A few rooms

Despite record temperatures on Friday, our weekend was mild and a little overcast--in other words, an ideal weekend to spend in the basement! We are still busy with the stud installation and now we have nearly 3 of the 4 perimeter walls up and our new bathroom has taken shape with the plumbing rough-in and some new walls. We were at this stage three years ago on a different floor in a different season.

Handyman, Justin, ready to fasten in a 2x4.

 Lazyman Pongo, chillakin' with the studs.

Our new 1/2 bath, roughed and framed in. We still need to remove the window and replace it with something smaller.

Standing on the west side, in Justin's future workroom looking through the bathroom and laundry room.

Our new crawlspace access door. This will be the only access to the secret room under the front porch.

Sump'thing's going on

We are officially waterproofed in the basement. The drains and sump were installed in 2 days which barely left the cats any time to play in the world's best habitrail. I am really hoping that the big pile of dirt that the crew left in the basement overnight didn't get used as a litter box.

 Here's the big hole for the sump pump, right underneath the water heater.

Pongo in the trenches. This was the BEST.GAME.EVER.

This weekend, we took the project to the next level. We were able to start framing and despite lots of automated tools, we weren't that efficient at framing. We finished the entire north wall and barely started an interior wall that will be used for plumbing. Prior to framing, we hung up 6mm visqueen on the masonry and tucked it behind the drainage membrane in case there is any condensation. If that happens, it will be routed to the perimeter drain rather than the insulation we'll be putting up.

Here's the north wall all framed up. This corner from the panel and back to the window will be our future storage room.

 

Here's the lone interior wall--95" long that took most of Sunday to put up since there are so many pieces of plumbing and ductwork to work around (and that is without actually building any soffits yet).

We finally got off our duffs...

It's been an eventful summer and we've been enjoying the nice weather and relaxing our weekends away. In the meantime, our basement project has been languishing. But, we got a handful of proposals to fix our water problem in our basement and we are starting to think beyond the day that the perimeter drain is installed.

Over the past few weeks, I've been playing with the floor plan and thinking about how we might like to use the new space. One thing that was giving me trouble was a window in the closet that we've recently split into two closets. Who wants a window in a closet? Not me! This weekend we opted to close it up and I have to say that it looks about 100 times better on the outside of our house now. Before, we had a pair windows that were different dimensions so their appearance was lopsided.

Framed up...

Insulated and hemmed in with some scraps of plywood. We chose not to remove the lathe on this wall because there is blown-in insulation in the stud cavity so the plywood addition makes the plane even.

Another effort we took on was rewiring the three-way switch to give us a light at the top of the stairs to the basement. Three-way switches are tricky but I figured it out (on the second try). In my defense, the switch had some very confusing labeling on the hot and neutral terminals. I had thought I was wiring up hot to hot but the labeling got the better of me. It works now and all we need are the permanent light fixtures before we are ready for drywall in the stairwell.

An awkward angle to view the two new junction boxes wired up for control by two switches.

 

Progress-A-Plenty

There has been much progress these past few days and the week is not even over. The framers did wrap up everything they could this morning and are awaiting their last trip prior to being completely done. I released the electrician yesterday and the drywaller today. We still need to select an insulator which we will probably do after an on site meeting next week. The plumber starts tomorrow which is great as that gives him a head start on the electricians who are scheduled for next Wednesday.

Laura and I stopped at the house tonight to take more pictures, to measure for the cabinets and to see how our dream is coming together. It is good that we did check the framing dimensions against the casework shop drawings as we had two dimension issues that would have been tragic had they made it through production. A quick call to the cabinet shop and they were fixed. Apparently one of the solutions was to give me smaller bathroom drawers. Hmmmm, not sure how I feel about that.


We spent part of last night and tonight looking at tile and hardwood flooring in an attempt to narrow the field of possibilities. I think (don't quote me) that we are close on the upstairs bathroom tile but still a ways away from making a decision on hardwood flooring. Any opinions on this set of tile? We are thinking that the floor would be a 12"x24" of the brown on the lower right and the walls would be a 10"x 13" of the cream that is the same color as the large tile on the board along with some type of glass accent tile. Do any of our readers have a comment?


Laura also determined that our previously reported gas meter troubles are not nearly the magnitude that we had feared. Puget Sound Energy plans to add a line for our neighbor and then replace our meter with one of greater capacity. This is a much better deal for us.

Here are some more progress photos from yesterday and today:

The main floor hallway coat closet.

The main floor bathroom medicine cabinet will go here.

Looking from the kitchen into the dining room.

This is the same opening but from the other side.

This is the wall in the basement where all of the appliances will be roughed in (water heater, furnace, washer, dryer and utility sink).

Small Bad News

Laura found out some minor bad news today related to the existing natural gas service to the house. It turns out that the number of appliances we want to install will overtax the existing gas service and we will likely have problems. I guess a gas range, dryer, fireplace, furnace and instantaneous hot water heater were not thought of back in the day. Apparently what they did think of was that it would be cheaper in the short run to put in a shared gas main for our house and our neighbors so we would probably cause problems for them too. So.... it looks like we will also be getting a brand new gas main and meter for the house. I guess that is what our contingency is for (I don't know how many times I have said that lately). This is probably best in the long run as several of the electricians that looked at the house for bids said the gas and electrical meters were too close together per the current code. Our luck would probably have run out about the time we were looking for a final inspection anyway.

The day has not passed without some good news however. We met with the cabinet supplier this evening and placed our order. The framers wrapped up what they could do in the upstairs and were moving to the main floor and basement. They think they will be done tomorrow with what they can do and will have one more day to come back for some small details that will have to wait. At lunch I stopped at the house to clarify a few framing details and to meet with the newly signed up furnace guy. All systems are go on that front and they should be starting to install duct work on the 19th. It also appears that our matching vinyl siding was locally available as it was sitting on the porch ready to go. Now in six or seven more work days the windows will be ready and the whole package can go in. No more snow in the house!

In general we are headed rapidly in the right direction and morale is still high. Onward!

And...They're Off!

The first day of the reconstruction of our home was today. The idea that we have owned the house for one month and five days and how far we have come in that time is pretty amazing to me. With the help of our friends and family we have waged a calculated battle with plaster, lath, drywall and duct work to the point that it needed to be. Having been in construction for a while now I even surprised myself when we hit the start date for framing based on the schedule I developed prior to actually owning the place, despite the snow, bad roads and end of year holidays. Look at us!

Since the majority of the sweat equity portion of our work is complete for a while I thought I should take a turn at updating the tale of our project.

We met with Michael the framer last Friday at the house to get his material list together and so that a few clarifications could be made to the plan. Two of his framers stopped by later in the afternoon to meet with the plumber and see the project for themselves. Being the in-control kind of guy that I am, this meeting put me at ease knowing that there was a minor amount of coordination that happened prior to firing up the nail guns and chopping up lumber. With a few changes to the plans ironed out over the weekend I spoke again with Michael this morning to describe the "last" changes, give him the key box code, warned him about the guillotine dumpster lid (Dad reported last night that he has a nice bruise and is sore but other than that is OK), clarified the revisions to the main bathroom and wished him well. That was it. They were off. "THEY ARE PUTTING OUR HOUSE BACK TOGETHER!", the voice in my head was screaming. But what about the groundbreaking ceremony? No marching band? This was tough for me. Something that we had worked so hard on and Laura and I were not there to see it. Hmmm. Was it going to be like this for the rest of the project?

During lunch I talked with our window guy Glen (windows are on order), I requested the final revisions to the electrical proposal (CFLs in lieu of incandescents), released the furnace contractor, and figured out that the drywaller that we are likely to be using is the brother of the guy in charge of the maintenance at a building I am now working on. Small world when you consider that these guys went to school with my parents. Not that it gets us a deal or anything but good to know. In general it was a productive lunch hour.

I spent the rest of the day agonizing over what was going on at the house. Waiting for the call with a question about a specific detail, or what we wanted this to be like. It never came. "They probably dropped off the lumber and left", I thought. After work I raced up the hill to see what happened. They worked all right. Most of the upstairs is framed out and in the right spot. A quick call to Michael on a few concerns I had (missing beam and wall in the middle of the window) and I started to feel at ease. We were moving forward at last.

Here is what happened today:

A new pile of lumber was delivered. It was so cold in the house that there was still snow on the floor. Nice!

The new pocket door opening was framed for the master bedroom closet.

The new desk and shelf "nook" was framed in the attic area behind the new shower location.

Because it was getting dark (and I have yet to put up the string lights) a lot more happened that I could not capture in a photo. The other upstairs bedroom closet and the hallway linen closet were both framed. There was a nice pile of sawdust in the master bedroom and another pile of old studs in the other bedroom. I can't wait to see what happens tomorrow!