Doors, lighting and duct work

Ok, so I said we'd talk lights and doors....and even though I'm not really in the mood to talk lights and doors, I'm not really in the mood to talk duct work either!  

This is what you have to think about every time you put a light switch up....

 Which way is the door going to open.  

When you open the door, will it swing in or out.  

If it swings in to the room, will there be anything in the way such as a toilet, or a table or whatev...that the door might bump into.

Then after you figure out the door swing, the light switch will generally go on the side where the door opens, as long as there isn't anything in the way.  If there is, you start over with...which way is the door going to open!

Then, what lights do you want to turn on with this switch?

Do you want them to turn on and off on both doors, if there are two entrances in the room.

If so, what way will the other door swing?

You get the idea.

You just have to THINK about every little detail, including door swings and light switches.

Which makes me understand why housing additions pick about three styles of homes, and build them all the same!

Some other stuff...

When you hire an architect, he generally will put a "chase" in a room where all of the duct work and pvc tubing and such will go.

Our chase "room" isn't big enough.

See there...no more room.

Dave labels everything, which I love.

So, we are going to put the freezer (this is the mudroom by the way) where the coat closet was supposed to be.  The ladder is in the closet at the mo.

 

The closet is now going to go to the right, against that wall, so..more re-doing.  It will hide the chase that way. 

 

Dave also had to lower the ceiling in the master bathroom in order to have room for duct work.

This is the ceiling in the master bathroom.

And this would be me....squeezed in the closet, trying to wrap and seal duct work.  I got to the very last piece and cut my finger.  VERY VERY VERY LAST PIECE!

While Dave was working on duct work he decided I need a bit of heat in the closet.

Back to the bathroom.....Dave did get a linen closet installed. 

We are very anxious to move upstairs.

That's pretty much a wrap.....I've been talking and meeting with people about kitchen stuff.  I'll share with you next time. TOO many choices!  Get ready to share ideas, suggestions, etc. about your favorite kitchen haves and have nots.

Cindy

Master Bathroom

We've been working on the house, mostly Dave with me throwing in a helping hand now and then, but it's all behind the scenes stuff which is hard to show in pictures.  I mean, you've seen one wire or pvc pipe you've seen them all, right?  And, I can't get a full picture of a room to show you the difference between before and after.  So imagine, the master bathroom on the main level was an empty room with studs, and a few plugged holes in the ground for drains.  

Dave built and put up a few walls....but remember,

 we had to decide where everything was going, way back when.....two years ago....while we were working on the basement bathroom.  We had to have plumbing in place before we closed up the basement walls.  And of course, now I wish we could change it.  I decided I wasn't going to stress on this kind of thing anymore.  It's a bathroom.  So, see where all of those pex (tubing?) are coming out of the ground, and the tall pvc pipe.  Well, that was before we put up

this wall.  The shower goes on one side 

and the tub goes on this side. (where the ladder is)

The tub area now looks like this...below...with a little shelf that will be behind the tub.

Hidden, will be a special note, under the shelf,  just for me (I'll know it's there!)  and he changed the date without me telling him to!  HA HA!  Our anniversary is on New Years Eve.

Now, about the part where you have to figure out where everything goes on the next level.  We had to figure out where everything was going on the 2nd floor bathroom, a couple of weeks ago, even though we are working on the main level master bath.  It didn't take long because you only have a few choices.

See this pipe below......it is in the ceiling of our bedroom and it is coming out of the toilet of the 2nd floor bathroom.  It has to be gently sloped (for obvious reasons)

 

and it has to run in between the studs, not through them.  So that doesn't give you a lot of options.  The pipe has to come out of the toilet above, and run in between the studs below, lest you weaken your bedroom ceiling/second floor flooring.

It goes across the ceiling into the next room, which is the bathroom,

then you can see where it connects in to the plumbing,

that is also connected into the plumbing in our basement, that we figured out a couple of years ago.  I bet you had no idea all of this was hidden in the walls of your house, did you?  I sure didn't!

I'll talk about doors and lighting next...I don't want to post too many details at once! 

Sweet!

At Christmastime I had some friends over and they wrote on the inside Kitchen walls.  I love having people do that.  Someday.....years from now.....if this house ever comes down, someone will see all of the love that went into building it.

Cindy