2 Years and two months-Where we are and what we've done

 It's almost 2 months since I should have written this post but as usual life has been busy and there have been lots of changes. We bought this house 2 years ago in October 2023. And I'd love to say everything in the second year went right but it didn't because it never does.

What's interesting is work that we did two years ago has either stood the test of time or it hasn't which is extremely frustrating when you are on a budget and want to finish up the renovations. The biggest blow was that at the end of September when Chris was finishing the steps down to the basement from the exterior entrance he was checked the beams supporting the house. We had noticed that some cracks had begun to appear in plaster walls that we had already prepped and painted and some floors had become spongy again. Unfortunately, it looks like when they jacked the house and put in the new support beams they hadn't put in strong enough beams. We really needed 8x8 posts instead of the 6x6s that they put in. We still have an open building permit so we're going to try and go back to the company that did the work and have them upgrade it. Hopefully this will not be too expensive. (After much discussion we've decided to call in the structural engineer to get an idea of where we are.)

The start of the 10X16 shed.

On the other hand, because we did have an open work permit on the house MPAC (Municipal Property Assessment Corporation-it's an Ontario thing) contacted us and we have opened up a dialogue with them about changing our taxes and our land use for this property. This will affect our 2025 property taxes and hopefully it means that we will be paying less both this year and in the future.

Another negative that we were discussing last night is that our master bedroom floor has a lot of bounce. That's not good. Chris's solution is we either pull the floor up and check the joists or we pull the ceiling down in the living room below to check the  joists. There had been a leak in the roof that had been repaired by the insurance company about 15 years ago so we don't believe the ceiling in the living room is original. If it's drywall we're going to pull the ceiling and repair the joists. The bounce extends into the hall so we might be pulling down the hall ceiling below which I know is plaster and lathe. I really hate working with drywall.

We painted the roof and it is still under warranty but yeah we are going to have to call them back. We have rust showing through everywhere. Another task to redo this spring. 

I didn't expect Chris to tackle the porch this year but he felt that many of the deck boards were too rotten to leave in place. At this point, he has replaced 1/3 of the deck and has sistered a lot of the joists and covered them all with waterproof tape to keep them from rotting. There is one post that has rotted that we are going to have to replace next spring so right now it is supported by two support beams that should keep it stable through the winter. Next year we're going to have to jack all the porch posts and put new supports underneath them because the mortared blocks are starting to weather and crack. Another expense but this one at least we knew about going in. We are talking about installing balustrades along the outside of the  porch for safety purposes and moving one of the sets of stairs and rebuilding it.

There are days where I feel like Chris will have to completely rebuild this house. I am a huge believer in saving the character of an older home but at the same time the fact that this home was not maintained for over 20 years prior to our purchase becomes more and more evident the more work we do. And it is not cheap, either in terms of labour, time or materials to restore a house. We have found a great mill that has our house siding and has good quality wood products but when you have to replace everything it adds up.

Things that went right in the last 12 months was the installation of my kitchen (it's not fully finished but it is fully usable), the completion of the fascia, the building of our storage shed and a fair amount of landscaping including the building of garden beds. Chris re-roofed the entrance to the basement and I finish painting the area so it looks great. And fingers crossed, the company that installed our furnace and heat pump may have fixed the heat pump so it doesn't sound like a jet taking off in the middle of winter. I'll know if it has been successful when -16C weather hits and I don't hear that horrible noise. 

Chris and Peter working on the porch into early November 2025

Vegetable bed Peter built for me 2025. Made a lot of chili sauce this year! Heat pump in the foreground.

Original entrance into the basement- rebuilt! No more cranking it open with 100pounds of snow on it!

Our two year old heat pump finally jet noise free!

Peter built me some garden beds and then Chris was "Well ,we should move those stairs and rebuild them on the side of the porch." Lol. Chris has a serious case of  everything needs to be symmetrical. You can see how the porch columns need new supports underneath. It's a 2026 problem. 

A better view of the new bed. Currently it has 400 daffodils in it. 

Front bed with 300 daffodils in it. Dug out all the cedar roots and cleaned the area up. peter worked so hard to do this and so did my long time friend Kerry Allen who weeded the area and got us started on clean up. She even provided supplies! I planted her grandmother's irises in that are as well. 

The really bad porch column. The ants have been into this. I think it may be an original column. Anybody have a 10foot lathe so they can turn a new column for me? 

Cleaned out a huge amount of weeds out of this section as well as shrubs. As Kerry says it is avalanche alley so I have moved a lot of hostas over here. I will have to remortar this wall next spring. A 2026 problem. 

Peter dugout out this area to a depth of 30cm (12 inches) and it is filled with gravel. We need another 5 yards to finish the driveway are and then we will put large stones down for a surface. 

Stacey (our amazing house painter- cannot recommend him enough!) painting the attic window. Wasp nests and all. Looks great! 

All done painting for this year! 2026 will see the porch finished! 

Grass being removed for the driveway to be widened! That took Peter and myself a while! 

Grass removed in front of the stairs. 

Chris working in the shed. We have an electrical panel added thanks to our electrician Jim!

A big pile of dirt. Seems to be all I do is dig up dirt and move it somewhere else.

More plants to move and dig up....

Kitchen shelves!

Snowdrops!

Hibiscus!

Perennial sunflowers!

Fascia being done!

Fascia!

Chris is done an amazing job on the dining room and hopefully by the time Christmas rolls around he will have installed not only the new coffee bar but also the new wine bar area. It's not finished yet but it's usable. Crown molding and ceiling repair will finish that room entirely (though who knows we may have to pull that ceiling down too). Once we solve the house being properly supported then we can go full steam on getting interior renovations done. 

For 2026, I will work on repairing the mortar  around the outside of the stone foundations and continue to work on the landscaping. Our drainage is so much better now this past year but we still need to keep working on it. We widened the driveway beside the house and dug out to a depth of 30 cm and filled it with gravel. I need another load of gravel to finish the driveway next spring. 

There will be so many projects on the go next year and hopefully we will continue to make progress!

As of this posting my family is well and my mother is hanging in.

Wishing everyone a wonderful holiday season and a bright and happy 2026.