Bryon Blog-O-Rama

Final inspection went well, we have three electrical issues to deal with, two outlets that need to be added (ow) and a different cover on our outside outlet in the back yard (5 min w/a screwdriver, no big). Hope to have that done in a week. Then we just have to seal the bathroom floor with something that doesn’t make it slick (it’s concrete), and we can think about moving back in.

It’s been exactly one year since we moved out.

There are a billion details still to be done, some of which will be significant, but we won’t have to drive 20 minutes each way to deal with them. Or not have hot and cold water to wash with afterwards. So, easier now to be home than outside the construction zone.

We still have our $50 beater truck, which will be used to move us back in and also for some home depot equipment rentals (ditch-witch for a bit of trenching mostly). And then we will bid it a fond farewell.

At some point I plan to produce a slide show of the highlights. I went back over some pics already and was amazed at how much we’ve done. I must have blocked it out.

Well, giving birth might be more painful, but you couldn’t tell it by us.

However, the results are spectacular. The bathroom floor is being finished(literally) as I type this. Also, the plumbing is pretty much wrapped up. The icemaker in the fridge even works.

We have some minor issues left, but the main focus now is the kitchen. Cabinets are partially in, and our range hood chimney arrives today. It’s already functional, but needs this to gussy it up.

The bathroom floor glows in the dark, obviating the need for a night light. And it looks cool. Pictures soon, I have to do the whole tripod and long exposure thing to capture it. It glows blue, although in light you see nothing unusual.

All that’s left in the bathroom is a big piece of glass for the shower. We even got the ikea sink to work with non-ikea faucets and drains. Oh, we do need to seal the floor etc, but it looks pretty good.

We’re putting up lights and preparing for the final inspection, in the first week of April. Hoping it all goes well, we really need to finish this project and get on with our lives.

So the steel is in the floor, perfectly level and awaiting the concrete pour. Once we get the pour done, that log-jam will be gone and we can get the rest of the bathroom assembled and we’re about halfway to habitable.

The other half is the kitchen, which is also progressing. Floors and Cabinets are on the way, so once that’s done we’re looking at getting the appliances in, plumbing finished, and we’re cooking with gas (unless it’s the oven, which is electric).

We also just got the attic dry-walled, mostly to minimize the impact of the inevitable mess while we still have floor protection down, and that looks pretty good. I have to start thinking about the communications and AV cabinets up there…

So while it never truly ends, dramatic progress is right around the corner. Good enough.

The house is a few steps closer today, I got the stainless steel pieces for the bathroom floor partially ready. Still have a bit of work to do before we’re ready for the final step: Concrete.

It’s shaping up quite well, I’m really pleased with the results so far. It’s the first time I’ve sculpted metal in any way for a while, glad to see I haven’t lost my touch.

I’ve got them cut and bent to the correct shapes now, just need to do a bit of trimming on the bottom edge with my band-saw to level them out. Then I sand the tops to a nice finish with a 4″ grinder and sanding wheel, then finally use some epoxy putty to secure them for the pour.

I may also get some more thinset to seal up the bottoms. This would be good for the slab, for crack control. The steel is acting as a divider as well as an asthetic piece, so any cracking is limited. But if any concrete manages to bridge the sections by going under the divider, it’s quite possible for a crack to go right through. I thought of using silicone, but that might not be as compatible. So better safe than sorry, don’t want to do this again anytime soon.

I’ve also made sure that the dividers are just slightly below the intended finished surface level on top, so we don’t get a hotfoot from the warmfloor coil. No idea if that’s a potential issue, but it’s easy enough to avoid. It also makes it easier to seal it with an epoxy or such, which I’m planning to do. When we do the pour, my concrete guy will edge it appropriately, so it doesn’t get buried. It’s only about 1/16″, so surface tension alone should do it.

Hopefully I’ll finish it entirely next weekend. So much is hung up on this being finished, we’ll have a ton of progress once this is out of the way, and have a functional bathroom, always a plus for moving back in…

A little film series inspired by the “iPhone 4 – I don’t care” meme that was making the rounds a while ago.

Episode 1: But honey, it’s 4G!…
http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/6917603

Episode 2: He gets his phone, she gets the bottom line…
http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/7264395

And the original inspiration:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL7yD-0pqZg
Hilarious, but language isn’t exactly G rated.

So for our 3rd anniversary I got my wife a Schlage primus deadbolt. It’s for the new back door. She feels so fortunate to have such a romantic husband.

Just wait until her birthday: a lawn mower!

Drywall is now in finishing stages, and so we’ll be thinking about paint soon.

Lots of paint.

So, I’m thinking paint gun and a compressor, which I was gonna get anyway. We’ll see if the CFO will go for it. Possibly just rent the gun, since I doubt I’ll be using it often. The compressor I need to size for my workshop, plenty big for this job.

So then we retape everything that needs it, tape up the newly installed stuff, mask up and spray.

Sounds like 5 minutes of work when I put it that way. I bet we need two weekends just to prep.

Oh yeah, still need a concrete pour in the master bath, tile, etc etc.

And then we build the kitchen.

10 minutes then.

This is an exciting week coming up: insulation and drywall.

Over the past month or two we’ve been running like dogs to keep ahead of our renovation todo list. We’re both “the Boss” and “grunt slave labor” on this project, working with our contractor and subs to keep the project somewhat resembling on schedule and minimize the inevitable budget overages.

Since the demo phase we’ve had no walls to speak of, which allows easy access to all the things we’re putting in said walls. Since that ends this week, we’ve been scrambling to get all the in wall stuff in and ready for insulation and even more so, drywall. After that adding things that go through walls becomes a lot less convenient.

That’s included 2000ft of CAT6 for phone and data, mostly because you always pull two cables to have a spare, and since it’s my profession generally speaking, I wasn’t going to do it halfway. (Well, I did use to run cable back in the day, now I’m higher in the networking food chain and let others have that fun).

Other cabling included:

~500Ft of RG6 Coax for cable TV (with a run for the future to the studio coiled under the house, have to trench for that…)
~1000Ft of speaker wire (two per room really eats up cable, especially to the back of the house)

-And the doorbell. We’re keeping the original button, replacing the chime, and I have a nefarious plan to have it notify me via twitter or something equally over-the-top-geeky, mostly just because I can. And after pulling all this cable I should have some fun.

Money saving hint: 12-2 landscape lighting low voltage wire is exactly the same as good speaker wire and a lot cheaper because it’s not labeled “speaker wire”. There’s a lot of marketing crap out there, but all that really counts is that it’s stranded copper and heavy gauge for longer runs (of which I had many). Audiophiles get what my mother calls “all Nth-degree about it”, and a market has popped up to take advantage of this. If they could figure out how to polish electrons and call them special “audio-transduction-electro-magnetic-wave-packets” and charge extra for them, they would. But I digress.

I think I drilled about 200 holes for pathways for all this plus all of the electrical. Walter our “German Master Electrician” was great to work with, and only had to drill a bit here and there, rather than spending hours of his valuable (expensive) time on it.

I probably removed ten pounds of wood just by drilling, but added back about 150 pounds of copper just in the cables (speaker cable is heavy!). After tidying up a few things (edit- done!) we’ll be hands off for a while during insulation and drywall.

It’s time for a break while we consider our next priorities, mostly the master bath details, that kinda has to be done before we move back in… Fortunately most of those details have been settled, there’s just some design work I have to finish (and Lois has to like) before we complete that phase.

It’s going to be great. I tell myself this often lately, sung to the tune of “I think I can…”

Went to Huntington Beach to see Lois’s sister Vera and her family, or really her husband’s family mostly. There was a high school graduation which served as a big reunion for the Kasprowicz side of the family. Lovely folks all around.

Long drives 450 miles or so each way, but worth it to see family. It was nice to hang out at the beach, less nice to have missed certain spots whilst doing sunscreen. I got off light compared to my niece however, who will be playing the part of the regretful lobster for a while. She loves the ocean, but accidentally used SPF 8 apparently. That’s useful in Minnesota, not so much in SoCal.

I am now officially uber-grumpy with sunburn (when exposing my fish-belly white legs to SoCal sun for hours, minor coverage mistakes have severe consequences), so I’ll be going to target and buying the CR best rated sun screen. “Up and Up sport continuous spray” is apparently the most effective, and it’s even cheap, so what’s not to like. Closing the sun-burned-down barn door, but we’ll have it for next time.

Aloe is my friend, but I’m still looking for solarcaine, which is my favorite sunburn suffering remover. Aloe and lidocaine, oh yeah baby! Apparently it’s mostly sold in Australia these days, but I’m sure I’ll find it somewhere.

Anyway, at least we weren’t doing dump runs or tearing down more of the house.

Too much going on, at work, at home, with family.

So I’m discovering that I’m beginning to reach limits. I’ve had one day off in four months basically. And there are many things I just can’t get to, which in itself is bumming me out a bit.

Well, we’ll just do what we can and get over the rest. I’d go to my happy place, but it’s being renovated.

Sorry if you’re one of the things I neglect, things will be better once the house is done. The steel beam is installed, so it’s getting closer.