Island Farmhouse

Rooms taking shape

2011-08-09T18:11:00.000-07:00

More riveting drywall-in-progress photos! Woo! It's been a few days since these photos were taken, and we're heading back up there tomorrow. I hope to find lots more work done.

The other day we dropped off the rest of the bathroom-building supplies (tile, grout, light fixture, etc.), and the plumber had finished getting all the pipes ready to start finishing the room. The new bigger stack was also in place, now properly vented up through the roof. Thrilling stuff, I tell ya.

The drywall was almost complete (installed, but not taped and mudded yet) upstairs, and they'd just started the first few sheets downstairs.

The front of the house shows the (ugly!) new hydro meter for the upgraded power supply. When we paint the exterior, hopefully we can paint the meter and pipe to blend in better.

Above is the gaping hole in the bathroom floor (hi there, down in the kitchen!) where the bathtub drain used to be, and will be again. They'll have to build the floor up significantly when they finish the bathroom.

One of the bedrooms, fully drywalled. We'll be sanding down those old plank floors. Tempted to paint them white, but we'll see.

Andrew and Cameron's future bedroom (in my head, anyway). I imagine a twin bed on either side of the window.

Very anxious to see what we'll find tomorrow morning!

Getting to the fun part

2011-08-03T17:17:00.001-07:00

So now that we're officially at The Drywall Stage, I'm finding it hard to contain my excitement. I keep getting ahead of myself and planning things that, realistically, are still a long way off. But still, it's fun.

Here's where we're at. The whole house is completely insulated, with plastic vapour barrier also in place. The entire thing is also rewired, just waiting for the drywall to be complete before being all connected. When we arrived this week, we went over for a visit and found two workers hanging drywall. One bedroom was finished, and the other three bedrooms were partially done. Here are a few photos of what we found on our first visit this week:

This bedroom (above, the one that used to have the rainbow wallpaper) is all drywalled, ready to be taped and mudded.

This picture (above) makes me laugh. I think I told Chris to pick up a tool and make it look like he was actually doing some of the work. This is in another one of the bedrooms.

Here's the living room (above), all insulated and awaiting drywall. Note the giant pile of salvaged trim, which we hope to reuse. If we can use it, it'll be quite the jigsaw puzzle trying to get it all back in place.

The boys in "their" shared bedroom, checking out the view.

And then there's the bathroom. It's still only insulated, but the plumber had been over to move some pipes around, and was due to return any day to get more done. Apparently the vent stack wasn't actually vented up through the roof, and was also only about three inches thick. To be up to code, it's supposed to be at least four inches and he was going to replace the whole thing (not cheap, I'm sure).

Since the bathroom is the first room we're officially finishing, I did get to go shopping for fixtures, tiles, toilet, sink, tub and faucets. At Kent in Summerside, I picked up a very basic white toilet and tub, and decided to go with a small vanity, rather than a pedestal sink, to try and squeeze a bit of storage into the room. It's extremely simple (read: cheap), plain white with an all-in-one white counter/sink combination. I'll probably swap out the basic chrome knobs for some colourful glass ones. I bought a basic faucet with white cross-style taps for a tiny hit of vintage. Here's what it looks like:

The floor will be white hexagonal tile, which we brought from a tile shop in Ottawa. The tub surround will be white subway tile, picked up just this morning from Home Depot in Charlottetown. All classic, simple, white. Nothing fancy. Since it risks being extremely boring, I have my eye on some really colourful shower curtains, like this one from Urban Outfitters for around $40:

When I showed this shower curtain to my mother-in-law, she thought it was pretty, but said "but...you have three boys." I gave her a puzzled look. I thought she was worried about the white background getting dirty? No, she was concerned about it being very flowery and feminine. I laughed out loud. I think, as a mother to three boys, I've certainly earned the right to a few flowers in my life. I said as much, and she agreed.

Thrift-store score

2011-07-24T21:25:00.001-07:00

Thrift stores are so hit-and-miss, but I snagged these very collectible vintage paint-by-numbers paintings at the new local Value Village last week. At $10 apiece, they were pretty pricey by VV standards, but I snapped them up the second I saw them. Score! Not sure yet if they'll end up in the PEI house or in William's room, but I love them.

This post brought to you by RBC

2011-07-15T06:27:00.001-07:00

Exciting news! Just yesterday I called our PEI contractor and told him to go ahead and start the plumbing (mostly just upgrading it, as well as moving the pipes that ran through the one wall we removed in the kitchen/back room). Once the plumbing is done, he also has the go-ahead to start insulating and drywalling. Our hope is that by the time we arrive on August 1st, we'll be able to hit Home Depot (or Kent?) and buy bathroom fixtures for them to install. With walls and a functional bathroom, I think the place would be damn near livable. Very exciting indeed!

As for the bathroom, I plan to keep it very simple, and white, white, white (with colourful accessories, eventually). It's a rather small space, and we're leaving everything in the same footprint as before. So a basic white five-foot tub, basic toilet and either a pedestal sink or a small vanity is all we need (plus lighting, faucets and flooring, of course). My mother-in-law has half a box of 2" white hexagonal tile left over from her bathroom reno, so I would like to get a bit more of that and use it for the floor in there. While my plan is to keep it simple and inexpensive, I refuse to consider vinyl flooring or those hideous plastic shower surrounds. Tile is the only way to go.

Although we won't be going for the clawfoot tub (we had one in our first house in Toronto, before we reno'd it, and it sucks to shower in one), here are a couple of bathrooms I love for their unfussy simplicity and their classic vintage vibe:

Crisp green and white (source unknown)

Ravishing red via House Beautiful

Michael Penney's apartment bathroom via House & Home (love the polka-dot shower curtain and black-painted vintage wall shelf)

This is definitely the beginning of The Fun Part. I can't wait.

Mark your calendar

2010-09-18T16:52:00.001-07:00

My friend Emily of Blackbird, a super cute shop in the super cute town of Almonte (in fact, if you click over to her website, you'll see her standing in her shop doorway, and even she is super cute), is putting on this craft show for November 6th.

There promises to be tons of, um, super cute - and cool - stuff at this show. Each artisan was put through a juried process of applying to the show, so you know there'll be no granny-ish crafts and doodads. Well, some granny-ish stuff is cool again, but you know what I mean. I've seen a preview of a few of the items, and I can't wait to go.

Here are the details:

Handmade Harvest Craft Show

Saturday, November 6th

9 am to 5 pm

Almonte Old Town Hall

See you there!

Off the Wall

2010-09-10T18:27:00.001-07:00

Rumour has it that there is now all new wiring in the house, as of this week! My inlaws kindly went over to pay the electrician for his work thus far and they report that there is miles of new white wiring running all through the house. This is great news. Now we just need walls.

Or do we? Here's a recap of what the upstairs looks like right now (plus new wiring now, of course):

Since the next step is new insulation, vapour barrier, hundreds of sheets of drywall, tape, mud, etc., plus the labour involved, it will be rather expensive. Not sure how soon it will realistically happen. So what do you think of this (via Martha Stewart)?

Pretty, I think. Honestly, Chris and I talked about this possibility. We could make it livable so that we could stay there in the meantime. We're all family, after all - who needs walls?? I'm tempted. But we would need a bathroom first.

The Destruction Continues

2010-08-17T18:43:00.000-07:00

We arrived on the island with zero intentions of doing much work at the house during our vacation. We figured we'd meet our contractor there and see what he quoted us to do the gutting of the main floor, since Chris found the task daunting after doing the upstairs in the spring. When the quote came in within our budget for the year, we jumped at it. It was a messy and huge job that we were glad to hire out.

As a bonus, one of the workmen took the ancient, broken parlour organ off our hands (it weighed about a million lbs.) as well as the old, broken sewing machine. My trash? Another man's treasure, apparently. On the last day of cleanup, they actually managed to also remove the two (yes, TWO: one oil, one wood-burning) dead furnaces from the basement.

We popped in to visit a few times, but didn't stay long because of the mess, dust, and danger factor (turns out small children and large renovations don't mix). I only got one nail through my flipflop, though thankfully it missed my foot.

In no particular order, here are some snapshots of the gutting process:

The boys inspecting the debris:

The back room/dining room, well on its way to being gutted:

Looking through the doorway into the kitchen. The wall between the small, closed-off galley kitchen and the back room/dining room is being taken out completely:

The back entry/mudroom/future laundry area:

A mountain of lath:

The living room, much the same still. The last we'd see of that damn organ:

More of the living room. The workers were under instruction to save and set aside any original architectural features, like these doors:

The staircase wall as viewed from in the living room:

Standing in the front entry, looking back through to the back room/dining area:

Andrew upstairs surveying the damage in the bathroom:

Cameron checking out the view from one of the back bedrooms upstairs:

Here's his view. It's not ocean, but I think it's pretty anyway:

Looking straight down:

The next day, the living room was gutted too. Here's the view from the living room through the wall into the kitchen area:

Here's the back room/dining area, mostly cleaned up:

Standing in the dining area, looking at where the wall came out to open up the kitchen. The pipes coming down the middle will have to move to an end wall:

The living room corner where the organ used to sit, all cleaned out:

The former owners actually left this next to the back door. Thanks!

The front door. I think it could use a little more curb appeal, no?

That's it for now. Next step, wiring. All new, including an upgraded electrical panel. Then drywall and hopefully a bathroom. All in good time, of course.

Over Our Heads

2010-07-08T12:19:00.000-07:00

That title is a double entendre. This is a flashback to the roofing adventure of last summer, but we were (are?) indeed over our heads in the figurative sense as well as the literal.

In my post about where things were left last summer, we'd had the old oil tank and wood-burning stove removed from the property, and had just managed to secure a quote with a roofer to replace the roof shingles. The roof was in bad shape, and had started to leak in the bathroom area where the dormer window is. Clearly, fixing the roof was priority #1 before we bothered trying to do any work on the inside. This is what the worst part of the roof looked like:

Barely any shingles left in many spots. We were within about three days of having to leave the island when we showed up one afternoon to finally find this:

Hooray for scaffolding! The weather forecast looked good, so the contractor decided to get on with things at our house (probably leaving someone else's interior reno waiting). Very exciting. He figured two days should do the job, weather permitting.

The next day we showed up again to check on progress, and found two lonely guys working very slowly in the extreme (for PEI) heat. They were about one-quarter finished and it already looked so much better:

We popped back over for one last look before leaving, and they weren't much further:

So when we arrived at the house last week, we were happy to see the finished product:

Lookin' good! Or at least much better! (Note the difference a mowed lawn makes.) Time to move inside the house again for some more demo work...

Appetite for Destruction

2010-04-14T14:27:00.000-07:00

Clearly nothing happened at the house over the winter. But over the April Easter weekend, we installed a giant dumpster out front and Chris, his brother Kevin, and two nephews Jon and Josh met up to tear out the entire upstairs. We're talking layer upon layer of old drywall, plaster and lath, insulation, all bathroom fixtures, and those gross old laundry appliances as well.

Kevin was skeptical when he heard I'd ordered the 6' x 20' dumpster, which has 6'-high sides. Well, the only other option was the same dimensions, but only 4' high. I figured, better to have more room than you need than to run out of space. It turns out I was right. They filled that sucker well past the brim.

Since the dumpster was somehow not placed very close to the house (the guys had hoped to be able to throw stuff out of the upstairs windows to land in the dumpster), there ended up being a massive pile of debris on the grass. They found a neighbouring farmer with a tractor and paid him $100 cash to spend 20 minutes shovelling it into the dumpster. Chris says it was the best money they spent all weekend. The same farmer expressed an interest in the tired old sewing machine and possibly even the old organ, but never came back for it. Perhaps he will come claim them this summer?

Apparently it was messy, dirty, stinky, hard work. I'm not surprised. But I will say, believe it or not, that I was sorry I wasn't there. I think despite all the bitching and moaning about sore muscles and inhaled dust and god-knows-what, the guys had fun doing it. Apparently Kevin only fell through the ceiling from the attic once!? They stayed at the Grays' cottage in Stanley Bridge and worked at our house during the day. But enough blathering, I'll let the pictures tell the story:

Above: The Dumpster, placed nowhere near where we had hoped it would be. The guys unloading tools from Kevin's car.

Above: The house upstairs, in the state that Kevin had left it when he'd been there for a few days in March.

Above: Jon wields an ax and takes out the lath in one bedroom.

Above: The dust starts to really fly.

Above: The destruction, the mess.

Above: The rubble starts to build up.

Above: Josh tackles the bathroom.

Above: Tub not out...yet.

Above: The ceiling has come out, along with a lot of old pink insulation.

Above: The dumpster, still pretty empty.

Above: The pile of rubble that has come out of the upstairs windows so far.

Above: The wall is down between the two front bedrooms.

Above: What's left of the bathroom.

Above: One of our neighbours pitches in with his tractor.

The tractor accomplishes in 20 minutes (and an extra $100) what would have taken the guys hours to clean up.

Above: Ta da! All cleaned up - and amazingly full.

Above: One of the back bedrooms, all cleaned up.

Above: Looking through the wall from one bedroom to the other.

Above: The large front (master) bedroom, all cleaned up.

Above: Small front bedroom, straight through the bathroom on the right, and into the back bedroom in the background. You can see the footings of the closet that was in the foreground.

Above: The hallway, with a bedroom on the right.

Above: Done and getting ready to go.

Some progress

2010-01-07T11:11:00.000-08:00

Since we were only going to be on the Island for two weeks, we had to rush to line up quotes and trades to get some of the more pressing things done. Ideally, we wanted the roof to be finished before we left. The insurance company was also insisting on the immediate removal of the old exterior oil tank, which was precariously propped up on a wood platform. Couldn't blame them for that. They also insisted on the removal of the old wood stove in the back room, and that was fine with me. While it was kind of cool in its own way, it wasn't in great shape and it wasn't particularly attractive up close. It also took up a decent chunk of floor space.

We started calling people the next day. One challenge was the PEI phone book, which covers the whole island. So you're not always sure if you're calling someone in Charlottetown, Souris or O'Leary, unless you know the local exchanges (which I generally don't). I called quite a few roofers with ads in the Yellow Pages, only to find out they were quite far away and weren't interested in a job in our somewhat remote location. I left a lot of messages and was getting rather discouraged after several days passed and I had nobody to even give me a quote.

Finding someone to remove the oil tank was simple, since this is such a common practice on PEI. Since there is no natural gas line to the Island, oil is still a very popular heating option, and the province is getting really strict about replacing older tanks to avoid ground contamination. If there is a leak or spill, it costs big bucks (for the insurance company) to clean it up. So we found someone to do that immediately. Not an exciting step for sure, but a necessary one. I don't have a good shot of the tank in place (here's the best one - it's on the side of the house next to the big bush):

And here is a shot of that side wall with the oil tank gone:

And a closeup:

Hardly the most thrilling before-and-after story, but it was a relief to get that thing out of there. We'll likely leave the wood platform in place until the time comes to paint the exterior. Well, it's clearly time to paint the exterior now, but that likely won't happen for a while.

The wood stove removal was also fairly straightforward. It took a few calls to find someone to do it, but we found a place in Summerside that agreed to do it for a reasonable price and within the week. We met them there at an agreed-upon time and when they looked at the stove there was a lot of head-scratching and grumbling. They decided it would be best to pull up to the front door, which because of the lack of porch, was level with the back gate of the truck. Much easier than trying to manoeuver it down the back steps and risk parking their truck on the septic field. They ended up using some kind of huge metal cutter to take the stove apart into two sections since it was so incredibly heavy. There were dramatic sparks and extremely loud griding noises and a lot of cuss words. Here are some in-action shots:

There was a lot of soot and blackened metal left on the floor when they got it out, but they cleaned up nicely and also took the big green water tank with them (apparently the old stove would also have been used to heat water back in the day). For some reason I didn't take a proper "after" shot once the thing was gone, but the room isn't exactly pretty yet anyway. The floor underneath the stove was in reasonably good shape too, which was a nice surprise.

Several more days passed before we got someone to go to the house and give us a roof quote, and the estimate came in just under $5,000, which was what we hoped the maximum would be. The guy was local, the quote seemed reasonable, so we told him to start as soon as possible. He said he hoped to start the following week, which would be just before we were due to leave. Oh well, he was our only real hope. We hoped for dry weather and continued on our family vacation - beach days, amusement parks, sightseeing and...demolition???

The To-Do List

2009-10-16T18:02:00.000-07:00

In the weeks between having our offer accepted and arriving to take possession, the not-so-fun task of arranging insurance fell to me. One company flat-out refused us coverage, which didn't bode well. But then PEI Mutual, who apparently covers most of the old farms on the Island, came through. But they had a list of demands to be met, the first of which was to get rid of the old oil tank attached to the outside of the house, and the other to remove the old wood-burning stove from the back room. So those were tops on our list, but our absolute number one priority was to have the roof replaced.

And as we drove up to the house for the first time since it had become ours, it became apparent that some lawn care was in order. This is what we were met with:

The house was now sitting in what looked like an overgrown hayfield, with long grasses and wildflowers rippling in the breeze. Mosquitos were rampant. In the second photo, the old oil tank is visible sitting on its rickety wood platform.

The pictures don't really show just how long the grass was, but Cameron could barely walk through it and it was probably up to the tops of my legs. Here's a view along the fenceline to the west:

Seems there will also be some tree work and fence repair in our future, although the new property line was extended a good 20 yards past this fence, giving us about three-quarters of an acre. The roof was still looking pretty desperate too:

Inside, things were exactly as they'd been when we'd seen the place in April. Not a stick of furniture had been removed, and it was clear that it was all now ours. Of course, none of it was very appealing, but it would be handy to have the large dining table and chairs to use while we renovated. In one corner of the living room were two boxes filled with old photos, yearbooks, dishes and other odds and ends. The kids had fun exploring the boxes. Cameron uncovered this ceramic treasure:

Amongst the family photos, there were a few treasures too, in some old pictures taken in and around the house a long time ago. It was clear that the photos were from the '70s and '80s, and the house looked to have been in pretty good shape then. Seemed like that was probably the last time it might have been lived in full-time. One character kept popping up in a lot of the photos, and he looked like the father of his young family and that he'd been a bit of a good-time kinda guy, if you know what I mean. It was quite fascinating to pore through the pictures.

After exploring the house for quite a while, we left for that day, headed back to my inlaws' cottage with a slew of calls to make the following day.

The big purchase

2009-09-11T18:39:00.000-07:00

For a good couple of weeks after returning home, we debated endlessly. I wanted it. He didn't. Just when I was about to give up, he'd light the fire again by suggesting that maybe he was into it. I'd get all revved up again, and we'd go back and forth, back and forth.

Eventually we decided to put in a really lowball offer, just to see what happened. The asking price was $39,500. We figured that if we could get it for way less, it might just be worth it. We contacted agent Mike and let him know we were coming through with an offer after all, but that it would be a lowball. I drafted an email for him to show the vendor, detailing all the things the house needed immediately and wild guesses about what it would all cost. We figured the highest we'd be willing to go was $28,000. So we put in an offer at...wait for it...$19,500. I felt ballsy and daring, and thought we might just get flat-out rejected. The optimist in me thought that we might get lucky though (or would that be unlucky??!).

The counter offer came back (a good sign). The vendor came down a lot, to $24,500. I was ready to just sign the dotted line right then and there, but Chris, ever the cheapskate, thought we should try and get it lower. We countered at $22,000 and then finally settled at $23,000. I couldn't believe it. We'd just bought a house (albeit a total dump) for $23,000. In PEI, like we'd always wanted.

Fast forward two months to mid-July, and we had another $500 knocked off the final price for the plumbing not being hooked up in the bathroom. The water test had checked out fine, and we were driving down to the Island again with an appointment with a lawyer for the Monday after we arrived. We'd be picking up the key to our new house. Lots of plans in our heads and a line of credit burning a hole in our pockets!

Heading home (disappointed...maybe)

2009-09-11T18:31:00.000-07:00

When Chris got back to the house after the inspection, he was raring to hit the road as soon as possible, a day earlier than planned and only a day after we'd arrived. Apparently the news all over the radio was that a major winter storm was coming and that if we didn't get out ASAP, we'd be stuck here, possibly for days. We raced back to the cottage, packed up and hit the road without looking back. We stopped near Fredericton for dinner and made it to Woodstock for the night. During all the driving, we didn't say much about the house. I do remember Chris saying at one point, "You'd have to pay ME to take that house!" It was pretty much over. We were both disappointed, but kind of relieved. However, I still couldn't stop thinking about it, and now that I'd seen the inside, thinking about how great it could be. But I kept my thoughts to myself.

That night in the hotel I could hardly sleep. I just couldn't make myself stop going over each room, even the yard, thinking what could be done, how the house could be saved. The next day, driving through Quebec, I admitted to Chris that I still thought, just maybe, I know it's crazy, you're going to kill me, but I kind of still wanted the house. Thankfully he didn't divorce me on the spot.

The Inspection

2009-09-11T18:13:00.000-07:00

The house inspection at this point seemed like a waste of money, but we were prepared to accept that. We had to have our first and only look at the house, and the inspection, all at once. We were planning on heading back home the next day so this was our only chance to do it all.

Once we met the inspector, we decided that the kids had had enough running around a dangerous, cold house and snowy, cold yard. Chris loaded them into the car and took off for Summerside for McDonalds and Wal-mart - two places guaranteed to keep them entertained for a while. Agent Mike also had to go to another showing, so I was left on my own to face the inspection. I zipped my coat higher and started the exterior walk-around with the inspector.

There were no surprises here. The roof shingles were badly curled on one side and needed replacing. This was visible to even the most untrained eye, aside from the fact that we now knew the roof had leaked in the bathroom. The old shingled siding badly needed painting, and some areas probably needed replacing too. The front door sill was rotted entirely away at one end. Windowsills were spongy in some spots and needed replacing or at least a good coat of paint. The old oil tank was rusty and would definitely need replacing. (Oil companies in PEI now can't even fill an oil tank unless it's been inspected and tagged.) The foundation, however, seemed fine.

Inside, the inspector didn't point out much that wasn't already glaringly obvious. The house needed to be rewired with a new upgraded panel. The two furnaces in the basement were now good for scrap metal only. The plumbing needed repair but was actually a bit of a mystery since it hadn't been connected in time for the showing. We could see that the toilet was actually not even connected to the water supply. There was some water damage on the window interior frames. Perhaps the only good news was that the stove and fridge were relatively new (like, say, 10 years old) and seemed to work fine.

He offered some suggestions for fixing the leaky basement, none of which sounded cheap. He warned against doing simple patch-job cosmetic fixes to the house, rather than tearing it up and fixing it properly. I didn't even think it was possible to just cosmetically fix the place. It was bad. He did a lot of head-shaking. I wrote him the cheque and he was just packing up when Chris returned with the boys.

The Showing, part 3

2009-09-02T17:27:00.000-07:00

As we ascended the stairs, we could see the floors in the upstairs hallway had been covered over by newer plywood subfloor some years ago. Nothing else shocking in the upstairs hallway. It had a charming little window at floor level that allowed some natural light into the space. It was also a fairly decent-sized hallway:

The bedrooms were a mixed bag. Two of them were pretty bad, having had their walls partially torn out and not yet fixed. One room had had the original plaster removed, but the lath was still in place and covered over partially with ugly 1970s faux wood panelling. Yucky stuff. Again, layers of stained and rather hideous wallpaper covered any intact walls. Flooring was also a mix. In the two bad bedrooms, layers of old linoleum were laid on top of the original wide-plank pine subfloors. And one of the worst parts is that these two rooms were missing all of their original trim. Only the battered old original doors were there, but without doorknobs. Here are those two rooms:

The other two bedrooms were better, but hardly charming. The largest room was sort of L-shaped, and would likely be considered the "master" bedroom. It had old pink wallpaper on most walls, and a wall or two of badly peeling paint. Aside from that though, the original wood floors were intact and in decent shape, and all the trim was in place:

The fourth and final bedroom was also in fairly good shape. It was a long, narrow room with a closet in one corner. The wallpaper was circa-1980s pink with rainbows (exactly the kind of wallpaper I would have coveted when I was a girl). Again, the floors and trim in this room were largely fine:

The bathroom was next. After the kitchen, we were somewhat prepared. And we've seen some bad bathrooms in our lifetime. It turned out that the roof had leaked, and was still leaking, in the bathroom area. The room was bright and had a dormer window. It was very small but workable, and everything fit in a logical layout. But the ceiling was partially coming down, with mouldy bits of insulation and drywall falling all over the place. The plastic tub/shower surround was coming away from the wall and it looked like nobody had dared take a shower there for years. The sink sat on chrome legs and the toilet wasn't even connected. But still, it could be worse. All the fixtures were white, after all, rather than sky blue or pink. But it was definitely a gut job no matter what. Brace yourself:

OUCH. This is about when Chris was ready to throw in the towel. It became a bit obvious that we were going to be walking away.

But still, the house inspector was due to arrive at any minute, so at the very least we were going to be out about $300 to have the place checked out. We quickly dashed down to the basement, only to find that the entire lower level was flooded with about four to six inches of water. Two ancient furnaces (one oil, one wood) sat partially submerged in the flood, clearly unusable and possibly even a fire and safety hazard. We went back up to the main level and that's when agent Mike asked us, "Sooo...is it what you expected?"

I answered simply, "It's worse than I thought it would be."

That's about when the house inspector arrived.

The Showing, part 2

2009-08-29T19:41:00.001-07:00

We rushed over to the house the next morning for our 9 a.m. showing. Mike the real estate agent was there waiting for us and seemed quite happily surprised that the crazy Ontario people showed up to look at his derelict listing in the snowy PEI springtime. The date was April 11th, and this is what the snow conditions looked like at the time (Cameron and Andrew had fun running around the yard):

We mentioned that we'd been by the previous day to take a quick look, and Mike told us that the house had been unlocked and it was too bad we didn't try the doorknob. Doh! Oh well. Perhaps it's best that we'd waited. We were in for a bit of a shock.

We entered through the back door (the only option, since the front door had no porch or steps) and into a small mudroom-type space.

It was rough, but you could see the original hardwood was in decent shape and just needed refinishing. The original window and door trim was intact, but the baseboards were missing. An immediate right turn through a doorway led to the large back room/dining area:

Gross old laundry appliances sat under the large back window, and the room was otherwise empty except for the ugly dining set and this crazy old woodstove/oven to the left:

That doorway on the left side led into the kitchen, which was TERRIBLE:

These pictures don't even show how bad it was. The floor in front of the sink was rotten and spongy, to the point that I didn't even want the kids going in there. The full-size stove and fridge were crammed into one end of the small closed-off room, and there wasn't room for both to sit side-by-side without blocking an entire section of lower cabinetry. The cabinetry (which was definitely original to the house) was filthy, broken and ugly. Layers of wallpaper showed years of grime and the ceiling showed signs of water damage. The sink (which was old white enamel, possibly original) had a strange spot that looked like a hole had been glued closed). Everywhere you looked were dead flies and wasps and mouse droppings. It was BAD.

Two doorways led out of the back room, one down to the basement and other other to the front hall and staircase. Here, a wide doorway led into the living room, which was quite fine, even pleasant by comparison, after the shock of the kitchen:

The floors were in decent shape in this room, all the trim was intact, and two large windows looked north and west. There was no fireplace, but there was one large, blank wall where one could be created in the future. The room really just needed decorating, whatwith the tacky wallpaper border and the rather frightening pump organ in one corner. The wide doorway looked straight at the unique and quirky banister going upstairs.

Back out in the hallway, the front door looked original, as did the electrical panel (YIKES):

We'd been warned by agent Mike that two of the bedrooms had had their walls torn out and not replaced, so we were prepared to find a bit of a mess, but we were still not quite prepared for how bad things would be. We headed up the original stairs, which were nicely intact and in good shape thanks to the hideous and filthy linoleum runner that had obviously been protecting them since about 1963:

We climbed the stairs with much trepidation...

The Showing, part 1

2009-08-29T19:17:00.000-07:00

As we approached the house from the road, it looked much like it did in the MLS photos, except it was now early spring and there was patchy snow over the dead, soggy brown grass. I would suggest to anyone that this is actually a good time of year to look at a house - there is no being charmed by lush greenery or bright flowers. The house and yard was clearly at its ugliest, and we could see immediately that the roof was in terrible condition and that the shingled exterior badly needed a coat of paint or three. The other thing that was immediately jarring was the fact that the front door (which wasn't visible in the MLS photos; it suddenly became apparent that the small deck in the photos was actually at the back door) had no porch or steps leading up to it; there was no way to enter the front of the house. Hmm.

We parked the car and got out, walking around and around and trying to see in the windows. Not much was visible beyond what we could see in the pictures we'd already seen. The lot seemed somehow smaller that I'd imagined, and was a distinct wedge shape. A line of tall spruce trees ran along the back of the property, and in all directions was farm fields and trees. The place had a derelict air about it, that was certain. But I wasn't scared away, yet.

We got back in the car and did some exploring of the immediate countryside. At the end of a road about a kilometre to the north was an old pier that looked towards Lennox Island (one of the Island's native reserves). We found out later that this was where the ferry used to cross over, before they built a bridge in another spot. About three kilometres east of the house the road gradually disappeared over a hill into a farm field, but we deemed it too muddy and impassable at that time of year, even for the Outback. To the northwest of the house, about a two-minute drive, was the entrance into Green Park, a provincial campground, museum and beach. Straight west was the charming village of Tyne Valley, complete with hospital, small grocery store, liquor store (bonus), post office, and famous for its annual oyster festival. We definitely liked the home's location. It was off the well-beaten tourist path, but still near interesting and scenic Island attractions. Five minutes from Tyne Valley for quick grocery and booze runs, and about 20 minutes from Summerside for big grocery stores and all other urban conveniences.

We trundled back to the cottage and anxiously awaited the official showing and inspection the next day.

Getting there

2009-08-29T18:49:00.000-07:00

We planned to drive down to the Island over Easter weekend, with both kids in tow. An ambitious plan indeed. We decided it was prudent to set up a house inspection for the same time as our one and only scheduled showing, since we likely wouldn't be back again until the summer. And should we decide to buy it on the spot, we wanted to be fully prepared and know what we were getting into. After several calls to the agent, we set up a showing for the Saturday morning of Easter weekend at 9 a.m. and a house inspector was to arrive at 10 a.m. We figured that if we hated it, we'd eat the $300 of the inspection and consider it money well spent in saving ourselves from many years of work, stress and expense.

We piled the boys (and their books, DVDs, games, activities, snacks, drinks, etc.) into the car on Thursday afternoon before the Easter long weekend. After the five-hour leg from home to Quebec City, we had a lengthy stop there for dinner and a change into PJs before hitting the road for the overnight shift. After a while the car was silent but for the sound of snoring from the back seat, and Chris and I had nothing but the open road ahead, and many hours of watchful driving through moose country. We had loaded up on Red Bull and coffee and we felt excited and eager to just get there.

Chris drove straight through the night and finally called for a switch around Shediac, only about an hour from PEI. (He's a trooper when it comes to driving long distances.) I took over and had the rest of the drive to myself in total silence. The sky to the east was just starting to lighten to a pale silvery glow, as we approached Confederation Bridge. It was at this moment that everyone woke up and the thrill of crossing the bridge to the Island took over. As we came off the bridge onto the red soil of PEI, it was tempting to just drive straight to the house for a sneak peek, but tiredness and car fatique took over and we headed for my inlaws' cottage first for a rest, breakfast and a break from the car. After a family nap, we hit the road again to go check out the house. Our official showing and inspection weren't until the next day, but we wanted to see the house and investigate its location. It was in a part of the Island we weren't all that familiar with, and we didn't even know how to get there. With map in hand, off we went.

We were pleased to discover that the area past Summerside to the northwest was just as pretty as the central north shore that we were used to. We drove over bridges that spanned sparkling rivers and inlets, farm fields sloping down towards glassy bays and edged in lines of dark spruce. Brightly painted country churches and shingled farmhouses dotted the roads, which were in terrible condition after a harsh Island winter. As we came into the tiny farming village of Port Hill, I was charmed by its old homes, churches and community halls. At the one and only corner, we turned right at a stop sign and soon found ourselves face to face with the house.

Lost and Found

2009-08-18T17:54:00.000-07:00

We decided that the price of renting our own place for two weeks this summer was just too much. But, unbeknownst to one another, we both started searching MLS again. For "shits and giggles," of course. Nothing serious, just more wistful, and wishful, daydreaming. Chris was at work and I was at home, on the very same day, looking at el cheapo little cottages or dumpy little shacks for sale. I think we both topped out our search price at $50,000, if that. We laughed when we discovered that we were both up to the same thing, sending each other MLS numbers for the other to check out. Some were interesting, but all of them were pretty crappy. Any of the half-decent little cottages were all "to be moved," a common practice on the Island. For $25,000 you can buy a cottage, but it doesn't come with any land; you'll have to find and purchase a lot, then pay to have the cottage moved onto it. Not something we were interested in, thanks very much.

But then Chris sent me another batch of about four MLS listings to peruse. One of them stood out to me. A little old shingled house, seemingly unspoiled by any horrid vinyl siding or 1970s "improvements." The description read, word-for-word:

Ideal summer home. Century-old character farmhouse located minutes from beautiful farming village of Port Hill. Minutes from Green Park (provincial camp ground), shipbuilding museum and the historic Yeo House. Various beaches, golf and fishing are also close. This four-bedroom home sits on a solid poured concrete foundation. Hardwood floors, trim, pine plank floors and nine-foot ceilings.

I perked right up at the mention of the floors, trim and ceilings. I have a real weakness for old houses, especially those with all their character and architectural detailing intact. I will take crooked floors and rotting old windows over ensuite bathrooms and open-concept floor plans any day. The pictures really got me too. These were the ones on the original listing:

I loved the staircase, the original old wood floors, the unspoiled shingled exterior. The size seemed perfect: four bedrooms (room for us, plus guests!) but not a huge rambling farmhouse. And the price was the real point of interest. The house, including .7 of an acre, was being sold for the asking price of $39,500.

Chris simply said, "I knew you'd like that one."

For days we kept going back to look at the listing online. This was in late March. Within a week we couldn't stop thinking about it and decided we would go look at it over the Easter long weekend. We were getting kind of serious about it all of a sudden. We called the listing agent and asked him some more about the property. We even lined up a house inspection for the very same day, just in case we wanted to make an offer. We knew we wouldn't be back to the Island again until later in the summer, and someone else might have snapped it up by then.

Obviously it was in dire need of some renovations. It's always a red flag for me when an MLS listing is without pictures of the kitchen or bathroom. So I knew the kitchen and bathroom would be bad. How else could they be asking less than $40,000 for a cute little house?? I knew its mechanical systems, like heat, wiring, plumbing, probably needed attention. I suspected it might also have roofing and foundation issues. But we decided we needed to go and see it. Little did we know what we were about to find.

In the beginning

2009-08-18T17:47:00.000-07:00

Chris and I have a long-held love for Prince Edward Island. This goes back to birth for Chris, who was born in Summerside and lived there for the first five years of his life. Being an Air Force Brat, he moved from there to Trenton and then finally to Ottawa, where he finished high school. During his university years, his parents moved back to PEI, and Chris again lived there in the summers. This is about the time we met.

As with many adolescent girls, I grew up on the fiction of Lucy Maud Montgomery and the magical worlds she created for beloved characters like Anne and Emily. I loved those books fiercely, and L.M. Montgomery was one of my childhood heroines, inspiring in me the ambition to one day become a writer. I longed to visit PEI, and nagged my parents to take me there for a family vacation. They never did. It was during my first year at Mt. Allison University in Sackville, NB, that I met several girls, who are now good friends, from PEI. I soon made it over for my first visit, in the dead of winter.

Here is a picture of me at Green Gables for the first time in 1994. My friends humoured me by visiting the park when it was closed in the middle of winter.

And here I am visiting the grave of Lucy Maud Montgomery, looking awfully chipper for a cold winter's day and a visit to a cemetary.

That was 15 years ago, and I've been to visit the Island every year since for one reason or another (except in 2007, when my youngest son Cameron was born right in the middle of the summer). Chris's parents live back here in Ontario now, about two minutes away from us, but they bought a cottage there in about 2000 or 2001. So we've had plenty of opportunity to visit, either camping or staying with them or on our own at their cottage. We even got married there in 2002. In a future post, I'll put up some of our very scenic wedding photos. So, needless to say, the place means a lot to us.

On and off for those 15 years, Chris and I (but mostly just I) would wistfully peruse the MLS listings for PEI, and for a couple of years, before having kids, we fantasized about moving there permanently. The prices were amazingly affordable and I had romanticized notions of living in the picturesque countryside in a charming farmhouse that we would buy for a song. But life - and making a living - got in the way. Now here we are, having left that dream behind with the birth of our first son Andrew in 2004. Having kids makes you want to be closer to family, so we packed in the Toronto lifestyle and moved to this small town outside of Ottawa in 2005, where we live 40 minutes from my parents and two minutes from my inlaws.

Now our visits to PEI are in one- or two-week blocks in the summer, happily squished into my inlaws' two-bedroom cottage. Sometimes they are in residence when we're there, and sometimes they're not. As this summer approached, it looked like it was going to be the first year we'd be there as a family of four, with my inlaws there as well (they were travelling in England when we were there last year). Chris and I went over the logistics and sleeping arrangements with them, and again wistfully thought how great it would be to have our own little cottage nearby, so that we could have our own space and not crowd them out with all our noise and chaos and stuff. We even did online searches for rental cottages nearby, discovering that $800/week was an off-season bargain, and that anything approaching decent was more likely to cost $1,200/week. And besides, the cost didn't seem worth it since we did in fact have a free place to stay. End of discussion.

Or was it?