It's the little things

Adding the attic ladder - step one, installing the braces

Securing the ladder in place

The final product

View into the master bath - the plastic is covering the Pex plumbing, which doesn't like UV rays

Side wall framed into place

This weekend was, well, kind of boring from a home renovation point of view. We spent the weekend taking care of small but necessary tasks, like building part of the wall for the water closet in the master bath, installing the attic ladder, shopping around for a bathtub for the master bath, and buying supplies. All necessary things, but nothing that lends itself to dramatic visual progress (unlike, for instance, plumbing the entire second floor in a weekend). Brian wired two more rooms on the second floor and I helped for awhile (e.g. handed him tools and installed nail guards) before I fled to the backyard to do some yard work. I continue to shirk my duty when it comes to installing electrical wire as it's just not a skill I'm comfortable with. Fortunately, he'll probably complete the wiring this week and then I can plausibly claim that I would have totally helped, if only it wasn't all finished already...

Hvac rough in

We hired out the hvac install for the second level. We went with a completely separate zone. The unit is Goodman and is all electric. The upstairs is all brand new construction so the insulation will be very efficient already. They finished everything up this week and we'll be tackling the rest of the electrical and plumbing this weekend and next. Hopefully we'll be ready for our inspections by the end of July.

Plumbing Progress - PEX bathroom rough in started

We started and finished the rough in of the upstairs PEX supply lines. It took all of Saturday to plan out where the lines would go but actually installing the lines was faster than we initially expected so we were able to start and finish the installation on Sunday. We used Vanguard PEX piping with a Viega Manabloc manifold. It's conveniently color coded - blue for cold and red for hot, logically - which also makes for a colorful wall now that all the lines are in! Every fixture has its own separate 1/2" PEX line for hot and cold, with a 1" supply line that runs to the basement and hooks up to the water heater and the water main. So, we had to run 16 separate lines since each bathroom will have a double vanity and our master bathroom will have double showers and a big bathtub.  It was quite a project to get all the lines installed in the right order! The PEX system comes in various forms, but we chose the crimp style connections, which uses a compression tool to crimp the brass connections. No solder, no flame, and hopefully no leaks. We'll wait to test the lines until we run the lines for the kitchen and first floor bathrooms and cut the line in, which should be in the next few weeks, and that's when we'll discover how good (or not!) our work really is.  For now, though, we'll consider the weekend a success with a big project checked off our list.

We're back

We are back from vacation and ready to get all our rough ins finished in the next few weeks. Today I mounted one of two PEX manifolds to distribute the water in the house. This one is located in the basement and will be for the first floor. We'll have another upstairs feeding the second floor. We'll run flexible tubing to each fixture in the house. The PEX system works like an electrical box - you can shut off water to any one fixture without shutting off the entire house. It's also very efficient and easy to run. There's no soldering involved as it uses crimp rings to secure it to the various fittings. The brand we're using is Viega Manabloc that we bought from PexSupply.com. Pretty cool stuff. We'll post up more about it later.

We're also going to try to get the electrical roughed in upstairs so we can get one inspection done and then be ready to insulate and drywall everything at the same time. Originally we were planning on concentrating on the addition, but it's a lot easier to run everything all at once even though it means a little extra time being without a kitchen.

A resource we've been using for our electrical is www.ask-the-electrician.com. Dave has been designing our circuits and helping out when I get stuck on something. It really helps to have somebody that's been doing electrical a long time to come up with all the circuit diagrams and his prices are very reasonable for the do-it-yourself work. Plus it's nice knowing that all the lights and outlets are correctly divided so nothing is overloaded in the house.

Electrical rough in... Complete

We finished up the electrical rough in for the kitchen/dining addition this weekend. All I have to do is run the smoke detectors, but I'll do all of them at the same time to make it easier. The last 2 pot lights were a pain, but we have to fir out this ceiling to match the new addition so we only took out enough drywall to make the lights fit. Once we get to drywall we'll take out the ugly brass light in the middle.

We'll be off from renovating the next week so after the holiday we'll tackle the plumbing and HVAC and hopefully be ready for rough in inspection by the end of July.

Subtle

We cleaned up the front yard today and did a trial run on the finish trim for the front windows. We matched the same pvc trim as the rest of the house. It's a subtle difference, but we think it makes the house look better. Now we can paint them and check them off the list completely.

Tedious work

We ran a bunch of electrical circuits under the crawl space today. There's not a ton of space down there, but it was easy enough to do. I started making up all the switches and light boxes as well. It's tedious and it makes the tips of your fingers hurt from screwing on wire-nuts and dealing with the little wires...BUT... Its a whole lot better than paying someone $14,000 to do it for us! With lights, wire, various parts, and tools we've only spent $1800 so far and I expect to be well under $3000 for the whole project.

Assuming neither of us burns the house down or electrocutes ourselves that's a nice little savings! And I would even willing to take a shock or two for it. Nothing major, but a couple little shocks would be worth $11,000 in my book.