Doors week

Manu attacking the back door shed

A bonus from the shed: old boards that will be repurposed elsewhere in the house

RIP the shed

The brick having been sawed, the left opening is ready for the door frame

PF and Louis looking rather biblical while they install the first frame

The first door is in! View from the backyard

So much light

They're in!

What a week. I worked away stripping the stairs, I cleaned the exposed brick wall (yet again), Manu and I demolished the small shed off the basement back door, we put up a whole wall's worth of gyp rock... but it all faded into the background because this week was the week that the doors were installed!

Having paid a pretty penny for these lovely portes françaises we happily handed the job over to the very capable hands of Pierre. Mister organization himself, Pierre had the mason lined up the day after we took delivery and as an added bonus our two favorites Louis and PF would be doing the job.

We enjoy Louis and PF's company so much that we tend to forget that they are at the Tall House because we pay them. They are so easy to talk too and such a wealth of knowledge that time tends to slip by as we chat away together. It probably doesn't make for very good accounting but it certainly makes the job so much more fun. And as we are surrounded with friends and acquaintances who have all to many many contractor horror stories to tell, we count ourselves very, very lucky.

So it wasn't at all surprising to see how much the guys shared my enthusiasm for the new doors. That Thursday afternoon when I came home and saw the first door installed they were as excited as I was. And I was excited. My voice went up two octaves, I was jumping up and down, I was flushed, and I must have called Manu about six times. The doors looked incredible. They changed the whole space. They changed the whole house! By this time the guys were jumping up and down too with PF pointing out all the marvels of the state of the art hardware and the solid construction. They lock! They open! They swivel! You'd think we'd won the lotto.

Having decided that they'd had enough excitement for one day, and with the winter daylight hours being as limited as they are, PF and Louis cut out early, leaving me alone to contemplate the wondrous new additions. Because they were just that special, I popped open a bottle of wine and poured myself a glass. And there among the sawdust, the power tools, the sheets of gyp rock and the mess I sat in the thrift store chair and I felt like a queen. 

And then I couldn't stand it any longer, I called Manu. Just one more time.

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The Beam

Ever since we bought the Tall House, we have always envisaged the first floor as being one big, beautiful, open space. But never once did it cross our minds that the simplicity of having no walls would end up being so complicated. The Tall House being so, well... tall, needs extra support on the lower floors if it is to remain standing once those walls come tumbling down. Enter the 35 foot, hundred pound per linear foot Grand Pooba of beams. 

Like the kings of yore who would send their courtiers to prepare the castle for their arrival, The Beam too had a retinue of its very own: Pierre our ever trustworthy contractor, PF his exceptionally talented senior tradesman,  and Louis the newest member of his crew. It took Pierre and his men two whole days to prepare for the Beam's arrival. Cement footing was poured in the basement, floor joists were reinforced, other various small beams were installed not to mention a truckload of temporary steel supports as well as five Genie Lifts that would eventually raise The Beam to its final resting place, the first floor ceiling.

So when that Wednesday was finally upon us the excitement was palpable. Our hearts raced a little faster and the children, as if sensing our anticipation never really made it to the breakfast table that morning, preferring instead to streak around the living room screaming at the top of their little lungs. Even Pierre and his crew, usually so discreet, were talking just a little bit louder that day.

And then It arrived. As was befitting its stature, the Beam made its entrance onto the Small Street with great pomp, on the back of an extremely large flatbed trailer. With an entourage of its own courtesy of the steel company as well as its own master welder, the Beam left no doubt as to its importance, in case the indicator of size was not evidence enough. Never ones to miss out on a spectacle, the residents of the Small Street too, were out that day to greet and pay homage to the Beam, lining the side walk and gossiping excitedly amongst themselves.

Then with nary a trumpet sounding nor even a car horn beeping, the Beam was quickly and quietly lifted from the truck and within minutes its nose was already through the front door. Sensing that things would move rather slowly after that we regretfully wrenched ourselves away from the scene, Manu to catch a plane to The Other Big City and me to go to my office, thankfully just a few blocks away.

Although, I'd promised myself I would wait, I could barely contain my excitement by noon. So by 12:07 precisely I was climbing the exterior steps of the Tall House. And there it was all 35 feet of it, the welding finished and everything, fully installed and holding up the house forever more. 

As I stood there quietly watching the men continue to take down the temporary columns I could finally see it all coming together. My eyes welled up as future Christmases and birthdays flashed before them and the sounds of laughter from upcoming family dinners filled my ears. And that's when I finally knew that we had been right all along, that the Tall House truly was as beautiful as we had always imagined. And that it was our Home.

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Hurry up and wait

Although the first phase of renovations was little more than two years ago, we had already forgotten the amount of down time there is in the remodelling process.

Even before allotting a job, the various trades have to be briefed (which depending on the size of the job can take up to an hour and a half) then it generally takes at least a week for them to arrive at a quote, then in all likely hood they have other jobs lined up... Apparently patience is a learned virtue. Well, we must be in the midst of the master class.

At the moment we are waiting on quotes from two electricians and three door manufacturers. The electric work in The Tall House is creative to say the least so we expect this to eat up a sizeable amount of our budget. So too will the two sets of french doors leading to the backyard which no matter how many concessions are made still apparently have to be custom built.

The event that thrills us the most is the impending installation of a mammoth 35 foot structural beam that will enable us to completely open up the first floor. Being no body's fools we are well aware that this job is way out of our league so we have brought out the big guns and hired no other than Pierre our contractor from  the previous stage of renovations. Pierre is extremely talented and we trust him blindly but he is expensive. So while it would be so much simpler to hand over the whole job to him, we can't afford it. So for now we have struck up a deal where upon he acts as a consultant for an hourly wage and when the task is just to tricky we hire him and his men for specific tasks.

The steel beam has to hold up the top two stories of the house, so it will be a MOTHER. At 35 feet long and 14 inches thick, it will weigh over a hundred pounds per linear foot and take a week to install. And of course there are other various mini beams that have to be added under floors, over stair cases as well as a few steel columns in the basement. A tornado could touch down on the Tall House and it wouldn't move. Pierre and his gang will start on Monday, August 3rd at 7am sharp. It promises to be quite a show.

So while we have been waiting for this (yet again) mystical date, Manu has been spending most Friday afternoons and Saturday mornings continuing the demo work. For it seems that one can never open up enough. The basement ceiling had to be taken down in order to make the rewiring simpler, the non structural walls on the first floor had to be cleared out and most exciting of all, the wall separating the upper floors from the lower ones has to be removed. Manu has been wonderful about it, never once complaining about missing out on time at the park with the kids, or about having to do the work alone. He also looks really cute in his handyman outfit.

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