Contractors, Electrical Work, and building IKEA furniture

So much has happened at No. 77 in the last ten days I hardly know where to start this update!

How about we go section by section?

WALLPAPER
MAN, this wallpaper has consumed my week. But let me tell you, I now know about 37 different techniques for removing wallpaper, and I did manage to land on a few that really worked. The biggest accomplishment is that it's ALL GONE from the living room, master bedroom, and the office. And, the trim is all paper-taped and ready for our contractors to come in and mud the seams to make the walls super smooth and ready to paint.

I used a wallpaper steamer to strip most of the wallpaper in the master bedroom, since the bottom two layers were SUPER stubborn and I could not coax it off in any other way. Steaming wallpaper is boring, hot, smelly, tedious work. But steaming was effective and I'm glad I finally got it all done. 

Jordan removing the wallpaper debris. Gross stuff.

Then I had to move on to sanding the walls. Stripping wallpaper off cement board leaves little nubs and chads on the surface of the paper, all of which needed to be removed. And, in the living room, I the bottom-most layer of wallpaper was so brittle it wasn't in an intact enough layer for even the steamer to take it off, so that ended up needing to be sanded off as well. 

So we sealed off each room, donned respirator masks, and went at it. Let's just say it's punishing work. After 8 hours of sanding on Saturday, this was my final post-apocalyptic look: 

Please note my pants are BLACK.

Have you met me? Do you know what colour my hair ACTUALLY is?

All that was left was to vacuum up the centimetre of orange pulverized-wallpaper dust out of each room, and turn it from a weird moonscape into a house again. 

CEILINGS

After stripping and sanding all of the walls, I wasn't about to pull a Michelangelo and do the same process on our ceilings... which are made of the same cement board and covered in three layers of wallpaper. It's just NOT going to happen. 

So, Jordan and I decided to remove some of the beams on the ceilings, to lighten up the look by making the ceilings less dark and oppressive. We've retained the main beams in the office, master bedroom, and the living room. 

Master bedroom ceiling, remaining beams.

Living room ceiling, with a couple missing beams on the right that will go back up.

However, we removed all of the beams in the dining room, because we took out the kitchen wall and want the dining room and kitchen to flow into each other. 

Jordan putting in electrical boxes for our kitchen lighting.

We've asked our contractors to put up drywall on the ceilings. It will just cover the ceilings and give us a smooth, new surface that will be totally paintable. Also it will fit snugly in between each wooden beam, and we'll just finish the edges with some quarter-round trim. 

Electrical and Plumbing

Remember that PIPE we discovered when we took out our kitchen wall? 

Turns out it was just a vent pipe for steam from the bathtub drain. Jordan and Jim were able to remove the original cast-iron pipe (who makes pipes out of CAST IRON anymore!?) and replace it with a PVC pipe, but moved it into the corner of the wall.

Problem SOLVED.

Jordan and Jim have also spent a ton of time this week working on the electrical outlets in the kitchen, moving the switches and plugs from the removed wall to places where we need and will use power in our new kitchen.

Here's a list of what they've done:

• moved a light switch from the floor into the wall just to the left of the door entering the dining room
• converted an outlet from behind the old stove into a power source for our new range hood and fan
• ran wiring into new boxes for pendant lighting that will hang above our kitchen peninsula

And probably a bunch more that I can't remember right now! 

Contractors, YAY!

After removing all the wallpaper debris, sanding, vacuuming, and paper taping all our millwork (baseboards, and trim on windows and doors), we were ready for Jay and Eric to come in and work their magic. They set up shop yesterday, and went straight to work patching up all those cement board seams, as well as smoothing out rough patches and nicks in the wall. 

 

Their work will include: 

• mudding, sanding, and paper taping all the seams
• priming and sanding the walls
• installing drywall on the ceiling
• finishing the walls in our kitchen

Once they're done, we'll be able to PAINT THE HOUSE. I think I'm gonna cry when I roll that first coat on. It's been a PROCESS to get to this point. 

IKEA building party!

Last but not least, this is MY task for this week: 

77 boxes of IKEA kitchen cabinets got delivered to our No. 77 house yesterday. How perfect is that? My bestie Charlotte came over for a few hours in the afternoon, and we catalogued and organized every single box (not a single one missing!). Then, we built four of our 12 total cabinets for the kitchen. With bright pink hammers and screwdrivers. The goal is to install it early next week! 

Some final thoughts...

I can't believe how much we've gotten done so far. We are nowhere near the end, folks, don't get me wrong. But seriously. We are pretty much on schedule. And we have had So. Much. Help. from so many friends! I wish I could introduce them all here, and tell you all the big and little things they've done to help us out, from bringing coffee to holding the shop vac while I sanded the living room, cutting through 100-year-old cast iron pipe, from pulling out bushes in the backyard to itemizing IKEA cabinets. 

A friend recently posted on Facebook, "People who don't accept help are rarely reached out to for help." Or, put another way: If you ask your friends for help, they will ask you for help. 

So many people have already come in and out of our house in the last two weeks. We've already spent hours drinking coffee, eating lunch, and taking snack breaks on our amazing front porch. We have asked everyone we know in London for help, or to borrow their tools. We are asking for a lot of favours now and running up huge relational "debts." Jordan and I are going to be returning these favours for years. 

But honestly? We wouldn't want it any other way. Life is meant for relationships and community, and nothing forges friendship faster than sharing hard work and accomplishing something concrete. 

So when you are next tackling your big life project, call us up. We've got our work clothes ready. 

Demo Day #2: Wallpaper, and demolition, and debris... oh my!

Oh man, am I ever tired.

Renovating a house is the ultimate in "lifestyle" fitness (of which Jordan is a great advocate). Yesterday, for 10 hours, I did squats, shoulder presses, chest presses, and cardio. Today, I feel like a limp noodle.

But we got SO much accomplished in just a few short days!

Friday afternoon, after my final exam (!) of my Master's (!!!), I went straight to the house and J. and I tried to get a good picture of exactly what we wanted to do on Saturday, with all our amazing helpers.

The biggest decision we made was what to do with the walls. So, after trying a number of very frustrating and unsuccessful methods, I felt I had a good grasp of the technique required to strip the wallpaper. I had managed to reveal enough of the wall underneath so that our contractor friend, Jay, could come over and take a look at it and give us our options as to how to finish the walls.

He didn't recognize the under-layer, so got his dad on the phone. After texting over a photo, we heard Jay's dad say, "Ohhhh that stuff is the worst."

Uh oh.

We discovered that under the seven layers of brittle wallpaper lay cement board. It's about a 1/2 inch of cement covered in paper on either side. The panels are about 3 feet wide, and are sealed with nails and a plaster-like seam.

Our options, after talking them over with Jay, were:

1) Tear out all the cement board, replacing it with drywall. While this would be doing it "right," it would cost the most, cause a TON of debris, and you never know what you will find behind those walls!
2) Simply put up a layer of 1/4" drywall OVER the existing walls, wallpaper and all. This would be the fastest and simplest option. However, we'd lose some depth on our beautiful baseboards and millwork around the windows and doors.
3) Strip all the wallpaper, sand all the surfaces smooth, nail in all the rusty nails flush with the walls, paper tape all the seams, and put a skim coat of mud over all the walls. This is by far the most labour-intensive option, but would cause the least waste of materials. However, once everything's mudded and painted, the surface would also have a slight "ribboning" effect, which means that if you run your hand over the surface, you would feel a slight bump at each seam.

Option 1 wasn't really an option for us, considering the cost and time it would require. Jordan was drawn to Option 2, but I felt strongly and morally opposed to simply covering up the wallpaper nightmare. I would ALWAYS know it was there, lurking underneath the drywall. Jordan was reluctant to consider Option 3, saying "it'll take you a week to strip all that paper!"

But I said, "Let me try!"

My method for taking off the wallpaper consisted of scoring, spraying, and then stripping it.

First, we took a scoring tool and poked tiny little holes in the wallpaper. (Pro tip #1: Do NOT give the wallpaper stripper to your biggest, burliest friend. Ahem, RYAN. It is likely he will be too exuberant, causing the tiny plastic wheels on the scoring tool to overheat and MELT. Pro tip #2: If you take said broken tool back to the store within an hour of buying it, the nice people will probably replace it for you. No charge.)

This is the "Wax on, wax off" stage of Grasshopper training.

Then, wearing a respirator mask, you spray warm water mixed with a concentrate of wallpaper stripper solution on the walls to soak it through. (Without the respirator, you get a wicked sore throat. NOT GOOD for singers!) Wait until it drys. 

Then, using a stainless steel putty knife, we found the seams of the panels, because the wallpaper for some reason doesn't stick as well to the seams. Once we revealed the seams, I could slip the edge of the putty knife under the lowest layer of wallpaper, and with any luck, strip it off in chunks. And here's what the finished office looks like, sans wallpaper:

Ryan and I got this room done in a couple hours! I felt very proud of us. 

The master bedroom had it's own six layers of wallpaper, including a super dark floral layer and a layer of blue paint. However, the wallpaper in that room isn't coming off easily. I think it will require a couple rounds of scoring and spraying to really start to come down. 

However, once Amalea and I got into the living room, the wallpaper in there came off like a dream! After scoring and spraying and letting it dry for a couple hours, we were able to take the paper off the whole room in less than an hour! THAT was satisfying. 

So even though we will eventually have slight bumps in the wall from the seams of the cement board, I think we will be really happy with the final result. 

Meanwhile...

Our friend Jim came back and helped Jordan cap off the water in the kitchen. Then they took out the rest of the kitchen. Here's what it looks like now, but that big beam at the end of the dining room ceiling also came down:

In the basement, Jordan and Pete took down some of the ceiling so we can run some electrical through for the kitchen.

So here's a current look from the living room through to the dining room: 

Mama and Papa K. came back through the house after our initial demo day, and were so impressed with how much had changed. We are so blessed to have had such amazing help yesterday!

Here's a list of everything we got done:

• capped water and uninstalled kitchen sink
• uninstalled cabinets in kitchen
• took down many, many, many beams of the coffer ceilings to make it less "oppressive" while still maintaining the style and distinctive look
• took down the huge mirror from the living room
• stripped wallpaper in office and living room
• took a trailer of debris to the dump and already filled up a second trailer
• bought a compost bin at the dump
• brought up a cabinet from the basement and organized the sunroom into "reno command centre"

Tomorrow we're making a run to Ikea to order our kitchen! It'll be good to have a day off from the manual labour! 

UP NEXT: chiseling tile out of the kitchen and stripping the last of the wallpaper! 

Demo Day #1 and already a change of plans!

We picked up our keys yesterday and boy were we excited!!!

We went straight over to the house from the lawyer's office, where our keys were attached to a little leather cutout of a beaver. I leapt through the front door in excitement and immediately started peeling wallpaper off the walls.

The first layer came off too easily. But is there really anything more satisfying than pulling off an entire panel of wallpaper in one piece!?

And guess what was underneath? Wallpaper. And MORE WALLPAPER. 

Seriously, guys, there are SEVEN LAYERS of wallpaper. And, for good measure, a layer of yellow paint between layer 2 and 3. Can you see them? From the top layer down: a brownish-green vertical stripe pattern, a beige spotty pattern, another beige stripey pattern, a blue hatch-mark weave pattern, then the beautiful yellow paint layer, and then an "I-swear-this-is-a-camouflage-pattern" layer, and... you guessed it, another beige layer right on top of the drywall. 

Today, with tools, wallpaper remover, and my mother-in-law Chris, we went at the wallpaper in the den. While the top layer came off like a dream, the other six layers are NOT coming off easily. We will have to choose between either 1) scoring, spraying, and scraping Every. Single. Layer. off the wall, or 2) hammer-and-chiseling all the layers off at once, but in Tiny. Little. Chunks.

We knew renovating this house was going to be a labour of love, but it just got a whole lot lovier. This is the smallest of the three rooms, plus a long hallway, that needs wallpaper stripped. And don't even say it. I WILL NOT paint over all those layers and just make it worse!

Meanwhile...

Mister J., his Papa, and our friend Jim attacked the kitchen.

Seriously. They ATTACKED it:

There were sledgehammers, chisels, reciprocating saws, and crowbars a-plenty. And lots of NOISE, and dust, and debris, of course. 

But after removing all the hardware, all this wood, a pile of tile, the old cabinets, and a wall, here is our new beautiful open kitchen! 

Okay, so it's not beautiful yet. But to me, it's Gorgeous.

We discovered a pipe, though. Not sure what we're going to do with that pipe. It's right in the middle of what will hopefully be a walkway.

But the major change to our reno plans is the colour scheme of the main floor. Remember how I said we were going to paint the coffered ceilings and all the trim around the windows and doors white? Well, the quote for bringing all that wood up to paint grade was wayyyyyy outside our budget.

So we're going to keep the wood dark brown. Which, now that I think about it, is actually a better decision. Once you take trim white, you can never go back. After some time spent on Pinterest looking at inspiration for "craftsman dark wood colour schemes," we've decided to go green! Here's our favourite inspiration:

We'll also be painting the ceiling (not the wood bits) a nice white, which will lighten up the colour scheme quite a bit, kind of like other awesome inspiration photo: 

What do you think? I can't WAIT to get to the painting stage. 

NEXT UP: More wallpaper peeling, and more kitchen demo! 

A Sunday Musing: To Be of Use

I've started going through books, asking each volume whether or not it would like to come live at No. 77 with us, if it will enliven the imagination and keep company on dark winter nights. Some books cry out to come along for the dusty adventure of moving into a house being renovated! Others say, "Thank you, but send us along to some other home."

I pulled a volume off the shelf this afternoon, that every time I've moved has been scrutinized and re-evaluated. But today, before I placed it in the giveaway pile, I randomly flipped to a page, and this poem struck me as utterly appropriate for our upcoming home reno. The poem also reminded me of so many people in our lives who have demonstrated this fearless approach to hard work, a willingness to dive in, roll up their sleeves, as if to say, "I'm here to work until the work is done." We are heading into many months of dust, grime, chaos, obstacles, and hopefully many successes and delights along the way. This poem reminded me that the way in which you give yourself over to a task often transforms both the task and the doer. Not only will we be renovating a house, there may be some renovating of our spirits as well: patience, determination, cheerfulness, gratitude, creativity will all be essential to our survival and success.

So, I wanted to share the poem with you.

You may be happy to know that this particular book will be "of use" to us in our new home.

To Be of Use
The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hand, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

- Marge Piercy
in Circles on the Water

Poem found in Spiritual Literacy: Reading the Sacred in Everyday Life by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat.

Starting at the very beginning

So... we bought a house.

When we first moved here, we didn't think we would actually stay here. But this little town has worked its way into our hearts and we found ourselves this spring looking at every MLS listing in our three favourite neighborhoods. We saw some baaaad houses. We saw some nice ones we'd never be able to afford.

After a particularly bad day of visiting houses which felt haunted, or disgusting, or smelled really bad, I went back to the listings we'd passed over early in our search, and No. 77 didn't seem like such a bad option to me anymore. "Jordan, I think we'd better go see this one."

So we did.

After a 1 hour visit to the home, we said goodbye to our infinitely patient realtor and went to a nearby café and made a list of everything we'd like to do to the house. It was a long list. But MAN we were kind of excited.

And then we made an offer on No. 77... and 5 days later, after some negotiations and even bumping another accepted (but conditional) offer, our offer was accepted! We set the closing date at three weeks from our offer, so as a result of this blisteringly short lead time, we get the keys this coming Wednesday!

But let me tell you about the house. It's in our favourite neighbourhood in town, Wortley Village. It's located between two beautiful parks. The house was built in 1923, and is 1 and 1/2 stories with a full and finished basement. The exterior is brick, and at the front of the house has the most gorgeously inviting front porch, complete with a swing. We have four bedrooms and two bathrooms, in addition to a south-facing sunroom at the back of the house. There are coffer-style ceilings throughout the main floor, and beautiful wood trim around all the windows and doors. Underneath the carpet, also throughout the main floor, is lovely hardwood just waiting to be refinished.

The previous owners lived there for 50 years, and while it needs some cosmetic modernizing, they meticulously maintained it. Everything is in immaculate condition, right down to the orange and brown boomerang-worm patterned carpeting in the attic:

And the basement! How can I describe it? It's like the love child of an Austrian ski lodge and a Norwegian sauna:

Oh yes. And the kitchen. It's big enough to fit Audrey Hepburn, and that's about it. And orange. Did I mention that orange is a popular colour? 

Look at those lovingly hand-made cabinets. And the gorgeous shape of those handles! They will definitely be kept and refinished (I'm thinking a gunmetal grey) and repurposed in our new kitchen. 

So while our list of renovation project ideas is a mile long, the house has amazing bones and piles of potential to be as stunning inside as it is on the outside. 

We'll be posting lots of before and after photos here, as well as updates on our progress. Our biggest reno goal this summer is to get the whole main floor updated to our own style. Here's a rundown of what we're *hoping* to accomplish this summer: 

• Complete kitchen reno, including knocking out the wall between the dining room and the kitchen to expand it and make the whole hospitality side of the house open-concept. This is by far the biggest and most dramatic portion of our project! 
• Paint all the coffered ceilings and dark wood trim a satin white.
• Paint all the walls on the main floor.
• Rip out carpeting and restore hardwood floors. 
• Install tile flooring in the kitchen and the front entrance.
• Change out lighting fixtures in all the rooms. 

Of course, you know what they say about the best-laid plans and certain roads being paved with good intentions. I'm an idealist, a dreamer married to a cool-headed realist. Jordan tends to temper my crazy goals. But we accomplish a ton when we're working together. And we love a project. 

So wish us luck, check back here often, and pop by anytime! We promise to feed and water anyone who comes by the house wearing their work clothes. ;) 

COMING UP NEXT: Photos of No. 77 when we get our keys on Wednesday, April 15!