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Change Log 04.15.09

Change log for Wednesday, April 15th, 2009

Amber

  • Installed plugs in Emma’s room
  • Installed blank plate in linen/telecom closet to cover the light future
  • Vacuumed downstairs
  • Moved more scrap wood outside
  • Planned newel post layout with Matt

Matt

  • Sanded the floor where the first railing section will be installed
  • Cut the base piece for a railing section and tacked it down
  • Planned out the location of the balusters

I have also started a static page with the move-in list as of today.  Here it is.  I’m sure Matt will think of things I’ve forgotten and I’ll probably remember a few things as well.  But this gives you an idea of what is left to do.  The page is linked above the masthead.

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Change Log 04.14.09

Change log entry for Tuesday, April 14th, 2009

  • Boxed scrap Hardiboard and piled the big pieces
  • Moved more wood to burn area, bagged trash, heaved pieces of concrete into the gully (gotta love having acreage)
  • Loaded the trailer (with my father-in-law and Matt) with trash, recycling, Hardiboard, and other material that shouldn’t be burned. 
  • Installed plugs in the upstairs hallway and linen/telecom closet (don’t you have a linen/telecom closet?)  Felt like a very bad mother because Gregory pinched his finger with some unidentified tool (nippers of some sort?) and Nathan fussed (I wouldn’t let him scoot around on a second story area with no railing) all because Mommy was busy installing electrical outlets.
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Change Log 04.13.09

Change log entry for Monday, April 13th, 2009

  • Called Al (our tractor guy) to see about getting him out to dig a trench for propane and do some grading work on the front of the house
  • Ordered the kitchen sink (and no, we’re not paying anything near that amount for it), as it is no longer being made and we want to get it before it disappears entirely
  • Found and installed the missing blank plates in the away room
  • Bagged trash, got trash and cardboard ready for a dump/recycling run
  • Started sorting wood in the scrap pile outside the house, moved a big pile of manufactured wood down to the burn area, started a burn pile and burned some of the scrap material.  Greatly upset the children by not providing marshmallows and hot dogs.

 

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Introducing the Change Log

I’ve decided to start a new feature here on this largely neglected blog.  I’m going to try to post every day I work on the house with a brief description of what I’ve done – as a friend put it a little while ago, it’ll be a like a change log for the house.  Matt was doing something like this for awhile, and I’ve decided to pick it up again and see how long I can manage to do it.  

I do have one request though – could anyone out there reading this refrain from saying how close we are?  I’ve been hearing this for months now I’ve gone from “oh yes, we’re getting close!” to “*sigh* yes, getting closer” to “*huge sigh* well, there’s still a lot of work” to “*gigantic sigh* I guess”.  I may snap sometime soon, and the results may not be pretty.  Yes, if perhaps my husband didn’t have to work 70+ hours a week and/or I wasn’t homeschooling and taking care of three children and all the household duties a family entails, we probably would be in by now.  But that’s not the situation, and close is a relative term.  So as to not turn this into a huge rant, I think I’ll just stop now.  I think you all get the point.  🙂

Sort of along that vein, I’m also going to put together a list of everything that needs to be done for us to move in, so that you all can see what we’re up against.  I’m not sure how best to do this – perhaps I’ll see if I can make a static page and strike through the completed items as we finish them.  I’ll post something about it when I figure it out.

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Cabinets! and other updates

We have cabinets!  Well, they are currently sitting in cardboard boxes in our dining area, but they are set to be installed on Monday.  By Wednesday evening, we should have cabinets in the kitchen and the two upstairs bathrooms.

We’ve also received almost all of our light fixtures and all of our ceiling fans.  So far Matt has installed three ceiling fans (including the one 16 ft or so off the ground) and one light fixture.

Approximately 75% of the house is painted now.  All we need to do corners and edges in the high places (although that will probably require the rental of a scissor lift – we will not be repainting anytime soon!) and some work in the bedrooms.

I also have been cleaning up a great deal, and mopping the floors.  The floors are amazingly dirty.  Between drywall dust and the acculumated dust, mud, and construction debris from the past almost year and a half, the floors are incredibly filthy.  I am consoling myself with the thought that at least the floors should never be quite this dirty again!

We’re also talking to some people about doing some tile work in all of the bathrooms.  We had thought about doing the tile ourselves, but given how long this project is taking it is time to sub this out.  We’re also somewhat concerned about our ability to create a good, water-tight pan for the two showers without tubs and we’ve received a very good recommendation for a local tile contractor.  Now we just have to figure out how to pay for it…

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Running Water

Running Water. In the house.

A couple weeks ago I started digging the trench to get water into the house. Yesterday, I finished digging and cut and glued up all the pipe. The digging job involved a couple hours work chipping away at the foundation so that I could run a pipe vertically right next to the house.

Today, we turned on the water and checked for leaks. Everything outside was good, but I had a very slow drip in the compression fitting in the valve for one of the toilets. We turned off the water to the house and drained the system then I cut the stub back a bit further and put the valve back on more tightly.

After the supply was all taken care of, I started work on our laundry sink. We’ve got a free-standing plastic tub sink that will be next to our washing machine. I got the faucet all assembled and mounted, the waste line all cut, taped and screwed and attached the supply lines (though only cold works as we don’t have a water heater yet).

At the end of the day, we could turn on a faucet and have running water in the house. Very exciting.

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Drywall update

The drywall, taping and mudding, and texturing are now complete!  The house looks great – so much brighter and more like a home than a construction site.

We’ve started painting the ceilings and some of the rooms, and today Matt installed our first light fixture.   It seems like such a little thing, but when I think of all it took to get to the point where we could install a finish light fixture, it seems like a very big thing indeed!

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Mast Image Updated

Since our previous image was a bit old and didn’t really reflect the current state of the house (picturesque as it was) I’ve updated the image to be more current.

This replaces the image referenced here.

The new image is a composite of two different views of the house taken at approximately 1:30 PM PST on November 15, 2008.

The image on the left is primarily the front (North) side of the house and the image on the right is the back (South) side of the house.

You can see in both that it’s been painted and gutters are installed. On the back side, you can see out woodstove chimney (left of the big cedar).

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Shantytown Pump House

Last year our well went un-insulated all winter and during a particularly cold stretch we had a pipe break. Fortunately I noticed it within about 12 hours because I saw that the electrical meter was spinning at a crazy rate. For the last 10 or 11 months I’ve meant to do something to prevent it from happening again this winter, but the house has always taken priority

Since we’re currently having drywall hung and textured, I can’t really work on the house so I decided to finally do something about the pump house. The fact that we’re expecting temperatures to be in the high teens had something to do with it too.

I figured it would take me a few weekends to really get a good pump house up and didn’t really want to spend that much time on it right now (much less the cost of building materials) so I “made do”.

well_power.jpgBefore I could work on anything up there, I needed power. When we ran the wires for the well back in the summer of 2007, we ran four so that we could have two hot legs for the 220V pump, a ground and a neutral for a 110 circuit. I used one hot leg and the 110 to put in a duplex plug.

IMG_7899_sm.jpgThe basic frame is made up of three pallets that my Dad had. I bought three 4×8 sheets of 3/8 OSB for about $9 each and cut and stapled them up with my pneumatic stapler. It ends up being a surprisingly stable structure.

IMG_7905_sm.jpgThe backside of the pump house. I’ve since gone back and cleaned up the gaps some by stapling additional OSB over them and using leftover mastic from our SIP installation to “caulk” them.

IMG_7908_sm.jpgThe kids hung out and helped. Here they’re playing in the “snow”. I had Emma help me a as a counterweight when cutting the OSB. I put the sheet in the back of my truck hanging out over the tail gate and Emma sat on the end in the truck so that it would remain horizontal for me to cut.

I cut a final sheet and used screws to hold it in place over the 4th wall. Now I’ll be able to access the internals by simply taking a couple screws out. This will give me the access I need to turn the light on and off to be doubly sure nothing will freeze.

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Rough Inspections Passed

Today was the day – rough electrical, rough plumbing and rough framing.

There’s a few minor things that we need to fix but we’re all signed off.

The inspector was very impressed by the electrical panel (thanks, Chris).

All-in-all it was much simpler than I expected it to be. Now we’re on to drywall, then the finish work.