Still working on "C"

"Ya gotta do A, but before you do that you gotta do B, but you can't do B until you do C and you can't do C until you do A! That was part of a comment from "Dreaming"

or As my cousin Vickie put it, "you're ready for A, and B, but you gotta do C first." I thought it was funny that they both used the same type of analogy.

We want to paint drywall (A)and put in the ceiling(B), but we have to put in heat duct work (C)for the rooms ABOVE the basement and gas pipe (C)for the rooms ABOVE the basement before we do anything else.

So, I thought I'd give you an update on the house, even though it's probably a bit boring. We never got anyone to come out and tell us where to run the duct work, so we've spent hours figuring it out on our own. We decided we'll just install it ourselves too. A guy did come out and tell us how many registers we need for each room.

And thank the Lord we did not drill any holes in the floor for registers before discovering that the vents we bought were the wrong size!

We are constantly learning. They don't even sell register covers to fit the vent size on the right. It's bigger than the standard vent size, on the left. Odd that they sell the vents, but not registers to fit them.


There are all kinds of rules & regs that you have to follow to be up to code with bearing walls.

One register done, upstairs. About ten more to go. (sigh)

And we also have to put in gas pipe, in the ceiling, for the upstairs.

Which involves reinforcing the ceiling.

We are almost done running gas pipe, and the gas company is coming out on Wednesday to install the outside part of the pipe.

And while Dave does ductwork and gas pipe, I'm learning drywall techniques.

You use this kind of 'tape' on the wall, to cover up where the drywall comes together.

Then you take a slab of drywall mud and run it over the tape, very smoothly.

We have these plastic outside corner things that you spray with water and stick on the wall. They are very specific not to rub the water on the plastic corner or you will rub the sticky off.

After you stick it on the corner, you use mud to seal it in as well.

You use this tape on inside corners. You cut it to size, then fold it in half, then drywall mud it in.

I told Dave it's like icing a cake.

Making sure you fill in the blank spots, then smooth it all out.

Piece a cake.

Cindy

New House Miscellaney

I haven't updated in a couple of weeks because how many more pictures can you look at of insulation, o.s.b.,

and drywall?

Right now we are putting up drywall in the basement living area.

And we've been a little frustrated about some things.

First of all, our yard outside the walkout basement,

is eroding into the driveway. We have to grate it before we plant it and it keeps raining.

We paid a lot of money for gravel for this driveway and seed for the lawn. And the part that we did seed keeps running into the driveway, because of the rain. So now we have grass and mud for a driveway. It's lovely for the cars.

This is up by the house. Dave is trying to get it grated so we can plant stuff here, but he really needs to be working in the basement. We're thinking of hiring our neighbor to help us with this, even though it's some of Dave's favorite things to do.

The other thing we have actually lost sleep over is this....see that kind of indented area in the wall? It's for a fireplace. Above that, to the right, the 2x4's are not coming together and the one up by the ceiling is a rather large gap. The double balcony is on the front of this end of the house. What we were wondering is....is the double balcony sinking into the ground from all of the rain (settling) and is it pulling this end of the house down? Or did we just not notice that this is the way the framer built this? See the gap (below)

So, Sunday morning I spent two hours going through every single picture trying to find one picture that I took of the fireplace area when it was first built back in October. This is the only one I could find (below) I've already blown it up once, and if I do it again it's fuzzy. However, when I do magnify it, it looks like that space was there when it was framed. If any of you have some type of computer program that you can enlarge the pic and it isn't fuzzy, feel free to have at it. I'd be much obliged! You can e-mail it to me at mailto:hilltopbeelady@aol.com

It's the area in the very back of the picture. We really don't think it's the porch because we put a level on the porch and it's still level. But seeing the gap in this picture would sure ease our minds.
Then we had to get a family of wrens to move out of the house. Squatters already! I kept telling him there was a mamma bird coming in feeding babies somewhere. Apparently they were above the garage. We never did find the nest. But the babies were flying around everywhere on Saturday when Dave got there. Then on Sunday he found this little one.

When he took the bird outside to let him go by the woods, he flew back on the side of the house.

Then it flew back on the porch under Dave's chair and wouldn't leave. I think it's in love with my man! After awhile it flew away.

Then the heating issue. We are heating the basement rooms with electric baseboard heat, because we are not going to be using the entire basement all the time. And it's underground and really stays at a pretty steady temperature most of the time. We are, however, going to have gas heat in the rest of the house. And the furnace will go in the basement. We have to run heat ducts and such in the basement (ceiling area) before we close up the ceiling. We can't finish the ceiling until those runs are done, even though we probably won't need them for another year or two, they have to be run now. And we can't move in before we close the ceiling. And we can't get anyone to help us figure out where to run the duct work. We're not heating and air people. We've installed four furnaces together and have even ran duct work, but it was previously installed so we put them in the same area. We've never had to figure out where to put them in a new house. And there are rules that need to be followed. Codes. Such as not cutting into a bearing wall, which is what the entire end of the basement area is that we are going to live in. We've called several companies and one did come out, but they don't "tell people where to run duct work".

So we went to the big store to see what was available. Basically anything you want! We've decided we'll do it ourselves and figure it out, but we'll need to get to the library and get a book on it and then it's going to take us longer to get moved in.

It's frustrating. Sunday I just wanted to scream. But, the sun finally came out, and I got into my beehives and it was very zen-like.

oohhhhmmmmmmm

Cindy

More efficiency area work

Last Monday I went looking for counter top. The piece on the left is in stock, already made, and only $35.00 for the laminate top. We weren't planning on doing anything fancy in the basement kitchen, but I just wasn't liking this already made laminate.

I'll settle for it, but we went to look at some counter top chips. Having it made was only $100.00

When I looked at this I thought of old 60's, 70's houses and those tables with the silver band around them. I like it.

This looks good on white, it is already made, and ready to pick up and put on.

And believe it or not, I've seen a lot of this on HGTV lately on white cabinets.

Blue won, but will Dave like it?

He says If I want it, I can have it, I'm worth it :) He really did say that.

I think they all look fine, but I just want this area to look like it is an old time lake house. The kind you don't see much anymore. The kind they used to have when I was growing up and they'd take old furniture and old stuff that no one wanted anymore, and they'd furnish their lake house with it. I wish I could find some knotty pine for one of the walls.

The wiring is done...what a job. I'm not even going to get into all of the little details, but as I said in the last post, I'm in awe of construction workers.

Then, last Wednesday, Dave asked me to come out to the house to talk about the kitchen area....again. We just were not liking the layout. Remember, the sink had to go on this wall because that's where the plumbing is,

except when Dave saw how cheap this cabinet was made, and how there are no shelves in it, he decided he could run the plumbing along the back wall, and put a hole in the side of the cabinet,

and run the plumbing through the cabinet. Then we could move the sink to this wall, but it has to stay against the wall. I like it better there.

That leaves a little wall space between the cabinet and the fridge.

Standing room only!

Then we moved this little cabinet here, beside the other cabinet.

with the stove in between them. It was ok.

I like this better

I got it last year at a garage sale for $5.00. I can paint it, Dave can make the drawers open easier, it has drawers for my utensils, plus a door for my linens. The stove can go in between this and the sink cabinet. It gives the room a bit of that lake house feel I was talking about. And the vintage type cabinet gives me a bit more counter top. We have a wide shelf we bought at a sale last year that we plan on putting above the stove.

Then on Saturday...I decided to take some stuff to the farm. We're calling this the farm from now on, so as not to be confused with the house we live in. And it was finally dry enough that I could drive right up to the basement door. See this post about driving up to the basement door. After I drove up, we unloaded the car, and took a break. And while we were taking a break, it started raining. We figured it wouldn't hurt to leave the car there for awhile. But when I started driving down the hill...

it was like driving on ice.

And I was heading

straight for this tree.

You can see where my car was sliding on the bottom of the hill. My stomach was in my throat and my heart was pounding. I stopped about two feet before hitting the tree, if that far. Then I backed up, sat there for a couple of minutes and calmed myself down, then drove on home. I think I'm going to stick to walking the stuff through the house.

Yesterday I started insulating the efficiency area. I thought I'd be done insulating in one day but it took a lot longer than I thought it would. I was having problems with the stapler. Turns out I was using the wrong size of staples in the staple gun. And this room has so many things to trim around,

and so many small pieces to cut.

Blogettes, I'm tired, I'm achy, and it's hot, itchy work. You have to wear a mask and a tyvek suit. I have to climb the ladder for the top of the wall and get on the floor for the bottom. I'd rather go somewhere fun, but I want this basement done. So I'm hanging insulation while Dave works. I'm halfway done. We're hanging in there. Dave's tired too.

Cindy