Construction Update January 15-21

What a week!

The week started with warm sunshine and soon turned to snow and cold.

Sunday I glued all the pantry tiles in place with thin set.

This is the crawl space access hatch.  It is about 22 inches square and if using 12" x 12" tiles it would take 4 tiles.  This photo shows how I used 30 pieces of tile... several with angles.  It's more like a piece of art.

This pantry is about 10 feet by 5.8 feet... 58 square feet... and it has 304 pieces of tile.  Every tile has been cut on at least two sides... several on three sides... for an estimated total of 760 cuts.  That is what one does for a piece of art.

When I was all done fitting the tiles here are the scraps of waste beside the saw.  Next to nothing left over.

Shirley helped me with mixing and washing up the grout.  Doesn't this look somewhat like chocolate?

We mixed up the total 25 pound bag of Mocha coloured grout... and we had to really stretch it to get this whole room finished.  I had hoped to also fix a grout joint between the tile and hardwood at my office door... but there was nothing left for me to do it.

No one was happier to see this job done.  Once the grout dries the colour will be a perfect match.

Since we had the access hatch cover off for the grouting process...

I decided that I would crawl under to insulate this crawl space.   The access would never be easier.

I also custom friction fit a piece of styrofoam for this access, since there is no easy way to do the fibreglass insulation for this hatch door.

Telus came this week and moved the phone lines over to the new service location on the back of the garage.  Very soon we will be able to push over that ugly pole that used to have the meter base... and this green pole will get removed by BC Hydro any day now.

Meanwhile it snowed several days in a row and with the blowing wind there was snow on everything in the carport.

So I had to sweep the snow off the table saw so that I could customize the boards to make the drawers for the pantry cabinet.

This week I finished the two drawers for the pantry cabinet... and installed them with full extension glide tracks.  I used the Kreg Jig tool to make the drawer boxes.  I would have had the doors installed by now... they are stained and lacquered ready to go... but I didn't realize that there is a mounting plate that didn't come with the European hinges.  It will take another trip to Home Depot to get the missing part.

I  believe this coming week we will have this room 100% completed.  As soon as we connect the power to the appliance plugs I will move the new freezer and refrigerator in to place.  The doors should go on easily enough... and I need another length of base board to stain and lacquer.  The counter top may also be ready and it will be pretty easy to set into place.

This past week I had a very interesting session with James Robertson, the building inspector in Victoria. He taught me about Blue Skin... which I will have to put around the bottom of the window rough opening.  He encouraged me to go look at some new houses under construction to see first hand how the builders were using Blue Skin and putting trim around the windows and doors... so we went to a new subdivision in Langford and a little walk around with my iPhone.

When I talked to him about the window detail for the trim boards I wanted to install around the windows, he taught me about several things to meet building code and emphasized making sure the flashing above the windows had an end dam.

Construction Update December 5 to 16, 2011

My wounds have all healed marvellously.  Isn't it wonderful how the Creator designed our body so it would mend itself... but when my car or a tool gets broken it stays broken until we get it fixed.

I think one of the most wonderful things is to have our new roof completed on everything.

When I think back over the past couple of months, it is amazing that these guys worked thru the rainy season...  with even some snow... and they got the existing house and garage done with no water problems.  This is Lance Vaesen completing the ridge cap on the garage.

Two of Lance's boys work with their dad... this is Kellen finishing off some flashing on our house.

Here Brant is working on a last piece of flashing on the highest peak... 29 feet off the ground.

After the shakes were taken off the garage the nails that didn't come out with the shingles got pounded into the strapping.  You can see how important it is to have a hat on as I was checking and nailing some of the sheathing that was missed during the framing.

The garage attic has never looked better since we have been here.  We totally cleaned out all the junk that used to be stored here...

And we have been running some new electrical thru this attic to a new panel on the back corner of the garage where our new service will soon be switched over to.

It took Wesley our electrician, Shirley and me, as well as a come-along to pull this heavy new service line from the back of the garage to the new panel location in our new closet.

I took the sheathing off the house to expose the old panel in the back of our closet.  All these wires will get moved to new panel on a dedicated wall of our new closet.  The day we do this switch over will be a busy day for Wesley and we will be most of the day without power.

Both telephone and BC Hydro power will come into this back corner of the garage... and Wesley installed a guy wire so the mast will be strong enough once the new line is connected.

We purchased three dozen pot lights at Home Depot...

and it is such a joy to have them working in the carport already.  Can you see the smile on our truck now that it can park in our new carport?

One of the items that the engineer caught was a double 2" x 10" beam that I didn't see in the drawing.  So, I had to cut in space under this window for it.

Once I got it all installed, with insulation behind, it looked like it had been there all the time.

Last week Thursday we picked up the drywall for the pantry.  On Friday I called the Building Inspector and asked permission to cover in this one room.  He suggested that I send photos of the room to the Chief Building Inspector and I may get approval to cover without waiting for the next week inspection.

So I sent off 15 photos with notes explaining all the steps I had done and by the end of the day I received a phone call from the Inspector with his approval to cover... and one of the nicest compliments with it.  He told me he had never seen a nicer set of photos.  That made my day.

Here I am last Saturday night starting to screw the drywall to the pantry ceiling.  Shirley should be in this picture too... but she was taking the picture.  Together we had the whole room done by Sunday noon.

I had never before used this cool corner bead that is designed to make smooth curved edges.

I didn't count how many screws and nails are in this arch, but I am sure there are more than a hundred in all.

By Friday afternoon I had the third coat on the drywall... so on Sunday with a little light sanding and a wipe off with a damp cloth we will be ready for the first coat of paint.

Shirley is anxiously wanting to get moved back into her laundry room, as well as this new pantry.  Every day it is a little closer.