Disappointment

Well, I got the inspection yesterday. It was a bit of a problem getting it at all - I had asked for a call ahead, but the inspection office neglected to pass that along. So, I missed the inspection, because I wasn't home. After waiting a while, I called the office, who verified that I did indeed have an inspection, and gave me the inspector's number. I then called him, and got everything straightened out. Whew!

And then... disaster. All that insulation I put in? Wrong. Yep. Off by an R value of 2, which is something like a Styrofoam cup. Which means all the insulation on the walls has to go. Worse is the ceiling; any ceiling must have insulation with an R value of 30. I used the same as the walls, so... yeah. No go.

Winnie the Pooh (and) Happy Pi Day!

In one of my favorite stories about Winnie the Pooh, the titular bear visits Rabbit and ends up eating all of his honey. On attempting to exit, the silly ol' bear manages to get himself stuck halfway out the front door. The attempted extraction fails, as does any attempt to return him to the interior. Rabbit is stuck with using Pooh's feet at towel hangers and exiting through the back door while Pooh slims down. The bear, of course, is anxious to know how long it will take; Eeyore replies, "Days. Weeks. Months. Who knows."

"And then, one morning, when Rabbit was beginning to think he might never be able to use his front door again, it happened!" After interminable days of waiting, Winnie the Pooh finally moves. Rabbit is ecstatic, calling, "Christopher Rabin! Uh, uh, Crostopher Robin! He bidged! He badged! He booged! Today's the day!"

An Inspector Walks Into a Bar

...And refuses to sign off on such a safety hazard, forcing the owner to redesign his plumbing.

While that joke doesn't have anything to do with my work (I hope!), there is an old joke about a scientist and an artist that actually does:

A beautiful woman stands at the end of a long room. However, the only way to reach her is by travelling half-distances, once per minute. The artist quickly crosses half the room; as he waits for the next minute, the scientist calls after him, "Hey, you can never actually touch her; why bother?" The artist calls back, "Ah, but eventually, I'll get close enough!"

So Close I Can Taste It (or) Bleh Pah Ptoo Cough Yuck Sawdusk

It's been another productive week here; not only did I finish the last of the wiring (hurray!), I also built the header for the nook. While the nook has a lot of obviously positive additions to the master bedroom, it also has a glaring down side: the wall between it and the master bedroom is a load bearing wall. Removing a good 8 feet of space can cause some serious problems; nobody wants their roof to fall down because they did something stupid. Well, I don't, anyway. I guess I don't speak for everyone.

But before I get to that, I have a few other things on the done list. I finished the very last bit of siding waaaaaay up there, which is a huge relief. I still need to caulk nail holes and gaps, and get some paint on everything, but the actual siding work is done. Whew. It certainly took long enough!

Electric Bugaboo

Last weekend, I shut off power to the entire house to install two breakers. I also ended up removing four unused breakers, and realized how mind-bogglingly terrible the wiring in my house really is. You don't really get a good feel for that until you've seen that someone put a (bare) ground wire over the two voltage rails (240 V between them), instead of wiring it into the block an inch from where it entered the box. Interesting times, indeed. Once I've finished the existing rooms, I'm going to rewire the entire house. There are just too many things wrong with it to let the existing wiring stand.

The electrical work was frustrating, though not because it was hard work (though it was), bad wiring (though it really was). No, it's frustrating because of rules... and cost.

The Final Countdown (or) Inspection Projection

Let me begin by apologizing for the erratic feel of this post. I've worked on so many bits and pieces over the last couple weeks, and hit on so many interesting things to share that it's hard to focus on just one. With that in mind...

I grew up in Kansas, about a mile outside the city limits. I learned how to do plumbing, roofing, put up drywall and siding, and generally how to fix and/or build a house from my dad; however, we never had to mess with any building permits. Being outside the city, we could do what we liked, for the most part. The most we ever had to deal with was reporting some of the larger modifications (like when we built a whole house as an addition to our existing house) for tax purposes. And even then, it was hardly anything formal. Living inside the city, however, I have to deal with permits and inspections; it's a whole new world, and it puts some remarkable constraints on what I can and can't do.

Headway (or) Decisions Through Injuries

Ok, so, it's been a really long time since I updated anything. Not that nothing has happened - far to the contrary! Lots of things have happened! However, one unfortunate occurrence is that the blogger app for my phone no longer seems to want to upload pictures. That means that I need to copy pictures that I take with my phone to my desktop to add them to a post. Which explains why this post that I started in July is only being posted now.

That out of the way, here's the bit from July:

This is the hottest part of the year, but I'm still pushing ahead with construction. I could be working more, but it's been 100 degrees outside, so forget that!
As noted in the title, I've made some serious headway, at least as far as construction is concerned.
Electrical: Finished, except for tying it into the main house wiring.
Sewage and sewage vents: the new bathroom is 100% complete, and the master bathroom has the major sewage pipes in. Huzzah!
Framing: exterior framing is 100% finished, and interior framing is done except for where I need to make holes in walls (such as the nook, or the bedroom-to-closet doorway).
Siding: In progress; of the seven sections, two are complete, one is nearly complete, and one is partially complete. The "hard spot" is one of the ones that I finished; the exterior door is in, and all the siding has been installed around it. Huzzah!

It's the Little Things

Well. Today, very little happened, but quite a few things happened. The biggest progress move is - Andrew's switchplates arrived! He'll be busy for awhile replacing every ugly plastered switchplate in the house with the new brass covers. The biggest personal move is: we finally have internet. AT&T just had issues with the house being so old, and having not been occupied for so long. Andrew had a choice of putting DSL through the Library (current boys' bedroom) or the room directly above - his room. He made the best long-term move and put it upstairs. Of course, this means that until he can make the wireless router downstairs connect, there is no direct internet for the PCs on the first floor. Also of course, in the long-term, this won't be an issue as he will feed the network cable down from his room through the alcove into the downstairs. Networking IS a priority to make this place 21st century.