Day 47: Weekend Warriors – Southwestern Ontario Edition

It was a productive weekend once again, especially with my sister in town to help out (thanks, sis!). The two main goals for this weekend were to finish framing the north (laundry) wall and to prepare the rest of the walls for framing. This involved...

...buying lots of studs:

Ever wonder what 80 2x4s packed into a hatchback looks like? The blue ones are specially treated to be water repellant and resist mould - we're using these for the bottom plates of the framing (which sit on the floor).

...starting the tear down of a (non-structural) brick wall:

Luanne getting the Farwell Manor Stress Relief Workout (TM).

A work of art. And quite a mess!

...building some crates to deal with the mess of heavy mortar and to move Casa del Arbro. The best part: these crates are built entirely from materials we've salvaged from the deconstruction! We used plywood panels from the old ceiling in the den/furnace room, strapping formerly used to hold up wood paneling, and the nails that kept all these things together. They're a fantastic size - small enough for one person to carry easily but big enough to hold a fair amount - and we even added some handles!

Building crates on most precarious workbench known to man.	Note Garrett in the background with a finished crate, complete with handles.

Here's a shot taken from the cold room through the newly exposed wall looking into the den. You can see one of the crates peeking out on the bottom left.

...and framing, of course! I forgot to snap a shot of the laundry area before we moved a bunch of junk in front of the toilet. This photo might give you a better idea of what we're working with for the laundry/bathroom conundrum. There will be a wall just behind that laundry sink (on the right edge of the back window) to separate the utility room. You can also see the taps on the right where the laundry pair will live. Other than that, the world is our oyster for how we choose to organize this space.

The need to get the framing up fairly quickly isn't just for the insulation (which is booked for early March). Our electrician, who is set to finish his work this week, needs to run wires through the framing top plates before bringing in the electrical inspector. The south wall should be fairly straightforward but west and east walls in the den and cold room, respectively, will be trickier as there is duct work, a water metre, and wonky floors to contend with.

This last photo has nothing to do with the basement or framing but came out looking kind of neat when my camera flicked into "art" mode. Garrett decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and couldn't resist climbing up on the garage to take a look at the roof and clean out the eavestroughs.

Is he fighting crime or is he waiting for an innocent bystander?