I can see light at the end of the tunnel.  The final steps are all coming together SO FAR!  But before I share what has happened this week, I wanted to share a mini-documentary of those friends I have captured hanging around with us as “trailer trash!”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhOmVR33FTs (Drat!  No audio. use your imagination)

Indeed the drywall process is a mess but I am staying out of the house as much as possible. This week, the house was drywalled and is nearly complete with the wall board.  Next week starts the “mudding” process and I guess “I ain’t seen nothin yet!”

Here are a few shots of that I took of progress inside.

 

 

Here is the link to the blog about the Time Capsule. 

 

On a side note, I did go to the orthopedist today and got a shot of cortisone.  It hasn’t helped much.  I have an MRI scheduled for next week to see if this injury from falling through the porch joists is a cartilage tear. Not sure what next steps are.

In the meantime, the light at the end of the tunnel is keeping us both going!

 

OK, so I am a little compulsive about keeping our construction site neat and clean.  We have all kinds of curious people dropping by and I feel it not only makes a good impression for the B & B, but it is safer for those who are walking around looking up at the timbers!  Through the process, I have been told that the drywall stage is the messiest of all.  Well, lo and behold, we are to that stage!  I am so proud we have come this far but if their truck is any indication of what they house will look like over the next 2 weeks, then ICK!

I see online many strategies for cutting down on dust and mess.  Hopefully David Fitzgerald and crew have seen these sites too!  They have been diligently working today, cutting off pieces, tracking in mud, leaving pieces and parts, tools and saws scattered about, but it is getting done.  They started on the top floor and have affixed the wall board to the walls of the flying room and fourth room.  They are working on the Fishing room and probably will complete the Forest room by the end of today.  Here is a shot of Jack flooring the loft in the Flying room last week compared to today’s drywall up from the same angle.

 

 

Jeff, the tile guy has also been hard at work laying dura rock in preparation for the tile.  I can’t wait to see this bit of an artistic touch added to the house!

 

Last week, I selected the granite for the kitchen and Master bathroom.  I will expound more on that next time when I have a photo.  I am still limping so I am limiting my trips to the house and I left the sample there.  I do have an orthopedic appointment for Thursday.

Kudos this week to our friend Tom Brown who gave us a hand with various tasks in preparation for the drywall debacle!

I was out of town last week for 4 days. Hopefully I will get back on schedule this week, blogging on Thursdays.  If you want to get email notifications, just click FOLLOW and you will get a notification of the next blog. And if you have a chance, LIKE US on Facebook!

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Celebrate!  We passed the framing inspection which includes all plumbing, mechanical, framing and electrical work!  Bring on the drywall!

We estimate well over a mile of wire in the house!  The floor joists each have to be drilled to let wire pass through it to the outlet or switch.  Some of those joists are starting to look like swiss cheese!

Stay tuned for more adventures from Bedford Landings!

At Bedford Landings, this was a week of identifiable progress and sad incompletions. Pro-siding completed the siding and gutters then erected their scaffolding Monday to mount the two ceiling fans and the chandelier. They are gorgeous here’s a link to a little video I took while enjoying the glow of my lumens!

We kept the new lights on until it got dark just to see what the chandelier looked like from the outside.

Between my faculty job, running to get additional electrical supplies, helping Jack pull electrical wire, and going to the doctor to see why I can’t walk,  I am whipped and so is Jack.  We can barely walk and have aches where we didn’t even know we had muscles and tendons.  Building a house is not for sissies!

About 3 weeks ago, I fell through two porch joists by stepping on a board that wasn’t anchored down.  Looking like an episode of the Three Stooges, I found  myself face down with my left knee bent between joists and my right leg dangling, unable to touch the ground.  I couldn’t push up to get myself out and our neighbors along with Jack had to lift me by the shoulders to get me out.  I thought that the cut on my wedged leg was the worst part, but after 3 weeks, I have decided that accident is what caused my groin/hip muscle strain.  The doc put me on Prednisone  (link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prednisone) for the inflammation.  I have been hobbling around like Grandpa on the Real McCoys (remember that show?)

We were so hoping to complete the wiring to call for the inspection on Friday, but as it is nearly 7:30 pm on Thursday and we are just coming in from working at the house. Disappointed, we didn’t get it done but it WILL be done for the Monday inspection! What we have left is the two water heaters, the oven, and the workshop lights and outlets circuit, and 3 HVAC circuits.   I bet we have used more than 12 rolls of the 250 foot rolls of wire.  That is over 3000 feet of wire.

Our friend, Bill is coming to lend a hand tomorrow and I know Bill doesn’t like wiring.  So Bill, you may want to consider going to that wedding shower with your wife in lieu of wiring. But if you come, we have other more fun tasks like more decking and installing subflooring in the loft areas.

After the Chandelier celebration, I didn’t take any more photos this week, but Jack took a few pictures; one of me wiring and one of Kramer supervising!  Until next week, we will keep stepping forward one step at a time!

Across the construction worksite I could hear the story of Paul (from the Bible) playing on a CD telling about Saul’s blindness. That’s what the siding crew was listening to one day. This great crew was often heard asking questions about creation, politics, pondering on people from the Bible, and discussing morals.  They were fun and polite and did everything we asked and more. This week they finished siding the house and made gutters on site.

 

It was this ProSiding crew that Jack turned to for help in helping him overcome his fear of heights.  One of the (many) things that Jack has been dreading was hanging the 2 ceiling fans and the chandelier in the Great room, 34 feet up.  Yes, this is my pilot husband, who has the fear of heights. So Monday, when the crew was nearly through with the siding and guttering Charlie’s siding crew agreed to put scaffolding in the great room to mount our ceiling fans and chandelier. Jack who has been wiring, wiring, and wiring built special wooden boxes to  mount the ceiling fans and the chandelier on the timbers.

Ferguson Electric scrambled to get all of the parts we need it so this group could do the work while they were still on site. Kudos to Sarah Burns at Fergusons along with John, Deborah, Darryl and Tim.  Their kindness and customer service are superb. However, we still were left with the wrong bulbs and fan blades and could not accomplish this awesome task on Wednesday.  So, Thursday we skipped choir practice in favor of assembling our second choice of fans and trying the new bulbs. Nope- bulbs didn’t’ work. We drove off to Lowes in a huff (I might add!)

That brings me to the title of this blog.  Have you shopped for lighting lately?  For goodness sakes, since when did the alternatives in light bulb shopping become so complex?  You can no longer purchase a 100-watt incandescent bulb.  And energy saving policies require so much labeling in a different measurement scale…not watts and amps.  Instead, there are so many new types of bulbs that it takes an Associate’s degree to understand the choices.  For example, 13 lumens= 60 watts and 23 lumens = 100 watts. Kindly refer to this easy reference chart!

I needed 4 GU24 LED or CFL dimmable bulbs that to fit eache ceiling fan.  Since the room is large, we wanted at least the strength of a 100-watt bulb.  Each fan takes 2 bulbs.  So how fast was the train traveling?  Just kidding, keep reading!

The section in the home improvement store is huge now!  Once I purchased these bulbs and got them home for the fan assembly, they were still wrong and late Thursday we had to make another Lowes run. Hopefully we have the correct ones for this work starts first thing Friday morning.  Oops, this just in, Charlie says let’s wait until Monday.  I agreed in favor of double checking those bulbs tomorrow.

 

So whether it is Saul or Paul, seeing the light, or my chandelier bringing a warm glow to Bedford Landings, I hope to sing the song soon…You Lumen up my Life!  And you know, it may be the bulbs, it may be daylight or it may be heaven sent when this all comes together!