Productive Tuesday

So Steve was Mr. Busy today. He cut and framed all the stair stringers, those zig-zaggy pieces of wood underneath the stairs that hold them up. And he framed in the privacy wall on the north end of the deck that'll give us a good level of visual screening from and to our neighbor to the north. Check it out in the photo below.

Regarding the stairs, Heather and I had one of those discussions last night as she finally started to understand the nature of the deck and stairs that I had designed. She took issue with their proximity and what would be between them. I, in my architecture focused brain, just thought we could do a Monty Python shrubbery between them. Once Heather saw the installation, she thought it would be better to make one of those big wide stairs that turn the corner. They look like the plinth at the Parthenon or Temple of Zeus; in this case there'd be seven steps. So to further the discussion (we needed to get to a conclusion on this), I started drawing what that would look like on the butcher paper on the floor that's covering the wood floor, and a second sketch showing what I had planned. (Click on photo left.) We ended up concluding that the conjoined stairs would be good, but instead of standard width stair treads, we'd skip every other riser and make wider treads, so they'd be a good size to hold potted plants and also serve as a bench. I left Steve a note on the plans "STEVE; LOOK AT THE DRAWING ON THE FLOOR!" It actually took him a couple hours to notice it; I got his voicemail that he understood it fine sometime around 10:30AM.

Here's a shot of that privacy wall from the yard looking back at the house, showing clearly the stair that goes down towards the basement stairs - you can almost see the other stair going to the west, towards the future garage.

And this thing that looks like a tall doghouse is the dishwasher that was finally delivered today. And this last photo is the little extra piece of sheetrock that Steve put around the opening to the stairs that I asked for - it allows the wall paint to turn the corner and stop so the ceiling color can start. He worked a lot on the drywall around the stair today, and there you have it.

Heather had dinner with her friend Ulricha from work; I guess we're invited to her house for dinner on Friday night. I'm looking forward to it!

Ciao!

Deck Started!!!!

I actually posted these photos last night, but didn't get a chance to write about them until just now, a day later. Steve framed the deck today! It's ten feet from the Nanawall opening to the edge of the framing, and I was a little concerned that it wouldn't be big enough. It's big enough. It's a good size for this house. Here it is with Nanawall open. Viewing from the side, you can see that the eave projection covers the Nanawall well. The elongated posts will support the trellis that will extend the roof line out over the deck.

And here it is straight on from the back. You can really see how the spaciousness extends all the way through the house now, front to back.

And that's the way it looked at the end of the day on Monday, September 15, 2008.

A Ghost

I don't know how I did it, but somehow I told my Facebook page to import the old blog. I found that out as I visited the Facebook page that I never visit anymore, and saw something called a "Minifeed". I was minifeeding Facebook starting when Steve was demoing the old roof, up until the old blog up and died. What a pleasant surprise! You can visit all those old posts, including pictures and text, at http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?id=686174706.

Easy As Phishin'!

I've pretty much been dreading doing what I needed to do this morning- climb up into the attic and pull the Cat 5 cable from way over in the living room all the way over to the kitchen and the bathroom. First of all, it's dark. Secondly, it's icky-dusty-dirty-smelly. Thirdly, it's cramped and claustrophobic. Fourthly, it gets really hot up there with that black roof, and because of all the fiberglass and dust, you have to wear clothing that protects you and keeps you hot. Fifthly, there's really no floor-you have to crawl from joist top to joist top on your hands and knees, being careful to not poke a limb through the ceiling drywall that Pete just finished. So, in a word- unfrikkinpleasant.

But it had to be done this weekend, so I set the alarm for 5:45. To beat the heat, I planned to get there at 6:00 AM, before the sun comes up and starts to warm it all up. I don't have a haz-mat bunny suit, so I donned a turtleneck and cotton sweats with my hiking boots. (Stylish!). I had the heavy duty breathing mask, too, though I opted to not go for the full respirator. To top off my head, I had the LL Bean integral headlight cap- what a fabulous piece of gear. It worked perfectly; didn't need the flashlight.

I had purchased some knee pads a couple weeks ago to do the waterproofing installation, so I climbed up there "armed" ("kneed") to the teeth with those, and started the crabwalk through the darkness. The access hatch is right next to the new skylight, which was lined at my request with R-30 batts, which are almost a foot thick. I couldn't get around ot without rubbing my whole body against the batts, so I just pulled them all out so I could get where I needed to go.

As I rounded the corner, my headlamps shone on the massive tangled pile of blue cable lying on top of the insulation over the new entry closet. What a pile of spaghetti. So I tangled and twisted my limbs around midst the roof jacks, joist tops, and collar ties just to untangle all the cable so I could separate the three strand that need to go to three different locations. that took a little while, but all in all less than I thought. And fortunately, the knee pads were doing their job pretty well, and I found that I could sit comfortably on the big vent pipe that Ray the Plumber had put up there way back in June.

Once untangled, cable number one had to be poked down into the stud cavity by the new wall oven. The two speaker cables I poked up there a few weeks ago indicated the exact location I needed to poke through with this one. The building code today requires that any hole into the attic be plugged up with insulation, to prevent hot gases from getting into the attic space in case of fire. To pass inspection, Pete had filled up all the cable holes with a spray foam stuff that I now needed to somehow open up for the new cable. And I didn't have anything to poke at it with. So I manipulated the speaker wires that were in the hole, moving them around from side to side, trying to enlarge the hole, and I eventually was able to poke it on through, without too much effort. One down, two to go.

The next one was going to be a challenge. It was right next to the skylight shaft, and the framing at its base for some reason was double studs thick, and I knew from running the cabe before that I couldn't come down in the same spot as the existing ones because those turn sideways, go through another stud, before ending up at the electrical box. Now that the walls are all covered up below, that wouldn'r be possible. So I had to guess- and cross my fingers- that the place I think I needed to drill a new hole would actually be in the right place. (I did that once before in my previous house and ended up drilling into a camera bag that was in my closet!). This time, I lucked out. The drill I brought up went through the double studs like a hot knife through butter, it didn't feel like I hit anything nasty, and I poked the cable through into what I hoped would be the spot right above the targeted electrical box. I had to wait to see how close I came once I poked the third cable through.

Third cable, no problem, and by then I had the hang of crab-walking from joist to joist. No poke-throughs with my feet, and as I exited the space, I replaced the R-30 batts on the skylight shaft.

The trick really came down to whether or not I could actually get the cable all the way into the wall box - especially the one by the skylight. The others all had some accessibility from an unfinished back wall- but that one was totally enclosed. So I unwound all the cable already in the box and snapped open one of the prts in the back, and there it was - just sitting there like I had planned it and executed it like a pro. I used my fish tape to snag it in a matter of seconds, pulled it through the port, and all became right with the world. All wired up for sound; now all we have to do is find the money to buy the components!

Most of this was written at the Majestic Bay Theater while waiting for the new Coen Brothers' movie to start- all of it on bberry. My thumbs are sore. ;-)

The Fabulous Finishes Foragers

I made a comparison the other day with Heather about how a big part of interior design is a lot like foraging, looking for finishes and furnishings that work together, imagining their final assembly in your head as you pick and choose through incredible volumes of options. I'm just not good at that, nor do I have the attention span for it. But I am so glad that Heather has the patience, and that Jonni was able to make it down to our house today to guide her through it all.

They got everything selected, from paint colors to the additon of grasscloth to our palette, and a change to the kitchen tile countertop laminate! (Good think I didn't order those yet!) It's going to be beautiful.

(Another post directly from email right after shooting the shot.)

Lightwell & Daltile & Stairs- Oh My!

Steve did some stealth handiwork of his own today, putting in the lightwell in front of Kian's bedroom window. He had to reroute the big rain drain to do it, but he did it. Looks great. Will get some river rock to place in the bottom so dirt doesn't splash on the window.

Meanwhile, I went to the Daltile place and picked up most of the bathroom tile, all except the basement's floor tile- that'll come on the 18th. The tile I did bring home is now stacked up in Kian's room ready and waiting for Steve to start the installation.

And as Pete's working his way through the basement drywall, he started putting in the framing for the under-stairs cubby hole, where there'll be a small bookshelf that I picked up from Ikea on Sunday.

And the insulation guys installed the rigid polyisocyanurte on the crawlspace concrete walls, including a medium density spray foam over the sole plate to ensure a nice tight seal. It'll be cozy warm in the Kayak Storage Facility for sure now. All that's left for them to do is the extra attic insulation that'll be blown in on Monday. (Remember? I have to finish pulling all that cable by then....will I make it? BottleRockit has a rare mid-day gig on Sunday, a repeat appearance at a beach house on Lake Goodwin by Kayak Point. That'll get in the way of finishing the cable running. I guess I may have to take some time off on Friday.

Red letter day for tennis tonight by the way- Midori and I beat John and Barbara for the first time. John is like a 4.5; Midori and I are like maybe 3.0 on a good day, something less than that usually. So taking a set against John felt, well, pretty darn awesome.

That's it for now- all coming to you from the blackberry tonight; left the laptop at the office. C

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Ninja Cable Runner

I got up at oh-dark-thirty this morning (5:30AM) to sneak over under cover of darkness and put the Cat-5 cable where it needed to go. First thing I did was open all the exterior doors to vent out all that toxicity. Then I opened the skylight and windows. The air was thick with chemicals. The heat was on, too, so when I went into the Heather Murchison Kayak Storage Facility, it was pretty cozy and warm. The kayak will be very happy there. Incidentally, the insulation guys are putting in the rigid insulation in that space today!

Steve (bless his heart) pre-drilled the cable holes for me per our discussion yesterday, and even put in a 1/2" copper pipe to show me where the hole was to run the cable from the Kayak Storage Facility into the floor framing. It was almost easy. I ended up making I think 6 in-and-out trips to and from the crawlspace in order to start the cable pull, then pull it back due to a knot, restart it, then pull it back for incorrect routing reasons on the pull side (too close to the light fixtures, underneath the insulation instead of over it, etc. But in the end, I accomplished the Ninja Cable Mission by 7:20, after which I went home to shower and head off to work.

Ikea order is ready to be placed; maybe later today. We'll see. I have this weekend to run the cable in the ceiling. On Monday, the insulation guys come back to blow mass quantities of insulation into the attic. It'll be like a blizzard hit it, only it'll be all fluffy and warm instead of freezing and wet.

First Coat, Mega Fumes & Basement Drywall

As noted in the email-on-the-fly postings earlier today, the oak floor guys got the whole house sanded and filled, and the first coat of Swedish finish was put down near the end of the day. By the time I got there around 6:45, it was all but totally dry, and the toxic smell of whatever they use in that stuff was wafting through the open doors for ventilation.

My friend Darryl had his floors refinished just a few weeks ago. Shortly after they were finished, while they were waiting for the finish to cure before moving back in, he popped in to grab a couple clothing items. Only a few minutes. By the time he came out his wife said his face looked totally flushed and his head was spinning. It really is unfortunate there aren't any affordable options that are also as highly durable. It's the one thing about our project that is bleedingly non sustainable. But it sure looks good!

Here's a peek at the view when you come in the front door.

While all that was going on upstairs, Steve and Pete spent the day in the basement hanging drywall. Here's a shot of the Media Room looking at the recess where someday the big screen flat panel will go. The missing drywall piece is there because that's the place to which I need to run that pesky extra cat-5 cable. I have it all bundled now and I'm going there early in the morning to "Get 'er done!"

So I've been wondering how the boys were planning on handling all the pipes coming out of the ceiling and the walls in the Central Plant. That looked like a lot of fussy little drywall pieces all cut and fit carefully around little pipes in tight places. I know what it would look like if I did it - but I was pleasantly surprised to see how the pros were able to just totally nail it. It's like the raw drywall was drilled for the pipes after the fact. Those guys are awsome.

Entry Level

The Foyer looks like this now! The first coat goes on today, and the final two coats go on after all the work is done.

Another Spacious Shot

This is looking from Nana towards the front wall.

Wood Flooring Nears 90%

At lunchtime today, I stopped by to catch up with Steve (He of The Mongolian Adventure), and saw that the wood floor guys have made significant progress. It really gives the whole room that spaciousness to see the oak go all the way to the Nanawall now.

He's Baaa-aack

Steve returns to the project from Mongolia today- not sure what he'll be doing yet as he begins the ramp-down back to the daily grind. In my experience, I find many people returning from a long international trip get some type of illness immediately upon their return. Seems to be some combination of fatigue, jet lag, and exposure to who knows what types of organisms somewhere along the journey's path. I contracted lepto-spirosis on a 10 day trip to Hawaii in 1978 and came close to biting the big one (aka buying the farm) while in the hospital as they were trying to figure out what the heck was wrong with me. Let's hope Steve is just fine; he's certainly in fantastic shape.

I finally made it to Ikea to get the cabinet order squared away- it looks like everything is on the shelf there ready for pickup and assembly- there's just one glitsch. The wall where the wall-oven and pantry will go is an inch too short of being wide enough. Unfortunately Ikea's cabinet dimensions are a little less flexible, and I can't get a pull-out pantry any thinner than 15 inches. So I've asked Pete to see what he might come up with. It seems adding an inch of drywall to the end wall would be okay, and maybe we do it with a step in the wall so it doesn't mess up the switch plates. I'll let you know.

I'm on a train to Portland now, the project team from work is heading down to Oregon Health Sciences University to see the installation of a wastewater membrane bio-reactor, because we're considering it seriously for our project in Seattle. It takes the raw sewage from the building and through a series of filters and biological chambers, converts it to Class A potable water. Sort of like a large scale version of the Fremen's stillsuit. Only we're not going to make people drink it. Maybe.

What a great way to travel though- relaxed, spacious, scenic, and cheap. It's not that much slower than flying to Portland when you factor arrival time, security check, etc.

I sure hope the flooring guys don't puncture any of the hydronic heat lines today! Talk with ya'll later.

Sunny Backyard Photo

Hi; just testing out whether or not it works to send this photo by email and have it posted directly to the blog. If you're reading this, it worked. If there's a bunch of privacy notification stuff below, I'll edit that out later.

Five Bucks in One Day!

Went from just over $30 to $35.20 overnight. ====>>

You guys did some serious ad-clicking since I last posted. Sorry I don't have any photos yet - the changes have been pretty subtle, though I'll post one of the newel posts later. It'll be a post-post post-post.

September 5, 2008; Pipe Disaster!!!

I had just left Pete at the house, stopping by after work to check in and let him know that Heather was real happy with how things are looking, when I got a voice message from him that said he had an accident while starting the installation of the newel posts for the stair railing. He forgot about the pipes. Water from the heating system started bubbling out where he was saw-cutting, and spewed over much of the basement. He wasn't sure where or how exactly to turn off all the water, so he went to the manifold in the master bedroom closet and shut all those off, but water was still coming out. So he went to the central plant and electrical panel and shut everything off at the source. Oy! Finally it stopped.

Evan Conkilin, the hydronic heat guy, says it's no big deal to fix the leak, and he'll send someone out tomorrow (Saturday) morning at 9:00 to fix it. Good thing all the ceiling wasn't installed in the basement yet, and only a small amount of the insulation got wet. And it's still pretty much bare concrete floors down there. All in all, it could have been much much worse.

Off to Ikea this morning to chase down the kitchen cabinets and some shelves, then BottleRockit has a gig in Vancouver at the big Sausagefest event at St. Joseph's Catholic Church; I guess it's a pretty big event according to Darren the Drummer who used to live there. They pay well, too - second biggest take for BottleRockit yet. What is it about Catholic churches and tubular meats? St. John's in Wallingford has the Wurst festival going on in a few weeks too. I grew up Catholic and the only tubular meat we had on a regular basis was the sliced up hot dogs in the beanie-weenies if you went for the hot lunch. Maybe it's a Vatican 3 thing.

Prime Space

We've reached the part of the project during which there isn't a great amount of visible change anywhere. Pete's been doing the drywall work for about two and a half weeks, and he just primed most of the new walls on the main floor. The man is a master of smoothwall and crisp corners. Heather even commented on how good the work looks, particularly at the entry skylight, where there's an oblique corner that came out laser straight and baby bottom smooth. One of the more amazing spots is at the joint between the old living room ceiling and the new addition ceiling. You can't see any difference between the old and the new. Actually, you can't see anything at all, because I didn't take any photos for you. Perhaps tomorrow?

The bad news is that I looked over my notes on the stereo system wiring, and I see that I didn't put in enough cat 5 cable. I was supposed to run a pair of cat 5s to each box, and I had only put in a single. Damn! So this weekend, Sunday afternoon I guess, I will try to get the extra cables run. It'll require some attic work (yuk), and drilling a couple extra holes here and there.

We got a postcard from Steve all the way from Mongolia!! He apparently wrote it shortly after he arrived there, and he mentions the Olympic games, but it only just arrived day before yesterday. Great picture of a yak pulling a cart with four little Mongolian kids in front of a yurt. Can't wait to hear about his adventure, which included some type of mountain trek.

Speaking of adventure, my friend Martin from work just sent me some photos of his evening activity today; paragliding on Cougar Mountain. He just started recently, but he's totally into it. Now that looks awesome!

That's it for tonight - I think I'll have the band members over before rehearsal at my place tomorrow night.

Keep clickin'!!

We Just Broke $30!!

We're rolling now, baby. CLICK ON THIS AD!! ====>>>>

What Else? Labor on Labor Day

Two days of labor is how we celebrated Labor Day. Even though the weather wasn't all that bad, I checked with Brandon & Tracy next door and he wasn't feeling well and needed to sleep, so that kept me from doing the jack hammering (Owhrr, owhrr, owhrr!) on the driveway slab. So instead, I spent the day inside just picking up trash and sweeping up big time, even though the forecast calls for about 2 more inches of drywall dust in the next couple weeks. At least it would be clean for a day or so, in case company stopped by.
Here's a couple quick shots of the living/dining room; it's starting to look like a house again. And the heat! The heat! It's so warm in there now, and the water temp on the boiler appears to only be somewhere around 105 degrees. This is really going to be interesting to see how this works out. As I'm cleaning up, any spare insulation I find I throw it into the attic. I figure it never hurts to have more insulation up there, especially with all that heat we're generating with electricity. I still haven't heard "Boo" from the insulation sub since he returned from his vacation and after I left a couple messages. I should try him tomorrow just to close the loop. A guy could get a full time job being a Construction Manager for a single family home, I swear.

Today, I got the 40 pound demo hammer instead of the 60 pounder, and it made all the difference in the world. I could actually manage it without feeling like I had to do the clean and jerk every time it poked through the slab. It was exhausting. But with the 40 pounder, that the guy said wasn't going to be effective for breaking up a slab, I was able to get the whole rest of the driveway chunked up in less than two hours. Record time.

So that left most of the day - from noon until about 5:30 for Heather and me to pull up the chunks and pile them up for the new patio. It was a full day of hauling chunks up hill, and double wheelbarrow loads from the back yard, taking bites out of the orca pile of dirt and moving them to the front yard. Labor, labor labor. Working in the front yard makes it possible for all the curious neighbors to stop by and make jokes about laboring on Labor Day. Of course, we laughed each time.

At the end of the day today, this is what the future patio looked like. Almost all the way to the same floor level as the living room, and we're pretty much out of big old concrete chunks now; only a few more left that we're using to hold down the cardboard on the "grass." I guess you'd call it yardboard, not cardboard.

And we were able to build up the ground in front of the main entrance too, so the concrete stoop won't require 16 yards of concrete. Just 4 maybe. Here's a 'Before & After" shot, the left one taken on Saturday after I put on the waterproofing and protection board, and the right one taked this morning. Pete put in a full day today too, more coats of mud on the drywall, making it smoother and smoother. He really is a craftsman - and the corners are all crisp and true. Having done my share of D.I.Y drywall in the past, I have much appreciation for his work. It's looking real good.

Tomorrow it's back to work - more labor after all the laboring over the weekend.

Movin' Dirt & Waterproofing

It was a hard work kind of day today. It started out with installing a layer of Tremco Paraseal, a Bentonite waterproofing product on all the front concrete walls. To fasten it to the concrete, I got to use a Hilti powder activated fastening gun, firing small explosive charges with inch and a quarter nails, about six inches on center all over the dang place. Pow, pow, pow all day long. (Owhrr, owhrr, owhrr!) After that, I put a layer of drainage mat/protection board over it to keep the backfill from damaging the Bentonite and to let water wick away from the wall. The photo below shows both condtions; on the left is the Bentonite with the fasteners all over it holding it to the wall; on the right it's been covered with the drainage mat. That's a chunk of concrete in the middle of it all.

So after all the bang bang bang, Heather and I spent the rest of the day hauling dirt and chunks of concrete from all over the back yard to pile it all up against the house for the patio and entry stoop. The ground level is getting up there slowly but surely, tomorrow we'll be doing it again.

I was also able to get the same two-layer waterproofing system installed on outer wall of Daniel's room where he garage door used to be. By then, Pete had shown up and was slapping up more mud on the drywall. He had never seen these high falootin' products before, so it was all new to him.

Tomorrow I'll probably get the demo hammer again too, so I can finish breaking up the old driveway into chunks that we can use to build up the patio higher too. It's going to be another hard working kind of day again.

W00-H00!!! Warm as Toast!!!

Adam Sandler got the puppy running about 3:30 yesterday afternoon, fixing whatever it was that wasn't allowing the boiler to -uh - boil. By the time I showed up, the water temperature was a balmy 150 degrees F, and Pete was working with the programmable thermostat to see if he could make it stay at a certain temperature until he came back in the morning, instead of going to the lower night time temperature.

This morning, I popped in for a moment and it was toasty warm; if the floor wasn't so dusty I wouldn've taken off my shoes to warm my toes. Where there is bare subfloor and a few holes, you can feel the warmth emanating from the joist cavity. I'd say it's very cool but it's very warm indeed.

Drywall work on the main floor is looking awsome; Pete starts in the basement today!

We Got Heat!

Just called Pete; Adam Sandler came out today and got 'er all fired up and the heat is emanating off the floor like the embers of a braai. Only not as hot. Can't wait to check it out - going to leave the office in a few minutes.

Wednesday, August 27; Fire 'Er Up, Boys!

Pete wondered if we could turn on the heat system and get her going today so the drywall could start drying faster. Too much humidity and cool temperatures are slowing down his progres.

So I put the thermostat wires together, flipped the pump breaker on, heard everything click into gear, and flipped on the boiler breaker and switches, and waited for the water temperature to start climbing.

And I waited. And waited. Nothing. Called Even Conklin; he said it could be an electrical issue. Called Sparky; we agreed it wasn't an electrical issue. Called Evan back, and he was going to send out Anthony (the Adam Sandler look-alike) to come out on Thursday.

Keep your fingers crossed; we're going into the cool season and there ain't no backup to this system,..... I'm sure it'll be fine. :-)

It's Wednesday and It's $28.15

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:-)

Wetness Outside, & Some Inside

I know what you're thinking: "What the heck is that?" Don't blame ya. Looks like a wet streak on the basement floor. It is, sort of - it's a drying wet streak, where Pete put down the self-levelling concrete, a very viscous cementitious mixture that seeks its own level so that the floor is nice and flat. Problem is, there's flatness and there's levelness. Stuff can be flat without being level. We're going for flatness here since the floor is all catywompus and it's really the best we can reasonably hope for. When the cementitious stuff seeks its own level, it flows into areas Pete wasn't thinking it would flow into, so he's having to use more stuff than he anticipated.
And more drywall work big time upstairs, including mudding in the bathroom. Pete's really sticking to the mission to get the upstairs ready for us as soon as possible.

Since it was raining like a cow peeing on a flat rock tonight, we decided to check out a movie at The Crest; "Mongol", the story of how Genghis Kahn became who he was from the ripe old age of nine when he selected his bride, to the beginnings of the most powerful army of all time. Check it out.

Monday, August 25.

We are so not going to get a payoff from the ads on this site unless something drastically different happens. We're still holding at $24.58, which is where it was before my fatal blog deletion. So click away, guys.

Pete almost finished leveling out the basement floor today, and was cranking away on the drywall mudding around the new main entrance when I came by the house this evening. To my surprise, the recessed ceiling lights were in operation for the first time! You could see them through the front patio door (see top photo). Sparky had put in one light switch for those fixtures just before he left apparently, and Pete was taking advantage of it. Odd that I didn't notice it earlier.

And in case you hadn't heard, it was pouring rain pretty much all day. All that cardboard that we cleverly laid out to kill the grass and weeds on the front lawn was pretty well soaked, and fortunately Danny and I put down the biggest concrete chunks on top of it all to keep any of it from blowing away in all the strormy conditions.

Kian, home from summer camp after three weeks in the deep woods, saw the house for the first time in about a month, and for a guy who's pretty typically non-plussed about everything, he let on just a little bit of surprise at the big old Nanawall and some satisfaction with the Man-Cave. I think he's really looking forward mostly to the idea of the media room and the speakers around the house. It's a guy thing, I'm sure.

That's it for tonight. Pretty quiet except for Pete's drywall cranking; hope to see more tomorrow!

Sunday Sunday Sunday!

It was pretty quiet on the homestead front today; though it again started early with a quick trip to dump the clean wood, which Heather had loaded into my Matrix yesterday quickly without taking the time to shake off all the bugs and creepy crawlies before placing it in the car. She knows that I (and our two sons) get "somewhat" creeped out by spiders, but it didn't matter. She just crammed it all in there (bless her heart, there was a boatload of it - or a Matrix load anyway), and let the bugs crawl where they may! Which is fine if she's driving, but not me! So I had to dump the wood first thing this morning and completely vacuum out the interior just in case and critters thought they found a new home.

After that, I worked up a little Sketchup model for the bathroom, since we're trying to decide how much tile to put on the walls and if there needs to be any additional color striping. I think we agreed on some things using the model, but we still have a little more work to do this week. Soon, too, because Pete's really cranking on the drywall work. He'll be ready for finishes soon.

Which takes me to the next photo; it's the floor edge at the stairwell, and there are a number of odd things coming together here. The railing needs to be mounted soon so the flooring detail there needs to be designed and drawn. The concrete basement wall sticks out a little further than the framed wall above, and then there's the slope of the ceiling that angles down, and the joists that need to be covered up with wallboard or wood trim, and the opening I want to keep into Kian's "Man Cave" from the stairs, and the handrail that needs to go down the stairs. Oy! Just listing all the stuff to do makes me want to stay up all night and work on it. Not.

I heard Karin and Phyl made it all the way to Klamath Falls yesterday on their trek to Burning Man. Today they should have pulled into their campsite at the big event sometime late this afternoon.

Kian is back from three weeks at summer camp; Heather's so glad to have him back.

And lastly, it was Heather's dear friend Grassa's birthday today (29!!); she is one of the owners of Tempero do Brasil, the awsome Brazilian restaurant in the U District by Ravenna Avenue. H and I joined them briefly for a wonderful get-together including Pam and Tim from Tacoma, Antonio (of course), and so many other I cant' remember off hand. Maybe H will log in now and add detail and photos!

And that's all that's happening tonight in Lake Wedgbegone, where all the women are beautiful, all men are handsome, and all the children are above average.

Ciao!

Hot, Sweaty, Exhausted

It was going to be a working kind of Saturday today; H and I are trying to keep Pete and Steve on schedule, so we need to do what we can to keep the ball rolling. I started early by going in to check all of the perimeter insulation in the floor joist cavity - my earlier investigations gave me little confidence things were okay. Sure enough, the first area I looked at had the heat tubes up against the rim joist with no insulation separating them (see first photo). That means if you had an infrared goggles this winter and you looked at the house, there'd be a bright red spot right at the floor line where lots of precious heat would be emanating through the wood. There were a couple of spots like that, and a couple spots where I was looking out through small holes to the inside face of the Tyvek (that stuff that Nascar prefers), so I foamed them up real good and put the batts lovingly back into place.

One thing I did find that surprised me; it's a Sparky thing. It looks like he must've ran out of ground wire that had to run back to the main water line because when I took off some of the insulation to inspect, I saw that he had a line of grounding wire running diagonally through the ceiling of the Man Cave, and one of the holes drilled in the joist was made in a way that separated the diagonal bridging from the joist on both sides! (See next photo, showing copper cable and dangling bridging) I nailed the bridging back into place; don't know why it wasn't done earlier. I started all the insulation inspecting at 6:00 and finished the "repairs" by 10:30 pretty much on schedule.

That's when Heather arrived on her bicycle to begin the process of using all the concrete rubble stacked up in the front yard as filler, on which that giant orca-sized dirt pile in the back will provide additional fill, to build up for the front yard patio (a.k.a. "Breakfast Deck"). Daniel joined in the fun about noonish, and together the three of us worked on stacking alternate layers of dirt and rubble to make an earthwork lasagne (without the cheese).

And I had a hare-brained scheme to get a concrete saw to cut up the old basement driveway into chunks that could be neatly stacked too. That turned out to be about the slowest process in the history of Wedgwood, so I switched to a (gasp) 60 pound demo hammer (aka The Breaker) and "Owhrrr, owhrrr, owhrrr!!!") , and let me tell you, the tool only does part of the work. That was hard labor - I remember why I like working in an office again.

By about 3:30 the three of us were all just dragging our heinies because of the heat, but Judy (of the Jack & Judy hip roof and large windowed house down the street) came in for a brief tour (mostly to see the Nanawall of course). When she left, she was able to join the Thumbs Up Crowd too. Check out that shirt. We seem to be providing a pretty fair amount of entertainment for some of the neighbors. Richard came by while I was using the 60 pound mother of all demo hammers, sticky sweaty and barely able to lift the thing out of the pavement after it drilled through it like a hot knife through butter. He was talking about using it in the basement to lower the slab height someday. Oy! The worst thing is, we wouldn't get to watch him if he's in the basement.

Just a tip; if you're under six feet tall, get someone else to use this demo hammer thing. I'm just under 5'-10" and it was a chore to keep lifting it- a couple inches would have helped. But everyone needs to find things out in their own way, eh?

Meanwhile, Pete put in more than a full day, mostly leveling out the troublesome basement floors (Danny's room on the left and the Media Room on the right). My architect friend Jon was recommending some high tech cementitious self leveling stuff, so I almost bought some yesterday, but I called Pete to find out how many bags to get. He said "How much are they?" "Forty bucks a bag." "Oy! Ya know - I am positive I can do it with good old fashioned concrete and that's only three bucks a bag." "You're the boss!" Amazing. So he was in the nice cool basement all day, mixing and pouring thin layers of concrete while the rest of us were out in the hot sun entertaining the neighbors.

At the end of the day, we are just totally exhausted from moving dirt and rubble, amazed at how Pete and Steve can just bang out this kind of work day after day, and on weekends they go on thousand mile long bicycle rides - or hundreds of miles anyway. They are amazing. Danny and I drove by the house about 8:00 and Pete was still finishing up a few things. Long weekend day for the wicked, huh?

The original blog is still toast; it must be forever. Ah well.....this'll do. Ciao.

As you can maybe tell by the fact that Heather is shielding her eyes from the sun, it was a gorgeous afternoon in Seattle today, as Richard and Sarah took advantage of our visit to the house to get another tour. Heather's been choosing to not visit every day like me; she holds out for at least three or four days so that every time she does come through the doors the degree of change takes her breath away.

Today, Pete started taping and mudding the drywall on the main floor! Totally significant milestone. And the cool thing is, Pete likes doing taping and mudding! If you're a D.I.Y. homeowner type at all, you probably think of that part of the job as the one you really want to hire out to someone else. And that someone else turns out to be unreliable, alcoholic, doesn't show up, and can't seem to finish the work - but as H and I gave R & S the full tour this evening, Pete just kept on plugging away happily with his trowel and tape, covering up the seams and screw holes, working his way around the living room, dining room, and kitchen.

Meanwhile, Sarah and Richard gave us two thumbs up for the bathroom, noting the Jacuzzi tub, the skylight, and the storage niche. And of course, two thumbs up for Nanawall. Sarah was itching to see it two weeks ago the night that Pete was installing it and we heard the "@&#!*#!!" emanating from the living room...., so we left him alone and Sarah missed the grand unveiling. But tonight she did get to check it out, and was able after careful deliberations with Richard, to give us two thumbs up for Nana.

And as we were leaving, Richard and Sarah to go do their thing and H and I headed off for the Bon Voyage party for our Burning Man adventurer friends Karin Kough and Phyl Stewart, they were able to give us the two big thumbs up!!!

Check Out The Headline Act

At Vancouver, Washington's big social event of the year!

Moisture Mystery Mistake

Pete left me a note last night about the huge wetness by the basement door. It turns out he left it open during the heaviest rain yesterday, after going in an out of it a lot earlier in the day. Whew. The real leakage amount will be much easier than trying to plug a three foot wide by six foot eight inch rain opening! Talking to the oak floor guy tonight at 5:00.

The Bucks Are Back!!!!

I may have lost the old blog, but the dollars we tallied are still in the system!

So keep clicking on that ad on the top right. I just learned that there's a way to get picture ads to show up there now, too. That'll keep you clicking!

Drywall, Insulation, & Moisture

(These are a few of my favorite things?)

Speaking of moisture, it was certainly a bit moist out there today; so moist we had to cancel the outdoor tennis thing for the third week in a row, though it wasn't for weather reasons the last two times. We'll be rookies again next time we get on the court. Last week it was my fault - I needed to do the speaker wire and cat-5 cable before the insulation cluster started last Thursday. Since then, Pete's been covering up stud spaces all over the house, and the insulation inspection happened today, (we passed), so Pete can now cover over all the insulated walls too. The phot on the right is the ridge skylight over the entry now; nothing but drywall and skylight trim now, even over the ridge beam. I don't konw if there's a mandatory requirement for those stickers to stay on the glass- I think it's like those tags on mattresses and pillows - "Unlawful to remove" or something like that. I pulled one off a pillow once when I was eight and I expected sirens and cops to show up any second. Hopefully the window and skylight labels aren't in the same category.

You recognize this insulated area on the left? That's the Heather Murchison Kayak Storage Facility. The walls are insulated because we're going with the new fangled insulated crawlspace concept instead of that old fashioned (but traditional!) cold dank uninsulated mold producing bug infested vented crawlspace. The underside of the floor was actually not supposed to be insulated as shown, but apparently Pete's command of the Spanish language is insufficient to serve him in the realm of local trade worker management. They had the stuff in the joist spaces before he could go to the online translator program and say "Uno momento senors; no ponga el aislamiento allí, por favor." So we got insulation there wher it don't need to be. The intent was that we use what looks like aluminized mylar bubble wrap, about a quarter inch thick. It keeps the air in the joist space sufficiently "dead" and warm (according to Evan Conklin the Hydronic Heat King), but still allows some heat to bleed out into the crawlspace to keep it warm enough to not have to ventilate it. That's the theory anyway; I went to a very expensive seminar to learn that.

That expensive seminar also taught me that whenever there's a possiblity of condensation occurring in a stud or joist cavity, it's a very very bad thing. So I've been a little concerned about the making sure the perimeter of the basement wall at the ceiling intersection is nice and tightly insulated, because that's where the greatest risk is of any cold air sneaking into the house. It's where the carpenter's work (in 1948) might have left a little gaposis occasionally at the rim joist. So Pete and I discussed using some of that spray-foam insulation to essentially cover up the rim joist on the inside, and I gave it a try this evening. See that thing that looks like a really wide Santa Clause beard? That's my first attempt. It was slightly less than totally successful, but it does provide a good seal right at the wall and ceiling intersection, so it might work. I checked out very many of the insulated areas and I must say the insulation guys did a pretty good job of filling those cavities with batts after all, so after checking it out, I looked at just sealing that ceiling gap with the spray can foam, and it seems to work pretty well in that fashion, and may be sufficient for what we need done. I'll talk w/Pete tomorrow.

To do all that insulation work, I was using the magic "light in the cap" hat that my brother Tom gave me for Christmas last year. Besides illuminating the joist cavities real well, the other thing it did for me was pretty much cast light wherever I looked, and when I was leaving, I happened to glance down at the new concrete wall where the garage door used to be. See that little dark area? One guess as to what that is. H2O. Seems like the lack of gutters so far and the driveway still causing water to zip on down to the bottom can still cause a bit of a moisture issue there. When the gutter go in that'll help, and when I take out the concrete driveway so moisture can just infiltrate the sandy dirt around the house that'll probably solve this issue. We will see soon, I'm sure.

Then I noticed that the new basement door is even wetter than that; take a look at these pics. The moisture extends all the way through the bathroom wall into the bathroom floor area (small photo at bottom right). It looks like the door sill needs some serious sealant and CLH* treatment. The gutters will help enourmously - right now the roof area drains directly into this little area. We'll have to watch this area closely.

*CLH = Caulk Like Hell