If you are following along, you know I am taking a bit of a look back at our home and getting used to writing while I am waiting for spring and the shop build. So now I am going to tell you about all the fun we had in 2006.
A small dark spot appeared on the ceiling of our en-suite bathroom. It is a nice sized room, about 9 x 13 and I had done a bit of work in there already. I removed the round tub that was in there. It was a terrible cheesy plastic thing. I also replaced the shower stall. The tenants that were in the home previously had used the shower despite the pan having a huge crack in it. Needless to say, the particle board floors did not like it and had to have a section replaced. I did that with plywood. I also moved the stacked washer/dryer in there. But now, this dark spot and a bit of a musty smell.....start digging I guess. Take off a bit of drywall, remove the insulation....
OK, that is kind of bad
Down below is not that great either. There is water getting in somewhere, I guess we gotta take a look. So we peel back a bit more, and when we open up the ceiling and see the roof sheathing, we find....
Now, this is getting to be a bigger issue than I was expecting. How far did I have to go? Well, by the time day 2 of ripping things apart came around I had half the ceiling and the whole south wall of the bathroom stripped of dry wall and insulation.
No sense treating the symptoms and not addressing the disease. The water got in through the roof.
Yee haa! We're having fun now!
Note that despite being a mobile home, it has a regular trussed roof with a peak and shingles. That and the 2 x 6 wall construction make this more like a framed home than a mobile home. You can see in the picture of the roof the vent stack. That is inside the bathroom wall, so I had to rip off a bit that was into the bedroom. I think in all I peeled away a 4' x 10' section of roof, 9 running feet of wall, and a 2' x 6' section of floor. I removed the window in the bathroom while I was re-framing too.
Anyone who has ever worked on a home knows the great feeling of starting to put things back together. My son came over and helped out lugging stuff and pounding nails. We soon had some sheathing up.
put some shingles on
Add a new vent
Closed in again. I did the OSB and exotherm on the walls again, put on some siding that matched the front, and some tidying up.
Wait...
Did you catch it?
What a poor way to do shingles....not even felt paper underneath....why oh why would anyone do a poor job on their house? Well, the short answer is, because it is temporary. The roof is already scheduled for re shingling (and much more as it turns out, but that is another story to stay tuned for), so I was not too concerned about the longevity of my work at this point. It was about this time I found the spot I like to work at, or, up until now, the "shop".
So we had a functioning, enclosed en-suite bathroom again. The cause of all of the leaking was a branch from a birch tree falling and damaging the roof. As I write this on the first of February 2015, a piece of that very same tree is heating my house. Which brings us to one our favourite renovations. The wood stove.
We heat our home really inexpensively with our wood stove. We heat it if the power goes out too.
We started out by screwing and glueing down a layer of 3/4" construction plywood with the rough side up on top of the existing 5/8" particle board giving us a nice stable surface 5' x 6' for the stove to sit on. We had gone to Home Depot and they had nice slate tile that was inexpensive. We were told that people generally liked the solid colour ones. We were of the exact opposite opinion, preferring the multi coloured and mottled ones. So we opened box after box of slate tile right on the floor of Home Depot picking out all the "ugly" tiles, and putting all the solid colour ones together and back on the shelves. We bought a couple of extra.
I can't remember what the adhesive was I used. I just bought what they told me to and followed the instructions. There are modified and unmodified mortars and different grouts. I went to a near by Rona (a Canadian chain of independently owned lumber/building/hardware store) and told them what the project was and they steered me in the right direction. They knew what size notch the trowel needed too. I had never tiled before, but I think it came out OK. The slate varies in thickness, so it is not a perfect flat surface. It has the slightly rustic look that we like. We keep saying we don't need a cottage because we live in one. So, I got the floor all ready with a nice big surface, nice to put a wood stove on.
Wow, that carpet is ugly...glad it's gone now.
Then it was a hole in the roof
a bit of framing
cut the rest of the way through
add the thimble, the chimney pipe and adapter goes into this from the outside.
Then with a simple expanding section, hook the stove to the chimney
As soon as it was all hooked up and the flashing installed, we called to have it inspected and the building permit signed off.
Oh, I guess I should have mentioned that earlier.....the first thing we did was get a building permit. The stove is a Drolet Legend and is rated for mobile home use. It takes the air it uses for combustion from outside. The chimney is from Security Chimney. Both companies are located in Quebec and I bought all of it from Rona. I don't think they carry the same brand chimney any more.
So that was 2006. Inching towards moulding the home to our lives and learning as we go. Time for a nap.
Thanks for stopping by!
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