Four Rooms

This is the third room, in the process of being demolished. We plan to fill this room with debris - it will be our storage area until we get another dumpster to take it away.

This pretty much sums up my day:

 After the drywall is down, we go around and clean up the walls of all nails and screws, in the hopes we might be able to reuse this wood in the future.

 An example of the lovely  layers of wallpaper:

This is back in the first section we demolished - we're removing the closet walls.  This is where the floor has sunk, so I'm actually swinging on this part of the wall:

By the end of the day we had the ceiling removed in room #3, and our pile is growing nicely.

And here is room number four, all walls and closet removed.

Only two more rooms to demo from the inside, then we'll move on to the exterior.  But first we have a few structural details to work out.

Thank Goodness for Plumbers

This is our first experience with a well, pump, and pressure tank.  We brought in a plumber to prime the pump, and explain how it all works.  He also did some much needed repairs.  The pipes had frozen over the winter, and there were many leaks that needed to be fixed.

I had considered attempting the repairs myself, but I hate going into the crawl space.  It's muddy, it smells bad, and there are spiders.   It's also a tad scary to be reminded of the sketchy structure under the house; aside from the cracked beams, 2x4 joists spaces two feet apart, and rot everywhere, I also realized we're relying on what amount to little inukshuks to hold up the floor.

When I saw what the plumber had to do to reach the kitchen pipes, I knew I had made the right decision.  Worth every penny!

Even the hatch to enter the crawl space is creepy!

Five hours later, all the leaks are fixed, and here is our lovely tap water!  I guess a winter of sitting unused has left a fair amount of rust in the pressure tank.  We'll flush it out next time, and it will be good to go.

Rubber Boots

We bought some rubber boots so we could get a little deeper into the lake.  The quality of the lake is very important to us, since that's the main focus of this land.  We like to swim and boat, so we've been very excited to explore the shore... and can't wait to get a canoe down here so we can explore beyond our cove.

 Beautful lake bottom.

The buds are coming out.

The neighbour has been cutting trees and repairing the bridge.  The land beside ours will be for sale soon, and we're quite concerned about having neighbours so close.  The only feasible building site will be on a hill overlooking our property - far from ideal for us.

Spring is here!

Snow is gone!  Lake is thawed!  Daffodils are blooming!  It's nice to finally see the land in springtime.

It was windy today on the lake.  The bay faces north, so we expect some strong winds funneling down the cove.

We finally got a look at the shoreline... not too bad!  Little pebbles and not too much seaweed.  (Lakeweed?)  I'm eager to get in with my snorkel and mask and see what the bottom is like.

We sorted our comic book treasure.  Nothing of great value, but still fun to go through.

We continued to demolish the back portion of the house.  Parts of the structure are completely rotten - the wood disintegrates if you touch it.

We removed all of the electrical, salvaging most of the wire and boxes.

The plumber is coming next week to teach me how to prime the pump.  Until then, we get water from the well the old fashioned way.

I never thought I'd say this, but we had a book bonfire.  We salvaged what we could, but many of the books were too damp, musty or moldy to be saved.

The kids books were especially difficult to burn, but the consensus was no one wanted to give their kids books that were covered in insulation fibres and mouse poop.

First Dumpster

Beautiful weekend, and nothing but blue sky as we drive to the lake.

As demo continues, we thought a dumpster was in order.  We managed to fill it in one day, with the help of my brother and sister-in-law.

We've discovered that delicious snacks are very important when working all day.  Girl guide cookies are especially critical for morale.  :)

When we bought the place there was a lot of cut brush piled around.  Since this was the last weekend we could burn without a permit we had a fire going all day.

 We took a break to explore some of the previously snow-covered gems on the property, like this cute little stream.

Our well... in need of repair!  We'll have to add a proper concrete topper.

At the end of the day we decided to roast some hotdogs over the hot coals of our brush pile. Om nom nom nom!

Pretty sunset as we drive home.

Attic Treasure

 We demolished two more rooms, and we found some sweet treasures!  It's amazing the amount of stuff these people had hidden away in their attic.

 

Eight tracks!

  Cassettes!

 We found a family of fat cats living in the attic! 

 This kid knew how to have fun: a bag full of lego, a baseball glove, a bottle of Crown Royal.

Dropping items out of the attic until we could barely move.

 My new pillowcase!  :)

 George Carlin!

Creepy dolls.

 I could have sworn this things was staring at me all day.

 Books galore!

 The greatest find of all!  Original, generation 1 Transformers, still in their boxes.  

You think these are worth anything?

 Finally the pile of junk is gone!  Glad the floor didn't collapse any further, with all that weight.  Unfortunately there is still a lot more attic to clear out.   Next time: comic books!