I have not had the nerve to ask John THE question:
“Will the work be finished by April 30?”
Now that the electrical wiring is all done, John’s been working hard to meet his self-imposed deadline. But I know he’s had a couple of major life events to deal with recently. So I waited a bit before checking in.
I find John working throughout this Easter weekend. For him, this is not a time to kick back and rest for the holidays.
As usual, he’s well prepared for this phase of work — the plastering and painting. He’s stocked up on supplies……
For patching holes in walls and baseboard ….
Repairing the plaster around the new light switches ….
Priming walls and painting the woodwork….
And the most delicate work of all:
The walls and ceiling of this room.
See that thing in the ceiling? No, not the black thing – the white thing, to the left. It’s a finely crafted medallion – a gem rarely seen in houses today. This medallion – along with the plaster ceiling and crown molding, was badly damaged by a water leak from the floor above some years ago. John, intrepid soul, decided to repair them both. But first, he had to stop the problem from recurring:
“A new eaves trough and downspouts solved this, which is what I did just after taking possession of the house. Since then there has been no more water leaking into (the house).”
The features in this room are remarkable. The high ceilings. The medallion. The deep crown molding. The leaded windows.
Is there progress? Heck, yes.
Have a look at this:
And this:
And this:
And this too.
Plus, John also finished up the wood flooring on the third floor.
Seems to me like John just might get to keep his promise to Ann – that they’ll move in by month-end. After all, he’s been working like the dickens. But I don’t have the heart to ask him this, on top of everything he’s gone through lately.
It’s the kind of wiring used in old houses. Like John Garside’s.
The gracious old house in lakeside Prince Edward County, Ontario, has beautiful features.
But behind those lovely features is knob and tube — on the second and third floors of the beautiful home. And that old knob and tube wiring can be dangerous.
“I knew the wiring was not quite fine,” John says. “The chief electrician, Dan, and I spoke about the house and the work. My comment: ‘ I want it to be beyond code’. He replied: ‘very good’. ”
It made sense to go above the basic requirements, or “beyond code”. John didn’t intend to replace the new wiring for a long time.
He knew the job would take a lot of time and involve “lots of new switches, plugs and all new wiring everywhere!”
Which meant punching holes in beautiful plaster walls.
“Yes. The holes are 4 inches in diameter and these allow them to fish the wires through the ceiling and around the joists. Very complicated and very time consuming. But it saves the plaster and the crown moldings!!”
The plaster and crown moldings in most of the rooms are remarkably beautiful. (I’ll show them to you in next week’s story.) They’d cost a ton of money – and time – to replace today.
But boring 4 inch holes isn’t enough access to remove and replace all of the wiring. John had to rip up the floors on the third floor.
“To get rid of all the knob & tube wiring on the second floor it was a better to remove the 3rd floor flooring so we would have access to the ceilings and walls of the 2nd floor”, John explains. ” That way the new wires could be sent up from the basement to the third floor, then dropped down into the appropriate room on the second floor. This saved a great deal of grief!”
I think I understand that…..
Electricians Bob and Brian did the wiring work. That left John to do the rest… the re-plastering on the second floor, the replacement of the flooring on the third.
“I am working on it right now!” John says.
He’s working hard. Time flies when you have a promise to keep.
John promised his wife Ann that they’d move in by the end of April. That’s three weeks away.
Author MT McGuire is one of my favorite bloggers. That’s partly because I never know what MT will write about next. Or how.
Like the time she went metal detecting and found “a strange um…. thing.” Well, with an opening like that, don’t we just need to press on, to figure out what the um… thing is?
The Thing
One day she’s unearthing an 800 year old object and the next she’s breaking your heart with her worry about her parents’ health.
“My Mum was 80 a few months ago.She told me, gently, that her father didn’t survive to see 81 and I had a horrible feeling that she was telling me she thinks she mightn’t be around for long. And I think this is the root of it all. That my parents are knocking on, and soon they won’t be here. And I want their last years to be happy, and for life to be kind to them, and while I think they are happy, I know they are struggling.
So I suppose I’m just scared.”
That ability to confront both the weird and the deeply moving may help explain the appeal of MT’s K’Barthan Trilogy.
She describes the young adult fantasy series as: “Above all else, a romp. If it makes people laugh, then — to be honest — anything else is gravy. There are bad jokes, silly names, an unspeakable baddie, flying cars, flying car chases, exciting fights and a smattering of romance. But I’m hoping there might be the odd universal truth buried in there somewhere, even if it’s only by mistake.”
MT McGuire’s self-description? “A 45 year old who still checks inside unfamiliar wardrobes for a gateway to Narnia.”
Any luck with that? “None yet.”
One day, I checked MT’s blog and discovered a wonderful old building where she and her family lived while her father was housemaster of Gibbs House, at Lancing College in Sussex, England.
Gibbs House, Lancing College
Here’s how she describes it:
“Miles and miles of corridor and a couple of enormous rooms (you know, bed in one post code, wardrobe in another) and a couple of tiny ones just big enough to fit a chest of drawers and a bed, on each floor. You have the spare room; the dormer up top (horrible room, we thought it was haunted – so we kindly put our guests there – phnark).”
Lancing was definitely not a “normal” environment for a young girl, since it was mostly a boys’ school.
“If your life is not like other people’s you end up with an alternative perception of what normal is.”
You also learn to see things that others may miss.
“There were always the lads who were having a hard time at home. They were the ones my parents were extra kind to and for whom they went the extra mile. I never knew what was going on in these boys’ lives but there was something unmistakable in all of them. So, I guess I developed an eye for people who were hauling baggage which has helped a lot with the characterisation in my books – not to mention day to day life.”
Lancing College Chapel
So – back to the pictures of Lancing College. They reminded me of another fantasy series — the Harry Potter books. And sure enough, Lancing was the producers’ first location choice.
“The school was offered a lot of money to be the ‘film-Hogwarts’ but declined. The headmaster at the time said that it was a place of education and not for Hollywood. He is a charming and mild mannered man. I wonder what on earth they must have said to him to get such an uncharacteristically pompous rebuttal.”
Today, MT, her husband (“McOther”) and young son (“McMini”) live in another old building (above, built in 1800).
She loves it, despite the fact that the plumbing and heating systems and the plastering need repairs. MT says it’s like owning a 1960’s Rolls Royce.
“Sure it needs a bit of care and tinkering but it’s like living in history and it’s so beautifully made. The banister rail is beautiful and the doors and the floors are lovely. The look and feel goes with our furniture, which is mostly family stuff, generations of hand-me-down antiques and some nice modern things McOther and I have bought.”
Comfort matters. “I like a well cared house, but not too neat. It has to look lived in or it makes the guests nervous and then they are far more likely to spill stuff and break things. Well, OK — I am, if I’m your guest. It may be different for normal people.”
For MT, home is a place, but, above all, it’s the people who love and understand you.
“Someone as well as somewhere to come home to. When I was a kid it was my parents and brother. Now, it’s McOther and McMini. Unless they are in it with me it’s not a proper home. I guess they are my home in many ways.”
John Garside and his wife Ann sold their home in big-city Toronto last year and bought a house two hours away in Prince Edward County. They’ve been living in a condo nearby while John renovates the house.
Prince Edward County is known for small towns, farms and lakeside living. In the last decade, its vineyards and wines, fine cheeses and restaurants have also become popular. The County is a well-known mecca for artists and weekenders.
John has bravely promised Ann that they’ll be able to move in by the end of April.
But their “new” home is more than a hundred years old, huge — almost 4,000 square feet — and needs repair. John, who has never taken on a project of this scope, is doing almost all the work by himself.
The first room he tackled was “The Green Room” on the main floor.
“It was the worst room in the house, ” he says. “A water leak from the 1980’s had caused a great deal of damage to the plaster ceiling, walls and the crown moldings.”
John took on the challenge –– very carefully. He rebuilt ceiling, walls, and even the crown moldings.
“I repaired what others would have scrapped, and I did it all by myself! And I had never done anything like this in my life!” You can hear the joy in his voice.
Every time he looks at the room, John feels “a glow of satisfaction and a sense of oneness with the house”.
The house is full of beautiful features worth preserving. John has to proceed cautiously.
He says, “You think about each action a great deal before you act. That way the unpleasant surprises are held to a minimum.”
The skills he learned from his grandfather — extreme patience, careful planning, attention to detail and observing safety rules –are all essential right now. ‘Measure twice, cut once’ is the rule.
“You must understand,” he says, “that the project you are working on is not modern, but 100 years old. So you must take time to think about what you are about to do, and plan in detail how you are going to achieve success.”
John puts in 8 hours every day — and no slacking off. After all, the end of April is just around the corner.
Will he make the deadline? We’ll keep checking in.
And this:
