Day 72: Fabulous Finished Fir

Is it just me, or is it completely ridiculous to take out the compost at 9 pm with no jacket and wearing sandals in mid-March and feel warm? This is the what we've come home to:

Hello, climate change.

I shouldn't complain. While I really did miss having a proper winter (we never even had enough snow to build a fort!), the 10 minute walk in glorious sunshine to the City Hall did nothing but solidify how happy I am with the location of the manor.

The second fantastic thing that greeted us on our return from BC was our newly refinished upstairs floors. They are, as Garrett's brother suggested on first glance, fir. To other fellow newbies, fir is a fairly soft softwood, not a hardwood. We probably should have figured this out from the deep dents that marred the floor in the master bedroom. The floor is self-carrying, which means there is no subfloor between it and the joists. Despite all of that, it was definitely refinish-able and we were lucky to coordinate that while we were away. (The house still stinks! Thank you, beautiful weather, for letting us open lots of windows.) The refinishers, who came recommended by our current landlord (he's in the flooring business), did a great job and gave us this beauty:

Landing at the top of the stairs.	Lots of colour variation depending on lighting, board, angle, etc.

It was under that window that we tested the stains. There were some long drag marks near that vent - no longer!

We're quite pleased with the colour. It's not as orange as the previous stain but not so dark that it's overpowering - an important consideration given the wood trim throughout.

In other news, we had our electrical inspection and a building inspection on Friday. The electrical one was a breeze. The inspector confirmed what we already suspected: we couldn't have found a better electrician to do the job. It's comforting when the inspector (whose job it is to find problems with electrical work) is so confident in an electrician. The building inspection was a bit more of a nail-biter. When we picked up the permit, there was a note on one of the drawings: "Min. height 6'5" under ducts and beams." Ummm... our basement is 6'5" from concrete floor to the bottom of the joists. Add in flooring and ceiling and we're definitely in the red. Our minds were racing. By all accounts, it costs a fortune to lower a basement floor. Were we about to lose our second bathroom? Convincing ourselves that that would be the outcome (life motto: expect the worst, hope for the best), we booked a "pre-construction inspection" in addition to the framing inspection. You would think something so useful as a meeting with a building inspector to determine whether a project is even possible and to help you understand the building code would be advertised more widely instead of being brought up after we've applied for a permit. It's not like we hadn't met with the building services office or scoured their website. Anyways, the inspector came by yesterday morning and he wasn't concerned at all about the height: "It's an old house, what can you do? Just don't make things worse." As in, don't build any new giant ducts under the joists. Finished basement is a go - yay! We've got the green light for insulation, which is a good thing because it's booked for Monday and cannot be rescheduled due to the ecoENERGY rush. The only additional task we hadn't planned for is bringing a return (and supply, if possible) vent to floor level. That list just keeps on growing, doesn't it?