Not a real post.. 5/31/2007 10:29:00 AM
..but I wanted to get this out there quickly.

Nowhere else in the world would you ever see a record in the police report that reads:

12:34 p.m. A woman reportedly saw a wounded coyote heading west under the James Brown Soul Center of the Universe Bridge. The coyote was gone when officers arrived.

Yes. We have a bridge named the "James Brown Soul Center of the Universe" bridge. You gotta love it. I think it probably magically healed that coyote.
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 Lots to say, lots to do. 5/30/2007 01:54:00 PM
But for now, just wanted to write to say we're still alive and we made it back to Steamboat OK. We have a lot of work here waiting for us.

We decided we'll be moving in a little over three weeks, so it's REALLY time to ramp up work on the house. Like, a lot. One of the floors should be getting here pretty soon now, and the other shouldn't be far behind.

I ran over to the house earlier today during lunch to mow the lawn, and will be heading back every night (and weekend day) for the forseeable future until we're done. It's cram time, big time. Luckily, while we were out, Wes and Ron stopped by to frame up the office wall for us (so now I can begin wiring and get the plumber in to do stuff that was waiting for that to go up).

I'll check in later in the week with a proper entry. Remind me to talk about our insurance woes at some point. Holy crap, we only have a month left.
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 Ouch. Weekend report. 5/21/2007 08:53:00 AM
Sorry no pictures, this is going to be a quick one since it's a short (but very busy) work week for me.

I took Thursday and Friday off from the house because I was totally stressing about it and getting a little annoyed at my lack of progress, until I realized we've only owned the place for two weeks and I had actually made a LOT of progress. So I took a break to get a little downtime. Also, my helpers have been out of town for the last week and I've been flying solo, so considering that (and that I have a full time job), I've been doing pretty well. I'm behind where I'd like to be, but what can one do?

Anyway, I spent pretty full days at the house Saturday and Sunday. Finished the laundry room wall and a little extension wall upstairs (without pictures my descriptions are kind of worthless), and did a lot of electrical rearranging (I now have a detailed electrical plan for the entire downstairs. Not something I was planning to spend a lot of time on, but something that is VERY time consuming nonetheless). Then yesterday (Sunday) I also wired up CAT-6, RG6 and CAT-5e for the TV area of the den (need to feed all those appliances). There are 4xCAT-6 pulls, 2xRG6 and 2xCAT-5e (the CAT-5e and RG6 are combined in a structured cable). The CAT-6 is for TiVo and game consoles; I was only going to pull one structured cable (1 RG6 and 1 CAT-5e) but a friend stopped by on Sunday who does professional installs and suggested two RG-6 so if I eventually get a dual-tuner TiVo/PVR I'd be ready for that.

In drilling holes for all these wires (with my new high-power man-drill, which has pretty much already paid for itself becuase of the use I've gotten out of it), one of the bits got stuck in a 2x4 and torqued the drill around to smack my left hand. So now my left thumb is killing me (though it's much better than it was immediately after the injury on Sunday, when I felt nauseated because of the rush of adrenaline after it happened. Ouch). But, nothing seems broken, just really, really sore.

I'm looking forward to my time off in Chicago over the long Memorial Day weekend, but I have boatloads of work to do before we can leave so I need to get going.

Talk to you later!
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 And.... 5/16/2007 03:50:00 PM
With the purchase of our upstairs floor here (and pictured to the right), the spending spree is (mostly) complete.

In fact, I shouldn't have to order much more of anything. Another trip to Home Depot will be warranted for the pickup of our special-order door, and I'm sure I'll do some more damage then, but other than that, we're looking good!

This floor should get to Denver in a couple or three weeks, and be on a truck to Steamboat a day or two after that. Boo-ya!
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 Work work work.. 5/16/2007 10:25:00 AM
So I ordered the floor for downstairs today (and you're looking at a picture of it). The floor for upstairs hasn't happened yet, but we'll be doing that soon enough (sometime today). I actually had to tell them to hold off on the shipping as we're going to be in Chicago for a long Memorial Day weekend, so they're going to send it out the day we leave FOR Chicago, and it should get here a couple days after we return.

I went over to the house first thing this morning to take out the garbage and recycling, and our dumpster, which was due to arrive "sometime" today, was already there. Double-awesome. We have way too much construction debris in the garage right now. No more!!

I also almost completed the (difficult) laundry room wall (when you see pictures, you'll understand) - I just have to install the middle bit, which will take a little effort. The compressor and air nailer are loud as sin, and I'm trying to at least be somewhat considerate of my neighbors during this process. Also, for your info: drilling into a concrete slab (even with a masonry bit and brand new high-power drill) is a CHORE. And also loud.

Basically, I just have the little bit of the laundry room wall, the office wall (which will be the largest wall created during this process, and ironically probably the easiest), and the new wall for the 1/2 bath to finish before the construction is complete. Then it's moving around wires (I have a pretty solid plan for downstairs now, after spending some time untangling things and figuring out unlabeled circuits yesterday), adding a ton of can lights everywhere (and switches for said lights), and then all my low-voltage wiring (audio, ethernet, phone, satellite). Then drywall, paint, floors, and done.

Phew.

Today at lunch I'm headed over to bomb our dandelion farm with weed killer. Those things grow FAST!!
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 Now featuring... Archives! 5/15/2007 09:23:00 AM
So if you look to your right (below the google ads) you'll see that we are once again featuring archives of posts - so now you can see everything, all the way back to my first post ever, in December of 2004. That was a long time ago.

You can also revisit such classic posts as this and this*.

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Yesterday I went to the house at lunch as planned, and busted out the weed whacker to clean up around the edges. I got dirty with little bits of mangled grass blades all over me.

After work I went back and wired up my first outlets (5!) for the office and what I guess I'll call the "server room/closet" even though there aren't currently plans for any servers.

I really have to get moving on this house. I have a feeling I'm in for a lot of late nights this week.

*posts almost entirely randomly chosen
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 Long weekend (in more ways than one)... 5/14/2007 09:07:00 AM

So I took last Friday off to take a trip to Home Depot and get some more supplies for the house (including the doors for my office - double French doors that are going to look awesome when they're installed). I also special-ordered new closet doors for our bedroom. Since doors are expensive, I think that once every couple months we'll get a new door for the house and install it, just so I never (ever) run out of projects for the new house (I'm only half joking here).

In addition to the doors, I bought a new drill (with a 1/2" chuck, which I desperately needed - the cordless we have is good for unscrewing things and small jobs, but with all the wires I'm going to be running and the work we have left to do on the house, this only made sense - and I got a great deal on it, and I've already used it about two dozen times). We also got a ton of can lights for installation around the house, new electrical wire (for the lights and to replace what we've moved around) and balusters and nule posts for our new bannister. Also switches, outlets, gang boxes.. I guess lots of electrical stuff.

We got a free hedge trimmer, even though we don't have any hedges. I'll try to return it for store credit next time I go in.

So, that was Friday morning. Then we got back (Wes drove his huge truck so we could bring the doors back) and Wes had to run, so I got a little work done and then headed home. Friday night we had Dana's office's "end of winter" party (winter is the busy season for sick kids), and Saturday was back to work at the house. We met a bunch of neighbors for the first time, and I decided I am definitely going to heaven as the nuns who live next door (really!) couldn't start their lawnmower, so I started it for them.

I finished framing a wall for our newly expanded closet, and then D came over and we took turns mowing the lawn for the first time. We took turns because the damn grass was so long that after one row (out and back) we had to empty the bag of clippings. This took quite some time, and filled up two trash cans (one 65-gallon!) and a construction trash bag (also huge). This wore us out, so we entertained some visitors and then headed out to see 28 Weeks Later, which was pretty good but not as good as the first (28 Days Later and kind of had a lame ending.

Then we watched a movie that had been sitting here for two months (ah, Netflix, thank you) and went to sleep.

Sunday I woke up super-early and grabbed a bite to eat, waited outside Ace until it opened to get some construction adhesive (for framing walls downstairs against the concrete subfloor) and went back to work at the house. I got 1 and one-third walls framed yesterday (the "third" of a wall will become more clear after pictures). I took a break in the middle to go to the bar and watch the Cubbies win with Dana, and then it was a couple more errands (needed more nails, bought a weed whacker that I intend to use at lunch today) and went back to finish that "third" of a wall at the new place.

Overall, a long weekend to be sure, but not as productive as I would have liked. And I want to get all the wiring done before we head to Chicago on the 24th (which means I have to get all the framing done ASAP), which means some late nights at the house this week.

It should be easy to stay away from the rental, however, as Dana is working and on call all 5 days this week (and on call all weekend as well) as her partners are roughing it at a conference on some islands in the Caribbean.

That's it! Long post! I'll get back to you later - we SHOULD have stuff for the audio controls shipping this week which should at least accellerate my desire to wire the house a little. I already have speakers hooked up in the living room and dining room, but without the controls I have to run downstairs to change the volume, turn them off, etc.

Later!
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 Congrats! 5/10/2007 08:08:00 AM

A quick congrats to Scott and Gina Wither on the birth of their first baby, Owen. Scott was telling me yesterday that his grandfather (great-grandfather?) homesteaded a cabin out here in Steamboat many many moons ago, so here's to the latest 4th (or 5th) generation Steamboat native.
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 NOT a post about our house.. 5/07/2007 08:54:00 AM
In fact, this is the most frightening, foul thing you will ever have the displeasure of reading. I felt the need to share it with everyone.
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 More demo, and reconstruction begins 5/06/2007 06:31:00 PM

Above is a video of us taking the wall down in the downstairs (we're pushing it back about two feet for some more room; shrinking the laundry room and converting a small 3/4 bath into a spacious 1/2 bath). The video took all morning, and represents about two hours of work. That's me and Dana's partner Ron. When D showed up with lunch, we stopped the video.

After that, Wes stopped by and tore out the wall at the back of our master closet. We also decided to get rid of the tile in our landing area and open that up a bit more as well.

Plans have been changing a little here and there as we encounter wiring, plumbing and structural stuff behind the walls, but I'm still really happy with our progress.

Today we pretty much completed demo and started reconstruction - the half-wall between the living room and stairway is all framed up and the new back wall for our closet is complete as well. We still have more framing to do (we should be able to complete it this week) and one nasty bit of demo remains - the flue for the old coal furnace. We think we're going to have to attack it from the roof down, so it should be interesting. It will also be very, very messy.

After framing is complete, then it's to (my extensive) wiring. Then drywall, then paint, then floors. Then if we get around to it (and can afford it), trim and other embellishments.

Fun stuff!

When we start putting up walls downstairs I would time-lapse, but since walls are usually built on the floor and then raised up it would be kind of boring. I think the next time it will make sense will be drywall. We'll see. This may be the end of the movies.

I do have a bunch of stills from after demo was completed, but the camera is at the house, so I'll post those later.

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 Day 3 - Time Lapse! 5/03/2007 06:51:00 PM
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 House update, day 2. 5/03/2007 09:47:00 AM

This is good news! Except it means I have no exuse to hire someone to scrape this texture off our ceiling, and have to do it myself.

Yesterday I headed over to the house after work and continued my DIY efforts. Wes came over to help and we installed the new attic ladder so I can get up and down to do all the wiring that should start in earnest sometime next week. Not satisfied when we completed that task at quarter after 9 (and after saying goodbye to Dana), we attacked the wall where the insert for the wood-burning stove is. It was quite a chore - there was drywall, of course, but it was topped with cement backer-board and plaster and lath that all had to come down before we could make the wall smooth - and the drywall beneath was a disaster (as a process of their putting up the backerboard, we supposed), so we took that down as well. Also, in order to remove those weird vents we had to get back in the wall anyway. Find of the evening: a (presumably) 30-year old Miller Lite pop-top can, which now sits on the makeshift mantle (really just a piece of 2x4 used for framing).

I did take pictures yesterday but nothing was that interesting so I didn't bother to upload them.

Tonight I'll probably work on getting the ceiling texture down in at least one room (either the bedroom or downstairs). Probably nothing interesting visually there, so I'll skip pictures today.

The plan is to have all demo done by end of day Saturday. There will be some plumbing questions we have to address but it shouldn't be anything major, and will hopefully be stuff we can handle ourselves. If not, I'll have to call in a pro sometime next week.

And the demo of downstairs will be the likely entree of the time-lapse video, so hopefully that will be available for your viewing pleasure sometime Sunday or early next week.

I have some pictures but didn't bother uploading them.

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 Yes! 5/01/2007 09:21:00 PM

It's done!

Pretty much Dana's whole office came by tonight for drinks and pizza, and as soon as they left she and I worked for about an hour tearing the place apart. She had more fun punching holes in the drywall than I think she expected, but quickly grew tired of it and switched over to popping off awful mirrored tiles.

Now, it's bedtime. More destruction tomorrow, but certainly not as fun as today's. I have to scrape the horrible texture off our bedroom ceiling. Yuck.

Album for today here.
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