Month: March 2019

Wednesday again, and again help from Martijn. We took out more sand so the foundation was free all around the room. Then when I wanted to show how thick the insulation material is I found next to the garage, there was a nice surprise, all the plates of insulation material where still frozen together. So there was not so much need to start digging more, as we could not try the insulation material anyway, so we decided to strip down the last wall and ceiling covering down to the bare wood, so the room would be ready for the building up part. And poof, another day was gone.

Sunday I continued the demolition of the toilet. The wall where very strong, but when they where gone, the seat almost fell apart by just blowing at it. The top of the septic tank was at the same height as the foundation.

Today I also brought a level with a laser pointer. This combined with an old land measuring stick I found in the house turned out to be a perfect way to measure how much sand we had to take out.

Mo stopped by with lunch and then we took out a dozen wheel barrels of sand into the front garden. After straightening it with a rake, only the colour difference could tell we put it in. A very productive weekend!

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With the big work done last Wednesday, the Saturday was filled with cleaning up, and digging out some of the sand to find out how much sand we would need to take out.

I found the stone foundation, which will be a nice starting point for planning the floor height

In the afternoon Mo stopped by with some lunch. We decided to also take out the toilet, as it needs to go anyway. The wall where build like a fortress, so we only took out one, behind it we the wall paper was still hanging, which reminded me of the opening scene of one of my favorite childhood show: De film van Ome Willem so I just had to do an ‘Ome Willem entrance’.

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With the wall gone, it was more obvious that the condition of the floor was at least questionable. So I decided it might be better to just get rid of it and since this part of the house would have the wet rooms in it, build a concrete floor. So more demolition.

The good thing was that today I had help from Martijn who found out I work on the house on Wednesdays and he had the day of as well. We took out the stuff that had gathered in the place and started to take apart de wooden floor boards. Under it we found about 15-20 cm of hydro granules. Under the train roof I had found more of these, so we decided to bag them and take them out. On the attic we had earlier found a jute bag full of jute bags, so no shortage of big strong bags.

After we filled a few bags and we picked the next bag, we both recognized a logo on the bag. It turned out to be an old Dutch sugar bag from the CSM brand. (Which btw has it’s 100 year anniversary this year)

A day filled with two simple tasks that sure took some time.

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After finding out about the bad floor in the hall way, I had decided to take out the entire wall between the hallway and the future bathroom. It started pretty smooth, but soon I found out I had to take out parts of the ceiling so I could take out the wood for the walls, as the wall was blocked by the beam that was holding the ceiling.

It was a fun day of work with a nice result

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Last December I started a job to close a stairway and build a cabinet underneath it. I finished closing the steps, but the cabinet still needed to be build. I finished it before I would get really busy with the house.

The cabinet turned out nice and I am pretty satisfied about it.

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On Wednesday I had an appointment to pick up the steam sauna we had checked out a few weeks ago. Yesterday out of the blue we had 20 cm of fresh snow and the temperatures dropped to -14. Pretty chilly to take of the rooftop tent to make space for the bath tub.

The drive to the country side house was great. It was sunny, blue sky, fresh snow. Estonia at it’s most beautiful (in winter).

Together with the previous owner we took the shower cabin apart, a time consuming job for cabin with so many different shower heads, lights, speakers and control panels.

After it was done we put the bath tub on the roof rack and the rest of the cabin inside the car. It all fitted pretty easy, which surprised the sellers.

When I got to Tallinn, I needed to arrange someone to help to take the bath tub of the roof as Marc could not make it. After some message to different people Martijn came to the rescue.

While waiting for him I tried taking apart a piece of the wall between the hallway and the future sauna and found out it was partly stuck by the floor. As that part of the floor had some loose floorboards, I took a few out only to find out underneath was another floor which was pretty rotten, which also explained the loose floorboards.

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As the weather was pretty springy, Mo decided to do some work in the garden. Since there would be a lot of dead grass and leaves to carry out, we first went shopping for a wheel barrel and a prong. We found a very nice deal on an orange and blue wheel barrel at ABC for only 20 euros. Once I put it together we thought it looked very royal Dutch. The first use was to wheel Mo around the garden, while she was laughing out loud.

While Mo worked in the garden, I continued the dreadful work or removing the asfalt from the walls.

After a wonderful weekend of Tallinn Sauna Camp last week, it was back to business this weekend.

I had planned to pick up the car, which I left at the house last Monday, so I went by bus, and took this opportunity to check out the bus stop on Mustamäe Tee and the route to the house. When I was almost there, I realized I had forgotten the keys. After a call to Mo, the keys where on it’s way and I started raking the garden, getting rid of the leaves and apples from last fall. At some point next year or so, the lawn sure can use some straightening. But that sure not a priority.

As we are still waiting for response for the sewer system and the insulation, I wondered where to start. So I decided, I might as well start at the place where electricity group 1 is, the hallway. There is minimal insulation to do and it will be nice to have a small piece of the house ready with new walls and lights.

Under the wallpaper I found roofing material nailed to the wall, which was very labor intensive to take off, so toward the end of the day I had only done about 2/3rd plus I had taken out the ceiling. Still nice steps in the right direction!

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