Before & After Shots

This is an update post on the progress of the 1903, Tier 3, CNR Rail Station mentioned in this Canadian Encyclopedia entry. It's the one that was originally built for the rail line going through Roseisle, Manitoba. It was moved to 'Snow Valley', a ski hill about 3 miles away, somewhere around the 1960's. Once it's finished, it will serve as a family cottage retreat and double as a chalet.

First, some general photos.

For additional background keep scrolling down.

WHAT GOES ON HERE

To give you a bit of a flavor for how the property will be used, here's what the boys have constructed and mounted on some of the ski hills. They use the ski hills in the summer to test their metal with their mountain bikes. It's fun to watch them. [Keyword 'watch']

Below is the view from the top of the front ski run called 'hurricane'. Directly behind Jeff's daughter, Erin (driving the ATV) the hill takes a pretty steep drop off. The photo does the elevation of the ski hill a little more justice than that 'panorama' photo much further down this blog.

Remember this is the heart of the Canadian prairies ... that's a pretty big hill from where we come from. With respect to difficulty (steepness), I'd say it's close to a black diamond - for the entire 10 seconds it takes to reach the bottom - on your face or on your feet. At the very least, it's definitely not a run for the meak. I remember the guys my age, when were 11-14 demonstrating physical braun and mental character by challenging hurricane. There were quite a few minutes that passed while boys from all over the country stood at the top and revving up their will to the point where they finally stepped over the edge.


Outside.

Moving on, to give you an idea of the before 'BEFORE', notice in this November 2004 photo,that she was pretty near sitting right on the ground an on some uneven terrain. Something needed to be done before renovations could move forward in earnest. [That's jr and I sitting on the quad in front of her before she was jacked.]

'before' BEFORE

To correct this, in the BEFORE photo below you see her 'jacked up' so that we could pour new concrete footings before starting the serious renovations on the inside. We wanted a solid, square, level foundation to avoid complications like cracking of drywall, for example. Jacking her up also allowed us to increase the height of the crawl space so that we could now work underneath and run heating and ventilation ducting, wiring, and new plumbing.

Finally, building and installing new foundation pony walls gave us the opportunity to seal up the crawl space and do a proper job of insulating the area under the main floor. Not a lot of space underneath, but considerably more than we had prior to lifting her.

BEFORE

AFTER

And here she is all perched up on her new foundation - ready for the serious work to start.

In the end, she squared up real nice. Although to the trained carpenter's eye, on the inside there are bits of 'leaning character' and out-of-square corners that simply couldn't realistically be corrected. But it's a heck of an improvement and now there shouldn't be any movement after the dry wall goes up etc.

Inside.

Next are some shots of the inside of the chalet before anything had been done ... or at least before we began doing anything. This is the condition of the chalet when my wife's "Uncle Jeff" purchased it and the property it sits on. Thankfully, you can see there has been a few walls put up, some beams and posts put in, and all the lathe and plaster had been removed. That would have a been a nice job [not] !

BEFORE / INSIDE

Fast forward a year and some, again, we only started in earnest around the November 1, 2005 timeframe ...

AFTER / INSIDE

We took this (huge) window out, built a new doorway into the new addition, and covered up the original window hole only to revisit the design, deciding instead to make this wall a feature wall reclaiming the once used loading door and the vertical 'trusses' that were once on the outside of the building (more pictures below). I think it was a great decision.



Below you see the covered up window hole with the once-planned walk-through doorway. Again, Jeff and Joyce rethought and reworked the plans to the overall benefit of the project.

'After' AFTER / INSIDE

And, here you see the new design of the walk way between the pool room and the sunken family room featuring the two vertical trusses that were once on the outside of the building. You can also see where the original sliding storage door will once again be hung and yes, it will be functional. This room has nice 12' ceilings and will be the new home of Jeff's pool table. [He's gotta pay for these renovations somehow.]

'After' AFTER

The outside ...

Immediately below is the backside of the rail station, again shortly after Jeff bought the property and before we started the renovations. The single large window on the one wall (facing left in the photo) originally had a sliding storage door in its frame. The original storage door(s) were saved and one of them has been refinished and will be the door that separates the sunken family room from the pool table room.

History of function ...

Of course, when the building was functional and situated on the rail line, there was a loading ramp/platform for horse drawn wagons and carriages and then eventally, once the combustion engine took off, for trucks to drop off and pick up goods. Inside the building, directly across (opposite wall) was a matching sliding door and platform for loading and unloading the rail cars.

Just to give you an idea of how the building was originally designed to function, when both sliding doors were opened, you would presumably be able to see clear through the building. Trucks and horse carriages on the once side, rail cars on the other.

Back to the renovation. My wife's uncle decided they would like a little more space to the building for guests and overall livability, so they designed an addition. As a bonus, in preparations for the addition, we managed to reclaim the vertical support 'trusses'. They will now be featured on the inside of the building (as per the previous sequence of photos).

Anyway, here is the progression on the addition (~400 sq ft). One nice big TV and social room. We're putting the original sliding door back in as well (again, as discussed), which will separate the grand "pool table room" from this sunken TV room. It'll be terrific.

A side note: Joyce, Jeff's wife, is pulling together some wonderful ideas in terms of maintaining the theme of the era and the building. Rail lights have been found and will hang from the vertical trusses, for example. Old refinished grates for the heating vents are going in. And we're putting in a tin ceiling that was reminiscent of the days. There are some old doors and hardware that will be reused. The floors are being reclaimed (where possible) and the trim will be reminiscent of the times and finally, there will be wainscoting throughout the main floor.

I'm looking forward to seeing this all come together. I wonder if a magazine like Harrowsmith or something like that might be interested in ultimately doing a story on her. Who knows ?

BEFORE / BACK OF THE CHALET

AFTER / BACK OF THE CHALET

That's all for now. Anyone know a good source for 'period' hardware (door knobs, latches, etc) ? Comments and feedback welcomed. More to come.

Chapper.

High Performance (Air Nailing) Sales Professional

... at your service !

This is the second floor. As you can see it's been gutted and a few walls put up. We're just starting here. At the turn of the century, the people who ran these RAIL STATIONS, lived up on the second floor. Of course, 100 years later, there'll be no running downstairs in the middle of the night for a seat on a frozen throne.

When it's all done, there'll be three bedrooms and a comfortable bathroom complete with double sized shower. What a difference a century makes !

New 'Skirt'

Halloween was a beautiful day in SW Manitoba this year. Here is a shot of the rail station after having been dressed with a new skirt.

That's me to the right. We're just in the early stages of redoing her. This project is a lot of fun and brings back a lot of childhood memories. I used to come here 3o years ago as a kid.

If someone back then would have looked into a crystal ball and suggested that I'd be breathing new life into this winter playland, I'm not sure what I might have thought. Anyway, here I am. She's now all nice and square. Time to get a push on the inside.

Getting 'AIR'

As you can see, the kids have turned these once-upon-a-time cardboard-toboganning hills into a playground of Xtreme Sports. In addition to hitting the skies on their mountain bikes (like Adam here), another favorite option is to scream down 'Hurricane' with no brakes. One of them had to actually lay down his bike to avoid hitting that gold van in front of the chalet - my van. I'm guessing they're easily hitting 65mph by the time they quickly reach the bottom of the front run -- historically and affectionately known by all locals as 'Hurricane'.

The 'Slopes'

Here you see a panorama of the slopes as they appear looking out the front door of the rail station/chalet ...

Keep in mind this is Manitoba. The heart of the prairies. Even though this photo doesn't do 'hurricane' justice, if you've ever been through Manitoba, you'll know that 'mountains' -- like the one shown here -- can been seen two provinces away. [It's flat here !]

Chalet panorama (before)

This photo shows the rail station (on the right) that was used as the main chalet as well as the ski storage building (left edge) ...

This image is a 'photo stitch' of two digital pictures. They were taken through the window of the T-Bar house. Which you can see in the above photo.

Gutted 1903 CNR Rail Station

This is an old rail station. They were found at every rail stop during the turn of the century. This one was moved to the base of a ski hill in South Western Manitoba. The ski hill is no longer commercially operational, but the lifts are still there and are still working.

The family bought the property and is now fixing it all up as a personal 'getaway' and all season retreat. It's going to be a great place.

This photo shows the building 'jacked and raised' prior to pouring a new concrete foundation. Any questions, don't hesitate. This is my 'other project management' life.