projects on the go
This is a house built in 1906 at 1403 3 Ave. N., Coalbanks (later to become Lethbridge), AB, Canada. I bought the house in Dec. 2021 as a rental property. It has a 3-bedroom suite on the main floor and a 1-bedroom suite on the 2nd floor. This is the story of the upper suite (“up”).
While Dave sanded, mudded little holes, and primed and painted the bedroom, I got to work on the last two remaining windows that need replacement – the bedroom and the living room.
The amount of dirt inside the old framing was substantial, more than the other windows.
Rona+ is the only place I could find that sells whole boxes of protector plates (“bang plates”). They hardly have any staff there. Their app is broken – doesn’t accept my email and password despite being told several times over the past two years – so I can’t look up which isle and bay a product sits. I must stand at customer service way longer than should be before someone speaks to me. Their flooring guy in particular is the most miserable person I’ve ever met in retail, pushing me to go to End Of the Roll. In short, I hate this place.
Here’s a view of the new living room window. Looks good, I think. Just needs to be permanently installed before it falls out.
I put down some fresh paper. But this paper is too thin and rips easily underfoot (not from Rona+ but from Home Depot).
Here is my 3rd try at placing the kitchen lighting. <sigh>
I moved the smoke alarm to the left. Why? I measured and cut the hole from the wrong side of the drywall. Rather than patch it up and create a new hole, I moved the darned thing.
On to the ceiling. But first, move the boxes full of flat-pack cabinets that are in the way.
There is no rafter tie on the west end of the house. A spacer (1″) and backing (2×4 on-the-flat) were added for mounting the ceiling drywall.
Floyd came by and offered a badly needed 3rd set of arms.
I spend much of the morning and early afternoon working on cleaning up and organizing construction materials and tools. Badly needed.
I bought Ziplock bags from Canadian Tire to organize all the electrical and other stuff. As it turns out, I have a surplus of outlets, switches, etc. that I didn’t know about as nothing was categorized before.
Before drywalling the ceiling, backing had to be installed. There was no rafter tie at the gable ends of this house – only rafters – as the exterior 1×12 sheathing boards offered structure: Such is balloon framing. Thus, I added a 2×4 atop the wall’s top plate to attach drywall.
The first piece of ceiling drywall was put up.
More drywall from Home Depot. There is a small discount if you buy 20 or more sheets (like 1-1/2 sheets free).
Protection plates were added to the wiring before drywall goes up.
The inspector was by today, looking at the work previously done and, thankfully, on the same permit, did a rough-in inspection. He was quite an agreeable fellow, addressing all my questions. So was Ryley, the electrician from Passey Electric. He found some deficiencies.
Along with that…
Some of the work was done yesterday and some today.
So, here goes!
The second floor is rented for Sept. 31, 2026. I’d best get a move-on.
I priced out a water heater from Home Depot. I think it may be too tall. I’ll have to think on it.
The entrance, stairway, and all the rooms are chocked full of stuff that needs to be moved, removed, organized, or used.
We’re almost done! (Not!)
In preparation of the main floor, the mudroom had to be emptied of upstairs appliances. The old range is now outside, and the new one was taken up. It was brought up the stairs end-over-end and ended up up-side-down in the bedroom.
The old refrigerator (a tiny apartment sized one) is now in the shed, but the new one is still in its box in the entrance. We don’t want to overcrowd the upstairs with stuff until more work is done.
A book shelf used for tools was brought up, but nothing else will be done until the main floor is complete.
