Well, we’ve completely finished the demolition on the second floor.

Awesome

That is other than the stairwell.  I’m debating whether or not to gut this area – as it’s adjacent to our living space on the main floor.  It would be easy enough to demo this little area when we tackle the entry/hall on the main floor when the time comes.

Master Bedroom: before

The Master Bedroom was previously gutted as part of an older renovation so when the first swing of the hammer revealed drywall instead of lath and plaster, I knew this room would be quickly gutted.   And it was.

Master Bedroom: after

In one day, we had this room stripped and cleaned up – whereas the rest of the second floor took about three weeks!  It was just nice to wind up the demo with a relatively easy job.

When we took up the laminate floor to uncover the original plank floors, we discovered an area that appears to have been a secondary stairwell.  Lath and plaster runs continuously down the exterior wall and a section of the floor has been patched-in.

Right under the window….

When we gut the kitchen ceiling below, it will undoubtedly show us what was originally there.

For now, it’s just really nice to have the demolition phase done inside the house – at least until the new foundation is in place.

We’ll be meeting with our foundation guy next week. I want to show him what we’ve done to date and see what his timeframe is like to getting things underway.   At this point, I just want to get this house in the air and start excavating for the new basement.  Our repairs will be on-hold until the house is back on a firm foundation.

Vanessa and I went to the PEI Provincial Home Show last weekend.  It’s funny that we already knew a couple of the vendors there.   We also made contact with a spray-foam insulation guy.  Without a doubt, I’d like to foam the house: there’s no need for vapour barrier, it will plug up any holes, it maintains continuity of the insulation/vapour barrier around the balloon framing and it will essentially “glue” the frame together giving some rigidity.

I also had a chance to chat with the owner of the local Winmar in Charlottetown.  Winmar would have been the competition to the company I worked for in Ontario – CRCS Disaster Kleenup.  With my certification and experience, I’m sure I wouldn’t have any issue picking up some work with any of the local restoration contractors on the island.  Ultimately though, I’d want to pursue my own renovation company – or perhaps “freelance” my restoration experience.  Although for now, all I can think about is the house.

So with the demo finished upstairs, where do we go from here?  Well, to lift the house, we’ll also have to remove the front porch – so we’ll start there.

Got to go….

The small addition and deck on the back of the house will also have to come off, and we’ll carry on with that.

This too.

That will bring us very close to the time to start the foundation, I imagine.  I’m just hoping and praying for decent spring weather until then.

We took a bit of a mental break last week too and went ice fishing.  I promised pictures if we caught anything, so….

Nothing spectacular.  Half a dozen smelt – which we kept, cleaned and fried up.  Vanessa (who is not much of a fish-eater) tried them and liked them.  We’ll give it another go in the next week or two, but really, it’s only a month until trout and salmon season opens, so given the option, smelt will soon be off my radar.

We got our last load of firewood this week – and I’m counting that it will be the last for the year.

I have no idea where it’s all going….

Finally, we’re getting the odd spring-like day and it feels like winter is slowly departing.  I’m not too optimistic that yesterday was the last winter storm we’ve seen, but it is nice to see the days lengthening   We had another beautiful day here in the valley – so with that, here’s how our day ended.

View from our Bedroom

Spring-wreath and the new Lee Valley catalogue

The moon rising over Pleasant Valley

Almost full