Productive Evening

We had quite a productive evening tonight. So much so, in fact, that I didn't even have time to take pictures. I guess that will have to wait until tomorrow. For today, just enjoy this picture from yesterday - it's the tree we moved and hope that it lived. I guess we'll find out this spring!

Siding: Just to give you some background - the siding for the house is in sheets that are 3 feet tall and various lengths from 10' to 23' long. We (and our distributor) mapped out which pieces go where on the house, so everything is preplanned for the most part. We just look at the drawings and we know what length of siding comes next. The bad part is how the siding was shipped to us. We were assuming that the siding would come seperated by area on the house - for example all of the siding for the south side would be packed together. Nope. The siding for the WHOLE house came stacked in one large stack from longest sheet on the bottom, to shortest on top. So that means that each time we need a new piece, it takes at least two people to spend time sorting through the stack to get to the sheet we need. So now that you have the info, it will make sense to you that Kenny and I spent some time sorting through the stack and lining up our next few pieces for the first course of the south side. Once we found the pieces, Kenny took some measurements off the house and we cut the piece. It was quite instricate considering the piece was 13' long and spanned a few windows. Once we had that piece cut, we sorted out to the next piece (19') and got it ready to go on next.

Then we installed j-channel trim around all of the large windows on the south side. I measured and cut the trim while Kenny nailed it up around the windows. With the j-channel on and the piece cut, we are just a few steps away from installing it tomorrow. The details around the windows look really nice and clean.

On a funny note, here's some words of wisdom out of the mouths of babes. As many of you know, we are living in a rental home while we work on our new house. We were getting ready to go to work on the house this afternoon and the kids asked where we were going. I said, "We're going up to the house." Then my two year old son asked, "Daddy's house?" Wow. I guess Kennny has really been working on the house a lot!

I'll try to post some more pictures in the next few days!

Siding Security

Today the security company sent their installer who then wired the house for the security system. Kenny, Pete, and I worked on getting the first two courses of siding up on the west end of the house. See some siding pics below! Aside from some muddy fingerprints, I think it looks pretty good!

Above is me on the ladder and below are a few of Kenny working on the siding too.

All the pics above are the west side, while those below show a few views of the south side.


After we got a few pieces of siding up today, Pete, the kids, and I left and Kenny was also able to cut holes in the siding where the outdoor outlets will be.

More siding, more inspections . . .

Happy Holidays and welcome back to progress on the Nutter Green Home. Over the holidays, we managed to take 2 1/2 days off, mostly because we were all sick! We rested on Christmas Eve and travelled to see Kenny's family on Christmas. We returned home on the 26th and were back working on the house on the 27th. Now that we're back at it again we are making some progress. We finished all of the rough in electrical and the HVAC and exhaust venting (for all of the bathrooms and the range hood) that needed to be done for the final rough inspection. The inspector came yesterday, and although we didn't pass, there's only a few things that need to be done to pass. Kenny said the inspector was pretty impressed with the house and said what needed to be done wasn't too bad. He did give us a provisionary go ahead - sort of a partial passing - so that we can continue with the insulation and drywalling the basement. The things that need to be done are only in interior walls and don't impact the basement or the insulation, so he said we could keep rolling while we finish up the few things to pass the complete inspection.

A few switches in the master bath needed to be moved, so Kenny did that today. There's some question about some bathroom lights, so we need to wait until January 2nd to call them for clarification. The rest of the items had to do with caulking holes in the top plates for fire stopping and fire stopping in the chase between the basement and the first floor. We also need to add a floor outlet in the loft near the railing because the loft is more than 12 feet in width and the railing is considered a wall. So we'll put a recessed floor outlet in with a cover on it and it will probably eventually be covered with carpet! ;)

We need to get the first course of siding on the whole way around the house so that the we can put in the outdoor hose bibs and exterior outlets. The security company is coming to install their system on Jan 3rd. Once those are all in, the spray foam insulation contractor can come out and spray our insulation in. That's supposed to be Jan 11th and 12th. At the same time or even before, the drywall guy can be drywalling the basement. Below you can see Kenny finishing up our second piece of siding on the back side of the house.

The next thing on the list is the solar PV installer and the solar hot water heating system installer. They may begin installing as soon as the end of January. As always, we'll keep you posted!

Electric's Almost Finished

The other day, Kenny's Dad and his brother-in-law Drew came up to help finish up the electric. We still have a little more wire to run inside, but they got the meter base and panel ready to go. Below you can see the meter base on the outside of the garage and the panel on the inside of the garage.

Here they are working on the meter base.

Kenny and I hope to finish up on the inside today or tomorrow and have everything inspected right after Christmas. The security people are scheduled to do their work January 3rd. We also scheduled the garage door opener installation for next week as well. Once we have all of that finished, the spray foam insulation people can apply their insulation in mid-January. Then we can move along with drywall and finish up the ductwork in the basement. As always, we'll keep updating as much as we can!

Plumbing, Siding, Finishing

Well yippy-skippy, we passed our plumbing inspection! We received the go ahead on Tuesday. The telephone, cable, and data is already finished, so Kenny worked today on running speaker wire. The security people should be coming soon to install the rough-in on their system, and electric should be finished up in a week or two. Once all of this rough in stuff gets inspected, we can proceed on with the spray foam insulation installation.

We've been really lucky with mild weather lately. Our best stretches of weather have been over Thanksgiving, and the past week. We've had nearly 7 days of near-60-degree weather! We were working at the house today in lightweight shirts with all of the windows and doors open and the sunshine streaming in. Kenny and I were dancing in the great-room to Elvis' "Blue Christmas" on the radio. It was so surreal. It's supposed to stay warm and dry until Sunday, so hopefully we'll have a very productive weekend.

Kenny and I finished up one side of the garage siding today as you can see below. It's looking pretty sweet! The middle picture is the top of the whirlpool tub deck that I worked on finishing today, and the bottom pic is an "artistic" view of the garage siding. Enjoy!

Blizzard in the Basement

Today Kenny and I spent some time wiring the basement. If you think about it, it's not an easy task when you consider the walls and ceiling are all covered in styrofoam. You have to cut out channels in the foam so that you can slip the wire in. Once you figure out the right tool for the job, it's not so bad . . . Just a big mess! Here's a look at how we got the wire into the wall. You can see Kenny easing the wire into the channel in the pic below.

Above you can see the channels in the foam and the wire leading down to where the electrical box will be.

Below you can see what Kenny looks like after a day of cutting the foam!

And finally above you can see the best tool we've found (so far) for cutting the channels. If our neighbors don't think we're a little wierd now, I don't know what will convince them!

Plumbing & Siding

This weekend has been fairly productive. Yesterday, the plumber finished the rough plumbing so that we can have it inspected this week. You can see from the pictures that we have our supply lines from the city water supply as well as the rainwater cistern supply lines installed and marked. Today, Brian and his nephew Jeff came over and helped Kenny with the garage siding for a few hours - it looks awesome.

Here's a few shots of the interior plumbing walls so you can see how jam packed they are. This one below is the plumbing wall upstairs on the second floor.

Above is the plumbing wall downstairs in the basement, and below is the plumbing wall on the main floor behind the kitchen cabinets. Notice the three supply lines: hot and cold city water and cold rainwater.

Below you can see the markings we have to place on our supply lines to comply with the local plumbing code.