Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

[the_siobhan]

Accomplishments Unlocked:

My first ever attempt at mudding drywall. Getting that shit smooth is a skill people - mine looks like a Joy Division album cover. (I figure I'll just slap on multiple layers and it will all wash out in the sanding, right?)

Plumber called that the parts are in so he'll be here tomorrow

Got a somebody to build the frame around the exposed pipe in the basement, he'll be here on Sunday

I contacted a few places about making the doors since they are odd sizes so they have to be custom-built. Prize goes to the guy who got back to me right away, was really clear and helpful, and was able to make recommendations.

Door-making guy mentioned the possibility I might need a fire door downstairs since it's on the same floor as the furnace and the laundry room. (Apparently laundry rooms are the second highest source of fires after kitchens.) After many emails and phone calls to the city, the Fire Marshall's office, and the engineer who drew the original blueprints I have -- three completely different answers. Head, meet your faithful companion, desk. I'm going to go with the one from the Fire Marshall, since if I get in trouble they'll be the ones doing the inspection.

---

Somebody who hasn't been following me since the start of this nonsense asked for the background on the house. So to summarize:

It's an old house and the kitchen was falling off. Ex-housemate and I agreed to do a complete tear-down and rebuild because the room was basically 100+ year rotten old wood and couldn't be repaired. Kitchen was a tiny space the size of a walk-in closet so this was also a chance to make it a bit bigger. Ex-housemate lived in the basement, including a room under the kitchen. They wanted to move their girlfriend (now wife) in with them so they wanted to dig out and expand the basement as well so they'd have more room. We hired contractors to rip it all out and build a bit bigger.

That was in 2020. For various reasons it took over a year to get the permits. The lockdown wasn't even the biggest delay. In retrospect I should have taken that as a sign.

Three years ago? Four years? I swear I have lost track - the work finally started. All of the furniture from the basement went into storage and everything from the kitchen went into boxes, and it sat there for years. I didn't have access to the backyard - where the shed is - for the whole time because the back wall was boarded up. The entire main floor was filled with boxes. We did meal prep on a 12"+10' wooden shelf using a microwave and a hotplate. Our refrigerator sat next to the television.

Work was delayed by (not necessarily in order)

the existence of not one, but three concrete floors sitting on top of each other in the basement

the discovery of a stream bed running under my house

my contractor getting cancer

my contractor developing severe hernias because he didn't take enough time after surgery to heal before going back to work and having to have more surgery

the contractor's site supervisor taking the opportunity while he was off work for three months to rip him off for large quantities of money and supplies

the site supervisor's work having to be ripped out and re-done because he was using the wrong (cheaper) materials and pocketing the difference

the contractor's truck being stolen

the contractor's truck breaking down (multiple instances)

everybody on the work crew catching Covid on multiple occasions

and now another surgery date that happened this past March

During the years all this was going on, things got bad. So, so bad, y'all. Housemate got really depressed and just... stopped getting off the couch. Meanwhile I was juggling working full time with being the support person for my very sick father-in-law. I was paying all the bills and doing all the follow-up with the contractors and I felt like I was losing my frigging mind. So I just started eating and everything else in my room - only went downstairs to use the microwave.

Last summer the housemate moved out to to live with their wife instead. All their stuff also moved out of the house, which meant I finally had room to move things around. The kitchen finally got finished. So I started opening up boxes.

And the boxes, holy shit. We were originally quoted three months on the work, so we just boxed everything up and figured we'd deal with it later. Tinned food we figured we'd be unpacking shortly. Things belonging to my partner who died in 2019 that I just couldn't bear to sort through when I put it away. Stuff we figured we'd find a use for "some day". Partial boxes of things that we bought and then just lost track of in the chaos. (4 boxes of lightbulbs! 6 boxes of contractor bags!) Things that just got shoved under the stairwell rather than deal with them (Two trips to take back empty beer cans.) Props from the housemate's LARP hobby. We just shoved things into storage because we had to get it ALL out of the way fast.

So I'm sorting it all out now. And on top of that I'm trying to figure out how to finish the work the contractor left undone in the basement because since he told me he had to go back for more surgery I haven't heard a peep out of him. I have no idea if he's even still alive.

On the plus side, once the basement is done I don't have to rush with the rest of it. Although getting the backyard to at least channel water away from the base of the house would probably be a good thing.

So yeah. Getting there. Slowly.

Comments

[dark_phoenix54]

Good gawd, I'd been following this all along but never really put it all together. What a horrible experience. Some advice- sand the worst of the ridges off before putting another coat of mud on. Even though sanding sucks donkey dicks, it'll be easier in the long run. You don't have to get it pure and poreless, just get rid of the worst of it. If you try and glide mud on over high spots, the trowel can skip and make new unlevel spots. The easiest way to take the really high spots off is just to run a clean trowel, held flat to the wall, up the ridges. A lot of shit will get sliced off. (I've done far more drywall than I care to think about- I hate it with a passion but I was pretty good at it) Good luck. And wear a mask when you sand!

[the_siobhan]

Oh that is excellent, thank you.

And yes, I wear a mask whenever I'm doing anything that generates a lot of dust.

[lil_m_moses]

I will add that the hardest mudding lesson I've had to learn is to just STOP fussing. Get a thin layer that's reasonably close to even, and stop. Let it dry, sand it, and do another very thin layer. I'm sure the pros can do it in one or two coats, but the more you fuss with a given layer, the worse it gets for bubbles and stiffness. So just plan on doing at least three with a really wide feather (using a wider knife each time).

I've also tried both paper joint tape and the sticky mesh. Again, while pros can make paper tape work, I've had some trouble, and in an old house that moves, the paper is more likely to crack in the future. The mesh usually requires a little more mud layering and therefore feathering, but it stays up by itself and is probably more durable in an old house.

And don't forget to lightly rinse the walls and new mud before painting, as that dust is pervasive and you also get some final smoothing of the mud. Be very generous with the primer too - new walls and mud will suck up a crapton of surface coat, and primer is cheaper.

[the_siobhan]

This is all super useful advice, thank you.

I've done primer before and yeah, it's shocking how much you go through to cover a wall.

[falkner]

The sheer amount of Things Going Wrong with this whole project is astounding.

[the_siobhan]

My contractor is Metis and he started talking about Indian burial ground curses.

[nafs]

What a saga. May the light at the end of the tunnel not be a train.

Also: mudding drywall. You are a braver person than I. Good luck with it!

[the_siobhan]

I figure I can learn most things given enough time. Even things I don't necessarily want to have to learn.
:-p

[johnnysgoing2hell]

the lore even starts off as an incomplete story lol. is this a house u purchased in 2020? how was it already so full of shit? i do remember some of the stuff like the ex roommate having mental health problems before moving out leaving their shit & your step dad passing away. when did u start living in this house? obv no obligation to answer my interrogation lol i'm just trying to figure out this story i am reading one bit at a time as it is happening lol.

[the_siobhan]

Bought the house with the ex-housemate around 2003. We started doing renos on the house right away (it was pretty beat up) so already a lot of our stuff was in boxes while we fixed the place up.
In 2013 my sister died and I ended up with a lot of her stuff.
Around 2016 my partner moved in. He had cancer and he died in 2019 and so a lot of his stuff is still here.
My mother died in 2020 and my step-father had to move out of their house into a retirement home and I ended up with a lot of things from the house.
And then all of my step-father's remaining possessions moved in when he died because we had to get it out of his room at the LTC home within 24 hours.

So I don't know if it makes me a hoarder, but it takes me a while before I can be ready to figure out what I want to do with stuff after people die. A lot of it got shoved into boxes to deal with later. Then when we needed to get it out of the way I didn't have time to sort it out, so it's getting done now.

The ex-housemate tends to get into things, stock up on lots and lots of stuff to go with the new thing and then never actually do anything with it. So when they moved out they left a lot of stuff that they said I could just throw away.

And part of the problem is - I've had to start over from nothing a few times in my life and so I HATE throwing anything away. I want to give it to people and that means I don't just pitch stuff into the bin, I clean it and sort it and put it up on donation sites and it sits in my "give away" box for weeks or months until it finds a home.

[cornerofmadness]

Between all the basement floor layers and a stream bed and everything else your remodel needs an exorcism

[the_siobhan]

RIGHT!!?

[elusis]

An old priest, a young priest, a medicine worker, and a few drag queens for good measure, I'd think.

[gatheringrivers]

And I thought the movie "The Money Pit" was a crazysauce renovation! Holy crap!

[the_siobhan]

I should watch that movie just so I can yell at it.

[gatheringrivers]

You should! It's pretty hilarious.

[greylock]

My first ever attempt at mudding drywall. Getting that shit smooth is a skill people

Assuming this is what I think it is, it's why kids who leave school without being able to spell get good money.

mine looks like a Joy Division album cover.

You'll get better the more you do, I am sure. And if you don't, remember '90s feature walls?

Prize goes to the guy who got back to me right away, was really clear and helpful, and was able to make recommendations.

Dies of shock.

I'm going to go with the one from the Fire Marshall, since if I get in trouble they'll be the ones doing the inspection.

I am NOT shocked you got multiple answers to the question, but I assume the extra money now for a fire door won't hurt.

Apparently laundry rooms are the second highest source of fires after kitchens.

I would have expected bedrooms, unless the stats have fallen with smoking rates.
Admittedly, Canadian laundries are probably different and use driers and that would explain lint trap warnings.

Tinned food we figured we'd be unpacking shortly.

It's still good right?
If not distended.

I do appreciate the summation. I've been around since the Gin Palace was purchased, and there were some things there I didn't know (or remember): a stream? And so much blue-on-clue crime.

[elusis]

I also have been here from (before) the start (!!) and did not remember the stream.

[the_siobhan]

That genuinely surprises me. For about six months I started every conversation with my neighbours with DID I TELL YOU ABOUT THE STREAM BED UNDER MY HOUSE? YES YOU TOLD US ABOUT THE STREAM BED, HOW IS YOUR STREAM BED? FUNNY YOU SHOULD ASK BECAUSE IT IS UNDER MY HOUSE.

[elusis]

My neighbors may have a stream bed under their house. There are a number of buried streams in West Seattle apparently. Fortunately (for us, not them) our lot sits a good bit higher than theirs; I am guessing the developer who scraped and divided their lot didn't investigate sufficiently when they built a house with basement there.

They have had a number of basement floods.

Some of which is because the developer ALSO fucked up the sewer outflow. And tied the outflow from the duplex on the rear half of the lot into the front half's outflow (illegal; also bad engineering).

When it rains hard, we've taken to texting them to ask if things are OK.

They're selling and moving to Arizona.

[the_siobhan]

There was a huge advertising blitz here about the dangers of smoking in bed. It happens so rarely now it makes the news whenever it happens.

And yes, the lint trap is the culprit. Apparently they are really flammable.

Note to self: Get fire extinguishers, the one I have is so old I should swap it out anyway.

[greylock]

I have an extinguisher and a fire blanket.

But you probably should have one on each floor!

[greylock]

Also, old friend, as someone who read Princess Bride for the first time recently, I love the post title.

[the_siobhan]

It felt appropriate ;-)

[chasing_silver]

I've been following this since 2020 but I think I never really put together the timeline. You poor thing. I thought our reno was hell but we at least didn't have a STREAM BED running under the house! Fucking Toronto!!! Is this the Annex where they buried that river?

[the_siobhan]

In the west end, near Garrison Creek.

The whole area is swamp full of underground waterways. They put some into pipes (There is a storm drain that has a stream that passes by the end of my street - it always sounds like rushing water even in the dead of winter) and some they just "filled in". But water finds a way to make new paths and so here we are.

[runcible]

I don't know what sort of trophy you deserve for still persevering and moving forward after all of this, but it's got a string and when you pull it, it sings a song that lets you into valhalla.