progress report: week 14
Not too much to post this week. I was out of town most of last week, visiting my family in Oklahoma. Kyle had a fairly busy week/weekend outside of the house, but was able to tackle a few more tasks.
1. There’s nothing like doing yearly maintenance on one part of the house while you’re busy trying to remodel another part. When we did our bathroom a year and a half ago, we finished the teak ledges in the shower with a few coats of teak oil. The finish held up pretty well, but over time there started to be a few blackish spots where bottles or containers sat. (The wood, being teak, was still in great condition.) So instead of refinishing with the same teak oil, we decided to do a waterproof polyurethane spar varnish.
First Kyle cleaned and then sanded the wood with 20 grit, than 100 grit, than 300 grit sandpaper. Then he removed the dust with a tack cloth and took off the surface teak oil with some rubbing alcohol. Finally, he applied 6 coats of satin spar varnish (a product used to protect boats), sanding with 400 grit sandpaper between coats. It’s still not 100% cured, but already a vast improvement!
2. More sexy electrical work…this time – how to install a switched receptacle! This outlet is in the corner of the 2nd bedroom so we wanted the option for a floor lamp that could be switched on or off as you entered the space.
3. Recessed cans!
4. Electrical boxes!
5. During my visit home, I went through several boxes of “Lauren’s Stuff” that mostly dated from the mid to late ’90s.
I thought they were long gone. Oh no. I think they might make good work boots. (My grandmother, who always commented on how ridiculous they were, would probably agree.) Though I now regret the after market laces.
6. We’re also making an even bigger mess in the basement. The first structured media panel we installed wasn’t big enough so we had to order this guy (lower left).
And sometimes it’s fun to look back on simpler times – like when we first bought the house. Now you know why the previous owners had a limited number of outlets. Our collection of fuse boxes was no match for the needs of the modern young couple.
So here’s the deal – we really need to get our framing, plumbing and electrical inspections done by next week, which means we are going to be wiring fools for the next several days and through the weekend (so there probably won’t be a mid-week post, especially considering it’s already Tuesday). See you next week, internet connection willing!
progress report: week 13
With the long holiday weekend and cloudy weather, we were able to make some headway on electrical. Unfortunately, it’s hard to tell.
First of all, I think there is a misconception (or at least, my misconception) about electrical work. What seemed like the straight forward task of running some wire and popping in some boxes has manifested into lots of drilling (which means lots of wood shavings everywhere), lots of moving stuff around and lots of tools and supplies scattered amongst the three floors (weird…we do have three floors now). In general, it’s chaotic. I guess on our other projects, it was more straight forward – a couple outlets, a few switches, done. For this project, our 2×4 walls don’t know what’s about to hit them. Power, cable, data, audio, security, etc. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that this setup will keep us happy until everything goes wireless and running stuff through the walls becomes obsolete.
And yes, the tools have officially taken over.
One of the challenges with electrical has been locating the outlets and switches. Since we eliminated most of our interior walls and need to reserve the other one for the sliding barn doors, the options are few. Fortunately, we were able to find this 5-gang electrical box that will go next to the back door (in the kitchen backsplash) and will house the back porch light, kitchen reach lights, island light, under cabinet lights and one outlet. Phew. (The strap to the left is temporarily anchoring the dishwasher to the wall.)
Electrical might not be that glamorous, but Kyle discovered a few new tricks of the trade that will save us time and headache.
1. Wago wire nuts – these plugs replace the need for traditional wire nuts and easily pop off when it’s time to install the receptacles.
2. The electrical boxes themselves are adjustable via the set screw at the top of the box. This means no more approximating what the final wall finish thickness will be. This is especially great for places like the kitchen backsplash or island where we don’t know exactly what the finish material will be just yet.
Kyle also started installing the recessed media box in the living room. This is a hub of sorts that will house incoming power, audio and cable (hence the three blue boxes) and comes with a cover panel that will be flush with the adjacent drywall.
We’ll also be hard wiring our smoke detectors (no more low battery beeping to make Bailey hide in the bathtub).
Kyle more or less taught himself how to do electrical work from various how-to books and the money we’ve saved by doing it ourselves has been well worth the education. (Ok, he was also on the bomb squad for a few years prior to architecture school (think The Hurt Locker), so that may have given him a leg up on the whole wiring thing.)
We’re also coming up with even more places to add blocking! After seeing a cool, wall-mounted shelf/media center we are considering doing something similar in the living room. This is a cut list of sorts, stapled to the wall as a “to-do” reminder.
We also bought a new microwave! The one we have now is from my dorm days in college. It works ok, but it’s huge (by 2010 standards at least). Plus, we are going to put the microwave in the open shelving at the end of the island (we wanted to minimize the appearance of a microwave as much as possible) so small was critical. This one is just under 13″ deep.
Kyle also finished the pony wall behind the island cabinet boxes. This helps anchor the cabinets and provides a cavity for an outlet on each side. (He also installed a layer of plywood in between for extra rigidity. A sheet of 1/2″ plywood on top will serve as a temporary work space and is a mock-up for the butcher block counter top size.
This end of the unit will house a fir shelving unit with one upper shelf for the microwave and one lower shelf with cutouts for Bailey’s bowls (we’ll buy more standard stainless steel bowls that will just drop into the cutouts). But for now, we thought we’d see how he felt about the set-up.
Rough in for the new island outlets. This kind of thing wouldn’t normally make me so giddy but our old kitchen only had two outlets. Soon we will have six(!).
This morning, I found Bailey curled up with an extension cord. Poor dog, couldn’t even find a clear space to sleep…
In non-photo news, we also made a recycling/dump run, picked up the bead board panels for the vaulted ceiling, and weeded the yard (it was bad, real bad). I also finished up the polyiso insulation in the loft. We can add that task to the “never want to do again” list. Let’s just say I had to shop vac the grass from where we cut the strips on the table saw. (But more importantly, I was intrigued to learn that using the shop vac on the grass worked really well.)
This week it’s more electrical. Although there isn’t much instant gratification, there is a certain feel-good factor knowing that everything will be up to code and that we will no longer rely on extension cords, fuse boxes, power strips or those two-to-three prong converters. 21st century, here we come!
happy 4th!
Happy 4th of July!
[Last year, when were working on the exterior some of our neighbors joked that we should hang a flag from our tension rod. So we did. It looked like this. We also went to a bbq and I made this. I miss my oven. And my mixer.]
deadlines and birthdays
During the last few years, we’ve found that it’s generally a good idea to establish a project schedule, preferably with some form of deadline to work towards. Maybe it’s a fun trip, a party, or just the pure joy of having your life back (or just your kitchen sink). For us, it’s actually two parties. This year we are celebrating both my 30th birthday and the house’s 100th birthday.
Since we don’t know exactly when the house was “born”, we set my birthday (September 19th) as the “must finish by” date. April through September seemed like more than enough time to get the job done, and now that we’re at the halfway point(!), we’re feeling cautiously optimistic that the house will be party ready by Saturday the 18th. The only thing that may slow us down is GSS (Glorious Seattle Summer), which we got our first real taste of last weekend. To cope, we’ll try to have things later in the day to look forward to, whether it’s a soccer game, a bbq with friends, or just eating ice cream on the stoop.
Less than 12 weeks, but we can do it! And what better birthday present than a (mostly) finished house?
progress report: week 12
New week, new progress. The World Cup has slowed us down a bit, but with games at 6:30 and 11:30, we still have plenty of day left to be productive.
Bailey, on the other hand, prefers to spend his weekend lounging in a pile of sawdust.
1. We spent most of Saturday doing electrical and installing the blocking for the steel ledge, but didn’t really take any photos. (I think I’ll have to take a more creative approach to documenting electrical because progress photos just aren’t that exciting.)
2. On Sunday I cut and installed the rigid insulation for the loft. The insulation comes in 4’x8′ sheets, so we needed to cut them down to fit between the rafter bays. We cut the ones for the vault by hand (as in, with a saw), but with about 3x as many to cut for the loft, we decided to give the table saw a try. Good thing too, it worked like a champ!
I installed most of the panels while Kyle worked on flashing the roof window (keep scrolling!). We’ve found that for us, this is really the best way to work – when we each have our own tasks but are within talking distance to ask each other questions/opinions (or to add or subtract fractions, which we are getting pretty fast at!) or hand each other tools.
3. Ahh, the roof window. It’s probably a good thing we didn’t attempt this on a weeknight because it was a bit more involved. After opening the package, we first had to detach the window from its frame (to make installation easier), which proved to be the hardest part of the whole process. The directions were IKEA style, with no text. Eventually, as seen the picture below, we figured it out.
Next up, cut out the roof.
This picture isn’t that exciting, but I love that Bailey finds his way into so many shots.
After the cut, Kyle extracted the roof chunk.
Piece of cake, really.
Orange Crush, our mobile dumpster….
Instant light and ventilation (phew! No more sweat box!).
Next, Kyle installed the sticky flashing around the framed opening, then the window frame, then the window itself. The final, and most tedious part is the exterior flashing which involves peeling up the surrounding shingles and then installing a literal kit of parts that comes with the window.
But when it was all said and done, we had a new window!
The window actually pivots about the center of the frame…
….leaving enough room for someone to escape in the event of a fire (needing to then jump off the roof is another matter).
The unit rotates almost 180 degrees, which makes cleaning the outside of the glass a fairly easy process. The window can also be locked in this position.
Here’s a view from the inside. The top flap also hinges down, and serves as a screened ventilation slot if you don’t want to open the whole thing. (We also bought an insect screen that we’ll install later.) All in all, it’s pretty freakin cool.
An additional perk – neighborhood lookout.
That’s it for this week. We’re starting to look at dates for framing, electrical and plumbing inspections (we’re planning for all 3 on the same day since one of us will have to take off work), so hopefully we’ll have the sign-offs by early to mid July(!) and then we can finish insulation.
And then…drywall.
