Going green - one dusty step at a time.

Our Shangri-La construction project is progressing. A new attic hatch has been cut into the central ceiling. For the first time, I was able to peek into the top pyramid-space of the attic under the peak of the roof. It was clean and dry. No signs of critters. No bats in the belfrey so to speak! Being inside a pyramid, I am sure I benefited from some sort of positive energy vibrations. Well - why not?

Two other wall hatches were also cut into the the corner attic spaces between the dormers. A scrap of 1941 newspaper seems to confirm that the rock wool insulation was installed at that time. No patched holes in the walls, so the roof must have been redone in '41 as well. All this cutting is through lath and plaster walls. It's not easy as the vibrations of the saw can quickly crack and crumble surrounding walls.

I always say that old houses are organic - through the years, things seem to have grown together. Or put another way - dare to fix one thing and you F up another!

Shangri-La - rooftop renovations.

A photo collage of the Shangri-La Suite

This week, we started to renovate our top-floor Shangri-La Suite. This is not the first time. Shangri-La occupies the entire third-floor of the house. The centre of the suite is under the peak of the roof. Originally(c. 1907), this was likely to have been the children's bed &/or playroom. The central area is now used as a sitting area gathered around a TV and gas fireplace. From it, three flat-roofed dormers jut east, west and north out of the sloping roofline. Charming, multipaned casement windows front each dormer.

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There is no south dormer - probably because of the neighbouring house. In the early 1990's, we added an ensuite bath with jacuzzi tub and skylight on the southside. When building the bath, of course we insulated the bath's walls and constructed a hatch inside the closet for future access to the southside attic crawlspace.

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To complete the picture - under the east dormer, overlooking the front door and garden is a desk, armchair & single bed. Under the west dormer is the main sleeping nook with queen-sized bed and glass doors leading to a balcony. Under the north dormer is the focus of our current project.

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When we bought the house in 1989, this small space, just beside and behind the fireplace, was a tenant's kitchenette and somehow managed to contain a gas stove, a full-sized clunker of a fridge, sink and simple custom-built cabinetry. For B & B purposes, our first renovations reduced this to a "galley kitchen" with only a bar fridge, microwave, coffeemaker, kettle and a general freshening up with paint and vinyl. Now, our goals are to turn this area into a sexier "wetbar", obtain access to the remaining attic spaces to prepare for blown-in insulation, make necessary electrical improvements and, once again(fun!), update the decorating scheme.

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