July 5, 2015. Dog Days of Summer - Things are slowing down a bit.

For the past couple of weeks and for the next few weeks the changes won't be quite so dramatic. The sub-trades have been in completing the crack filling, painting, plumbing, electrical and tiling. This is, however, the first time that the formerly barn and carriage house (now garage and...part of the house) have become accessible from the main house. We've been walking outside to get in until a couple days ago.  Again, I'll let the pictures explain what I mean.

This isn't officially part of this year's renovation project but I did just paint the pillars of the gazebo over the hot tub so I thought it deserved to be included.

You can see the piece of plywood (leaning against the wall in the hallway) that was the temporary barrier between us and the renovations. All the crack filling is complete and a coat of primer has been put on the walls. When you look down this hall you're actually looking into the barn at the end of it. From the opening of that hallway to the far wall is about 40 ft.

This was taken after I walked down the hallway and into the area that opens up into the laundry/utility area. There will be a counter under the window and an island in the center of the room. The dog shower is in the corner (done with ocean stone tile on the floor and it will have white subway tiles up the wall). A set of stairs will be installed in front of the door leading into the barn. The barn itself is actually two feet higher than the carriage house. Once through that doorway you're in our Costco room (where we'll store bulk items - like the kind you get at Costco).

I'm standing in the Costco room as I take this picture into the laundry room and down the hall into the main house. That doorway will be opened up a bit more and the plan right now is to make it an arch. We qualify all plans for the house given that we don't know what we're going to find structurally once we start tearing down walls.

You've probably seen this before but I just love our new barn and like showing new pictures of it.

This is in the barn too. This is my newly created studio. The sink was hooked up a couple weeks ago and my dear friend, Andrew, gave me a pottery wheel that I refurbished and set up. My shelving units hold my tools and pots that are drying and also create the wall that separates my studio from the rest of the garage.

Here's my new pottery wheel all set up. I covered our newly painted walls to try to protect them from any mud that may get splashed around.

Shameless self promotion. So far I've been involved in one sale. I branded myself and set up my little booth. The sale was just my pottery classmates and I but it was fun. I sold $62.37 worth of pottery. Unfortunately I bought $62.00 worth of pottery from my classmates. My business model needs some work.

Here's the completed carriage house. The cedar shingles are all up and the windows and doors are all installed. The light golden brown of the shingles will take on the same grey hue as the other ones on the barn over the next couple of years. The ones we put on the cabana during the deck project two years ago are almost completely grey already. That palette in front of my car (and a smaller one in front of it - you can just see the corner of it) is what 3000 lbs of porcelain floor tiles look like. We calculated that the kitchen and laundry area will need about 1100 square feet of tiles. Our designer found ones that she (and we) liked but they were in Dartmouth. We asked them if we'd be able to go get them instead of having them shipped down. They laughed and told us that many tiles would weigh 3000 lbs. To put that in perspective - our truck only weighs 5000 lbs.

Here is our new kitchen entrance with a new garden door. The kitchen windows are all being replaced and where you see shutters right now will also be a new window. There will be extension posts attached to the tops of the stone pillars and a pergola will be built there. I plan to cut a hole in the concrete below each pillar and plant some Wisteria that will crawl up the pillars and wrap around the pergola. That will take a couple years but should be spectacular once it's established.

June 17, 2015 - A beacon to help guide us home (from the pub) was installed today.

Phase 1 and Phase 2 near completion. We've decided to take a few weeks off between Phase 2 and Phase 3. Okay - the building inspector said he wanted the first two phases complete prior to starting Phase 3. At first we were dismayed at having a break in the pace we'd set but once we thought about it, the idea of having a few weeks without the hustle and bustle of work happening and a bit of extra time to get the kitchen contents moved before the demolition started...suddenly seemed like a good idea. Below are some recent shots along with a video of our new crown jewel - The Cedar Crest Beacon.

I'm glad we have some good people working on this project. This is the junction of all the domestic water and heating water pipes that joins the barn to the rest of the house. And the ones that aren't connected to the junction....go somewhere else.

Our new back door and door step leading from the laundry room to the back yard. Audrei wants a clothesline. We'll see.

This is one of my favourite new spots. Where you now see the picture window is where the doors to the carriage house used to be. The lattice make the base for the cedar shingles. In a few days this is going to look very different. We're also getting in a timber frame company to do the pergola that will extend up from the stone pillars. Notice one of our new outside lights beside the barn door.

First test a success. We wanted to make sure that the floor would hold the weight of the Range Rover. The test was successful. Of course, the real test will be if it's still there in the morning (and not in the basement) however our contractor and an engineer assure us that the floor will hold the Ranger Rover and three of four more cars as well - no problem.

The barn looks awesome especially with the new outside lights and the illuminated cupola.

Our beacon to guide us home from the pub. The video isn't great here but if you check Mike's Facebook page he has a better one.

June 12 - What a difference 5 days make.

Again, I'll let the pictures do the talking but, as June progresses, we're starting to see the end of phase II. We'll still be a couple more weeks getting it done. The drywall is all up and and will be finished next week. We jumped back into some of Phase I as the electricians came in and put up the outdoor lights and the concrete guys came back and completed the ramp. We could park in the garage now...if we had a driveway. All in good time. Here are some shots taken over the past week or so:

Here's the new garden door leading from the carriage house to the back yard.

Here is the ramp filled with gravel and dirt that is being compacted.

A layer of rebar is placed over the dirt. This will reinforce the concrete after it's poured.

The truck arrives to pour the concrete. That's Jason - our concrete guy - waving. We've spent a lot of time with him over the past few months.

Jason leveling out the concrete. Once it was all in he created a textured design on the surface.

The finished ramp looks great.

This is the carriage house/laundry room with most of the drywall up. It seems dark at the end of the hall but there is a piece of plywood covering the entrance to the rest of the house so that will open up a lot as soon as that is gone. The other side of that plywood is phase III. It sounds ominous.

The inside of our new garden door is on the left. The long, expanse of wall going along the hallway will give us much needed wall space to hang some of our art.

Okay, admittedly, draped in Typar is not a good look for any structure but try to focus on the new concrete at the bottom of the wall. We mimicked the slope of the existing concrete pad to both conceal the seam and to facilitate water run off from the roof.

This is another view of the concrete slab. The opening on the right is the outside entrance to the basement. We had to order a custom door since the opening is a little wider and a little shorter than a typical door. This will actually help us get larger things in the basement if we need to.

June 7, 2015

This is the corner where the dog shower will be. The pipes you see on the right are the heating pipes coming from the concrete floor of the barn. They will tie into the ones you see coming up out of the concrete floor here in the carriage house. There are also domestic hot water lines in there too (going to the dog shower and out to my studio in the barn). That squared-in area of framing will be an access panel to get to the section where they all connect.

Mike having breakfast in the pantry.

I'm standing on the other side of the closet taking a picture of Mike standing in the pantry. The walls of the pantry and closet are 8 feet high so don't go all the way to the cathedral ceiling. This openness will help with heating and air circulation.

In this picture you can see the doors to the left and you can see how the walls don't reach all the way to the ceiling. The pantry door is going to be across the hall from the TV room door. Both doors are going to be the old style sliding barn-doors using the original, 100 year old,  door roller systems that we salvaged from the carriage house.

Our late-blooming Azalea smells great.

It's been a couple weeks since my last update. Still lots going on - a yard full of vehicles belonging to various tradespeople every day - but, day to day, a lot of the work hasn't been visible. But, over the past couple weeks all together, there's been a pretty significant change. Still lots to come but here are a few pictures to keep you up to date:

This is looking from the house toward the barn. The entire carriage house was gutted and a cathedral ceiling put in. On the left you can see the picture window that will look out over the car park. The vertical boards on the left are the beginnings of the framing for the pantry and closet.

Three days of rain and a yard that doesn't drain well or fast left us with a flood behind the barn where the ramp is being built. Matt pumped it out and everything was fine. Part of the construction of this part of the project includes a drainage system which just hasn't been put in yet.

This is a typical sight in our back yard on any weekday. We think we may have, single handedly, solved the unemployment problem in Nova Scotia.

This is the outside of the carriage house now. It doesn't look like much at this stage but that big hole in the wall will be a picture window. The doorway to the right will lead to the basement.

Through it all my Muscat grapes are doing really well. Patrick and Sol and I pruned them and tied them up a week or so ago.

This is a little bit clearer view of the laundry/utility area leading to the barn. This is almost a foot of insulation in the ceiling and almost as much in the walls. Heating and cooling this space is going to be much easier than the older parts of the house.

We had to re-shingle the TV room during the renovation and since the skylights were really old and only contributed to letting too much light into the room - we decided to get rid of them. This is Jonathan getting ready to board over the hole in the ceiling.

May 23, 2015

The guys were here working today (on a Saturday). I think it's starting to become clear to all of us just how much more work there is to do here. We had a set back with the ramp going into the barn. The previous ramp (which went down to the basement of the barn) had been filled with sand many years ago. The ground water mixed with the sand and basically created quicksand. Matt had to arrange for loads of rock to be brought in to displace all the quicksand before he could build a ramp on top of it. But, the fix was successful and we're moving on. They should be able to pour cement next week in the floor of the corridor/laundry/utility room. Then they'll finish the walls and plumbing and electrical. After that it's on to the kitchen phase of the project which might be the most extensive of all of this - certainly the most detailed.

This is where the garden door will be that leads to the back yard.

I'm standing at the entrance to the barn looking toward the house. Where you see the big sheet of plywood is roughly where the hallway ends that will take you into the kitchen sitting area.

Bentley surveying the workmanship of the new concrete wall.

The door on the left goes into our TV room. That's why we have to go outside on the deck to get into the TV room (through the patio doors in that room). The garden door on the right will be removed and a wall will go there.

This is all the heating and domestic hot water lines that will run through a channel under the floor. They connect the barn heating and water system to the furnace and water pipes in the house basement.

Bentley checking that the gravel has been "tamped" sufficiently to prep it for the concrete.

One ramp wall up (on the right) and the form for the second one is built - just waiting for the concrete to fill it.

May 20, 2015 - More big changes

This past week saw the end of several old (very old and very dirty) Poplar trees, the end of the demolition around the carriage house and the beginning of the concrete ramp leading us into the garage.

Trevor Burton, of Burton's Towering Tree Service, swings from one tree to the other as he cuts the limbs off from the bottom to the top and then cuts the tree truck down from the top to the bottom.

From back here you start to get a sense of how large these trees are (were).

The carriage house was quickly becoming a breezeway with open access from the driveway to the back yard.

Here you can see the different levels of concrete that had gone into making the floor over the years.

This wall had to be taken down and the footings rebuilt. As it was, the wood of the wall was about 6 inches below ground. Over the years the soil simply rose up and the old footings sank into the ground.

Matt brought in the big guns to remove the old concrete.

The new footing molds are in place and full of concrete . They will form the base of the new walls and eventually will become the laundry/utility room and the corridor connecting the barn to the house.

Digging the trenches for the footings of the ramp that will allow us to drive into the barn.