New Floor Joists - May 26/09

Mike and his crew spent the day starting to remove vapour barrier, insulation and rotted floor joists, and replacing them with fresh wood. Yaah!!!! The township inspector was here in the afternoon and we passed the first inspection - making sure the ground was good to start the foundation.

This Really Hurt!

The maple on the west side of the porch was compromised by the number of roots that needed to be cut for the excavation, and needed to come down. All those years to grow and it was history in less than an hour. A bucket was required because of the proximity to the raised house.

You Wouldn't Catch Me Under There - May 21/09

They started with a Bobcat under the cottage digging out dirt, and when he had gotten down far enough the Backhoe actually made his way under to remove the larger rocks and dig deeper. They got down a good 3' in the front corner. The dogs obviously think they're still in the living room.

We've Moved up in the World - May 20/09

It only took about three hours to lift the building the remaining eight feet in the air. I can't tell you how incredibly wierd the cottage looks from it's new lofty position. CDS says they've never had a building fall down - keep your fingers crossed! We can actually see about half way across the lake under the cottage. The pictures say it all.

On it's way up - May 19/09

Too late to back out now! CDS arrived early and worked hard all day. They ran into more digging than anticipated so managed to get the beams installed under the cottage and raised it about 14", but the major hoist will happen tomorrow morning. Sure looks sad. I have to keep remembering to look forward, and not back.

A few of the reasons we love it here

All Dad's Hard Work - Gone - May 12/09

They came to remove all the concrete work at the back of the cottage today and dig around the foundation in preparation for the "raising". I wonder how many hours Dad worked on that back porch? Close inspection of the back wall of the building reveals why we were having "shifting" problems inside.

Moving Day - May 9/09

The kids all arrived to help us move the final furniture to the garage and POD. We had a "last toast" to the old cottage in the empty living room.

Bye-bye Porch

The porch came down today in about three and a half hours and all fit into one trailer to go to the dump. It's VERY bright in the living room, and although the temperature was only 18 outside, with no porch to shade us, the inside temperature spiked to an uncomfortable 28!! The mosquito season has begun so we couldn't open the sliding doors either.

Storage for the Interim

Delivery of the POD, which we'll use for storing the furniture while the cottage is being renovated. For anyone who hasn't seen one of these delivered, he could have set it down on a dime! I had awful visions of the whole thing rolling over and bouncing on top of Chris and Adam's new trailer. There's only about 5' between the two.

Here comes the playhouse

Christie and Adam's new trailer being moved into position behind the ice house. We've turned into trailer trash overnight!

The end of the TV antenna

Adam and John (who definitely does not like heights) removing the TV antenna in preparation for the demolition.

Here's how we all remember it!

Hi Everyone!

There are so many of you who grew up here at the Rideau that we figured you would be interested to see what has been happening so far this year. As you all probably know, we are having to have the foundation of the cottage replaced, so we're going a few steps further to modernize and fix up the place. On the 19th of May we'll be raising the building eight feet in the air to dig down and put in a new foundation/crawl space. We'll provide pictures of the process so you can keep up on what's going on if you wish. We'll be taking up residence in the parking lot, and spreading on to Bill's/Vaughan's for probably three to four months. I've told John that he MUST view this as an "adventure".