October was nothing but frustrating! contractors saying they would be over, then no one showing up. The engineers at Vincent were over and did a complete set of drawings for plans. well nearly complete! they forgot to include the windows on the drawings. how very, very frustrating. I then had to go back to the board as they say and get the windows plotted. The engineers were consulted to create the beams and infrastructure for the three beams.
The initial consultation was to get them out to set the beam in drawing form for the wall to be removed between the kitchen and the closet/living room alcove. I wanted to use the whole space for kitchen. Which made great sense at the time. So the engineer discovered four cracked beams in the basement, right in the area that i was about to have a three hundred and fifty pound cast iron tub dropped in! dropped might have been the key word! yikes.
so 1400.00 dollars later, the drawings now complete with additional hours charged to get the windows considered. NOt to mention the extra cost of having to block in the basment window with blocks, and the main floor living room to have a lintel put over the window which is huge extra over kill! more frustration but the necessary evil at this point. Once the demolition happens of the entire main floor, there will be no more surprises!
On to find the contractor for said beam installation. let the next phase of headache in reno land begin.
The time not spent running around trying to arrange things, was spent packing up! The electrician, Simon, has a couple of friends that do demolition. They will charge me about 22 dollars an hour. I will hire a dumpster from Try Recycling and hopefully call in my favours from all my hard work on Communities in bloom.
I have done reams and reams of packing, and schlepping home boxes and getting ready for the major massive move to storage and demoltion of the main floor. This is where it gets huge! but no more surprises so they say. we shall see. This project has already been in the works for more than a year and it has barely begun.
the finding of broken beams will certainly curtail any dreams i have of finishing this crazy project simply and cosmetically! I used to always say i bought the ugliest house on the block in the worst shape, but at least it has good bones! Even the bones are in bad shape....that shall all change. Onward let the packing be finished so this big deal can go forward.
