It turns out that, if given the choice between driving a nail through the fleshy part of one's hand or doing the same with a screw, my recommendation would be the nail. This is likely a decision that I could have been able to come to a priori, but I can now - with little satisfaction in the knowing - say with first hand experience (I pause for the collective groan from the bad pun).
I took most of the day off today to work with Ben on the house. My first thought was that I would work this morning at Tully's, then meet Ben around noon to help around the house. After seeing the sunny weather this morning, and given the forecast called for rain, I chose to postpone the work work for house work.
Although we had fairly large plans for the day, we ended an 11 hour workday having installed all the windows both upstairs and down. They look very good. The amount of light that comes into the basement once you take all the boards off is quite amazing. The problem was that all of the holes were different measurements on the outside compared to the inside (in other words, in the 6-10 inches of wall the hole changed size). This caused Ben a lot of consternation and made both of us spend far too much time trying to place the windows. However, in the end we set 8 windows in the MIL basement apartment, 4 windows on the first floor (the others had already been finished), and the three windows at the loft height.
Tomorrow is back to more electrical. We have another draw inspection scheduled for Thursday, and hope to have most of the electrical completed by the end of this weekend.
My hand is in a little too much pain to continue typing, so I'm going to leave it there for the night...
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
Let There Be Dark - Updated with Pictures
Blog updates are not coming easily, as I've been finding it very difficult to stare at a computer all day at work only to come home and do it some more. So here's a rush description of what's been happening since I last wrote:
-- Wiring: Over the weekend we shut off the power and ripped out all the old wires and outlet boxes to make way for the new ones. This was much harder than I thought it would be. My stupid, weak forearms couldn't even cut through most of the wires, leaving Sam to do all this work and develop a big finger blister in the process. This weekend, we also got a lot of the new wires strung in the basement and in part of the main house, but there's still lots to do there. Lots and lots.
UPDATE: Got more wires out, put some home runs in. Most of the electrical in the basement is done now. Can lights are also in throughout the house. The pix below are about a week old, so things are already looking much different. I promise I will update as soon as I have more time!
Breaker box in the living room:
Wires running along basement wall:
Can lights in the loft:
-- Roof: The roof is finally done! Pictures to come for this and all the updates below. (Check back to this same post. I'll probably just put the pictures up here rather than starting a new post for them. Just don't have the patience to wait for them to upload right now.)
UPDATED WITH PICTURES:
View from below (from the loft):
View from above:
-- Plumbing/heating: These are also done! The poor sub-contractor, Martin, apparently thinks the house is cursed, as anything that could go wrong did. He had to make a bunch of extra trips out to the house -- no small feat, since he lives a couple hours away (up near Bellingham).
UPDATED WITH ONE MORE PICTURE:
Our furnace, which sits in the loft but will be behind a wall:
-- Windows: Our windows came in, and Ben and Sam started installing them on Friday. Unfortunately, part of the order was wrong -- a few windows were frosted when they shouldn't have been. Ben and Sam decided to install a frosted window in the living room, which I think looks odd. So it looks like that one's coming out and we'll have to wait for a new window to be made. A few of the windows -- for the dining and living rooms -- are huge. I didn't really appreciate how huge until I saw them sitting in the basement, waiting to be installed. Luckily, Sam's dad and Uncle Chris were both in town on Sunday and were able to help lift those windows into place. This was a much more laborious process than anyone anticipated because, as it turns out, all the old window frames are parallelograms instead of rectangles. Ben had to do quite a bit of improvising to get them in. But they're in and look great!
UPDATED WITH PICTURES:
One of our huge windows (this one's in the dining room):
Frosted window in the living room (picture quality isn't adequately conveying why I don't like this):
More windows lined up against the wall, waiting to be installed (including our beautiful picture window, at back, that will go at the front of the MIL apartment):
-- Lighting: We had a long discussion about the lights in the living room; because the ceiling is shallower than normal, we can't put in normal can lights. We're checking to see if we can get little LEDs instead. Additionally, we had to figure out where we wanted a TV so that we could figure out where to put sconce lights. Then there was another long discussion about where to put the switches for all those lights. Hard to keep it all straight. In the end, though, I think we decided that there would be seven LEDs lighting the living room and stairs, two sconces over the fireplace (those were there previously), a sconce between the large front window and the entry door, a sconce between the door and the stairs, and a fan/light in the ceiling.
-- Framing: Ben will probably finish framing everything this week. The basement looks like it's about halfway done.
UPDATE: I have a picture posted below, but the basement looks much, much different by now. Biggest change is that Ben has now framed out the two bedrooms. One of the bedrooms' closets will need to stick out into the living room a couple of feet because it wouldn't fit with a queen bed in the bedroom. We could either put in a tiny closet instead (three feet across?) or just steal a little room from the living room. Hope we made the right decision.
Framed out south wall of the MIL:
-- Final dumpster: We filled our fifth -- and hopefully last -- dumpster, which should be hauled off soon. On a somewhat related note, we decided to pull our garbage, yard waste and recycling bins up onto the porch for now, since rude people keep using our garbage cans for their overflow garbage. Not happy about that, but don't want to go into it right now.
-- Wiring: Over the weekend we shut off the power and ripped out all the old wires and outlet boxes to make way for the new ones. This was much harder than I thought it would be. My stupid, weak forearms couldn't even cut through most of the wires, leaving Sam to do all this work and develop a big finger blister in the process. This weekend, we also got a lot of the new wires strung in the basement and in part of the main house, but there's still lots to do there. Lots and lots.
UPDATE: Got more wires out, put some home runs in. Most of the electrical in the basement is done now. Can lights are also in throughout the house. The pix below are about a week old, so things are already looking much different. I promise I will update as soon as I have more time!
Breaker box in the living room:
Wires running along basement wall:
Can lights in the loft:
-- Roof: The roof is finally done! Pictures to come for this and all the updates below. (Check back to this same post. I'll probably just put the pictures up here rather than starting a new post for them. Just don't have the patience to wait for them to upload right now.)
UPDATED WITH PICTURES:
View from below (from the loft):
View from above:
-- Plumbing/heating: These are also done! The poor sub-contractor, Martin, apparently thinks the house is cursed, as anything that could go wrong did. He had to make a bunch of extra trips out to the house -- no small feat, since he lives a couple hours away (up near Bellingham).
UPDATED WITH ONE MORE PICTURE:
Our furnace, which sits in the loft but will be behind a wall:
-- Windows: Our windows came in, and Ben and Sam started installing them on Friday. Unfortunately, part of the order was wrong -- a few windows were frosted when they shouldn't have been. Ben and Sam decided to install a frosted window in the living room, which I think looks odd. So it looks like that one's coming out and we'll have to wait for a new window to be made. A few of the windows -- for the dining and living rooms -- are huge. I didn't really appreciate how huge until I saw them sitting in the basement, waiting to be installed. Luckily, Sam's dad and Uncle Chris were both in town on Sunday and were able to help lift those windows into place. This was a much more laborious process than anyone anticipated because, as it turns out, all the old window frames are parallelograms instead of rectangles. Ben had to do quite a bit of improvising to get them in. But they're in and look great!
UPDATED WITH PICTURES:
One of our huge windows (this one's in the dining room):
Frosted window in the living room (picture quality isn't adequately conveying why I don't like this):
More windows lined up against the wall, waiting to be installed (including our beautiful picture window, at back, that will go at the front of the MIL apartment):
-- Lighting: We had a long discussion about the lights in the living room; because the ceiling is shallower than normal, we can't put in normal can lights. We're checking to see if we can get little LEDs instead. Additionally, we had to figure out where we wanted a TV so that we could figure out where to put sconce lights. Then there was another long discussion about where to put the switches for all those lights. Hard to keep it all straight. In the end, though, I think we decided that there would be seven LEDs lighting the living room and stairs, two sconces over the fireplace (those were there previously), a sconce between the large front window and the entry door, a sconce between the door and the stairs, and a fan/light in the ceiling.
-- Framing: Ben will probably finish framing everything this week. The basement looks like it's about halfway done.
UPDATE: I have a picture posted below, but the basement looks much, much different by now. Biggest change is that Ben has now framed out the two bedrooms. One of the bedrooms' closets will need to stick out into the living room a couple of feet because it wouldn't fit with a queen bed in the bedroom. We could either put in a tiny closet instead (three feet across?) or just steal a little room from the living room. Hope we made the right decision.
Framed out south wall of the MIL:
-- Final dumpster: We filled our fifth -- and hopefully last -- dumpster, which should be hauled off soon. On a somewhat related note, we decided to pull our garbage, yard waste and recycling bins up onto the porch for now, since rude people keep using our garbage cans for their overflow garbage. Not happy about that, but don't want to go into it right now.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Plumbing and Heating Pictures
UPDATE: Apparently those aren't hoses. They're flexible pipes, which is what all the fancy people are using these days. They expand better than rigid pipes, which means there's a smaller chance of having a pipe burst in the winter.
****
To be honest, I don't really understand all of what the plumbers and heat guys have been doing. Hopefully you've gotten some sense of the progress there from previous posts. This post is just to show you the pretty pictures.
Here's our water heater. It heats water for the entire house. See how tiny it is? I think I've seen burrito platters bigger than that. The water heater sits in the laundry closet upstairs. As you can see, we also have a heat vent going through that closet. This means we need to get a stackable washer and dryer if we want to maintain any storage space at all. Fortunately, it looks like you can get some pretty nice stackers over at Home Depot.
Ben showed us these hoses (is that even the right term?) to explain why we were going to have killer water pressure for our showers. Apparently the vertical hoses in the picture are bigger than normal, while the horizontal hoses coming out of them (and leading to the bathroom) are standard size. This creates a bottleneck of sorts, and increases the water pressure going into the bathroom.
There's really no point to this picture, except to say that it sure is nice to have shiny new things every once in a while.
And this picture isn't really about heating/plumbing, though you can see where we'll have a vent that helps in the whole process of pumping cool air from the basement and putting it into the main floor. (It's not quite air conditioning, but should be nice in the summers.) Instead, this picture is really about showing you our beautiful new stairs leading up to the bonus loft. I realized that I didn't have a very good picture posted of these yet.
Ah, what a feast for the eyes.
****
To be honest, I don't really understand all of what the plumbers and heat guys have been doing. Hopefully you've gotten some sense of the progress there from previous posts. This post is just to show you the pretty pictures.
Here's our water heater. It heats water for the entire house. See how tiny it is? I think I've seen burrito platters bigger than that. The water heater sits in the laundry closet upstairs. As you can see, we also have a heat vent going through that closet. This means we need to get a stackable washer and dryer if we want to maintain any storage space at all. Fortunately, it looks like you can get some pretty nice stackers over at Home Depot.
Ben showed us these hoses (is that even the right term?) to explain why we were going to have killer water pressure for our showers. Apparently the vertical hoses in the picture are bigger than normal, while the horizontal hoses coming out of them (and leading to the bathroom) are standard size. This creates a bottleneck of sorts, and increases the water pressure going into the bathroom.
There's really no point to this picture, except to say that it sure is nice to have shiny new things every once in a while.
And this picture isn't really about heating/plumbing, though you can see where we'll have a vent that helps in the whole process of pumping cool air from the basement and putting it into the main floor. (It's not quite air conditioning, but should be nice in the summers.) Instead, this picture is really about showing you our beautiful new stairs leading up to the bonus loft. I realized that I didn't have a very good picture posted of these yet.
Ah, what a feast for the eyes.
MIL Updates
Ben did most of the demo on the MIL apartment himself, while the rest of us were struggling upstairs. That's right. Sam + Cindy + Patrick + Craig + Sean + Elizabeth = 0.5(Ben). I don't know how to put in a less-than-or-equal-to sign, or that's what I would've used instead.
Picture below looks from the MIL entrance toward the back of the apartment. The living area still looks like one long room (and will remain so). On the right is where the bedrooms will be.
The kitchen (not completely demolished yet in this picture):
And the bathroom ...
Ben had to work quickly to fix up this bathroom, since he's legally required to provide such facilities for any sub-contractors. Plus, Ben needed a bathroom for himself while he's living/working in the unfinished house. We were hoping to use the original fixtures, but found them to be too damaged or stained to use. So we got a new toilet ...
... and a new tub. The sink is not new, but I think we're going to end up getting rid of that one. Originally we were thinking we'd transfer the pedestal sink to the half bathroom upstairs, but as I mentioned in a previous post, we needed to find something MUCH smaller for that space. I still want to get a sink with some storage underneath for the MIL bathroom, so I think it's bye bye pedestal.
There are still no walls around the bathroom. Just a sheet. Not ideal, but it works for now.
Picture below looks from the MIL entrance toward the back of the apartment. The living area still looks like one long room (and will remain so). On the right is where the bedrooms will be.
The kitchen (not completely demolished yet in this picture):
And the bathroom ...
Ben had to work quickly to fix up this bathroom, since he's legally required to provide such facilities for any sub-contractors. Plus, Ben needed a bathroom for himself while he's living/working in the unfinished house. We were hoping to use the original fixtures, but found them to be too damaged or stained to use. So we got a new toilet ...
... and a new tub. The sink is not new, but I think we're going to end up getting rid of that one. Originally we were thinking we'd transfer the pedestal sink to the half bathroom upstairs, but as I mentioned in a previous post, we needed to find something MUCH smaller for that space. I still want to get a sink with some storage underneath for the MIL bathroom, so I think it's bye bye pedestal.
There are still no walls around the bathroom. Just a sheet. Not ideal, but it works for now.
Other Main Floor Updates
The back of the house previously contained a second bedroom (though the walls didn't meet the ceiling, so I don't know if that technically counts as a bedroom), an open washer/dryer area and a big staircase.
Demolition in the second bedroom was a little tricky, as there were a lot of pipes in one of the walls (the wall that previously abutted the washer/dryer area), plus the ceiling is very high. On the plus side, the insulation was much newer and cleaner than in the front part of the house, which made it must less likely to rip apart during removal. Also much less likely to have disgusting crap in it.
We found another hidden window in this room, on the north wall. You can kind of see it through the doorway in the picture below. I thought it would be nice to put that window back in and get a cross-breeze going in the summers, but Ben says it's not framed properly and probably wouldn't pass inspection.
Below you can see the second bedroom after it's been framed out and cleaned up. The room will still have a high, sloped ceiling, and will still have a window opening up into the backyard.The framing on the left side of the picture separates the bedroom from the bathroom. We were originally going to put the bathroom entrance in the bedroom, creating another bed-bath suite. However, we thought it might be nice to make it a public bathroom entrance instead, in case we have company that is not staying in the second bedroom (i.e., staying in the loft instead). The only other shower on this floor is in the master suite.
So Ben created a little hallway in the back of the house, on your right as you're walking out of the kitchen. The picture below looks into the hallway. The bathroom entrance is on the left; the bedroom entrance is in the middle; and the washer/dryer/storage closet is on the right.
I don't have any great pictures of the stairs in the back right now. Below you can see the stairs in the middle of demolition. Most of the remaining drywall has since been removed as well.
Demolition in the second bedroom was a little tricky, as there were a lot of pipes in one of the walls (the wall that previously abutted the washer/dryer area), plus the ceiling is very high. On the plus side, the insulation was much newer and cleaner than in the front part of the house, which made it must less likely to rip apart during removal. Also much less likely to have disgusting crap in it.
We found another hidden window in this room, on the north wall. You can kind of see it through the doorway in the picture below. I thought it would be nice to put that window back in and get a cross-breeze going in the summers, but Ben says it's not framed properly and probably wouldn't pass inspection.
Below you can see the second bedroom after it's been framed out and cleaned up. The room will still have a high, sloped ceiling, and will still have a window opening up into the backyard.The framing on the left side of the picture separates the bedroom from the bathroom. We were originally going to put the bathroom entrance in the bedroom, creating another bed-bath suite. However, we thought it might be nice to make it a public bathroom entrance instead, in case we have company that is not staying in the second bedroom (i.e., staying in the loft instead). The only other shower on this floor is in the master suite.
So Ben created a little hallway in the back of the house, on your right as you're walking out of the kitchen. The picture below looks into the hallway. The bathroom entrance is on the left; the bedroom entrance is in the middle; and the washer/dryer/storage closet is on the right.
I don't have any great pictures of the stairs in the back right now. Below you can see the stairs in the middle of demolition. Most of the remaining drywall has since been removed as well.
Master Bedroom Update
I'm finding it difficult to keep a clean layout with Blogger, but am hoping that by making a tiny tweak -- centering the pictures instead of using a right justification -- I can at least avoid weird empty spaces. In the words of Tobias Funke, "Let the great experiment begin!"
Sam teamed up with Patrick to take out the green linoleum floor tiles in the master bedroom, which proved to have very sticky undersides. Sam said he scraped out about half of the floor before handing the job off to Patrick.
Later, Elizabeth and Sean gladly picked up some hammers and helped tear down the walls. Part of the way through the demolition, we found a window frame in the back of the room, indicating that the master bedroom used to be at the very back of the house. We joked that we could re-insert the window to restore the house to its original glory, but decided it would be very weird to have a window between the master and second bedrooms. We just don't swing that way.
Eventually, we got both sides of the walls out, opening up the view from the master bedroom all the way to the backyard. Incidentally, this also really improved the range of Ben's little clock radio, which can be heard throughout the house now that the house is essentially just one big room. Amazing.
Ben has since framed out the walk-through closet, the outline of which you can see here. (The photo looks toward the closet and into the master bathroom.) There will be a fold-out door in the center of the closet on the bedroom side, and a regular door in the center of the closet on the bathroom side. Sam and I will each have our own side of the closet (on either side of the doors). Hard to describe, and not a great picture, sorry. More has been framed out since, but I can't find a picture right now. I'll post one later, which will hopefully be more illustrative.
Sam teamed up with Patrick to take out the green linoleum floor tiles in the master bedroom, which proved to have very sticky undersides. Sam said he scraped out about half of the floor before handing the job off to Patrick.
Later, Elizabeth and Sean gladly picked up some hammers and helped tear down the walls. Part of the way through the demolition, we found a window frame in the back of the room, indicating that the master bedroom used to be at the very back of the house. We joked that we could re-insert the window to restore the house to its original glory, but decided it would be very weird to have a window between the master and second bedrooms. We just don't swing that way.
Eventually, we got both sides of the walls out, opening up the view from the master bedroom all the way to the backyard. Incidentally, this also really improved the range of Ben's little clock radio, which can be heard throughout the house now that the house is essentially just one big room. Amazing.
Ben has since framed out the walk-through closet, the outline of which you can see here. (The photo looks toward the closet and into the master bathroom.) There will be a fold-out door in the center of the closet on the bedroom side, and a regular door in the center of the closet on the bathroom side. Sam and I will each have our own side of the closet (on either side of the doors). Hard to describe, and not a great picture, sorry. More has been framed out since, but I can't find a picture right now. I'll post one later, which will hopefully be more illustrative.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Kitchen Update
I find myself with a free hour, and am going to try to get you up to speed with some more pictures (as promised weeks ago). But first, an update that I forgot to mention this morning:
-- Roof: I believe half the roof has been torn off and re-sheeted (perhaps the whole roof by now). Eventually we're going to have shingles that are darkish brown. Honestly, I didn't give much thought to our shingle choice, as it's not something I'll really have to look at. Same can't be said for the people in the neighboring townhomes. But for them, any change to our roof has got to be an improvement on their view.
Now on to the photos. If I recall, I was working my way back through the house, and had just left off with the dining room. I suppose that brings us to the kitchen.
As in all the other rooms, demolition started with the floor, which proved to be quite difficult (says Sam -- I wouldn't know). As you can see, the flooring had a tendency to tear rather than lift. In the end, we're just going to get it as smooth as possible and then put tile or wood flooring over it.
After the floors we as gone as they were going to get, the cabinets and walls started to come down, followed by the ceiling. I could go into all of the wonders that came out of the kitchen ceiling, but I think I'll save that for a separate post. Yeah, that deserves a post of its own.
The kitchen was looking really scary for a while, after the cabinets had been removed from the walls but before they had been carried out the door. See evidence above.
Eventually, though, we got it all cleaned up, so now the kitchen floor is basically storage space for whatever materials are currently needed for construction (alternately, wood for framing or pipes for plumbing). Otherwise, there's not too much going on with the kitchen right now.
I think I mentioned in a previous post that we chose a cabinet layout at Home Depot. Eventually, we're going to take that design to get bids from some other companies with the hopes of saving a few bucks. Once things start moving on this front, I'll let you know.
-- Roof: I believe half the roof has been torn off and re-sheeted (perhaps the whole roof by now). Eventually we're going to have shingles that are darkish brown. Honestly, I didn't give much thought to our shingle choice, as it's not something I'll really have to look at. Same can't be said for the people in the neighboring townhomes. But for them, any change to our roof has got to be an improvement on their view.
Now on to the photos. If I recall, I was working my way back through the house, and had just left off with the dining room. I suppose that brings us to the kitchen.As in all the other rooms, demolition started with the floor, which proved to be quite difficult (says Sam -- I wouldn't know). As you can see, the flooring had a tendency to tear rather than lift. In the end, we're just going to get it as smooth as possible and then put tile or wood flooring over it.
After the floors we as gone as they were going to get, the cabinets and walls started to come down, followed by the ceiling. I could go into all of the wonders that came out of the kitchen ceiling, but I think I'll save that for a separate post. Yeah, that deserves a post of its own.The kitchen was looking really scary for a while, after the cabinets had been removed from the walls but before they had been carried out the door. See evidence above.
Eventually, though, we got it all cleaned up, so now the kitchen floor is basically storage space for whatever materials are currently needed for construction (alternately, wood for framing or pipes for plumbing). Otherwise, there's not too much going on with the kitchen right now.I think I mentioned in a previous post that we chose a cabinet layout at Home Depot. Eventually, we're going to take that design to get bids from some other companies with the hopes of saving a few bucks. Once things start moving on this front, I'll let you know.
Where Does the Time Go?
It's been really tough finding time to post proper updates here, so I'm going to sneak in a few minutes before I have to get ready for work. Another whirlwind progress report ...
Windows -- Not too much to update here, except that Ben ordered all of our windows. I'd love to provide a link to show you what we're getting, but I don't even know which company we're using. The only slight glitch is that the window for the master bathroom needs to be slightly taller than we were hoping (12" I think), which means it's going to come down into what I was hoping would be mirror space. This is fine for me, but if someone who was, say, Ben's height wanted to use the mirror, he'd have to crouch a bit -- seems weird. I'm tempted to scrap that window altogether, especially since it's also causing some difficulties in deciding where to install vanity lights.
Doors -- Ben also put in a call to find out how much our interior and exterior doors of choice will cost. I believe we're going with textured fiberglass from Codel for all of them, as Ben says wood tends to warp and is probably out of our price range anyways.
For the front entrances (main and MIL), we're looking into two matching craftsman doors. Sadly, I can't remember which ones we picked even though it was just a couple of days ago. But it's either the one at right, or something that looks a lot like it. We'll probably order the door in a wood stain, but if we don't like it we can always put a coat of paint over it, Ben says. I was kind of hoping for a fancy, coordinating sidelight to go with the main entrance door, but Ben had already ordered a window for that space. He notes that the sidelight is something we can install later, if we want it (and have saved up for it).
The third exterior door leads to the backyard, and will probably look like Model TF15 here. As for the interior doors, I guess they're pretty standard. We only had to choose between four and six panels for each interior door -- and went with six (like Model TF6P here).
Heat -- The heat guy was supposed to come in and finish up his work yesterday, but didn't show. He has a good excuse, though, involving a blood infection and a hospital that won't release him. Here's to a speedy recovery, good man.
Jetted tub -- Sam's jetted tub for the master bathroom finally came in the other day. The plumbers didn't even think to pre-order it, since these things are usually in stock. But with the economic downturn and all, apparently jetted tubs have not been in high demand. Thus the slight delay. But it's here now, and Sam and Ben have already climbed in (separately) to check out just how deep the water's going to be. Both seem quite pleased with what we got.
Payments -- Our first mortgage payment went through a week or so ago. Now it really feels official! We'll probably set up automated payments soon enough for everything -- mortgage, electric, gas and water/garbage. Can't wait until we move in and don't have to pay for rent on top of it.
Windows -- Not too much to update here, except that Ben ordered all of our windows. I'd love to provide a link to show you what we're getting, but I don't even know which company we're using. The only slight glitch is that the window for the master bathroom needs to be slightly taller than we were hoping (12" I think), which means it's going to come down into what I was hoping would be mirror space. This is fine for me, but if someone who was, say, Ben's height wanted to use the mirror, he'd have to crouch a bit -- seems weird. I'm tempted to scrap that window altogether, especially since it's also causing some difficulties in deciding where to install vanity lights.
Doors -- Ben also put in a call to find out how much our interior and exterior doors of choice will cost. I believe we're going with textured fiberglass from Codel for all of them, as Ben says wood tends to warp and is probably out of our price range anyways.For the front entrances (main and MIL), we're looking into two matching craftsman doors. Sadly, I can't remember which ones we picked even though it was just a couple of days ago. But it's either the one at right, or something that looks a lot like it. We'll probably order the door in a wood stain, but if we don't like it we can always put a coat of paint over it, Ben says. I was kind of hoping for a fancy, coordinating sidelight to go with the main entrance door, but Ben had already ordered a window for that space. He notes that the sidelight is something we can install later, if we want it (and have saved up for it).
The third exterior door leads to the backyard, and will probably look like Model TF15 here. As for the interior doors, I guess they're pretty standard. We only had to choose between four and six panels for each interior door -- and went with six (like Model TF6P here).
Heat -- The heat guy was supposed to come in and finish up his work yesterday, but didn't show. He has a good excuse, though, involving a blood infection and a hospital that won't release him. Here's to a speedy recovery, good man.
Jetted tub -- Sam's jetted tub for the master bathroom finally came in the other day. The plumbers didn't even think to pre-order it, since these things are usually in stock. But with the economic downturn and all, apparently jetted tubs have not been in high demand. Thus the slight delay. But it's here now, and Sam and Ben have already climbed in (separately) to check out just how deep the water's going to be. Both seem quite pleased with what we got.
Payments -- Our first mortgage payment went through a week or so ago. Now it really feels official! We'll probably set up automated payments soon enough for everything -- mortgage, electric, gas and water/garbage. Can't wait until we move in and don't have to pay for rent on top of it.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Many Updates
Things are again moving quickly on the house, and again I'm falling behind on the updates. I don't have a lot of time right now, as I'm trying to get as many chores done as possible before Sam and I head up to Bellingham. So this will just have to be an overview of recent activities.
Plumbing and heating -- The plumbing/heating sub-contractors are not quite done, though they've accomplished quite a bit in the last week. Most notably, they got our fancy new water heater hooked up. Ben took the inaugural shower yesterday, and said the water pressure and heat is quite nice. The plumber estimates he'll be done after another half-day or so, but is out with his family for the holiday weekend, so he'll probably finish up on Tuesday.
First draw inspection -- BJ came over Monday for our first draw inspection. I don't have the numbers with me right now, but I do know that he didn't give us as much as we were hoping for. For example, I think he assessed the plumbing as being just 50 percent complete, though Ben was hoping it would be more (so we could draw more of our renovation money from the loan). I think BJ also determined that we were not as done with demolition ("debris removal") as we had hoped. Perhaps Sam can go into this more in a future post, as I haven't actually seen BJ's inspection documents.
Outside progress -- Ben took off all of the house's siding last week, and will probably start dismantling the roof next week.
Aroma -- Yesterday Ben sprayed the whole house down with KILZ to seal in the cat pee smell. Hard to tell yet if it worked, as it really just smelled like paint when I went over there last night.
Half bathroom -- We found a tiny sink for our half bathroom, which is small enough to give us a legal doorway. We were looking for a sink that was no bigger than 12" front-to-back. The one we ordered from eFaucets.com is just 9.75". You can check it out here.
Lighting -- Additionally, Sam, Ben and I walked through the house yesterday to decide where we wanted lights. We decided on four can lights and two sconces for the living room, a chandelier for the dining room (haven't chosen an actual fixture yet), six can lights in the kitchen, and can lights in pretty much all the other rooms in the house. The only exceptions are the bathrooms, which will have fan/lights, and the staircase leading to the basement, which will be lit with two wall sconces.
Windows -- Finally, we talked a bit about windows. Sam and I decided that we want windows that slide open left-to-right rather than up-and-down, as we don't want any horizontal lines blocking our line of sight through the windows. The exceptions will be in the bonus room, where we want the windows to open up completely so we can access the roof (don't remember what Ben called this kind of window); and a couple of picture windows (which don't open) next to the doors leading outside.
Okay, out of time. We'll try to update again sometime this weekend.
Plumbing and heating -- The plumbing/heating sub-contractors are not quite done, though they've accomplished quite a bit in the last week. Most notably, they got our fancy new water heater hooked up. Ben took the inaugural shower yesterday, and said the water pressure and heat is quite nice. The plumber estimates he'll be done after another half-day or so, but is out with his family for the holiday weekend, so he'll probably finish up on Tuesday.
First draw inspection -- BJ came over Monday for our first draw inspection. I don't have the numbers with me right now, but I do know that he didn't give us as much as we were hoping for. For example, I think he assessed the plumbing as being just 50 percent complete, though Ben was hoping it would be more (so we could draw more of our renovation money from the loan). I think BJ also determined that we were not as done with demolition ("debris removal") as we had hoped. Perhaps Sam can go into this more in a future post, as I haven't actually seen BJ's inspection documents.
Outside progress -- Ben took off all of the house's siding last week, and will probably start dismantling the roof next week.
Aroma -- Yesterday Ben sprayed the whole house down with KILZ to seal in the cat pee smell. Hard to tell yet if it worked, as it really just smelled like paint when I went over there last night.
Half bathroom -- We found a tiny sink for our half bathroom, which is small enough to give us a legal doorway. We were looking for a sink that was no bigger than 12" front-to-back. The one we ordered from eFaucets.com is just 9.75". You can check it out here.
Lighting -- Additionally, Sam, Ben and I walked through the house yesterday to decide where we wanted lights. We decided on four can lights and two sconces for the living room, a chandelier for the dining room (haven't chosen an actual fixture yet), six can lights in the kitchen, and can lights in pretty much all the other rooms in the house. The only exceptions are the bathrooms, which will have fan/lights, and the staircase leading to the basement, which will be lit with two wall sconces.
Windows -- Finally, we talked a bit about windows. Sam and I decided that we want windows that slide open left-to-right rather than up-and-down, as we don't want any horizontal lines blocking our line of sight through the windows. The exceptions will be in the bonus room, where we want the windows to open up completely so we can access the roof (don't remember what Ben called this kind of window); and a couple of picture windows (which don't open) next to the doors leading outside.
Okay, out of time. We'll try to update again sometime this weekend.
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