Tempus Fugit

I’ve had this clock since I was about 14 and at that time is was already an official antique, being appraised a just over 100 years old. It was originally in the train station in Rennie, Manitoba near Brerton Lake in the Whiteshell. So, how did I get this little treasure? Well one weekend my Dad and one of his friends were doing some maintenance work at the CGIT Camp on the lake and that meant I was helping. My assignment that day was to paint and immense dinning hall floor a very nice shade of battleship gray. Wow, just how I wanted to spend my Saturday at the lake. The clock was hanging in the hall and as I painted, it caught my interest. The varnish finish was all cracked and pealing and it didn’t run. Well, with a little negotiating I managed to obtain ownership of the clock in lieu of payment for my days labours.

Once I had it home, I began the re-finishing process and stripped off the varnish and replaced it with a nice soft oil finish. The clock mechanism was another story. Upon investigation, one of the brass gears had a tooth broken off, something that a 14 year old wasn’t going to be able to fix. Dad to the rescue! He took the clock to an old school clock repair guy, probably one of the last in the city ,and a new tooth was fashioned and soldered into place.

Did I mention that it ticks rather loudly? The clock was installed in a place of honors on the wall at the foot of my bed. It took me a night or two to get used to the ticking, apparently it took my parents much longer to get used to sleeping with the rhythmic tick, tock, tick, tock, but everybody survived.

Ever since then the clock has been in our home. A while back the rod attachment that holds the pendulum in place broke off, so there was no more ticking. And then, during a recent redecorating spree I was informed that it’s place of honour in the living room was no longer “appropriate”. Since that day the clock has been in storage. So, this weekend the restoration began again. A fresh coat of oil finish, some brass polish and re-attaching the rod for the pendulum has it in tip top shape once more, and restored to a place of honour in my office.

That’s right after seven or is it eight years, the Stewart household once again has… baseboards!

Man that renovating! One thing just leads to another and another and before you know it, you’re putting up baseboards.

Sanding the front room
Originally uploaded by Big Dadoo.

Things are really moving along on Eric & Dez’s house renovation project. Lots of drywall finishing and painting happened during the week. This weekend I finished all of the wiring with the exception of some ceiling lights and some outlets etc. in the basement that are waiting for drywall. Eric and Doug put in the kitchen cupboards and Scott started the floor sanding. There have already been some long nights and I suspect that last night was a late one for Eric as he finished the sanding in order to return the rented sander by noon today.

The sander rental was almost free in comparison to the sanding supplies. Wow, the sandpaper and backing pads were expensive and you need a lot ot them.

Saw by s2photography
Originally uploaded by Big Dadoo.

This weekend the renovations focused mainly on the basement.

During the week Eric & Dez finished the upstairs drywall and started mudding the walls. Currently there are a couple of coats in most areas and sanding should start during the week.

On the weekend about 3/4 of the exterior basement walls have been studded and the utility room framed up. The perimeter wiring is in place and some insulation and vapor barrier is up on some walls.

Several bits of plumbing have been capped off or moved, and some of the reconnections are proving to be a challenge. About eight 8′ lengths of framing for enclosing the heating ducts were assembled and are ready to attach to the joists. So, quite a bit of progress in the basement and it’s starting to look quite good.

Bathroom Wiring
Originally uploaded by Big Dadoo.

This afternoon, after church, I was helping Dez and Eric with their house renovations. Today, I was the electrician. We wired up a bathroom ceiling fan, replaced a bunch of wire, re-routes lights to different switches and roughed in the bathroom light fixture and a GFI outlet.

Len, Darlene and Jared were there as well. Len and Jared completed the basement tile removal project and then demolished some storage cabinets at one end of the basement. Darlene had the job that everybody has done some of and hates, removing floor tiles. Ones that really didn’t want to come off at all.

Doing the electrical work with Eric made me thing about doing the wiring at the cottage. I really enjoy electrical work, so it was lots of fun to help out. Next time, I think it’s back to drywallling.

Kitchen with some new drywall
Originally uploaded by Big Dadoo.

Today,I send a good portion of the day with Eric and Doug at Eric’s new house doing renovations. He’s only two weeks into the project and major work has taken place. I was the drywall guy today and did the inside of the new front room closet and about half the kitchen. Doug & Eric focused on the plumbing and hooked up the tub drain, connected the shower control, filled in the cuts in the basement floor with concrete where they moved the entire stack and ran a new drain line to re-locate the washer closer to the furnace to create a consolidated utility area.A little drywaller’s confession. As I was working on a small panel that had a light switch on it, I noticed that if I cut the hole for the switch box the way it was, that there would be no where for the switch tabs to rest on the drywall, because the opening would be too big. I then noticed that there were some extra tabs on the box that we didn’t need in this application and that they should be removed first and then everything would be good. Well, after that I went back to a larger panel and noticed that I’d made that mistake there. Also, Eric came along and asked if I’d taped up, the vapor barrier behind that panel, which I’d forgotten to do. So, not being one to leave things messed up, I pried off the panel and set about to make it right. Well, that was a good thing because I’d total overlooked cutting opening for the electrical outlet for the refrigerator! I kind of wondered why the panel didn’t sit quite right when I was screwing it on in that area. Oh well, it’s all better now & drywall is fairly cheap.

So much has happened in such a short time. The first week focused mainly on demolition, taking the entire kitchen and bathroom back to bare studs, and opening several doorways to create a more open concept feel. The place was a real mess! But now you can feel that the corner has been turned as the building and restoring phase has begun in earnest. Fresh drywall really makes you see the progress and that things are on the up swing. Soon there will be paint etc. and then moving it. Yahoo!