very excited about my house reno's

Well i've had a couple of big days... i put in a new set of stairs going to the basement, as well as a new location (under the stairs going upstairs) instead of in the middle of the kitchen. Also i covered the dangerous hole... they turned out pretty good, Its my 3rd set on this house, i'm getting good at them (unfortunatly)
Its nice to be able to get ANYTHING down them now as the old ones were so steep it was like climing a ladder (no kidding) Now i can take my freezer and new washer and dryer downstairs without removing the stairs... and get the wood stove and boiler system out of the basement.
I also put in a new shower, opened up the box, which we've had for about 9 months, and one of the glass doors is in a 1000 pieces...shit... so i phoned the company that made it.. they shipped to my door a brand new door for the shower no charge... that really impressed me as they were a company from Quebec...thats not a common thing to get good Customer Service from Quebec.
For any of you reno'ing an old house........good luck....dont get discouraged....and.......dont let inlaws help.

Sounds good Brent!!!

Those stairs can be a bitch!! Sounds like your making some great progress!!

Keep the inlaws away!!

Bill

Yeah..its been quite a journey.. its cutting into my sideline business stuff though....kinda pissing me off
well its cutting into my sideline business FUND mostly....i can make the time.....lol

Ha, I know what you mean!!

I was just bitching the other day about my stupid cordless drill that is dead every time I go to use it!!! Oh well, I have two batt's so I can keep one on the charger.

Do you have much more renos to do or are you getting close to the end?

Bill

I guess the renos are NEVER really done!!

Bill

No i got lots left. I want to have the mainfloor at least drywalled before our wedding in Jan. We are doing the canspec grant so according to that it expires in march 2010, so i have to have the place insulated and VB'd, windows, etc.. before then so we can collect out money for making our place "eco friendly"
I'm curious to see the difference in the gas bill each month.. it was ~300 per winter month, and we had absolutly NO insulation in the mainfloor. the upstairs was insulated but no vapour barrier. I'm hoping my get my energy consumption under 200 per winter month. We'll have to cut back on the hydro too, but i suspect we'll only be able to get it down to ~250/month.

It helps a bunch. We live in a newer house now and having the insulation and VB is nice. It saves cash but it is much more comfortable too, no drafts and cold spots in the house.

The tax write off is a sweet deal.

Bill

yeah the tax's too, so we can double dip. the canspec is a grant, then the tax incentive.. well i'm sure i maxed that 10,000 out a long time ago, LOL. this place was REAL drafty. i pushed snow up around the house to cut it down...(then shovelled it away in the spring) Did you get the tornado's yesterday?

Nope, it got really windy, lots of thunder etc, but we are south-west of TO. It looks like it did some pretty severe damage.

Bill

Yeah, my parents put in geothermal in their old farm house with that grant too. It sure saves them a bunch. They spray-foamed the whole basement, and added a bunch of insulation to the attic.

And they got air conditioning out of the deal too!! (haven't needed it much this year )

Bill

Diggindeeper wrote:Well i've had a couple of big days... i put in a new set of stairs going to the basement, as well as a new location (under the stairs going upstairs) instead of in the middle of the kitchen. Also i covered the dangerous hole... they turned out pretty good, Its my 3rd set on this house, i'm getting good at them (unfortunatly)
Its nice to be able to get ANYTHING down them now as the old ones were so steep it was like climing a ladder (no kidding) Now i can take my freezer and new washer and dryer downstairs without removing the stairs... and get the wood stove and boiler system out of the basement.
I also put in a new shower, opened up the box, which we've had for about 9 months, and one of the glass doors is in a 1000 pieces...shit... so i phoned the company that made it.. they shipped to my door a brand new door for the shower no charge... that really impressed me as they were a company from Quebec...thats not a common thing to get good Customer Service from Quebec.
For any of you reno'ing an old house........good luck....dont get discouraged....and.......dont let inlaws help.

Im guessing your basement isn't a "walk out" one?

Around here all the houses that have basements are walk out style. Some neighborhoods the houses with basements include a basement garage in addition to the regular garage.

LOL no.. none of that here. I did wire a house like that though..it was a super cool pad..even though he filled both garages with nothing cool, just crap built out of wood. (he's dutch)
No, my house is old, build in '27 so my basement is a hole. too low to use for anything other than storage and laundry really.. G'dam gold rush homes.

I also put in a new shower, opened up the box, which we've had for about 9 months, and one of the glass doors is in a 1000 pieces...shit... so i phoned the company that made it.. they shipped to my door a brand new door for the shower no charge... that really impressed me as they were a company from Quebec...thats not a common thing to get good Customer Service from Quebec.
For any of you reno'ing an old house........good luck....dont get discouraged....and.......dont let inlaws help.[/quote]

This reminds me of our shower from hell that I bought from Home Depot about six years ago. I ordered all the fixtures for our main bathroom in the fall prior to starting so that I would have all the proper dimensions as I was building. They did not ship for a couple of weeks because the shower door was on back order. It finally came in and they shipped the lot. When they left I noticed that there was no shower door. Called them and they all but accused me of trying to get a second one for nothing. They finally ordered a second one. Who knows what happened to the first one.
Sometime in the spring I went out to my storage shed where they had put all the shower parts to get measurements of the top section. I opened up the box only to find a large hole in the fiberglas. I called Home Depot and they told me that it was damaged from been stored in the cold outside. What a line of crap! After some choice words including telling them that I was glad that I had never purchased a Corvette they finally ordered me a new top.
When I started to assemble the shower I found that there was a crack in the fiberglas in the bottom section. This certainly had to have happened in the factory as the entire underneath area was re-inforced with fiberglas and wood. After another fight with Home Depot they told me to complete the installation and then they would have their repairman come and do a repair to the crack. This was done and fortunately it came out great.
I used American Standard taps in this bathroom for the first time. This turned out to be a mistake as the tub control developed a crack in the fitting going to the shower (that was capped off) after the first year. They were not the solder in type which I usually use but a thin walled female thread where you had to screw in an adapter. Four years later the same thing happened to the one in the notorious shower stall. Only this time it was the cold water supply fitting meaning that it was spraying water all the time. I opted working through an enlarged opening behind the control valve to chop away wood and repair the leak with epoxy. This saved me from having to demolish the tiles on the other side. I now have placed hose clamps around these fittings to hopefully stop any future cracking. Oh I forgot to mention all the repairs that I had to make to the kitchen ceiling below. All in all a nightmare.

you didnt did you









Did you let the inlaws help, they always do shit wrong, and then make it look like you did, sounds like your getting a lot done, keep up the good work man