SonicChicken blog

I’ve got a week and a half off for Christmas, and one can only socialize so much. We’ll be spending considerable time working on our remodel, of course.

Speaking of the remodeling project, I noticed that I haven’t post much this week. I’ve been busy at work, getting everything done before the year-end shutdown. We’ve also had quite a bit going on at home!

• Our plumber has the kitchen sink, disposal, and dishwasher working–hooray! He’s also done most of the work in the new bathroom, although two small parts have gone missing so our new shower and toilet aren’t hooked up yet. But he did get the vanity sinks plumbed, which is significant because one of those sinks receives the furnace condensate — No more toting 5-10 gallons of water out every day! (And no more mopping up when I forget to empty the bucket. )

• Rick, our tile setter, has finished his work. In fact, he grouted the entry about an hour before my wife’s office party started on Friday night. His work is fantastic, just like last time. He has some small touch-up work to do after the holidays, and we still have to seal all the floor grout and the shower.

• Don and J were out this week and took care of a whole bunch of stuff — hanging doors, installing vanity cabinets, building landings and stairs for the exterior doors, etc. Don’s still got to come back and finish installing the medicine cabinets in the bathroom and re-hanging Caira’s bedroom door, but the door got a bit warped and we’re still waiting for it to get flattened out.

Between our trades’ work and our own, we’ve very nearly finished our kitchen. This truly is the “heart of the home”, especially for our family. Barb and I are both pretty competent and enthusiastic cooks, and our teenage children are heading down the same path. So it was more or less inevitable that we would focus our finish-work effort on the kitchen first. The punch list for this room is now quite short:

• Eric (cabinetry)

  1. Trim cabinet openings for dishwasher and wine frig.
  2. Crown molding around hood chimney.
  3. Re-install scribe along range backsplash.
  4. Install baseboard.
  5. Install foot rail along bar.
  6. Adjust several doors and drawers which aren’t closing properly.

• Rick (tile)

  1. Replace two pieces of cracked bullnose skirting.
  2. Install bullnose piece between bar top and cookbook shelves.

• Us

  1. Hang the pot rack.
  2. Install two pendant lights over bar top.
  3. Wire up the blower for the range hood.
  4. Push the range back flush to the wall (fiddle with gas supply hose).
  5. Clean the floor and seal the grout.
  6. Move refrigerator into its cabinet.
  7. Adjust wine frig and dishwasher (once Eric is done).
  8. Run the water line for the ice maker and filtered water tap.

Our tradespeople are gone for the holidays, but I expect to finish at least half of the “Us” list today. Our camera batteries are dead, so perhaps Barb can pick up some fresh ones today and I’ll do a follow-up post on our progress, complete with pictures.

Rick, our tile setter, had his crew at our place bright and early on Saturday morning. There wasn’t much that we were able to help with, and those guys were moving so fast that there was no place we could work without being in their way. We hung around for a while and took some pictures before we went out to run errands for a few hours. (It felt weird not working on the house!) Here are a few pictures from tile installation day #1 photoset on Flickr:

There were a couple of problems with the cabinets, one of which I’ll have to fix: The peninsula outlets were centered on the backsplash frame, so the bottom of the outlet box barely cleared the tile (picture) once the mortar bed and tile were laid down.

At the end of day #1, the shower/bath surround is all tiled, including the quarter-round trim. The granite countertops are all laid, although the bar top has yet to be done. The backsplash over the baking center is tiled, except for the quarter-round trim (which won’t arrive until mid-week). The Hardiebacker has been “glued” to the floor in the bathroom, laundry/utility room, hallway, and part of the nook and entry.

Rick and his guys will be back tomorrow. It’ll be interesting to see how far they can get, since they don’t have to spend a lot of time setting up tomorrow.

Insulation was installed on Wednesday. Wow, what a difference! It’s quiet, and the temperature in the house is much more stable. (Not so cold in the morning nor hot in the afternoon.) I thought they were only going to do the walls at this time, so I didn’t prep the ceiling and left some attic/ceiling wiring work undone. But when I got home that night, I found that all the “open” ceiling (i.e. bare joists without drywall) had batting insulation installed. Rats! That made it even more difficult for me to finish the wiring that night.

The drywall started going up yesterday morning. Artisan Drywall is our sub, and they’ve been outstanding! Ron (the owner) and one of his guys even came out and helped us finish clearing out much of the house in order to keep the project on schedule. Ron hired out a separate company to hang the drywall, and they made quite a bit of progress yesterday. They were back pretty early this morning, and they should be finished putting up our walls early this afternoon. (Ceilings were already finished yesterday.) Ron and his crew will be in next week to tape and texture the drywall.

I had to straighten up two studs in our one-and-only hallway, (one on each side of the hall), because they were bowed enough that the drywall would crack if they tried to attach to those walls. One side of the hallway is merely a partition wall, (not load-bearing), so I was able to correct that one pretty easily by making about 5 cuts with a circular saw to bowed-out side of the stud. (A picture or diagram would be very handy here…) This relaxed the stud enough that we were able to push it into alignment with its neighbors, and the drywall guys screwed a sheet of drywall to the back side of the stud to hold it in place. (Took maybe five minutes to fix.) Of course the other stud was on an exterior, load-bearing wall, so I had to plane down the high spot and put some drywall shims in a few places. I did manage to fix this wall, but it took the better part of an hour fiddling with the power planer, a 4′ straightedge, and many drywall shims. Added bonus: a huge mess of wood shavings from the planer stuck to the wall insulation and sprinkled all over the floor!

Our plumber came out yesterday afternoon to connect the gas line for the new furnace. He’s doing us a big favor to pull this off on short notice, so I stayed out there and helped him. I was amazed at how easy he made it look, but like any skilled trade I imagine it’s all about the know-how and proper tools.

I got power up to the FAU late last night, and the HVAC contractor was out this morning to fire up the furnace. We have heat! We’ll have to turn it off while the drywallers are sanding, but we’re pretty much climate-controlled at this point. After 2½ years without central heat, it’ll be a huge improvement!

On the “even more good news” front: I just spoke with our cabinet maker and let him know that the drywallers would probably be finished by next Friday, and I asked if he would be ready to install our cabinets on the following Monday. He responded, “Yeah, but would you guys be okay with me coming in on Saturday instead?” Heck, yes!

On the downside, Barb and I gave up on hosting Thanksgiving this year. There’s no way the floors will be finished in time, and we don’t really want our 10-month-old nephew crawling around on the unfinished floor. So once the addition is complete we’re going to host a post-Thanksgiving dinner–all the same food, and hopefully all the same people, that we would be having for the real turkey day.

One more minor problem: we lost our Internet connection again yesterday, but I’ll probably be able to get that working again over the weekend. And hopefully we’ll have more time for pictures (and blogging!) now that the bulk of the remodeling work is behind us.

Aside from a few minor glitches, it feels like we’ve finally crested the hill that is our addition/remodeling project. Looks like Barb and I will even have a chance to sit around and enjoy a glass of wine some time this weekend.

We’re into the 12^th week of our remodeling project. Barb and I both had five days off for Fourth of July, and we spent most of that time working on the house. We got a bunch of stuff done over our “holiday”…

We met with Eric, our cabinet maker. He should be contacting us today or tomorrow for final approval of the cabinet plan. Cabinets should be done in about 2-3 weeks, and installed shortly thereafter (assuming drywall is done). Eric suggested that we look into prefabricated vanity counters for the new bathroom. Tile Outlet had these for ~$375 each (’Uba Tuba’ 37″ granite with sink bowl installed and pre-drilled faucet holes). No grout lines to clean, and it’ll look great! Eric also suggested that we order the cabinet trim piece for our microwave, so I stopped by A&A and talked to Gavin about that. ETA is about 1.5-2 weeks (2007-07-20).

Barb got all the exterior sheathing removed from the back side of the original house, which should make for a quicker demolition party.

Nearly all of the construction debris has been loaded up. The back yard looks much better now, and it’s a lot easier to move around. We’ll be buying the bathtub tomorrow, since we’re finally able to drive the truck into the back yard again.

We met with the roofer, Bill Hall, after we passed our roof diaphragm inspection. He gave us a bunch of new chores, almost all of which are done. Barb went to the supply house and picked out our roofing material: Owens-Corning 40-year “Oakridge” teak.

Our HVAC contractor, Jose, came and looked over our project. He needed us to make copies of the floor and electrical plans, including any changes we are considering for subsequent remodel phases. He took care of most of his venting/roof penetrations today. We still have to figure out exactly where the furnace is going before he can place the flue vent.

Windows for our addition should arrive sometime this week, in which case they will be ready to install next Monday (right after our demolition party this weekend).

We got all of our non-glass doors ordered from U.S. Building Materials (off Sunrise Blvd, south of White Rock Rd). Great folks, by the way! ETA on the doors is about two weeks (2007-07-23).

I started working on our electrical installation. I got most of the outlet and switch boxes positioned in the bedrooms, hallway, laundry room, nook, and the added-on area of the living/great room. I still need to do the bathroom. The kitchen and the rest of the great room may have to wait until after the demolition party.

Lots of stuff done, but quite a lot left to do!

Update: Added a bunch of tags to this post.