Office window

We were greeted with a pleasant surprise when we arrived at the house Sunday around noon. The windows which arrived on Thursday were already installed downstairs!
One of my dearest friends was in town for the weekend with his lovely wife and their three children (8 months, 3.5 years and 8 years), so Michelle and I blew off working on the house in order to spend Saturday with them. It was great to see them again. I miss the days when we used to play Mexican Rat Screw for hours. Ah, memories.

Side windows

The windows are really nice, and I am so psyched that they’re already installed. They do have some minor scratches on the paint, which is a bit disappointing. I contacted my Pella sales rep and he’s sending me some touch-up paint. Hopefully, that and some rubbing will take care of the scratches. If not, I’ll have to talk to him about a discount. We’ll see.

Rear windows

So, Michelle and I did spent Sunday afternoon working, after sleeping in a bit. I felt pretty ineffectual in my efforts to cut holes for the new outlets over the kitchen counter (damn that building code!). Eventually, I did succeed in cutting the holes, but couldn’t reach them from the outside to run the Romex (note both of the tall ladders laden with scaffolding in the picture of the side windows above … on the opposite side of the building). I did manage to run the new dedicated circuit for the new furnace, which gets installed Wednesday through Friday this week. I’ll take my wins where I can.

Baseboards are gone

Meanwhile, Michelle worked diligently prying the baseboards off the bedroom walls. They were tough suckers. They were also really nice, 1″x10″ 100 year old rough cut redwood, and I’m really sorry to see them go. Alas, they had outlet holes cut into them (some my doing, and some pre-existing) and need to be replaced. So, out they came with much prying and much forcing and a bit of splitting. She managed to clear them out of the front bedroom entirely plus two of the walls in the second bedroom. A good afternoon’s work.

I meet the Sears installer for the furnace in the morning. Steve is having emergency surgery to remove his wisdom teeth, so I’m expecting to lose him for the rest of the week. I need to get creative to fill in for him so the furnace installers can work.
I remember having my wisdom teeth pulled when I was home from college. The next day or the day after that, I wasn’t feeling the slightest hint of pain, so I held off on the pain killers for a couple of hours. Once I realized just how effectively they were working, I spent about an hour wishing I was dead until they kicked in again. We were spending the day at my aunt and uncle’s place in Sacramento where everyone commented a least a couple of times about my chipmunk cheeks. Ah, memories.

                          

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.

I spent Saturday moving electrical outlets upstairs so they are 18″ up instead of in the baseboards, re-wiring circuits upstairs, and wiring circuits downstairs.

Aiming for framing, shear wall, and plumbing inspections this week, and rough electrical inspection next week.

                          

My house is 10 feet in the air right now, standing on 6 piles of logs, while the remnants of a brand new but horribly wrong foundation are being jackhammered out. The foundation demolition was supposed to take about a week, but we’re closing in on two already. The horribly wrong foundation, as it turns out, was way over-poured in some areas and way under-poured in others. The garage, on one hand, had only a 2 inch slab. The perimeter foundation, on the other, was 10 inches thick, and 34-38 deep deep, standing 10-12 inches above grade and 3-6 inches above the slab. Ugh. The latest estimate is that we’re supposed to be finished with demolition by Friday. I hope this date doesn’t slip by too. Really need to get back on schedule and back on budget.