Things moved quickly this past week.

April 7, 2015

The concrete buttresses in the basement stand in about 9 inches of gravel, then a plastic membrane (you can see the edge of it along the wall) and then a layer of gravel to hold the membrane in place. The membrane keeps the moisture below the dirt floor.

Curious dogs watching the progress. In this photo you can see the corner of the new steel door that will give us access to the basement. Brian is standing in the basement entrance. Bentley looks a little suspicious of the whole thing.

April 9, 2015

The steel door is now set in place.

The hole is cut in the back of the barn for the garage door. You can see some of the old horse stall hardware on the left side of the photo. The white panel on the right is where a door used to be.

April 10, 2015

The old floor is sealed with a durable woven polypropylene underlay to go beneath the concrete.

April 13, 2015

Jason laying the plastic pipe, that will carry the hot water from the furnace, that will create the in-floor heat in the concrete slab.

All of the heating pipes enter the barn/garage through this opening that leads into the carriage house.They will be thread through a conduit that will be embedded in the concrete slab that will be the new floor of the carriage house. I guess we'll have to stop calling it a carriage house soon. It will be the connector between the barn/garage and house and be used as a laundry/utility room.

Lots of loops

This used to be a door. It's been filled in and will be shingled over. We'll let the shingles age and discolour naturally so it'll be a few years before it blends in completely. You can see the remnants of a large radiator that used to be in the dog kennels in the barn. They had to break it into two pieces to remove it. It was so heavy it took two guys to drag just one half of it.

Yes, that's a trellis they're putting on the back wall. But it's not for flowers. The trellis creates a space between the cedar shingles and the wall and allows them to breath.

Dorian removes the last of the old outside light wiring. You can see the wiring for the new lights just on the left side of the old door frame. The concrete ramp you see going up to the door will be removed with a jack hammer later. The door and the two smaller windows to the right of it will all be shingled over. You'll never know they were there since all the shingles on the back of the barn will be new.

April 13, 2015

The cement is poured and the guys worked away all evening at smoothing it out. They went over it with the power trowel and then let it set up for a while and then went back at it again. They repeated this until satisfied with the finish. They left at about 10:00 p.m.

They needed a couple trowels for this job.

The floor will be fine to walk on and we can start storing some things in the barn/garage in 24 hours but it will be 26 days before we'll be able to park cars in here.

 

April 3 - 2015 Update

We are exactly 1 month into our renovations and a great deal has happened. The barn basement is nearly complete. The concrete fortifications have been poured, extra support beams are installed and the gravel floor is partially in place. That gravel will be covered by a thick plastic membrane (to keep moisture on the outside - for the most part - some will still seep in through the walls) and that membrane will be covered with sand to hold everything in place. Someday we might opt to pour a concrete floor down there as well but, for now, it will remain a dirt floor basement. Once the snow is gone and the ground thoroughly melted Matt and his crew will dig a drain that will allow water to naturally drain from the basement. My friend, Patrick Cantienni, is a grape grower and wine maker and I'm going to ask him to come over and see if the basement might be suitable as a wine cellar. Matt feels that, with all the insulation in place and a heated space above it, that the temperature in the basement will likely stay pretty consistent throughout the year. That sounds like good wine storing conditions. We'll see. Here are some pictures of the latest work being done:

This is the rear (north-east) corner of the barn basement. The white PCV pipe you see draining into the old sump pump will be where it drains naturally (by gravity) when finished. The wooden structures on either side are the forms for the concrete buttresses that reinforce the basement walls.

This is an extra support beam that was installed in the center of the basement. A concrete footing was poured and then the framework of the wall goes up to the extra beam above it. This is at the foot of the stairs that go up to the main level of the barn. In the background you can see the wooden form of another support buttress.

This is the rear (east) wall and the south wall. We left the original windows. The actual windows will be replaced with newer, more energy efficient, ones but they'll look exactly the same. This corner has had extra electrical wiring installed to allow for a kiln or other studio equipment. The windows look out over our garden area so it'll be a nice place to work.

I'm standing in the doorway on the west side of the barn (the house is behind me). You can see the outline of the where the garage door is going to be - the light blue insulation across the top shows the width of the door. It is basically the full width of the tallest part of the lower floor. You can also see the extra beams that were installed across the ceiling.

This is the north west side of the barn. You can see the holes that have been drilled in the Styrofoam insulation. Even more insulation will be blown through those holes. Matt has told us that this barn will actually be easier to heat than our house because he's able to insulate it so well.

Here is the sluice that the guys fashioned to more efficiently transport the gravel to the basement. They shovel it in here and the guys in the basement spread it evenly around the floor.

This is what remains of the mountain of gravel that was dumped on our parking pad. And this was the second load. The first one has already been shoveled into and dispersed around the barn basement.

The Start

On Tuesday, March 3, 2015, the first hammer swing marked the beginning of our major renovation here at Cedar Crest. It was truly a bitter sweet feeling to see a century of history fall away under the mauls and crowbars. The remnants of the old kennels were in the barn. As we tore down the walls separating the kennels we discovered (under false walls) that each kennel had a fold-down grooming table. However nostalgic the demolition also showed the wear and tear of the years. We discovered two support beams that will have to be replaced and years of horse urine had rotted out a great deal of the floor boards under the box stalls. These will have to be replaced prior to pouring the cement floor. The following are some photos we took just as the contractors were getting started and showing their progress by the end of the week.

It took a couple days for the guys to clear all the "junk" out of the space. Most of it was stored in the loft of the barn. At this time we're only renovating the foundation (reinforcement) and the main level (garage, storage and studio). We're pretty sure the hardware in the box stalls is all original. We're keeping it and perhaps we'll allow it to enjoy a reincarnation in the new space or in the garden.

Another final view of the box stalls before they come down.

Removing one of the interior walls to further open up the space.

More walls and stalls coming down.

The site of the old kennels. Each one had a window. We have the original blueprints for the barn so we know that this area was originally built to house poultry. There's no way of knowing when it was converted to dog kennels or perhaps it was never used for poultry at all.  This area of the barn was once heated - as is evident by the large cast iron radiator against the wall. I had hoped to be able to keep the barrel you see in the background but on closer inspection we think it's actually full of creosote so will have to be disposed of as a hazardous waste.

More walls torn out to open up the space. This was where we discovered a support beam that was smaller than what we'd anticipated. We had to call our engineer - Larry Honey - back in to take a look and make a recommendation of what needed to be done to provide adequate support.

Standing against the north wall of the barn and looking toward the south wall. There had previously been about three interior walls between the north and south sides of the barn so looking from one side all the way to the other was a very strange sensation.

This is the view from standing in the doorway on the east side of the barn looking to the west side. There used to be 3 box stalls on the right. You can still see the wall of one box stall on the left side of the photo but that was taken down later that day.

This is the opposite view from the photo above - taken from the door on the west side of the building looking to the east.

This is standing about mid way through the barn looking west - toward the house. You can see the front of my car parked by our kitchen door. The access to the basement is seen here open.  We will continue to use this as the only access to the basement. The wooden door will be replaced by a plate steel door (that will support a car) once the new concrete floor is poured.

Renovation Update

The process of a renovation on this scale is proving to be moving slower than either of us had anticipated. Holleman Heritage Woodworkers are on deck to begin the interior barn demolition as soon as we give them the go-ahead but, apparently, we have more design and financing work to do first. We had some engineers in to look at the barn and determine what was going to be needed to bring it up to snuff to accommodate cars instead of horses. The required enhancements, along with a budget projection of our anticipated solarium and new entrance forced us back to the drawing board. If you look at the video that was published in my last post you'll have seen the new entrance, the solarium, the studio, the laundry room and a washroom that were all incorporated into the existing barn and carriage house. In the new design we removed the new entrance, the solarium and the washroom. The studio has simply become studio space in the garage. The laundry room and a dog washing station have been moved into the carriage house area. That area, instead of being an entrance from outside, will be an entrance from the garage and will be more of a utility space (I've included some SketchUp screenshots below). The kitchen, den area, new patio doors and first floor washroom renovation remain unchanged, the garage is actually larger now and the courtyard is also a little larger since the entrance portion has been removed.

As of today, we're waiting on the bank for their final approval of the financing. They sent an appraiser a week ago to inspect the property as it currently is and to look at the plans for the renovation. Once we get the green light from them we'll tell the Holleman crew they can begin. Hopefully the next post will be soon and will include some pictures of the demolition as we begin.

This shot of the garage shows the Costco Room (a storage area for bulk goods and small appliances that aren't used that often) in the upper left and my pottery wheel and studio space just to the right of that. Our intention is that there will be space for wood, garden equipment and four cars in the finished area. The stairs to the right are the access to the loft above which is unfinished. That will be another renovation in the distant future perhaps.

Here you can see the entrance from the garage (via the Costco Room in the upper right) which includes the laundry area and dog washing station. The only change to the courtyard is the removal of the entrance. The kitchen and den, not seen here, remain unchanged.

And so it begins...

This is the first post of what will be the final major renovation project we'll need to take on with Cedar Crest for a long time. This renovation will entail turning the first floor of the barn into a garage as well as studio space and a laundry room. We'll be adding a four-season solarium and the carriage house is going to become the main entrance to the house. The kitchen will be expanded and completely renovated and what is now a parking area is going to become a small courtyard. Our contractor - Holleman Heritage Woodworkers - has provided us with a video that we've uploaded to ourYouTube channel. Click on the link below to see the animation walk-through of what we plan to do:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z6a6dxC890&index=1&list=UU9AnyRdk_rjJ3ew_L2FRwlQ

Our New TV Room

After the major deck reno we decided to hold off on any further work for a while. Then, one day, I noticed a piece of wallpaper starting to peel back from the wall in the that we knew would eventually be our TV room. I couldn't help myself and started peeling the wallpaper. A few months and more $$ later - we have a new TV room. So much for taking a break. But, it's winter now and we spend a lot of time in here so the investment was worthwhile. Here's a few pictures of the project.

After I finished peeling all the wallpaper away the painters arrived and gave everything a fresh coat of primer. The white paint was very bright and was not looking much like a home theatre. You can see the wires hanging from the ceiling where the projector will be installed.

Here is another view of the primed walls. The old TV has a 52" screen. It's sitting in front of the wall where the new screen will go.

This is the wall to the right of the screen. At this point we're still waiting for our new theatre light fixtures but we needed to have the wiring finished so we just installed bare bulbs to tide us over until the new fixtures arrived.

And this is the wall to the left of the screen. Those patio doors open up to the deck. We bought heavy, room darkening curtains to put over those doors and the window. I also bought some limousine window tint film and tinted the large triangular window and the skylights with 95% tint - almost blacked out. The result is a very dark room - excellent for watching TV.

We had this riser built at the back of the room. It's about a 4" lift and creates the platform where the theatre seating will eventually go. It will be covered with the same carpeting as the rest of the floor.

This is an example of the theatre seating that will eventually go on the raised part of the floor. This is a set that we saw in a showroom. We liked everything except the colour so we're still looking around to find something that we like. We both agreed that the bottom lighting was necessary given the darkness of the room and the carpet.

This is the carpet we decided to go with. A local flooring store found a distributor in Georgia who specialized in theatre carpeting. It is exceptionally durable and was exactly the look we were after. We weren't disappointed.

 

.

Here we are with the walls painted (dark brown) and the theatre light fixtures arrived and we did a decorative panel around each one. The framing around the fixtures is actually black. They just haven't been painted yet in this picture. |Also, in this photo the ceiling hasn't been painted yet. The projector is obviously up and we projected an image on the wall so we'd know where to paint the screen. We opted to paint a screen on the wall (using Home Depot's Silver Screen paint) instead of purchasing a projection screen. The image you see here is simply projected on the dark brown paint.

Here's one of the painters masking off the area of the wall where the Silver Screen paint will go. Once that's done then a black frame will be built around the whole thing to finish it.

The finished room. Mike got a popcorn machine for Christmas that gets a lot of use. We still haven't purchased our theatre seating yet but the treadmill fit nicely into that spot. It's a great space to walk and watch some TV. Our Holly Carr silkscreen painting of a NYC street is still waiting to be hung along with all of our framed Broadway playbills. You can see our Panasonic projector suspended from the ceiling and the blacked out triangular window. What you can't see are the cracks in the window. On one particularly cold day we must have had the volume a little too high (we got a new sub woofer too) and managed to crack the glass in the window. Opps.

Here's another view of the finished room with the screen painted on the wall and the framing done around it. We have a couple bookcases full of movies which never get used now that we subscribe to NetFlix. Our desk and chair are to the right so the room doubles as a TV room and an office. Another room down but we're really done for a while now.

Outdoor kitchen is a hit!!

Here are some pictures of our first Pizza Party with the wood-fired pizza oven. Except for a bit of landscaping and some plantings and 6 back-ordered outdoor light fixtures (that will be here and installed in a couple weeks), we are officially proclaiming the deck project....FINISHED!!!

Mike checks the fire before beginning

The first meal from the new oven - corn on the cob roasted in the husks. Very good.

Then he brought the oven up to temperature for pizza. As you can see, 771.5 degrees Fahrenheit. At this temperature a pizza cooks in about 2 minutes.

Prep begins for the first pizza. Ashlee was the designated sous chef.

The first pizza. Check out the video below to see it when it emerged.

Our first design flaw. It never occurred to us to have lighting for the kitchen area. Luckily the headlamps that we use for snow shoeing worked just fine.