This Could Save Your Marriage

(Note: The computer glitch has yet to be figured out, so not able to post photos yet.  Original post date should have been September 18, 2014)

So in advance of installing the hardie boards, Rob was chatting with the guy from Rona and he suggested Rob get some "special clips" that will hold the board in place while he nails it.  You see, the boards are 12 feet long and heavy, and I will be on the other end, trying to hold it, and keep it level.  You know where this is heading....I will be wilting and drooping while we try and position it, which leads to perhaps heated words on both sides...thus the Rona guy, when he found out it was Rob and me doing it, suggested we get these clips, so we don't kill each other. 

He ordered them on Saturday and I picked them up today.  At first, the guys at the lumber place didn't know what I was talking about, but the guy Rob talked to, said yes, it's called Gekko Gauge.  I said it would save our marriage...the guy agreed...he said only hanging wallpaper with your spouse was the worst thing on the planet, followed by doing siding together.

So here is our life saver.  And another bonus...Rob can sell it on Kijji when we are done, as the lumber place said they are always getting calls for used ones (the Gekko Gauge is slightly pricey, but cheaper than marriage counselling!)

That's Hardie Board, not Hardy Boys

(Note: I'm not able to post pictures due to a computer glitch, so use your imagination for now!  The original post date should have been September 11, 2014)

I know, I keep getting them confused, but the siding we ordered is called hardie board and it is made of concrete but looks like wood.  So not the boys' mystery stories.  Now that we have that cleared up, we have good news:  the boards are here!

Rona called and I met the delivery guy Al at the house. He picked the boards up with his forklift and dropped them in the garage. 

His forklift was too tall to fit in the garage, so the boards could only go in sideways...which means, we are parking on the street until we get those puppies up. I tried to sweet-talk Al into helping put up the boards, but he said he had his own honey-do list from his wife!

In anticipation of the boards going on the garage, we finished up the last of the trim boards and blue waterproofing stuff.

And...Jason our gas fitter came by and hooked up Mr. Heater in the garage, so we can have heat in the winter.

So exciting...So this weekend we start putting up the hardie boards...wow...that was a long time coming. And we probably won't have any free time to read the Hardy Boys!

Is It Hot in Here or is it Just the Trim?

So this weekend involved putting up the trim boards and corner boards that got cut a few weekends ago.  Here they are:

I like the patterning on the boards, but that's just the covering paper and will get peeled off once the siding is complete.

Moving along, we had to hang the garage heater.  Rob bought this three years ago and its been waiting ever since.  Now this is no regular heater, it's so robust that we call it Mister!

Mr. Heater weighs a lot and there is no way I can hold it in place while Rob bolts it.  So he had this brainwave....put a board on the drywall lift, strap the heater to the board, and then crank it into position.

Locked and loaded:

In position:


Rob's legs as he attaches the bolts:


Voila!



Now we just need Jason to come hook it up with the natural gas and we have heat--just in time for winter!

Snow in August!!??

Okay, it's been a year since we last did anything on the garage....but that is all about to change!  In the spring, we got a letter saying the building permit was expiring in summer.  I thought that might be the stimulus to get the garage finished, but instead, Rob phones and gets an extension.  Sigh.  However, that led to him assessing the work remaining, meeting with our contractor friend Randy for some advice, ordering the hardy board siding, touching base with the furnace guy Jason to tee up installing the heater, and buying the plastic composite trim boards.


So last weekend, Rob started prepping the trim boards by cutting and routering an edge on them.  But because it's plastic, it doesn't create sawdust, it creates snow!  Lots and lots of snow.  It's almost like shredded coconut.  It went everywhere. But stranger things have happened::snow in August and garage starting to get done!

Our First Tenant

Believe or not, Monster Garage does serve a purpose, in addition to being a never-ending construction project.  It was designed for our cars, and stuff.....snow blower, lawn mower, ladders, bikes, etc.

Another purpose was to store the 1954 Austin Healey Rob inherited from his parents.  Now, for the past two years since Monster Garage has been under construction, the restored Austin Healey (see previous blogs for that adventure!) has been living at a friend's garage (thank you Gonnie!).  But Gonnie's son and daughter-in-law recently bought a new truck....a new big truck, so in order to store it in their garage, they needed to move their stuff to Gonnie's garage, which mean the Austin Healey had to come home sooner than expected (we were planning to move the car later this summer anyway, once we had done the interior garage work).

So Rob spent most of his evenings these past three weeks at Gonnie's, trying to get the car in tip top shape to drive to Saskatoon.  It had been leaking fluids, so he had to stop those.  Then he had to charge the battery...numerous times...and then finally ended up buying a new one.  Many, many test drives, as he learned the different gearing system and overdrive system.  Driving out the old gas, and putting in new.  Buying tie down straps because the new battery dropped out.  You know, little things like that.

Well, the big move day was this past Friday.  Rob took the day off from work, and I was taking the afternoon off, in case I had to drive down and meet him and rescue him.  He was supposed to leave at 9:00 a.m. to beat the long weekend holiday rush on the highway.  However, the night before he had inadvertently severed the battery cable (by draping the cable over the driveshaft--oops) and had to be towed back to Gonnie's garage.  (the tow truck driver loved the car--took lots of pictures of it!)  Thus Rob needed to be at Canadian Tire at 8:00 a.m. to get a new cable.  Of course, they didn't have the part he wanted, so two other stops later, he had the cable and replaced it. All systems check.  He texts me he's heading off.  Then about 20 minutes later, he texts saying he's heading back...minor fuel leak issue.  Probably good to take care of that before a fire starts. Gee, I owner if it's this much trouble launching the space shuttle!

Okay, all good now.  So he finally leaves at 2:00. With tools, overalls, spare parts, etc--just in case there's a breakdown.  He texts at stops along the way, and I'm trying to calculate if he's making good time.  He clears the big hill in the Lumsden Valley.  Whew. Stops for ice cream in Davidson.  Clears the Blackstrap Hill.  And finally he is heading down our back alley:

And pulling into Monster Garage:

Yay! Home safe and sound.  Rob was just beaming and the car is more beautiful than I remember.  He mentioned that every car passing him was doing a double take, and whenever he stopped, people would comment on the car.  We put the tarp on the car and then turned around and headed to the lake near Regina, so we went back the way Rob just came. (my turn to drive in it come this weekend--can't wait).  But as Rob was going up the steps, I noticed two big red marks on his leg.  I thought they were reactions to a bug bite, but it turns out that the exhaust from the car is channelled down the middle of the seating area, so hot air was blowing on his leg the whole trip.  One red mark turned into a giant burn blister that keeps growing daily.  Ah, a memento from his first drive!  I'll have to make him a fire-retardant leg cozy, sort of like an Evel Kneivel suit.



And so arrives our first tenant in Monster Garage.  Nice to have it home!

Son of Monster Garage

So, as you will have recalled reading, we started again this spring on Monster Garage after a winter hiatus.  Well....it seems that we have spawned another Monster project, this time at the Regina condo...called Son of Monster Garage!

We own a condo in Regina where Rob lives during the week while he works, and then he commutes to Saskatoon on the weekends, or I come down, or we meet at the lake.

Rob comes home to the condo after the May long weekend, and notices a musty, wet dog smell.  He walks around the condo and ...squish...he steps in wet carpet in the living room by the pony wall/kitchen.  Hmmm...he calls the building manager and it turns out that the next door neighbour's dishwasher had leaked and flooded into our condo and living room carpet.  So the insurance inspector comes, and they cut out a 6 x6 foot of wet carpet and bring in a de-humidifier to dry out the condo (and the black mold that is forming). 

This runs for a few days and the wall is still leaking water.  So they come back and discover that the water is leaking into the kitchen lino and cupboards.  And they also discover asbestos in the drywall compound (now asbestos is fine as long as you don't disturb it, but when they come to replace the drywall, they will have to take special precautions i,e. hazmat suits!).

Rob is quite excited about this turn of events because he had always wanted to replace the carpet with hardwood--so we'll do that and pay the difference.  And that goes ditto for the kitchen lino and cupboards.

Meanwhile, the water is still leaking out of the wall, so they come back again and cut into the drywall behind the kitchen sink, and find holes the size of loonies in the copper sewer (grey water) line we share with the neighbours.  So out that comes.

Now here's the kicker....somehow....that "leak" has made its way to the closet, bathroom, and bedroom doors, as well as the bathroom lino and bathroom sink counter!  Well, the leak actually didn't but it was a good excuse for Rob to do even more renos, since we were already doing some, why not tack on a few more!  So, he had always disliked the floor to ceiling bi-fold doors of the closets, and the doors to the rooms used to be floor to ceiling as well, but were just filled in at the tope with an odd panel.  SO...Rob decided to replace the doors, and put in proper headers over the doors--thus he would build the new frame and drywall, and when the drywall team was in the condo doing the wall repairs, they could just mud and tape Rob's new walls, and we pay the extra.

This meant a trip to Rona to buy lumber and drywall and doors.  And to get the lumber cut.  And to spend one hour in the Rona parking lot after it closed, cutting the drywall ourselves because the drywall sheets wouldn't fit in my car and we didn't want dust all over the condo.

So we hauled 3 doors and 2 closet bi-folds up 6 floors in the elevator:

The cut lumber:

And here is the hall closet newly-made header:

And the bedroom closet header:



Oh I forgot to mention that Rob also thought it would be a good time to move some electrical plugs to better locations, and new ones.  So he's been in contact with an electrician to come by some time.

So we have Monster Garage in Saskatoon, Son of Monster Garage in Regina, and Lake Monster renos.  We have renovations going on in three cities.  It never is boring!

Getting Wired

Well, after a winter hiatus, Monster Garage is underway again for 2013!  It sure was nice to park inside--especially after the winter we had with all that snow.  So no scrapping or brushing off the car.  Just jump in and go.   And we both could share the garage. The Tyvec took a bit of a beating with the wind, but nothing a few staples can't fix.

So this weekend was inside wiring.  Metres and metres of wires running through the walls and along the ceiling.  Wires for lights and wires for plug ins.  You can never have too many of those things.

And of course, one needs the largest drill bit in the world to drill holes for the wire.  We bought a new bit at Home Depot, and Rob is reading out the label which says it drills 10 times fastest and is named the Daredevil.  Now, is it only me, but I don't think the word daredevil and power tool should be in the same sentence!  Sounds like a recipe for disaster.