One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

It turns out that having a baby cuts into blogging time!  Although we haven’t managed to update the blog in the past six months, we have managed to work on a few projects around the house. 

When we last left off, our subfloor was complete and we were anxiously awaiting the installation of our carpet and built-ins.  After the subfloor was laid, Dave painted the walls and finished the trim work.  Lowes installed our new carpet and our basement was finally ready for use!

We found a couch from Ikea that would fit down our tiny stairwell (a common problem in many of the old houses in Toronto!)  We also installed the custom built-in cabinets we had ordered from the same person who designed our kitchen.  At this point, our basement was pretty much complete, aside from a few minor things that we decided to leave until the fall while we focussed on building a deck in the backyard. 

All throughout our renovation, we always considered ourselves lucky that we never had any major setbacks.  Well, it seems that our luck had finally run out…

Shortly after we finished the basement, here is how it looked:

Yep, that’s right.  Our beautiful, newly finished basement was all torn apart.

One morning, Dave flushed the basement toilet and it didn’t sound right.  He looked in the floor drain and noticed the water level was on the brink of flooding.  Luckily he caught it in time and we immediately stopped using water and called a plumber.  The plumber checked our drain pipes with a camera and discovered that an old clay pipe had shifted, causing a blockage. 

This is when we were really kicking ourselves.  Two years ago when we started our renovation, we replaced all the plumbing in our house, except for about 25 feet of old clay pipe under the basement floor.  At the time, it was a decision we made to save some money.  Obviously, we regret that decision now!

We could have fixed shifted pipe by just digging up a small section of the floor, however, we didn’t want to end up in this situation again down the road.

And so, the built-ins were removed, the carpet peeled back, the subfloor ripped out and the floor dug up.  The pipes were replaced, giving our house 100% new plumbing.  

Now, we’re in the “rebuilding” phase.  The subfloor is back down and the carpet installers will be here next week to re-install the carpet.  Hopefully we can show a picture of completed room soon!

Plumbing with PEX

We've made a lot of progress in the last couple of weeks on the plumbing, electrical and HVAC installation. The plumbing rough-in is just about finished.

We decided to to replace the existing plumbing and install new PEX piping. PEX is becoming more and more common because it has a number of advantages over copper.

Below is a picture of our hot and cold PEX manifold water distribution system. This system will help keep water pressure consistent, even when we're using multiple fixtures.

Bathroom Faucets

We took a little break from working on the house this weekend to attend a couple of weddings. Congratulations Liane & Jesse and Sharon & Dave!

However, since the plumber is coming this week to install the shower valves, we had to choose our faucets. We decided to go with chrome for the upstairs bathroom, since we think it will look best with our planned white and gray colour scheme. For the downstairs bathroom, we've selected brushed nickel.

Upstairs Bathroom: Delta

We chose a single lever Delta sink faucet that will fit well in the small vanity that we need for our tiny bathroom. We went with a matching tub and shower faucet.

Downstairs Bathroom: Kohler

We really like the look of Kohler's Archer Suite. We bought the bath and shower faucet, but will wait until we've chosen a vanity before we decide whether we can get the 4" or 8" centre sink faucet.

The Champion

Before we begin ripping out the old bathroom upstairs, we wanted to install a toilet in the new basement bathroom. Once the basement plumbing was ready, we went toilet shopping.

One would assume that choosing a toilet would be a fairly simple task. A toilet is a toilet, right? Well, as it turns out, men and women have very different preferences.

Lucky for us, we need two. So, we decided that Dave gets to pick the basement toilet and Jen gets to pick the upstairs toilet.

This week we installed Dave's choice - the Champion 4 by American Standard. According to a press release, it's "a tower of power" and the box says it can flush a bucket of golf balls. It is pretty obvious why this toilet appeals to men!

Stay tuned for Jen's choice...

Basement Bathroom Plumbing

We plan to add a second bathroom in the basement. It will be located where the original laundry room was - right behind the stairs. Here are some shots of the plumbing work that's been done so far. The basement framing will start this week.

Water Service

Something we knew we needed to do right away was upgrade our water service. Several years ago, the City of Toronto had replaced the city-owned portion of the pipes but the previous homeowner had opted against replacing the private side of the service line. We hired Anta Plumbing to do the upgrade for us. Our front lawn and part of our basement had to be dug up, but better now than once basement is finished!

We decided to get some drain work done at the same time. We should be able to get a rebate through the City of Toronto's drain grant program.