Goodness, people keep reading!

I guess I can't abandon this blog as 90+ people have read it in the last 30 days! Beats me why as I haven't written anything useful or even anything at all since, I dunno, ever. Well here's an update on Thistle House.

We have been in since 1 October. That makes it something like five months. We have finished installing the master whirlpool tub and are slowly making progress. It's as tough as we thought it would be to live here and finish the trim--and a real Ohio winter hasn't helped. There's snow outside and more coming tomorrow and I just don't like having the chop saw setup out in the snow. So I think trim is going to wait on better weather. We can focus on the master shower and finish the tile and glass block work instead.

I need to chronicle the saga of the whirlpool tub and the seven times we installed it. I am not sure if it was really seven but let me pass on a lesson from the school of hard knocks--don't install a whirlpool tub in a dormer window in a gambrel roof.

Big catch up note

Okay, I last posted a note on 7 August. Tonight is almost two weeks later--zoinks!

We have been going full throttle to get ready for the final inspections. In the last two weeks we have: installed two full bathrooms, a kitchen, finished all the electrical in but one room, built a glass block wall, installed tile in two bathrooms, plumbed in the water heater, installed the porch railings, the porch stairs, the balcony railings, the window screens (had a lovely 52 degree night on Friday), installed a sub-panel for electric as we have 10 more spaces than our 40 space panel (electrical breakers take one to two spaces each), and I am sure more than that. Whew--just typing it wears me out. We also have two sickies in the house right now--Linnea and number one son have a cough/running nose/ear infection going. Son is getting better but Linnea may take a trip to the base emergency room tonight to get some medicine to help her get better.

Looking over the photos from the last weeks, I see that we also spent the first nights at the house--how could I forget? We took last week off on leave and camped overnight from Tuesday to Saturday. Coming back to the apartment in military housing was a let down after being at Thistle House for five nights. Even in it's chaos, it's an easy to live in house. Plus, all the food is there now and the larder is bare here. There is no connection to the internet at Thistle House yet, and I told the kids we are not moving a single computer until every dust speck is gone and all messy work is done. That motivated them as that means the Xbox stays at the apartment too.

So, here is a montage of photos from the last few weeks; comments are welcome.



Basement mechanical room; well pressure tank, water filter, water heater with pressure relief tank--not pictured are the electrical panels and PEX manifold.



The Leaning Tower of PVC Babel. This puppy took about two hours to figure out and build. I had to label all the parts--three bowl sink, one garbage disposal, two dishwashers and one air admittance valve. When it was installed, the right sink drain line was 1 1/2 inches below where it was supposed to be--two hours later it was right. Works great.



Here's the kitchen sink without the Leaning Tower of PVC Babel. Did I mention that we got this sink (Kohler) from the Habitat for Humanity ReStore? It's a real bargain--we spent $40 on a sink that would have cost us $2,000. All we had to do was clean it up and remove the old fixtures. Sweat equity in action.



Re-installing the KitchenAid fridge doors after moving it upstairs. I am really getting bald.



The essentials are getting in place--and if anyone knows where my green Nalgene water bottle is, I need it for physical training tomorrow morning.




Laundry/bath sink--Kohler fixtures are great--install easily and well. I have one problem with a sink missing a washer and they are FedEx-ing it to us. That's three sink faucets, three showers and one bath faucet. Great stuff--two thumbs up and five stars.



A nice photo taken by son #1 (I think). Shows the laundry/bath and nice use of the mirror. Linnea developed this mirror fetish while we were stationed in England, and we came back with something like 15 wall mirrors. Apparently everyone in England is getting rid of theirs and we had to take them--probably something to do with reparations after the Revolution.



The cat is at the house full time now, although he isn't earning his tuna at this time. He is turning into quite the fly and moth catcher though. Number 2 son isn't too bad at flies either, but he doesn't eat them. There is a standing 10 cent bounty on every fly, payable at the ten fly count in Thistle House.



Here it is; the end of the 'Blue Room'. I have an entire future blog series on the trials and tribulations of having a port-a-potty for a year. It's a joy almost indescribable to have indoor plumbing. Now all we need to do is install the bathroom door.



Same toilet in the laundry/bath, showing the glass block shower wall just getting started.



Dinner interruption on Saturday night. Fresh from the garden, our own veg. Disclaimer: the onion is from the store.



Glass block wall, post dinner. Linnea and son #1 are hard at it, installing it. I was doing electric in the upstairs bedrooms.



We are doing a 'Tuscan' theme in the laundry/bath, and when I say 'we' I mean Linnea and Daughter. I just haul boxes of tile.



Finishing up the glass block--rubbing off the stray mortar.


That's it for now--more later. Probably another week before a good post, as the Air Force (and DoD) has blocked access to Blogspot from Air Force networks. Being a military IT guy, I totally agree in principle but it sure impacts my slack time at lunch doing updates. Oh, well.

The cabinets are coming!

Linnea took a run to the Cabinet Warehouse in Richmond, Indiana today to get our cabinets. This is a store that buys the odd lots, mistakes and returns from cabinet makers at really dirt cheap prices and then sells them to house renovators and real estate investors. They never have the same product two weeks in a row and you never will know what you will find, but we got about $8,000 worth of cabinets for $3,300. Some are slightly scratched, one already had holes for drains and water lines, but we got a great Kraftmaid cabinet with Blum 120lb self-closing drawers, with a great pull-out shelf for pans and pots for something like $120. Here are some pictures to show you what I got to see when they picked me up from work today.


Next is a photo of the first cabinet mounted on the wall. Microwave moves tomorrow to the house.



Here's a non-cabinet picture of the shower in the master bath--coming along nicely.


And finally, a great picture of the tiled kitchen hood over the gas range. The range isn't in place yet, but really soon. Maybe this weekend?

Passed the rough inspection

Well, we passed the rough inspection! Troy was happy with just about everything, but we will have to add a receptacle above the second sink in the master bath. That and a few little nit-noids and we were done. Yeah!

On Tuesday the 25,000 pounds of drywall showed up--okay, but it seems like that much. Tony the building supply guy did a more detailed take-off to get a better idea of how much we needed, and with all the supplies it added about $1,300 to that budget category. Good thing we don't need any money. So, we took the rest of the week off and started putting up ceiling board. That's 1/2" gypsum drywall with fibers in it to resist sagging. The crew from Building Specialties boomed the load into each floor and carted it around to each room. Boy is that convenient, but boy is it in the way of putting it up.

As a bonus, here are the pictures of the two upstairs shower floors Linnea is putting together. The tile is in ours, it's bargain tiles from Lowes. The river rock is for the kid's shower and it's an artistic experiment that Linnea and our daughter are doing. They are going to set the rocks in the concrete with their flat side up to give a smooth floor, yet show off the rocks. I think it will be cool.

Shower pan's going in...

Here's a quick photo series on how Linnea put in the shower pans. We have to get the PVC liner inspected before she can put in the next layer of cement. Speaking of inspections, we are one day from the rest of the Rough Inspection. Travis the electrician came over and helped me finish off the panel, so when I run the well power, septic pump and water heater we will be ready. Tomorrow we will have an early day at the house as daughter is going to the Arthritis Walk fundraiser early in the morning. So we should be able to finish off the rest of the punch list for the inspection.

More on the shower pans. The asphalt paper isn't shown, but it's stapled down to the subfloor, then the concrete is floated in to establish a basic slope to the drain. The drain is a special type that has perforations that let any water that goes under the tile and mortar, but slides on the PVC liner.

Linnea is so pleased to be sitting in her lined shower, just look at the smile! This is the PVC liner on top of the concrete. Linnea got a set of plastic slope guides that install in the shower pan and establish the slope to the drain. I will get a picture of that tomorrow...