Takin' the Bull by the Horns

Well, we're doin it. And I'm in charge.

We're setting out to list this house in 4 weeks.

Under my direction of 'what needs to be done next' Mr. J has been going full force at elminating his packrat collection. Over the course of the weekend, we packed up a full load in Cousin J's van and hauled it off to the storage unit. Then Cousin J and Mr. J took another load this afternoon, of mostly big stuff. (read, stuff I couldn't carry) We've already got another load ready to go.

We have now entirely cleared out the spare bedroom, and have nearly cleared out our own bedroom. By the end of this evening, I'm setting out that we'll have moved our bed and our skeleton crew of clothes which now live in rubbermaid totes into the spare room, and emptied our bedroom.

By tomorrow evening, I plan to have primed and given the first coat of paint to our bedroom.

Cousin GW is coming over tomorrow evening. He's a real professional woodworker and cabinet maker. He's going to custom fabricate a threshold for between our kitchen and dining room, and give us a quote on making the cupboard doors. We got a quote from another guy already who said $50 a door, which is a little too much for us, so we'll see what GW says.

On top of all that of course, we're still going strong on the kitchen reno.

This is the kitchen before, as it was when Mr. J purchased the house 7 years back. This is all the house originally had for cupboards and counter space.



Ye Ol' Standard issue 1970s faucet



This is what happens when you don't repair a leaky faucet for roughly ten years. The bottom was mush, and I just put my finger right through it.



Here's my little helper, boy S showing off our non-existent kitchen after cousin J and I ripped it out.



Re-construction in action!! This is the base of the new lower cabinet after cousin J and I started in on it.



And that's all the pics for now. I'm off to send some piggies packing out of the spare room and into the basement.

Climbing Stairs

It would seem that the stairs have become much too well worn by my feet in the last few days. I have done approx. 20 loads of laundry-which would be me carrying the loads both up and down from the second story, to the basement and back up, and then, sometimes, back down to the main level. My legs are so worn. I feel as though the stairs have become a symbol for the difficulty I am having in acheiving my goals of getting this place sorted and emptied, as my body is giving out in climbing them, and it seems as though I'm trapped somehow, by the stairs, constantly climbing, but never going anywhere.

It's official though, that Mr. J has TOO MUCH STUFF. He's perhaps what some people (not including himself) would consider a 'packrat personality'.

He has a lot of things. He has so many things, that it is becoming quite evident that his belongings are making it increasingly difficult to continue with the renovations, as they are in the way...they're blocking stairwells, and hallways and there are entire rooms filled with wine bottles. Well almost. There are boxes of things left behind from tenants of the past, there are boxes of things that were hastily picked up off the floor one day sometime ago, there are boxes of things that were removed from his last home (nearly 7 years ago) and haven't been opened since, there are stacks upon stacks of books (well many he has now packed up, but he keeps setting aside some that he may want to read in the next little while, and there is enough to fill another shelf) There is a collection of hand-me-down shoes, many came from his Mother (I dunno where she got them), which I have never seen him wear, but he doesn't want to part with them (we're talking like 20 or so pairs), there is a good deal of things which actually belong to Mr. J's best friend (we'll call him Mr.C), and there is enough clothing that the man could literally start his own chain of vintage clothing shops and run it from his bedroom.

I think Mr. J has somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 pairs of pants, and 60 t-shirts. That was a count I made sometime last year when I attempted to put them all away. I understand he likes them all, and wears most of them....but I think you need to draw the line somewhere.

So my aim for the past day or so has been to get a lot of stuff ready to move into the storage unit. Once all his stuff is out of the way, then its straight renovating, and I don't need to depend on him to do things in order to get stuff done.

I have been washing all of Mr. J's clothes, and my clothes and Boy S's clothes and Cottage towels and linens, and our towels and linens and stuff left behind by old tenants. Then I'm sorting it into piles-Goodwill-Cottage (that will go to Auntie BA to hang onto)-linens and clothes we can pack away for a while-and stuff we're wearing now, and summer. The stuff I'm keeping in ciculation is going into big rubbermaid totes, so I can essentially live out of them for...who knows how long!

Mr. J is having a hard time with the sorting aspect. Firstly, he's not here all day. And when he gets home he's tired. Secondly, he wants to make all the decisions about his things...and not have me rummage through and make choices for him. This proves difficult at best. I'm doing my very best, to respect his wishes for that, but I'm not sure how I can get the house emptied in a reasonable time and do that as well.

I have the benefit of my Mom coming over here tommorow (lord help her when she sees the disaster!) to hang out with Boy S while Mr. J and I get stuff done.

But good grief. If I can avoid going up and down the stairs....sigh.

We are Urban Agronomists

With all the craziness of renovating, I've hardly had any time to post on here. Before I delve into descriptions of my trials and tribulations of cabinetry, or lament on the fact that we are so uncertain about our relocation options....I will set out to give a little background on our greatest hobby and passion for life.

Agronomy. That pretty much sums up most of what we appreciate. Despite the boudaries of our urban confines, and the ordinary frontward appearance of our semi-detached suburban home, our backyard is a veritable urban farm.

When Mr.J and I first started dating, he had begun the journey here, by having a densely planted tomato garden which was about 2 ft wide, and stretched the length of the yard.

He also had many many tomatoes and various other plants growing in what seemed to be nearly 100 pots, scattered in some sort of semblance all over the then oddly shaped deck which previously accomodated a pool.

From my own experience, I knew that keeping lots of veggies in pots is not nearly as sustainable as keeping them in the ground. So the first spring I lived here, I set out to change that. Not only did I grow from seed several hundred tomatoes, but I enlarged the garden space to accomodate them all in the ground. Primarily in raised beds, which I constructed from the old sheet metal above ground pool, which was sitting around, waiting to be re-purposed.

Here are some of my tomato starts in yogurt cups last winter:


7 yards of triple mix later.....we had an extensive vegetable garden, where we grew tomatoes, corn, potatoes, squash, zucchini, carrots, beets, radishes, amaranth, beans, peas, fennel, various herbs, salad greens and swiss chard.

Here's a pic taken by Boy S of our garden last summer. You can see, its a pic taken by a 6 year old...but you can also see amaranth, dill, tomatoes, bolted lettuces and maybe some squash.



But, it doesn't stop there. No, we take it just a little bit beyond having a veggie patch in suburbia. We also make all our own compost, from kitchen scraps, from our guinea pig manure and from chicken manure. Here's a pic of the big double compost bin I made last spring. This bin handles the second stage compost, and the yard waste. We have separate bins for fresh veggies, and manure.

Here's a shot of my double compost bins:



And, in case you're wondering where the manure comes from....well, initially it came from our guinea pigs, Sooty, Jasper and Pepper (rip Pepper). But it just wasn't enough. That, combined with our strong commitment to eating local organic food...our inability to obtain fresh local organic eggs with less than an hours drive, and the fact that organic eggs run about $5-6 a doz here, and aren't always available. We're fortunate that our city is one of the few in Ontario which does not outlaw the keeping of laying hens....so enter our small flock of backyard layers.



Here's a shot of the eggs I gathered this am:



I also made an attempt to keep things going during the winter. I made a small tent for the chard...but really I should have gone the extra step to use plastic, and to close it in on one end. The open end means that our dog enters, and sometimes 'grazes' on the new chard growth. Its amazing though, with such a mild winter, that hte chard is growing a bit, even in February.







And I guess, in a nutshell that pretty much sums it up. Personally, I really feel that urban agronomy is one of the most responsible and both ecologically and economically sustainable ways to use urban land in Ontario.

The sad reality, is that most of our urban land is some of the very best farmland in all of Canada. But we turned it into cities....and the food system we have in place favours cheap production, not healthy food, or wise ecological choices, and thereby pushed family farmers off their great land, in favour of mega corporate farms. The family farmers either went out of business, or are now farming on less desirable land, and we import so so much food, from far far away, which is ecologically disastrous in so many ways (not to mention, skirts the ethical labour laws we have here by purchasing commodoties produced where those laws don't exist).

So, I hope that even though, I'm now in the business of going out of Urban Agronomy, I can inspire someone else to carry on in these boots one day. Even if it means just a simple veggie patch-it is so much more of a responsible land use than a giant lawn come golf green.

I'd also like to toss in that my future SIL and BIL live in a new Oakville neighborhood that manages land in a non-traditional suburban way. Their home is a 3 story town home, occupying a small physical footprint, with a very tiny backyard. So a shout out to all who live in a neighborhood like that, where land is more valued, for one reason or another, and more people live in less suburban space.

Blowing through the kitchen....

I feel as though this past week has just streamed past me, with little time to think and breathe...literally, as I now seem to be fighting some kind of bronchial infection.

Boy S was home sick from school all week with the same thing. He did a pretty good job of keeping out of the way so that I could get my reno work done, I must say.


I can hardly believe, but in the past week I have done these things:

1.had a eco-energy home audit assesement

this was really cool. Justin, the energy auditor came and attached a blower fan to our front door, which allowed him to create negative pressure inside the house and measure the amount of loss from different places. He also determined the overall R value of the home. Now we can go ahead and have that new high efficiency furnace installed next week, and get about $1500 back on the install fee. Since the current furnace is over 30 yrs old, we're told it will just drag down the price of the home if we don't replace it.

2.with some help from cousin J, we tore out the entire kitchen. Then, us two amateurs managed to build two banks of cabinets, with counter tops (well, the bar top is still on custom order, but will be here soon). We still need to make the doors. But I must say, I am totally impressed with how they look, and the fact that they are near perfectly square, plumb and true. We left a spot for a dishwasher, and the plumber will come next week to install it.

Tommorrow, I need to sand and prime all the new lower cabinets, as well as the old uppers. We decided to leave the old uppers in place, and just replace the doors so that they all match.

The best part about this was that I did a lot of the thinking and figuring for it. I didn't want to use the borrowed old guardless table saw, that was lousily attached to a wobbly patio table with a rusty C-clamp..so cousin J stepped up to the plate. The long and the short of it however, is that with the right tools, I feel confident that I could undertake a kitchen on my own next time. Except for maybe cutting the hole for the sink....nobody has done that yet, as we're all too scared to crack the laminate. Yes, its laminate, but at least we sprung for one of the higher end laminates. The solid surface was too too much.

Gee, I guess that's it really. It seems like so much has happened, as I've been go go go on this kitchen. With only a few hours sleep each night...and only sleeping long enough to dream about cabinet construction...yes, renos are a full time job for me right now.

More later and I'll post some pics of the kitchen.

Doole house revisited?

Camera-check. Trees of Ontario book-check. Trees of Canada book-check. Batteries charged. check. Land survey. check. Real-Estate agent's cell # check. Tape measure. check.

I'm all packed up and rarin to go. We're off to go and look at a property. It may be a little early to start up the hunt again (we viewed one back in Sept)but, this one really calls out to us. And they've just dropped the price. 46 acres of heaven, nestled in dense bush, not a neighbor in sight, only minutes from the highway, rural school nearby, biking distance to town, several acres of pasture, barns.....what's the catch?

Like we expect, if we are to obtain a good chunk of land with some outbuildings on it, the house is going to be in rough shape. This one apparently is over 100 yrs old, and has been gutted. The current owners never got around to the renovation aspect after having taken it apart. I'm told that there may be a racoon in one of the bedrooms upstairs. And that the doors are all open, as they had a break in and decided to just leave it open instead of boarding it up. Hmmmm. On the bright side, at that price, we could afford to sink a good chunk into fixing it up before moving in.

One of the first things that comes to mind when I see the picture of this home, is that it looks (from the outside) a lot like the little house that Marnie and Jeff Doole had back in Limehouse. The age would be about the same too. It was such a character that little house. Jeff was always renovating it, improving it or expanding it in one way or another. Marne seemed to be constantly shifting, and folding her life around the ever changing life form that her home had become. The house was cozy, it smelled of wood fire and cookies, and a sweet little black cocker cross named Murphy would greet you at the door, trying her hardest to restrain herself from the forbidden act of licking all the guests. If living could be but a slice of the life that Marne and Jeff had in limehouse, you can serve me up a plate of that.

So I'll drink down a cup of optimism, and head out for a day of adventure and exploration. We aim to walk around as much of the acreage as we can, and get a good feel for what it is.

Its Renovation Tax Credit Eve!!

Big box shopping centres don't usually score very high on my priority list of places to spend money. But why? Well, of course, because their staff are usually underpaid, they purchase goods produced in countries with lax child labour and labour standards laws, and they inevitably outcompete the smaller locally owned businesses, by selling things for only a few dollars less, or having a wider variety of stock. Because we all need to choose from 50 different models of forced air register covers....surely the 10 models you'd find at the mom and pop shop would never suffice.

The big box shop would argue that they employ more people, thereby stimulating the local economy even more....however what economic value does a part-time earner of $10 an hour hold to the community-compared to say a full time income earner bringing in $50,000 per annum.

Alas, enough of my rant. After learning that the Durham region re-store hasn't the items we need, and that it isn't frequented as much as the re-stores in other regions (meaning lower turnover of stock), and searching kijiji for a while for our supplies and coming up empty....we head to the local Home Depot, in a mad dash to purchase as many products for our renovations as we possibly can because its "Renovation Tax Credit Eve"!!!!.

That's right. You heard it. Tomorrow is THE last day to purchase goods for home renovations to claim our govt's incentive to upgrade your home and get a credit for your purchases against your taxes.

So, lists in hand of what we need, we were off to the Depot last night already. Did some pricing, got a kitchen faucet. Confirmed this am that it matches the light fixtures already in place. Got a quote on the kitchen counter tops-ouch!!! Then we're off to 'millwork' for another quote-they're cheaper. But wait-they need 4 weeks to fabricate....ok...so back to the Depot (after trading Mr.J's car for cousin J's van) to get one piece from them. Out of stock. Right now we're just having a wee break for coffee, and to let Mavie (our cocker spaniel puppy) go to the loo...Then we're back to the Original Depot, to get the first thing we saw last night (of course). We will get one custom made piece from the local shop, and it will be 4 weeks.

We also managed to score some forced air heating registers, a bathroom faucet, knobs for the bathroom, and a new broom in this ordeal.

More later-back to the box.

Accomplishments in progress

Well, after a long week of work, I have managed to accomplish the following:

-worked on writing Mr. J's job transfer proposal
-found an interesting property, researched it and contacted the agent
-freecycled several large items, freeing up space in the house for the reno
-packed up a good deal of the kitchen
-packed up some books
-made arrangements with a plumber
-made arrangements for an energy auditor
-cleared out items from the storage room

As well, I have motivated Mr. J to start sifting through all his 'items'. Mr.J has a lot of items. He's a bit of a packrat some would say....he would say...he's a "collector". I can't say I'm entirely guilt free of the same habit at times-I like to save really really junky things that I think will be useful one day. For instance, there is a giant roll of old holey chainlink fencing wire in the backyard, that I have no intention of parting with. Someone freecycled it to me and I never used it. But fence wire is expensive....and when you like animals....you can seemingly never have enough fence wire.

Today, I have some more cleaning and organizing to do, and to prepare the laundry room to function as a temporary kitchen while we rip the main bank of cupboards and counter/sink out.

A plumber is also coming to fix the bathtub tap and overflow.