not quite a timber frame

[DouginUtah]

How do you get R-19 in a 2x4 wall?

[ljmathias]

Walls are 2X6 so the answer (as far as I know) is, you don't.  We way overbuilt this place, for reasons of long term economics (keep the upkeep and utilities costs low) and for hurricane resistance.  The 2X6 walls are a bear to raise by yourself (especially with air dried rough cut lumber) but the strength is unbelievable.  Had several subcontractors say how strong and stout it felt...     Oh, and the trusses for the ceiling were all at 12" deep, plenty of room for everything but somewhat more expensive.  Again, much stronger built than stick-framed and a whole lot easier to put up with two people and a telescopic forklift...

Lj

[DouginUtah]

I missed that you had used 2x6s for your exterior walls. I think that is a wise choice.  8)

[WDH]

I also did the 2x6 walls and have never regretted it (30 years ago  ).  It does make trimming out windows and doors a little more interesting.

[ljmathias]

Thicker walls are great for a number of reasons, some of which have already been noted.  Ran across a new one to me today- we were installing line sets for mini-split HVAC units and I can't even imagine doing it in 2X4 walls.  The line sets are pre-insulated copper tubing for the freon to get from the compressor (compressed, liquid state) to the inside units, which are individual room heat exchangers.  Here the liquid expands and cools rapidly, cooling air flowing over the expansion coils as well.  The expanded gas is carried back to the compressor through a much larger diameter copper pipe.  This is the one that's hard to work with: 1/4" and relatively stiff copper, makes it hard to bend and get through holes in the floor plates and ceiling top plates.  At least with 2X6" walls, you have some room to maneuver so you don't bend the copper too sharply and kink it (which we did, by the way, but not in the walls).  Long story short, it took two amateurs and one helper (daughter as needed to push or pull long runs) almost 7 hours to put in four sets of pipes, eight all told, plus 14-4 wire plus condensate piping.

Agonized over components to buy- local supply yards aren't helpful if you're not EPA certified to install these units.  Of course, being certified to handle the freon is one thing, but to install the rough plumbing and wiring in the walls before the drywall goes up?  Nah...

Oh, sure, there are good reasons to have a pro do it, and I almost did.  Got convinced by son the plumber that he knew enough to handle it after having done it at work with some professional HVAC installers.  He took one look at our efforts and was not very complimentary.  Said we should have been more careful with the insulation- we did tear some and will have to tape it up tomorrow or it will sweat when it gets hot again and the AC is running full bore.  He also was very critical of my decision to run 1/2" PEX as drain pipe for the condensate from each unit.  He had planned on doing 1 1/2" PVC and I'd already bought the T's and turns for that when I looked at the extra roll of PEX and thought about using that.  Checked with the on-line supply house and they said it would work, but son is probably right- gunk grows in condensate, something I've personally experienced with the central AC condenser in our house- got plugged once and ruined the carpet in the hall and one bedroom.  He does know what he's talking about- been asked by customers to re-plumb many condensate piping over the years.  So I guess tomorrow we rip out the 1/2" PEX and start install of the PVC piping.  We'll also tape up the tears... and, oh, yeah, couple the two pieces of one line set that bent so bad the tubing broke in half.   :D

Hope this approach works finally, and saves daughter and grandson money on heating and cooling.  Going to call in the morning and schedule the drywall hangers for TH/FR this week or early next.  Still got some install work to do though, like jackhammering out the drain pipe trough where the PVC drain will go in the master bath 'cause daughter changed her mind after we had the slab poured (and the frame up and enclosed) on what kind of tub she wanted which has the drain in the middle to one side rather than at the end...   >:(

Lj

[WDH]

You are a loving Father to be jackhammering ..............You could tell her that she would get used to the other tub  .

[ljmathias]

Well, the jackhammering went alright- about 2 hours worth of hard work and we had a trough in the concrete to fit the drain pipe in with the correct fall down to the p-trap.  Plumber son got everything lined up right and glued tight, and later that day, I came back, undid the drain screw, pulled the tub out and filled the hole we'd made with sand topped with tar.  Should keep the termites out as long as the soil doesn't get wet and the tar stays flexible and doesn't crack.  Soil under the house was soaked with termite repellent (?) before we poured the concrete so we should be fine- guarantee from the termite company on full repair/replacement...

Been off the forum for a while to catch up on work (again) and get a bunch of stack-out work done to get ready for drywall: not to jump the gun but the drywall is finally in!  Boo-rah, as "Vector" in "Despicable Me" says... you gotta have grandkids to follow that one.

First thing to happen was to have the insulation put in- should have done it myself but that would have taken a week maybe, and the crew came in and did it in a day...



So, pictures below show the line-sets going through the exterior wall to where the outside unit for the LG mini-split HVAC system will be.  Other pictures show the four sets (2 insulated copper tubes each) going up the wall, over the kitchen ceiling and into the middle wall up to the locations for 3 of the 4 interior units.  Fourth unit will be directly above the outside unit in the loft over the kitchen, set to blow into the loft and cool or heat it as needed.  Putting in the line sets was a real PITA!  Hard to feed the 1" insulation-over-copper through 1 1/2" holes drilled in the walls- bending, feeding and pushing/pulling resulted in way too much insulation damage- spent an hour and half and a roll of duct tape sealing those up.  






To complete the prep work for the HVAC units, also ran a 14/4 wire to each inside location along the same paths as the line sets.  Last, put in condensate drains, and that was a mess.  First ran 1/2" PEX that the manufacturer said would work, but son said no, so we ran 1 1/2" PVC pipe down the wall and over to the drain in the hot water closet (picture below).  For the unit in the loft over the kitchen, it was a straight shot down and out through the wall above the sill plate, so we left the 1/2" PEX in place to use as drain- hope it doesn't plug up with gradue...



Finally got the drywall hangers in after a screw up on delivery.  Seems the company that promised to deliver the drywall last Friday (110 pieces of white and 15 pieces of green, all 4X12) also promised their main driver/delivery man the day off... so Friday came and no driver.  They pushed a new guy into doing it with a somewhat experienced helper- neither had any idea how to run the boom with forklift attachment to get the pallets of drywall off the truck, turned vertical and positioned in front of the door to be taken off and hauled inside... so in the process of trial-and-error operator schooling, the driver almost took off part of my roof (I can yell pretty loud when I see so much work about to get damaged) and turned around on the next load and busted the corners off about 30 pieces.  At least they made it right- took the damaged ones back, got new ones and brought them back the same day.

Drywall hangers were set to come on Saturday, showed up at 7 when we were just finishing up some last-minute deadwood and plumbing work.  They decided to go finish another job and "be right back in an hour or so..." Right.  Evening rolled around and I called the boss who said they would be back Sunday morning at 7... hated to miss church but we're under a real tight schedule now.  Good news was that the extra day allowed me and plumber son to install two hose bibs to the outside and finish up the PEX, handle and two outlets into the downstairs bath tub.

Sunday morning the hangers are back and start complaining (a little) about how high the cathedral ceiling is, what with the 7/12 slope and all.... and I provided the scaffolding that at least made it doable.  Oh, well, I guess a little complaining on the hardest part of the job is understandable.  Once they had the hard stuff down, they started breezing through the rest, but it put them behind a fair amount (according to the boss anyway- ended up costing them another day's work and me an extra $200 but well worth it).  They got most of the upstairs done on Sunday, came back Monday at 7 and finished up by 3 or so... and that with two extra crew they pulled in at the last minute.  Lot of "cut up places" in the house, so I didn't mind the extra time and money.  Pictures below are a walk through of the interior now ready for the "mudders" to finish up so we can prime and paint.

First picture shows the stairs and wall next to it plus some of the upstairs.  Next are pictures of bedrooms upstairs, bath upstairs and the loft.  We added the loft (supposed to be cathedral ceiling all the way across the living room and kitchen- kitchen doesn't need it and we wanted the extra space) and it's going to be a great place for the two of them to set up their computers and work.  Last is downstairs in the master bedroom and the kitchen, which is big and airy, should be great.















So, the mudders were supposed to show up Tuesday bright and early- no show.  Called this morning, turns out they got a much bigger job and decided to start that first and get it to the stage where it has to dry, then come do ours... Money talks, just like always, and the owner needs to pay his crew; he told me they were off last week three days and he needs to make paycheck this week.  Hand to mouth existence is tough; my son did it for years with his own plumbing company.  I'm just thankful he was able to find a steady job with one of the medical clinics in town- not as much in the way of paycheck sometimes (at least that's what he says), but he gets one every two weeks, knows how much it will be and gets medical benefits free... can't beat that with a stick!

Mudders are supposed to show up TH afternoon, and get the first stage done by the weekend.  Hopefully, with dry time, re-application and sanding, they should be done by Tuesday.  Painters are ready and anxious- daughter and some of her friends think they can knock that out in a day or two.  I'll spray the primer throughout and do the ceilings with standard ceiling white before they get started, though- should take me a day for masking windows and the beams, priming and doing the ceiling.  I always try to remember by graduate adviser's advise though:  make your guess of how long it will take, increase by one unit (hours to days, for example) and multiply by 2...

Lj

[Radar67]

LJ, the screws on the sheet rock job sure do look a little sparse. When I was hanging rock, we used double that amount to get it to pass inspection. 8 inch on center was what we had to do.

The house is looking good though.

[WDH]

That much sheetrock gives me the shivers .  And then paint, too.  Whew, I might not be able to sleep tonight  :-\.

I am repainting our outside metal doors.  Had to strip one down to bare metal.  Got all prepped and ready to paint and spray gun was broke.  Tried to use my HVLP that I got to apply varnish on furniture.  Primer was too thick and clogged up gun.  Would not work.  Doors are off and at the workshop.  No outside doors on house, house wide open.  Time is passing.  Run to town and buy new paint sprayer (15 mile one way).  Get home and no instructions in box with sprayer.  Decide to figure out gun without instructions.  Primer was very thick, too thick, gun was sputtery.  Got it as adjusted as I could.  All that adjusting hard on primer supply.  Ran out of primer.  Back to town to get more primer.  Time is passing as nightfall approaches with no outside doors on house.  New and different primer behaved and got the doors primed (finally!).  Primer had just enough time to dry so I could lug doors back to the house and put them on the hinges for the night.  No hardware, or door locks.  I have to be gone tomorrow.  Supposed to rain on Friday.  

Wife said we need to repaint the outside doors.  Why did I ever agree to do this?????

[ljmathias]

Good observation, Radar; these are the same people I used on my son's house, and the drywall there is solid as a rock- no movement at all.  They must know what they're doing (I hope)... ???  Anyway, we're done with that part for now, so we move on anyway.

WDH- you sound like you work like I do, with a little bit of progress occasionally more by accident than design.  You've got me worried now, so I'll break out my sprayer tomorrow to make sure it's still working and try running some paint through it maybe... or maybe not.  Still got to pour the slab for the outside HVAC unit (bought 8 bags of quickcrete and formed it up this afternoon), pressure test the water lines after I put in the cylinder for the downstairs bath, and work some on the railing for the porch... and then, if there's daylight left, cut down three or four of the lightning-dead trees that the bugs are attacking with great vigor.  Maybe I'll cut the white oaks into stair treads for the new house.  Won't have time to let them dry much, but hey, what's the worst that can happen?   :D

Lj

[WDH]

Your sprayer is probably fine.  The problem with mine is that I could not get the top of the paint reservoir open.  The top (lid) was bound fast.  Using the handle that fits in your hand (the one with the trigger) as a stop and then try and use brute hand strength to open the lid failed miserable.  Anyway, in my attempts to do something as simple as get the lid off the paint reservoir, the sprayer broke just above the trigger.  Put the lid on too tight the last time that I used and cleaned it.  Stoopid.

[ljmathias]

Well, things are looking up again.  Two days of no-show for drywall finishers, and finally on Friday they show up at 7 am.  Boss claimed he was up in the Delta with no cell reception, but he let slip that a bigger job had gotten his attention and they must have done that one first so they'd get paid on Friday.  Guess I can't blame him for taking care of business (at least the getting paid part), but daughter did- and she let him know, too.  Might make it hard to get back on his good side, but then again, he didn't keep his word.   >:(

So, last evening they finished up the first tape and corner install and got a layer of mud on everything- missed two screws but they'll get those next shot.  Maybe they'll work this weekend, maybe not.  Getting paid on Friday takes the incentive away for making up for lost days...  Well, if they make it back Monday and get it finished, we'll be able to move ahead: prime and paint, trim out on lights and plumbing hopefully done next week.  Appliances and cabinets coming in next week or two but I need to clean and seal the concrete first... if it ain't one thing, it's another (or two or three   :D  ).

Went to take pictures of the drywalls underway but they were so boring, didn't bother...

Lj

[ljmathias]

Ok, this will be a mashup of various topics of recent interest to me as we meander along the path of getting the house finished...

First, an update on my metal-roof injury- in case you missed that, I sliced a tendon on my left hand ring finger.  Got it fixed and been in therapy for the last few months- making progress but that involves various exercises supposed to be done every hour but I'm lucky if I remember every couple of hours, usually when I look down and say to myself, "Wow, that guy sure messed up his finger, whoever he is..."   :D  Anyway, just to update on healing, first picture shows the incision (or where it was) with new skin sticking nicely now over the lump of stitched together tendon just under- hard to bend with it blocking the way.  Second shows the curve that appears to be permanent, at least I can't work it straight without lots and lots of painful stretching and then it just goes right back to bent...





Now for drywall update: they finished the last coat of mud, sanded and put the skip-trowel finish on the ceilings.  Didn't think to tell them otherwise, but they even put it in the closets- waste of "pretty" in my mind... First picture shows the finished drywall next to and above the stairs, second of the loft with the "bent" not too badly splotched, and last, daughter's bedroom and closet.







Now, sharp-eyed observers might notice what appears to be a window in the wall way above the stairs... and they'd be right.  Grandson and I brainstormed one day (dangerous with young minds) on ways to make the place unique... he came up with a ship's portal from his room looking down into the main living area.  Found one online, not exactly what we wanted but fairly cheap.   Located the window (or better maybe, his "view port") inside his closet so that light from below won't bother him.  Also, this let's him "spy" on the festivities down below, should he be banished to his room for letting out his mouth before engaging brake...

Ok, now for the really fun part- logging!  I mentioned way back that over the course of three thunderstorms in about that many weeks, we had four trees hit (three actually, one collateral damage).  The two pines couldn't wait till I got them down and invited the entire neighborhood of termites to come on over for a snack... that's what motivated the logging effort, actually: grandsons and I were out for a walk, and happened to notice a piece of loose bark- turns out it was ALL loose, and fell off with a little prodding and pulling to reveal thousands of white clean-up crew members that Mother Nature uses to make all that downed wood disappear.

First picture shows the bigger pine stump.  Managed to get four 8-10' logs out of the tree.  The smaller pine gave up three about the same length.  The big one was fairly old as shown by the rings in the stump...



The first tree killed was a pretty nice white oak, shown in the first picture laid down and ready to buck.  You can see bark was blown off all the way up the tree.  Second picture shows a branch with bark blown off also- probably 40' up when the tree was standing.  Oh, and that's my new Stihl that the "insurance" company bought me.  I work at a place that is self-insured, if you get my point... >:(





Next is the red oak that was killed apparently by the lightning from the white oak not 6' away getting into its roots and frying them.  Bark on this tree was tight all the way up, and no sign of a lightning path anywhere on it.  Shame to take it down but all the leaves had turned at the same time as the white oak.  Got some nice logs from this feller, as shown by the mini-whack sitting next to my mill.  Interesting how things turn out: I've hauled logs from all over the farm but these four trees were only about 100 yards from the mill.  Probably took me five hours all told getting the trees down, bucked and skidded to the mill.  Still have branch clean-up to do, and lots of the bigger ones I cut into fire wood that needs to be hauled over and stacked, but all in all, a good day's work, even if caused by events outside of my control (which is most of life, it seems). 





Well, the fun's over now- just as I was tightening up the tension on the blade to make the first cut on one of the logs, the cell phone rings: drywall is done.  DanG!  Now I have to go back to house building, and the only sawdust I got to make was with a chainsaw.   :(  So today, after working all morning to finish up a report due today (last minute is always the right minute), pulled out my sprayer to get started on priming: right.   :D  First, I took the nozzle and lines apart to clean them out, put it all together and set the feed pipe into a bucket of water.  Turned on the pump, water starts leaking out everywhere- spent 15 minutes getting everything tightened up good, she's spraying just right but there's still just a few drops leaking out of the hose connection at the base of the nozzle.  I "remembered" this as being a screw on- wrong.  Turns out it was a pressure or squeeze fit, so when I tried to "tighten" it with my vice-grips, it twisted looser.  Now water sprays out more here than out of the spray nozzle.  No way to fix it myself, so tomorrow it's off to Lowe's for a repair piece (I'm hoping against my better judgement).

So then I move inside to do a little prep work.  Spent a few hours yesterday with masking tape and the real thin polyethylene they sell as drop clothes... got most of the windows sealed up, one bathtub and part of the "bent."  Managed to finish up most of what was left but then got side-tracked by all the dust and mud-chunks on the window sills.  Swept those off, then realized the floor was a mess- lots and lots of dust, and with a sprayer stirring things up near the floor at the wall bases, I'd have a real interesting "texture" on the prime and paint.  Decided to sweep up some... man, those guys make a lot of clean up necessary.  Spent three hours and only got the second floor and two small rooms downstairs done.  Oh, and realized by accident that the sanding dust from the final coat sticks pretty good to the un-primed walls.  Ended up sweeping the entire house- walls and floors- as I worked.  Tomorrow bright and early, it's off to Lowes to get the part I need plus finalize carpet purchase for the upstairs area- grandson convinced his mom that carpet would be better up there.  Oh, well, I'd have done wood but this is lots easier and faster for me.   

One way or another, tomorrow the whole insides gets primed.  As soon as that dries, either tomorrow or Saturday, it's white paint on the ceilings throughout.  Daughter says she wants to brush and roll on the walls, but she may realize how long that will take and let me spray most of the walls- I can get within 6" of the ceiling without overspray ruining the ceiling paint, so we could finish up painting pretty fast if we spray it all- we'll see.

Lj

[WDH]

Thinking about having to do that much painting is scary.  I thought Halloween was over  .  Good luck with that sprayer.  My sprayer problems continued, but that is another story. 

Give me wood  :. 

[Larry]

I used USG First Coat for my primer.  It's too heavy to spray out of anything but a heavy duty commercial paint sprayer.  Took way too long to roll it.

Norm clued me in to a paint shield and I sprayed the finish coats.  Didn't cut in anything.  Back rolling was all the fun I needed.  My paint sprayer is a Titan, middle of the range model.  I was really surprised on how well it came out.  I think a better job than I would have got using a roller and in a fourth of the time.

[ljmathias]

Well, WDH, I also don't rank painting as one of my top ways of spending time, but you do what you gotta do...  Bought a new hose and hooked it up to the old sprayer- one I bought from Lowes years ago and have used in several houses now- and it worked fine after some tuning.  Anyway, sprayed on 20 gallons of primer yesterday- Valspar drywall primer, and it worked great.  Just the right thickness to spray perfectly.  Primed the whole house, walls and ceilings (and some on the floor, unfortunately) in about 6 or 7 hours.  Went back this morning to do closets and ceilings.  Did the closets in a satin white exterior (part of a 5 gal I had left over) and it sprayed terribly.  Stuff wouldn't coat well and if I did a little too much, ran all over the place.  Did finally get a nice coat in some of the upstairs closet and the upstairs bathroom, and that was enough of that stuff.  Switched to Valspar flat ceiling paint , and that stuff sprayed perfectly- finished all the ceilings on both floors in a couple of hours. 

Then made the mistake of trying to spray on wall paint. Daughter had picked out a very light white or cream (she thought: colors are always many shades darker on the wall than in the store) and I sprayed that in the guest bedroom- I don't like the color at all, too brownish for my taste.  Plus I managed to overspray onto the ceiling near the window- too much light I guess.

Back at it...

Lj

[clww]

Looks more like a "house" now, instead of just a "building" with the new drywall up, doesn't it?
Bet you folks are getting excited, too, as it gets nearer to completion! Especially your daughter and her family.

That second pic of your finger with the permanent bend-it may not stay that way. Since they reattached the tendon halves, that may have made it a little bit shorter. In time as it grows back together completely, it may stretch out and go back to a more straight attitude.

Place looks great, LJ!

[Piston]

Really looking good LJ.  ;D

I bet your glad to have the drywall and paint behind you.  I think it was a smart move to hire out the insulation as well, I cringe every time I think of that dreaded stuff! 

Those are some nice looking logs you got bucked up as well.  You get a lot more work done than I do that's for sure  :D

[ljmathias]

Yesterday was a whole lot of spraying...  ;)  Got the upstairs walls sprayed except the boy's room which will be a fairly dark blue.  The "neutral" brown went on ok- definitely nothing to write home about but at least it gets something on the walls so we can finish up.  They can always paint each room later if they want.  Used up 5 gal on the upstairs and had to buy another 5 gal for downstairs hall, wash and dryer room, HW heater room and bedroom/bath.  I'll not paint around and above the bathtube so we can put up a moisture barrier and tile later.

Got tired of painting in the afternoon and switched to hooking up outlets and switches- be nice to have inside as we've been running off of a single extension card plugged into a breaker in the outside meter base.  Lights would be nice too, but that'll have to wait now- got the rest of the paint for downstairs and I'll spray that after church.

Lj

[Magicman]

I a just "catching up" on catching up on you and your project Lon.  You have been busy and it shows very nicely.   

[ljmathias]

As I was finishing up spraying paint where I could, I was thinking about the watershed moments in building a house: getting interior wall coverings up is one.  Before then, the building process is very messy and small-step oriented, although you might think framing or roofing are big steps.  You can break each part of the process down into easy to think about and implement jobs- digging footings, putting in re-bar and remesh, pouring the slab or building the flooring, raising walls, putting in trussess- all of these happen in well defined sequences but in very messy ways.  No need to clean up too much for any of these, and in looking back on each process, I remember tools scattered around the site, materials piled here and there and lots of activity in and around all those piles.

When we were getting ready for the drywall to go in, though, it was a time to clear everything out of the way and do a final check of everything inside the walls- the wiring, plumbing, insulation and HVAC lines.  No second chance on these, so they had to be in right and complete.  In the process of doing this, we found lots of little things that had gone unnoticed: lights that hadn't been finish wired, pieces of plumbing not sealed tight (one piece of pex hidden inside insulation that hadn't been capped and squirted water like a fire hose- would have been a disaster if we found it after the drywall was up!     ).  As we moved all the tools, pieces of scrap lumber, saw stand for the miter saw, pieces of OSB and plumbing/wiring supplies out of the inside of the house, other things became clear, things we still had to do before the drywall went up.  For a few days, it was a mad rush to get everything finished up and the interior empty and clean so the drywall installation could be done right.

When the hangers finally came to do the drywall, they found a half dozen things that we had missed- dead wood for drywall to screw into, places where we'd forgotten to put in bracing (behind the upstairs shower enclosure) and window trim that didn't come all the way to the edge of the framing.  Scrambled for a couple hours to fix these while they started cutting, nailing and screwing drywall up.  Surprisingly, it only took them about 12 hours over two days to do the entire house, and what a difference: now the walls were really walls, and the rooms took on dimensions that to human eyes were "real" in terms of how big or small they felt.

Going through the processes of drywall finishing (they did that but I found three boxes that had been covered and needed to be cut out- missed one also that we need to get opened up today), it was amazing how "finished" everything got to be, and how dusty and dirty the floor, walls and ceiling became.  After they left, it took two days to brush sanding dust off everything and sweep out the crud- still had dust on walls even after this, and it showed up in the paint when it was too late.  It's easy to rush this part, not clean everything completely and mess up the paint.

After clean up, spraying primer was fast and easy, although hard on the neck and back at the end of the day.  Spraying the final coats of paint was somewhat harder, but not bad as long as you kept a mask on.  Only thing I can't figure out is eye protection: spraying ceilings with primer and then flat white ceiling paint involves looking up continuously while overspray drifts down.  Sure, I tried to keep out from directly under where I was spraying, and this helped, but in corners and around the outside edges, it's hard to not get some in your eyes.  Can't think of any kind of eye coverage that wouldn't immediately fog up and get covered by drifting paint mist... oh, well, the sore, red eyes went away within a day.   ;)

Once I was done with the sprayer, getting the walls and ceilings mostly covered, I turned over edging and detail work to wife and daughter and I got to work on putting in switches and outlets so we'd have light while we worked: daylight savings time left on its high horse and now it gets dark sooner.  This plus shorter daylight time in general means lights inside are important.  One thing we did that I think wasted a fair amount of effort: the guys who wired for us installed all the switches and outlets to test the circuits.  This was important so we could find shorts and missed connections, but it also meant we had to go back and disconnect all of them so the drywall hangers could use plunge routers to cut out around the boxes.  Now I'm having trouble figuring out some of the wiring that was done.  One set of switches (four in one box) were gang-wired (I finally figured out) with power linked from switch to switch and the other pole tied to the light or fan it controlled.  Only way I got it right was that the guy helping "unconnect" everything had left three of the four switches linked together with the tie-wires.  Other problem has been the two sets of three-way switches, or rather, switches that are at each end but controlling the same light.  On the stairs, there's a switch at the bottom and another at the top so you can turn on the lights over the stairs from either location.  Fortunately, the wires were bent inside the boxes in such a way that I could guess at where they went on the double pole switches- got it right the first time.  Not so lucky with the one in the master bedroom, and I'm going to have to try various combinations till I get it right- at least the breakers allow immediate feedback on when they're not hooked up right.   :D

Yesterday was a busy shopping day- went to Lowes with wife and daughter as they don't care for my choices in color and pattern: took an hour to pick out the vinyl for the bathroom upstairs, the wash-and-dry room, and a few of the closets but forgot the adhesive (need to go back for that).  Next picked out railings for the loft and stairs- daughter wants a wrought iron look so we found some "artistically bent" exterior uprights to use that I'll have to cut and fashion rails for to screw them to on top and bottom.  Will also need to cut the floor piece to go on the edge of the loft that the railing there will sit over- need that before the carpet can be installed next week....     Good news is I get to saw some logs; bad news is I have to hurry, which I hate doing when it's to make lumber for "pretty" stuff like railings that your hand touches every day.

Now a problem raises it's mean, ugly head: we need the HVAC on to adjust the humidity and temperature inside the house so I can install the solid wood flooring, but the guys who know how to do that aren't available for a week or so.  Problem is: flooring has to go down this week so I can get cabinets in and carpet installed.  This seems to be a major problem in building any house: sequencing the individual steps so they get done in the right order at the right time.  If I was building a house for myself or a spec house, I wouldn't care- I have lots of things to do while waiting for someone else to finish their part.  With this house, we've already missed two deadlines (that I didn't set but allowed to happen to keep everyone sane) and now time is more important than anything: lots of detail work will get put off till after they get moved in: floor trim and caulk, touch-up painting, a few other small things.  Mostly, though, everything has to be done and done NOW to get the house livable, so today I scramble to get materials and figure out how to hook up the mini-splits with my plumber son's help (when I can drag him away from his family at night- got to admit, the grandkids are a lot more fun to play with than working on this house  ;D  or just about anything else I can think of).  Daughter's friend (boyfriend? maybe) was going to help- he's done some before at Shelby, but he took off deer hunting in Illinois: got a doe already but hoping for a buck before he drives back with his buddies.  Looking forward to venison but really need him here right now.   :(

Ok, so deadline that was September slipped to Halloween and is now set at Thanksgiving... at least the weather is holding up: cool, dry and sunny most days.

Lj

[Piston]

Lj,
As much as your feeling rushed and in a time constraint I give you a lot of credit and respect for still finding time to update your thread.  You sound like a really hard and detail oriented worker  ;D

I can't imagine the sense of accomplishment you must feel when you sit back at the end of the day with your beverage of choice, reflect on the hard day's work you've done on your daughter's house, while watching your grandkids play!  That must be a great feeling!

Your kids/grandkids must be very proud to have you as a dad/grandpa  8)




Your doing a great job! 

smiley_clapping

[ljmathias]

Wow, Piston, thanks- thoughts are much appreciated.  And you're right, the sense of accomplishment is a tremendous feeling.  Wife and I went for a walk just at dusk last night, ended up at the new house and she commented on what a beautiful place it's turned into.  It's strange, though, that the things that make a house solid and durable, strong and able to withstand the vagaries of weather, are not even visible.  What we take as the "house beautiful" is actually just the outside stuff- oh, it all helps with keeping out the wind, cold, rain and bugs, but it's mainly just for looks.

Well, off to get vinyl adhesive, switch and outlet covers and a bath enclosure...

Lj

[Magicman]

Ok, so deadline that was September slipped to Halloween and is now set at Thanksgiving... at least the weather is holding up: cool, dry and sunny most days.Lj

At least you have a deadline.  It looks like my "Cabin Addition" deadline has "fallen and can't get up".   :-\

[Raider Bill]

LJ,

Here another drop in the bucket but something that came from your thread which I will appreciate for many years.

Impact drivers for screws..........  Because of your mentioning/recommendation I bought one. Simply put wow! Now when I reach for mine I think of you. Thanks!!!