For the sake of visual gratification (which, face it, is the only reason you keep checking back) here is a picture of some out-of-my-league inspiration. This is the home of NYC architect Diana Kellogg who is living my dream. So beautiful and timeless. “I Love It!”

Let me be clear, this is not my house.

See more pictures at Remodelista

We finally scored some beautiful weather here in Halifax this past long weekend. I celebrated by staying indoors to clean and paint like mad. Even then I feel like I did not make much headway. As I mentioned earlier, every original surface in the place is filthy. I have been up to my elbows in TSP and buckets of dirty water for the last two weeks. I think I finally understand how to wash a floor the old-fashioned way – hands and knees and a scrub brush. As I work, I keep thinking of Barbara Ehrenreich’s book on minimum wage slavery, Nickel and Dimed, where she worked as a maid for one of those franchise outfits. She was trained to wash the floors on her hands and knees, especially if the home owners were present. It gave them the sense that they were getting a better cleaning to see someone toiling on the floor beneath them. What they didn’t know was the maids were also trained to use only a half bucket of water, for everything. Yuck.

If I had unlimited time and funds, I would have all the floors refinished or even do it myself. They appear to be the original hardwood strip flooring and the condition is, uh, rustic. The upstairs floors and stairwell are painted blood red, if you recall. It looks like the paint was poured on straight from the can and slapped around with a straw broom. In the interest of DIY and saving time I decided to repaint them. I did a little googling on painting wood floors. The advice seemed to be primer, two coats of paint, and two coats of polyurethane. That would be great if I had an extra week to let everything cure. So I talked to my curmudgeonly local paint guy and he said, no way, just go with one coat of floor & porch paint. Sure the poly would protect the paint and add shine, but would have to be removed if I ever wanted to paint again. So I spent one day vacuuming, washing, rinsing, sanding, etc. and the next half day putting on the single coat of floor paint. It went on like a dream. The colour is dark grey with a hint of blue, which I am not sure I love, but once I get some other things in the room I am hoping it won’t be quite so in-yer-face.

Here’s a quick peek at the progress to date:

Before and after cleaning the living room ceiling joists. I put this cleaning job off for months. Not a fun day, but the results are good.

Front bedroom floor - before and after

Before and after of back bedroom floor

Clean vs. dirty brick. These Mr. Clean moments never lose their thrill.

Primed but not painted brick wall in stairwell.

Mirror in the shower. Turns out it doesn't looks as weird as it sounds.

New front door light. Not crazy about the glass shade, but now we know what Simulated Etruscan Glass looks like.

Butcherblock countertop with walnut stain and four coats of tung oil. I am pretty happy with how this is turning out.

Bathroom sink mock-up. Buckets not included.

The paint is in very poor condition in this area. This is where the stove and part of the counter will be located and as such will be the ideal paint chip consumption delivery system. So the paint has to be removed. I looked into options and found that chemical strippers or heat ‘n’ scrape were my two best options. I settled on a chemical stripper called Peel Away. You spread the paste on like cake frosting and cover the paste in a special paper for 24+ hours. Theoretically, when you peel off the paper the goo and the dissolved paint come with it in one gooey sheet. I did a test patch and things looked promising.

Before

During

I tried a larger area, and it also looked ok. Turns out there is whitewash under them layers of paint and whitewash appears to be unmoved by the goo. Surprising since they are both alkaline substances. If I paid more attention in chemistry class I might be able to explain this, but alas.

The test patch below and the larger area above.

After

Then I tried the rest of the area on the adjacent wall. Most of the goo came off in one go, but what was stuck-on refused to budge without the help of a wire scrub brush and a lot of elbow grease. The problem was that there was red paint under there. Partially liquified red paint + water + scrub brush = bloody mess. Seriously, it looked like the killing floor of an abattoir in there. Here is the before and after shots.

The dissolved paint shows through the paper.

This is the cleaned-up version.It represents about 12 hours of work.

Here is the slate mantel in most of its former glory.

So the lesson here is what? Don’t remove paint? No, that can’t be it. How about: things are never as simple as the instructions make them out to be.

Here are some bonus shots of the beginning of what very well may be kitchen cabinets!

The original roof/ceiling assembly looked like this:

In terms of R-value for the assembly it was clocking in at R7. That translates to heat losses of about 36 Watts per square metre during winter temps of -20°C (occurs annually about 0.4% of the time). The NS Building Code requires R40 in this type of roof configuration.

The new unvented roof configuration is more like a cathedral ceiling which requires a minimum insulation value of R31 in the NS Building Code. The original roof rafters are 4.5 inches deep, so even if we filled them up with spray foam at R6 per inch, we would only get a total of R27 for the total roof assembly. So we had to deepen the cavity by framing down a few more inches, which we did with 2x6s in the bedrooms and 2x4s in the loft in order to maximize head room. With that additional insulation cavity, the assemblies are R54 and R45 respectively. The attic heat loss during (abnormally low) -20°C winter temperatures is reduced to 5 Watts per square metre versus the 36 Watts in the original uninsulated roof. Keep in mind, that all this insulating and tightening up is only possible if you provide a mechanical source of ventilation into the house. We installed a new Heat Recovery Ventilator unit in the loft.

As-built, as they say.

Initially I decided the newly framed down portion of the roof would be filled with R20 fibreglass batt. A layer of spray foam followed by a layer of batt insulation in deep cavities is a common application called “flash and batt”. The idea is that the closed cell spray foam is a high quality, high performance insulation/air barrier/vapour barrier, but it comes at a relatively higher cost. So if you use it to your advantage in the first few inches the rest of the cavity can be filled with a lower cost batt insulation to provide the remaining R-value since the air sealing and vapour diffusion have been already addressed in the first couple inches of foam. And that, folks, is what we call optimum value engineering.

One concern with this arrangement is the old one-third/two-thirds rule for placement of a vapour barrier in the insulation assembly. The old adage of vapour barrier goes on the warm side of the insulation still holds, but the 1/3 rule-of-thumb says the vapour barrier can be installed up to one-third of the way in the roof (or wall) assembly’s R-value. The purpose behind all these rules and axioms and adages is to prevent moist interior air from filtering too far through the assembly where it will eventually hit dew-point temperature. That can lead to water inside which can lead to big problems. The spray foam IS the vapour barrier and it’s buried underneath 5.5 inches of batt insulation. Is that one-third of the way through the assembly’s R-value? Well, I could do a quick check to see where that location was, but rather than rely on bumper sticker wisdom for the assembly I decided to calc it out. It’s a pretty straightforward exercise if you can find the thermal conductivity and the vapour permeance of the materials. I set it up in a spreadsheet and when I mess around with interior and exterior temperature and relative humidities I can see the condensation potential in the wall and roof assemblies. It’s a little more accurate than the rules-of-thumb and it makes me feel slightly more secure. The upshot is, there is potential for condensation in the assembly if I am running a hot tub in my bedroom during a hellishly long cold snap in January. I am ok with that risk.

My original calculations were for fibreglass batt in the roof cavity. Martin actually used Roxul (made in Milton, Ontario!) which is rock wool. That added a few extra Rs to my R-value. So the roof assembly R-value went from 50 to 54. That’s 74% more than code required minimum.

Original condition minus drywall

With the additional 2X6 framing and some strapping.

After four inches of closed cell spray foam.

With layer of rock wool batt.

After drywall.

My Wall Wants to Party All the Time

The party wall on the main floor also received some insulation treatment. The concern here was to improve the sound barrier rather than reduce heat loss. Surprisingly a single brick wall is not quite enough to stop sound transfer. I did a little research and learned that you have to block air leakage, keep rigid material layers from touching when possible and fill all air spaces within the assembly. So we built a 1-5/8 inch steel stud wall just about a half-inch from the party wall with the intention of filling the cavity with batt insulation. Good old Roxul has a product for this called Safe and Sound that strangely enough doesn’t even list the R-value on the package. That means it probably isn’t as good compared to their thermal insulation products. A higher density batt would help with sound dampening but would have the disadvantage of increasing thermal conductivity.

Original state.

Old drywall removed

Party wall with steel stud framing.

Stud wall with sound insulation.

After drywall.

The bathroom floor is still unfinished and I am chickening out on my idea to seal the concrete and leave it exposed. It sure seems like it needs more colour than cement grey in there. The nice part is, the floor is only 5 feet by 5 feet and will not be obstructed with either a toilet or sink since they both will be wall mounted. If I change my mind later, it won’t be hard to add flooring. Maybe I will stain the concete and then seal it. We’ll see. 

The is the bathroom pre-tile

Post-tile, pre-grout.

With grout and paint, still needs mirror.

The toilet and sink locations.

Window detail with a view to the outdoor half bath.

The doorway but no door. Yet.

Watch your step.

Here is how it went down. We sized the new windows to the exterior window opening which is almost six inches narrower than the interior opening. That means Martin and the guys had to build out each side of the window opening on the inside. Rather than go with layers of solid wood, I asked him to use some blocking so we could reduce the thermal bridging and insulate the air spaces. The final result is a rather messy looking arrangement of 2x4s, plywood, blocks, shims, board foam, spray foam and membrane. I am imagining the reaction of the person who has to pull this apart in 40 years wondering “what the hell?” Maybe I will take a Sharpie and write “Form follows function! Form follows function!” all over the 2x4s. “No dice,” says my calc professor, “minus 5 points”.

The interior window opening is wider and taller than the exterior opening.

We added membrane flashing and blocking.

Then board foam, 2x4, more membrane and plywood. With a sprinkling of shims.

Then spray foam liberally.

Cover with drywall. This is the bathroom window - a one-off in terms of colour, hardware, and drywall detailing.

You can't argue with results! Lookin' good.

Here's a little something for the window geeks.

Stay tuned for the living room window installation.

Front bedroom!

And the kitchen.

The bathroom window is so very tiny. It’s also different from the others in that it is an in-swing casement and it is stained medium brown. The rest of the windows are double hung, meaning they slide up and down, and they will be clear pine inside. I dropped by yesterday because the suspense was killing me, I had to see that window. The guys were in the process of installing a plywood window buck and some Blueskin and were happy to show me a simulated version of what it might look once installed. Exciting!

Let the sun shine in

Some of the window flashing detail

The inside face of the window without handle.

Not quite installed, but lookin' good.

Lots of window for such a tiny space

Watch this space. Wall tile coming soon.

Oh, and living room drywall is up.