Flying Colors!
Posted on October 7, 2013 by
Celebrate! We passed the framing inspection which includes all plumbing, mechanical, framing and electrical work! Bring on the drywall!
Thanks Bill. Even though you don’t like pulling wire, you did it and are our hero from this weekend’s work!
Jack connecting outside circuits for the guest hot tub.
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!
In between wiring, I am starting to stain all of the trim that was delivered!
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.
The First Lights of Bedford Landings
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!
Lassoing the Bull!
Kramer advising how to connect power to the HVAC system
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.
From sheet metal to a gutter, this crimping machine was cool!
This is the roadside of the house.
ProSiding Crew who put up the HardiePlank
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!
This has been a productive week starting with last weekend. We had 12 friends and family assisting on the three decks and front porch flooring. Thanks to Jim & Sandy, Skip, Bill & Carolyn, Debbie, Mike and Lisa, David and Kathleen, Lynn and Eric we were able to get everything 80% completed. We had a great time working together (and playing together) as we went! Thanks to you all !
The photos show the porches and decks. We have selected honorary names for them (See captions).
The bridge deck bridges the private master deck with the main public deck. We didn’t work on it at all.
The Family and Friends Front Porch was mainly constructed by just that-family members and their friends!
This Master BR, private deck we are calling the Koontz deck. Watching our good friends (plus Debbie!) who are both engineers disagree about dimensions was sorta fun! Sorta.
Now this is the Skipper deck. The largest of all, Skip designed it as he went! The part nearest the house will become the screened porch.
The front deck connected to the Skipper Deck. This faces the road.
By Monday, however, Jack was whipped and took it slower, but still did more wiring. On Wednesday, Southside Electric came and connected the POWER! We now have power to the main house but the connections are still being made.
Southside Electric at work.
Jack is more than half way through with wiring. And I must say, the electrician is a much happier camper than the plumber was!
Pro-Siding loves my selection of siding colors and I do too! I wanted to add color contrast to the Navajo Beige Hardie plank. Around the fixed windows, I selected a maple color Hardie plank. Charlie from ProSiding says he has never seen another house done I this way and that’s a good thing!
Maple siding accenting the stacked stone chimney.
I have drafted a final schedule of everything that needs to be completed before we can move in. Check it out! Note how many items have Jack’s name next to it.
If you are around and want to come over to have fun at Bedford Landings, let us know if any of these tasks fits your skill set! We always will feed ya lunch! It’s a tight timeframe but I am hopeful that Jack and the contractors will all miraculously be able to meet the deadlines and by turkey day, we can set the table indoors!
When I first met Jack nearly 10 years ago, he told how he built his own home. It reminded me of the nursery rhyme, “The House that Jack Built.” I am again reminded or how many of these verses are coming true with our new home. Let me illustrate with the last verse of the rhyme.
This is the farmer sowing his corn,
That kept the cock that crowed in the morn,
That waked the priest all shaven and shorn,
That married the man all tattered and torn (I don’t get that verse),
That kissed the maiden all forlorn (that would be me!),
That milked the cow with the crumpled horn,
That tossed the dog (poor Kramer!),
That worried the cat,
That killed the rat (well we haven’t actually trapped it yet!),
That ate the malt (we drink ours!)
That lay in the house that Jack built.
And if we can keep it lively, fun, and productive, we will indeed make it! Thanks to all the wonderful deckers!
We passed the plumbing inspection! Yeah! Small celebration!
This weekend, we have 13 friends descending on Bedford Landings to help put the decking floor around the exterior of the house. The siding is nearly complete and the siding crew will be installing gutters next week. This has been a busy week so photos to follow later!
By the way, we are hopeful that we can open for business sometime in December. Not until I see the drywall go in can we schedule everything else so stay tuned!