a few walls done

Just a quick note, I got the drywall up on a few walls, man those curves take some time to cut right.

Bathroom Closet

I've taken a month off, to recouperate from the fall, my shoulders are better, my feet are better. I've had a few side projects going, like reorganizing the greenhouse, getting all the doors and trim organised so I can find what I need, and to get it out of the way so we can actually use the greenhouse as a greenhouse, not just a storage shed. Half will still be storage and a workshop, the other half will be for growing.

Bathroom Closet:

I used some of the wood left over from the ceiling, and some wood we salvaged from the School in Sheffield, and built in a nice closet system for the bathroom.

We will trim it out nice when we go about finishing the trim through-out the whole house.



Burned off the tall weeds before the birds built nests in it.


Found a bunch of trees growing out there, we'll see what kind they are this summer to see which ones we will just leave where is, and which ones need pulled... like the two thorn trees I discovered the hard way of course.




On a side note:
Military has ramped up their flyovers, not just the two C-130's on Monday's anymore, now there are two flights of two C-130's two to three times per week, and two Chinook Helicopters on occasion. And then there was the F-16 fly-by, blasting eastward just over the tree tops at top speed. The !CRACK! was intense.

oww

nuf said.

Electrical

ELECTRICAL

Well I’m now doing the switch wiring for the ceiling lights. Plenty of 3-way, and a few 4-way switches. It was a trick figuring them out in the beginning, I ran them just like the books all said, the diagrams and instructions in the books are wrong. Realizing they were wrong, was the first step. I took a scan from the Stanley Complete Wiring book, and then redrew how it really works.

And then the way it really is....

Now the wiring is a snap and everything works perfect. It helps that I keep them well labeled, and wire one switch before cutting into the next wire bundle. I have all the wires labeled in the walls in case there is a re-wire project in the future, they’ll know what goes where.

The Master bedroom has two 4-way switches, two 3-way switches, there were switches to other rooms as well, so the wiring took a few hours to wire. The switch boxes are temporarily placed here and there close to where they will permanently be set, once we have walls to put them in.

This set of five switches only took 30 minutes to wire. They are for the Hall (3-way) – 2 for the Livingroom (each 4-way) – Entry light (4-way) – Pendants (single) It looks so good to have the mess of wires cleaned up and ready to be hooked to the lights and load center.

I need to cut the light box holes into the ceiling, I have them mapped out and I know now where to put them, the pilot holes are drilled, now just need to get up into the rafters and put them in.

Got the wiring ready to run to the porch, even though we don’t yet have an enclosed porch.



I am slowly getting the spaghetti of wires calmed down, and organized.

Had a side project going too… My son’s school is having a fundraiser auction so I am making a couple signs.

One for over the Silent Auction tables, the other for the Ticket Booth.

Catching up yet again on the blog.

Well we got all the fireproofing insulative foil up on the ceiling, all the seams taped, soooo.....

We put up the tongue and groove ceiling. This bit of drywall is where the future fireplace will be.



Mary did most all the staining. Kayla and Peg helped here and there too. That scaffolding from Menards works great, gets us right up there were we need to be. Takes some getting used to swinging out around the end to get down the ladder, but it is amazingly stable.

Other projects which got done since the last post...

Bathroom


A before picture of the tub ...



And the After pictures of the tub.

The bathtub surround is finally in, it took two shower kits to accomplish, but there is a sitting bench in the back and the shower walls go clear to the ceiling. Also we put in the arcing shower rod, it is amazing how much more room there is in there with the shower curtain even just a few inches further out.



We are tall, so we made sure the shower head was as high as we could comfortably make it. And so we put in an adjustable height shower wand for the short one in our life... D’... who uses the bench in the back of the shower for a parking lot for Matchbox cars.

Kitchen


Since we got the ceiling done in the kitchen, we put up pendant lights centered above the kitchen counter windows.



Kitchen counter…WooHoo!!!… I built the kitchen counter up to the height that is comfortable for us to use. It is 40” high, that’s four inches higher than a normal counter.


We are taking off the kick boards from the cabinets giving us an additional 3+ inches of useable space underneath, which adds up to seven inches... we will in-time build kick drawers for under the cabinets that you can pull out with your foot; they will be on little wheels... I saw them in a book once, sounded like a good use of space.


The counter is also 3 feet deep, compared to everyones normal 2 foot deep counters. These aren’t the final countertops, nor the final cabinets, but the measurements are permanent.


We played around with different pans and tea kettles, until we found the right pans to use on the Induction Stove, came out that the old Cast Iron skilets worked the best, so we oiled them up and they work great sometimes better than non-stick pans. Mary tried another brand of kettle but it rattled real bad from the magnetic cooktop, then she found this one on Amazon, that works good, but still not great; it rattles a little bit since it is only steel on the bottom, but the top isnt steel...so weird.

Bedroom



Ah, a bed fit for a king and his queen. This was quite a good bargain. Matches the dresser and nightstands beautifully. The 12 foot ceilings allow plenty of room for the bed which is about 8 ½ ft tall. Walking into the room you’d think you just walked into a castle bedroom…hence; the name of our home... McKenzie Castle!




Also a Picture of the Dresser that matches our nightstands, and bed, Mary found it online and had to get it shipped from the state of Washington to our local RP lumberyard. They got it off the truck with their forklift, and hauled it across the street to our storage shed. Real nice folks for going out of their way like that.

SNOW



And now for the SNOW!!! Yeah SNOW!!!

About 12 inches from this blast and an inch or two since then.



Yep, that’s me on the tractor, and yes I have on snow pants rather than shorts.. I am extremely hot blooded, not stupid. :0) So we got about a foot of snow on most of the driveway, drifts from two to three feet deep. NICE!



And a picture of the back yard.

I think we should call this storm, “Groundhogs Revenge” they wake those poor animals from hibernation so that some joker in a Top Hat can put his ear to critter and tell everyone that the groundhog talked to him and said that it did or did not see its shadow. Groundhogs Revenge!!

odds and ends

Working on the soffits, sealing them up for the winter.

One of my ideas about heating the house and cooling the house, is the air inside the truss is a good thermal barrier in itself, in winter we will close the soffits so the air that is warming up from the sun beating down on the roof will help keep the cold from the outside air from entering into the attic space as much as it would if they were open and flowing with air.

In the summer the soffits will be opened so the air can vent out and the reflective insulation will help keep the heat between the trusses and the roof deck.


Mary's Christmas gift from last year, we finally got it out of storage and hooked up. it is an Induction Stove, with an extra large Convection Oven and warming drawer.


The tub is still in its crate, but in time it will go in this corner.


The drywall in the bathroom is all hung, we still need a door, I'll have to go out to the greenhouse and pick one out, find its woodwork, and hang it.


The windows and doors are all sealed tight, insulated, and swinging beautifully. I doo still need to work on two lock sets to make them smoother operating, but they are all lockable and we love the code locks, no more fumbling for keeys, just touch the buttons, and the door unlocks.....nice.


The main entry door, Mary has done a wonderful job sealing them all.


Diningroom windows.


Kitchen windows, and our motion sensor porch light.

HEAT !!!

We are playing catch-up once again.


Beating the cold weather, Mary took a few days off from work, to get the most out of the last few days of warm weather, to finish weather-proofing by sealing up the doors and windows. This stuff is much better than the previous stuff we used, it is "Seal Tite" brand, very sticky, and easier to work with. Mary uses the heat gun to get it to stick better.


D'Artagnon helping to keep the place organised, by boxing up the loose strands of wire. Keeping them in one place so I can more easily sort through them finding the right size needed.


The boiler unit. I had to remove the burner, and replace it with an LP conversion kit. Rather easy if you dont rely exactly on the written instructions... somethings just don't translate well, and I really don't know what the original language was... But I did follow the picture instructions, and all went smoothly.

This is a dual boiler, it has separate boiler lines, one for the closed loop radient floor system, and the other line is for usable hot water.


Here are some corner cabinets, not sure if we are keeping them or not, we designed the house so we didnt have wasted corner space... so they and the lazy susan corner cabinets are for sale.


We bought a whole kitchen set, that we will use until we are ready to buy, and permanently set the cabinets we really want


Kitchen sink base. we are building up the height of the counter, and cabinets, so us tall folk don't destroy our backs bending over to do dishes. we are removong the black kick board as well, and will put in a 7" high drawer on rollers under the cabinets. called a kick drawer, you hook your toes under the bottom ledge and pull the drawer out that way. seen the idea in some high end cabnetry booklets.


Water distribution network, we were building it out of sweat fitted copper, but PEX works so much better. of all the connections on the water lines, I have not had even a single leak useing PEX, But I have had problems with the teflon tape connections.

Blue is for the indoor cold water, the red pipes are the indoor hot water.

I also ran the Black Pipe for the LP gas lines as well. The boiler and the dryer are both gas. Had it tested, and came out no problems.


Heree is the radiant heat system, kinda neat how its all together, just had to connect the two panels, and run the pipes to the manifolds around back of the unit.


The only problems we have had with the Radiant system is with the manifolds... Menards is slow in ordering what is needed, waiting on parts... come to find out also that sometimes the instructions mention parts Menards and the United States don't get, for example: there is an actuator that when the power goes out, the valves all open rather than seal closed... we can only get it from Canada or Ecuador.

But we needed heat, we were haveing 20 degree nights, and heavy frosts, so I had to spaghetti rig the whole system through two pumps, since we didn't have all the parts neccessary for the other two manifolds. once they com in, and i can smuggle in from Canada the right actuators, then the mess should mostly go away.


The water is flowing nd all is good, one leak up top from a brass fitting, but the place is warm... perfect.


The whole North side is sealed and all the doors and windows are uncovered. 8 foot doors, 6 foot windows.




Looks like Noahs Ark.