House Renovation on an Island

House renovation on an island accessible only by ferry is challenging. A trip to Home Depot involves driving 15 miles to the north end of the island, waiting for the ferry (the winter schedule has fewer than hourly trips), a one hour ferry ride across the inlet, and a drive of 75 miles. And then the reverse to come home. Renovation requires careful planning and crossing your fingers that you won't need something that's not available at the hardware store on the island or you will be waiting.

It's now the new year and we have lived in our house on the canal since just before Thanksgiving 2017. We had access to the house in mid-October but had more work to do than we had imagined. Isn't that the way renovation always goes?

First I had to clean out the house. It was a rental so it came furnished. I gave everything away and within a day and a half, I had only a few framed pictures and a box of miscellaneous household items to donate to our local thrift store.

Next came the demolition of the kitchen and needed repairs. There were rotten fascia boards. Some of the rot was obvious but others had been painted over. They were all replaced with new cedar boards and painted white instead of the pale yellow someone in the past had chosen.

We closed up the front entrance to an attached in-law suite and put a doorway leading into it from the main part of house. This would become our master bedroom. The closed up entrance would become my closet.

We knew that there was rot at the back door of the master bedroom and we were hoping that it didn't extend into the joists. It did. The entire sill and part of the door frame were rotten as well as part of the first joist back into the room. There are always surprises in renovation but this wasn't too bad. The cause of the rot was a leaky door. There was evidence that damage had been repaired in the past but not the source of the damage, so it continued. We have a good, solid, airtight (and expensive) door there now.

My kitchen reno was delayed when my cabinets were two weeks late in arriving. Scheduled for the 16th, they finally showed up on Halloween. Our carpenters installed them quickly (of course there were some issues there too!) but then the kitchen came to a grinding halt; the countertops would not be installed until Dec. 18. How could I get through the myriad of Christmas events here on the island without having a kitchen in which to bake? Solution: temporary countertops! We cut up plywood and placed it on top of the cabinets. It worked....I baked dozens of cookies and other items but it was a challenge with no sink in which to clean up. I became accustomed to doing dishes camping style; heating water on the stove and washing dishes in plastic bins.

We found a variety of other issues; leaking plumbing, unusual electrical wiring (this is Ocracoke after all....it's endemic). One of the biggest problems we discovered was a rodent infestation. Rats were not in the house but had numerous access points to the area under the floor. Lots of chewed up insulation, rat poop, and yes, dead rats, were involved. We are still working on that problem and plan to replace all of the plywood under the house with cedar and install new insulation. We think we have closed up the current access holes and hope that in the near future, we will never have to experience the smell of a decaying rodent wafting up through the floor.

So, the renovation continues. There is still so much to do. I'm currently working on installing a tile back splash in the kitchen. I still have unpacked boxes. There is painting to do. There are future projects. It will go on and on but at least I am here, on this island, and that makes it worth it.