Jim's Great Job of Repairing/Replacing
the Severe Damage Done
to our Solarium by Carpenter Ants

Thanks to Rita's son, my stepson Jim, those pesky and damage inflicting carpenter ants have been destroyed or sent packing, and our solarium has now been very nicely rebuilt.

Before work was done:

The left bottom area had very severe pest damage. After a thorough inspection, all the footings were found to be riddled with ant holes and the corner 4 x 4's bottom 1/3 had been eaten away completely - I mean it was totally GONE!!! All that material had to be replaced with new pressure treated materials. It had been made with pressure treated wood, but over the years, the treatment had lost it's effectiveness.

The markings on the above right photo show our intentions of what was going to be done.

During the work:

In the photos below, the 2 x 4 is there to support the end of the roof while the work is being done.

I'm very appreciative that Rita's son Jim was able to do the job for us, since it takes too much physical effort for me with the MS. I can do smaller jobs & projects but not something like this, so I just acted as the "head supervisor." ;-)

Jim is an electrician by trade, and had never done anything like this before. I wasn't much use in this regard either, having had no experience in construction. But with some advice from friends and Jim's internet research, the job was brought to a very successful and attractive conclusion.

What follows is a short pictorial record of the work which was done.

These are a few more shots during the job, up to the completion of the outside.

The vinyl siding has now all been applied and the exterior of the solarium is now complete with only the interior interlocking pine left to apply.

Redoing the inside:

The inside of course, had to be redone and it also gave us an "unasked-for" opportunity to improve the insulation in this room which since it was really an outside room, previously had been minimal. Although our house's side door is actually inside of this add-on room, the extra insulation we added to this exterior room during this rebuild, has significantly improved the insulation properties of that entrance.

Interior Now Also Completed

The interior walls were then covered with a different type of solid pine panelling which complimented the remaining, original tongue & groove pine ceiling. Extensive improvements to the cement floor were made and it was covered with a good quality "tile-like" linoleum.

After the panelling was completed, all of the interior walls and the freshly sanded ceiling were given 2 coats of MinWax fast drying polyurethane. After the room was completed, a shelving unit to keep various vases was needed, so I designed the unit shown in the above right photo. Using some 2 x 2 knotty pine and some 1/2" plywood, Rita & I whipped up the unit you see there. It's 6' tall, 40" wide and 1' deep. This unit too was finished with varish.

The total cost of redoing this room was about $2,000.00 Cdn. This was a far cry from what we would have had to pay to have it professionally redone. Jim did a great job on the re-do, and it just goes to show that you can
do-it-yourself and in so doing, save a lot of money!

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