Back to Work

We have been on an extended break from renovations since September, hence the lack of blog posts. However, that is about to change as we are about to begin (or continue) finishing our basement. It will be a slow moving project due to commitments at work and home, but we plan to have the basement finished by the end of April. Other than some final measurements, we have pretty much decided on the final layout, so that is a good first step.

Water Supply Line Replaced

We learned in October that the lead concentration in our tap water was higher than it should be. After waiting about seven weeks, the contractor arrived last week to replace our water supply line. We got a quote from the City's contractor to do our side of the line at the same time, and decided to go ahead with that quote ($2000+tax). It was a bit more than quotes we received from other plumbers in the summer, but the added money was worth it to not have to deal with a second contractor and to have a contractor that has been vetted by the City. We took a couple of photos of the work in progress, which shows the holes underneath our front lawn and the sidewalk.

Our new water line looks very nice and clean, especially compared to our old line. You can see the difference in the thickness of the 3/4" pipe where it connects to the 1/2" pipe near the top of the photo. We have already noticed an increase in the water pressure, but that increase will be much more significant once we carry the 3/4" pipe through to the main branches of piping in our house. As you can see, we are also now metered, so we will have to wait and see how that affects our water bills in the future.

Inspiration for Wall of Sliding Doors

While it is not yet finalized, it looks like our basement plan will involve having a wall of sliding doors blocking view of the appliances. I think this wall of doors, at about 20 feet long, could make a great focal point. I doubt we will find any (cheap) off-the-shelf solution for this space, so I have been thinking about creative ways to make this a great feature of our basement.

One idea I had was inspired by the Five Doors North restaurant located on Yonge Street not far from our house. I think an eclectic collection of doors painted in different colours would look great, but would it be possible to build this into the rest of the basement design? Would it be too clown/kid looking?

Source: Flickr

We could keep with the same door theme, but paint them a more muted colour (shades of gray?). Mirror doors are another thought, and they would probably make the basement seem bigger, but I worry about them getting broken by toys, or constantly being covered in kid hand prints. This is probably something that I will make myself, preferably using reclaimed materials, so the options are almost endless.

Source: Logan Square Kitchen

Source: Spazzi

Source: Gliding Door Company

Source: Momento Italia

Lead Testing Results

We have replaced all plumbing supply lines inside our house, but were concerned that there is lead in the supply line from the City, so last month we submitted a water sample to Toronto Public Health for testing. We received the results earlier this week, and the lead level in the sample was 32 parts per billion. This is not good, so we need to be careful to use filtered water for our drinking water until the supply line is replaced (we have been pretty good about doing this already, but not perfect). I thought I would do some research to see how this 32 ppb value stacks up:

• 1 ppb: Typical lead concentration for water leaving a Toronto water treatment plant
• 10 ppb: Maximum lead concentration for drinking water in Canada (consistent with WHO and USA)
• 15 ppb: EPA action level for lead concentration in drinking water
• 32 ppb: Our unfiltered tap water
• 50 ppb: Pre-1992 maximum lead concentration for drinking water in Canada

I am very disappointed in myself for not getting our water tested when we first bought the house. If you have an older home (lead piping was used until the 1950s, and lead solder was common until the 1980s), I strongly recommend you get your water tested.

The good news: this means that our supply line will be replaced (and upgraded to 3/4" copper) by the City on a priority basis; the work will be completed in the next 6-8 weeks, as opposed to the previous schedule of "sometime in the next 9 years".

Basement Layout Version 7

We are now on our seventh version of the layout for the basement, and I think we are getting close. We have brought back the large bedroom from our first layouts, as we decided this is important to us. However, we still kept some of the open space from our most recent layout by not creating a laundry/furnace room. This new layout includes a wash basin beside the washer, a linen closet in the bathroom, built-in wardrobes in the bedroom, and storage underneath the stairs. We still do not have a place for a freezer; the most likely spot is beside the water heater, but we would kind of like to keep that little nook for toys. Almost there!

Bowling Alley Furniture

I occasionally search for "reclaimed" wood and materials for inspiration for our upcoming projects, and have noticed listings on craigslist and kijiji for reclaimed wood from bowling alleys. I would love to use planks of bowling alley wood for the sliding doors in our basement, but 3" thick slabs of pine/maple would make for VERY heavy doors. So ... I dream.

Source: inhabitat

Source: Retro Renovation

Source: Design Crave

Source: counterevolution

Blog Action Day - Water

Our neighbour posted about Blog Action Day, which intends to unite the world's bloggers in posting about the same issue. The issue for 2010 is water.

She posted this great video that highlights the many faults of bottled water. Additional information can be found at Inside the Bottle. The City of Toronto has banned the sale of plastic water bottles on municipal premises starting in 2011 (similar bans have been passed/implemented for other cities and university campuses).



We recently submitted a sample of our water to be tested for lead, as I am concerned that the supply line from the city to our property line has never been replaced (we have replaced all supply lines inside the house). Aside from that concern, it is my understanding that tap water in our city is as good or better than bottled water in every way. Tap water is better regulated, MUCH better for the environment, and MUCH cheaper (our house is not metered, so I could argue that our tap water is free). We do not keep bottled water in the home; we use a quality filter in our fridge for all drinking water.

Some other notes with a more global perspective:

• It takes 6.3 gallons of water to produce just one hamburger.
• The average American uses 159 gallons of water every day – more than 15 times the average person in the developing world.
• Every day, women and children in Africa walk a combined total of 109 million hours to get water.
• Unsafe drinking water and lack of sanitation kills more people every year than all forms of violence, including war.

Ice Dam Refresher

The Green Building Advisor recently released a helpful article on ice dams. Ice dams are caused by the combination of 1) a sub-freezing outdoor temperature, 2) snow on the roof, and 3) a roof/attic that is above freezing. With this combination, the heat from the living space escapes out through the attic, melting the snow, which then runs down and re-freezes at the edge of the roof. This can cause damage to gutters and shingles, and can cause water leakage into the wall underneath the bottom edge of the roof. This image from the CMHC website illustrates the problem well.


How do you prevent ice dams?

1. Seal air leaks in your attic.
2. Increase your attic insulation (this depends on your climate zone, but for us the target is R-50).
3. Improve ventilation between the insulation and roof sheathing.
4. Cover the roof sheathing (i.e. underneath shingles) with rubberized membrane underlayment.

It is important to note that the first two steps (air sealing and insulation) will also help with the energy efficiency of your home. The third step (ventilation) might help with ice damming if your air sealing and insulation is not sufficient. The fourth step (ice and water shield) will do nothing to prevent ice damming, but will help to prevent water leakage caused by the ice dam.

If none of these options are available to you at this time, you can attach electrical cables to melt the snow/ice on the bottom portion of the roof, or use salt (which would need to be regularly replenished) to melt ice dams.

New Basement Layout?

We have revisited the basement layout again. Here is the layout that we have been bouncing around for the last year or so.

We were looking at photos of basements from similar houses last week, and found that the basements with open layouts seemed much more spacious and flexible. So, we completely changed the layout (see below ... the light gray areas show where we have bulkheads for beams/ductwork).

• We removed the wall separating the bedroom and family room. We will probably put the "family room" at the back of the house, and we will get a comfy pull-out couch that guests can use when staying with us.
• We have changed the front of the house into a play area (i.e. play table, toys, toys, toys).
• We removed the laundry/furnace room, and are planning to hide those appliances with a series of sliding doors instead.
• In order to help with storage, we have added a linen closet in the bathroom, and some built-in wardrobes in the front of the house.
• The area underneath the stairs will be 1) left open, 2) used for storage, or 3) used for a playhouse.

Any thoughts? Recommendations?

Transparent Toaster

If you don't think this is cool, maybe you're more of a RollerToaster person.

Leaning Mirrors

Young House Love is currenty featuring a house that has two tall leaning mirrors made out of old doors.


I love the look of huge mirrors, especially those that are made out of some sort of reclaimed materials (shout out to the mirror we made earlier this year). I had not really considered having a leaning mirror in our house because of the little one, but I guess it could work if it was installed safely (i.e. not tippable). Maybe we can work it into our basement or mudroom renovations?

Source: House and Home

Source: Oliver Yaphe

Source: This Next

Source: Costco

Circular Saw Pizza Slicer

How great is this pizza slicer? It is called the Pizza Boss.

What To Do Underneath the Stairs?

We have been discussing the basement layout lately, and one topic under discussion is the space underneath the stairs. I do not have a decent pic of our stairs as they are today, but they are just a basic straight set of stairs up one wall with a landing half way up (exit to the outside). The stairs will need to be rebuilt as part of our basement renovation, and our plan to date has been to drywall underneath the stairs and use that space as storage. Here is an example I found online of something similar:

We could also do some kind of more functional storage by installing large sliding drawers, like this project.

We are currently considering keeping the space underneath the stairs open. The primary goal would be to make the basement look bigger, but could there be a use for this space? I like the look of open risers, but those are not very safe for kids, so we plan to stay with standard risers. The folks at 8 foot 6 have a nice little workspace underneath their stairs, but that wouldn't work well with our ceiling height and landing location.

Our space would be more suited for kids, since the height underneath the stairs is too low for adults. So, should we store toys underneath there? Maybe have a little play kitchen or something? Do you know what I really want to do with the space? Build a playhouse under there! This does not help with the lack of storage in our house and it does not make the basement space seem larger, but it would be pretty darn cute.

I Love Boathouses

We boated by this boathouse in progress today at the cottage.

How great would it be to work on a boathouse project? I wish.

Decorating to Increase Visual Space

With the basement finishing project approaching quickly, I have been searching for ideas to make the basement seem bigger and taller. With three relatively small rooms (family room, bedroom, bathroom) and a short ceiling (6'9"), it would be nice if we could maximize the visual size of the space. Here are some ideas I have found:

1) Flatten the Ceiling - We will remove as many bulkheads as possible, and move the remaining bulkheads to the walls where possible. We will use pot lights throughout the basement, and probably hang the bathroom vanity lights on the wall on both sides of the mirror. We obviously will not install crown moulding. I have read differing opinions for the ceiling paint (i.e. matte versus glossy), so will probably just stick with matte there.

2) Light Colours - We will probably use light/bright colours throughout the basement.

3) Vertical Stripes - We really are not stripe people or wallpaper people, but I have seen some rooms with stripes that look pretty good. This might work for us, but I'm not totally sold that it would help with visual height of the ceiling.

Source: The Lennox

Source: Domino Mag

4) High Wainscoting - I would like to use wainscoting in the basement bathroom, so we may do tall (i.e. higher than chair rail) wainscotting as part of a white bathroom.

Source: Hampton Design via Rambling Renovators

5) Ensuite Bathroom - We had planned to make the bathroom accessible through the bedroom for space reasons, but we are now thinking of using this "ensuite" concept to add space to the rooms as well. By coordinating colours (same colour for walls?) and cabinetry (matching built-in bedroom wardrobes to bathroom vanity?), we hope to make the two rooms blend into one. I hope to even have a double-door entry into the bathroom, but space constraints may not allow this.

6) Add Height to Windows - Our basement windows are quite large, and we actually increased the height of two windows while replacing them. We might try to enhance this further with window treatments.

7) Tall Furniture - The built-in wardrobes in the bedroom will be floor-to-ceiling with narrow doors. We will also lean towards thin, tall furniture when looking for a media unit for the family room, dresser for the bedroom, etc.

Any other ideas? Any thoughts on what is truly effective in making a ceiling look taller (#1 goal) and space feel bigger (#2 goal)?

EnerGuide Rating

We received a new energy efficiency rating of 70 for our house. The rating was 49 prior to our recent improvements, and that number was given to us after we installed spray foam insulation to go from R0 to R20 on our first and second floor walls, so the original number for our house would have been even lower than that.

For perspective, here are the ratings provided online for various types of houses:

• New house built to building code standards: 65-72
• New house with some energy-efficiency improvements: 73-79
• Energy-efficient new house: 80-90
• House requiring little or no purchased energy: 91-100

We plan to make some more improvements to our home that should help with energy efficiency (i.e. vapour barrier and drywall in basement and sunroom, new front and side doors), so in the end our house should be somewhere in the mid-70s according to this scale (the target number for our style of house is 74).

Mudroom Inpiration

We plan to turn our sunroom into a mudroom some day, and I have been browsing for inspiration photos since Meredith sent me one last week. This photo is probably closest to what I have been imagining, with some tall cabinetry (with doors) to store brooms and other messy stuff, as well as a bench, hooks and cubbies to store cute little boots, coats and mittens.

Source: http://stephenjmurphyinc.com.

I love the dark stained bench seats and change in bench heights in this room. We will only have about 7' to work with (our sunroom is about 10' long, but the 3' door needs to open on one end), so we do not have this much space to work with.

Source: http://thegatheringplacedesign.blogspot.com

This space has a nice clean look, but I think we need more storage than this (i.e. cubbies above the hooks). I think it would be great if we could make it so that shoes/boots can just slide underneath the bench. We have hardwood floors though, so winter boots might be an issue (but they would be an issue for cubbies too, right?).

Source: http://blog.connorbuilding.com

V-groove panelling appears to be popular in mudrooms (see Chris K's current project for another example). I think the door is my favourite part of this room though.

Source: http://www.benchmarkcustominteriors.com

I saved this photo over two years ago and still like the look, but the dividers between the "lockers" would reduce the size of the space a bit, and the wood for the cubbies could be a bit thicker.

Source: http://integritycustom.blogspot.com

Sidenote: I love this last guy's work (wish he posted to his blog more); the bay window seat from this blog also served as inspiration for the back portion of Mackenzie's window seat (there is additional storage underneath the bench behind the cubbies).

Cost for New Drains and Basement Floor

I always find it interesting to learn how much renovations cost, so I thought I would share some information about the estimates/costs for the work in our basement. We got a ton of quotes for a variety of different work, so here is a quick overview of some of the quotes from the most expensive to the least. All prices are in Canadian dollars and include taxes if applicable. For reference, our basement is 600 square feet.

• $54,000 - A general contractor provided this quote for breaking up the floor, underpinning, replacing the drains (including new bathroom), installing interior waterproofing, and pouring a new floor.
• $38,000 - A drain/concrete/underpinning specialist provided this quote for the same work described above. This contractor actually seemed much more knowledgeable and experienced with this type of work.
• $14,500 - A waterproofing company quoted this for breaking up the floor, installing interior waterproofing, and pouring a new floor (i.e. no drain wnrk).
• $8,800 - A general contractor quoted this for replacing the drains, installing interior waterproofing, and pouring a new floor (i.e. we break up floor).
• $6,800 - A concrete guy quoted this for breaking up the concrete floor, removing the necessary depth of dirt, and pouring a new concrete floor (i.e. no drain work or internal waterproofing).
• $5,600 - Six months later, the same concrete guy provided this quote to just lay gravel and pour a new concrete floor, so apparently breaking up the floor and removing the dirt was only worth $1,200.
• $3,800 - Quote provided by general contractor from the third bullet for just laying gravel and pouring a new concrete floor. This means that $5,000 of his $8,800 price above was for the drains and internal waterproofing.
• $2,600 - Price to get the plumber to do all drain work (i.e. replace old drains, rough-in the basement bathroom).
• $1,400 - Price to get concrete finisher to pour a new concrete floor (i.e. we do gravel work).

So, how much did we spend? Well, we decided pretty quickly that underpinning was not an option for us, as we simply could not afford it and were not confident that the ROI was there for our house. We got multiple quotes because we really wanted to hire a contractor to do most of this work (i.e. tight timeline, busy schedule with work and baby, etc). However, the more quotes we got, the more I realized that I would feel better doing some of the work myself. Here is the breakdown of our costs (and very conservative estimates of my time):

• Breaking up and removing concrete floor: $300 for dumpster, 10 hours of labour
• Removing dirt: $300 for dumpster, 20 hours of labour
• Drains: $2,600 for plumber, 0 hours of labour
• Waterproofing: $250 for materials, 10 hours of labour
• Gravel: $460 for 8 yards, 6 hours of labour
• Concrete floor: $525 for concrete, $1400 for finishers, 0 hours of labour
• Total: $5,835, 46 hours of labour

Obviously, this is just to do the drains and the new basement floor -- there is a heck of a lot more to be done to finish the basement. Looking back, the $8,800 and $6,800 quotes seem reasonable, but still would have required some additional work by us or another contractor. Overall, I am happy with the decisions we made regarding the use of contractors.

Basement Phase 5: Framing and Insulation

The new concrete floor was poured on Saturday morning of the long weekend, so I rested for most of that day while the concrete dried. The concrete process went as you would expect: one guy using a wheelbarrow to transport concrete from the truck into the chute, and three guys in the basement distributing and leveling the concrete.

Prior to framing and insulating the basement, I had a number of other tasks that needed to be completed. This included removing some old plumbing/electrical from the laundry machines, running the plumbing stack to the future first floor washroom, and running the new duct for the dryer. The biggest task was installing three basement windows, as well as a window to replace the milk box beside the side door.

I then proceeded to frame the three exterior walls. This was not very difficult, but it was time-consuming because I had to work around ductwork and other obstacles. I then insulated those walls by installing two layers of R14 batt insulation; the first layer was placed horizontally behind the studs, and then the second layer was placed vertically inside the studs. Because of space constraints, the wall beside the stairs was only insulated with a single layer of R5 styrofoam insulation.

We have since hooked up the washer and dryer, so for now the basement is essentially a huge laundry room. We will probably take it slow for the next few weeks, and then start working towards finishing the basement.

Basement Phase 4: Weeping Tile and Gravel

We decided to waterproof the inside of the basement. The exterior of the house was already waterproofed on the back and side, but the front of the house was somewhat damp, so we decided it was better to be safe than sorry and just do the whole thing. With the basement floor removed and drains exposed, this only took an additional 8-10 hours and cost an additional $250. This involved digging a 12"x12" trench around the perimeter of the basement about 12" from the foundation, installing 4" weeping tile, backfilling with 3/4" gravel, and then covering the trench and foundation wall up to grade with waterproofing membrane. Sorry for the lack of photos.

After the waterproofing membrane was installed, we laid a 4" layer of 3/4" gravel throughout the basement as a base for the concrete. Most concrete contractors quoted a price to lay both the gravel and concrete, but we went with a concrete finisher that we paid to do just the concrete portion. We bought the materials ourselves (8 yards of gravel and 5 yards of concrete), laid the gravel ourselves, and paid him directly for the concrete labour. This saved us about $1700 off of the lowest quote we got for a contractor who would do it all -- a pretty good decision considering it took less than six hours to move the gravel into the basement and distribute it across the floor.

This photo shows the first four yards of gravel after pouring it in the window.

Buckets of gravel are actually kind of light after carrying buckets of dirt.

The following photos show the basement pretty much ready for new concrete. Meredith and Mackenzie went out of town for the long weekend, leaving me with three days to lay the new concrete floor (well ... watch contractors do that part), install five new windows, frame the exterior walls, and insulate the walls and headers.