Renovations in the Suite

I write this on a sunny but cold Sunday afternoon. Miraculously, it seems, it’s not rainy here in Sooke. Before we moved here, we lived in Oak Bay near Willows Beach. It was awesomely windy there and sure it rained, but I never noticed the weather to be much different than the other eight areas of town I’ve lived in. Forty-five minutes west we moved, and it rains like the devil. The weather here just seems so different. And so I am thankful for sunny, dry days. (My toes, however, feel like they were dipped in the Bering Sea.)

We aren’t doing much work outside in the yard yet. We’re working on renovating the rental suite on the lower level in hopes of finding a tenant for March 1. Our previous tenant left in December, and we’re feeling the pinch from the lost income. The suite had quite a large unfinished room (drywalled, but not mudded and taped) that was being used as storage. A middle area between all the rooms seemed too small to be useful, and we’ve decommissioned and taken out the wood stove that was housed there. It made sense for us to take down the wall behind the wood stove and open up that entire space. That way there can be a more defined living room, and two bedrooms instead of one. (Also, more square footage = more rental income.)

After much consultation with friends and family as to whether the angled wall could be bearing or not, Tyler started taking the wall down. After a twinge of uncertainty and a little Internet research, I was instructed to call the builder who moved the house and ask him. We needed to know for sure. He told me it was a partition wall and okay to knock out. Yahh! And so the demolition continued.

For the past week I’ve been mudding and taping and mudding and mudding the drywall, while Tyler works on other jobs in the room. He’s framed in an area at the back of the room for storage, and we’ve realized that a baseboard heater should be installed now on that wall before the drywall goes up, so we’re on the hunt for an electrician in the area. Ty also cut out a length of drywall in the ceiling last night so that we could stuff insulation in there. Not sure why there wasn’t any in there already… but we need to do something to help with the noise transfer between our living room floor and the ceiling in the suite. It’s a bit ridiculous, actually. Tyler has also taken out the stove pipe and capped it at the ceiling. Today he bought the tools to drill into concrete so the storage space wall can be secured to the floor and he can install the door.

It seemed like it would be such a simple job, finishing that room, but now sometimes it seems it will never end! My goal is to have the room ready for primer and paint by next Friday. I’ll be so happy when this is all done! Then I have the fun job of finding a tenant…

More to come on my adventures as a mudder, as well as the other wall and door we’re installing by the shared laundry room.

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