Back to Work

The renovation got back into full swing today after the hiatus and the subsequent lack of will to renovate. It would seem as though renovations have their own momentum - once you stop it's very difficult to get going again, but when you're rolling along, it's easy to want to get back to it.

We spent the morning emptying our bank accounts with a couple of major purchases. First, we managed to find stock windows that will fit our rough openings at a Rona in the east end of the city. They cost nearly double what we'd budgeted, but we were happy to find them, and Lesley, being the wise one, suggested we just bite the bullet and get them and be done with it, so we did. The nicest windows in our whole house will now be in the basement (the rest of our windows date to 1948).

New windows

We also managed to locate a Lowe's within driving distance (Orleans, Ontario), and went there to order our lumber. The original plan was to go to a locally owned lumber yard, which we actually did first thing this morning, but were informed upon our arrival that they no longer carry any lumber outside of fencing kits because the big box stores were killing their business. Would've been nice if their website had mentioned something to this effect so we didn't waste our time going down there, but we're beginning to see how these guys were going out of business... At any rate, Lowe's had what we needed, so we put in our order, and should receive our framing lumber and insulation early next week. The delivery charge was reasonable, and they will take back unusably warped lumber, so we were quite happy to get our supplies there, despite the long drive. Their prices were also very good, and everything came in well under budget, helping to even out the budget-beating from the windows.

It was after noon by the time we finally made it home from our successful shopping trip, so we didn't get too much work done, but did manage to set a few more studs. This particular wall has been a large challenge to complete. We had great deal of difficulty trying to figure out how to set studs sans top-plate. The top plate can't be installed until the studs are up because it won't be fastened to anything until after it's been installed, and you can't exactly set studs properly by fastening them only to the bottom plate. Paradox. This is one of those areas where our inexperience is a killer. Lesley came up with the idea to use a 2x4 as a brace across the front of the studs until the top plate could be installed. Of course, this only works if you have a reasonably straight piece of would to use as a brace, which we did not. In the end, we found a board that was straight enough for a long enough span to work in a pinch, and we managed to set enough studs today to enable the installation of the top plate, which should get done tomorrow.

"Progress"

Four hours of work, four studs installed. Not exactly the progress we were hoping for, but that's what we're going to get with this wall, I'm afraid. Tomorrow's another day.

Calling it a day