Change Log for Tuesday, April 28th

• The propane trench is dug and the area around the front of the house is graded.  Now we shouldn’t have any water pooling up against the house.  We went down and watched the tractor for awhile – Gregory in particular was quite excited.
• I picked up the backordered phone jacks and a few other miscellaneous items from the electrical place, got a quote for the bathroom counters, and bought a patch to fix the drywall around a plug in the utility room.

I probably should have gone to the house in the afternoon, but I opted to stay up here to wash bedding, sort kids’ clothes, and do some organizing and cleaning.  How is it that I can be very busy all afternoon doing necessary things and still feel somewhat guilty about it because I’m not working on the house?  I am so looking forward to actually living in our house!

Change log for Monday, April 27th

Amber

• Ran a burn pile for most of the day, trying to get rid of more construction debris.  Made the kids happy by bringing down hot dogs, marshmallows and potatoes to cook in/on the fire for lunch.  Emma did school on a makeshift desk by the burn pile – it is too bad I left the camera up at the other house today.
• Moved yet more wood – the scrap pile next to the house is almost gone! 
• Ordered the shower plumbing pieces for the master bath
• Called our cabinet guy to try and track down a replacement drawer front

The tile guys are starting work this week on the master bath and the downstairs bath.  We also have someone out with a tractor to do some grading and to trench for the propane line (Gregory is beyond thrilled) and the propane line will be installed on Wednesday.  The plumber is also coming this week, so it is a busy week for sub-contractors around here.  

Change log for Sunday, April 26th

Amber

• Helped Matt hang the door to the boys’ room
• Moved (yet even more) wood outside from the scrap pile outside the side door

Matt

• Installed shutoff valves to the water lines under the kitchen sink to test if cold water comes out of the hot line.  It does, which means the water lines got reversed somewhere along the way.  Thankfully though it was the plumber who did it so he’s going to come and fix it sometime this week.  Sometimes it is nice to be responsible for everything!
• Finished hanging the doors to Emma’s room and the boys’ room and installed the door hardware
• Did some picking up and organizing

Change log for Saturday, April 25th

Amber

• Moved (yet more) wood outside
• Worked with Matt to start hanging the door to Emma’s room
• Helped Matt with the railing

Matt

• Finished putting up the first section of railing (yay!)
• Started hanging the door to Emma’s room

Change log for Friday, April 24th, 2009

• Prepped three doorways for door hanging by pounding in the nails, trimming back the drywall, and marking the hinge heights on the doors.  
• Vacuumed up the mess I made by trimming up the drywall, the kids’ bath, and some of the upstairs hall.
• Made a tarpaper pattern for the shower area of the kids’ bath in order to make cutting the linoleum easier.  Started on the sink area, but didn’t get very far.  Played a rousing game of drop the granola bar with Nathan to keep him happy while he sat corralled in the bathtub and I worked.  Tar paper is stinky, icky to touch, and a pain to work with.  I am wondering if I can come up with an alternative for making floor patterns, as I have 6 more rooms to go.

Change log for Thursday, April 23rd, 2009

I drilled holes in 15 balusters to prep them for installation in the first railing section.

I thought about several other projects upstairs, but Nathan woke up early so I moved to the garden.  He is far too mobile to be trusted upstairs without a railing.  Emma and I weeded and I built a support structure for sugar snap peas, then Gregory and I planted pea seeds.  

I didn’t go to the house on Tuesday and Wednesday so there were no changes to report for those days.  Well, I did order the flooring for the bathrooms, pantry, mudroom and utility room on Tuesday so I suppose that counts for something!  That should be in sometime in the next two weeks or so.

Change log for April 20, 2009

We got our kitchen sink today!  It is HUGE – we should be able to bathe multiple children in it easily.  Perhaps even all three of them at the same time.  Thankfully it fits into our sink cabinet (not that we have a counter yet) and it looks great.  I am so looking forward to using this sink every day!

Not much else to report – Emma started back at school today after her two week Easter break and we also started a three day, 2 1/2 hr per day art class about 30 minutes away.  Between all of that, there was only about an hour left to go down to the house, which I spent oohing and aahing over the sink, burying compost, and digging up the poison oak near the house that sprung up overnight. 

Change Log for April 19, 2009

(And no, I didn’t forget Saturday’s entry – we *gasp* didn’t work on the house at all and instead went to Picnic Day at UC Davis.  It felt somewhat irresponsible, but we definitely had a good time)

Amber

• Moved scrap wood with the kids away from the house to the burn area.  I’ve probably moved enough at this point to allow for the propane trenching, but since it all needs to be moved eventually and the kids were fussy and wanted to be near me it seemed like a good project.

Matt

• Drilled holes in two newel posts and got them set
• Anchored the base of the railing to the floor, got the screws set
• Drilled holes in the balusters for the pegs
• Moved the drill press from his Dad’s workshop and got that set up

Change log for Friday, April 17th, 2009

• Today was a burn day from 9 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. so I burned construction debris for that entire period.  I started with untreated wood scraps and then switched to manufactured wood after our fire roasted lunch.  
• With my father-in-law’s help, we moved rocks that were in the way of the grading we need to do, and we also moved some stumps that Matt cut low when I expanded the garden a couple weeks ago.

Change log for April 16, 2009

Errand day and a fussy baby made it difficult to do much today…

• Picked out a laminate countertop for the kids’ bath
• Picked out a manufactured granite countertop for the master bath
• Measured the cabinets for the countertops and found that the master bath counter may not work because of how the cabinet is laid out
• Bought the connector hose to hook up the water to the fridge
• Hooked up the fridge to the water and found that it didn’t work.  We’ve also noticed that our water spigot outside the kitchen doesn’t work.  However, since it used to work when the hot and cold water systems were linked together we think that the plumber who did our rough plumbing (no, not Matt) switched the hot and the cold lines.  Whoops.  By looking at the pictures I took before the drywall went up Matt thinks he has found the spot where the lines were probably switched.  Matt is supposed to call the plumber to talk to him about it.

Some days feel like one step forward, two steps back…