Slave to the House

Ahhh, the little things

2009-06-21T19:35:00.001-07:00

So we finally passed another milestone: the plumbing inspection passed. The second time. Apparently, it's against code to have a separate p-trap for your sink and disposer. Someone should tell that to Home Depot because their 1-2-3 Plumbing book, recommended by a previous inspector, shows an installation with separate traps.

"It's not like it won't work fine the way you have it, but code says you can't have two traps," said the inspector. Ugh.

At any rate, my current goal in life is to make inspectors happy, so I spent an hour and about $30 redoing the kitchen island plumbing. Isn't it nice and perfect with its single trap?!? =)

Today I put a little more trim on the kitchen shelving. Once I get it all trimmed out, caulked and painted, it's going to look pretty good. Jen should have plenty of space for her cookbooks now.

Next, I have to finish a couple pieces of siding and install one last outlet under the eaves. Then, I have to hang the light fixture on the shed, and I'll probably be ready for an inspection. We have to get the electrical inspection passed so I can call for a final building inspection. The permit expires in 11 days, so we're officially in crunch time.

Everywhere a trim trim

2009-05-18T22:22:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's been a long time since my last post. We've been doing a lot of little busywork type things around the house, but mostly focusing on work. I might be looking for a "real" job soon, but that's another story.

Last night we moved all the crap out of the entry room and painted it to match the rest of the house. Today we bought a ton of trim for the doors and base, and I trimmed out about five doors.

Jen had a great idea to use a herring bone pattern to transition the direction of the flooring as it went down the hallway. Took some careful planning so everything looked okay and fit together nicely, but it came out pretty awesome.

The in-laws are coming Wednesday, so tomorrow will be all about cleaning. We'll probably do a little more trim, too, but I don't expect too much progress.

Starting to get organized

2009-03-08T10:32:00.000-07:00

I started working on trim yesterday and got tired of tripping over all the crap that's been accumulating in the garage. So, after lunch, we filled up the Jeep and made another dump run. I got rid of all the scrap wood, carpet and old flooring we tore out of Jen's office.

When we got back, I spent the afternoon organizing the garage. I built a workbench a couple weekends ago, but hadn't finished giving all the tools a home. I'm still not done, but I made some major progress.

Today, I'll go back to working on the trim, and probably paint Jen's office.

New garage door springs

2009-03-05T20:54:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been quite a while since my last post, and I've gotten a few complaints. I trimmed out most of the alcove last weekend, and did some flooring, sanded the ceiling in Jen's office, etc, but I've mostly been very focused on work. I decided to take coming this weekend off and spend it on the house.

About a week ago, one of our garage door springs broke. It happened late at night, and we didn't know what had caused the loud noise until I tried to open the garage door the next day (which, needless to say, didn't work very well). So, I did some research online and found DDM Garage Doors, where you can learn everything you ever wanted to know about garage door springs. They'll even let you email them pictures of your old springs so they can help you select the right replacements.

Replacing springs can be very dangerous, but Jen and I followed their great online instructions, and the installation went smoothly. Now that our garage door opens again, I can start using the table saw to rip some trim. =)

Here's the old springs:

And the new ones we installed tonight:

Check back Sunday evening for some photos of the stuff we do this weekend!

Like watching paint dry

2009-02-20T14:25:00.001-08:00

Sheesh, it's been almost a month since my last post. I've been trying to catch up on work lately, so there hasn't been much time to spend on the house. It's pretty difficult to get motivated to install trim or flooring at 8 PM after you've been working on the computer all day. =|

Jen took some photos for Holly the other day, and I thought I'd post a few of them so you can see where we're at. I have some trim and flooring to finish, and we'll probably end up doing the concrete countertops when it warms up so we can control the temperature a little better (in other words, there's no way in hell we'll get to them anytime soon).

Another day in the attic

2009-01-25T20:05:00.000-08:00

Today was a pretty productive day. I started by wiring up the two outside outlets and futzing with the gutter covers. Then we ate some breakfast and headed up into the attic.

We hooked up the skylight tube that had to be moved when the roof was redone, taped all the ductwork together and insulated it. Then we finished the ductwork for the new bathroom fan and vented it out the gable. Then we replace the crappy recessed lighting in the hallway with two air-tight cans. Finally, I added three sheets of rigid foam insulation to the addition attic access panel.

Now we're looking forward to doing some more "fun" stuff like flooring and trim.

All hail the trench!

2009-01-23T21:47:00.000-08:00

The trench drain is yet another project I thought would be pretty easy that really wasn't. Sadly, the ground is so rocky that there were several areas the trencher wouldn't dig, and those areas had to be dug by hand. Then there's the (not so) little matter of making sure the trench is clear of loose dirt with a steady grade. All in all, it turned out to require seven days (a few hours each day) of very tiring work.

Our plan was to install a 6" wide trench, but the only one small enough to maneuver behind our house was at Home Depot, and they require a 3/4-ton truck to rent it. That's primarily because there's a TON of extra accessories they give you with it, and altogether it weighs a LOT. Because I couldn't round up a truck, I had to go with a 4" trencher from Sunbelt Rentals.

Using the trencher wasn't *too* bad, but you do have to manhandle it a bit. I wore a nickel-sized patch of skin off my palm trying to get it unstuck from the soft dirt a few times.

We had bought a bunch of 4" socked pipe and fittings, but they wouldn't fit in the trench, so we took everything back and got 3". Unfortunately, Home Depot doesn't sell socked 3" pipe, so we had to sock it ourselves. If you think this sounds easy (like I did), try socking 100' of pipe sometime. It's not particularly difficult, but it's awkward and takes a long time.

So... here's what we did to install about 200 feet of trench. First, we dug the trench with the trencher. This included extending the shallow trench for our driveway drainage pipe we started this summer.

Then we dug by shovel and hand where necessary and cleaned out all the loose debris, including countless large rocks.

Then we compacted the bottom of the trench with a 4x6.

Next we laid landscaping fabric in the bottom of the trench, followed by a 1-2 inch layer of gravel.

Then we put the pipe on the gravel, checked again for grade, and covered the pipe with gravel to within a few inches of the surface.

Finally, we put another layer of landscaping fabric on top and covered the whole works with dirt.

We worked in roughly 20 foot sections to cover the trench as quickly as possible so we didn't have to worry about cave-ins, etc. When it was all done, we moved a lot of dirt around to increase the surface grade away from the house on all sides.

Now we wait for the rain. We didn't get as deep as we wanted on the entire trench, but I've read success stories from folks who dug shallower trenches. For now, we'll remain hopeful that this will prevent water from making it to the crawlspace, or at least keep it to a much more manageable level. It's supposed to rain again next week, so stay tuned.

Getting back on track

2009-01-17T19:12:00.000-08:00

Wow, it's been a stressful couple weeks. I did a lot of research online about roofing and insulating, and ended up calling a couple roofers to come take a look at our problem. I really needed to get back to work and decided it'd be better to spend the money to have an expert take care of the problem.

I ended up getting a fantastic deal with a referral from one of my dive buddies (thanks Marty!). Jim Fick (& Company) reroofed the addition almost in one day; they finished up in about an hour the next day. Now we have a roof that should be leak-proof and is guaranteed for 30 years if we have a problem.

Here you can see how the water ran down the valleys, hit the tips of the shingles and then followed the top of the shingles outward. That's how we ended up with water under our eaves.

While we were at it, we moved the tube sky light away from the valley so we don't end up with problems down the road. Jim put down Ice & Water Shield on the eaves and valleys (even though he said I didn't need it), removed the metal valley flashing and did a "California cut" shingled valley instead. I'll try to post some photos of that when I'm up there tomorrow finishing up the tube sky light.

With the roof finished, I took some time to go diving today, and then came home to start digging the trench for the french drain and downspout drain.

The trencher made fairly quick work of digging. It took me about 90 minutes to do all the trenching in the back of the house, but then it was too dark to see. I'll finish up the digging tomorrow morning, then we'll start laying gravel and pipe. With any luck, this will resolve our issue with water in the crawlspace, but the crawlspace probably won't completely dry out until summer.

Water, water, everywhere

2009-01-03T00:23:00.000-08:00

You've probably been wondering why I haven't posted much lately. Well, the other day I poked my head into the new crawlspace and wondered why the plastic vapor barrier looked all smooth. I looked underneath it and about pooped my pants...

The water was just about to the top of the footing! Now, up to that point we had not put the gutters on because we were focusing on other stuff (like the kitchen). We've had lots of rain since we put the roof on five months ago, and the crawlspace was always bone dry, so I didn't think it was going to be a problem. When it rains, it pours, so to speak, because once the crawlspace started leaking it hasn't stopped.

Needless to say, we put the gutters up over the next two days. If you haven't put up gutters in the rain and dark before, you should try it sometime. It's a great time!

So then off to Home Depot for a water pump we went.

Pump #1: Small Utility Pump

The guy at Home Depot talked me into this little number. I misread "1/12 HP" as "1/2 HP". Heck, I didn't even know they made pumps that underpowered. This thing was really fun to use. The 6' hose that came with it was super stiff and kept wanting to coil up, and you had to put oil in it every time you started it.

It probably would have been fine if any of the following were true:

It was submersible
It had more power
It could support longer intake and discharge hoses
You didn't have to put oil in it every time you started it
You didn't have to shut it off immediately when it started to suck air
It didn't take 30 minutes to get it to prime
You enjoyed crouching in a cold, wet, muddy crawlspace futzing with crappy pumps

We spent the majority of two days moving this little princess pump from puddle to puddle, Jen faithfully unplugging it when it started to suck air, and I moving the intake and keeping it clear of debris. Then we'd wake up the next day to find the crawlspace full of water and start the whole charade all over again.

Mercifully, the pump refused to prime on the third day, and I could barely get it stuffed back in the box fast enough to return it to the place from whence it came.

Pump #2: "Intellipump"

Boy, we were excited about this baby. It was so smart it could actually sense the water! Now we were cooking with gas!

As soon as I walked in the door, I unpacked our new savior and headed for the crawlspace. Ever so tenderly, I toed for the deepest spot and dunked this Einstein of pumps. It jumped to life and pumped with a fervor I'd never seen before, and then... it stopped.

"Hmmm, that's odd. I mean, it's nearly completely submerged," I thought. "Surely, it must be doing some kind of super smart start-up water sensing routine."

No amount of futzing would make the pump stay on for more than 15 seconds. The manufacturer was closed for four more days, and Home Depot was closed early for New Year's. We were left to make the best of it with our new not-so-intelligent guest.

Rather than just sit idle while the crawlspace filled up, and not willing to spend another several hours in the crawlspace, we plugged the pump into a power strip by the bed and took turns flipping the strip's power switch on and off every 15 seconds. The lights would dim slightly when the pump kicked on, and then would go bright again when the pump shut off. This was our signal to flip the switch again. We kept this nonsense up for about four hours until neither of us could stay awake anymore, but we manage to get most of the water out of the crawlspace.

Eagerly, we peeked into the crawlspace in the morning to see if the water had finally stopped. Sadly, that was not to be the case, so we packed pump #2 back up and headed to Home Depot.

Pump #3: Sump Pump

After four days of monkeying around in our new Olympic Mud Wrestling Pit, saving money was not really my first priority. I wanted this to be over. Our plan was to install a sump on each side of the crawlspace, which is divided in half by a pony wall sitting on a footer.

I decided 1/2 HP pumps would be overkill, so we got two 1/4 HP pumps instead. We also got two check valves and two 25' flex discharge hoses. The Depot didn't have sump liners shorter than 36", so we got those at McLendon's.

Once we got home, we headed straight for the crawlspace with our new pumps. We were able to very quickly get the majority of the water pumped out so we could start digging the sump holes.

The first hole wasn't too bad, and I was able to get about 18" of it buried. I drilled about 30 holes in the liner and surrounded it with gravel. We put the pump in, plugged it in, and everything worked perfectly.

Onto the second hole, and things weren't so easy. I hit very hard clay and rock after only 8", and the area around the hole was quickly eroding. I found it was better to just stay in the hole because standing around the hole hastened the erosion.

After about 90 minutes of digging with little headway, it because apparent we were going to have to make it work at a shallower depth. Here's me standing in the hole:

After hauling ten 5-gallon buckets of gravel (2 at a time) from the driveway, into the house, through the bedroom and down into the crawlspace, the second sump hole was as good as it was going to get. I don't know what a 5-gallon bucket of gravel weighs, but it's pretty darn heavy. Two of 'em at once is twice the fun.

Here's a parting shot of the first sump as we returned to the actual living space of our home:

The sumps should keep the water level in the crawlspace in check and allow us to focus our energy on preventing the water from getting to the foundation to begin with. I had 6 yards of washed gravel delivered today, and I requested a utilities check. As soon as the utilities are marked on Monday, we'll be renting a Ditch Witch and putting in a French Drain (a.k.a. trench drain) all the way around the house. If this doesn't stop water from getting into the crawlspace, I don't know what will.

As if water in the crawlspace wasn't enough, we're also having problems with the roof. We're getting water build-up under the eaves, and I thought it was due to condensation from the attic space, so I got the saws-all out and cut out the 2-1/2" hole vents we made...

... and used some leftover primed 2x2 to construct a custom screen that would allow more air flow.

However, after a little investigation, it turns out the water is probably making its way under the felt because of the way we roofed the valleys. More on that later, but it looks like I'll be re-roofing the valleys and eaves soon. =(

I'll end this novella with a funny story. In the middle of the night, Jen awoke to me reaching over her and fumbling around for some unseen object in my sleep. She asked me what the hell I was doing, to which I replied, "I'm looking for my tape measure." She said, "I put it in your tool pouch." Apparently that satisfied me, and I stopped looking for the dream tape measure. I guess slaving to the house doesn't stop when you go to sleep. =)

The whirlwind has passed

2008-12-19T14:27:00.000-08:00

Dad headed down to Sacremento today after a three week marathon of home projects. We did a lot of stuff that I can't remember, but here's a quick recap.

We emptied the laundry room and installed the underlayment and vinyl flooring. We also ran a 30-amp 220V circuit for the dryer and installed the dryer vent.

The washer had been shaking like crazy even after we leveled it, so we built some feet out of leftover hardboard and sheet rubber. We used a holesaw to cut the feet, then used a Forstner bit to create the pocket, and put rubber in the pocket and on the bottom of the feet. This all but eliminated the shaking and keeps the washer from walking during its spin cycle.

On the two non-rainy days we had, we finished installing the weather barrier and gable siding on the addition and shed.

We had a mysterious appearance of water above one window to the left of the slider. We couldn't figure out where it was coming from because there was no sign of water in the attic, and it appeared to be coming in from the eave (and then under the moisture barrier onto the window).

Because we've had some pretty major rain showers with no leaks since putting the roof on, I'm guessing this is just condensation. This assumption is based on:

We used a 19" overlap on the roofing tarpaper, which makes it nearly impossible for water to get under the paper.
The roof vent and skylights were papered, shingled, flashed and sealed pretty darn well.
The water only appeared when the weather dropped below freezing this past week.
Some parts of the ceiling were not insulated at all because I was waiting to finish a little electrical.

To test our theory, and to check a big task off our list, we rented an insulation blower from Home Depot and blew in 30 bags of cellulose. It's a messy job, but I liked it a lot better than dealing with fiberglass batts.

This morning, as we were packing up the blower, we noticed that the door to my Jeep was open. Apparently, some poop-butt punks tried to jack my ride last night and left me with a broken window. Just something else to fix, I guess. =)

Concrete, trim and lights

2008-12-13T22:08:00.000-08:00

I was planning to dive this morning, but Holly bailed on me. Instead, I finished up the last chapter of Diving into Darkness and mixed up some more concrete samples.

Previously, we just used gray Portland cement and some Sakrete pigment. This time we used a 1:1:3:5 mixture of white Portland cement, quartz, sand and pea gravel. We mixed up one square with no color, then one each of brown and charcoal. The mix was much thicker than before, so I vibrated it for a lot longer to get the air out.

After making a run to Home Depot to get some underlayment for the laundry room, more trim and the remaining pendant lights, dad resumed working on the window trim.

I climbed up into the attic to cut the holes for the pendant lights above the kitchen island. After installing the ceiling boxes and poking wire into them, I went back to the kitchen and hooked everything up.

I think that might actually be the last of the electrical (besides a tiny bit in the shed). I was afraid the pendant lights might seem obtrusive with our low ceilings, but they actually look great.

Tomorrow, we'll mix up some more concrete samples using fine quartz instead of sand and install the laundry room underlayment. Then we'll hit Home Depot again for the gable siding and rent a roller for the vinyl. With any luck, we'll have the laundry room and alcove all done tomorrow.

A few more tasks completed

2008-12-10T22:26:00.000-08:00

To prepare for installing the home theater cabinet, we ran some coax, CAT5 and speaker wire into the wall behind the TV. It all terminates nicely into a configurable wall plate:

Because our TV fits so snugly into its space in the cabinet, we decided to rip open a hole in the back for air flow at the last minute:

The two supervisors assigned to coordinate the installation, Jen and Thora, kept a watchful eye on us to ensure everything went according to plan:

The new cabinet really cleans everything up, despite the junk we have all over the room. I just need to treat, stain and finish the drawer faces, and then I can install the two large drawers in the bottom of the cabinet.

Today we bought a whole bunch of trim, then came home to run the 30-amp 220V circuit to the new clothes dryer location. After that, we installed the shower door in the new bathroom:

We hung a chandelier over the dining room table last night, but I don't have a photo of that yet. Our next big task is to build the concrete countertops. We're quickly running out of time, so we need to decide on the type of aggregate to use and then build some more samples.

The dovetail jig

2008-12-07T09:58:00.000-08:00

I've always wanted to get a dovetail jig because I love the way dovetail joints look on drawers and boxes. I finally had a reason to buy one yesterday, and Rockler just happened to have a Christmas sale on theirs for $99.

Warning: This post is really more for my benefit than yours. The instructions for the jig were sort of cryptic, and it took a while to figure out what I was doing. This is my attempt at creating something I can refer to later. =)

I decided to use through dovetail joints because the front of the drawer box will be covered by a framed face. Otherwise, a half-blind dovetail joint would be preferable to hide the ends of the tails. Illustrations can be found on Wikipedia.

The first step was to create a "clamping shim." This is basically a piece of material about 1/4" thicker than the stock you're cutting, and its purpose is to raise the template high enough so your router bit doesn't cut into the metal jig. The manual greatly overexplained this step and caused a lot of confusion.

Next, center your stock in the template, ensuring that the outer tails (i.e. the top- and bottom-most tails on the drawer side) are far enough from the edge of the stock to allow room for the pins. Adjust the side stop to mark this position for the other sides.

Now hold a piece of the front/back stock perpendicular to your drawer side, up against the template, and make a scribe line on the piece to be cut. Set the router on the template and adjust the depth so that you will remove the scribe line. I used the 8º bit and brass guide bushing included with the jig.

Cut all the drawer sides first. The manual stated that the outside of the drawer sides should be facing the jig, but I couldn't figure out how this would make any difference.

The only thing being cut in this photo is the vertical piece.

The tails cut into a drawer side.

When all the sides have been cut, switch to the straight router bit and replace the tail template with the pin template. Mount your stock vertically in exactly the same position as the drawer sides -- do not adjust the side stop.

Adjust the template to position "F" for the first cut. This will almost certainly create a fit that is too tight, and you will need to adjust the template backwards, one mark at a time, until the fit is perfect. Then you can make all other cuts without further adjustment.

Cut the fronts and backs with the inside of the drawer facing the jig. Unlike the sides, this cut is not symmetrical, so the position is critical if you have routed a channel for the drawer bottom.

Here's a shot of the assembled joint, prior to any gluing or sanding:

We didn't want the drawer bottom channel to be visible from the sides of the drawer, so we routed a channel in all the drawer pieces prior to cutting the dovetails. Using the router allowed us to stop the channel about 1/4" short of the ends of the drawer pieces.

Here's a shot showing the router set up in the plunge base with a 3/8" straight bit and fence adjusted to put the channel about 1/2" from the bottom of the drawer sides.

When assembled, the channel on all drawer pieces aligns and is ready to accept the 3/8" bottom piece.

Custom home theater cabinet

2008-12-07T09:28:00.000-08:00

We started work on the cabinet to hold all the home theater stuff the other day. It has two upper spaces to hold the front speakers, two side spaces below that to hold the stereo equipment, two large spaces for drawers, and two center spaces for the center speaker and Xbox. We used 3/4" birch veneered plywood and birch edge tape.

First, we made the outer box:

Then we built all the inner pieces and glued/nailed them in place:

Here's a shot of the cabinet with a couple coats of ebony stain. Later that day we added a coat of satin polyurethane.

Then we headed to Rockler to get a dovetail jig. More about that in the next post.

A day of distractions

2008-12-03T08:42:00.000-08:00

We were planning to grout the bathroom tile first thing in the morning, but we decided to get a second grout float so the two of us could work at the same time. So, after taking care of a few hours of business, we headed to Home Depot to get the float and the materials for our TV wall unit.

When we got back, we decided to clean up the garage to make room for the plywood and tools. The plywood was going to temporarily lean up against the garage wall where the hot water recycling pump was plugged in. To get the outlet closer to the pump, I reconnected the circuit for the old electric water heater that the previous owner must have removed.

To make room for the plywood, we had to move all the scuba gear and remaining pile of flooring inside. After that, we were finally ready to start mixing grout. Neither one of us had ever grouted this kind of tile before, but it went fairly well.

Using the floats, we worked the grout down into all the nooks and crannies of the tile stones, trying to remove as much off the top as possible.

After finishing the grout, we let it sit for about 20 minutes and then started sponging the excess off the top. Two hours later, we used cheesecloth to scrub each stone to remove the grout haze.

Here's a close-up shot of what the tile looks like:

The grout is supposed to sit for three days, and then we need to seal it again. In the meantime, we'll be working on building that TV wall unit.

Rolling right along

2008-12-01T20:25:00.001-08:00

Today was pretty productive, and things went fairly smoothly. We started by hanging the final cabinet above the fridge. This one was tricky because it had to line up with the utility cabinet on the left and a full-height panel on the right. However, we had a 1/2" gap to fill, so we added some spacers to both sides of the cabinet.

When we pushed the fridge back in, the dang water line coil got wedged. Fortunately, I'm well practiced at cramming myself into small spaces.

We used the fridge to help support the cabinet while installing it. With all our spacers in place, we screwed it all together.

Then we took a lunch break and dropped off the Humane Society "Donate Some Pet Food" barrel over in the Highlands. When we got back (and before I slipped into a yakisoba-induced coma), we decided to install the end panels on the island.

That may sound very simple, but it also required installing an electrical outlet at each end of the island. Which required me to finish running the wire inside the cabinets. Which is something I've been quietly avoiding for some time.

At any rate, we got the end panels installed, and even slapped in some toe-kick veneer. We'll probably run to Home Depot in the morning to get some black 20-amp outlets and covers to finish up the island.

Here's how the kitchen is looking tonight:

Progress resumes

2008-11-30T23:13:00.000-08:00

I don't know if I'm ready for it, but we're stoking the coals for a final three week push to complete the house. It started last night when my dad arrived from California around 7:30 pm, and he jumped in to help me lay the last few boards of flooring in the master closet. I think he only did it because he knew we weren't setting up the guest bed until it was done. =)

This morning, we turned our attention to the 2nd bathroom. We discovered we never bought the 1/4" trowel way back when, so our day started with a trip to Ace (and the obligatory Starbucks stop). Then we determined our layout, mixed up some thinset and installed the cement board.

The cement board is very difficult to cut. It's not too bad if you're just cutting it to length because it snaps like sheetrock, but making cutouts (especially round ones) is a pain. Screwing it down takes forever, too, because it calls for perimeter screws every 3 inches. We had to recharge the hammer drill battery twice, and I mostly used the powered drill.

Once the cement board was down, we immediately started laying the tiles. Actually, it's not really tile, but rather stones glued to a mesh. The "tiles" are designed to fit together so that you don't notice a pattern after the grout is applied. We'll let everything set up for 24 hours, and probably grout the tiles Tuesday.

Here's a shot I found on one of our cameras. I guess Jen was snapping photos of me shoehorned into the addition attic installing the kitchen can lights. It's a little tight up there.

The kitchen is officially functional

2008-11-28T14:32:00.000-08:00

Our stainless hood duct cover is designed in two halves, one inside the other, so that it can telescope to the correct length. However, both halves were too long for our ceiling, so we decided to cut one of them down (and not use the other one).

One place wanted $150 to make the cut, which I considered totally ridiculous. We located a second place much closer to us (Starman Metal Fab), and they cut it down for $45 (1/2-hour labor minimum charge). We cheerfully went home to install the cover and finish up one more job.

Not surprisingly, this seemingly simple task managed to complicate itself. Despite the installation guide's vague assertion that you don't have to use both halves of the cover, it became immediately apparent that you cannot install it in a single piece. So, back to Starman we went (albeit a few weeks later).

This time we had both halves cut down, and installation was a snap.

We also finally ran the electrical to the island and plumbed the dishwasher. There was an existing 12/4 cable under the house that carried two circuits for the disposal and dishwasher. I ran this to a j-box in the crawlspace and connected it to two 12/2 cables in metal conduit running up to a j-box below the sink.

From there, I ran some stranded appliance cable to the disposal (switched) and to the dishwasher (not switched). Generally, you'd put the dishwasher on its own circuit, but I read that it's okay to put the disposal on that circuit, too. It's a 20-amp circuit, and the total load doesn't exceed that. I hope the inspector agrees because I'm reserving the other circuit for the island outlets. Running three circuits to the island just seems excessive, but, then again, so do a lot of the code requirements.

The dishwasher is just sitting in position right now. There's no point in attaching it to the temporary plywood countertops since we'll be building the concrete countertops in the next couple weeks. We've run several loads, though, and everything's working just fine (no leaks!).

My dad is coming back tomorrow for a final three week push to finish everything up. On the one hand, I get satisfaction from doing this stuff myself, but, on the other hand, it takes forever when I can only devote a couple hours a day on it. At this point, we both just want everything done so we can have the house back together.

Our movie experience just got better

2008-11-21T08:08:00.001-08:00

I went into Fry's last night to get a pack of rechargeable AAA's for my head lamp, and somehow came out with almost $1800 in home theater equipment. Most of my friends know I don't waste a lot of money on material things, but when I want something, I usually don't waste much time before getting it. =)

We watch a lot of movies, so I splurged about six months ago and bought a 52" Sony Bravia XBR LCD TV to replace our projector. I'm super glad I did, too, because that TV is awesome! However, we never made an investment in audio equipment to complement it.

Our biggest problem is that we don't really have a TV "room." Instead, we have a TV "nook." It's a fairly decent area (about 15' square), but it's wide open on the right side, and the ceiling is vaulted towards the right. Not only does this make it a not-so-optimal listening environment, but there's no obvious place for the surround speakers.

I thought I might get one of the Yamaha sound projectors that try to give you "virtual" 5.1 sound using a bunch of speakers in a single box that goes under or over your TV. There were several drawbacks with this setup, the major showstopper being that it didn't support Dolby TrueHD, one of the new surround standards for HD video. Plus, they cost about $1500, and that's without the subwoofer you'd have to add. On the upside, they get an A+ on the "spouse acceptance factor" because you don't have speakers all over the room.

So, with all this in mind, I visited the Fry's listening room. They had a Polk Audio sound bar there, and the sales guy gladly ran through the demo for us. I knew immediately I wasn't going to buy it because it just didn't sound right. It sounded as though it was using volume to compensate for the lack of rear speakers, and it didn't have the natural spread or timber I was looking for. Even Jen could tell the difference, and she usually only cares what the stuff looks like. =)

Next, we listened to some Polk Audio bookshelf speakers, with some JBL rears. Now we're talking! The fronts had a 5.25" cone, so there was plenty of mid-range to make things sound natural, and the spread was very realistic.

Allow me to digress for a moment...

There has been an unfortunate trend towards HTIB lately (Home Theater in a Box), and these systems typically come with a subwoofer and five speakers (two front, two rear and one center). More often than not, the five speakers are very small, which means their speaker cones are small -- typically 3" or less.

It's pretty much impossible to get natural sound from a setup like this because you have no mid-sized speaker cones to produce mid-range frequencies. Instead, you get a lot of low end (boomy) with a lot of high-end. It's important to have small cones in your setup because they add sparkle, but without any mid-range drivers, you end up with an overall sound that is "tinny" and hard on the ears. I've heard several people's Bose systems, and they all sound very tinny to me.

Okay, so I was pretty happy with the Polks we were listening to, but the sales guy decided to put on some Infinity's, too. These speakers were smaller and, sure enough, the demo soundtrack became noticeably more tinny. "Can I hear the Polks again?" I kindly asked.

You're probably getting tired of this story by now, so I'll cut to the chase. Here's what I bought (and why):

Onkyo TX-SR606 7.1 Receiver
Lots of HDMI, S-Video and composite ins/outs, two optical digital audio ins, and HDMI upscaling. Also, the cheaper models didn't have Dolby TrueHD support.

Polk Audio DSW Pro500 Subwoofer
Polk was running a special that gave us $200 off, so we splurged with a better sub. It ranks high on the spouse-acceptance factor because it fires down, which means you don't see any speakers. It's just a black box in the corner of the room. The bass is quite impressive without sounding boomy.

Polk Audio CS10 Center Channel Speaker
I think this was actually the only center speaker we listened to. It sounded great, and the price wasn't outrageous. I guess I got a little lazy with this speaker.

Polk Audio TSi200 Front Channel Speakers
We were actually sold on the smaller TSi100's, but the only pair they had left were "open box" (i.e. had been returned by someone). You know how I feel about having mid-sized speakers in my system, and the TSi200's have an extra 5.25" cone.

Polk Audio OWM3 Rear Speakers
The JBL's we listened to sounded okay, but the form factor was a little odd. They tapered slightly at the top and bottom, and just looked too tall and skinny. These OWM3's can be mounted in seven different ways, and they look pretty decent.

Here's a shot of everything but the rear speakers. This setup is temporary -- we'll be building a custom wall unit to house everything, so it'll look nice and tidy, eventually (I'm almost embarrassed to post this photo):

Here's a shot of the surrounds. They're sitting on some super stout stands my dad made for me about 15 years ago when I had a small recording studio. We'll most likely mount a couple small shelves on the wall for the surrounds so there's a minimum of clutter (and nothing on the floor to get in the way of vacuuming, according to Jen).

After setting everything up and running the Onkyo through its room calculation routine, we tested the system out by watching The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. This isn't the typical extreme audio movie you'd normally test an audio system with, but it's more like the movies we usually watch. It was also recently recommended to me because of the cinematography.

The bottom-line: I was totally happy with the sound quality. Everything sounded very natural, and I could turn the volume up quite loud without a particular frequency becoming hard on the ears. I pretty much forgot there was an audio system in the room, which I think is the best way to gauge success.

Now, onto that custom wall unit...

Let there be light!

2008-11-19T17:17:00.001-08:00

I've gotten a lot of complaints about not updating the blog. Sadly, that's because progress has been painfully slow between doing my "real" job and finding time to dive. We have been working, though, and we finally finished installing the main kitchen lighting.

As is usually the case, I ran into some things that made what should have been a relatively simple job a major pain in the hinder. There was some 2x4 blocking between the trusses that was right where I wanted to put one of the cans, and I ended up having to notch it out without disturbing the sheetrock screwed into it.

When I finally wiggled myself out of the attic, covered in sweat and insulation, I noticed that my two helpers were on break (again):

We were going to put the final ceiling coats on the bedroom and 2nd bathroom last night, but I decided to keep going on the lights and get them done. Here's a shot of the kitchen as it stands:

To finish off the kitchen, we need to:

1) Build the concrete countertops
2) Install the last cabinet over the fridge
3) Get the stainless hood cover cut down and installed
4) Build the wine rack that goes to the left of the oven
5) Install a tile backsplash behind the cooktop
6) Install some island lighting
7) Wire up the island and install the dishwasher

Hmmm, that turned out to be a bigger list than I was expecting, so I better get to work!

Cabinet underlighting

2008-11-08T09:28:00.000-08:00

Last night, we finished installing the lighting under our wall cabinets. We also ran a new 15A circuit for all the kitchen lighting, including the cabinet lights, main cans and island lighting.

First, we prepared the cabinets. This involved mounting the light pucks and j-box, and then securing the wires:

Then we ran the wires from the attic to the cabinets. We got by with a small hole in the wall behind the right cabinet, but I needed to open the wall up more for the other side. It gets covered by the cabinet, anyhow:

Next, we wired up the switches. Here we have a 3-way dimmer for the main lights and 2 dimmers for the cabinet and island lighting. The push-in connectors make the job a lot easier when you have a ton of wires to connect:

Et voila! We now have dimmable lighting under our cabinets!

Today, we're planning to finish the duct work for the cooktop hood, install some of the main kitchen lighting cans, and probably run the island electrical (since the parts have been sitting on the island for about a week now).

Feeling like home

2008-10-29T20:37:00.001-07:00

Wow, time has been flying by. Lots of "normal" work to do, so we've only been working on the house a few hours each night.

We started the weekend by organizing the piles of tools and stuff. I took a hint from my dad and bought two small tool boxes, one for plumbing and one for electrical. I also bought a tool bag thing with lots of pockets. We're not 100% organized yet, but things are much tidier.

Before:

After:

We got tired of staring at a non-working kitchen faucet, so we spent some more time under the house running the supply lines. I'm a huge fan of the Shark Bite fittings and PEX pipe. Instead of completely drying the copper and using the torch in tight places, I can quickly tap into the main lines and use a minimum of fittings.

Here's how I tapped into the cold and hot water lines:

I had started by building some 2x4 supports for the three stub-outs that extend into the island sink cabinet. This shot shows the hot/cold lines for the sink, hot line for the dishwasher and shock arrestor on the hot water line:

Here's the three stub-outs going up through the floor...

... connecting to the shut-off valves under the sink:

After getting some drain plumbing advice on Terry Love's forum, I ended up redoing the drain. I replaced the 1-1/2" vertical pipe with 2", and used a Santee fitting instead of the supply tee I incorrectly used the first time. I wasn't quite as careful with the PVC primer this time.

After cleaning up the tools on Saturday, I started laying some more floor in the TV area. Jen came home about halfway through and helped me finish.

On Sunday, we headed up to Costco Home and picked up our dining set. Once again, the Jeep roof rack saved us a delivery charge. We had to unpack the chairs to get 'em in the back, though. We barely got everything to fit!

When we get back from California, we'll run the electrical to the island and undercabinet lighting, then install the dishwasher.

Got drain, need water

2008-10-23T15:34:00.001-07:00

We made our temporary plywood countertop for the island the other night and attached the undermount sink to it. It sure is nice not having a pile of unusable cabinets in the middle of our kitchen anymore! We have some framed end panels for the island that I'll attach when we get done with the plumbing. They basically look exactly like the cabinet doors, and there will be two per side.

The island is massive. In fact, the whole kitchen really has a "workplace" kind of feel to it, which I really like. I can't wait to get our concrete countertops done so I can roll out some pizza crusts!

Last night we plumbed the sink and disposal drain for the island. I'm not sure if code requires separate p-traps, but I chose to do it anyway because it's far superior than using one. I also put a couple 45-degree fittings in place of a normal tailpiece so we don't have to worry about hearing water dripping into the trap.

Using the air admittance valve to vent the system eliminated a lot of pipe and really made for a clean installation.

Under the floor, I transitioned to 2" ABS using a rubber reducing sleeve. I added a couple long-turn fittings and a cleanout, and then connected the new pipe to the old sink drain pipe.

I'm going diving tonight, but I hope to hook up the water supply lines after that. I was going to use copper, but I have Shark Bite fittings and some PEX here, so I'll probably use that with some copper stub-outs to run the sink and dishwasher supply lines.

After that, I'll have to figure out how I'm going to get power to the island. =)

More plumbing

2008-10-21T09:20:00.000-07:00

At long last, the island cabinets are set in place. It was tricky because the floor is not totally level there, and the island basically was high centered where the addition and old house meet. After some careful shimming, though, I managed to get everything reasonably level. I used some small finish nails to keep the shims in place in the middle of the island, and I sunk a few 3" screws through the sides of the cabinets at the bottom to keep the island in place.

We picked up a sink the other day, so tonight we're pretty much ready to run the plumbing and electrical. I think I'll put a separate p-trap on the sink and disposal and vent them both using the same air admittance valve. I plan to use 1-1/2" PVC under the sink and transition to 2" ABS under the floor using a rubber sleeve. Should be fun!

Our super fancy dancy expensive Electrolux oven requires service not 24 hours after being turned on. We were watching TV Friday night, and when we got up to go to bed, we noticed the oven light was on. No amount of futzing with the Star Trek Enterprise-like control panel would remedy the problem. A quick Google search revealed that one of the boards was likely bad and would need to be replaced.

Looking like a kitchen

2008-10-16T23:13:00.000-07:00

This will be a quick post just to show you our progress on the kitchen. Over the past couple days, we've only put in a few hours each night because I've had a lot of other work to do. We did manage to get the fridge plumbed, 220V circuit installed, set all the outside cabinets and installed the microwave and oven.

Here are a couple shots of how it's looking so far (sorry for the fishbowl effect -- I was using my wide angle lens):

Fortunately, the Electrolux oven only required a 20-amp circuit, so running the 12-3 line and adding the tandem breaker was no big deal (our other range had massive 6-gauge wire on a 50-amp circuit!). I dropped it down the wall behind the oven and into a cut-in box in the wall. Then I ran it into a metal j-box inside the cabinet, behind the drawers under the oven. When I built my oven shelf, I made it about 2" short so the metal conduit coming out of the oven could drop behind to my j-box. It made for a really nice, tidy installation.

Big thanks to Erik for helping me while I modified the cabinet and then swinging by again tonight to help me heft the 200-lb oven into place!

Next... plumb the cooktop gas line, build temporary plywood countertops, set the island cabinets and plumb the sink and dishwasher!

One step closer

2008-10-12T09:09:00.000-07:00

We've been pretty busy with non-house stuff the past couple days, so progress has been slow. Jen installed all the crawlspace insulation we bought the other day, and sold two of our old windows, our old movie room lights and some trim we ripped.

We also installed the Watts hot water recirculator, and, boy, does that thing make a difference! We used to wait for at least 30 seconds for hot water, but now it's pretty much instant. I was going to get the version where you install the pump under your sink, but ended up getting one where the pump goes on the water heater, which made for a cleaner install.

If you've never seen these, here's how they work: the pump goes on the hot water outlet from your water heater and runs on a schedule you define with a timer thingie.

Then you install a little temperature-controlled valve on the faucet furthest from your water heater.

The valve connects your hot and cold lines (creating a loop), and opens when the hot water temp drops. If the pump is running, pressure in your hot water line is higher than your cold line, so water from your hot line will be pushed into your cold line, where it will eventually make it back to the water heater. This action draws new hot water into the hot line.

Yesterday, I helped with an Open Water scuba class, and then came home to work on getting the hood installed. Installing a hood isn't particularly difficult, it's just that we didn't add any blocking to support it before we sheetrocked that wall. Our main bathroom is on the opposite side of that wall, and we plan to remodel it eventually, so the best option was to install the blocking from that side. Here's a shot of me in my dive underwear opening the wall with the sawsall:

Once I had the wall opened, it was relatively easy to add a couple horizontal 2x4's between the framing. The only difficult part was that the bathroom vent pipe was right in the middle, but I was able to slip the blocking behind it (on the kitchen side).

With the blocking in place, installing the hood was simply a matter of screwing the hood and the duct cover support to the wall. I had previously laid everything out on the wall so the hood was level and centered over the cooktop cabinet. The laser level I bought the other day really comes in handy for this kind of task when you're working by yourself.

After the hood was secured to the wall, Jen and I ran a new 15-amp circuit first to the outlet for the cooktop, then up to the hood. If we had run the electrical before sheetrocking the wall, I probably would have tapped into the existing 20-amp circuit that the kitchen outlets are on. However, this would have been a mistake because that's a GFI circuit, and the cooktop manual says it might trip a GFI circuit. So, in hindsight, the extra effort is probably going to pay off.

The only other thing to do with the hood is to get the stainless duct cover cut down. The hood comes with two covers that fit together so you can telescope them to the right length. Both of them are too long for our ceiling, so we'll have to take it to a sheet metal shop and have them cut it down with a waterjet or laser or something.

Our plan today is to get a couple little things at Home Depot, then hopefully finish plumbing the fridge, relocate the 220V outlet for the oven, and start setting some cabinets.

So close, yet so far

2008-10-08T21:16:00.001-07:00

We moved all the cabinets into the house to make sure they were all okay. Turns out the cabinet above the fridge is too tall, so McLendons is replacing it with a shorter one. All the others appear to be good, with the exception of some rub marks that we'll try to remove.

Before I can set the cabinets, I need to do a few things (in order of difficulty):

1) Install two outlets (trivial)
2) Run the fridge plumbing (pretty minor)
3) Move the 220V circuit (not too bad)
4) Install power for the cooktop (gotta decide which circuit I want it on)
5) Install vent pipe and electrical for exhaust hood (pain in rear)

The hood is the stumbling block at the moment. The wall it will mount to has studs 24" OC, so I'll need to open the wall and install some blocking to properly support the hood. However, it just so happens that the stinking drain vent pipe is right in the way.

Also, we need to decide what we're putting on the walls above the countertop and behind the hood. We've talked about using tile, but that should really be in place before I do the hood so I know where to position it.

At any rate, here are some photos of the cabinets. We've temporarily positioned the island cabinets together, but they are several feet from where the island will actually go so we have space to work on the base and wall cabinets.

The floor is looking pretty awesome

2008-10-05T00:08:00.000-07:00

We made some pretty good visible progress today. Up until now, the old living room was basically a dirty junk pile. We decided to empty it out, tear up the carpet, and run the flooring into it. Here's what it looked like before we took the carpet out:

Fortunately, Jen still had the phone number for a lady who wanted our used carpet, so we managed to get that out of the house within a couple hours. Here's a couple shots of Jen and Mr. Finch (Jen's dad) selecting and placing boards once the carpet was gone:

By the time we quit at 11:30 PM, we had quite a bit of flooring down. So far, we've gone through 17 boxes of flooring, which is about a third of what we bought. Here's a few shots of where we're at:

Here's a little video Jen shot while Ken and I were laying the floor. Imagine doing this all day long:

Our goal for tomorrow is to finish the floor in the kitchen and bring in the cabinets. First, I need to cap the old drain pipe and fridge water line. I also need to drop an outlet behind the new cooktop and finish moving the old 220 outlet to its new location, but I'll probably do the electrical after I temporarily place the cabinets. If things go well, I'm going to trick Erik into helping me install appliances on Wednesday while Jen and Erica go to Knit Night at Starbucks. =)

Painting in the rain

2008-10-02T23:04:00.000-07:00

We worked well after dark last night trying to finish priming the siding on the house, and we ended up finishing the shed in the rain this morning. Jen worked the brush on the tight spots, while Ken and I used rollers on the big spots.

After putting all the paint stuff away this morning, we set to start in on the floor. It was still raining lightly, so we set up the 10x10 canopy to create a covered work area right outside the slider.

Laying floor takes a lot of hand tools...

... and a lot of power tools ...

... some very careful measuring ...

... and a smidge of elbow grease.

It took us several hours to get about half of the first row down. That's because the first row has to be perfect or the rest of it will be out of whack. The real kicker is that we're shooting for a super tight fit against the slider and two windows so we have the option to not trim that out. It'll probably take us another hour or two to finish the first row tomorrow, and then we should make a lot of progress quickly with the following rows.

Ready for the floor

2008-09-30T16:45:00.000-07:00

We spent the afternoon putting the final coat of paint on the kitchen/dining/living area. I don't mind painting, but there's a LOT of wall to cover, and it takes about 3 hours to do a single coat. I'm glad it's done so we can uncover the beam, install outlets and start laying the floor. Here's a couple shots of the primed walls before we did our two top coats of color:

Here's a little sample of our new floor and cabinets with some furniture. It's pretty dark and not a great photo, but you'll get the idea:

Yesterday was a pretty productive day outside. We finished trimming the windows, removed the old siding from the bedroom wall, and installed more siding on the house and shed. The Princess turned out to be a pretty good helper. Note the golden hammer she's using:

We're pretty much ready to install the gable siding on the shed, but I think we'll prime what we've installed already first because it's supposed to rain Thursday. Some of the siding has been on the house for a little over two weeks, and we need to get it primed before it absorbs a bunch of moisture, so the gables will have to wait.

I think we'll use up the rest of the siding we have here on the two remaining walls tomorrow. I've got about 400 feet of siding waiting at Dunn Lumber that's paid for, and I'm hoping to get credit on that to pay for the gable siding. I'll be happy when all the siding is on and primed so we can install the gutters and finish the drainage system.

Back in the saddle again

2008-09-28T09:53:00.001-07:00

Our trip to Hornby Island was fantastic. The hosts were great, the food was delicious, the scenery was beautiful, and the diving was excellent. We came back with renewed enthusiasm for finishing up the house, and jumped right into painting. Over two days, we painted the ceiling, primed the walls and got the first coat of color on the walls.

We pushed the appliance delivery back a couple days, and everything showed up last Friday. Jen's very excited about using her new stainless appliances. I caught her hugging the Jenn-Air fridge the other day.

Our plan was to start laying the floor today, but we're in the middle of a four-day dry spell, so we're going to continue working on the siding. We need to get it primed before Wednesday when it's supposed to start raining again. We have two of the five walls left, and we'll hopefully get most of that up today.

With any luck, we'll have the kitchen operational by the end of the week, albeit with plywood countertops for now. We're deferring the concrete countertops until we finish some more important projects.

The last day is upon us

2008-09-17T23:20:00.000-07:00

The texture guys were inside spraying the walls all day while dad and I worked outside on the siding and other miscellaneous projects. Here's a shot from the inside of the five windows on the back wall:

Installing siding is a lot like shingling a roof, except it goes much faster. Oh, and it's a LOT more expensive. At $2.39/foot for beveled cedar siding, you really try to make the most of each piece. Here we're hanging some siding on the laundry room wall:

And here's a shot showing how we trimmed out those five rear windows. We had a beautiful sunset this evening!

Tomorrow, we'll make a dump run and then try to get as much siding on as possible before we wrap it up and pack for our trip to Hornby Island. When we get back, we'll be ready to paint, lay the floor and install the cabinets so we can have a kitchen again. Then we'll move on to a whole slew of interior projects that we'll probably drag out for several years. =)

T minus 3

2008-09-15T21:13:00.000-07:00

We've completed two of our four projects so far. We've braced the kitchen and laundry room floors with 4x8 beams and Tiger Brand adjustable floor jacks. The jacks were relatively cheap ($30 each) and worked great! We also rented a floor sander and leveled the transition between the old kitchen and addition as best we could. Considering how bad the old floor was, we did a pretty good job.

Here's a shot of the shorter floor brace under the laundry room. Each jack is sitting on a 16x16x4 concrete pad we dug into the slope (those were fun installing). Sorry for the bad exposure, but I just stuck the camera down into the crawlspace access hole and took a quick shot for tonight's post:

We did a lot of running around today (Home Depot twice, McLendons and Dunn Lumber), but still managed to finish the floor bracing, put up some more siding and install the first 50 feet of our drain system. The first drain head is at the low spot of our driveway, and the pipe runs 100 feet to the back of the lot. We got about half of that buried this afternoon before it got dark.

Tomorrow we have to run the extra insulation back to Lumbermens in Fife, then come home and install the window fascia and dig more of the drain trench. I think we might delay installing the gutters until we get the roof fascia painted -- otherwise, we'll need to either paint or remove the gutters to paint it.

I'll try to get some better pictures up tomorrow!

Four days, four projects

2008-09-14T08:39:00.000-07:00

The tapers showed up yesterday morning and quickly decided the mud wasn't dry enough to do a top coat. We had a little surprise for them, though, because we had been working late into the night to build our archway into the kitchen, and we needed it taped. Luckily, they didn't mind, so we narrowly escaped having to do ANY taping on this project (so far).

We have only four work days left before my dad goes home and we head up to BC for a dive trip. Here's what we're hoping to get done before then:

#1 - Trim and install siding on shed and house (we've already started the shed)
#2 - Install some bracing for the laundry and kitchen floor to remove bounce
#3 - Level floor between the addition and existing kitchen
#4 - Install gutters and drain system

If we can get all that done, Jen and I will be in good shape to start painting, flooring and installing cabinets when we get back.

Here's a shot of the archway from the old living room into the kitchen:

Here's a closer shot showing the inside of one leg of the archway. I'm going to build bookshelves in each leg, stained to match the floor. This will be the new home for all of Jen's (vegan) cookbooks.

Finally, here's a shot looking at the archway from the addition:

Hurricane Jensen just passed through

2008-09-11T21:04:00.000-07:00

The past two days flashed by in a blur. We worked super late Tuesday tearing out the back wall. It took a while because we had to remove electrical and plumbing, as well as be careful about messing up the cabinets and countertops.

Jen put our whole kitchen on Craigslist Monday, and by Tuesday we had a taker. Now, this is nothing short of a minor miracle because it saved us the time and cost of disposal, plus we didn't have to heap the old cabinets somewhere in the meantime. The buyer lives in Sequim and was in town for a class, so the timing is pretty extraordinary. Anyhow, it paid for about a fifth of the sheetrock contractors.

Yesterday, the crew (two Mexican guys) hung all the sheetrock. Those guys were amazing. Their drills were running almost constantly, producing a sound not unlike an Indy 500 pit stop. Today, the tapers (two different Mexican guys) taped all seams and mudded the screw holes. We picked the right crew 'cause everybody did a fantastic job.

At any rate, we're all totally beat and trying to go to bed at a decent hour tonight, so this post will be more of a short photo essay on sweat equity and living in filth.

Back on track

2008-09-09T00:01:00.000-07:00

We installed about three quarters of the insulation today, and also lined up some guys to hang the sheetrock, tape and texture. The cost wasn't really in our budget, but we're running a surplus and have lots of other stuff to do, so it's definitely the right move. Besides, I'm super tired and just want to be done. =)

Tomorrow's the big day: we're removing the back wall. We just have to finish up some insulation, then start ripping it out. The guys will be here Wednesday to hang sheetrock and hopefully mud Thursday. Here's a couple shots of the insulation we installed:

We hooked up the washer tonight and started a load of clothes. After about 20 minutes, Jen noticed a *very* slow leak in the threaded fitting to the hot water valve in the washer box. UGH! Plumbing totally sucks. I'm seriously considering tearing out some of the copper we sweated and replacing it with PEX and SharkBite fittings.

When you think you're about done...

2008-09-06T23:21:00.001-07:00

... it usually means there's a ton of busy work right around the corner. Over the past week, we've done a LOT of wiring and plumbing (including cleaning up a bunch of existing wiring), had a few inspections, installed two new ground rods, got the furnace replaced, made a dump run, installed a new fan and shower light in the main bath, unloaded sheetrock and insulation, and a whole slew of other little things I can't remember right now.

I feel like I've spent half the past week crawling around in either the crawlspace or attic, and there isn't a spot on my body that isn't cut, bruised, dirty or sore. After we redo the washer box and shower drains/vents tomorrow, I shouldn't have to venture back into the tight, dark spaces until we get to the kitchen.

Here's some pics of the stuff we've been working on. First, here's our first and second attempt at the washer box. The first attempt is on the right. The inspector kindly let us know that each fixture must have its own vent, so we had to move the washer box to the left of the window to make room. We also decided to return the shock arrestors and just get a washer box with them built in. So the washer box on the left shows the p-trap (which has to be above the floor) and our new vent.

Yesterday, we replaced the two bar lights in the old movie room with three can lights in what will be the laundry room. We moved these to the 15-amp circuit for the crawlspace/attic lights and ran new 14-gauge wire for the 3-way switches.

The mornings were starting to get chilly, so we called Eric at Mountain Valley to install the new furnace and air filter. Those guys do great work, and our new furnace is super quiet, blows more air, and we added an awesome filter. I guess they just figured out that the filter is capable of killing the flu virus (see filter details here), but I'll be happy if we just don't have to dust so often.

Man, I feel like we've just about rewired the whole house. Four home runs to the addition, including the shed, and lots of cleaning up of old wiring. Here's a shot of the panel. You can see the arc-fault circuit breaker in the lower-right section. Apparently, these new breakers can detect a short in a device (e.g. a lamp, heating blanket, etc) and kill the circuit before a fire can start. That's all fine and dandy, but they cost $40 each. We had to put one on the circuit for the master closet because all bedrooms now require them, and we modified part of a bedroom. In a few years, arc-fault breakers will likely be required throughout the house.

We originally installed four 4" can lights in the TV area of the addition. We were immediately on the fence about whether they were bright enough, so when the inspector pointed out we were going to have to block 3" around the cans we quickly decided to replace them with 6" IC-rated cans. They're definitely bright enough, and now we can pack insulation all around the cans.

One little side project that ended up taking half the day was putting a new fan in the main bathroom. Our fan there has always been super noisy and pretty much ineffective. I bought a high-CFM, low-noise fan for each bathroom about a month ago, but we didn't get around to installing the one in the main bath until today. Well, the old fan had a built-in light, and the new fan doesn't, so Jen suggested we add a shower light like we did in the other bathroom. That translated to another trip to McLendons, more wiring, and lots of monkeying around in the attic.

It's all worth it, though, because now the shower is nice and bright, and the mirror wasn't fogged up at all after a nice long, hot shower tonight.

After we wrap up the plumbing tomorrow, we'll start insulating the addition. With any luck, we'll get it all insulated and start sheetrocking Monday.

I'll try to be better about posting each day again. I got a little off track over the past week because we've been working really long days.

Electrical is fun

2008-08-31T22:02:00.000-07:00

We spent today getting some more electrical stuff from Home Depot and McLendons, and then wired up the two main circuits in the addition. One circuit has half the outlets and all ceiling lights, while the other has the closet light, crawlspace lights and the other half of the outlets. We're using 14 gauge wire throughout because each circuit is 15 amps. We'll wire a third circuit tomorrow for the outlets outside, which will be a 20 amp circuit, so we'll use 12 gauge wire and stick a GFI outlet on it.

Here's a shot of the cans we installed in the ceiling. There's currently a bare light bulb hanging where the dining room table will be.

Here's a couple shots of the alcove off the kitchen. The first shot looks toward the bathroom door. You'll have to use your imagination since we only have it framed in right now.

Here's a shot looking towards the closet in the alcove. This will be perfect storage for coats, shoes, vacuum cleaner, etc.

The plumbing, electrical and building inspectors are all coming on Tuesday, so we'll be busy tomorrow cleaning up a bunch of loose ends -- after I go diving in the morning, that is!

Another day in the hole

2008-08-28T22:16:00.001-07:00

We started the day by running up to Bellevue to get our plumbing permit. I was able to get the electrical permit online immediately, but I guess Public Health is a little behind the times.

When we got back, we turned off the water, drained the pipes and cut into the main 3/4" line. Yesterday we spent most of the day preparing the 1/2" lines to the shower and washer box, so we hoped today's plumbing efforts would be quick and painless. It was neither.

After sweating our 3/4" tees in place, we turned the water back on and noticed a little leak in one of our 1/2" 90's. Off went the water so we could fix the leak. When we turned the water back on, we noticed a leak in a 1/2" line under the shower faucet. Off went the water again. The last leak we found was a very slow one in a 3/4" tee. We fixed that, and it's been good so far, but we'll keep our eye on everything for the next couple weeks and probably continue to jokingly refer to our "crawlspace sprinkler system" indefinitely.

It's hard to get good photos down there, but here's a shot of the 3/4" tees we spliced into the main hot and cold lines:

Here's a shot of the 1/2" lines running up to the new shower:

We hope to finish framing in the bathroom and laundry room tomorrow, then start running some electrical in the addition.

Back at it

2008-08-26T19:48:00.000-07:00

I had a fantastic weekend of diving in Victoria and Nanaimo (BC), and it was wonderful sleeping in a REAL bed again! We first dived Race Rocks in Victoria, and then dived the Saskatchewan, Cape Breton, Riv Tow Lion and Jesse Island in Nanaimo with Ken and Carolyn from Diver's Choice.

Yesterday we ran some errands and picked up the bathroom tile at Home Depot. Well, HALF of the tile anyhow. It seems the other half of our order is currently lost somewhere.

Today we replaced the laundry room window, and then spent most of the day crawling around under the house. We had to fix a leak in the existing bathroom/kitchen drain, then we finished plumbing the drain for the new shower. Finally, we nearly finished plumbing the water pipes for the shower.

Now, that may not sound like much, but everything runs at a snail's pace when you're crawling around on your belly in a 2-foot crawlspace. Here's a shot of what we're dealing with:

You never know what kind of creepy-crawly things you're going to find under your house. Of course, you have the usual spiders, bees and other critters, but I also found an abandoned rat's nest in the insulation. Then I came upon something that I never expected.

WARNING: WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO SEE MAY CAUSE NIGHT SWEATS, HALLUCINATIONS AND A GENERAL SENSE OF THE HEEBY-JEEBIES. VIEW AT YOUR OWN RISK.

It appears a cat met its demise under our house sometime in the distant past, judging by the mummy-like condition its skull is in. I'm going to leave it where it's at to scare the rats away. =)

And now for a brief intermission

2008-08-19T20:51:00.000-07:00

Well, we're taking a break, of sorts, until Monday. My folks have to drive to Utah for a convention, and I'm headed to Nanaimo (Canada) for some wreck diving. I think we're all wiped out from working 12-hour days for the past six weeks, and this little break is much needed.

We've been having a little rain lately, so we decided we better fill what was left of the old crawlspace access hole this morning. We bought some concrete mix yesterday, and this morning we constructed a little form using the 3/4" flooring we had leftover.

With the concrete left to dry, we finished sheathing the addition and wrapped it in weather barrier. Once that was done, we set all the windows. This actually went pretty quickly, and all the windows are set except for the existing slider, which we'll move when we remove the back wall.

Once the windows were all set, we started finishing the sheathing on the gable of the addition and shed. Here's a shot from inside the addition looking at the back wall:

Finally, it started raining a little, so we removed our concrete form and backfilled that corner with some dirt. This should ensure all water drains away from the house until we get the gutters on and tied into the main drain pipe.

I'll finish the ridge cap on the addition tomorrow using the 3-tab shingles we picked up this morning, but I probably won't post again until Monday. I'll finally be able to sleep in a real bed again (in a Canadian hotel) -- it's just sad I have to go to another country to do it!

Approaching the finish line (sort of)

2008-08-17T20:38:00.000-07:00

Well, another very productive weekend comes to a close. Yesterday was a little slow because I went for a dive in the morning, then did a dump run. After spending a couple hours shingling the shed roof, Jen and I went to Movie Night at Holly and Cher's (we watched Hellboy).

Today, however, we got a lot done. Erik showed up at 9am, and we loaded up his pickup and my Jeep and went to the Algona transfer station. That got rid of almost all of our debris pile.

When I got home, we made a run to McLendon's for felt and roofing cement, and then spent several hours finishing the shed roof (including the skylight). The only thing left to do on both roofs is to finish the ridge cap, and we'll get the 3-tab for that tomorrow.

Once the shed roof was done, we fired up the Bobcat to do some quick razing... er, I mean landscaping. Here's the huge bush-thing that was crowding our evergreen:

Here's me firing up the Bobcat:

After a bunch of yanking on the bush-thing, it finally surrendered to the Bobcat. I drug its corpse into the cul-de-sac as a testimony of my power to the neighbors.

While we were working on the shed, Jen was experimenting with some yard work. For once in my life, I'm actually getting excited about working in the yard!

My folks leave for Utah on Wednesday, and we're headed to Vancouver Island on Thursday, so we really only have two more days to get the weather barrier and windows installed. Keep your fingers crossed!

Backfilled

2008-08-15T20:55:00.001-07:00

I feel like we hit a major milestone today. The windows showed up first thing this morning, so we carried them back into the addition. Then we went to Pioneer Builder's Supply to get more shingles for the shed and Dunn Lumber to get the fascia. When we got back home, the Bobcat (technically a John Deere) showed up, so we immediately fired her up and started backfilling.

It took about two hours to get completely backfilled, and that included moving some very large rocks around for our future landscaping project. I can't express what a relief it is to get rid of the trench around the house!

Everyone is getting excited about our future patio. It's going to be just the right size and will get both sun and shade throughout the day. We'll probably build a "rustic" firepit, too. I predict we'll be spending a lot of time out there.

I think the Bobcat looks good in our driveway, but Jen says it's gotta go.

We finished the day by sheathing the roof of the shed. Tomorrow I've got a dive in the morning, a couple dump runs after that, and movie night at Holly and Cher's later. There won't be too much time for more work, but we hope to get the fascia and tarpaper installed on the shed. Hopefully we'll get the weather barrier and a few windows installed on Sunday.

Pretty much done framing

2008-08-13T20:38:00.000-07:00

I had a long business call this morning, so Jen and dad started working on the last bit of framing in the addition. When I was off the phone, I helped finish up.

If we had built according to plan, we would be sheetrocking right onto the 19' beam holding the peak up. However, we decided to push that wall out about a foot to make more room for the master closet and kitchen cabinets. Because of this change, we had to frame in some furring onto the beam. Here's a shot of the beam and the furring we added. You can see the glulam beam behind the furring.

Here's a shot of the outer wall with the five square windows.

I hate to go on a rant, but...

I got a voice mail from Home Depot today saying the windows were waiting at Will Call. When we called the other day to check the status, they said the windows wouldn't be in until the 22nd. I guess I'm happy they're in now, but I'm a little frustrated with Home Depot's special order process. Nobody I know has had a good experience with it.

At any rate, tomorrow we'll pick up what should be the last shingles. We'll finish the cap on the addition, then return to the shed roof. Tonight we finished a third of the blocking, and tomorrow we hope to have the roof sheathed. Friday we'll shingle the shed roof and move the junk out to the front yard in preparation for the Bobcat being delivered Friday afternoon. Saturday we'll backfill so it's easier to do the siding. Can't wait to start on the interior!

The roof is finally done

2008-08-12T21:11:00.001-07:00

Wow, the roof was brutal. It's painfully slow to creep up the roof at 5" per row of shingles, then there's a lot of extra time measuring and cutting shingles around the skylights and vents. We finally finished this morning, except for a few cap shingles. This picture was taken the other day before we set the skylights.

We finished up just when it was getting dark. This picture doesn't show the zinc strips or cap shingles we laid this morning.

After working on the roof, we framed the gable and master closet. Tomorrow, we'll frame the last part of the interior, and then go back to working on the bathroom. We set the shower and started plumbing it the other day.

We have our cabinets and wood flooring, but we're waiting on windows and tile.

Another day of laying shingles

2008-08-08T20:42:00.000-07:00

We had a reprieve from the hot weather today and made some great progress on the roof. Of course, we started out by running around to get more shingles and the skylights. After that, though, things went pretty smoothly.

The west side of the roof is complete, including the plumbing vents and bathroom fan vent.

The east side is about 1/3 complete, but we've got the skylight curbs installed already.

The skylights should help fill the addition, and partly the kitchen, with more natural light.

Roofing is no fun

2008-08-06T21:10:00.000-07:00

We started the day by dashing over to Pioneer Building Supply in Kent to buy shingles. Then I had to make a couple business calls before heading up on the roof to start installing our galvanized valleys.

Installing those buggers took about half the day because it's pretty darn hard to cut through the existing shingles and remove enough staples to slide the new tarpaper and valleys underneath. To make things worse, one of the valleys is only about 4" from our dome light in the bathroom. After much grunt work in the burning sun, we did a pretty good job.

The shingles showed up around noon. The truck had a conveyor belt thingie that lifted the shingle packs up to the roof, then we walked them over to the peak of the addition.

It threatened to sprinkle this afternoon, so we took a break to move a bunch of crap from the garage to the shed, and move the kitchen cabinets into the garage.

Tomorrow, we'll finish papering the roof and probably get all the shingles installed. Then we'll probably go back to work on the bathroom until the windows show up.

Soon we'll be dried in

2008-08-05T20:33:00.000-07:00

I got bogged down in some work stuff this morning, so Jen jumped on the roof and helped my dad finish up the last few pieces of sheathing. Then we went to McLendons to get some galvanized valley flashing, tarpaper and other odds and ends. Apparently they get shingles from some other local company, so we're going there in the morning to buy direct.

After a second trip to another McLendons to get the remaining flashing, we started putting up the trim over the fascia. It's a pain no matter how you slice it because we haven't back-filled yet, and it's hard to get ladders where you need them. Leaning over the roof to nail is the other option, but the plywood over the eaves is pretty slick, and, well, I'm not so young and stupid anymore.

We don't have a roofing stapler, so we'll be back to nailing tomorrow when we put the shingles down. Here's a shot looking down onto what will be our private patio in a couple months.

Lots of busy work

2008-08-04T09:39:00.000-07:00

I had hoped to start sheathing the roof yesterday, but it turned out we had lots of little odds and ends to finish up. Specifically, we had to block between the rafters and trusses, install the 2x4's that support the gable end of the roof and trim the tails.

Working on the tails is a little tricky. It tends to bring out the monkey in all of us.

The roof is almost done

2008-08-02T21:25:00.000-07:00

We set the final beam yesterday. It's a 15' glulam that carries the load of the 2x12 rafters over the outer portion of the addition. It was a little tricky, but not nearly as bad as the girder truss or 19' beam. Here's a shot of the south side:

And here's a shot of the north side:

Today we finished setting the rafters, as well as the 2x4 tails.

Here's a shot looking over into our neighbor's yucky yard:

We should be moving on to the roof sheathing tomorrow. YAY!

On to the rafters

2008-07-30T22:57:00.000-07:00

We got quite a bit done today. We started by cutting back the roof more to get better access to the ends of the existing trusses, then removed the nails holding them to the top plate of the back wall. Once the nails were out, we pounded on the hangers that connect the existing trusses to the new girder truss.

With the girder truss in place, we then positioned the common trusses and built a 2x6 beam and rafters onto the existing roof. This picture shows half of that, but we actually finished it before quitting for dinner.

The kitchen cabinets were delivered today, so they're sitting in the driveway under a canopy. Hopefully we'll make a lot of headway on the final beam and 2x12 rafters tomorrow so we can get our roof on by Saturday or Sunday. We have one last day of rain to deal with on Friday, so we'll probably have to get a large tarp at Home Depot in the morning when we place the order for the windows.

Starting to look like a house

2008-07-28T20:45:00.000-07:00

We've made a ton of progress in the past few days. We finished standing up the remaining two walls, set the girder truss in place (big thanks to Erik, Trevor and Karisa!), and set the 19' beam.

Here's a shot that shows the east wall, comprised of the existing slider and two 36" fixed french windows, one on each side:

Here's a shot of the south wall with five 30" windows:

And here's a shot of the 19' beam we set today. Setting the heavy stuff is a pretty tricky operation, given how few people we have. Today it was just me, dad, Jen, two ladders and a motorcycle lift.

Our next challenge is to get the hangers installed so the existing trusses are supported by our girder truss. This will involve cutting back the roof to make room to work. I think this week will be full of ugly grunt work, but we should have the roof on by the weekend.

Walls? Yeah, we got 'em.

2008-07-27T09:00:00.000-07:00

We started the day with a little disagreement about how to lay out the east wall. We had two competing influences, one being the 19' beam and the other being the tie-down in the foundation.

Specifically, the 19' beam needs to rest on a 6x6 post in the wall between the slider and the window to the north of the slider. The tie-down attaches to the wall south of the last window on that wall. If we wanted the 19' beam to be in-line with our kitchen wall, the tie-down would end up in the middle of a window.

After some lightly heated discussion, we agreed that the beam did not need to line up with the kitchen wall since it will not be visible. Instead, the post that will support that end of the beam will be located behind the last cabinet in the kitchen, in a little 12" pocket created where the cabinet is 24" deep, but the fridge next to it is 36" deep.

We stood the wall up a little at a time to about 45 degrees using sawhorses and multiple blocks. Once we got it to that point, the two of us hefted it up the rest of the way.

Then we turned our attention to the west wall. Before we could do anything there, we needed to remove the bedroom window and frame in the new window and closet door. So we started ripping and tearing...

I didn't get a shot of the final framing because it started sprinkling at the end of the day, and we had to get all the tools in and some sort of waterproofing installed.

Today, we're going to sheet and stand up the west wall that we framed last night. Then we'll lay out and frame the south wall. Hopefully some friends will show up around 1pm to help us stand up the south wall and set the girder truss.

Ready to build some walls

2008-07-25T21:08:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was another grueling day of laboring in the sun. We spent most of the day removing the existing siding and roof to make room for our new walls. This involved cutting off the truss tails where our new girder truss will attach, and then removing those sections of the roof. We burned a saw blade cutting through the asphalt shingles.

After a few hours, we had the wall all ready to go.

We had a minor standstill while we worked through a problem with the trusses delivered the other day. Because we're only using trusses on the first five feet of the addition and 2x12 rafters after that, there was a mismatch in the heel height. In other words, the rafters would create a roof that was about ten inches higher than the trusses.

We talked to the designer, the truss manufacturer and the engineer, and finally decided to have three common trusses made with the proper heel. One of those trusses will be attached to the girder truss to provide the correct heel without requiring the girder truss to be remade. The new trusses should be here Monday, which works great because we'll have our walls up by then, and they can put the trusses on the walls for us with the crane.

While this was all happening (and the electrician was replacing our panel), we worked on the roof of the shed. The nail guns from my dad's friend Ernie arrived a day early and made the job A LOT easier. At quitting time, we had the beam and rafters in place. Most of the roof is made from the deck we tore out on day one.

Tomorrow we'll finish laying out, cutting, assembling and standing up our three exterior walls!

It's official... we're out of the ground

2008-07-24T08:03:00.001-07:00

After some business stuff in the morning, we finished the wall sheathing on the shed, leveled out some of the dirt piles to make it easier to maneuver, then started laying the decking on the addition.

To ensure we have a solid floor with no squeaks down the road, we used glue and screws to attach the 4x8 decking sheets.

After swinging a hammer the entire previous day, using the hammer drills on the decking was a welcome change. By quitting time, we had laid all the decking.

Shed walls are tipped up

2008-07-22T21:56:00.000-07:00

We opted to work on the shed today so we can start moving our tools out of the garage. Because we won't have the nailer until the weekend, we're still having to hammer everything, which makes everything take about twice as long.

Here's a shot of the first wall before we tipped it up:

We almost finished the walls before it was time to quit. Tomorrow, we'll finish the last piece of sheeting and work on getting a roof on it.

TJI palooza

2008-07-21T22:21:00.000-07:00

We didn't make much visible progess yesterday because I spent most of the day running around (and then snuck out for a dive last night). We had to rent a concrete grinder to lower a couple spots of the wall that were a little high.

Note: Adequate ventilation, eye protection, and a really good respirator is an absolute must when grinding concrete. It makes a TON of dust very quickly. I recommend waiting until you have a decent breeze and your neighbors are at work.

One of our problems is the SW corner, where the back wall form was about 1/2" too short. This is the part of the wall where we step down 3", and it's the only part of the project that hasn't been spot-on.

So basically we were ready to start tipping up the TJI joists at the end of the day yesterday. We met with the inspector first thing this morning, and he cut us some slack on the 7/8" all-thread tie-downs we were supposed to install. Because of the way the existing foundation was poured, we'd need a 36" concrete bit to do it per plan. Instead, we'll use a steel strap on the side of the existing foundation (which will require ANOTHER rental of the hammer drill).

I had some business stuff to take care of after that, and then the form rental driver arrived to pick up the forms. We helped him load everything onto his truck, and then zipped down to Lumbermen's in Fife to firm up the window order. After lunch, we finally set up the rim joists and started in on the TJI's. Soon this view looking down out our back slider will be gone:

My dad's buddy from Alaska was supposed to send us his nailer, but it's not arriving until Friday. That means I spent all day swinging a hammer. When we quit for dinner at 9:15pm, we only had two more 28' TJI's to stand up. Here's how it looked about an hour before we quit:

Tomorrow, we'll finish up the floor joists, then frame up the shed since all that wood is sitting on top of our flooring and needs to be moved anyhow. Hopefully we can backfill soon before one of us breaks a leg from climbing in and out of the hole!

Getting ready to frame

2008-07-19T18:45:00.000-07:00

We started the day by stripping the forms and piling all the form stuff in the driveway for pickup on Monday. It was a little tough separating the panels from the concrete, and then each panel had to be scraped clean.

Once that was done, we tore into the lumber package and moved all the TJI joists and treated 2x6 bottom plate to the backyard. We got most of the plate ready to install, but there are two issues that stopped us:

1) Astrof forgot to give us washers for the galvanized bolts
2) One side of the foundation wall is about 1/4" higher than the existing floor level

We had to quit a little early to get my parents to some party in Ballard, anyhow, so we decided to tackle these issues tomorrow. We'll go to Home Depot first thing to get the washers and rent a concrete grinder. As long as we're going to Home Depot, we'll rent a hammer drill to sink the two 3/4" tie-downs (per plan) and some galvanized all-thread to create a couple anchor bolts within 6" of our plate joints.

Here's how our foundation looks now, sans form panels.

Foundation... complete!

2008-07-18T18:01:00.000-07:00

Wow, what a busy day. The pump truck, concrete truck and lumber truck all showed up at the same time. While the pump truck guys were setting up the hose, the lumber guys dumped our framing package in our driveway.

Here's a shot of the concrete truck set up to dump mud into the pump truck's hopper.

The pump truck guy was totally cool (and a diver!), and he offered to run the hose. After pouring the footing the other day, I gladly accepted. I helped lug the hose around behind him instead.

This time they brought a hook, which made filling the forms relatively easy. We filled them about halfway all the way around, then let it set up for about 5 minutes. After that, we worked our way back to where we started, filling the forms up to our grade line.

Once the wall was complete, we poured the pad for the storage shed. Dad and I screeded with a 12' 2x4 while the pump guy poured the mud. When the pad was full, we went back and set the anchor bolts before working the surface smooth.

It feels REALLY good to have the foundation done. This should be the end of the really dirty grunt work. We'll strip the forms tomorrow and then tip up the TJI joists in preparation for Monday's inspection!

Ready to pour concrete again

2008-07-18T07:37:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was another full day. We worked a little on the forms in the morning, then went to Costco to get a Little Giant ladder and Simple Floors to order our African Black Walnut flooring. When we got back, we finished setting up the stem wall forms.

Once the forms were done, we leveled the area where the 12x12 shed will go and set up some forms for that slab.

Here's a shot that shows where the shed will be located. If you continued the east wall of the foundation southward, it would line up with the west side of the shed. This way the shed will provide a natural boundary for the patio area and lawn area.

The inspector should be here in an hour or so, then we should be pouring concrete around noon. The lumber package is being dropped off today, too, so we should be framing this weekend!

Can't wait to get out of the ground

2008-07-16T23:19:00.000-07:00

Our goal for today was to get the forms set up to pour the stem wall. We started by cross-measuring to get the exact position of the wall, then we snapped our lines. Next, we nailed down all the panel cleats.

When we started adding the second row of panels, however, we discovered that we had no snap-tie wedges. So we called Astrof, and they delivered them within a couple hours. In the meantime, we made our final dump run and had lunch. After that, we resumed assembling the forms.

I had to bail at 5pm to go diving, but we couldn't get an inspection until Friday anyhow, so now there's no hurry. When I got back from diving, we epoxied the stem wall tie-ins and made a quick run to Home Depot. I returned the laser thingie I bought the other day and rented a transit instead. The transit was only $38, as opposed to the $74 United Rentals wanted.

We might try to line up concrete for Friday after our inspection, just like we did for the footing. Keep your fingers crossed!

Footing complete, hedge-beast gone

2008-07-15T22:41:00.001-07:00

The inspector showed up this morning and put a gold star on our report card, so we called to confirm the concrete delivery at noon. We then made a quick run to the dump with a third of the hedge-beast. Once the concrete and pump truck showed up, we were pouring concrete in about 30 minutes.

For those of you who think pouring concrete in shorts in stupid... well, you're totally right. I started out without safety glasses, and promptly got a big glob in my eye. I'll be wearing something entirely different when we pour the stem well in a couple days.

Once the concrete was poured, we smoothed it out with 2x4's and trowels. Most people just leave the footing rough, but we took the extra time to make the top of the footing smooth. Hopefully it will make setting the stem wall forms easier.

When the footing was complete, we turned our attention back to the hedge-beast while the footing cured. We made the second dump run after getting an adapter so we had brake lights and turn signals. Then we came back and loaded up the last of the hedge. We'll take it to the dump in the morning.

We stripped the forms from the footing after dinner and stacked them up nicely in the driveway. I'll try to get a shot of the finished footing in the morning.

We passed the footing inspection

2008-07-15T09:57:00.001-07:00

The inspector left about 20 minutes ago after signing off on our footing forms. We've got concrete from Corliss and a pump truck from Wes-Mar showing up here at noon, so we should have the footing poured by about 2pm. Then we'll strip the forms around 5pm or 6pm and get them out of the way.

Here's a close-up of one of the tie-ins to the existing footing. There are four pieces of #4 epoxied into the existing footing 12" OC. Then, there are three pieces of #5 laid parallel to the existing footing. Seems like major overkill to me, but I'm just a software guy.

Here's a shot of one of the outer corners of the footing. Note the spreaders nailed to the top of the form, as well as the 2x2 we're using to hold the vertical hooks in place.

And here's the whole enchilada. There's a single bar of #4 running through the whole footing, with vertical hooks 48" OC. The footing is 8" tall, except for the tie-in pads, which are 10". Finally, there's a 24"x24" pad (the cardboard box) that will be the 12" tall pad for the beam directly above.

It's a little tricky because the existing footing slopes down to the west, and the existing stem wall is stepped in the middle. Our footings all come out from the house level, and our end footing slopes to match the existing. We'll step our stem wall down in the SW corner.

Our stem wall falls right in the middle of the access hole in the existing stem wall, so we'll fill that and tie it in at the top. I'll post details of that when we get the forms set up tomorrow.

Just about ready to pour the footing

2008-07-14T12:19:00.001-07:00

We finished up the forms first thing this morning, then I ran down to United Rentals to return the non-leveling transit and pick up a hammer drill. My dad's smaller hammer drill gave out on us yesterday after we struggled to drill about half the tie-in holes. The big one I rented today made finishing the holes pretty darn easy.

Here's the forms all set up and ready to pour:

Here's some of the holes we drilled into the existing foundation for the rebar tie-ins. After I eat lunch, we're going to epoxy in the rebar, then we'll schedule our first inspection!

In case you were wondering, cats do NOT make good helpers.

Hedge and root palooza

2008-07-14T12:01:00.000-07:00

We finished digging the hole yesterday and began setting the footing forms. Since the excavator had to go back today, though, we decided to yank out the hedge next to our driveway, as well as the roots left over from the tree we had removed. Here's the hedge-beast:

Here's the pile of roots we pulled out. Our front yard is totally torn up now, so we'll have some landscaping to do when the addition is complete.

When we couldn't find anything else to destroy with the excavator, we inhaled some dinner and went back to work on the forms. We had them just about done by the time it was too dark to work anymore, and here's what they looked like this morning:

Is there a back doctor in the house?

2008-07-12T21:59:00.000-07:00

Wheelbarrows can be fun sometimes. Like, if you're moving cotton balls or helium-filled balloons around. When you're moving chunks of concrete patio uphill in the sun, however, the wheelbarrow is decidedly NOT fun.

We started with this:

Then we realized we didn't have enough room to put the dirt we needed to remove for the foundation. The words "we gotta wheelbarrow it out front" were spoken, and my fate was sealed. Apparently "we" means "you" in dad-speak. A few hours later, I felt like I was going to collapse, but the concrete was nicely stacked by the curb.

Now, when I first starting thinking we should do all the work on this addition ourselves, I was imagining swinging a hammer, setting cabinets, painting walls... the fun stuff! I'm pretty sure wheelbarrowing 200-lb loads of concrete for hours on end never entered my mind. For the record, this is really the kind of construction I like to do:

At any rate, we managed to get the hole dug today. Tomorrow we'll get the footing forms set up and ready for inspection. Unless we have problems drilling the holes for the tie-ins to the existing footing, that is.

Excavation has begun!

2008-07-11T21:16:00.000-07:00

We started the day by ripping off the deck. It was pretty rotted out, so we quickly abandoned the idea of salvaging or selling it. Except for the 4x6 beam supporting the deck -- we'll probably use that under the existing house to beef up the floor under the 4x8 island.

Here's an old shot from a couple years ago showing the back deck:

The excavator showed up around 3pm. The guy who delivered it was super cool, and he drove it around the house for us. He probably thought we'd knock a hole in the house or hurt ourselves or something, but it was nice all the same.

So the guy left, and we immediately started tearing up the patio slab. It took dad a bit to get the hang of it, but then he was slinging chunks of concrete like a pro. It looks like I was just standing around a lot, but I was running around operating the manual excavator (i.e. a shovel).

After about 2 hours, the patio was piled up in the backyard, as well as all the five trees and bushes we tore out.

After 3 more hours, we had the hole about half dug. There isn't much extra room to pile up dirt, so it'll be tight tomorrow when we finish digging the hole. We should be ready to set up the forms for the footing on Sunday morning!

The cabinets are coming

2008-07-08T21:46:00.000-07:00

McLendon's called today to tell me they couldn't push back the early ship date for the cabinets. So not only are we getting a late start on the foundation, but the cabinets are now coming early. For some reason, we've already received some, but not all, of the end panels. I predict a very full garage in our near future...

More stuff arrived

2008-07-07T13:25:00.000-07:00

When I found out my mom broke her hip, I cancelled everything we had set up for the foundations. However, the concrete forms arrived today anyway, so there must have been a communication breakdown. Now we've got a bunch of forms and rebar in the driveway.

FedEx also dropped off a few cabinet end panels today. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that our cabinets don't show up early.

Off to a bumpy start

2008-07-05T10:01:00.000-07:00

After many careful months of planning and much concern about getting permits on-time, everything appeared to be going swimmingly. My dad and grandma arrived Wednesday, and by Thursday we had foundation forms and an excavator rented, as well as concrete delivery and inspection scheduled. We also had the second bath half gutted to prepare for the shower installation. Then we hit our first hurdle...

My mom took a hard fall at my sister's house in Sacramento, resulting in a fractured hip. Yesterday, we found out she needed a hip replacement, so my dad flew out late last night. Her surgery is scheduled to start in an hour, and the doctor says she should be up and around (with a walker, then a cane) in about two days. Her hip should be relatively pain-free, but the site of the incision will probably not feel too good for a while.

This morning, I'm cancelling everything we had scheduled for the foundation. With any luck, my folks will be up here within a week or two, and then we'll pick up where we left off. In the meantime, I'll do a little work on the bathroom.

Here's a couple "before" shots of the bathroom we gutted...

... and here are some shots of what it looks like now.

(We had to widen the door to the garage to get the shower enclosure inside)