SonicChicken blog

I’ve been busy working on the wiring lately, so I haven’t posted anything for a while. This turned out to be a good thing, because Don and J Moreno read my last post and hadn’t seen anything new on the blog, so they dropped by for a visit last weekend. Sorry for not sending out personal invitations to all of our friends/family! We really appreciate the company (and a chance to rest and chat!), so drop by any evening or weekend–More than likely, at least one of us will be home and working on the project. You can call ahead if you don’t want to take a chance on missing us…

Serious construction on our addition/remodel began on 12 April 2007, almost 24 weeks ago, although it doesn’t feel like it’s been that long. (At least to me–my family may feel differently.) Our next major milestone is rough frame inspection, which includes rough electrical, plumbing, HVAC, and (since we’re getting a stucco exterior) lath inspections. Here’s how the project is going right now:

Rough plumbing is all but done. We need to connect the new water heater’s T&P valve to its drain pipe, and we need to tie the old vent pipe from the garage sink into the kitchen vent stack. There’s no plumbing in the shop, so nothing to do there.

I spent last week doing electrical wiring and made a lot of progress, but I didn’t quite finish. Now I’m back to working on the project during lunch and in the evenings. Even so, I hope to finish during the coming weekend. Mostly it’s just little stuff remaining: an outlet or two in one room, a few lights in another, etc. The only big electrical job remaining in the house is the kitchen, and that’s only a “big” task because I have to do some framing first. We need to add some furring strips to the old kitchen-garage wall, I have to frame in the openings for two doors that we removed, and I have to re-frame the ceiling joists where the range/hood vent will poke into the attic. After that, it’s just a matter of dropping a few dedicated electrical circuits for the microwave, range hood/blower, dishwasher, and garbage disposal.

I haven’t done much of the electrical in Barb’s quilt shop, although I did get the most difficult job done–the three floor outlets. (The worst part was snaking 12-3 Romex through the conduit. The second worst part was kneeling on the concrete to wire up 3 outlets. The third worst part was paying almost $60 each for the brass floor plates. “Ouch!” to all three.)

The HVAC was finished a few weeks ago. I wish I’d finished the wiring before all the ductwork was installed! It’s been a bit of a pain having to crawl under the ducts, whereas I used to be able to walk upright through nearly all of the attic. Live and learn, I guess…

Barb and I took our salvaged doors out to U.S. Building Materials last Saturday for new jambs and hinges. While we were there, we ordered our gable vents. Those should arrive next week. We’ll need to have these installed before the stucco crew can apply lath and building paper. But before we can put up the vents we’re going to have to finish sheathing the gables! We learned a few tricks when we did this on Barb’s quilt studio, so hopefully the house gables will be easier for us to knock out.