Home Renovations and Dangerous Chemical Exposure

Many people may be involved in home renovations that expose them to the hazards of chemical substances in materials, adhesives or coatings. These compounds can cause long-term health effects such as asthma, mesothelioma and lung cancer. Homeowners should learn the proper methods of handling and disposal to reduce their risk of illness.

Lead
Lead paint is one of the most common chemicals encountered in home renovation projects. Lead is a metal that is toxic to humans. It can accumulate in bones and body tissues when ingested and can increase blood pressure. Paint containing lead was commonly used in homes before 1940, so those involved in renovation of older homes should be aware of this hazard. Lead paint can be left in place if it is in good condition or covered with wallpaper or paneling. Removing and replacing the wall surface is another option. All materials should be disposed of according to your community’s recommendations. You should also wash down all surfaces to remove lead dust. 

Asbestos
Asbestos is another hazardous material that is often found in older homes that may be under renovation. It is a fibrous material that was used for insulation, soundproofing and stiffening that can cause lung and stomach cancer when the fibers are inhaled.  It can be found in walls, ceilings, flooring and exterior shingles. It was also used to insulate electrical systems in homes. Use proper personal safety equipment when working around asbestos materials. Asbestos removal is best left to professionals who have the proper training for handling it safely.

Formaldehyde
Another hazardous compound homeowners can encounter during renovations is formaldehyde. Formaldehyde is a gaseous chemical that is given off by many construction materials and home products. It may be contained in glues, adhesives, cloth, draperies or paint products. Wood products used in the interior of homes often contain urea-formaldehyde. The gas that is emitted into the air can cause breathing difficulties, burning eyes and throat and skin rashes. Removal of subflooring, insulation and other materials that contain formaldehyde, along with increased ventilation of areas, will help to reduce these problems. Formaldehyde-containing products should be properly bagged and disposed of according to your community’s regulations.

Radon
Radon is a naturally occurring, odorless gas that can seep into the home from soil or groundwater. Radon gas can break down into radioactive particles that are inhaled into the lungs. These particles can then lodge in tissue and cause lung damage. If you are doing a home renovation, you can purchase radon test kits at your local hardware store that will determine if your home contains radon gas. Generally, removing radon from your home is not a do-it-yourself project. Radon mitigation services can help to remove the radon from your home safely and effectively. 

Guest post by: Brian Turner

The Beautiful French Door - All Finished

If you read the previous post about the french door, you would have been left with the images of a really beautiful, yet incomplete door. Only nine of the eighteen panes of glass were in the door and there were a few coats of paint that needed to be added to the door. Well, I though that you might like to see the pristine finished product!

 Here is the stunning door, all pretty in white with all eighteen panes of glass!

 Here is my beautiful stainless steel silver handle, similar to the one on the front door but less ornate because it is on the back door!

Here is the french door with the security gate closed. You can see that putting the cat flap in this door would have looked ugly as well as being a bit impossible for the cats to fit through a rectangle and a diamond (besides the actual flap) just to get inside!

The Cat Flap and the Nasty Wooden Door

If you read the post about the birthday french door, you may be wondering what we were going to do about the cat flap. We had planned on putting the cat flap in the new french door, but, if you know me, you know that I like pretty things and I was just not keen on having a cat flap in my beautiful new birthday french door. Another problem was the security gate. It was just not possible to align any of the rectangular panes of the french door with the diamond shaped concertina security gate when it is closed. We were not keen on leaving a window ajar for the cats as they make an incredible mess on the walls when coming in or going out. It is also a security risk as well as another permanent opening that will chill us to the bone in winter. We walked around the house racking our brains about where to put the flap when I spotted another of our ugly and definitely nasty doors. It is the door in the lounge/dining-roomIt is already such an eye-sore that it would not make any difference if there was a cat flap in it or not. With a few measurements and some power tools, the cat flap was ready for its new home.

 Here is the inside of the ugly door, with the cat flap freshly installed. We were not sure that it would fit because it is mainly a glass door, but, with a few, measurements we could see that it was possible to fit it into the wooden base of the door. This part of the door also does not open.

 Here is the other side of the door. Rob did not want to put the cat flap cover on the outside of the door because he said that it looked even more ugly with it on. Seriously, can you get more ugly? Do you see all that grey stuff? That is tiling grout! The people who lived in our house before tried to fill up this half rotting door with tiling grout!?! Well, they are also the ones who built a wendy house over a pool so I guess that is understandable!

 Dale was quick to find his door in a new location and to try it out.

 I called him and he came right through.

What a super star! Dominic we had to catch (he can be very skittish when you call him as he always assumes that you are out to get him or take him to the vet!) and push him through once so that he knew where it was. He is also using the door like a champ. Clever kitties for using their new door, clever Rob for installing it and clever Kimi for finding a new location for the cat flap!

Birthday French Door

If you can have Christmas in July, I supposed you can have a July birthday in November. All I wanted for my birthday this year was a French door (with a handle) and a security gate. I was fortunate enough to have contributors to my present, namely my in laws and my mother, as well as the ever handy and meticulous Rob, a husband who knows how to cook, change a nappy, burp a baby, garden and, in this case, hang doors, install handles and set up security gates. But this all takes time. At the time of my birthday, there was a lot of work happening in the lounge and dining room. I will write a post about it in due course but it involved plastering walls, cretestone, painting, hanging curtains, putting up cornices, taking down lights and stripping and re-painting wooden window frames. So, although we bought the French door, the security gate and the elaborate handle that matches the new one for the front door in July (another post to come), I had to wait and wait and wait for my birthday present. That is the most frustrating thing about renovating a house yourself when you do not have a limitless supply of money. There is a lot of waiting involved and you have to be prepared to live in a construction site for years. It is tempting to go with cheaper options for flooring, lighting or anything else just so that you do not have to walk on concrete or look at a bare energy saving bulb dangling from the ceiling. But I could not work that way. Rob and I bought this house to live in - not to re-sell. This does not mean that we will never sell the house but we are not renovating with that in mind. Don't get me wrong, we will never over invest in the house. We bought this large house in a very good area for an extremely reasonable price. If we spent as much as we paid for the house in fixing it up (which we would never be able to do anyway) we would not make a loss if we sold it. But it is important to note that we are fixing the house up the way that we want it for ourselves and not for re-sale or for anyone else.

Anyway, I digress. A picture is worth 1000 words so I though it best to document my present in pictures

This is the offending door. It really is hideous. This is also the way that we got it when we moved in. Rob had already removed the cat flap from the door (that we bought) as there was just a gaping hole for the previous owner's small dogs. It was terrible. The wind used to blow all sorts of crap into the house through this hole! The floor was always a mess and the rain came in. We bought one of those magnetic cat doors (to keep the strays out) but the cats kept on picking things up (like nails and anything metal) from the garden so we disarmed the magnetic door and just used it as a regular 4 way cat flap. Vassili, our husky, did a great job at keeping the strays out until we got electric fencing.

The worst part of this door is that it had no handle. This meant that if you went outside, you had to leave the door open (banging in the wind) or wide open on a hook. Not ideal in winter or any time for that matter. The straw that broke the camel's back for me was when I tried to close the door in gale force winds one day and it slipped out of my hand and snapped all my nails off. Don't mess with the nails!

Here is Rob contemplating the doom of the door. You can see that the frame was already stripped and had an undercoat of paint put on it.

Here is Rob and Jeffrey seeing if the new French door was cut correctly - which it was, with a little more sanding just to make it perfect. The French door was already painted with one undercoat and two coats of white paint at this stage.

Rob is putting in the plate for the lock and aligning it perfectly.

Here is my French door all in with the security gate. The cool thing about this security gate is that it is a concertina so that you do not see it when it is open. It also has a slam lock for extra security. Those of you with sharp eyes will notice that only the top 9 panes of glass are in the door. We ran out of time this weekend so the rest will have to go in when they can. At least it is not windy or raining and there is always the security gate and alarm contact for security. The cats and dog are loving this temporary arrangement!

Here is my beautiful handle. We got it from Handles Inc. in Cape Town.

So here is the beginning of my birthday present in November! Only 9 more panes of glass, a few paint touch-ups and a cleaning to go! It may have taken an age, but it is something that will make my life a little better every day. And that is definitely worth the wait!

What Lies Beneath 2

Today we were looking around our fabulous pool that is completely covered by a wendy house. Rob wanted to do a rough measurement so that we could get a quote on a pool cover (for the girls). I am so paranoid about babies and water that I want the cover before the wendy is taken off the pool, but, of course, you have to take the wendy off to measure for the exact cover. It will be a pretty tight schedule getting that Catch 22 right so that I do not worry my head off about a pool that is uncovered for even an hour (even if the girls are safely behind their new baby gates!

Well, Rob thought that he should have a closer look at some of the pool coverings and they were so loose that he could pull some of them completely off! Take a look for yourself:

Don't be fooled by the water colour. The black is just sand and sediment. The water is actually clear because this water does not get access to sunlight so no algae grows in it. It does not smell either.

 This is a picture from below where we could not see. The flash on the camera helped a lot. There is a large cocktail step with columns all around it. It would actually be a great paddling area for the girls if we can get the pool in operational order again.

 The pool is much longer than I thought it would be! A rough estimate is that it is 7m X 5m. It is not completely rectangular though - so the surface area would be less than 35 square meters.

 Rob then lifted the other side of the wooden step leading to the wendy house so that we can see the width of the pool. It is a strange and unusual shape but not terrible. It will make a great pond one day - but we will use it as a pool first (until we can afford building another pool - maybe in 100 years time).

 There is a light on this lifted side of the pool. I wonder if we can get it to work again?

 Dale and Dominic were investigating the pool and giving me a heart attack as Dale was leaning into the water!

After their investigation, we covered the pool again so that no-one can fall into it. But the wendy house is now off bounds in case someone comes over and does not know where it is safe to walk. We do not want them to go through the step and into that muck - yuck! But no animals or babies can fall in when it is covered. And the girls are not allowed anywhere near it anyway!

Surprisingly enough, the pool does not look damaged. It is not discoloured and is holding its water. Here is hoping that we get that horrid wendy off it and have a functional pool this summer (with a safe pool net on it of course).

Twins Nursery - Shell

The house is abuzz with urgent work in preparation for the arrival of the Keith Twins! They should arrive some time in October 2011 and that does not leave us with much time to spare! Kimi and Rob originally wanted the smallest bedroom (within the main house) to be the nursery but, when we found out that two babies were on the way, the second bedroom became a much better option. It is a strange coincidence that the second bedroom is so ideal for twins. When we first saw it, there were two double beds in there. There are two sets of cupboards too - which means that the room is kind of split into two already. Much hard work has been done, especially on the part of Rob and Les Keith, to transform this room into a beautiful nursery for the twins. This is best told using pictures.


This is what the second bedroom looked like before it was prepped to be a nursery

The first thing to go was the carpets. They were utterly disgusting! Much better to just walk on concrete than cheap, dirt-infested carpets! Then there was the hard work of filling and sanding the walls. The previous owners put Polyfill on the walls but did not sand it down and then just painted over the unsanded walls. What a mess! A lot of filling and sanding was needed! The window frames also needed a lot of work and it was decided that it was best to paint over the tiles on the window-frame as they were already partially painted over.

Now one the walls have received an under-coat of white and two layers of pink (Pink Bubble - Plascon). The ceiling also needed to be re-painted white as there were a lot of streaks!

The cupboards have also received two layers of white paint and look as good as new! The burglar bars were taken off and dipped so they also received a face-lift!

Next up will be the main door and all the finishings like the door handles on the main door and cupboards. We still have to find suitable ones. We will also get a rose for around the fan light as well as cornices. 


An important part of the room will obviously be the flooring! We will write something about this in the blog posts to follow. Until we have more to report - see you (hopefully) soon!

What Lies Beneath

Recently, Kimi almost fell through the Wendy and, as you should know by now, the Wendy was built over a pool... with the water still in it. Since there is a brand new hole in the quickly disintegrating Wendy, we took the opportunity to take some pics to see what on earth lies beneath the Wendy. While we were expecting to find that child from The Ring down there, what we were not expecting was... columns! As if the pool wasn't small enough already (although this will be great for a pond). Take a look for yourself...

Columns

Cocktail step - ooh la la!

Fancy a dip... Anyone? Anyone?