Whether it's Anne Hathaway's character in The Devil Wears Prada or in our case, a home renovation makeover, everyone loves a good "Before" and "After." That said, I am so pleased with the transformation that took place at our house this weekend :).
Our "Before" and "After" at 212 began bright and early on Saturday morning (sorry to anyone on the street who had planned on sleeping in :p). A friend of the family brought over his tractor and ripped out all of the shrubs, the gangly spruce tree, and two other small trees on the side of the house. What a difference a blank canvas makes for the overall appearance and feeling of 212! Thank you to my mom and dad for helping to organize this shrub/ tree pull, and for helping with the debris clean up that followed. We plan on putting shrubs around the living room window and smaller plants along the front of the porch. We are not yet sure if we will do spindles and a railing along the porch opening, or leave it as it is. I kind of like the open feel of it right now, and imagine making it cozy with a couple of chairs and potted plants. The work was not isolated to the exterior of the house; Kyle and my dad worked hard inside and made a lot of progress. We are finishing up with the vapour barrier this week, and plan to be on to the next step by the weekend. I am hoping that these recent improvements to the house's looks will help to change 212's reputation according to the neighbourhood kids. While sweeping off the front porch this week, a young girl from down the street scootered up to me and asked if the house was haunted, explaining that her brother told her it was. She went on to say that her mom uses "the castle house," (a beautiful home a couple of doors down from us), and "the haunted house" as markers for where she and her siblings are allowed to bike and scooter before turning around to come back home. I had to laugh, but made a mental note to make 212 as non-haunted looking as possible before moving in.
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I revisited the Simcoe County Archives to continue my search for the first owner of our house. This time, I brought the Land Registry records that I found last fall, which contain the lot number and the blurry name of what Kyle and I read as "John A. McDonald." You will recall from previous blog posts that we were a little sceptical that that was actually his name, but with nothing else to go on, I approached the lady at the front desk of the Archives and told her with as much fake confidence as I could muster that I was looking for information on John A. McDonald of Stayner. If she thought it was funny, she didn't show it, and took me directly into a back room where an old microfilm machine was located. She brought out the tax assessment microfilm for 1896 and loaded the machine for me. If you ever find yourself at the Archives, I hope that you have the pleasure of being assisted by this lady; she was so knowledgable and had this very gentle, primary school teacher way about her that made me feel like I could ask her for help with anything, even about how to find John A. McDonald. After the Archives lady gave me a refresher on the microfilm machine, she scrolled forward to the Stayner records and I got to work. I scanned through the names, paying close attention to the street names. Luckily, I did not have to go far at all on the reel before I found John A. McDonald! Our squinty-eyed judgment of the land registry document was right after all! I was so excited and surprised that I ended up going out to the desk to tell the lady that I had found my guy. She responded with equal enthusiasm, though I'm not sure if she was just humouring me. The tax assessments include information about a land owner's address, property size and value, the number of people living on the land, the owner's age, and his or her profession. Speaking of profession, I noticed, not surprisingly, that most owners in Stayner were farmers or labourers; however there were some funny professions too. Some men stated their profession as "Gentleman"-- what did that involve?!-- and the few women who were listed in the assessment were either "W" for Widow, or Spinster, which I find to be a little unkind. After locating John's name in the assessment, I learned that he was 22 years old when he took ownership at 212, which was called Lot D of North Sunnidale at that time. In 1896, you had to be 21 years old to be a landowner, so John A. McDonald was presumably very keen to be in control of his life and investments and sought his own property right away. The 212 property was worth $275.00 at that time, and had a dwelling on it but no barn. John's profession was Brick-maker. According to these records, he was not married and had no children. Before leaving the Archives, I looked at the 1901 microfilm, which could have told me if John A. McDonald would be in the 1901 census reports for 212. Unfortunately he was not, which means that he moved before the census was completed. My next place to look will be the online archives and census reports. I am still going to look at the 1901 census, but for information on the second owner of 212, which was Angus Buie. I know, from artifacts found during the renovations, that Angus had a family, so I am curious to learn more about them. It is crazy how old-school it is at the Simcoe County Archives. When I asked if there were plans to convert the old microfilm to online documents, the Archives lady said that, because of the low government funding of the museum and archiving, she doesn't foresee it happening for a long time.
While the messy, sometimes indecipherable writing on the microfilms require a magnifying glass and patience, I have to admit that it was kind of fun using such an archaic machine and means of research. Sometimes, there are perks to being forced to slow down and really take in the details. *NOTE: Check out the HISTORY/ RESEARCH page of my blog (click on the sub heading in the top right corner), for links to the Simcoe County Archives and other useful researching sites. That annoyingly catchy Christmas song, "It's A Marshmallow World" that seems to play on repeat on the radio in December was the theme song at 212 this weekend. It was partially Kyle's fault, for constantly singing the first line as we worked, but I have to admit that our house also did start to look a lot like the inside of a pink marshmallow. This week's tasks? Finish the wiring, the inspection (which we passed!), and begin insulation. Kyle and I spent Saturday and Sunday insulating and I am proud to say that we finished the whole downstairs and upstairs! A few friends advised wearing long sleeved shirts and pants, saying that it was going to be unbearably itchy. However, in comparison to the old insulation that we encountered while tearing down the lathe and plaster last summer, this new pink insulation was not bad at all. We ended up wearing shorts and tee shirts, but using rubber gloves and face masks, and I am so glad that we did because we were sweating buckets. On Saturday, Kyle and I focused on the living room and kitchen downstairs. We both started at opposite ends of the room and worked our way around to each other. We moved upstairs on Sunday and, overall, it was a pretty quick and rewarding job. Here are some tricks and tips that I learned about insulating:
1) Measure out the strips of insulation as carefully as you can by leaning it against the space you are putting it in, and make a slight mark with your exacto knife where you need to cut if the piece is too big. Then, lay it down on the floor to cut. If you want to be precise, use a piece of wood or a measuring stick as a guide while you cut. 2) Use as big a piece of insulation as you can when filling spaces. If you cut the insulation too much, it makes for a harder time filling in the cracks and you risk having a draft in the end. 3) Make sure that you fill in all of the cracks and pockets in the walls. This helps to make the walls more air tight. 4) Lock your exacto knife blade before you use it so that it doesn't slide down or cut you. Also, always cut away from your body. Next Week's Forecast: another big clean-up, DIY, and maybe even drywall :). As much as this experience has been a lesson in patience, it has also been a lesson in one's capacity to learn and accomplish new things. While my learning as of late has pertained to the Pinterest/ DIY variety (a.k.a. spray painting picture frame signs and building headboards from doors), Kyle's learning has been more impressive... While I was wielding the glue gun and a can of spray paint, Kyle was calculating and constructing a whole set of stairs! If you recall from a blog post way back in the winter about stairs, you will know that the measurements and construction of stairs is very precise. That Kyle was able to do this with no prior stairs experience is mind-blowing to me! This week, we are finishing up with wiring and plumbing. We decided to call in some experts to help us with the next few steps in the renovation, both to speed up the process and to ensure that everything is to code. The electrician should be all done by tomorrow and our plumber (who also happens to be my Dad), will be finishing up this weekend. Things are moving along! Aside from trades workers and family, our friends also continue to stop by to see the progress and to fuel our excitement as we near the final stages of the renovation :). --Oh, and I almost forgot: We had our first campfire in the backyard with some of the leftover scraps of wood. The fire was a success (how could it not be with s'mores?!), and I hope that we have many more into the fall. |
About MeKyle and I just became new homeowners. The house we purchased is not what one would classify as "move in ready"; in fact, it is quite the opposite. Built at the turn of the 20th century, our Victorian style house is both beautiful and terrifying in its ancient status and will be a project in renovation. This is a documentation of our triumphs and lessons learned, as we deconstruct and reconstruct this house. The end result? A space that we can proudly say we created. Archives
December 2016
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