tap my glass

New bench for the entrance way. This took us a long time to track down one for a semi-reasonable price, but we had to have one. When we toured the house the previous owners had one in this spot, and we new we needed one too… well need is a strong word, but it sure gives the place an air of sophistication, old worldiness, and charm. I love it!!

One weird thing is that the mirror has what look like stains in it. The stains are like dark streaks that appear to be underneath or behind the mirror. Anyone ever seen that? Nothing seems to get rid of them…

I’ve recently discovered that all the wiring in my new house is pretty crappy.

In the front part of the house some of the outlets appear grounded, but a lot of the wire in use is really old - one large casing surrounding a single high gauge copper wire. It looks like its all NMD style from the box in the basement, but when you get to the endpoints, its not like that. They’ve skipped some switch boxes too meaning theres no neutral in them, meaning no fancy dimmers/timer/etc.. That kinda sucks.

In the back of the house, all the wire is groundless completely, from the box even.

There are 2 panels, but i think its only 60amps to the house. The breakers flip in the kitchen regularly.

I may eventually rip it out bit by bit and replace it all with good new wiring. I was thinking, if i had to run brand new wiring to the upstairs, back, etc., should i bother running additional cable at the same time? Being a tech guy a few years ago, i would’ve said resoundingly YES. However now with the advent of wi-fi, i’m not sure its worth the hassle or expense. Wi-fi rocks, i don’t think i need data cable throughout the house anymore… in a few years? Mabye… mabye i’ll need some 10Gbit rated cable but if wi-fi keeps pace, and or wi-max takes off, i’ll never need data cable throughout my house.

Whos with me!!! Down with data cable!!! Up with late 20th century electrical standards!!!

I guess theres mice in my house. I found Winston this morning with a mouse in his mouth. Then he played around with it for a bit, but it looked pretty healthy. I went to get mouse catching instruments. When i came back the mouse was gone!!! I think it went in to the vent, we have old school floor vents that have big square holes, possibly big enough for mice. I’ll likely through some humane traps in there and see what i find, any pointers are most appreciated.

My fear is that Winston incurred enough damage to the mouse that its now going to rot in the vent - that would not be cool.

So the subfloor is done, i finished it mostly last weekend. Now to the walls.

Found this electrical nasty in the wall… not cool. I was hoping to resuse wire, but when i found this i realized the whole chunk had to come out. Luckily theres ton’s of junction boxes waiting to be poked in to in the basement so i don’t need to run it back to the main breaker, but its still annoying.

Ate this x2 one night this week, it was large - leftover bbq chicken thigh, mango, sweet n hot mustard, bun, it was delectable:

Thats all for now, back to work!!!

The kitchen reno is underway. As with most kitchen renovations, i’m quite eager to get this overwith. I’ll just post pics for now, discuss later, too tired… quite drained today as works busy and i have many issues to work out.

Heres the snakiness that is the plumbing coming from the floor:

Heres the whole first layer of floor torn off (more to come):

Heres the old rad - before cleaning:

Heres where i pulled the cabinets from… now to fix *this*:

The uppers removed:

Tags: renovations

Thinking of housing recently, combined with the fortuitous position of owning (well the bank owns most of it) property in an urban core, add on to that the fact the structure is not well built nor brick, i’ve been toying with the idea of knocking it down and starting over. Building 2 semi-detached in its place, or convincing one (or more) of my neighbours to do the same and build some kinda modern/oldstyle/eco dwelling structure.

My imagination does wander when i consider the possibilities. 2 properties on my street could easily house a 3 home townhome unit, one where the original owners of their properties might (in theory) be able to pay off a good chunk of their mortgage with the profits from the sale of the extra unit.

Now may seem like the wrong time to be thinking of this considering all the work i’ve put into it. But that type of mentality lacks vision, and i’m very pro-vision. Perhaps not now, but it must always be an option for the future. While it would sadden me to lose some of the charm of these old houses, many things can be rebuilt using old styles (at a price of course), and the practicality gained with new building methods (little drafts, warm walls and floors, cleaner air, better concepts (open anyone??)) certainly outweigh the loss of charm.

Now THAT would be a big project.

If this isn’t a sign of age and responsibility what is. Waking up early (its 6:22am) on a saturday morning, tossed and turned, couldn’t get back to sleep. Mostly because i’m not all that hungover and i’m excited about laying the fresh cedar for my balcony today.

What do people do at 6:22am on a saturday? Is there anything to do? I think i’ll see what the grinders are up to…

I will indeed be posting pics later of the balcony, it should be pretty sweet.

One things for sure, i’m not all that interesting at 6:22am on a saturday.

One additional thing i should mention about Google Sketchup from my previous post, is that i put all the lumber sizes in in their “true” sizes. Otherwise, i wouldn’t know exact distances and size of things!!! Am i not right here?

For instance, a 2×4 is not truely 2 by 4 inches. Its “about” 1.5 by 3.5 inches. How could i put in a piece of lumber that IS 2 by 4 inches into my drawings and expect sketchup to tell me the proper distances?

I understand if you measure everything “on center” you should be ok, but what about if simply want to measure the entire width of the structure?

If someone can clear this up for me i’d appreciate it.

Ever since i’ve owned my house, i’ve known that i’ve needed to have some work done to its rear end. As you can see in the picture, which was taken shortly after i took possession, theres always been a door leading to nowhere. The original owner even nailed a few 2×10’s up there for me to “get started” on an awesome balcony. Thanks!!! Unfortunately after discussion and research, nailing to the side of a non waterproof surface is probably not a good idea for a structurally sound chill pad for apt. #2.

So this year, the main plan was to get er done. I started early on researching and discussing with an experienced friend of mine exactly “how” i was going to do it. I went through a few basic structures and ideas:

In the end, i settled on a no stair, but extended balcony that is NOT supported by the structure underneath. Basically if it was, it would of required engineer’s help to verify the integrity of that structure, and that structure was highly suspect. The previous owner did an “ok” job on everything done, and i just didn’t trust it.

So late last year i realized if i was going to build a balcony up there, i should probably ensure that the roof was good. Because it would really suck to have to tear down the balcony to fix a leaky roof. And the roof was already leaky. So i had the roof replaced. Which was not cheap, but at least i trust it now. Its properly flashed all around, and is in good shape. Earlier this year, i also decided to have eavestrophing installed on the roof above the door. That part of the roof is the lowest point so a lot of water attracted down that wall, and would be onto the roof, causing more water issues. I thought that was a good idea, and i’m happy with the result.

Then came the building permit. From conception and farting around on the city of ottawa’s web site to issuance, it was many months. But i got it in the end.

The problem with the building permit, is the plans. The application itself is nothing, but it must be accompanied by plans of what you’re going to do. Which makes sense. But is not trivial. I do believe you can get home depot and/or rona type stores to do plans for you for “free”, but i kinda wanted to do this all myself. As i said i have a friend who helped conceptualize what the thing would look like, and then i just needed a tool to put it together. In retrospect i would have been MUCH easier to have someone else do it, but i was stubborn and like doing things myself so i understand them.

Enter Google Sketchup. Is there anything google can’t do? I mean this tool is amazing. In a nutshell, its a layman’s CAD tool. You can design pretty much anything in it, and if you really want to, import it into google earth (which apparently has a flight sim built into it, but i haven’t tried it). So if you design a house or a building, you can plop it down in the googleverse and see what it looks like. I have not done this. But what i did do, was design the whole thing in sketchup, as well as site and floor plans where necessary.

The end result is pretty sweet. After quite a few hours i developed a model of the entire balcony including every piece of lumber to be used, proper angles, railing, etc.. I thought this was a much cleaner idea than drawing up some crappy sketches that would no doubt need to be updated during the permit talks. And i was right about that!

Getting the building permit was quite an ordeal. Once the drawings were done and i had filled out the application, here’s a summary of how it went down:

1) Show up at city hall on a friday morning.

2) No lineup, ask to submit an application for a building permit.

3) The lady looks it over, tells me it’ll be 80 odd dollars, and calls the dude from the back.

4) The dude spends a few minutes looking it over, and takes issue with a few points. My footings were not deep enough (originally i had 4 foot holes, they needed to be 6 feet), and i needed to properly quote building code sections for the blocking and railing, or have a proper diagrams that showed screws and specifics.

5) I asked where i can see the building code

6) He said it was for sale “over there”.

7) I said gee thanks.

I then thought about it, and decided to go to the library. They did not have the 2006 building code, but they had the 1997 + amendments.

9) I spent some serious time going through all the different schematics coming up with a now different railing plan. The lady at the library was very nice as i didn’t have my card, but let me borrow one of their photocopy cards, and i just payed what i spent when i left. How trusting!!!

10) I choose a model i liked, made photo copies of all the appropriate sections, and went home.

11) I then updated my model with the footing adjustments and changes to the blocking and railing, printed it off again, and went back.

12) They accepted the application!!! Yay!!! I paid the 80 odd dollars.

13) About 6 business days later, i get an email from someone at the city that was assigned to my application. It contained a pdf of issues, which included, among a few other things, that the photocopies from the old building code needed to be from the 2006 building code. Arg!!!

14) I bought the damn 2006 building code. 150$. Now i’ll have it forever. Or at least until 2012 when a new one comes out and this one becomes useless reference material.

15) I made photocopies of the newly revised sections, which looked to be identical to me, and now proceeded to communicate with this nice lady via faxes and emails.

16) We sorted out the remainder of the issues over the next week and a half, mostly to do with floor plans, and “is it a fire exit”, etc..

17) Roughly a month after the initial application, i was back at city hall signing the real permit. I got my original plans and faxes stamped, and a sheet to put up on my window saying i’m a wicked permit holder.

All in all it wasn’t a horrible experience, and i understand why the back and forths occurred, and i understand why you need to quote from the new building code, but they really should make the building codes available for perusal at city hall. That part is ridiculous.

Once i had the permit i was assigned an inspector. I discussed with him what inspections i need. I needed an excavation, framing, and final inspection. I have had the excavation inspection, and it went very smoothly - he didn’t even measure the awesome 6 foot depth. I dug 2 perfectly deep 6 feet by 2″ diameter holes and he didn’t measure them!!! O well, at least i know they’re the real deal.

There will be more boring assed balcony discussion to come, you can bet your bottom beam on that.

I’ve bought some sonotube’s lately. Not branded “sonotube”, likely cheap rip offs, i got 8″ versions from both rona and home depot. The ones from rona are actually smaller than 8″’s, would probably make a 7.5″ concrete form. The ones from home depot are a little bigger than 8″, likely to make and exactly 8″ concrete form. Am i the only one bringing a tape measure to these places to pick stuff out cause whatever dimensions are printed on whatever are not to be trusted??

While not the most exciting thing to happen to me lately, i thought it was worth mentioning. Its been a great summer, but now its time to build!!! I’m building a balcony in my backyard, i’m all permit ready, and now i have to dig 6 feet into the ground in 2 places. This isn’t going to be pretty.