The Good, the Bad, and the Crapper

Evidence of the plumber's work on Friday

A trip to the house on Friday revealed water in the toilets. Pretty exciting, I know. However, Friday night also revealed water coming through the kitchen ceiling (bathtub above). Not so joyous. We marked the spot and it doesn't seem to be spreading, so we hope it's not anything serious. I did stop packing things in the nearby cabinets in case they have to come down to fix the issue.

Stairs to basement- shelf along back wall finished

Other evidence of work showed that Rob and co. also worked on the stairs, balusters, railings, and the trim around the stairs, and John sealed part of the floor during the day. John was also over Saturday morning setting the footings for the side entryway. Plenty of happenings, but I kept feeling like it was all things that should've been happening last week, or perhaps Thursday at the very least.

No more worries about falling off the upstairs landing

side entry footings

I have to say, my master carpenter, Anthony, has been doing stellar work in the middle of the night. He cut a beautiful hole for our new sink and secured all the counter tops. I think he likes the fact that the new sink has such right angles- easier to cut the top for it!

Kitchen sink in and ready for the plumber

We've also started moving things over as much as possible. As I previously mentioned, we have to move out of our rental by the end of the month. We may not be ready, but at least our stuff can live in the new house in the rooms that are done (like the upstairs bedrooms).

Anthony and Kevin moving our stuff.

Kevin is a major trooper to help us move out in December and then back in again now.

He even brought his own beer this time.

After moving the washer/dryer out in December, Anthony and Kevin decided it was pretty heavy and called in a third helper, Dave.

It's a little extra work on both ends with this move because we have to be careful to keep our stuff at the new house out of the way of any workers, we have to restore the rental house to its exact previous glory, and we have to keep out a set of items for us to live off of wherever we end up until we can really move in. Fortunately this will be our final move!

Kevin has his own dolly.

I think that pretty much pegs you to help people move.

We're very grateful for this.

-J

The Night Job

Oceanographer by day, amateur homebuilder by night, and enough grace and stamina leftover to take a time-out and care for Natalie when she pulls her first fever (no worries- she's better now). The glow next door reflects the many nights spent working next door (and highlights the need for shades/curtains).

Sometime in the middle of the night

On Thursday most of our light fixtures were installed by the electricians. Apparently we had lost count of how many lights we actually had, as we ended up being short three fixtures...the master bedroom closet, the washer/dryer area, and the mudroom (after all the problems it's caused us, we just forgot all about it). A few others, like the ones over the island, were deferred until the island was actually secured in place with a countertop. Still, it was fun to see some of the rooms take shape with the trim work nearly complete and the lights up...some of the lights even have temporary bulbs.

Anthony and Natalie checking out the sconce in the bathroom.

We are striving for a Energy Star HERS rating that will require at least 80% of the lights to be something other than incandescent. As most electricians and 'lighting experts' abhor CF or similar energy efficient bulbs because of their un-incandescentness, most of our bulbs will be supplied by a energy rating company (the same people who will pressure test our whole house), and are yet to come in. So the electricians left a skeleton crew of bulbs in place, perhaps to show us that they all actually worked. Again, much of the house, really just the simple rooms, feels like it is almost there...and just waiting for the floor.

These little button lights are our go-to easy fix for many areas of the house.

Which brings me to the rest of the weekend - after another trip to our Swedish hardware/furniture/solution store - we came home with the three remaining lights as well as our temporary solution to a kitchen countertop. Sunday, Anthony finished putting together and securing the cabinets and placed the temporary countertop. There is still one piece of the temporary top that we'll have to pick up, but it was on back order until this coming week. We're using temporary tops in the kitchen and bathrooms so that we can complete the project enough to move in and then focus on making the real ones at our leisure.

Island with butcher block top

We also finalized our door hardware on Friday, which took a dramatic switcheroo right at the end. Many of our selection 'issues' seem to occur when we have some entrenched design preference or idea or concept fixed in our heads that, over time, becomes untenable. Of course once you've decided to go a certain direction, it takes so much longer and so much more effort to change to a direction you'd previously discounted for some, previously iron-clad reason. (Perhaps this is what our builder was going through with our stairs). We were originally heading in one direction with cool handlesets and deadbolts and fancy rectangular rosettes from Emtek, when it occurred to us we wouldn't be able to leave and lock our doors without a key (which in hindsight, everyone should be able to do). After a too-long struggle to find a workable option with Emtek, we ended up changing lock and lever style as well as manufacturers completely. Writing this, it sounds like trivial issue, which I totally agree with, but for 'frugal wafflers' this is a bad scene.

Finally, it's felt like we've been hemorrhaging monopoly money for the past few months, but we think we now have everything ordered, planned out, or waiting to be installed. Everything, that is, except the kitchen sink. We'll have to get on that.

-J

What Two Can Do

The mom and dad crew continued to slave away yesterday on their own. They managed to complete all three bedrooms. So what if they can no longer stand up straight? At least they know that this winter they can come back and lie down on an all-house-heating-pad-of-a-floor.

My parents pressing and screwing aluminum panels into the plywood tracks.

Yes, we're putting even more metal into this house!

Anthony returned home in the late evening, and then sometime in the middle of the night got worried that it would rain on our plywood. He entered into a crazy can't-find-the-tarps-solution-seeking fiasco that eventually involved him single-handedly moving all the plywood and then covering it with shower curtains. He was quite disappointed when he woke up this morning and it wasn't raining yet. But then you could just hear his inner voice squeaking "I knew it" in delight when the rain started up mid-morning.

- J

Booyah - Walls!

Even though light was failing us - being the end of a long day away from home - we came home to see  walls up and the first floor finally taking its shape.

 I think we both had the same thought...
"Huh, we could actually live here."

-A