As we line up final details to get construction underway, Matt has blasted through several house prep tasks that will save us time and money once our builder is on-site. Matt’s work reminds me what a good team we are. I am the planner and executor of the mostly invisible things that have made our project happen. Matt is a master planner and executor of the visible stuff. I continue to be amazed at how efficiently and thoroughly he gets this type of work done.

While I wrestled with insurance providers, equipment suppliers, banks and schedules, here is what Matt accomplished over 5 days spread over the past couple of weeks:

He pulled up about 1000 square feet of fir floor in 4 rooms, which we intend to re-lay in the downstairs suite. This job took a solid three days of bending over, prying and pulling. The great news is that we have mostly room length pieces for relaying. The challenge will be finding a place to store it and keep it stable until we’re ready for it.

Then Matt cleared out the front hedge using an electric saw. The front landscaping needs to be clear to make space for the house lift equipment (our next big step after interior hazardous material removal).

Then he pulled up the weird deck thing (which appears to have been built to cover up a bunch of broken concrete and other junk) and chopped down the two cherry trees in the back yard, where the workshop will go. He borrowed a bigger chainsaw for this job, and did his requisite youtube research to be sure he did it safely. He’ll save the bigger pieces of cherry wood for future wood-working projects. The smaller pieces were scooped up from the curb nearly as fast as we were able to type the words FREE on UsedVictoria. On that note, drop us a line if you are interested in any salvaged materials (wood, cedar siding, old wood windows, bricks from chimneys etc) and we’ll keep you posted as they become available. Will consider trades for labour and truck use!