Main Bathroom Renovation - Part Three

Much cleaner! All the debris left under the floor from the previous renomassacre has been vacuumed up.  Joist hangers added to the additional blocking I added.

A view of the first 'twinned joist' installed, a 2x6 that runs from the blocking at the parged exterior wall, to a ledger plate (not in the picture) at the other side of the room.

Three of the twinned joists installed, the level was used to keep the tops of the added joists level with the existing joists. Span is about 6'6", so 2x6 are above code, and with joists now at 8" centers, floor will be virtually indestructible.

At the far end of the room was the solitary joist that was not butchered, as a wall had to be added, a 'blocked out' cantilevered 2x6 joist was added to support the five inch floor overhang past the last joist.

Main Bathroom Renovation - Part Two

A view of some of the notched Joists. Joists are 1-7/8 x 8-3/4, and these were notched about four inches deep.  The two by four was possibly added as a means of providing additional bracing? If that was the thinking, it would not have made any difference.

Close up of one of the notches... Acccck!

Amazing what one finds when tearing out bad renovations. A very slightly damp, and oily IKEA style floor mat, vintage 1984? And some otherwise unidentifiable fabric...

One of the more severely butchered joists, about 6-1/2 inches removed, to accommodate 2" waste, plus hot and cold supply, plus 5 inch HVAC pipe... Acccck!

Beginning to fix up the disaster... 3/4 thick ply braces (about 6" x 24" or so were glued and screwed to 'clamp' the butchered joists in their current (thankfully they had hardly deflected) position. Then 2x6 blocking was installed between each sandwiched joist, about an inch from the parged interior wall.

A view of the beginning of the repair job, all joists sandwiched by 3/4" ply plates, and then blocks installed between all joists.

Main Bathroom Renovation - Part One Of About Ten... Make That Twenty!

Sadly, the only two photographs of the old main bathroom, in early stages of demolition. Vinyl floors, sheet hardboard false tile on the walls, and an atrociously 'eighties 3 piece combination tub and shower. Accck!

A common discovery after peeling up the vinyl floor. Old hardwood wainscot used to piece together where the floor was pulle out to.... yes you guessed it, install plumbing and Hvac by notching out the floor joists! Acccck!

Another view of the atrociously appalling job done roughly thirty years ago... And yes, that is a joist that has been notched out to accommodate a 5 inch diameter heating vent! Acccck!

Fixing Things

A couple of years back I picked up one of those garden benches someone had put out at the curb, with the intention of fixing it up. The wooden slats were rotted and covered in fungus, and the fasteners had all corroded through.

 

My dad had a friend wanting to get rid of some wood in his garage, so on a trip to Toronto I picked it all up. It included some thick cedar tongue and groove, which Rudi and I cut down into strips to rebuild the seat.

 

Finally, the fasteners used were all stainless, as opposed to black painted steel, so they won't rust away over the years. I think our project should outlast a store bought bench by about a decade, or more.

 

Zoh Jee Roo Shee - The New Bread Machine

Recently the baking pan of our Cuisinart bread machine finally bit the biscuit, the seal finally broken, and the pan rotted around the opening for the paddle. It would take about a week to replace, or I could replace it with a new machine, and take the existing one (with pan to arrive later) up to the cottage.

 

I looked online, and found the ultimate bread machine, one I had been thinking about five or six years back when we were given the Cuisinart. The Zojirushi Home Bakery Supreme is pretty much state of the art, the finest bread machine made. And because we put well over 80 loaves and close to 30 batches of pizza dough a year through the Cuisinart, we figured it would be a worthwhile investment.

 

 

 

The Zojirush has a longer baking pan, and is the only bread machine with two paddles.

 

A view of the inside, with pan removed. It is actually a little smaller than the Cuisinart it replaces, but has a slightly larger pan.

 

Ingredients in for a three pound whole wheat loaf, in the first two minutes of kneading.

 

A more close up view.

 

And sorry, the battery on my Nikon died, so you will have to wait for pictures of a completed loaf of bread! We have had it just under three weeks now, and it has produced seven perfect loaves of bread, and one batch of pizza dough. 

Easter Saturday Dinner... Grilled Salmon

The salmon on the now one year old Weber Genesis barbeque, best five hundred bucks I have ever spent in my life!

Salmon in black bean sauce, on an edge formed double layer aluminum foil tray.

Salmon, rice, asparagus, and broccoli... Mmmmm good eats.

No leftovers whatsoever! The nice thing about this grilling technique is the meat pulls away easily, leaving the skin against the aluminum foil. 

The New Piano

We recently had the fortune of receiving a gorgeous 1921 Mason and Risch (Henry Herbert) Piano from a friend of a friend of Katherine's. Sue (the f of f) acquired a much newer Yamaha for very little cost, and wanted a happy home for her Mason and Risch. Two hundred dollars for the piano movers (the Piano itself was free) and here it is! Wonderfully solid, perfectly tuned, and absolutely magnificent!

Stratford Festival

Last week a number of tickets to various shows at the Stratford Festival were made available by a co-worker. Evidently undersold shows have certain allotments of tickets printed out and given away to acheive appropriate 'bums in seats' levels, I imagine for the purpose of making every performance appear packed to the paying showgoers.

Not one to turn down an opportunity, I was able to secure tickets to both Titus Andronicus by Shakespeare and The Misanthrope by Moliere.

Titus Andronicus is a very impressive, startling, powerful, and disturbing tragedy. It is Shakespeares first, and is a completely fictional tale about a Roman military leader returning from war, his actions, and the consequenses that arise.

Last week, this plant wasn't there... I swear!

The Sand Box

About six summers ago I decided to build a half decent, durable sandbox for Rudi, the summer he was three. I am happy to say it has survived in quite fair fashion, and just needs about six or eight bags of play sand to get going again for Alexander.

The sandbox is anchored with four by four posts on steel post supports driven into the ground, with two by twelve inch boards for sides. I liked the idea of having the side boards intersect and 'pass through' one another with the corner posts on the outside of the sandbox, rather than the inside. The alternate walls are made up of twinned two by sixes, and are keyed into the two by twelves at the post junction.

Alexander hams it up a bit on one of the seats in the first photo... The log to the right is cut to length and will soon go to the treehouse. The second photo is a detail of the intersection of the side boards at one of the corner posts.

The Bean Support

Every year in our little raised bed, Katherine plants a number of things, including a variety of tomatoes, as well as a number of beans, including climbers.

Last year the climbers completely outgrew my pathetic attempt at a support, which was just six foot tall or so. This year at Katherine's request I built a real support, which hopefully will be able to keep up with the Wisley Magic and other climbers that have begun winding their way to the top!

The New Patio Toy

Finally got a new BBQ, on kijiji, and saved around $500. This one was won in a draw by a gentlman in London, who was moving soon, and also is not a BBQ'er. $500 cash for a brand new, fully assembled Weber Genesis 310 Special Edition (roughly $999 plus taxes in stores).

I picked it up mid June, and have probably used it thirty times between now and then. This BBQ is worth every penny of a thousand dollar purchase price in stores, but not wanting to afford that, it is doubly worth the money I spent. Sadly, his asking price was $500, probably for a no hassle sale, but he told me he had people trying to talk him down to half that!

Canada Day

Canada Day is always somewhat challenging for me, as unpleasant memories generally try to take over. It was July 1 1987, when while watching a bike race in High Park Toronto, my dad headed north and home early, muttering something about helping mom with some gardening. I left a few hours later, and had a nice ride back through downtown Toronto, and up Bayview to home. On arriving, my father was nowhere to be found, and both my sisters had seen nothing of him. Shortly thereafter, my older sister took a call, apparently Roger had been hit by a car, and broke his leg.

The rest of the day was pretty much a fog, but it did involve getting to the hospital later that evening, only to find out my father had undergone about five hours of emergency surgery to repair a severed jugular vein, extensive damage to his neck and shoulder area, and the near total severing of  his lower leg, which was broken in at least six places, and held together by a flap of skin and calf muscle a couple of inches wide. He was in critical but stable condition in intensive care, which he remained for most of the week, also undergoing further surgeries to repair his leg and his shoulder.

Fortunately for him, this happened during the Doctor's strike in Ontario. A 7-11 clerk witnessed the collision, and immediately called 911. The nearest paramedic ambulance was rolling at a Donut Queen a few hundred yards up the road. The closest hospital with an open emergency ward was Humber Memorial, less than 1 mile away. The paramedics arrived at scene exactly 57 seconds after the 911 call was initiated. Just under three minutes later he was wheeled into hospital. A number of doctors and emerg staff happened to be playing a game of poker, and as soon as his neck collar was removed blood geysered everywhere, with one doctor exclaiming "Christ, that's his jugular!"  67 units of blood (a Toronto record) and five hours of ER staff time later, and he was wheeled into recovery.

It is a bit of a life changing experience, at nineteen years old, watching your dad lying comotose on a hospital bed, a pump helping him breathe, lots of tubes leading into him delivering fluids, and blood, and drugs, and being told by the doctors that they are simply hopeful about his recovery, but that nothing was for certain. I discovered a lot about my father that day, from all my experiences with him over the previous years of my life, and I continued to learn more, over the ensuing years.

Why Big Box Retailers (Especially RONA) Suck

Recently have been looking for a barbecue to replace the eight year old completely unservicable and not worth repairing unit we own now. I figure a good quality, less expensive Broil King might do, found out RONA carried them, and in the meantime became a member of their online notification club.

This email arrived at about 6:30 pm:

So I opened it, and clicked the link, only to receive this:

Not particularly impressive, so I think I will go to TA Appliance in Kitchener and buy the Broil King there.

The Cost Of Heating

So what does it cost to heat a leaky old uninsulated double brick Victorian? Well here is the answer, for the years 2003 to 2010 inclusive. I started these excel files back in 2005 or so, continually improving them every two years or so.

Interestingly, the cost of natural gas for '01 and '02 was $2280 and $2330 respectively. In 2004 I purchased a Hunter brand setback thermostat to replace the original vintage dial thermostat. We did not often turn the heat back at night, but after purchasing the digital one, it was programmed to do so automatically, with what appears to be a significant corresponding savings in fuel consumption.