I uploaded quite a few pictures to our Flickr account today and created some new photo sets.
I also added some more pictures to the painting photoset.
Tag Archive for 'stucco'
27
Nov
Pictures!
We have another inspection(s) today–gas pressure test and stucco scratch. The stucco inspection is no big deal, the inspector just walks around looks at the exterior of the house. The gas pressure test is kind of a drag, though. We had to disconnect all of the gas appliances, so we had no heat, no hot water, and no stove today. Fortunately our GC sent a couple of guys over this morning after we had all gotten ready for work/school, and they capped off all the appliance lines. Once the inspector shows up, Barb will call the GC and have them reconnect everything relatively quickly.
Our drywall crew has been working all week on taping and topping the wall board. The seams were all taped the first day (Monday), and they’ve been feathering out the seams and all the patches that were done in the old plaster. It’s been kind of frustrating for us, because there’s not much we can do right now. We’re just waiting for drywall compound to cure; meanwhile, we’re itching to start painting.
Update 2007-11-10 00:23 — I just heard from Barb: we passed all of our inspections. (I had forgotten about the drywall shear inspection in the list above.) As far as I know, the next one (on the addition/remodel) is final inspection!
06
Nov
Stucco scratch coat
It’s sure handy being one of the few people building or remodeling a home at this point. I called Jack, our stucco subcontractor, yesterday afternoon to see if they could put the first coat on the house now, seeing as we didn’t have the shop ready yet. Jack: “No problem. Is the drywall done?” Well, they’re still taping and texturing, but the drywall is up and they’re done hammering if that’s what you’re asking. “Okay, I’ll have a crew out tomorrow morning!” Uh, Jack? We have a whole bunch of stuff right next to the house. Maybe you can give us a few days to move everything? Jack: “Don’t worry about that, the crew will move it for you.” Wow! About 8-10 people showed up this morning at 07:00, and the scratch coat was done before I came home for lunch at 12:45, less than 24 hours after I called.
We’ll have to wet down the stucco a few times per day while it’s curing, especially on the south side of the house:
Barb has Friday off, so we’ll probably call for our stucco scratch inspection that day.
(Update: I forgot to include the pictures. Doh!)
It’s been a while since I’ve posted–too busy working on the house to write much about it!
The stucco crew was out last week and got the house wrapped and lathed. (And incidentally gave me a ton of things to do in order to minimize future water damage. Great advice, things that needed to be done, but it burned up a lot of the time I had planned to use for wiring.) We got dinged for $800 for re-flashing all the windows. Turns out that the flashing along the bottom of the window was supposed to be left loose/flapping, i.e. only peel the top inch or two from the adhesive, so that the waterproof paper could be slipped under the flashing. So the stucco guys put new flashing along the bottom of all the windows while they were wrapping the house, and because of that they had to also flash the sides and top of the windows. (It’s just like the roof, you have to work from the bottom to the top.) Here’s a picture of the shop, without paper, to show the original window flashing:
I got most of the wiring done while I was on “vacation” last week, so we called for our rough frame inspection last Friday. And we finally failed an inspection. 
It was Chris, our regular inspector (yay!), but he busted me righteously for not having all of my grounding wires tied together. (I thought we could just leave the wires in the boxes and make up all the connections after drywall. I was wrong.) He also nailed the contractor for omitting sheetrock nailing blocks around the bathtub and lack of insulation “dams” at the eave vents. (According to the contractor, the insulation people usually put these in before they start blowing in the insulation.)
The contractor sent out a couple of guys to take care of the insulation dams and the bathtub framing issues yesterday, and I spent the weekend and yesterday afternoon/evening tying all my ground wires together and generally making the wiring look neat and tidy. We’ll get a re-inspection sometime today, and hopefully we’ll pass this time around!
Assuming that we do pass, insulation is scheduled for tomorrow, and drywall will be installed Thursday and Friday. Taping and texturing will take up all of next week (Nov 6-10). Cabinets will be installed on the following Monday. Countertop tile installation will begin that evening or the next day and should be completed by Nov 17, and we’ll work around the tile guy to install our appliances. I doubt that we’ll be able to get our tile flooring in before Thanksgiving (Nov 22), but I’ll let the tile installer make that decision when the time comes. But it looks like our kitchen will be functional for Thanksgiving this year!
19
Oct
Inspection woes
Normally I’m very supportive of the Sacramento County Building Department. Nearly everybody I’ve dealt with has been helpful, professional, and even pleasant. On top of that, the inspector who’s assigned to our job is outstanding. But he must be on vacation or something, because today I had my first less-than-positive interaction with somebody from the building department.
Enough about that. It doesn’t even warrant a post on its own, so here’s the important news. Our gable vents finally arrived, so we can finish the three “showpiece” gables! (The one over the entry and the two in the back yard.) We are going to finish prep work for lath this weekend so that the stucco crew can come in on Monday and get the house wrapped and lathed. They’ll be finished by Tuesday evening or Wednesday some time. While they’re doing that, I’ll be finishing the electrical rough-in. Once both the electrical and lath are done, we’ll call for our rough frame inspection. Insulation will go in the walls the day after frame inspection, (assuming I remember to call them back and confirm!) The day after that, drywall starts. Drywall delivery is scheduled for next Friday morning at 7:00, so the house and garage will need to be completely cleared out by then. If we’re super lucky the drywall will be up, taped and textured by the end of the following week (Nov 2).
Just to make sure this weekend is extra fun, we’re driving to Napa (1.5 hrs) tomorrow for Caitlin’s gymnastics meet (4.5 hrs), after which we will be going down to Oakland (1 hr) my cousin’s housewarming party (who cares how long, it’s a party!), then driving back to Sacramento (1.5 hrs, designated driver presumed). So enough blogging, I’ve got way too much to do!
Construction started on our remodel/addition project six months ago, today. We were hoping to be finished by now, but at least the end is in sight! I’m almost done with the wiring (finally!), and we’re just about ready to jump our next major hurdle–rough frame inspection. Once we’re past that, we’ve got about four weeks until our kitchen is operational, so we ought to be able to host Thanksgiving this year. Hooray!
I haven’t been posting many pictures, either here or on our flickr remodel collection–either I can’t find the camera when I need it, or (more typically) I’m just too busy to shoot any pics. Yesterday was an exception. We had our GC send out a crew to finish some of the framing yesterday, and I managed to get some photos of (what’s left of) our kitchen:
I also managed to get a picture of the laundry/utility room before the doors were installed:
The stucco foreman came out to look at the project yesterday. He gave us a rather long list of things that needed to be taken care of before he could put up the lath. But the good news is that he had his crew set up the scaffolding early so that we could use it to finish sheathing our gables. (That’ll be much easier than hauling sheets of plywood up a pair of ladders!)
Work remaining before rough frame inspection:
- (us) Finish rough electrical–mostly the kitchen, which I can start now that the kitchen framing is done;
- (plumber) Finish rough plumbing–water heater T&P hookup, utility sink vent reconnected;
- (us) Take care of the issues listed by the stucco foreman;
- (insul.) Insulate the original west wall of the house (insulation crew is scheduled for next Monday);
- (us) Sheath the wall after insulation is installed (rain forecast for Tuesday, so Barb and I will do this Monday evening);
- (us) Sheath the rest of the gables (after rough plumbing is finished);
- (stucco) House wrap and lath for stucco.
We’ve got a busy weekend ahead of us! But hopefully we can be ready for our rough frame inspection by late next week, which would leave us five weeks until Thanksgiving. It’ll be close, but I think we can make it.
26
Sep
Remodel update, week 24
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.
