Hey you guys,
I know it's been QUITE a while since I posted, and you've all missed a lot in my personal life, but not a WHOLE lot in the life of the house.
House Update:
It is now February. The house is still mostly open, the bathroom looks the same as in the previous post from August. The geothermal system has been completely installed outside (wells drilled, pipes run into the house, and the air handler is installed in the basement). Hubs had the ductwork delivered and has begun installing it himself.
This post isn't going to do Hubs any justice, unfortunately. That is not from my desire to NOT post what he HAS done, but rather, due to what has happened in our personal lives.
I moved out of the house with Lil C in September, and Hubs and I have filed for divorce. His career has taken him to upstate New York for the next couple of years, and he will continue to work on the house in his spare time. Because I moved out, I honestly and unfortunately am unsure of all the small things that Hubs accomplished between the time that I moved out and the time he moved to NY.
I know he has amazing plans for the kitchen, he has purchased enough insulation and wiring and ductwork and bathroom fixtures to complete the projects. He is now struggling with finding the time and warmth to finish up each project, one by one.
Anyway, consider this blog done and closed out with a sad ending. I have zero doubts that Hubs will some day complete the house and it WILL be as beautiful as the visions we once shared, but I will not be part of that journey, and I will not post pictures here of the completed house. I will leave this blog up for anyone who finds it humorous or helpful for now.... Thanks for reading!
2.19.2012
8.19.2011
What we're doing now
Good morning! If you need pictures to make it through my posts...just go away now. This one doesn't have any. Hard to take pictures of the future. ;)
So now that the plumbing crisis has been mitigated, we are now focusing on the next steps. Here it is, mid-August and we have a LOT of uninsulated walls. Hell, the basement is STILL missing all 3 windows, the door, and 1 piece of plywood. The bathrooms upstairs are open to the attic. The kitchen, den, and entryway are also missing ceilings. The outside walls of the den and kitchen are exposed out to the plywood. We need to get all this stuff insulated and closed up before winter hits. And preferably before FALL sets in around 6 weeks from now.
We have begun the process of getting a geothermal heating system installed. And by started, I mean we got the final proposal and the guy was on vacation this week. Guess we'll actually get down to business next week on it. That whole process will consist of drilling holes in our yard, digging trenches to the house, putting an air handler/heat exchanger in the basement, and Hubs is going to run the ducting himself. I'm honestly not too thrilled about his choice there, but the company wants to charge us over $10k to do it and we really just can't afford that right now.
And, before he can close up all those exposed walls, while the geothermal company is working on the drilling and ordering equipment, Hubs needs to run all new electrical in the house. Half the outlets in the house don't work right now. There is one working outlet in the basement for my washing machine (ok, and another for my dryer). There are two in the living room for the TV & all its components and for the power tool battery chargers and for our computers. Can you say "power strips"?
After the plumbing took so long and became so involved, I'll be honest, folks, I'm terrified of the electrical project. He's taken down a lot of outlets to tear out a lot of drywall. He's been pretty busy at his day job, so I haven't talked to him much and don't really understand what his plan is for running the electrical. All I know is he wants to tear out more drywall this weekend since we have the dumpster. I know he can and will leave the working outlets as they are, but... I dunno.
I had a whole lot of confidence when we started this. I thought I understood the whole process. I honestly DO understand the whole process. What I have realized that I still DON'T understand is the inner workings of Hubs' brain. I understand how projects COULD progress, but I cannot view the world through his eyes. I can't predict HIS moves. And that tends to get kind of scary after a while. We've been going through a rough spot recently (yes, I hear your sarcastic "Noooo, REALLY?") and we're working on communicating better, but at the same time, we're running out of warm weather to be TALKING about how to progress and we just need to get started on DOING it.
So anyway, that's where we are. Start geothermal drilling & ducting. Run electrical. Insulate. Throw up the drywall. Turn on the heater and tape, mud, sand, and paint as we have time later.
I hope you all have a great weekend! I'll take pics if we do anything cool this weekend, and I'll check in with you guys early next week!
So now that the plumbing crisis has been mitigated, we are now focusing on the next steps. Here it is, mid-August and we have a LOT of uninsulated walls. Hell, the basement is STILL missing all 3 windows, the door, and 1 piece of plywood. The bathrooms upstairs are open to the attic. The kitchen, den, and entryway are also missing ceilings. The outside walls of the den and kitchen are exposed out to the plywood. We need to get all this stuff insulated and closed up before winter hits. And preferably before FALL sets in around 6 weeks from now.
We have begun the process of getting a geothermal heating system installed. And by started, I mean we got the final proposal and the guy was on vacation this week. Guess we'll actually get down to business next week on it. That whole process will consist of drilling holes in our yard, digging trenches to the house, putting an air handler/heat exchanger in the basement, and Hubs is going to run the ducting himself. I'm honestly not too thrilled about his choice there, but the company wants to charge us over $10k to do it and we really just can't afford that right now.
And, before he can close up all those exposed walls, while the geothermal company is working on the drilling and ordering equipment, Hubs needs to run all new electrical in the house. Half the outlets in the house don't work right now. There is one working outlet in the basement for my washing machine (ok, and another for my dryer). There are two in the living room for the TV & all its components and for the power tool battery chargers and for our computers. Can you say "power strips"?
After the plumbing took so long and became so involved, I'll be honest, folks, I'm terrified of the electrical project. He's taken down a lot of outlets to tear out a lot of drywall. He's been pretty busy at his day job, so I haven't talked to him much and don't really understand what his plan is for running the electrical. All I know is he wants to tear out more drywall this weekend since we have the dumpster. I know he can and will leave the working outlets as they are, but... I dunno.
I had a whole lot of confidence when we started this. I thought I understood the whole process. I honestly DO understand the whole process. What I have realized that I still DON'T understand is the inner workings of Hubs' brain. I understand how projects COULD progress, but I cannot view the world through his eyes. I can't predict HIS moves. And that tends to get kind of scary after a while. We've been going through a rough spot recently (yes, I hear your sarcastic "Noooo, REALLY?") and we're working on communicating better, but at the same time, we're running out of warm weather to be TALKING about how to progress and we just need to get started on DOING it.
So anyway, that's where we are. Start geothermal drilling & ducting. Run electrical. Insulate. Throw up the drywall. Turn on the heater and tape, mud, sand, and paint as we have time later.
I hope you all have a great weekend! I'll take pics if we do anything cool this weekend, and I'll check in with you guys early next week!
8.18.2011
Welcome back... to my getting-better disaster
Hi folks!
Sorry I had this on hold for so long, but I just couldn't bear to keep taking pictures, or to keep reporting that the bathroom just wasn't coming along as fast as we hoped. Here's where we are!
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| This is where we left off. |
Since then:
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| We drained the pool and it filled back in... |
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| Hubs built a wall... |
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| I helped. A lot. |
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| I measured and marked. |
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| I cut. (Pardon the crazy angles... Lil C actually took these!! I love that I have an entire sequence of every move I made from setting the board down to walking away with it!) |
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| Hubs continued to build. |
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| Lil C continued to play and be adorable, as always. |
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| The baby bird hatched. Then we moved the nest. Mama Bird found him just fine. Then he fell out onto Lil C's play structure platform and died. So sad. |
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| Then I threw the Biggest. Hissy Fit. Ever. So we bought a cheap camper so I could have running water and a stove to cook on. |
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| Hubs installed a PEX water supply manifold and spent a couple weeks routing all the lines.... |
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| You should have HEARD this guy go on and ON about how Hubs did a good job! Makes us wonder who the heck the poor guy works with all day! |
And finally, after 6 weeks of miserable lack of facilities within the house, we now have a working toilet AND shower!
Boring words and no pictures to follow in tomorrow's post! Thanks for reading!
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| Hey look!!! There's a wall, and a toilet, and a tub/shower, and running water, and working drains, and connections for all the other stuff we'll put in someday... like another toilet, and a shower, and a vanity in Lil C's bath and double sinks in ours... |
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