It has begun!

Carter met with the foundation contractor Gordy about 8 this morning, and took these shots just as Gordy was setting up to get started. The house looks good, still there at least. More to come! THANK YOU CARTER 

 

 

It's gonna start!

The foundation work will begin Thursday.

Carter has been a good friend ever since we worked together for Don MacKinnon Architect in Charlottetown back in the late '80's, after I graduated from Holland College, and he knows the house well. Carter has his own consultancy, Unlimited Drafting, based in Hunter River, and he designs beautiful houses, and is very successful, as well as knowledgeable about the construction industry on the Island. You can visit his website @: http://www.unlimiteddrafting.ca/index.html

He will be my on-site project manager in my absence and will be visiting the construction site, keeping things on track, and sending me pictures to post here as the work progresses. Carter has coordinated a meeting with the foundation contractor, Gordy MacLeod, for this Thursday to review the design as the work begins.

Stay tuned. It is actually going to happen!

Carter and David checking out the daylillies at his house in Hunter River, 2008

Construction Documents

The full set of drawings is 20 sheets, but I thought I would post what might be the most interesting, because they are the floor plans of the main floor and basement, and interior elevations of the Kitchen and Main Floor Bathroom. The second floor plan will not be changed so I have not posted it, but the ceilings of the second floor will not be rebuilt. When we took down the ceilings we uncovered beautiful hand-hewn trusses, so I've decided to drywall up to the peak and leave the trusses exposed. The bedrooms will get ceiling fans, and the added volume will help with air circulation on those hot and humid summer nights.

Click on the plans, then click on them again and you can zoom in on them. Same goes for all photos.

MAIN FLOOR PLAN

After some thinking about this, I think it would be best to remove the wall between the front hall and the front bedroom and make that space the Parlour, which is what this space was when the house was built. The larger addition at the back that was going to be a large living room, cannot be added because of setbacks from the tracks, so now there is a shortage of living space. We will keep the doors from the Parlour to the Dining Room (current Parlour) and the Back Hall (current Dining Room) so when we have a house-full, we can hang out in the Dining Room and Kitchen, and close these doors if someone wants to sleep on the fold out couch in the Parlour.

When we removed all of the plaster and lath we discovered that this wall was not original and the Parlour was the whole front of the house, and the added wall didn't even touch the ceiling. It was held in place by the plaster, and the ceiling joists above spanned across the wall, so it has no structural value and can be removed without having to brace the floor above. We are also gaining a bedroom in the basement, so we will have the same number of beds in the end.

BASEMENT

The basement will have 9 foot ceilings, and will be constructed with ICF's, as I mentioned in an earlier post, which stands for Insulated Concrete Forms. The basement walls will have an R value of 28 and will be finished. All of the old cabinets will be installed in the Pantry, which is the space below the Kitchen.

INTERIOR ELEVATIONS

Above are the interior elevations of the Main Floor Bathroom, and the Kitchen.

The Kitchen will have a skylight where the chimney used to be. A new electric stove in cobalt blue with a warming oven and nickel trim will go where the old stove was. The north wall will get 12 feet of cabinets. The sink will be a farmers sink, also known as an apron sink. The counter will be soapstone. The upper cabinets will have glass front doors and lit inside. The south wall where the pump was, will have the refrigerator in the corner. The ceiling of the Kitchen will also be removed and be open to the peak. The old tool closet will get shelving inside for food storage. The trim and cabinets will be painted a creamy yellow and the wallpaper above the chair rail will be Pomegranite by William Morris, designed in 1864. It looks like a good kitchen paper.
The Bathroom walls and ceiling will be finished with horizontal 1x6 tongue and groove boards, and will be painted. The window and door trim will match that in the original house. A knife will be cut to replicate the old woodwork. The Bathroom gets a clawfoot tub. Above the door to the hall is a transom window that will be fabricated to replicate the transom that was above the front door at Grammy and Grampy's house in Hopefield. Three skylights will be placed in the hall between the bathroom and kitchen that will let second-hand daylight into the transom, and the kitchen window above the sink, the one that has George Lowe's signature, probably signed when he built the kitchen about 1908. You can see the inspiration for the transom in the photo below over Ola's shoulder.

Update

It has been a long and slow process to get all my ducks in a row, with my banker, my lawyer, my broker, my contractor, my sub-contractors...

I think I'm there. I think everything is ready. I think work will begin next week!!!

I think

First order of business is the foundation. The house will be lifted about 5 feet from where it is now, and the underneath will be dug out for the footings, then the form-work is placed, and the concrete is poured. While the house is in the air all main floor joists and sills will be replaced, including the entire kitchen floor, decking and all. Once the house is set down on its new foundation, the additions will be framed, enclosed and shingled with cedar, the new roof will be installed, and the original cedar shingles of the old part will be replaced with new. This is where I want the project to be by the time there is snow on the ground.

The house will end up being about 3 feet higher than it is now. One of the problems with the house now is that the main floor is practically at ground level and the sills are sitting in the dirt. That's why they have rotted.

The contractor commented that the work we did to prepare the house was a thorough and professional job and has saved not only a lot of work for him, but made lifting the house possible. The debris that we took out in July was weighed when taken to the dump, and we took out seven tons of plaster and lath! The sags in the floors literally bounced back to level after we were finished. Thanks again everyone who worked so hard to get this project started. Now the reconstruction begins!

I think

November 1, 1994

UPDATE

It has been a while since I posted anything so I thought I would give an update. We are exploring what it would cost to use insulated concrete forms (ICF) for the foundation. That is the system where the formwork is styrofoam and remains after the concrete is poured, insulating the basement. The exterior styrofoam around the foundation then gets a stucco-like finish, and I'll have it colored to match Island Sandstone. I hope to hear back any time now and the foundation can begin. The site has power now. I made a couple of changes while waiting. Couldn't help myself. I removed the window in the stair on the north side and added three skylights in the hall. Better for security, and will allow daylight to brighten up the interior kitchen window below, where the sink is going to be.

I have been shopping for light fixtures, designing the kitchen and bathroom cabinets, making decisions on countertops, paint, flooring, all the fun stuff.

These images show how the house will look after a few years, when the copper color of the cedar turns to gray.

I am getting very anxious for all of this to get rolling again. Fall is coming fast. Hopefully I will have an update soon to say the work is under way. Keep watching