The MacDeskBlog

downstairs bathroom cabinet

Downstairs Bathroom: The waste line needs to be moved to the left and the hot water line slightly to the right. Frame in door further to accommodate cabinet. Install Corian countertop and sink.

downstairs bath

Downstairs Bathroom: Connect bathroom tub drain (there is an access panel in the utility room). Tile the floor and walls.

downstairs bedroom

Downstairs Bedroom: Trims on windows and doors throughout. Baseboards throughout.

downstairs bedroom closet

Downstairs Bedroom: Louvered folding doors on the bedroom closet.

family room

Downstairs Family Room: Install fire door to garage. Install pre-hung doors for office, utility room, bathroom and bedroom. Install louvered door to stereo closet in family room.

spiral stair

Spiral Stairs: Install spiral stairs. Need to special order one additional step from Ashby Lumber.

kitchen

Kitche: Cover, replace or repair plaster with sheet rock. Texture. Move waste line under window (it’s currently just to the right of the window). Install additional cabinets and new Corian countertop.

upstairs bathroom

Upstairs Bathroom: Tile the floor. Tile floor to ceiling around the bathtub. Wainscoting in rest of bathroom. Install linen closet next to door. Install sealing pre-hung door to code.

living and dining room

Living Room and Dining Room: Cover, replace or repair plaster with sheet rock. Texture.

hutch

Dining Room: Remove hutch and match wainscoting and picture rail to corner.

living room

Living Room: Cover, replace or repair plaster with sheet rock. Create matching pillar in previous picture which is missing in this one. Strip remaining finish at and above head level on wainscoting and wood trims. Replace two panels of mismatched (too dark) wainscoting. Stain to match and finish.

second bedroom

Upstairs Bedroom: Cover, replace or repair plaster with sheet rock. Texture. Install pre-hung door to closet.

front bedroom

Upstairs Front Bedroom: Cover, replace or repair plaster with sheet rock, as needed. Texture.

front bedroom closet

Upstairs Front Bedroom: Install louvered folding doors on closet. End picture rail even with top of closet, run trim from picture rail down to top of closet and across top of closet. Replace hatch to attic.

flooring

Throughout: Install underlayment and tongue and groove bamboo flooring upstairs and downstairs (approximately 1700 square feet). The flooring, underlayment and adhesive have already been purchased.

exterior

ADDITIONAL ITEMS:
1. The interior gas line is currently under test. A new gas main is needed from the sidewalk to the side of the house.
2. Install exterior window trims on upstairs windows.
3. Paint exterior of house
4. Pour pathway from sidewalk to front stair landing, continuing down side of house to side door and to rear yard.

NOTES:
1. remaining original upstairs windows will be replaced and installed by Pella.
2. kitchen cabinets can be delivered and installed by Home Depot.

Three and a half walls are packed with insulation so far.
Only the south wall still has some to go.

Michelle met me at the house after work last night, and we were pleased to see the progress the guys made Tuesday and Wednesday.

When I spoke with the plumber yesterday morning to get the cost estimates, I instead was told that he’s delayed on another project and won’t be able to do mine until Monday. I’m a bit disappointed, but there’s nothing to do about it. I was probably going to have the plumber install the downstairs water line because I didn’t have enough time last weekend (due to some needed sleeping and lollygagging on Monday) to finish it. I wanted to try take care of it last night if possible, so I rode the vanpool to Berkeley last night.

The north wall has completed shearwall, Tyvek,
and the siding is already going up.

That’s when everything started to go awry. I forgot that we pressurized the water line over the weekend, so when I cut on of the caps in order to continue the line down into the bathroom, water went spraying mightily. D’oh! No worries. I moved stuff out of the way before it all got soaked, and then opened the shutoff valve for the (not yet installed) hot water heater to dump out the rest of the water. Shortly thereafter, I discovered that I didn’t have most of the copper fittings I needed to finish the job. I drew up a schematic of what I’ll be putting in, and went upstairs to help Michelle with wiring before we went to Home Depot.

Meanwhile, Michelle was trying to wire some outlets and not faring any better than I was. One of the wires was resisting staying in its wire nut, and she spent a lot of time fighting it. She had moved onto another outlet by the time I got upstairs to help. I managed to get her unruly wire into place, only to realize that she had bought 20 amp outlets instead of 15 amp outlets. I hadn’t specified on my shopping list, nor over the phone when she was at Home Depot earlier in the day, and they looked almost the same. D’oh!

Off to Home Depot we went. Michelle returned the outlets and found the correct ones while I went to the plumbing aisle with my schematic and laid out fittings on the floor 6 minutes before closing, figuring out what I needed where. Mission accomplished.

The evening wasn’t a total bust. We had a nice dinner at Cha Am on Shattuck before we started working, and we ended the evening with the right supplies. The house itself, though, didn’t really see much improvement for our efforts.

Tonight, we’re going to see Mambo Kings at the Golden Gate Theatre thanks to a couple of my mom’s friends bailing out at the last minute. I hope they feel better.

Framing and shear wall inspections are scheduled for Friday.

Since the plumber won’t be there until next week, I’ll just finish the plumbing this weekend.

Michelle spent the week clearing out the front bedroom, pulling the carpeting out of the front bedroom, pulling staples and tackstrips, and cleaning up debris. On Saturday, she spent the day attaching pigtails in the outlet boxes downstairs, attaching outlets to the pigtails, and pulling some wires.

Steve finished framing in the downstairs with help from a new guy, Aldo. He needs to check his work upstairs and add a few studs in for sheet rock backing, then we’ll be ready for framing inspection.

Reuben and Orlando spent the week removing the remaining siding from the upstairs, drilling holes for me to run wiring through, and nailing on straps.

Wow, I didn’t realize just how far behind on house pictures I got. This was from Thursday of last week. The stairs started to go up.

Five days later, the stairs hadn’t changed very much at first glance. A closer look reveals that shear wall has been mounted on the sides. The stringers are in. And, the studs and bottom plates have been removed from the section which runs parallel to the house so that the footing can be fixed. Also pictured are the crew of Steve, Reuben, Inky and Orlando. And, of note, is the header over the garage door and nearly complete shear wall.

The pictures of the closet from the 14th were really unimpressive, so I left them out. The were unimpressive mostly because of the photographer, and to a lesser extent because the subject was rather un-photogenic at the time. Here on the 19th, the closet is mostly sheetrocked. It doesn’t show in the picture, but the top of the closet is finished as well, having additional supports inside and both plywood and sheetrock on top. I am looking forward to using that closet after living in the house for 5 years with a closet which was about 4 feet wide and not even deep enough for most coat hangers. Oh luxury, “closet” be thy name.

What’s the little blue thing? That’s one of the half dozen or so outlets which I mounted in the upstairs exterior walls last weekend. This one and one next to it, I got to lean out of the front windows in order to drill the pilot holes and nail the box into place, while I had the luxury of doing the actually cutting of the hole from the inside. For the others, I was up on the metal ladder which is pictured at the front of the house and did all of the work from the outside in an attempt to minimize damage to the plaster. I’m not sure how well I did since three of those outlets are hidden behind a sheet of plastic protecting our stuff in the bedroom from dust and debris.

I put the horizontal pieces on the water main last weekend, and ran it through the front wall. I hope that the siding lines up well enough that we can just put a notch in one piece rather than needing to cut the water line again and rerun it through the wall.

On the inside of the front wall, the water line runs right up to the ceiling and along it to the back wall. The yellow flexible pipes hanging around are for the natural gas line. The plumber needs to return and fix those. I had him install them last year when I thought I could make the house habitable again prior to final sign-off from the City. So, the lines are cut in two places and disconnected from fittings in three more. Also pictures are the electrical outlet boxes and electrical wires which Michelle ran all weekend. Inky pre-drilled holes through most of the studs prior to assembling the walls, so Michelle just had to fight the wires through those holes. They tend to stick and grip, so it took some effort.

Here is the site of my folly. I swapped those two pipes coming down the back wall. When I turned on the water, water came pouring out of the pipe without the shutoff valve on it instead of stopping at the one with the shutoff valve. Oops. I eventually swapped the pipes successfully to how they are pictured here. The mass of the full assembly caused them to fall off a few times while I was trying to solder the elbow joints in the ceiling, until I secured them to the wall.

This was the last wall to be framed in because we wanted to run a Bobcat through to the back yard to remove a couple of yards of excess dirt. Alas, I need the house sealed up for a while, so I’ll be hauling the dirt out in a wheelbarrow for the next several years. The metal piece in the corner there is the Hardy frame. It is for shear protection since I don’t have four feet of shear wall at the corner of the house because of those two big egress windows (which are boarded up until I get some windows to put in them).