Day 207 - 214: Central Vacuum Install and Asbestos Abatement

Hello fair readers:

We have been working diligently on the house even if I have not been blogging about it. We have walls and ceilings in the stairwell, parlour, and drawing room. Michael just installed part of the central vacuum and today we're getting the asbestos removed from the furnace and pipes in the basement. Prior to the asbestos abatement, we spent the last couple of weeks moving plastic containers to a climate-controlled storage unit. This past weekend had us taking the rest of the stuff to sell / freecycle and reorganise.

Now, some pictures for your enjoyment!

One of the central units will be by the kids' bedroom. Cool.


Here is the big beast itself a couple days ago with stuff still around it.


A close-up of the top of the furnace.


Today: Here is a picture of the basement looking from the furnace to the driveway.


Today: Looking through the laundry room window as the guys are prepping the pipes that are covered in asbestos.


Today: Looking from the furnace to the laundry room. This box enclosed by plastic will contain the contaminated particles that will occur when they start removing the asbestos.


Edit Tonight @ 6.00 PM EST: The furnace without asbestos! Cool. :O)


Edit Tonight @ 6.00 PM EST: Closeup of the furnace. You can see the pipes!

Days 168 - 172: Paperless Drywall Installation

We started the process of installing walls and ceilings in the parlour, drawing room and stairwell. We used the fairly new paperless drywall product which resists mold and moisture. The cost was a few dollars more per sheet than regular drywall... However, I had a 10% off discount coupon from a friend of mine which reduced the costs considerably.

Advantages of using this product versus traditional drywall:

• Mold-resistant interior drywall
• Ideal replacement for regular drywall throughout the home
• Paperless design resists mold
• Superior fire and abuse resistance compared to regular drywall.

April 05, 2007
Here are our friends from Lowe's delivering the product and bringing it in:




Here is the parlour as of Friday, April 6, 2007:


Saturday, April 07, 2007
MJM put the plastic vapour barrier up in the room. We used a drywall lift from Home Depot to put this up to the ceiling. As you can imagine, the house doesn't have standard measurements, so Michael had to make a lot of custom measurements and cuts.


We now have a ceiling in the parlour...


... and in the drawing room!


Sunday, April 08, 2007
We have walls in the stairwell. Here I am casually holding this piece up while MJM takes a picture.


MJM and the kids put a few newspaper articles as memento items for anyone who ever wanted to renovate the stairwell of the house. Hopefully not!