Catch Up!

Sorry about not posting for some time now. Its partially the amount of work and time spent at the reno and being really tired of all things reno by the end of the day. We will try to catch up in the next few weeks. Since the masonry has been completed, we have had the exterior work pretty much completed for now. That includes having all the new windows installed in the old part of the house and the aluminum trim work completed.



Work on the furnace / laundry room is completed. We had the old concrete floor removed, then new drains installed. Following that, we had John Greco come back in with his crew and pour a new concrete floor and create the basement steps from the old basement into the new basement.
The HVAC equipment is installed in the new furnace room and ductwork throughout the house. That was a big job and took some time. We put in a York 96% efficient furnace and a 14.5 seer air conditioner in order to maximize our energy retro-fit grant. Bypass humidifier, media filter and a really cool thermostat round out the install.

Derock Electric has completed the rough in of the new electrical system. The entire house has been re-wired, no more knob and tube anywhere. We also moved our electrical panel and upgraded our service to 200 amps. The house has been pre-wired for an alarm system, computer network, phones, and cable TV.

The guys from HP house framing have done a ton of work for us. All the interior framing is complete including the basement. We had them open up the wall between the living room and dining room and the crowning achievement of a new Velux skylight at the top of the stairs to the upper floor. It is spectacular and we couldn't more more happier with that decision.

Before After
Most recently the exposed interior walls of the basement, first and second floors were spray foamed insulated. We used both open cell and closed cell foam. The company we used was Air Seal Insulators and we managed to achieve R20 on the exterior walls for the entire new addition. Some of the old house walls were also sprayed with closed cell foam where we managed to achieve R13.

What's New is Old Again!

Well we haven’t posted for a while but that does not mean we haven’t been busy with our Georgian reno. We have been doing a lot of inside work, including pulling out all the trim and the old strip hardwood flooring to make way for the new. We are almost done with demolition after filling at least 4 disposal bins. It really doesn’t seem that there is much left of the old house.

The big accomplishment outside the house is the completion of the brick work. You will recall that our bricklayers finished their work over a month ago. Since then we have brought in the people from PermaTint to transform the new brick into the old. PermaTint is brick coloring that we first discovered when we saw it done on a house down the street from us. Each brick is individually tinted to match the look of existing bricks on the old part of the house. It took the crew about two and half days to tint approximately 6,000 bricks. We weren’t 100% satisfied with how the back of the house turned out so we had them come back and do some touchup work. We must say that we are very pleased with the final result. Just about everyone who has seen the work is blown away by how good the reproduction is. PermaTint warranties the work and the tinting for 30 years, so we don’t anticipate any problems down the road with the product. Please enjoy the pictures and tell us what you think.

Next up, interior work: HVAC, plumbing and more framing!

Mixed Bag

We have been working on a number of fronts at the Georgian reno. The demolition continues and we are starting to wonder if and when it will ever end. We ripped all the lathe and plaster from the walls leading up to the second floor and all the walls at the top of the stairs. We also took the ceiling down at the upstairs landing. We had always planned on doing this however the job took on additional importance as we would like to add a skylight upstairs. Our framers weren’t convinced we were going to be able to due to structural issues surrounding the engineering of the new roof on top of the old one. Well the good news is that Halim, our framer is now “99 percent sure” that the skylight can be done after taking a look at the situation. We are really happy about this as it is an architectural feature that will really make the house stand out not to mention give us some much needed natural light to both the upstairs landing and the main floor foyer.






Strassburger delivered the balance of the windows this week as well. Rommel will begin installing those soon. He installed the new window to the old main bath last week.

Strassburger also sent their technician to come in and replace two mistakes that they made with the windows in the addition. See if you can spot one of the mistakes.

Joe and Nando Caruso finished the stucco on the box bay window area. Once the caulking is done we will be able to have Frank come over and take all the scaffolding away.

We hired John Greco to come in and do some more concrete work for us. His crew will be breaking the old concrete floor in the furnace and laundry room, installing steps in the bench footing, and once Tony from Tri-Vent Plumbing comes in and puts in the new drains, they will be pouring a brand new concrete floor.

We went shopping and bought our hardwood flooring. Final decision was 2,100 square feet of brazilian cherry, otherwise known as “Jatoba” in a deep dark brown stain. We absolutely love it. The planks are 4 inches wide. It is going to look fantastic, but meanwhile the old flooring all has to come out. Ugh...more demolition!

We have also been shopping for countertops. More on that later…

Still trying to find our aluminum guy so the outside can be finished…

We have decided on our contractor for the HVAC installation. We anticipate our permit to be issued this week and the work will begin in earnest on that front. More on that later as well…

Stuck on you

Now that the brick is done, we are working on completing the box bay windows. We are Stuccoing the area, and including some sills and trim. Caruso Contracting is doing the work. They are fantastic and the proof is in the job they did on our garage over 5 years ago. No problems with that whatsoever. They will be applying a “Venetian” finish to the stucco to match the garage and the color has been matched to that of the window frames.


Inside the house right now, we have been doing even more demolition, having now removed all the lathe and plaster from the ceiling in the basement. This is to make way for the new heating and air conditioning system, new electrical, new gas line, and new plumbing. Upstairs Sandro from DeRock Electric continues to convert our house from old knob and tube wiring to current code.

We are also in the process of getting our HVAC permit from the city. Brian Scott our mechanical engineer put the finishing touches on the drawings for the new system and we expect to have our permit by mid October. We are currently getting pricing for this work as well. All new ductwork, hi-efficiency furnace, central air, and tankless water heater, plus the typical add-ons like media filter and bypass humidifier. We hope to have our contractor chosen this week.

She's a B R I C K house.....

Our bricklayers started bricking the addition this Wednesday and by Friday were almost finished. We chose an Ontario red brick from Hanson Brick which matches the size of our existing 70-year old brick. Unfortunately, it does not match the color of our existing which is known as 'range mix', but we'll have more on that later.

We installed 4 inch limestone sills under the garden doors and all the windows. The bricklayers will also be opening a window on the side of our old main bathroom on the second floor. As for the two story box bay windows, we will be getting Joe Caruso to apply a stucco finish to that area. Joe was the fellow that did such a fantastic job on our garage when we built that 5 years back.

Back to work!

We have been away to God's Country on a much need vacation and that was great! But now we're back and anxious to continue the Georgian reno.

The first week back, we ordered another disposal bin from Tony at Downtown Disposal and we demolished the plaster walls in the foyer and the coat closet in the old house. We also had HP House Framers come in and finish a few things and put up the interior walls to the new powder room and servery.

Lastly we took delivery of our garden doors from Eurovinyl Windows. Rommel, our friend and window guy came over and with the help of Rob and Dave Falcone, we installed the door while being eaten by mosquitos as the evening progressed. We were very happy with our new garden doors and were impressed with the quality.

Wrap it Up!

“It’s the biggest damn thing I ever wrapped!” exclaimed Rob after he completed installing the Typar house wrap. Hopefully a gift we can open for ourselves this Christmas. Our new home! We are bagged, dead tired and need a vacation. We have really been pushing it to get to this point but we made our goal. Going to take a little time off and get out of Dodge.

Next up: Bricklaying, Stucco and starting the inside work.