The landscaping inspector

A productive weekend so far. I have a number of things to show you, but for tonight, I wanted to introduce you to the new inspector. This one came by to check how the grounds were being kept, and to make sure I didn't have offensive weeds growing. He seemed to be pleased with what he saw, but didn't stay to chat when I came out the front door.

Mowing the lawn

A lot of progress has been made in the last couple weeks. Kitchen cabinets are done. I passed my final plumbing inspection. I have almost completed the electrical, there are two bath fans, and one light left. The ceiling tiles are all in place except for where the bath fans will go, and the supply vent in the hall. I have started installing base boards, and we have the first interior door installed. I even mowed part of the "lawn".

So, first the lawn. I felt things were getting a little too wild right around the house. Looking out the front window, it looked like I was in the middle of a hay field. While that does have an interesting feel, I thought it was time to take a little bit of time, and straighten the yard.

Great privacy feature.

 Trimmed down some.

The front yard, is passable again.

I was not going to mow the sides though with those slopes! Besides, I like this part of the look. It softens the hard lines of the wood and blocks quite a bit.

Next on to the lighting section. We got the fronts on all the columns, and I worked on getting all the lights installed. We put up can lights in the kitchen. I put up lights in the utility room, and the hall now is well lit as well. Here is some of the lighting, for you viewing pleasure.

 Columns also got sides put on, and down the road, I will add pieces on the corners.

 

The sports chair stands in for the couch. With all the lights on, the family room is well lit, but with 4 pairs of lights on separate switches, I have a lot of control over the light level, and what areas are lit.

While most of the house, has adequate, but not overwhelming light levels, the utility room now has enough light to frighten the shadows!

The utility room, has a lot of equipment, so it will be nice to have all that light available, when ever I need to work on something. It would have been very useful to have this amount of light in there, when we were installing the equipment originally.

Now, for the kitchen. We worked on getting the first part of the cabinets installed. Matt came out and helped dad and I get them in place and fit around the plumbing, and fastened to the wall. Then I had Jason come out, and finish my plumbing work. I needed a couple things finished in the utility room, but the rest was in the kitchen. The sink and dishwasher needed to be connected to the supply and the drain. The range needed to be connected to the gas line.

Finally, we hung the first interior door. Hanging these doors is going to present some work, since the framer chose to frame many of the door openings too short, and some of them, quite a bit too wide. For hanging the pantry door, we had to cut off the bottom of the frame and the door. Then we had to use a 2x4 as a shim on the one side to take care of the extra space the framer left.

 That utility cabinet will go back against the wall with the window, when we finish the window seat. The door to the pantry should be able to swing nice and wide then.

Nice scenery

Just a few pictures to show. My wild roses are doing quite well.

Inside, we are getting paneling on the columns and the chase, and I am wiring them. I think they are going to turn out quite well.

So, where does it all go?

A big milestone was reached this last week. I now have "indoor plumbing"! It has been about 2 years since the septic system was put in. Now it can finally be used for something other than a place to send leaks from pipes.

Simple, quiet, and water efficient. Yes, it is actually installed. No, a toilet would not normally be out that far from the wall. I had to get a toilet with a different clearance than normal, to make sure it would fit on the drain, and not run into the wall. Oh well, just another adventure in a long list.

The plumber also installed the vanities.

 Guest bathroom

Master bathroom

It is nice to be able to wash my hands, rather than cleaning my hands with hand sanitizer. Although, the day we had hot water from letting a black bag out in the sun all day, was pretty nice.

The plumber had to negotiate some issues with the sink drains. I am using air admittance valves rather than running vent pipes from each trap, and the sinks needed to be offset from the drain line for everything to work easily, but I had put the drain lines and lights pretty much in line. That meant that when we put the sinks where they were supposed to be the drains were right in front of the drain coming out of the wall and he had to add some extra fittings to line things up properly.

While the plumber was having fun, my dad and I worked on some other things. We got the hood installed for over the range.

We also got the light switches on the kitchen wall wired up. So, now I can turn on power to the hood, though that is of little use at this point. It also means that I can turn on the lights on the dining room wall.

Saturday, we spent more time going and buying stuff, than actually constructing. We bought and cut the panels for covering the columns. We still have to cut holes for the outlets and lights, but we are hoping we can get some done tomorrow. I have my baseboard material ordered now. With the exception of one light for the hall, I have all the rest of my light fixtures purchased.

Sunday, Matt came out, and gave us a hand working with the cabinets that will go on either side of the window seat. He also helped dad get the panel cut for the front of the chase over the kitchen counter. We needed to cut holes in the cabinets for the boxes that will take power to the lights I am going to have, and to the switches which will control the outside lights, and the the dining room lights. We did the cutting outside to minimize mess in the house.

We positioned and mounted the first cabinet. Yes, the cabinet is pretty vertical, I have some sort of optical illusion going on there. Well tomorrow hopefully, we will get some of the columns covered, and I can start putting up lights in more rooms.

A nice complement to the ceiling

Last weekend, we spent quite a while Saturday afternoon painting the floor. It has brightened up the inside quite a bit over the dark gray of the concrete. Though, the floor with all the drywall compound and such on it, may have been lighter still than this paint. The paint looks better though.

This week, the plumbing in the bathrooms will get finished, so toilets and sinks will be in. We are also planning to work on the cabinets in the kitchen some more.

A ceiling makes a difference

We finished painting the walls on a couple Sundays ago, and the following day, the ceiling contractor started. He got about half the grid work up on the first day.

The second day the rest of the grid went up, including in the utility room.

They used 3 different ceiling tiles in my house. These are the stacks of the main tile that was used.

The main tile was chosen for looks, low odor and good sound absorption. The tiles used in the bathrooms were chosen to stand up to high humidity. The ones used in the utility room, are actually a vinyl coated gypsum board. They are normally used in commercial kitchens. They should hold up well with some humidity, and are good for fire protection.

They did leave some tiles out, since I still need to get vents positioned and adjusted to the correct height, and I need to run the duct for the hood. I also will have some lights that will be installed up there. Other than that, the ceiling is done.

The next big task, is to paint the floor. We spent a few hours getting it all cleaned this week. We got a pretty good system going. I would hose down the floor (hot water from the spigot in the garage), dad would scrub with the big broom, then I would squeegee it and pull the dirty water over to where dad would suck it up with the wet/dry vac.

Besides needing to clean the floor, I also had to order the paint for the floors. They did not have enough in stock at Menard's so I had to wait until they came in, and it is going to require a good part of a day to paint all the floors, so it has to wait till the weekend. While we wait for floor painting day to arrive, we have been busy with other things that can proceed before the floor is painted.

We put up the wall cabinets in the kitchen. We started on the end by the pantry.

Then we got to the complicated one. This took some time to get ready to go on the wall. This cabinet needed to be cut so the gas pipe could be slid in through the back, since taking any piping apart was not even conceivable. We also needed to cut out a section on the top and bottom so that the duct from the range hood can pass through. This cabinet is just for looks really, it won't have anything stored in it.

With the exception of the filler piece that goes on the left side, we have finished installing the wall cabinets.

Another thing that has been getting worked on is finishing the electrical work. The thermostats are now permanently mounted on the walls, the bathrooms are all wired, except for installing the fans, and some of the wall lighting is now up.

Once the floors are painted this weekend, then we can get a lot of other things underway. Installing the rest of the cabinets in the kitchen, putting in vanities and toilets in the bathrooms. Doors, baseboards, and paneling for the columns.