Day 57: Best laid plans

It's been a while, hasn't it? Being stuck in a metal tube at 36,000 feet hurtling through the air, there really is no excuse to let this post wait any longer. We're on our way to Vancouver to visit with family for a week and a half. Leaving town just a few weeks before all of our immediate deadlines (moving, ecoENERGY) really forced us to plan and coordinate to the extreme.

They always say that you need to expect the unexpected and plan for complications when it comes to doing renovations. Delays in both getting the electrical inspection booked (our electrician, quite the perfectionist, took an extra few days... a good thing in my mind) and getting our building permit approved (the latter, admittedly, our own fault for waiting so long to apply) forced us to reschedule both the ecoENERGY audit and the insulation. It was a bit of a scramble calling around three or four different folks to coordinate but I think it's all worked out now. I was quite hesitant to reschedule our ecoENERGY audit from March 19 to the new date of April 3 because of the potential $$ consequences. The double dipping fund the City has been offering for insulation and draftproofing has been flowing like hot butter since the start of January. Around Christmas, I think there was something like $300,000 available. On February 12, around $160,000. On the 19th, down to $80,000. The funds are first-come-first-served and it's based on the date of your post-evaluation. Given how much was claimed in just one week in February, it's unlikely there would have even been any left by the time March 19 rolled around. We knew the funds weren't guaranteed and this would probably happen since our late start (we did only get the house on January 6!) meant we'd be working down to the last minute. The extra grant would have been nice but we're still getting a good chunk of change from the feds. At the end of the day, we would have invested in this work anyway, grant or no grant, and we'll still benefit from a better insulated and sealed home.

In addition to the coordinating and rescheduling, we also managed to finish the basement framing on the weekend. The space is pretty well ready for that insulation (when it finally happens on March 19). We just need to do a bit of sealing around the windows and a few other gaps, get our dryer vent in place, and add a few more electrical outlets (which can't happen before the electrical inspection closes our electrician's permit).

The former Casa del Arbro with new water meter.	The south east corner of the den with what we've pulled out of the old brick den-pantry wall so far.

One result of the plan shuffling is that the upstairs floor refinishing got rescheduled to happen while we're in BC. This actually works out really well since that job will take the longest (they suggest 4-5 days) so instead of having limited access for a week, we'll come home to a newly refinished floor ready for moving. The crew came over on Thursday morning to do a few samples for us on the floor instead of using scrap fir that may not look quite the same. In choosing stain, we decided just try to match what is currently on the floor. We aren't planning on re-staining the trim and baseboards and the existing floor complements the slightly orange-y tones of the trim quite well.

The little patch that got sanded for our testing. We had the option of leaving the floor natural, as in not choosing a stain. The problem is the hundreds of holes left from pulling out the toothy ring nails. They're filling the holes regardless (with a latex product instead of the sawdust-sealant mix due to new VOC regulations) but the filled holes would be quite obvious without any stain.

The crew tested about 12 different stains and we finally landed on the one in the top left corner. The colour varies so much depending on the board it's on or the lighting. Although these stains all look like they could just be one single stain, the one in the top left seemed to have the right amount of brown without too much orange.

I'll end here with something I've been meaning to share for a few weeks. When we took off the wood panelling upstairs while clearing off the floor, we found a wall of cracked plaster in the back bedroom and the following in the master bedroom:

What lurked beneath the wood panelling in the master bedroom.

I'm digging it. It's ornate without being too loud. Sadly, that are lots of holes and marks on it from where they attached the wood panelling and the plaster behind is probably not in great condition either. Oh well.