Reboot!!!!!

OOPS

A week ago today, August 12, I tried to create a new blog for BottleRockit, but changed my mind and decided to cancel it, so I hit the DELETE button, but it was for the wrong blog, and I completely destroyed, apparently forever, what I'd been working on for the last two and a half months.

I tried to get the Blogger guys to put it back up, but it looks like after a week, it just ain't gonna happen. I'm sad. Pissed off that the DELETE button didn't say "You are about to delete Heather & Michael's Remodel" - it just said "Are you sure you want to delete this blog?" And I thought I was deleting the band blog. Damn.

HERE fortunately is where you can still find all of the pictures that I had posted on the blog - they were automatically placed in the Picasa system. That's cool; 196 photos that are still there. At least that's something.

SO with this new blog, I'll start again. Interestingly, the demise of the blog occurred at the same time Steve let for Mongolia, marking the transition from his work on the exterior being the primary focus to the work that Pete is now doing, mostly on the interior.

Today the insulation guys came in and blew white fibrous stuff into all the stud spaces of all the exterior walls of the main floor, even the ones that still had the original plaster. Here's a shot of what they did; first they put a fine mesh tightly over the bare studs. Then they cut about a 3 inch hole in the mesh and blew in some type of cellulose that has a stiffening agent that keeps it all very firm and tight so it doesn't sag. It's really very cool, and when it's done, it's all white, so it gets just a little bit closer to that finished wall look, which is a little exciting.

So the first time since the house was built 60 years ago, the entire house is fully insulated. Later this week, they're coming back and blowing even more insulation into the attic space. With that new electric heating system, even though Seattle has about the cheapest electricity in the nation, it'll be important to make sure we retain as much heat as we generate. At least anything we spend on heat won't be going to the oil companies anymore!

Before the insulation guys came, I took time to go around the entire basement perimeter with the ShopVac, sucking out all the detritus, sawdust, concrete chips, spider eggs and cobwebs, so that all that stuff wouldn't be buried inside the wall cavities. Would it make a difference in the quality of life in the house? Not likely. But having all that crap (especially the spidey eggs) buried in the walls would have bugged me and the boys no end. It just needed to be done. Pete and I still have some monkey business to do with the insulation around the perimeter for the in-floor heating because the insulation sub workers don't speak any English and their boss has been on vacaton since last Wednesday and things weren't done right. It's been a bit of a cluster actually. Somewhat unbelievable. Almost as unbelievable as some guy accidentally deleting a frikkin' blog.

We decided we needed a little comfort food for dinner last night, so we went to Piatti at University Village, where it so happens they have white butcher paper on all the tables, over the linen tablecloths. As luck would have it, I happened to have a pen with me, so I started to draw an aerial perspective of the kitchen, just so I could show Heather where she could plug in the Giant Light From God on the new countertop. We then got into a discussion about the old driveway and what we're going to plant there. After some initial hesitation and the oligatory "I'm not an architect so I can't draw" statement (for which I get another hypothetical dollar on my way to being a millionaire), Heather found her Inner Designer and started sketching out her thoughts on the planting plan in the terraced area where the driveway now slopes down towards the house. She's got some great ideas there, and we'll be working with Mary Fisher to sort through them all soon.

Here's a peek at what the kitchen looks like today; the insulation on the outer wall is all white like drywall. The wall that will hold the cupboards is all sheetrocked now, and as you can see, so is the whole ceiling.

Lastly, here's a shot of the Media Room in the basement; that's fully insulated now too. The ceiling insulation is there to keep the upper floor heat out of the basement and in the upper floor. The basement has its own hydronic system using fin tube radiators. That's the old water heater in the middle of the room for now in case you're wondering.

I'm going to insert some of the very early pictures from the original blog here since that one's gone.

This is what the house looked like on June 4, 2008. Steve was the only guy on site at the time, hadn't met Pete yet, and I was still looking for an electrician. Steve was piling up all sorts of stuff from the basement in the front yard and driveway, but the big dumpster hadn't arrived yet. This turned out to be the last view Richard and Sarah had of the house with the old roof line. By the time the dumpster came and went, the roof line had changed, and the new windows were all installed. And Tyvek became the advertising word of the day.