The Adventure Goes On (and On)
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| Bug condo under the old study window -- Paul says it's a wasp nest. |
The first week of August, Moira, my sister Karen, our friend Bonnie Leadbeater, and I spent a week on Pender Island. Bonnie and our friend Dave Hultsch (who lives on Pender) were walking around Roe Lake when my cell phone rang and I foolisly answered. It was our contractor, calling to let me know that he had discovered that the main beam of the house was not directly below the main wall of house. Rather, the beam was quite a few inches to the west. That's no problem with a bearing wall, but with bearing points on either side of a wide archway (as we are to have between kitchen and good room) it is a major issue. We had retained experts from Hoel Engineering LTD to develop a plan for supporting the archway. The plan they produced was based on the assumption that the main beam of the house was directly below the main wall. That is, they did not MEASURE the location of the beam, they just ASSUMED it lined up with the wall. We were subsequently charged for an additional visit by the Hoel engineer (Richie Smith) to fix this problem. He insists that Hoel had no responsibility for determining the relationship between the posts, the beam, and the archway. I would have thought that was a central part of a structural engineer's responsibility in this situation. A reno is a learning opportunity.
The first week of August, Moira, my sister Karen, our friend Bonnie Leadbeater, and I spent a week on Pender Island. Bonnie and our friend Dave Hultsch (who lives on Pender) were walking around Roe Lake when my cell phone rang and I foolisly answered. It was our contractor, calling to let me know that he had discovered that the main beam of the house was not directly below the main wall of house. Rather, the beam was quite a few inches to the west. That's no problem with a bearing wall, but with bearing points on either side of a wide archway (as we are to have between kitchen and good room) it is a major issue. We had retained experts from Hoel Engineering LTD to develop a plan for supporting the archway. The plan they produced was based on the assumption that the main beam of the house was directly below the main wall. That is, they did not MEASURE the location of the beam, they just ASSUMED it lined up with the wall. We were subsequently charged for an additional visit by the Hoel engineer (Richie Smith) to fix this problem. He insists that Hoel had no responsibility for determining the relationship between the posts, the beam, and the archway. I would have thought that was a central part of a structural engineer's responsibility in this situation. A reno is a learning opportunity.
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| Extra-wide post in the basement. |
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| Arch between kitchen-to-be and good-room-to-be. |
The windows are in and look great:
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| South-facing window; eventually the sink will be in front of this. |
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| West-facing window in the good room. |
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| South-facing doors. |
Unfortunately they were delivered without a handset, so no way to lock them. Paul Brownsey, the salesman from Westeck, told us to buy a standard 2 3/8 offset handset, so we shopped at two places and bought one, but it didn't remotely fit. I took photos of how the door had been milled for a handset on my phone and showed them to the lock geeks at Prices Locks. They were all agog that such a non-standard set-up would be delivered without a handset. It took a week to get the required handset from Westeck, during which time the security of our house was severely compromised. But, as I said, they are gorgeous.
The sun tunnels are amazing. They are 14" metal tubes with highly reflective inner surfaces that seem to amplify the light. Way cool!
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| The diffuser on each tunnel softens the light. |
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| Up goes the sheet rock (check out cool apparatus for holding it up). |
Most if not all of the sheet rock should be in place by Monday 29 August. Mudding and taping and sanding of the joints, and then on Wednesday the floorers are scheduled to come in to take up and re-lay the fir flooring (filling ruined parts with new used fir). Then painting. When we started we had hoped to be finished by now, but in the current plan the cabinets arrive on 19 September. So it looks like another 5 weeks of reno adventure.
