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.