Ahhhhhh...........................

Missions accomplished. Open House went off without a hitch, my mother-henning about whether or not we were putting out enough food were totally unecessary; H's judgement was right on, though due to my concerns she did get about - 0h - maybe a gross more paper plates than we really needed.

And people brought many bottles of wine and bubbly, Antonio and Graca brought Casasa and a Caiparinha "kit", but John went to the QFC and got a dozen limes so we didn't need the mixer. There were maybe 55 to 60 total visitors throughout the afternoon, at times it was just about standing room only in the living/dining room, and the house really performed beautifully.

Heather played Vanna White a half dozen times demonstrating the Nanawall, and we stopwatched the magnetic induction stove a number of times during various demos - steam appears at about 27 seconds and water starts to boil at about 50 to 60 seconds.

Thanks to all of you who came and made it a most memorable event - and to thouse who brought a little something, and a special thanks to Jon and Midori for staying after to help us clean up- and we went to Tempero afterwards for more Antonio and Graca fun.

Happy Holidays!

Day After Turkey Day Before Open House Day

Good morning, all. H and I went to the WAC yesterday with Brother Tony for the low maintenance turkey fest. Yuuuuum. And H selected an excellent beaujalais nouveux to accompany. Afterward, Tony treated us to the new animated flick "Bolt". Haven't laughed so hard at a movie for a while. Best character is "Rhino", the advenurous hamster; had me ROFLMAO big time.

Check it out.

Today it's all electrical work and cleanup. Off to the salt mines. Have an excellent day, and hope to see you tomorrow.

Gutter Dwellers

The gutters were installed the day before Thanksgiving finally. You'd think that people who install gutters understand the basics of plumbing. Like "Water flows downhill.", and "Put a drain at the low spot." While the guys that did our gutters mayt have known the former, they really had no clue regarding the latter.

Evidence the photo below. You see where the downspot is in the foreground? Guess where the low spot was. (Hint; red circle.)
You may even see the pronounced slope toward the outer corner in the photo. There were two such places on the job. Both times they tried to tell me that the fascia (the wood trim on which the gutter is mounted, a.k.a. "gutter board") was crooked. Yeah, right. Steve's work is imperfect. Sorry dude; you are so wrong.

They grumbled, but they went up and fixed the problem in both locations. I don't understand how people can do such things.

I had to stay home and wait for them and to watch them to make sure it was done right, so I called my associate at work to tell him I'd be late, and he said he had the same thing happen on his house, but he didn't catch it until later when it rained and water was coming out of the outer corners instead of going down the downspouts.

Here's a shot of them in the backyard taking the whopping 5 minutes to fix the problem.

Food!

On Sunday, Heather made oatmeal for the boys. Oh; and bacon. In the oven. Ever cook bacon in the oven? Absolutely the best way to do it.

Sunday night, she got to make the first dinner meal in the new kitchen; lasagne. Yuuum.

Monday night after work, Heather was coming home late, so I got a chance in the kitchen. Pasta primavera. Yuuuuum. What a great kitchen. And magnetic induction is absolutely hands down the best cooktop system in the world. Ever leave a burner on accidentally? If this cooktop doesn't sense a ferrous iron pot on top of the burner, it shuts off automatically. And talk about quick response; wow. I've never ever had a gas stove, but this thing behaves the way I've always imagined a gas cooktop would, but I think this is even faster. And no fossil fuel! (Unless of course the electricity's coming from a coal-fired plant, which it's not. Seattle's old coal fired plant is now the Zymogenetics building on Lake Union; saw it fire up once on an extremely cold winter day in 1976, that's it.) So if you're going to remodel, go magnetic induction all the way.

Last item (besides the final lighting) that needs to be working in the kitchen is the range hood, or as Heather called it the other day - fume hood. From her days as a PhD chemist.

That's it for now; have a great day.

Sunny Fall Day; Yard Cleanup

Morning brought blue sky and sunshine to Wedgwood; tee shirt and shorts weather for some, like Kian here in the backyard, helping me and Daniel clear out construction debris. That's been one of those things that we've been itching to get to as soon as we have the time and decent weather, and voila, Sunday, no appointments, and Heather's station wagon with a tarp draped all over the back.

The final product today is as you see in the larger photo. Most of the detritus ended up either in the clean-wood-and-yardwaste truck (two loads) or the landfill truck (just one load). Whole bunch of yardwaste in the yardwaste bin for pickup this week too. Can you see where the bocce court will go?

Heather's making lasagne in the new kitchen now; the first real meal being created in there.

Here's a question for you, just to see if anyone's really reading this stuff. You ever take a shower and in the middle of it just lay back in the tub and let it fill up around you with the shower raining down on you? Not me....

Wow; First Cooktop Food!

Heather got some pots and a pan that will work on the induction stovetop yesterday, and used it for Kian's oatmeal this morning.

Notice the clever cropping that meets H's request to not be in the picture, but still captures the awesome action of the oatmeal event.

Nudder Pitcher

Just because you said you wanted one and I happened to have the bberry on me (such a rare moment!)

Welcome!

The third Hubbardton Forge sconce arrived yesterday; I put it up this afternoon - that's it to the left of the front door. I'll hve to take that one down to change the light bulb too, just like the other two. :-(

And Heather, after conspiring with Mary, selected rosemary for the planter in front of the pilaster to the left of the entry, so she picked up a new variety that you can see sitting in the planter now. That'll be huge in no time, I'm sure.

Temporary Lido Deck in front of the living room door for now - there's plenty of block stacking in our future. Have a great evening.

Another Pic

Jonathan came over tonight, just to see our cat Wookie!

Another shot

Those bookshelves still have some room in them, too!

Some Pics

Here's a peek at what it looks like from where I've been working this afternoon, just 'cuz somebody said they wanted to see some more pics (you know who you are...)

Where's Waldo?

More like "Where's Michael?" Haven't posted a thing in - gosh - five days! I actually haven't rushed home during lunch to answer questions or check on progress for - gosh - three days (if you don't count last week too)! It's been positively relaxing. I worked out on Sunday morning, Monday after work, Tuesday after work, and tonight was tennis night - I haven't been on that kind of a schedule for at least four, maybe five months. Makes me think we're actually done.

But we're not. The two front wall sconces flanking the patio door to the Lido Deck arrived last week, so I installed them on Sunday. The third sconce, for the entry, should arrive tomorrow. The four pendant lights, apricot colored cones with bright tiny halogens are ready for installation too - they're from Tech Lighting, that awesome company that makes the main bathroom fixtures - and they use their proprietary "Freejack" system that brings power down the skinniest of cables to the lamp, and it just screws neatly into the housing on the ceiling. Ingeniously elegant and simple. So I'll certainly be installing those babies this weekend.

Meanwhile, Heather's back in full swing working at the office, working here at home into the wee hours (she was after all gone for a whole week, so she needs to catch up), so things are pretty much back to "normal" again for her it seems. But there are still some things we need to get unpacked and put away, like the spices, and all the stuff that's staged in Heather's new office, which by the way still doesn't have power. I need to figure that one out this weekend too.

We moved our open house to Saturday the 29th, the Saturday after Turkey Day. Sent out an official evite to all our friends whose email addresses we know, but unfortunately we don't know our neighbors' addresses, so we'll have to notify them in person. That's all our thumbs-up neighbors of course.

Oh; I also put together one of those Rubbermaid pre-fab sheds for bicycle and tool storage in the back yard last week. Got to put the door handle and padlock hasp on it though. This weekend. Yeah. It's back to home-improvement on weekends, baby.

And I'm sending Steve and Pete to all my friends because those guys are the absolute best.

Ciao for now; I'll maybe post again on Sunday evening perhaps.

Connected!

This entire project, I've never been able to post a blog entry from the project site; there's been no internet connection. Not so any longer. The neat little curly queue of cable is from Comcast, finally providing internet access, and that box on the left is Qwest- phone access. Back to civilization!

Which Would You Choose?

To mount a closet pole bracket in your wife's closet? (Hint; it's not the small one. )

Unfortunately:

A). I didn't get that hint before I started.

B). I forgot that my wife's closet's back wall was old plaster about 7/8" thick, shortening effective embedment.

C) my wife's closet is still not big enough to hold all those clothes!

So naturally, as soon as Heather finished squeezing the culled-through-but-still-significant wardrobe into her closet and let go a sigh of accomplishment as she closed the door, she heard the sound of a big "WHUMP".

So I used the big screws today. And, I'm switching to the big ones in the other closet for safe measure.

How's that go... Fool me once...?..-I know George Bush knows that saying....

Barrow Shuttle

Wheelbarrow load by wheelbarrow load, the concrete gets dumped into place.

Mobile Concrete Unit!

Check out this truck; it's a concrete batch plant on wheels.

The vertical tank in the back has cement, the long bins in the middle have sand and gravel, and right behind the cab is a tank of water. It all dumps into a big mixer at the back and gets poured down a chute, at the end of which Steve waits like an anxious soccer coach as the first load approaches his barrow.

Danny's Man Cave

This is likely the neatest room Daniel's ever had. Spent the past three days doing about 35 loads of laundry (no wonder he didn't have much to wear- it was all in his hamper!) And arranging stuff to settle in, finally finished today.

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Mancave Door Installed

Kian's bedroom door from before the remodel has been placed in its new location, the man cave entrance.

Passages 1

Steve framed up and covered the future concrete walkway with OSB today.... One of his last items to do. I just noticed it looks like a long unrelenting straight shot in this photo; you'll have to come see it in real life.

Passages 2

All good things must end- Steve's packing up tools, loading them into his pickup truck today. He might be back later in the week to finish the walkway, weather permitting.....

Spent the day moving lots and lots of little things from the rental house to our house today. Heather says it's time to do what Frank Lloyd Wright recommends and just lose a bunch of stuff. If it's been in a box for 6 months and you haven't needed it, and in a box for 3 years before that and you didn't need it then, you don't need it period. Value Village here we come.....

First Morning Musings

Wow!
Didn't freeze our buns off.
Daniel and Kian took showers simultaneously and got out of the house on time.
Wookie (our orange tabby) didn't sleep in our room; he was out on the green sofa all night.
The adhesive on the paper pleated shades didn't fail all night.
The hydronic pumps kept clicking on and off throughout the night; didn't really notice it until the morning as I lay in half-sleep.
I need to put in the plug strip in the south kitchen wall; too many appliances on the peninsula and sink area.

For the move yesterday, I had to put some plywood down over Steve's sidewalk excavation so that we wouldn't get our shoes all muddied up and track it into the house. I had to pile some dirt back in there so the plywood wouldn't cave in, messing up Steve's great work. So this morning, before Steve got there, I went out and reexcavated for him so he wouldn't be upset. Finished just in time. Whew.

This week will be largely about moving all the remaining stuff from the rental house back to our house somewhere, in the man-cave basement for the most part, until we can figure out where it all goes. It turns out that the closet space in Kian's room will go largely unused since he never hangs anything up, so that whole thing can be used as mass storage. I also have to finish sweeping out the Kayak Storage Facility and building the plastic storage shed in the back. Sooo much still to do, and only a week to do it.

I'll get off my buttoski now and go get it done.

Ciao!

Nice Truck, Great Help!

And Peter from my office (our first friend to have a Nanawall in his home, installed by Pete Rankin!) Helped out today too!

Nice Shelves, Great Helper!

Jonathan helped out today (he of new car post back in July).

We're in!

The ceremonial cutting of the plastic wrap on Heather's Hatbox occurred at 8:17 PM on Sunday, November 9, 2008, marking our official move in to HeatherMichael House! No internet connection until Thursday- this is from bberry!

Moving Day Eve!!!

So there you have it; it's Saturday evening, November 8, 2008. Heather and I spent all day cleaning the place up, moving tools to media room (no big TV yet anyway!) and garbage and recycles to where they go, and dusting and cleaning. Daniel helped out in the morning moving stuff around with me, Kian helped in the afternoon, clearing out the place where we'll be building the semi pre-fab storage shed in the back, including leveling out the grade so it'll be fairly flat.


This is our last night in the rental house, I have a couple friends lined up (Peter K and John H) to help us move the big furniture items tomorrow afternoon, and we'll be sleeping in the nice warm house tomorrow!

Pete finished all the shelves in the living room yesterday - here's what the Living Room looks like today, ready for more books! I have a hunch we'll actually not fill the shelves with books yet, but we'll see. It would be a shame to move in and have them full from Day 1, eh? We'll see, of course.


Steve installed all the miscellaneous "jewelry" in the main bathroom yesterday; looks pretty crowded in this cell phone photo, but it's pretty cool in real life.
and to the left, outside of the picture, is another "Billy" Ikea shelf, for towel storage. Funny thing about that sink - it's the second cheapest thing in the house, at $39. The faucet was about 4 - 5 times that. Oy! That' the part you touch and interact with, so we rationalized that was the critical thing to get right. And check out that Toto toilet (it's not in Kansas anymore.) Heather spent about three hours sealing all the grout in that room today - and the tile (as I'm sure you recall) goes all the way around, about 7 feet high. Whew! That was quite a job.

On Thursday, I was there for a momentous occasion, akin to the Promontory Utah event I'm sure you all know about. The very last piece of siding was installed at 11:27 AM by one Steve Rankin, above the outdoor light sconce just south of Nanawall. Small pic is Steve air-nailing it into place.

Larger pic is Steve cutting it to fit.

And today, Pete put in a full day along with us, finishing the closet door installations in Kian and Daniel's room, and putting down the baseboards in the closets (so we can pile them full of storage tomorrow and not have to worry about doing them later), and the bed walls (for similar reasons).

In a word, the place looks AWESOME, and neither of us can believe it's actually ready for us to move in tomorrow, but it is, come hell or high water.

Move In Day Is Here

It's Friday evening, November 7. I was at the house since 6:45 to finish installing closet shelves and rods. At 9:00, I had to hightail it in rainy weather traffic to Ikea to get some shelf units to replace the ones I bought a month ago because they were the wrong color. I don't know how that happened, but nonetheless, had to go. Then I painted the basement bathroom and installed the two sconces and sealed the grout and cleaned up. By then, Pete had finished installing the shelf units in the living room, so I inserted all the individual shelves, then installed the front cabinet panel at the cooktop and the sink we don't have. Ahhh...... So now I'm finally blogging after not giving ya'll an update for what five days now? Oy!

What a week! After the election Tuesday, I went into the office for an 8:00 meeting and then it's been work on the house almost constantly since then. Ray finished hooking up the rest of the plumbing on Wednesday, and I'll be darned if I wasn't real glad I was there to see it before he left. He had placed the overflow for the water heater on the back side, so that if there ever was a leak, it would go into the baseboard and start rotting out the drywall. Sheesh. "That's where the connection was aimed, so I just went that way" he said. I asked him nicely to put it in the front, lie next to the floor drain and away from the wall. My goodness, one really needs to be careful.

Did We Move in!?!?!?!?

This was the weekend targeted for starting our move-in if you recall, and I know you do. Did we make it? What do you think? Let's check out these photos:

For the first time in a really long while, I brought a decent camera to the remodel instead of just relying on the cell phone camera.

Here's a pop at the new entry; do you like all the wood? The walls on both sides of the front door will be clear T&G cedar too, so it'll be all woodsy warm when you come to the front door. (If you're an evironmentalist, it'll be all old growth too, but fortunately there's not much of it.) Can we move in like this? You betcha.

Here's the main floor bathroom now; I powered up the Tech Lighting fixtures today and popped in the GFI outlet and got the fan running, cleaned up the tub, and tested out the Hans Grohe shower. Awsome. Can we move in like that? Well, kind of - just need the shower curtain.

You've already seen the living room and the floors; the shelves aren't done yet, but they're almost there; are they good enough for a move-in if we have to? You betcha!

I powered up the water heater today too. That little snake from the ceiling to the heater is 10 gage armored cable, baby. I turned it on and could hear the water warming up and expanding the chamber. Can we move in like that? Well, not quite. If you look at the photo, the piping that gets the hot water to the tubs and sinks isn't there yet. So, no; can't move in until we have hot water.

And here's a shot at the most pesky circuit I'm trying to figure out. If you come to the open house on the 15th, hopefully it'll all be figured out by then and you won't accidentally electrocute yourself like I almost did. Just kidding!!!

Bottom line is, we start the move-in process next week. Until then, Ray needs to finish his plumbing stuff, and we really need to have Steve finish the walkway to the sidewalk so not so much dirt gets tracked in.

That's it for now; I just need to get some much needed sleep. More manana!

Ever have one of those days?

The kind where you're doing a small project and yo go to the store that you know has everything instead of Home Depot, but the store that has everything doesn't have what you need?

And then you go to the other store that has it all and you finally get what you need but you get home and you're still missing a critical part? So you go get the missing piece, and it's small so you just put it in your pocket and you get home and find that somewhere between the store and your house it fell through a hole you didn't know you had? So you have to go again to the store to get a replacement, so you're finally ready to get 'er done, but when you put the "industry standard" pieces together they don't fit right because another piece is missing? How about when you get that part and finally are just about to finish, and something really basic is missing because you never thought what you alreday had wouldn't work, like wire nuts being too small for instance?

Not me- I never have days like that. Not! Argh- I'm having a buffalo burger w/bacon and cheese at the ale house now. I'll get back to the project in a few minutes. :-)

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