strange invader

Jack is 6 weeks old today. It seems like he has been part of our family for much longer than that, yet each day zooms by.

For the first few weeks it was like living with a very small, very demanding, occasionally ill-tempered alien. One who doesn't speak our language (his is a primitive, wordless language comprised mostly of crying) or know the local customs (local customs at 760 include drinking coffee and reading the Globe & Mail on Saturday mornings, sleeping at night, and watching an entire episode of Dexter without interruption).

The experience reminds me of an animated short film by Cordell Barker, Strange Invaders. (Go ahead. Click this link. It's only 8 minutes long. You'll be glad you did.)

But slowly, a tiny human emerged. One day he smiled. Then he laughed. He likes music (amazingly, he likes his mom's singing - Baby Beluga is his favourite). He has started "working out" with his dad (baby pull-ups). We are better at understanding his language, able to differentiate between cries ("I've peed!" sounds different than "Feed me!"). Then yesterday morning this happened:

I've heard some parents say they don't remember what life was like before their baby arrived. This is not the case for us.

I remember eating dinner at the dining room table, instead of changing diapers.

I remember the living room before it became a baby gear obstacle course.

And I remember the Mad Men vibe of our sofa before it was covered up to protect it from baby puke and food crumbs (see lack of dining room table, above). Let me reminisce for a moment . . .

For some reason I thought that all of this was temporary. Until I realized that it's not. We will change multiple diapers each day for the next two years. Jack will outgrow some of the toys and gadgets currently in our living room, but new toys will take their place. It was time to reclaim our house, starting with the dinning room.

The solution - an IKEA change table in one corner.

The result - a proper dining room! (The living room is still a work in progress.)

Of course, not all Jack-related decor is a bad thing. His room is now my favourite room in the house.

hello, baby

Life at seven sixty changed forever at 11:08 in the morning of Sunday, June 9, when we welcomed our baby boy, Jack. He weighed in at 9lbs, and measured 20.5 inches long.

The past two weeks have been a blur of feeding, changing, washing and soothing our tiny human. We are smitten.

hindsight

"If you had known, when we first saw this house, everything you know now - would you still have wanted to buy it?" asked Aaron after the heating and cooling guy had left us with his quote.

What we know now (among other things) is why the fire started. It turns out that the electric baseboard heaters that only a few blog posts ago were merely an annoyance are actually a bit of a hazard.

The day before the heating and cooling guy gave us his quote, we had an electrician come check things out. He determined that our heaters are very old and very large; so large that the wattage of the heaters exceeded the capacity of the thermostat, which is what caused the thermostat to catch on fire. He gave us two options - replace the heaters with newer more efficient ones (in addition to being old and big, he found that many of them had frayed wires), or install a high efficiency electric furnace. He also recommended replacing the electrical panel, as the current one is over forty years old and is meant for commercial (not residential) use. He suspects the previous owners installed it to accommodate the giant (electricity sucking) heaters.

"You don't have kids, right?" Mr. Electric asked Aaron. "With no kids in the house, I would just swap out the heaters." When Aaron explained that we are expecting a baby in less than a month, Mr. Electric gave him the number of the furnace guy.

So while we hadn't expected to undertake this particular project when we bought the house, there are a few silver linings: all of the duct work from the original furnace is still in place, so the job won't be nearly as expensive as it could have been; with a furnace and re-connected duct work we can now install central air, which will be a welcome treat this summer when I am home all day with our tiny human; we will no longer have to worry about tiny fingers getting burned by the scorching hot metal heaters, which is something that we had just realized could be an issue; and finally, we are optimistic that next winter's heating costs will be lower.

Like all first-time parents, we have a list of things to get before the baby arrives: crib, car seat, stroller. It's just that our list also includes an electrical panel and a new heating and cooling system, which is scheduled to be installed 6 days before our due date.

And if you're wondering how I answered Aaron's question from the top of this post, it was an unequivocal yes. Despite all the challenges, I still would have bought this house. Because it's home.

a slight interruption

This is where we celebrated our engagement, and where we spent our first night as a married couple. It's also where we spent the night after our first house fire.

We interrupt our regularly scheduled renovation updates to tell the story of our first electrical fire. It happened on Friday night, while I was out. So I'll let Aaron explain what happened:

I was in the basement watching Evil Dead 2 (a classic horror movie) when I heard a "ka-chunk" then another "ka-chunk". I paused the movie to listen, didn't heard anything else, and started the movie again. Then I started to hear some very loud  "pops". I got up to investigate, thinking maybe it was ice falling down the sides of the house. I went into the laundry room, which is where the sound seemed to be coming from. That's when I saw smoke seeping through the basement ceiling. At this point I yelled "oh my god the house is on fire!" and ran upstairs. I saw the thermostat in the living room with flames coming out behind it, and electricity arcing around the wall.

I ran back downstairs to the electrical panel, which is not clearly labeled. In a frantic effort to cut power to the thermostat I started turning off all the breakers labeled "heater". Then I ran back upstairs, trying to remember what I learned about how to put out an electrical fire. All I could think of was a box of baking soda.

But first I returned to the living room to take the face of the thermostat off so I could get at the screws. I grabbed it and the whole thing melted off the wall into my hands. I threw the thermostat outside and went back to the hole in the wall where there was still a small flame, which I was able to blow out with two breaths. However, I had no idea if the fire was still burning inside the wall.

I went upstairs and could see there was still smoke coming into the bedroom above the living room. I felt all the walls, and couldn't really tell if there was still a fire in the wall so I decided I needed to call someone with expertise in the area of fires. It wasn't an emergency, so I didn't want to call 911. I went to the city's website to look for a non-emergency phone number for the fire department. I found fire station touring information, a number to call if I wanted to book a school visit, but no number to call for a non-emergency fire situation. I called information and explained my house was on fire, but that it wasn't an emergency so I needed the fire department non-emergency number. The operator seemed confused and re-directed me to the police non-emergency line, who then put me through to the fire department non-emergency line.

As soon as I told the fire department operator that I'd had an electrical fire in my house, she asked, "where do you live?"  By the time I'd answered a few more questions, a fire truck with five firemen in full gear pulled up to the front of our house. Two of them came in - the veteran with a Tom Selleck mustache asked me a few more questions, while the rookie used a thermal imager to look for heat in the walls. Tom Selleck said, "I'm not an electrician, but this seems dangerous. You might want to hire one." Thankfully they were able to confirm that the fire was out.

After they left, I texted my brother-in law.

I took his advice and grabbed a beer, then went back down to the basement and watched the rest of the movie while I waited for Megan to get home from the opera.

As I drove up to the house the first thing I noticed was that every light in the house was on.Then I noticed the charred remains of a thermostat on our front step. And as soon as I walked in the front door I could smell smoke and the distinct smell of burnt plastic. Then I saw this.

I'm sure there was panic in my voice when I called out to ask if Aaron was home. He sauntered upstairs with a beer still in hand and asked if I wanted to relocate to a hotel for the night, as the smell of burnt plastic was making him feel a little lightheaded, and the bedrooms upstairs were still smokey. I agreed, as the smell was making me feel a bit nauseous, and it didn't seem like a good idea to expose the baby to toxic burnt plastic fumes.

I took a few moments to document the evening's events.

(Aaron apologizes for not getting a picture of the flames. However I appreciate that he acted so quickly to get the flames out. He also regrets not getting a picture of the firefighters, but asking two burly men if you can take their picture for your blog is a bit awkward.)

We quickly packed our bags. It crossed my mind that something else might catch on fire while we were gone, and I tried to think of what priceless items we should pack into the car before we left. In the end all we took was a change of clothes, our toothbrushes, and our laptop (which has all of our photos on it).

It was well after midnight when we reached our final destination.

floored

The new floor is in! Aaron placed the last tile just a few hours ago.

Of course, with so many of our projects, we hit a few snags along the way. 

Something to know about our house . . . the gas furnace was removed and replaced with electric baseboard heaters. (According to our neighbour, the previous owner was afraid of a gas explosion.) When Aaron took out the electric heater in the bathroom, we realized that the wiring was right next to the bathtub. Our steel bathtub. Suddenly we had visions of being electrocuted while giving a splashing toddler a bath. 

Before we could start laying down the flooring, the wiring needed to be moved. This particular snag involved a trip to Home Depot, shutting off power to the upstairs, cutting a hole in the subfloor, and threading the wiring through the new hole. Voila! The wiring went from the giant hole next to the bathtub to its new spot further to the left. 

Electrocution hazard minimized. And flooring project behind by one day. (sigh)

On Sunday we were ready to start the floor. My job was to lay it all out to make sure adjacent tiles looked good together, to minimize the number of cuts required, and to make sure we used as few tiles as possible (we bought four boxes of tile so we wouldn't run out in the middle of the job, but were hoping to use three). It was like a giant puzzle (and not a particularly fun one).

For the most part I did a pretty good job. Although there were a few calculation errors. Aaron insisted on taking a photo of this one. (hint: the cut around the door jam should not have left a giant gap) Oops.

Aaron was responsible for cutting the tiles and putting them in place.

The whole job took longer then we anticipated. But it was so worth it.

PS - It was close, but we were able to do the whole job with only three boxes of tile; the fourth is unopened, so we can return it.

bathroom renovation: days 2 to 4

Day 2 of our bathroom renovation (Saturday) began by shopping for the flooring and the paint. Because we weren't sure if our bathroom had previously been painted with acrylic or oil paint, the paint store people recommended a fancy, somewhat toxic, primer. Then they looked at my giant belly and told Aaron that he would be tackling this project by himself. Which he did. By the end of Day 2, the bathroom walls and vanity had been primed, and 100lbs of flooring had been carried upstairs.

On Day 3 (Sunday), Aaron called in reinforcements - his mom came over to help with the painting.

On Day 4 (Monday), Aaron carried 100lbs of flooring back downstairs because I changed my mind about the colour we'd selected (oops). Once the walls were painted I realized that the first floor colour I had selected was much too dark for the space. So we went back to the store and rented a few sample tiles (Why didn't we do this the first time? I don't know). Confident in the new colour choice we exchanged the too-dark tiles for a lighter shade. And then we were done. Exhausted. Aaron from all the work he did over the weekend, and me from growing a human.

So to recap - at the end of the 4-day weekend the bathroom had been dismantled, and the walls and vanity had been primed and painted. The sink has been re-installed (minus the counter) in order to restore water service to the upstairs bathroom.

As for the toilet . . .

Yep, that's Aaron's side of the master bedroom closet. Hopefully it will go back into its rightful place this weekend.

nesting

All the pregnancy books tell you that nesting is fairly common. Typically this happens to the mother-to-be a few weeks before the baby arrives. What they don't tell you is that dads-to-be can get the nesting instinct too. Aaron's nesting instinct kicked in last weekend.

Our main bathroom is as old as the house (58 years and counting) and came with retrotastic features including a pink toilet, a pink bathtub, a pink vanity, pink tile and pink floral wallpaper.

The pink toilet is gone, replaced with a water saving white one. The wallpaper is gone too, thanks to a bit of time left on our steamer rental a few weeks ago. But we were willing to live with the rest of it until we could save up enough money for a full bathroom renovation.

Hanging out with our niece Ruby at bath time made us realize that we'd be spending a lot of quality time in the bathroom with our baby. We were grossed out by the thought of kneeling next to the bathtub on 58 year-old tiles that were starting to chip and peel and never quite got clean. Replacing the old flooring with new click-in vinyl tiles seemed like a quick, affordable way to spruce up the space a bit. We also decided to add a fresh coat of paint, which became necessary after we took down the wallpaper. Two little projects with a whole four-day long weekend to complete them.

This is how our bathroom looked on Good Friday morning:

Immediately after the photo above was taken, Aaron brought out the crowbar. Once the toilet was removed, he started pulling up the floor.

But he didn't stop there. With crowbar in hand, Aaron decided to take out a few other things, including all the baseboards and (clockwise from top left) the falling apart linen closet door, the peeling vanity counter, the pom-pom trimmed window blind (I have no excuse for why we left up the pom-pom trimmed blind for two years) and the buzzing flourescent light.

By the end of Day 1 of the bathroom renovation, the only things left in the room were the bathtub, shower, and vanity (without doors, a countertop or a sink).

wallpaperless

There are many retro features about our house that we love. The wallpaper is not one of those features.

The nursery-to-be came with a wall of pink and mauve and orange flowers (that's a close-up on the left). During our first two years in the house, we rarely went into the room. But once we started nesting mode, it was time for the wallpaper to go.

Work began last Friday, when my mom generously offered to help. Peeling off the wallpaper was was slow, but oddly satisfying.

On Sunday, Aaron and I tried a new approach. Did you know that you can rent tools by the hour? For 21 bucks, this wallpaper steamer was ours for four hours.

It came with a scoring tool that made tiny holes in the paper. (Dork alert! The scoring tool was so loud, it required the use of ear protection.)

Once the paper had been scored, we were ready to steam and strip. We've done a lot of stripping in this house (see here and here), and this was by far the easiest.

With 45 minutes to spare on the steamer rental, the nursery was officially wallpaperless . . .

That left us lots of time to go across the hall and remove the bathroom wallpaper. And while it's easy to understand how we left the wallpaper in a room we never went into, it's harder to explain how for two years we lived with lilypads in a room we use several times every day.

 In less than half an hour, the lilypads were gone.

It's amazing what a difference it makes. On one hand, the room seems a bit boring. But until the lilypads came down, I never realized that every time I went into the bathroom, it felt like I was visiting someone else's house. Someone's grandma's house.

Of course, taking down the wallpaper is only the first step - we still have to patch and sand and paint. But with each project we finish, this house feels a little bit more like home.

house-a-versary!

Two years ago today we got the keys to our house. It's a bit daunting to think of all the things we still have to do. But when we look back at the photos from Day 1, it's amazing to see how far we've come. The walls and the toilets are white (instead of blue, green and pink). The outside of the house is gray (instead of white). Yes, all the wallpaper is still there. But the carpet is gone.

Now we have incentive to get a few more things done . . .there are 15 weekends until our baby is due to arrive. And we love deadlines! Family coming over for dinner? Put up baseboards. Hosting a baby shower? Install new toilets.

We've identified a few projects we'd like to finish in the next few months:

• set up the nursery - remove some retrotastic wallpaper, paint, buy a crib
• update the main bathroom - remove more retrostastic wallpaper, paint, replace flooring and lighting
• patch and paint the walls around the (not so) new windows
• organize the basement (seriously, the lowest level of our house looks like the "before" in an episode of Hoarders)
• put up proper window coverings in the living room and dining room
• build a deck (just kidding! that's merely wishful thinking)

Let's hope we can do it!