Bedroom Update

Here's where we are at right now. I took these photos of the bedroom yesterday. What a difference! It looks really good. It will be warm in there. The R-ratings are really high for a 116-year old Gold Rush house; well, at least they are in this room. It took many hours - over 80 - to get to this point in the bedroom.

The rest of the LBH looks like a construction zone, the kitchen is full of garbage and bits of insulation, and there is dirt and dust on every surface.

We have decided our plan of attack for the rest of spring and early summer:

1. Install new window in bedroom (existing window panes are broken and frame is crooked).

2. Remove old chimney from front parlour and repair roof.

3. Install new wiring in most of original house, including baseboard heaters in crawl space, bathroom and bedrooms.

4. Install new, smaller hot water tank.

5. Apply sealant to new foundation and backfill around house with gravel.

6. Landscaping (rearrange massive dirt piles that currently surround the LBH).

We may actually use this bedroom this summer, sort of camp out in there... The work on the inside of the house will wait until early fall, just so we can enjoy the house, even in its state of upheaval.

The Back Wall of the Bedroom - now R-28

The Entrance from Bedroom to Parlour

Angled Part of Ceiling is R-22.5 & Flat Part is R-40

We plan to complete the rest of the house over the next couple of years. In the end we will end up with a historic house with modern insulation values!

Insulation!

Never before seen at the Little Blue House... insulation! We now have new wall joists and insulation in the bedroom. (Actually, the crawl space was insulated last summer when we replaced the home's foundation, so I lied.)

Furthermore, we plan to raise the ceiling about 6 inches. That's fantastic news for my 6'4" husband. It will give us a few more options when it comes to finding a ceiling fixture also. 

Our trusty contractor is going to insulate the ceiling, too. Room by room, this restoration is slowly moving along. Next step: finding a window to replace the one that's broken. We may end up buying a new one. We will of course stick to a period-perfect wood frame sash window. I shudder to imagine what that will cost. I'll let you know. 

Vintage Parlour Ceiling Fixture

In the good news category, after all of the crap we've been finding in the LBH lately, I found a fantastic light for the parlour! Of course, we won't be at the stage where we can install it until Fall at the earliest, but I wanted to share it with you.

It's a Victorian ceiling fixture, circa 1900-1910, and it has the original etched glass shades intact. It has been fully refurbished (new wiring) but retains the original patina. The service I received was amazing,  and the price very reasonable, so I must share where I found it. They are a small business located in Nova Scotia, on the East coast of Canada:

Harris House Antique Lighting

Here are some pictures. I don't have the light yet, but it's on its way.

Bones in the Attic

Well, it sounds like the title of a horror story… It could be much, much worse, but it is pretty creepy. After removing a massive mouse nest, about a dozen dead mice and two large hornets' nests from the bedroom walls, our contractor made a gruesome discovery.

As he was removing boards from the ceiling, in the back corner of the bedroom, a pile of bones began cascading down upon his head. There were rib bones, leg bones, knuckle bones, mostly seeming to have belonged to a goat or lamb. He was horrified (mostly because he didn't know what kind of bones they were). The bones were bleached white, gnawed clean, and there was an "enormous" pile of them (enough to almost fill a 5-gallon bucket).

There were, oddly, no skulls. The bones were all piled, very neatly, in the far corner of the attic, and into the eaves. The attic was otherwise very tidy, with no evidence of animal habitation anywhere. Amongst the bones were several fish jawbones.

How old are these bones? Who, or what, put them there? We are considering pack-rats, martin, weasel, squirrel and lastly, people. That would be the strangest explanation indeed.

Clean-Up

You may recall my last post, which depicted a disgusting mess in the original bedroom of the LBH. Well, it's been bloody cold up here lately, but it finally warmed up a bit, and our trusty contractor made it over to lay siege to the former mouse nest. Out came 12 dead mice, 2 massive hornets' nests and 8 bags worth of detritus. Now, at least behind three of the four walls in that room, no nests are to be found.

Former Mouse Hideaway

He found some very curious framing/joists in the rear wall of the bedroom. The centre square looks like a window to me. Perhaps there was a window there in the past? This is the oldest part of the LBH, built in 1898. We believe that the original home consisted of the bedroom and the parlour, when the house was built in the mining town of Discovery during the Gold Rush. It looks like the kitchen was perhaps added a bit later, maybe in Discovery or perhaps around 1917 when we think the house was moved to Atlin.

Strange Wall Joists, Master Bedroom

Next up on the list is the removal of the planks on the ceiling; we are justifiably nervous about the crap and corruption that may rain down on everybody from up there...

A God-Awful Mess

Horrors! Look what our contractor just discovered inside the original bedroom wall. Thankfully, the mice in there are all dead. It's a disgusting mess. How the hell did the tiny vermin manage to drag a bag of bird seed into the wall cavity? (He informed us that there was a plastic bag full of seeds inside the wall.) The previous owners kept bird seed around; we found bins of the stuff when we took possession of the Little Blue House. I just hope there aren't more nests lurking behind other walls... 

Top Half of North Wall

Bottom Half After Removing Remaining Boards

Hobnail Vase

Look at the wee hobnail vase I found to go in the Little Blue House! My mum bought it for me - thanks, Ma! We discovered it in one of her favourite shops, Echo's China, located in North Vancouver, BC.

Actually, I found a set of china there for the LBH that will be perfect. Since the house came furnished, we've been using the dishes that were in there, most of which are cracked or chipped. We plan to gradually replace those items with ones of an appropriate vintage... I will take photos of the new (old) dishes once we take them to the house.

A belated Happy 2014 to my readers, by the way! We will be continuing our restoration work very soon, so I'll pick up where I left off with my blog in December. 

We are currently awaiting a quote for the work in the master bedroom. That will be our focus in the coming months.