Tracks in the Snow

Outside we often see signs of wildlife in the area.  We've seen lots of deer tracks criss-corssing the property, and walking out on the frozen lake.

These raccoon tracks were found in the side yard.

It's interesting buying a property in the depths of the Canadian winter.  We're not quite sure what it will be like in the summertime, but as the weather warms up we get excited by the potential.  Can't wait for all this snow to be gone!

Demolition

Our current plan is to build a small cottage on the concrete foundation at the back of the house.  Currently on that foundation are two bedrooms and a hallway, for a total of 400sf.  The drywall is mouldy, so we decided to start dismantling the walls and ceiling while we still have a floor to stand on.

The ceiling joists and roof rafters are dry!  Phew!

There appear to be plenty of nice, straight 2x6 - we'll be salvaging as much as we can for use in the new structure.

This corner is by far the worst.   This is where the floor had collapsed and we could see in from the outside.  The studs disintegrate when touched.  Not good!  I think we'll be investing in hard hats!  Seriously though, there is enough strength in the rest of the wall to support the roof while we work.  This, plus the rotting floor, make this part of the house unsalvageable.  We'll save what materials we can, and build again from the foundation up.

One room - 27 bags of garbage.  Yikes!  I think next time we'll get a dumpster.

Treasure

My idea of treasure and my wife's idea of treasure are two very different things.  She has taken a liking to yelling "Treasure!" every time she finds any artifact from the previous owners, including a broken christmas ornament, a bottle of vitamin C, and a child's sock covered in mouse droppings.  She seems to get a huge kick out of it.

But I've found my own treasures, including a newspaper from 1976 and some old photos showing the owners enjoying the house in it's better days.  We managed to track down a family member and returned the photos to their rightful owners.

Playing archaeologist, she found more "Treasure" outside in the snow, when she should have been overseeing the septic inspection going on in the background!

Good news!  The septic is in working order, although it needs a new lid.  We'll add that to the task list for this spring.

Investigation

In this part of Canada we get a lot of rain in the springtime, so we were not surprised to find our garbage can nearly full of water when we returned.  Imagine!  That much water would have been collecting in the ceiling!  No wonder it was collapsing.

Today's task is to investigate the back portion of the house, which we think might have a useable foundation.  The older parts of the house are build on stone, but the newest addition (about 30 years old) has a poured concrete foundation about 14' x 30', which we think might suit our needs.  We just need to get into that back room that has been boarded up.

From the outside we can see into this back room.  That's right, from the OUTSIDE.  There is a hole between the siding and the foundation, and we got a glimpse of what was inside.  Seems the floor has fallen in, leaving this gap between the floor and the wall.  In the photo we can see a dresser and chair, and also the underside of the door, which appears to be floating a good 6" above the floor.

Our suspicions were confirmed when we got into the room.  The floor has fallen in, and is spongy in parts.  We decide to pull up a section of floor and see what we are dealing with.

The floorboards are resting directly on the concrete foundation, with no joists to be seen.  The investigation was halted temporarily when we met these little fellas:

And by little I mean frickin' huge!  That's a four inch nail she's playing on. "Meta ovalis Gertsch", the Cave Orb Weaver... they like dark, moist areas, free from disturbance.  Hopefully we disturbed them enough that they will find a new home.  I wouldn't dare stick my head down in the hole as I imagined a throng of spiders waiting for me, but I did risk my hand and camera.

No wonder we couldn't see any joists... they had practically disintegrated in this corner of the room.  Seems the floorboards are holding up the joists instead of the other way around.  A lesson in the damaging effect of humidity in crawlspaces.  And those white things?  Egg sacs. *shudder*  But in general the foundation looks solid, and with proper ventilation we should be able to avoid this debacle happening again.

When our backs are sore we start to wonder what we got ourselves into, we like to take a walk around the lake to remind ourselves why we're here.

Fixer-Upper

The interior of the house is in great disrepair.  The living room ceiling is collapsing due to the leaky roof.  The carpets are sopping wet.  The walls are mouldy.  The flooring is held down with duct tape.

But worst of all:  the wallpaper.  I hate wallpaper.

Our first order of business:  remove everything wet and mouldy!  The day we got the keys, every square foot of carpet was removed from the house.

We tore down the living room ceiling, removed the wet and mouldy insulation, and hoped the rafters would dry out.  Unfortunately when we revealed the structure we noted that when this addition was built on to the original (much smaller) house, they did nothing to replace the supporting wall that was removed.  Not only was the original roof left basically unsupported, but they also added the load of this new section of roof as well.  That explains the bowing of the beam that is doing it's best to carry far too much weight.

Knowing the roof was still leaking, we set up a catchment tarp that fed the water into a garbage can, and hoped that would allow the floor to dry.

Not bad for a day's work.  Now back to the city while the place (hopefully) dries out.

Land Purchased

We did it!  After years of searching, we finally bought a piece of land.  Over time our needs have changed, but a few key requirements remained the same: it had to be private, quiet, and on a lake.

The other thing that changed was our reasons for wanting land.  At first it was purely recreation - to have a weekend getaway.  But now we see it as an experiment in self-sustainability.  For now we will continue to work in the city while spending weekends and summers here, working on the land.  But in time we hope to learn exactly what we truly need, and how much we can live without.

We always intended to buy raw land, and spend the first few years camping while clearing trees, digging a well, making a driveway.  It didn't take us long to realize that lakefront land was expensive, and without a structure we would not qualify for a mortgage.  So we changed our tack and started looking for cabins or cottages that could be mortgaged, and therefore were more affordable even if the pricetag was higher.

We found this gem while surfing the net over Christmas. On the one hand:  Bank repo.  Leaky roof.  Mystery room boarded up at the back.  Arsenic in the well.  On the other hand:  Acres of mature forest.  Large, deep, sparsely populated lake.  Driveway.  Well.  Septic. Power.  In the end the benefits outweighed the drawbacks and we closed the deal.

For us, the value is in the land.  As for what to do with this decrepit house, that will require some exploration.

Return to Simplicity

“If I preach against the modern artificial life of sensual enjoyment, and ask men and women to go back to the simple life epitomized in the charkha, I do so because I know that without an intelligent return to simplicity, there is no escape from our own destruction”

Mahatma Gandhi