Deck Underway + Dreamy Danish Set

I keep saying how long it has been since my last blog each time I write, but man, it REALLY has been a while. And that is because we have been working so hard on finishing up the place so we can get our final inspection and enjoy (uh, and I have a big exam in 2 months I have to start studying for - starting this week). The greatest news is that I scored the table and chair set I have been searching for months for. I've been on Craigslist multiple times a day, been to the Rosebowl and Long Beach antique markets... then finally! A gorgeous set in amazing condition - walnut table and 6 chairs with two extension leaves. I'm in heaven! And it looks so good next to my "new" walnut wall unit. On the construction front I still have a ton of painting to do, however, we made quite a bit of progress on the deck. After wrapping up last night around 9:00 pm I took some night shots of where we are. Hopefully this weekend will let us finish it up so we can get the inspection ovr the week of the 26th.

Moving In!

Well, its official. We moved our furniture into the bedroom yesterday and slept in it last night for the first time. Tons of sunlight (I'll be sleeping with an eyemask now) and lots more room. Today while I was at the Rose Bowl flea market looking for a Danish dining table set with my friend Hillary, Mike worked on putting together his new wardrobe. Once I got home we finished it up together and I'm currently painting the side (letting it dry one coat while I blog) to match the adjacent wall. We still need to build the deck so we have proper egress before we can get a final sign off from the building inspector (and the electrician needs to do 5 or 6 last little things) and then we are golden. I got the rest of the shower tile on Friday (I didn't order enough to wrap the outside wall of the shower) and finished all the grouting on Saturday before heading to the Wiener Dog Nationals races at the Los Alamitos race track to join some friends from our running club. I still have a ton of trim to paint, the kitchen ceiling an soffit to paint (along with 3 walls in the living room. I"m so sick and tired of painting but we are almost there!

Lazy Blogger

But not that lazy... since we have been working our tails off to get things finished up. This weekend was another busy one. We had the new hardwood flooring installed in the bedroom and hallway on Monday (looks great - but does NOT look anything like the adjacent old hardwood floor which we will refinish to match the new in the future). We also got about 90% finished the new bathroom. I still need to paint/caulk some trim in there and install the pocket door and bathroom acessories, vanity drawers, etc. I'll tell you, it took me 8 hours to grout the sucker on Saturday - way longer than I ever expected it to take. The HVAC guys are working on our new ductless system today but are having issues and think that there is a leak in the line somewhere. I really hope that they get it sorted out and working today. We finished the 3 day weekend on a high note by assembling our gorgeous "new" wall unit that we bought last weekend. Oh, I'm in heaven.

I Love My Prius

Even if I didn't work for the greatest car company ever I would be bragging to everyone about how awesome my Pruis is. You would not believe what I fit into it today: a huge (disassembled) mid century wall unit I bought from a sweet older lady in Silverado Canyon today for a steal. Oh, and I also was able to fit two huge 1950's ceramic lamp bases as well. Try that in any other typical passenger car and you will never get it to fit. Or get 42+ MPG. As far as the house goes, we were able to reinstall our pantry cabinets (along with a new under the window section) and I got some painting done. Nice crisp bright white walls in the living room and kitchen. Looks fantastic but took about 5 coats of premium paint to cover the ugly tan shade I painted a couple of years ago. I've been 100% done with painting the "new" part of the house for a few days now but the expansion gave me a great excuse to change my color scheme and freshen up the rest of the older space. And my new best friend is flat/matte paint. Love it! Why did it take me so long to get convinced. Everything looks so good in flat! Oh, one more thing: Ron the electrician came today and installed some of the can light's trim and all of the switches and outlets. It looks so much more finished!

Do they call it Tiler's Crack?

It has been so long since I have posted mostly because I took off a few days from work and have been working on the house from the minute the sun is up to after it goes down. The only thing I have had the energy for is drinking a glass of wine and taking a shower. Just a note: if you are a friend of mine, please don't ever ask me to help you tile. After this expansion I'm done thankyouverymuch. Before I was making a big deal about my huge shower. Not so much now since I started the mosaic tile. It's kind of like a 1.5 person job. I need an apprentice or something to get it done as quickly and cleanly as I would like it. And even though I wore gloves for most of the day I still have crusty "thinset hands". Good news is, I'm happy to report, that the whole dining room floor is done as well as the stone floor in the new master bath. Also, the existing bath is 100% done with the exception of the new door. I love my husband but can't wait to have some privacy again.

Painting All Weekend Long

Whoo. We are exhausted from painting all weekend. We were able to finish the new master bedroom (with the exception of one accent paint wall) and get started on the dining room and hallway. My mom helped all day on Sunday and worked her butt off. We all have sore necks from painting the ceiling so it's going to be a Motrin kind of day today. The tile guys are at our place today working on the mortarbed for the shower this morning (something I didn't trust myself to do). Once they are done I can get cracking on the mosaic tile later this week.

Oh Boy is Our House Dirty!

So the taper finished today. It looks great but our house is a dusty dirty mess. Mike and I have spent the last 4 hours "magic erasering" the window frames, taping and caulking them, dusting off all the drywall dusty walls in the expansion, and vacuuming out the outlets and J-boxes so we can primer tomorrow. Now we are in the middle of a major clean up (with a glass of vino in hand). Since the stucco guys won't do the finish coat until next week we have the scaffolding in our back yard... and will use it to paint those high ceilings and walls. I think we have picked out our accent wall colors but are still trying to make up our minds. Got a call today from both the tile company and the hard wood flooring co. to let us know that our materials are ready for pick-up. I think I can get the wood flooring in my Prius (maybe two trips?) but the tile - no way! Good thing I can get a new Tundra from work next week (I'm taking Tues and Wed off to work on the house) to go pick up the tile from the warehouse in Anaheim. Off to dust and imbibe...

Browncoat

Looking good! The guys applied the browncoat today and will come back next week to do the final coat. Tapers are still going strong and we should be ready to start painting this weekend. Ron, the electrician did some work today too. Added two recessed can lights in the hallway and one in the existing shower now that we dont have direct window light anymore. We really needed it. Thanks Ron!

Taping

The mud and taping is going well! One of my favorite "construction smells" is fresh mud but Mike begs to differ. Hopefully they are all done by Friday and I can start to paint!

Old Heater OUTA HERE!

Boy was this weekend a crazy one. I had volunteered to do a Habitat for Humanity build day on Saturday and guess what… they had me hanging drywall. I could hardly believe my luck. I think I will be hanging drywall in Hell. Anyhow, it was a fun event and paved the way for the rest of the weekend. Sunday, in preparation for the taper to start today, I pulled a 4’ wide section of old plaster out of the hallway and installed a new sheet of drywall in its place. We pulled off the Hardibacker surround in the shower and installed the proper moisture barrier behind it (then re-hung the Hardi). We pulled out the old floor furnace that sandwiched the wall in the living room / hallway, and then filled in the floor and wall sections. We also pulled out the old under-floor access panel, framed it, then patched the subfloor. Whew! Funny how going to work on Monday can be an escape!

Yay! Mud!

Great news - we passed our inspections today (drywall, shower hot-mop, and exterior lath). That means that Mike and I did an acceptable drywall job in the dining room - and actually, we were complimented by the crew that helped us hang the final drywall in the master bed and bath yesterday. They were impressed that a couple of gringo kids did such a good job. Anyhow, we are cleared to mud and tape now and the stucco crew can begin the scratch coat tomorrow. Before we can get the taper on board we have a little work to do this Friday. We have to take off the Hardibacker in the shower and install a waterproof membrane on the studs, then reinstall the Hardi. Also, we need to finish chiseling out the old hardwood floor from the closet (now hallway) and old bathroom entry before we can hang the doors to the existing bathroom and new bedroom. I can hardly wait. A sheet of sheer plastic is not very good for bathroom privacy! Speaking of bathrooms, the new skylight in the old bathroom is fantastic. It's shaft is about 8' long so the light is filtered and indirect by the time it hits the area below. Because of this, its not the best replacement of natural light for the old shower window so I think I'm going to have to install a recessed can above the tub. The awesome part about the operable skylight is that the steam goes straight up and out rather than hang around and fog up all the mirrors. I took a scalder last night and no fog!

Oh, My Aching Back!

So I haven't posted in a while. But believe me, its not because I was being lazy! Mike and I just spent three very very long days hanging drywall and it has not been fun. To start, we had to modify the opening "pass through" between the kitchen (over the sink) and dining room to open it up widen and extend the top to match the soffit height. Taking out the old kitchen window header and associated plaster, metal lath, etc. was not the easiest task. And it made one hell of a plaster dust mess everywhere throughout the house. The rest of the time we were not enjoying ourselves by trying to hang full sheets of drywall on the sloped 14'high ceiling with just the two of us. That totally sucked and I'm really happy to be past that (and so is Mike). Needless to say, we thought we would easily have both rooms complete by Monday evening so we could get an inspection on the shower hot mop, exterior stucco lath, and drywall screws on Tuesday. Hardly. So.... today we have some pro drywall hangers in to help us finish the job in the bathroom and master bedroom (and hopefully the skylight in the existing bathroom). We have the inspection rescheduled for tomorrow and I think we are going to make it. I just hope our amateur job in the dining room passes muster.

Insulated!

The insulation got installed all in one day (Thursday) so today we are getting that inspection so we can start installing drywall this weekend! It's going to be a ton of work but the place will really look great after getting all that hung. The hot mopper is coming to do the shower today too.... and the stucco guy is here doing the paper and lath today. Btw, Mike had to go into work early today so it was up to me to move a HUGE pile of debris out of the way for the stucco guy to work. And the water has been shut off so Dennis can finish up his cold water line (so I can't shower). At least I can take care of that when I head to the gym today and go pick up the Tundra I'm getting for the weekend (for hauling more drywall, etc. from the store).

Tearing down the walls

Boy, the house sure feels different today now that the walls have been pulled out that separated the old house from the expansion. I'm so glad everything flows so well together. And in a month or two I wont believe we ever lived in such a small house before! We passed the inspection yesterday so today Sal's guys are going to get the last window installed (in our old pantry area off the kitchen) and insulation installed so we can get the drywall going this weekend. We also have the stucco guy lined up to start on Friday so the house can get wrapped and wire lath installed. I'm thinking the next inspection will be next mon or tues for drywall and lath. Then it's the home run to finish up and get the final inspection.

Closing in

I have been really bad about posting over the last 2 weeks since things have slowed down visually, however, rough electrical and plumbing are done and we have an inspection scheduled for tomorrow (we had planned to do it last week but the electrical still needed some work). Ron (elecrician) was at our place all day Sunday finishing his work while I refinished some cool 1950's nightstands I picked up last week. Mike and his pal Dan replaced the old crappy side entrance door to the garage with a nice new steel one. Perfect timing too since the stucco team is going to start wrapping and installing the wire lath on the house this Friday. Fingers are crossed that we pass tomorrow and can keep moving full steam ahead. Oh, just another note... my floor tile (actually rough cut stones) for the bathroom arrived today and we bought our new hardwood floor for the bedroom on Monday (Memorial Day sale at Lumber Liquidators). The walls that separate the old house from the new come down tomorrow. We will really get a feel for the new space then!

Plumbing and Electrical Rough Almost Done!

So the plumbing and electrical rough got to a great start this week and it looks like we might be able to get the insepction for those trades and framing complete tomorrow. If so, we can get the insulation installed and the building wrapped and ready for the next inspection before we start the stucco and drywall. Looks like our Grunaire system for the heating/ac is a little complicated so Sal is bringing his expert over tomorrow to go through the installation instructions. I can't wait!

Rough

I've taken a little break from the blog (Thurs and Friday last week) because there really wasn't any work done to write about other than Sal taking some surplus lumber back to the yard for a credit. Saturday was a working day for our electrician Ron and he got to town working on the rough electrical scope. One thing that I learned that I didn't know (due to my lack of residential experience) was that you need to have an outlet every 6 feet in a room. Let's just say we have a LOT more outlets now that originally planned. I hope the inspector doesn't count them since there are lots more than the handful that I pulled a permit for! Dennis, our plumber is on site today getting his rough plumbing done. I had to run to the house on my lunch break to get one of the valves he needed out of the garage. Go Dennis! The goal is to get the rough electrical, plumbing, and framing inspected this week before the City's closure this Friday and the Memorial Day holiday.

A New Roof!

Whoopie! The roof is done! Of course this had to happen AFTER it rained, but its so nice to have this complete and the front of the house looks a million times better now too. The skylights are at about 16' up so I had to climb a ladder (with heels on straight from work because I have no common sense and don't like to wait) to check out how they operate. They are pretty small (21" x 27") but will be a nice source of light in both bathrooms and man, did the heat clear out as soon as I cracked that sucker!

Doors and Windows

Passed the roof nailing inspection today and the roofers will be here tomorrow to start. Mike had to clear out his closet today since they will be breaking through the wall tomorrow in the bedroom/closet and in the pantry/dining room. Gonna be messy! Also, really nice to see the door and windows installed on the bedroom side. Skylights should get installed tomorrow too.

You are kidding me! Its raining!

Aw, come on! Seriously! Its raining right now. I'm REALLY hoping that it doesn't slow down the schedule for tomorrow. We are all set to get the roof nail inspection so the roofers can start preparing for install starting tomorrow afternoon. Oh well. Nothing we can do about it now. The good news is that today the guys got windows and doors installed on the dining room side and tomorrow we will loose our windows in both the existing bathroom and "master" bedroom when they get yanked out and sheathing gets applied since those locations will now be shear walls. Btw, we LOVE our new Alpine windows. I was not going to get vinyl windows but ended up doing so because this product is that good. I was going to go with nice clear anodized aluminum frame windows but rethought the plan since I didn't want to wastefully replace the "new" vinyl windows that had been installed right before we bought the house in 2005. Anyhow, these are really great windows and will qualify for the tax credit so I'm not complaining. They install a ton of these in Alaska since they are so weather tight.

Ready for the Roofer

I neglected to update the blog yesterday since I went out for drinks with my coworkers yesterday evening and didn't get home until it was too dark to take any photos. Between yesterday and today the guys completed the roof sheathing and will be ready for a roof nail inspection on Tuesday morning (bummer since you have to call the City for an inspection one day prior... and Lakewood is closed this Friday meaning they can't call until Monday for an inspection on Tuesday). Anyhow, we are much further along and we can actually have the exterior doors and windows installed on Monday, allowing us to have a fully enclosed envelope that is secure. The next step will be the demo of the walls between the existing house and new. It's going to be NUTS trying to keep the house clean after that point regardless of how much visquine we hang! On another note, I got the plumbing fixtures today (the faucets for tubs/showers) and the mosaic tile samples. We also got the new shingle samples (I had narrowed it down to three colors) yesterday so I put them on the roof over the garage and stood outside with Mike with our coffees this morning while we analyzed each sample until we had consensus. I wish we could have used a standing seam metal roof but due to budget and the City wanting us to "keep with the same style" we acquiesced and went with the 30 year asphalt shingle roof. For those that don't know about asphalt shingles, the 30 year is top-of-the line and has a higher profile than the old super crappy ones on our existing roof. I wanted to keep the roof as light as possible (lighter roof = cooler roof = energy saving) but the lightest color had an almost bluish tint which looked terrible with the green color of our house. The mid-range grey looked perfect so that's what we went with. Our roof (old and new) is fully insulated so it should work just fine.

Darn!

We won't be getting the roof inspection tomorrow since there is no sheathing on the roof right now... Wednesday night. Big bummer. But the crew did get a lot of things done today (finished sheathing all walls, added the roof overhang and facia, finished framing the wall above the bathroom ceiling, and finished the skylight framing). I got a call during the day from Sal who wanted to speak to the structural engineer about the blocking design on the roof framing detail. The framers thought that it was a little excessive but it turns out that it is required due to the huge span for my vaulted ceiling. I'm glad my structural engineer is awesome about answering his phone during the day regarding freelance gigs while he's at his "real" job at an OC engineering firm. On a positive note, I got shipping confirmation on both my plumbing fixtures (faucets, valves, etc.) for both bathrooms and for the mosaic tile samples that I ordered. Tile comes tomorrow so Mike and I can pick out our favorite blend for the shower and vanity area. I think I've ordered just about everything but the toilet, tile, and hardwood flooring (these have all been selected - just not purchased yet).

Start of Sheathing

Today the guys finished the roof framing and started the installation of the exterior wall sheathing. Looking good! I can't wait to see how things line up by the end of the week. SInce the city is closed on Friday we would have to complete all of the roof sheathing tomorrow in order to get a roof nailing inspection on Thursday. I doubt that will happen but you never know!. These guys have been impressing me daily. Speaking of which, I baked some cookies last night as a thank you for the guys since they dug through the heaps of stucco demo/trash to find the three original 1950 ceramic electrical insulators (two brown and one white) that I wanted to save. Awesome! For those that know us, we have collections of antique drafting tools, tiki masks, and old movie cameras. Now just add vintage ceramic insulators to the list!

California Roof

Since I'm not really that familiar with Type V construction (residential) I had yet to see a "California Roof" connection until today. Kind of interesting since in my mind you would peel the roof back and tie into the existing rafters. But not with the Cal roof... you just frame and connect right into the existing roof. Simple way to go! Anyhow, here's a couple of photos of what it looks like. Also its cool to see where they did cut the roof to start framing out for the new (and operable!) skylight in our existing bathroom. The addition of a skylight will be so nice since we will loose the window due to the addition AND will keep us from needing a bathroom ceiling fan.

Raising the Roof!

I was home in and out during the day (too many vacation days accrued) and was able to see some of the work take place today. Also helped work out a couple of issues that came up (just minor detail stuff) with the superintendent that is in charge of the framing. Among many things, we went over skylight placement, a window that we have to install in the existing house (code requirements for ventilation in the kitchen since we are losing the exterior window wall). The best part of today was going out back with Mike after he got home from work, pulled out two folding chairs and opened up a bottle of wine. We sat in both the dining room and bedroom and discussed our thoughts on storage, kitchen tables, and art... and then he started rambling about speakers in the ceiling, etc. Not something I'm very concerned about but he obviously is. I can't wait to see next week's accomplishments. I know they will finish framing and then install all of the plywood on the walls and ceiling. Got the quote for re-roofing the existing roof (more expensive than I planned) but a good idea to do at the same time. Its just our luck to pick something that gets discontinued a few months down the line. I also picked out and ordered the faucets for the new shower and the existing tub/shower that the plumber is going to redo for us (the imbeciles that we bought the house from installed the pressure valve and diverter upside down so we only have two temperatures - hot and cold - and used really cheap fixtures). Cheers to a long week of great work!

Let the Framing Begin

Why do I keep wanting to start each post with the word "wow"? It's not that Im a stranger to construction in any form... but residential work still eludes me. And it's my own home and my own funds. I guess what I really wanted to say is that today was a biggie in the sense that we now finally have a feel for how high the vaulted ceilings will be and how enormous my awesome new shower is going to be (seriously, its like a "vacation shower" with the size of that thing! In fact that shower makes the new master bedroom look small... where are my priorities??). I'm going to have some tall walls to display art - 14'-6" in some locations. Tomorrow we should hopefully get all of the wall framing complete and start working on the roof framing. I'm so excited!