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

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.