.

deck progress

deck progress

The man we hired with the mini excavator did a really nice job filling in his holes and trenches and smoothing the entire area over. He even spread grass seed on it!

deck progress

deck progress

deck progress

Uh oh…. Our what is full?

House/Moving/Repairs, ,

Our neighbour D. is here with his mini-backhoe about to start finishing the back walkout drainage work.

However, Jeff just came in for the phone and said D. thinks our septic bed is full.

Our what?

I thought the last septic guy who was here said we only had a tank. Which we just had emptied. How can the bed be full? Is that why it tries to backup into our basement sink during rainy season? Am I going to need a third job to pay for this one?

Weekly Update

I got in my car for the first time in 6 weeks. And then I actually drove it! Jeff was away for work for a few days so I had to fend for myself. I took a brief trip into town to get a couple things.

Driving went okay, but I definitely should only do it after good sleep. I find I’m still foggy brained at times.  In fact I dialed the wrong phone number twice this week! Embarrassing…

Speaking of sleep, I don’t let myself sleep enough. I keep getting caught in the “OMG I have to go back to work soon” trap and “I don’t want to waste a second of this time” then I realize I’m home recuperating from a major surgery and I should be sleeping!!

I can weed some of the easy weeds in the garden for very short periods of time. This gets me moving a bit so I think I’m easing back into normal activity.

I still get a very sore abdomen at times. Usually when I’m tired. And at night. And if I’ve been coughing and/or sneezing. Good news Julie – my sneezer is back! Loud enough to hear ‘em across the lake, I’m sure.

Monty’s fence has been dismantled for a week too because of the backhoe work, so Monty has to go out on a leash each time.  That gives me more walking exercise too which is good.  Luckily he is getting older and didn’t try to rip my arm out of the socket much this week as we walked around and around the yard and house and upper driveway.

Update from the digging

We are realizing more with every new project in the ground here that we are on rock solid clay.

We rented a post hole auger a few years back when we were building the wood shed, but we didn’t get to finish the job. We got a few inches into the ground before the ground said no more and started to smoke – the ground – not the auger!

The only reason D. think our septic bed is full is because Jeff mentioned that it seems to back up into the basement sink during really rainy times – there are no symptoms from outside.  Whew!  D. thinks either our septic bed doesn’t drain because we are sitting on harder than rock clay – or maybe the outlet is blocked up. He seems to think the outlet is in the trees and he made a couple calls to confirm, including to M. the contractor next door who agreed with him. D. is going to try to find the outlet because the drain he’s putting in for the walkout is going to end up in a similar place. He said maybe it just needs a new gravel bed at the outlet.

And speaking of gravel, D. is saving Jeff’s back and he’s moving the gravel over by backhoe bucket from the pile that was delivered in the driveway rather than Jeff moving it by wagon or wheelbarrow. Whew!

Deck Construction

Deck construction resumes tomorrow.  Jeff got a couple more of those really thick and heavy duty L brackets made by an iron works guy so we’ll have 6 attaching the deck to the house, rather than just the 4 we had originally.

It will probably be a little frustrating that I can’t lift the lumber and help out.  Jeff has already decided that I can be in charge of painting the cut ends with that green pressure treated sealer.

Weather

It is still quite dry here and we have a ban on open fires. The weather has been gorgeous though. Warm, sunny, not too humid lately.  And at night it gets cool and really dewey.  We have to close up all the windows at night on the main floor because everything in here, especially paper, gets so damp.  I remember in the Sault I used to open my windows in spring and close them months later, but here we open and close the main floor ones every day.

Lumber for the new deck is getting delivered RIGHT NOW!

House/Moving/Repairs, ,

The lumber is being delivered this morning for our deck project!

Usually the hardware store has a big flatbed with a crane like attachment that will lift a load off and set it on the ground, but these guys showed up with a big moving like truck so the 2 men are hand bombing the entire load of lumber onto the lawn!

The pile grows…

And grows….

Sun is trying to come out.

How much lumber does a deck take?

(It’s probably creepy that I’m inside taking still shots from the security cam software, isn’t it. I don’t know what to do with delivery or service men are here. I’m sure they don’t want me out there hovering or sharing. This way they don’t really know what I’m watching.)

Done!

Still plenty of room to turn around up here!

Now too bad I am not allowed to lift anything. Anybody want to help Jeff build a deck?

CAMWIZ_12-JUL-12_20-43-49-31 [SHOOT]

So much going on!

House/Moving/Repairs

I know I should be napping, but there is too much going on!

There is a grader in our driveway right now! at 8pm! Our neighbour is trying to fix the river bed that is our driveway.  I imagine we’ll need a couple loads of gravel too, unless he can pull it all back up from the bottom!

I also delicately helped Jeff fill two sona tubes with concrete.  The rental-all place in town didn’t have a cement mixer so he’s doing it by hand, shovel that is, in the wheel barrel.  I’m guiding the cement into the tube as he dumps it.  Now I feel like I could sleep for 12 days straight.

I had a Dr’s appointment this morning with our family dr.  Didn’t learn anything and didn’t get any information. Basically it was just to get the form so I can get blood drawn tomorrow to check if my hemoglobin is coming back up so I can stop taking the iron.  She also hasn’t seen me before so she is requesting a bunch of blood values and thyroid and cholesterol and sugars and others so I have to fast from 6pm until tomorrow morning!  Not even a drink of water! Oh goodness I can’t go without my big mug of water and ice! Good thing they start collecting blood at 7:30am!

Live shot of our driveway:

Jeff has tried to work at the foundation (with me sitting beside the trench in a lawnchair with the cordless phone to call 911 if the trench buries him alive) but he had trouble finding the weeping tile around the house that he needs to tie into. He’s located it now, but it is just too dangerous. He needs to dig back a bit to expose it, and that part is just so far over his head, especially if he is bent down, so it is a no-go. D. is coming back on Sunday with his little backhoe, so we’ll get him to dig it back a bit more. Jeff was able to clean out the big crack in the basement walkout wall and fill it in with a sealer.

We don’t know for sure if the basement walkout was built at the same time as the rest of the house, but is sure was done poorly compared to the rest of the house. Was it a rush job? An after-thought? Was it added later? It wasn’t sealed well, doesn’t have weeping tile around it, thankfully has a drain in the floor that is tied to the house weeping tile that dumps it over the edge of the hill in front of the house, but the walls aren’t sealed on the outside, and the entire grade slopes into the house. Not to mention there is no landing so if you are outside you walk down the slope to the door and when you push the door open the stairs are right there. I hate that! We aren’t about to rip the entire thing out and rebuild it (although Jeff wants to lift the roof and door) so we’ll live with it.

And back to the driveway:

We’ve got a fire ban in place for the entire province of Nova Scotia now, even little chimineas, so we won’t be having a campfire tonight with some beers like we should be. Oh yeah, I’m fasting for blood work. I forgot. Now I’m hungry. Something about a mandatory ban on food and drink can make a girl ravenous and parched.

So I’m trying to do more, but I get so exhausted so fast. I didn’t nap today. I feel the best when I take 2 naps. Although that has happened maybe twice. Jeff is at the point where he wants to take my iPhone away and the TV remote from the bedroom so I’ll actually nap when I go lie down. When I tag along for errands, I go in most of the stores now, although the other day I had to grab Jeff’s sleeve in the grocery store because I thought I was going down. The whole world spun. I hear that is normal and that is why you aren’t supposed to drive yourself after surgery because you’ll get stuck somewhere, too tired to drive home.

Driveway Check:

See that green clump in front of the birch tree? We got D. to use his bucket to shovel it out of the front garden. We planted it a couple years ago – it is a Dwarf Hinoki False Cypress. I love it. It is a in a big clump of dirt and now I’m not sure where to put it. Probably back against the porch, when it is built. Not sure how long it can live in just a clump of dirt though. We’ve watered it thoroughly each night.

OK, one last driveway check before I leave you.  Jeff said M. (neighbour driving the grader) said he’ll be back with a couple loads of gravel in the morning.

Digging Day!

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Our neighbour D. with his mini-backhoe is here digging up the basement walkout foundation at this very moment!

Photos will be posted later. If I take many. I don’t want to disturb him with my camera.

We can’t get this basement walkout fixed soon enough. We went to Halifax the other day and while we were gone there was a torrential downpour. The water came into the basement walkout so fast, it overwhelmed the drain and was high enough to flow over the door sill into the basement. Looks like a tidal wave went through the basement to the basement drain.  Nothing damaged – it’s happened before ! Most of the water was already gone when we got home.

Photo time!

Here is Jeff’s prep work.

Dig here!

Digging Day

Deck layout. X’s mark the spots for the sono tubes – which I found out yesterday are actually called sona tubes. Who knew?!?

Digging Day

Dig here!

Digging Day

This is the basement walk out we want to fix up. First by fixing the drainage and repairing the crack in that wall (that looks green in this photo).  Eventually we’ll have to replace the door sill because the bottom rotted out from being in water all the time. The grade outside this door unfortunately slopes towards the door.

Digging Day

Sorry hostas. You’ve been sacrificed.

Digging Day

Our very skilled help made quick work of Jeff’s jobs today.  In 4.5 hours he was done!

That’s a lot of dirt in Monty’s back yard!

Digging Day

Here is what it looks like this evening:

Digging Day

Unfortunately the ground keeps caving into the hole. Making it very dangerous for Jeff to do anything down there. And they weren’t able to find the weeping tile that goes around the base of the house yet that we hoped to tie into. It doesn’t look that deep in this photo but it must be over 6 feet deep.

Digging Day

Digging Day

D. is going to come back on Sunday and has a backup plan that we can also put a drain in at the back door and tie it into the nearby ditch to get the water away. He will come back and dig the trench for us and we’ll bury weeping tile that way too.

The driveway was the next project.

While D. was digging, Jeff hurried to put the PVC in the ground.  His electrician friend has some special way to get the wire quickly installed inside the PVC, so we could get the machinery to backfill the hole while he was here.

Digging Day

Digging Day

Digging Day

Digging Day

After the PVC piping was buried, D. backfilled a foot or so on top of the pipe so we could put down a ‘buried cable’ plastic ribbon to warn anyone who might be digging on the driveway in the future.

Digging Day

Digging Day

Digging Day

Hmm, I flex my toes weird when I am bending forward taking photos down deep dark holes.

Digging Day

Our deck plan changed. Dana works with all sorts of contractors and handymen and he told us about a thick ‘L’ bracket that can attach to the house into the foundation and hold the double-wide joist.  That means we wouldn’t need to fiddle with the siding and put up a wall mounted board, and we don’t need to mess with an extra row of sona tubes against the house foundation.  D. had the brackets so Jeff picked them up and thinks they will work well.

Digging Day

At least there are a few pretty things growing in my weedy flower gardens.

Digging Day

Digging Day

Look how happy Jeff is with today’s progress!

Digging Day

Jeff’s vacation = working too hard

House/Moving/Repairs, ,

This is Jeff’s first week off. He’s been working so hard. He has 3 projects he wants to get a start on:

    1. Dig up 2 walls of the basement walk-out to extend the foundation drainage pipe around the walkout foundation, and reseal the leaking foundation wall in the basement walk-out
    2. Run electricity from the house under the driveway to the new shed
    3. Prepare the front of the house for a future deck

So far Jeff has removed all the 20+ year old shrubs from the front of the house and pulled off the old crooked steps. He just had to attach it to the ATV and pull!  Except for stopping quickly when we realized the satellite co-ax cables were wrapped around the bottom of the deck.  That is why there is a quickly ripped hole in the deck to untangle them.

front deck

Jeff dismantled all the boards and they are already at the dump!

front deck

The house looks so much better without all those old overgrown shrubs! It’s just screaming for a deck, eh? We’re thinking 12 feet out, the full length of the front of the house, under 24″ high so we don’t need a railing (because that would block the lake view from our living room). Jeff’s thinking of attaching the ledger board to the basement foundation, just under the vinyl siding. At that height, we’ll need a step or two up from the deck to the front door – maybe just a nice platform and step in front of the door.

front deck

I also want to get rid of the pastel green paint around the windows, eventually. Any colour suggestions?  Our front door needs replacing someday soon so maybe it will inspire a colour.

We have a half load of cleaned gravel coming for around the perforated drain pipe for the foundation work. A neighbour has a little mini-backhoe. He is going to come and dig up that foundation, dig holes for the sono tubes for the new deck, and dig a trench for the electricity and pvc protective piping. We are also waiting for another neighbour to check out our driveway before the entire thing erodes away into the lake. His company has a grader.

And what am I doing to help?  Just about nothing.  I am not supposed to lift or pull anything.  It is really hard to not help.

Ice Dam!

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  1. Notice big icicles on the back of the house, especially over my bathroom window
  2. Wish it would stop pouring rain after snow, and over and over.
  3. Watch icicles form for 2 weeks
  4. Notice ice on back roof is nearly 6 inches in depth
  5. Smash icicles off of eaves-trough from upstairs windows
  6. See a warming trend and rain in the forecast
  7. Wake up for work on a Monday morning
  8. Notice bubbles in the paint half way up the bathroom wall
  9. Laugh to self thinking, wow, imagine if that ice caused a water dam and this was water damage
  10. Look up
  11. See big water stains on bathroom ceiling
  12. Get husband
  13. Watch husband poke finger through wet bathroom ceiling
  14. Listen to water drip into sink, coincidentally located directly under drip
  15. Think about what colour I will repaint my new bathroom
  16. Watch husband try to use a camera to take a picture of the far side of the attic that is too cramped to see from his location
  17. Wonder if it is a mixed blessing that it doesn’t work so we can’t really see how much ice is in the attic.
  18. Go to work
  19. Receive phone from husband who said every roofing company receptionist in the area has “no idea” if their company removes ice dams
  20. Wonder where we can get a ladder long enough to reach the 2nd story roof
  21. Listen to husband plan idea of using shorter ladder on shorter front roof, and tune out when mention of harness, ATV, and ice cleats get mentioned
  22. Worry all afternoon that husband may be stuck on the roof, or worse yet, broken at bottom of ladder
  23. Go home and find husband intact and well
  24. Research ways to remove thick ice from a roof we can’t reach
  25. Decide to hook up garden hose to hot water to carve a path through the ice to the eaves trough
  26. Remember our water pressure isn’t the best so a garden hose nozzle would be very useful
  27. Remember that I lazily left the garden hose in the garden
  28. Get shovel
  29. Climb over garden fence
  30. Dig with shovel through 3 feet of snow until I find the garden hose nozzle
  31. Watch husband wrestle with shed doors that are frozen into the ground.
  32. Then watch husband wrestle with garden hose caddy to squeeze it out of the shed doors that won’t open all the way
  33. Watch husband succeed with garden hose caddy and drag end of hose down into the basement to attach to the laundry tub.
  34. Watch Monty nose dive into the snow and simultaneously realize the snow is way deeper than he is
  35. Watch the hose for leaks
  36. Realize not only do we not have any leaks, the entire hose is frozen solid and the water is not entering the hose.
  37. Watch husband drag hose caddy into basement to thaw.
  38. Check drippage rate
  39. Constant at 1 drip per second
  40. Go to bed
  41. Wake up to survey situation
  42. Dipping now through the bathroom ceiling fan too
  43. And in the spare bedroom ceiling
  44. And in the spare bedroom window casing
  45. Go downstairs to cry when we see the kitchen is leaking everywhere
  46. Water is coming around the microwave above the stove, the bulkhead is covered in bubbling paint, the veneer on the end of the kitchen cupboards is peeling off the cupboard to allow more water to leak out
  47. Strategically place bowls and towels
  48. Email in late for work
  49. Make husband get ready for work to attend important work meeting
  50. Get hose attached for hot water attack
  51. Drag hose out the basement walkout and around the house
  52. Watch husband spray roof
  53. Check inside to make sure drips aren’t turning into gushers due to hot water hose
  54. Attempt to climb up hill behind house to see where water is spraying on roof because the ladder is too short to see
  55. Realize that we have 3-4 feet of snow everywhere and I can’t get back into the woods
  56. Climb wood pile, but realize I’m still not high enough.
  57. Cry.
  58. Say bye to husband
  59. Take over hot water hose.
  60. Get wet.
  61. Eventually come to the realization we need a much taller ladder, or a much shorter house, and much more hot water.
  62. Drag hose back into basement.
  63. Receive call from father who works to convince me my house isn’t going to collapse if I go to work
  64. Shower quickly in what is left of the hot water.
  65. Strategically place more towels and bowls.
  66. Go to work as the temperature is dropping and the wind warning of 90 km/hr wind gusts comes into effect
  67. Listen to co-workers explain how I should get the ice off the roof.
  68. Work on taming my inner voice before it becomes loud enough for co-workers to hear.
  69. Drive home in near zero visibility with wind gusts near 100 km/hr to find that all drips have ceased because it is so cold out.
  70. Wonder why my bathroom ceiling has resumed leaking at 8pm when there is a windchill of -28

To be continued.

Our House Anniversary – 1 Year!

House/Moving/Repairs

Today is our one year house anniversary!

August 27th, 2007 was the day we took possession of our house.

I remember we drove from Ontario with the truck FULL of everything that didn’t go with the movers – including 2 dogs, a cat, and my aquarium fish!

I remember a year ago this morning, we got to visit the house that morning for the final walk through. The realtor said we could leave some things there – but just in case something went awry with the deal, we decided to go in to town and wait for the deal to finalize – hopefully by noon.

All day we anxiously awaited a phone call to tell us the key was ready for us to pick it up from the lawyer. And we anxiously waited all day. Every few hours the sun would shift and we would move to another parking lot to keep the dogs cool.

I think it was after 4 o’clock before we got the key!

That night we unloaded everything from the truck. I spilled an entire bag of dog food on the driveway because the bottom was soggy. We had a lawn chair each to relax on in our new kitchen. We cooked some pre-made pizzas from the grocery store. Jeff had to cut up the pizza with his pocket knife – we didn’t have any dishes or utensils! The moving truck wasn’t expected for another day so we slept on the floor of our empty master bedroom. It was even less comfortable than it sounds!

So now here we are a year later. There are a few boxes still not unpacked (yes they’re mine! get off my back!) We are very happy with our house purchase and hope to have many more years in our palace on the hill!

Quick Updates

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-we’re busy unpacking
-we got Nova Scotia driver’s licenses today and a new license plate with the Bluenose on it!
-we won’t get our satellite internet for possibly 2 weeks so I signed up today for a Sympatico dial up account
-the speed of this dial up is absolutely killing me
-it may just take 6 months for us to finish unpacking (the movers didn’t unpack, they just unloaded the truck for us)
-phone number here is 902.783.2874
-I’ve already found a job to apply for
-I saw a hummingbird yesterday
-the lady who was looking after the house all summer informed us there is a snake living in the shed
-we’re both incredibly sore and achy and a little short on patience sometimes
-this is THE most beautiful place on earth

We’re in Nova Scotia

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We’re in Nova Scotia!
And we’re tired and going to bed, so here is the brief low-down.
We’re in Stellarton, Nova Scotia. We’re only 58.2 km from Antigonish (or so says Google maps). We stayed in a little dive motel last night just of Drummonville, Quebec. We visited with Jeff’s friend’s outside Ottawa for 3 hours and had dinner there. It was nice to visit and meet his good friends.
Montreal was yucky, not because of traffic, because of so many turns and merges and once we all of a sudden had to be over 3 lanes and exiting. I didn’t care for it at all. New Brunswick has a new highway that is about to open all the way down to Fredericton – after that you can pretty much go from Waterloo to Antigonish on a split fast highway (speed limits are 110 out here).
Zeus has done sooooo awesome – not a single accident in his crate and he is fantastic in the hotel rooms. We’re really relieved. I think he likes riding in this bigger crate better (Monty’s plastic puppy kennel) and we put him back with the dogs so he can see them.

-gotta take Monty outside, brb-

back, and something just crawled into my sandal and stung the top of my foot. OUCH. Must have been one of those biting ants or something. It stings really bad, but not quite as bad as the two wasp stings did on my arm a couple weeks ago. Oh cool, a bump is starting to swell.
Okay, we’re going to bed. At 10am tomorrow we meet with the real estate agent who is taking us out to the house for a pre-closure inspection. Then we will go back into Antigonish to meet the lawyer at 12:30. Remember we’re in the Atlantic time zone now so we get to live each hour before we hand it off to you ;D