Projects

So after a winter of painting every surface in our house, I had no choice but to break free of the walls and dig up the yard for a kickass garden. The result has been jaw-dropping. It was an amazing year for gardens. And mosquitoes. And floods. And train derailments. And hot fall weather.
So we got so many tomatoes, and such big ones, we're rushing to pick and cook 'em faster than we can manage!

Over the summer, we did a few other things.
1. Porch.
What started out innocently removing a few steps on the porch to see what was underneath turned into an entire rebuild of our stairs and landing to the house. Complete with Justin working underneath a 1/2 ton porch roof with me standing guard to pull him out if it collapsed. Stress.

2. Destruct-or
We tore apart the back ...deck? porch? Don't know what the thing was, but it's gone now. This was to prep for the addition. Underneath was a nice concrete pad that we've been enjoying actually. But soon to be a bathroom/mudroom.

3. Apply for an addition.
Initially we didn't need a fullout Development Permit (meaning huge lists of requirements, 4-10 weeks of waiting, more money for the application, community consulting, etc) for our addition. However, because our property is 3/4 in the floodplain, ultimately even a simple fence or deck would require a fullout DP. Ridonculous, yes. Luckily I knew all the contacts from the alderman's office to the Community Business Revitalization Zone officer (okay, I actually ran into her at the bakery!) and we expedited the permit. It's "in advertising" (literally, it's in the paper!) and in a week we should be able to close that, get the Building Permit and start building this sucka. I can't believe it's actually happening!

4. Hire Heritage Assessment peeps.
 I don't know what they call themselves, but they're kickass cool ladies who come by, look at your old house, then determine what was original, help you replace things that are missing, etc. They aren't cheap, but I love them and I think they are worth every penny. I'm still waiting on the report (and final bill) but I've already learned a few things about my house. Namely, it's NOT 100-years old! Built likely in 1921. There was an old shack basically prior to that that predates 1900, but can't be considered the same house, probably for the best. I'm happy because I like 20s decor way more. The art deco and the glass. Mucho nicer and fancier/classier. Though the house is still Victorian, but I won't feel guilty for not sticking entirely to the ornateness of Victorian decor if I want to get some lighting fixtures and such.

Excavator Digs his Last Hole...

Charlie has a wonderful book that has replaced (thank GOD!) Good Night Moon called Good Nite, Good Nite Construction Site. It's full of construction vehicles that are going to bed after a long day of working at the site.

Apparently all the talk of diggers and walking past Calgary's continuing construction sites (we have one across the street and 3 on the walk to daycare) has had an effect. That or my ovulation hormones that cause nesting, whether you're pregnant or not, caused me to dig up the entire back yard on April long weekend.

It started with the last post, taking down the eyesore greenhouse. Which was really a shed. A shed full of mouse shit. And rotten wood. Then I started digging what I thought were rain gardens a la drylands rain harvesting expert Lancaster. Then I tried digging swales, again, not actually knowing what I was doing. So we have a  yard that looks like it threw up all over the place. But Charlie has been having a blast with his little trucks and his strider bike, which is now an offroad bike. Though he doesn't ride it. He just walks around while holding it, then falls over and says "Elp pwease!!" though he's never hurt.

Taking down the Greenhouse

In what seems like another anti-eco move by us (the first was downing our poor trees in the front yard, for a good reason, they were wrecking the earth, wrecking the roof, and were just unsuitable for growing food around them) we went and scrapped the existing greenhouse.
Again, we want trees. We want a greenhouse. But hail had destroyed the polycarbonate over many years, and the use of the space as a hoarding space by the previous owner/tenants made mice shit a serious hazard. Then there was the issue of rotten wood due to the exposure. Yes, we could have used it. But we want a greenhouse.

It was also oriented the wrong way. You want the broad side of the greenhouse facing South. It was the other way. I've learned recently that we also use greenhouses in North America that were meant for English climates. The idea in your head of a greenhouse is not meant for here. we have the solar potential of FLORIDA, so we need to orient South and insulate North.

The pig trough-y thing in the foreground was from the greenhouse and we'll try to salvage it as a planter box once lined. The old yellow bench is stuck in the snow. At least we have a nice view of our pallet/plywood fence!

After Because Seriously, all the rooms are the same size and they all sucked when we bought the place! - "Master"

Tiny but our cozy retreat:)

Before and After - Charlie's Room

 

Before and After - Guest Room

After repainting the guest room (yup, I made more work than we already had on the docket), here is the result with a few random duvets, frames and stuff thrown in for good measure;)

Before and After - Kitchen

I'll be honest. The only reason I'm finally posting an after shot of the kitchen is due to our affinity for renos. We are planning an addition on the kitchen. Sorry, it had to happen. The cave basement bathroom  toilet and sink are totally inaccessible. When we bought the house, we had visions of fixing up the basement, but we didn't think it through too well. We'll never fix the stairs going downstairs as they are under the 2nd floor stairs. So hello to head injuries.

So onwards with a main floor bath which is better anyways because the aging population over 50 and 60 isn't going anywhere soon. And neither are their bad hips, knees, backs, nor is my kid going to be a genius at potty-training. picture me trying to go through a baby gate and up 16 stairs with a kid who says "I can't hold it mommy!" So there you have it. Addition onwards.

Here's some shots.

 

 

 

 

 

Spindles and Paint, paint, paint

Would you believe that we've painted every single surface in our house minus a few ceilings, closets and a couple of areas of trim? I mean every heat vent (the Victorian ones that are situated vertically), uneven baseboard, 3 coats on the living room ceilings (and still yellow), every door, every rosette, and I'm going to throw in that I have changed my mind 3 times in some rooms so those got an extra layer or two (shameful).

We never finished our staircase. We started to strip it, and well, it looks half-stripped. Much less sexy than that term might suggest in another context. It looks like peeling paint that maybe you could just grab a hold of and the whole thing would come off, but it never does. You get a tiny bit, laden with some lead dust probaby, and then you're standing there addicted to getting a bigger piece. Sadly it's as productive as picking at a scab, so yeah, not productive at all, and likely dangerous.

On to the spindles. We installed a few or 50 right before the furniture came, Justin threw (it looked like he threw) some nails in them, and they have sat for 9ish months. So I convinced him to punch the nails in so I could wood-fill them. Tonight I tried to sand my putty down and got back on the addictive peeling paint train. After finding myself covered in (lead?) dust I finally threw in the towel. I've managed so well to ignore the ugly thing so long. Now it should take at least 3 weeks to figure out how to ignore something I don't think I'll ever finish again.

Got to give a shout-out to J's mom, who spent about 25 hours on that railing on a hot August weekend with me. She had bronchitis. Which basically sums up the whole reno in one description. Sick, cranky and desperate to finish something, anything.

Hugelkultur

In late October we got our first snowfall. Little did I know that would spark a winter of dreaded illness in many ways for me and my house. I think the key was that we got sick initially, and this compromised our immunity for the rest of the winter. On average me or the little brownbear were sick every 2 weeks since October.

That first snowfall my parents were in town. My mom and I went to buy some marked-down shrubs and tulips which I dug through the snow to plant the following week. Great.

My father helped me to prune the neglected apple tree. It seemed to result in pruning almost the whole thing. Looking at my yard on the left it seems like we have a lot of open space. In fact it looks more like the picture on the right.

See all the wires? The one from our house to our garage (the garage is to the left of the car) is actually almost reachable by a tall person. The electrician said we could "hang from it" if we wanted meaning it isn't dangerous to touch. But you see how difficult it is to have an apple tree or anything in the yard? Pergolas, even a deck, is too close to the wires.

So the answer is complicated. We are going to put an addition on the house where the existing little ramshackle patio is in the picture to the left of the apple tree. It will give us a second bath since our basement bath is truly inaccessible for those with legs and a head. It will maybe give us a bigger eating area which means our official dining room can remain extra space for brownbear to have his toys. It may also provide a laundry area that isn't in the aforementioned basement and in a perfect world, a bit of a mudroom that will really be just a bench and closet. But that's pushing it.


After pruning the apple tree to almost nothing by making sure most of the branches dangerously close to electrical were taken care of (ALL THE BRANCHES) we had a ton of branches on the snowy ground. My dad thought I was a little nuts to be freezing my hands sawing all the branches into neat little uniform pieces. And then told me matter-of-factly "not my problem" when I explained that I essentially had a yard full of demo-ed tree. So I figured out that you can pile up branches and leave them to rot. Of course you can, duh. It's just a bit ugly and time-consuming if you're in a small area and want things to happen quicker. So I found out that hugelkultur exists where you can dig the pile into the ground and plant on it.

That was the point. To tell you what Hugelkultur was. And now you know a bunch of other random stuff too.