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.

Stairs are going in, first sink installed, cat invades

A week compressed into a single entry; water heater installed, back stairs finished (need hand rail still), laundry sink is in place (ugly job), porch railing is going in, and the front stairs are started.

Whew! That's a lot of work for one sentence. Here are some pictures to appease the audience. Oh-the cat (Ramses) has made the move and become Thistle House's first full time occupant. He's doing a bang-up job keeping the mice away and catching crickets and flies. Here he is.



And here is the first sink. I am no professional when it comes to plumbing (think Frankenplumbing), so I got my learning curve straitened out with the laundry sink. I used a great idea from Fine Homebuilding to add flexible couplings to the pipe and glued connections for the trap and elbows. It's taken a little learning to get it to work, so this isn't the prettiest pipe job you may have seen. Lessons learned include: make sure the trap rests on the floor, make sure the supply lines don't get in the way (this is the only cabinet to have loose PEX showing, the rest have 1/2 inch copper stub-outs), always use Kohler fixtures as they install easily the first time.



The back stairs; still need a hand rail but boy do they work well.



The railing. We are using 2x lumber and 36" hardware cloth as the rails. It's invisible, doesn't slow down the breeze much and it's really sturdy.



And here are the front stairs under construction. The risers aren't finished yet, and the landing at the bottom is just getting started.

Watch the clock!

I just reviewed the blog entries for July and everyone is after 10 PM. Ack! No wonder I am so tired; I work all day long for the Air Force, then work on the house and then come home and blog. Zoinks, I need some sleep.

Snakes in a Trench!

Travis the electrician and I spent most of yesterday installing the feeder cable from our power panel through the Trench of Despair (and clay), into the two-inch PVC conduit that for some reason decreases it's apparent interior size the further you push or pull the electrical feeder wires.

The trench is the one dug last weekend, and when Linnea asked me if we should install the feeder cable into the plastic drain pipe (to protect the cables from rocks), I naively said, "No, lets keep it indoors until we are ready to hook it up. I don't want to get it stolen." Of course, it's aluminum wire, so not as appealing (or annealing) as copper, and having now spent two sweaty hours just getting it into the drain pipe, I have yet another Lesson Learned. So...

The three 0000 (pronounced four-ought) wires are slightly more flexible than a politician at a party convention, but barely. Trying to get them to traverse the plastic drain pipe with it's interior ridges was like trying to feed an anaconda another anaconda. I ended up cutting a slot into most of the pipe and shoving the wires down into it. The trench also was complicated by the several inches of rain that caved in some of the sides (wet clay on top of the pipe makes it even harder) and the major root for the pine trees that we want to keep just North of the porch.

But before all this, Travis and I made trip number 582 to Lowes to buy yet more house crap. It's amazing how many receipts I have from Lowes. After we are done, I will do a little analysis and put up the numbers. I don't think I am too far off on the number of trips made to Lowes though. Once we had everything needed for the electrical panel, we set to work (and by we I mean Travis as I was wrestling with the anacondas like Jim did on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom). Travis worked hard in the cool basement as I rolled in the mud and clay with the snakes. Of course, he is the one who knows what he is doing, so it's very appropriate that I was out there doing grunt work. We should have it done tomorrow, assuming we ever get the wires through the conduit.

The conduit has two 90 degree elbows (LBs in the vernacular) that have an opening plate to help in threading the wire through. But the interior LB is RIGHT up against a floor joist, so you can't open it completely or reach more than your two pointer fingers in. Let me tell you, you don't want to have 4-ought wire shoved against two fingers where you can't move them or get them out of the way--I speak from experience. We tried a wire fish taped to the wires, but it pulled off. Next was some rope I had laying about--it stayed on but was too thick to make the second 90 degree turn. Tomorrow we are going to put some small gauge wire inside the wire bundle and pull it through that way.

Okay, I owe you guys lunch

Today at work, I (possessor of a really BAD memory) told the guys in the shop next to mine that the drive from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base to Thistle House was six miles. This was the cause of much disbelief on the part of the peanut gallery, but I persevered in my belief despite their attacks--we even used the dubious powers of Google maps to crosscheck it, but they recommended a different way home. I was sure I was right, because Linnea and I had clocked it after filling the truck with gas.

Turns out that it's 14.8 miles. The six miles in my memory was the approximate mileage from the back gate of the base to the house--and even that is more like 10 miles. So, now I owe Larry, Curly, Moe and Sleepy lunch. How about something cheap for the broke house owner-builder? Like McDonalds?

Tip of the Day (TOTD)

Today's tip is for everyone who hasn't read Fine Homebuilding. FH is our absolute favorite magazine and I have a confession. Our newest issue came in the mail last night and I distracted Linnea with the cheap Lowes woodshop flyer while I started in on FH. I felt really guilty, especially as the subscription is in her name, but I just couldn't stop myself. I did confess to her and as pennance I read the editorial to her while she washed up from cutting out light fixture boxes in the siding.

Anyway, blue masking tape--commonly called painter's tape--is the TOTD. It's great stuff and has almost as many uses as duct tape. It's great to hold anything together that you don't want to leave adhesive residue on (like wood panels for youngest son's scroll saw work), or making punch list notes in the house (see photo). We have probably used about 20 rolls of the stuff, and have even used it for it's intended purpose of masking off areas to avoid painting them. When the inspector does his or her walkthrough, carry a roll with you and a Sharpie. Make a note of what he wants changed and leave it at there--it's a great visual punch list. When all of the blue tape is missing, you know you are ready for the inspection.

Contractor's need space

Another lesson learned: clearly communicate and hold contractors to their assigned space in a house. Some trades, like plumbing and HVAC (heating, vacuum and air conditioning) eat up space in a wall and the ceilings. We knew this ahead of their work, but we are constantly running into problems with where our HVAC crew put their ductwork. We told their installation planner where we had planned for their ducts and returns, but this didn't get passed to the installation crew. We have a major conflict in the mechanical room where a 4" drain pipe is blocked by their duct work and the refrigerant line from the geothermal ground loop. Ack!

LESSON LEARNED: Spray paint the limits of a particular trade's working area and make them stick to it.

Memo to self: remember to call before you dig

Have you ever seen those signs that say something like "Remember to call us before you dig"? Working in military communications for the last 18 years, I have seen countless examples of why you do this. We refer to heavy machinery as 'cable finders' for their common use as a buried cable cutter. So, as we begin to build the first thing I have forgotten to do was to call before the digging started. The bobcat hit a three pair, direct bury telephone cable at six inches depth. It's a dead line that used to provide service to our next door neighbor. So, for everyone watching at home; remember to call before you dig.