Trim and Cabinets Update

A friend of my sister sent a comment that mentioned I was semi-OCD... Funny, but trust me there is NO "semi" in my OCD.  Whats more, my wife is possibly worse.  Sometimes we aren't obsessive about things as individuals, but it almost never happens when at least one of us is not obsessing... It is a tiring lifestyle...

Anyway, thanks for the nice comments, and I hope everyone is enjoying finally seeing something besides wires and studs.

I think the last time I posted was during drywall.  Since then we have hired a trim carpenter who is doing the cabinets, trim, mounting and installing doors, etc. 

We have a unique thing down here in Texas.  For some reason these guys love to build everything on site.  There are pros and cons, but to say that things are custom is an understatement.  You can obsess over every little detail as it happens, and it has been killing me.  I guess I care way more than I should.  One of the big problems is that the cabinets are not "finished", so your painter actually is the one who comes in and stains and lacquers everything as well as paint those things that get painted. 

Paint grade cabinets turn out to be quite a bit cheaper because of material costs, so we are sticking with Alder or Knotty Alder (not too naughty, I told my supplier ;-) for the kitchen, kitchen office, study, and master bath. 

The process (in our case) consists of

1.  Buying thousands of dollars of doors and wood components (furniture plywood, trim, mouldings, wood).
2.  Installing the doors.
3.  Going room by room, cabinet by cabinet, and having the trim guy draw (on the wall normally) with a #2 wooden pencil a 3D sketch of the proposed cabinet.  This takes a long time, as you discover you thought you knew what you wanted, until you are standing there in the "hot seat".

Anyway, we are about 2 weeks into what looks to be a 4 week process (hmmm).  I am also having this guy cut cedar beams in to corbels, and installing the wooden ceiling on the porch area out back. 

I may post some of the pictures of the sketch, versus the actual cabinet.  Almost always things change around a little bit, and of course.....that drives us CRAZY. 

Bottom line is that they are doing a good job, and using a LOT of plywood.  By a lot, I mean close to 300 sheets so far.  Most of it is Baltic Birch, and cost about 30 dollars a sheet, but about 1/4 of that is clear Alder, more like $80 dollars a sheet.  Last thing you want to hear over by the table saw is "whoops".  There also seems to be a pretty constant ratio of material cost to sawdust generation.

OK, I know... Pictures.

Here is a sketch of what we start with.  You can see some layout lines on the walls...

And Presto!  Eric, the young man, after about 6 hours of work, produces this.  Using nothing more than a table saw, pencil, pin nailer, level, and a tape measure.  It isn't done yet, as it will get decorative reed molding in the edges where you see it is not finished, as well as a rounded front where most people would have a desk drawer, as well as finish molding all over everything, and then some crown molding on top.  A note on the subject of desk height...we originally were going to make all the desk cabinets 32 inches high, and found it was WAY too high for our liking.  Most store bought desks are more like 29, but will have a drawer under them.  We settled on 30 inches with no drawer and it feels perfect.

This, by the way, is our study.  A double sided desk, one side will have the computer with the monitor suspended in space above the desk by our ergotron articulating mount, and a wireless keyboard and mouse.  The other side will be ready for the laptop, so we can both surf together or separate.  The opposite side of this room is actually a little miniature theatre.  We just turn a couple small chairs towards the screen, dim the lights, and a full theatre awaits.  Otherwise, we can use the office while watching TV, a more likely scenario.

OK, I know... more pictures.  This one is the office, so you don't get confused.

About half of our doors are Knotty Alder.  And unlike most doors, these are 1 3/4 inches thick rather than the usual 1 3/8 inches (even our painted doors are 1 3/4 inches thick and solid).  They look great, feel great, and the extra thickness is pretty inexpensive.  This one has not yet been cased, but they basically put the door casing around, and nail the door jamb on one side to the casing, and the other side to the framing, and that holds things in place pretty sell.  On the hinge side, they put extra long screws through the hinges to attach the door to the actual framing, and not the jamb.

Further away looking at this door, which is only 1 1/2 feet wide, yet 8 feet tall.  We thought it might look goofy, but it is actually really cute.  It's a linen closet off the powder bath hallway.

Early stages of a 42 inch vanity cabinet in my son's room.  Note that the drawer blank normally below the sink is missing... Where is it??  Look at the bottom.  They just flip the design to get that drawer back.  You can even make this drawer into a step for little kids so they don't have to use a stool, but my kiddos are growing fast and already tall...  Oh, the bottom kick space is also framed in at an angle from the sides, a more finished look. 

Our window stools (or a sill, as I had always called it) are very simple.  Many of you will just die when you find out we plan on painting this AND the wooden window above.  But it will look great.

This is the backpack area...  The very top space will have 4 doors across there, and just below that is where the kids stage lunches, backpacks, etc.  3 drawers in the bottom below the seating area for shoes, etc.  What you can't see in this picture is just opposite is the kitchen office desk, which is also Alder, and quite nice. 

In the Living Room, these are 3 really super thick shelves above a shallow cabinet, and will be distressed and then painted a with a rustic, weathered black (I think, but I'm not the keeper of the "paint spreadsheet" so it's hard to keep track).

This is my vanity, sink will be fairly close to the tall cabinet.  I was happy to get lots of drawers, and my wife has this exact same thing across the street, but hers also has another lower makeup vanity.  For my side, I had them make the cabinet 37 inches tall rather than 36, it's subtle, but better for me.  Certainly an advantage of having them make the cabinets to your specs.

We love how the kids rec room cabinets are turning out.  The pattern above basically is shelves, doors, shelves, doors, etc.  30 inches tall, the peninsula between them is storage shelves for games and toys, and at the end of that is lower shelves to keep video games and DVDs, etc.   I am standing in their TV area, which is a full blown surround system and fairly large TV.  Keep in mind, and each individual desk is way nicer than any desk I have ever had....  Rotten kids.  OH, we did make a change to plans on this one... They face AWAY from each other, rather than next to each other.  Keeps them from sibling battles maybe a little better.  Each has space for a computer system in the lower corners, and a network printer will most likely sit between them over by the wall.  I ran 16 Ethernet cables in here hoping that even a blind squirrel sometimes finds a nut.  Now, we are thinking of switching the whole family over to Apple...  And that would most likely be wireless...  Will see.

We are calling this the "butler's pantry", just screwing around, but it seemed a good place to have a few bottles of wine.  Doors above.  This is just around the corner from the kitchen, but actually sits in the family room.  It was supposed to be painted, but they used Alder, so we may stain it now...

Wife hasn't seen these yet, but today somebody put some crown molding on top of the cabinets on top of the toilets...  Texas French, I would say, which means I am not sure if I like it.  Will let the boss decide tomorrow when she is on site...

Almost forgot this one...  We have always had a cat, and love them.  Our current cat is never content to be on either side of a closed door, so here is our solution.  We want the kids doors closed when they are sleeping, but the cat gets stuck on one side or the other and then raises hell.  So, we are putting "Cat Holes" in 3 walk in closets (kids and ours) as well as one to the equipment room (litter box and dishes).  You can't see through them, because they turn once through the wall.  I hope the cat fits (9 inches tall and 7 inches wide). 

Oh, the baseboards are about 8 inches tall, this one isn't complete, but gets a little bull nose ledge piece on top.  My wife didn't want what they usually do ( a PM5 moulding over a board) because there are too many lines to catch dust and dirt, and they are a bugger to clean.  Our outlets are in the baseboards too.

Rear porch ceiling going in.  This is tongue and groove bead board, but we are putting it on upside down, so there are less lines.  It will be stained.

Loving the dark brown soffits.  Today I actually put the last piece of flashing on a window, and did a little dance.  I just have some tidy work to do with two garage door frames, and the flashing is complete.  Garage doors come Friday. 

Very soon, you will no longer be looking at a foam house, and will start to see stucco and stone...   We are excited...

I do so love this tile roof...

Have a great week...

Brown Soffits

Quick post... No pictures... sorry...

I obsessed over closet layouts all day, sat there with pencil and paper in hand with no ideas...  I guess the trim guy is going to have to show some imagination...

So, went out to the house to grab a few things, and when I got there the eves were primed and painted...mostly.  They didn't do the facia trim board, but the underside.  Said they needed to do the fascia by hand because of the tile (yes, good idea). 

Anyway, it's weird starting to see things come together.  The guys were proud of their work, which is a great sign, and I always make sure I sincerely thank them for what they do.  I  was only 97 degrees today, but nasty humid.

A note on the humidity, I am sitting here in my regular built small stick house listening to the 3.5 ton A/C unit run, but more importantly, a steady stream of condensate is running into the wash machine box, where it then goes down the drain.  About the rate of a medium size dog taking a piss....sorry to be crude.  It's been doing that non stop for two months... OK, so the energy that I spend to condense that moisture out of the air is WASTED.  And it never stops.  That means this fairly new house, built to normal Texas standards, is leaking air.  If it wasn't leaking air, there would be no condensate after a while.  And this is a pretty well built house by Texas standards...

Meanwhile, at 97 degrees exterior, with the windows CLOSED on the new house (due to painting), I was quite comfortable inside, but if you walked out onto the porch or garage... damn hot!!  I will have to take my fancy non-contact thermometer over there and do some readings...  I think the cooler night time temps coupled with the floor and ICF cooling off due to the lack of radiant gain, is really taking hold...

They had about 1 more day of the texture, and should be done painting tomorrow. 

We are putting on the absolute best quality exterior paint we can find.  I never want to paint that surface again... especially over the roof tiles...  Since it is all made out of concrete board, should last a long long time...

The brown, by the way, matches the windows.  It has a bit of a sheen to it, but they say that dies out very quickly with some weather...  I think it is a satin, which was the lowest sheen we could get. 

I know... pictures..  Maybe next time. 

Drywall Complete... Texture in Progress

Wow, as usual, it's late and I am tired.  I apologize for taking so long from my last post.  We have been busy, as usual... 

You will all have to send me some comments if you want more regular posts.  It's hard to stay motivated to do this part.

I will try to keep the narrative down...and let the pictures speak... 

Drywall went up in about 4 days.  The groins and ceiling details really slowed them down, but would have taken me 4 months, and they did a great job. 

Old Worlde texture in progress now in about 60 percent of the house, the rest is "rolled" and the ceilings are what they call "stomp and drag".  This picture is freshly done in the old worlde and is still wet.  Very time consuming...  Most of these areas will be glazed over the paint and should look very well when finished.  It's really not a color when you get done, but a process of making the wall look unique.  I think I like this living room ceiling almost as much as the groins.  The coffers get a piece of moulding in them, and then an accent color in the very top.  I need to get those silly bricks in that fireplace...don't I...

This shower has the quatrafoil window in it, and used to have a little 1/2 wall where we were going to have sheetrock and a glass door.  But the window and barrel looks so good I decided to tear out that little wall.  This is the result, with concrete board installed, the entire thing will be encased in tile.

Dining room ceiling... still a bit wet.

Finished groin in the Foyer.  I like this but also miss all that work the carpenters did...

Breakfast area and a view outside to the rear porch/veranda.  I am standing in the family room to take this picture.  Kitchen is off to my left, guest room behind me.

Barrel ceiling between the kitchen/family room past the powder room and onto the living room beyond...  That is an alder door to the rear porch/veranda area.

Yes, for those of you that couldn't picture this before, hope you are getting the idea now...  There is a tremendous amount of work that went into getting all these smooth, and then they put the old worlde texture on all of it...  The doorway off in the distance is what I am working on, filling in the corners because we have ordered a double eyebrow arch top door.  I am attempting to match the radius of the door so we can already have the drywall in place when they set the door.  We have to buy 4 chandeliers that will hang from these, and another larger chandelier for the foyer just off the left.  Since the chandeliers have to be pretty cool to not mess up this space, they are, of course... pricey.

I've never been a huge fan of having the trim guys case the inside window returns with wood.  It's more durable, but then you have to run a casing around the perimeter of the window at the drywall.  This is a better look for this house, and should hold up well because we don't have too many places where blinds are required.  You'll probably all kill us for this decision, but that pretty wood window is going to be painted brown...  All I can say is you'll just have to trust us...

Another shot of a groin...  had to be careful how I worded that ;-)

Groins here in the process of being floated.  They had about 8 guys on that crew, and took about 5 days.  The lead guy never did anything but work on these... by hand, and often with his bare hands...literally.  Size in perspective, the iron door is 9 feet tall.  I think they used perhaps 120 boxes of premixed joint compound?  It took me about 6 pickup loads to the dump to get rid of all the broken drywall and trash from this operation...

Master bedroom, with the barrel ceiling, and the arch inset for the bed.  Sitting area off to the right..

Hired a stucco contractor tonight to do this...  4 colors blended together.  He will also do all the stone work outside and in (fireplace and one of the kitchen islands).  I am lovin' this stucco, and we feel lucky to have found this gentleman.  Another artist...  Repeat this over and over for 1000's of square feet... add a dark messy stone at the bottom with sloppy grey mortar, brown recessed windows, brown eves, and 17 colors of clay tile on top... Surround it with lush green oak trees...  We are likin' it...

Trim starts soon...  We are busy beyond what we ever could have imagined.   We have trucks all over this country bringing stuff this way... Doors, beams, mantles, garage doors, wood, cantera, hardware... I could go on...

Temps have dropped down about 10 degrees from where they were... It was only 97 today...

Please send money...

 I've got to go get some sleep.

Foamed, waiting for drywall

Well, a bit frustrating, but the drywall is actually "in" the house, it's just sitting in piles in different rooms.   There were two truckloads of it, and they unloaded them by hand.  They are doubled up 4x12 in size, and weight 180 pounds each, so these guys hand carry these off the side of the truck BY THEMSELVES.  The sheetrock for the garage is firewall rated, so 5/8 inch thick, and they weighed 240 each.  Now, I seriously respect the working class man in every way, but my kids will go to college or trade school and I will hold their hand to and from every day if I have to...

 My drywall contractor ran into a hitch at his last job so we are waiting for that crew to be able to move on...  From what I understand, the process will take about a week to hang, tape, float, and texture once they are on site.  From that point, we have our trim guy who will move in with all the equipment to make everything... cabinets, trim, stereo cabinets, closet systems, mount and trim doors, baseboards, you name it...  I pondered posting pictures of his work, but it is from another house and wouldn't be fair to put those pictures out with respect to other's privacy...  You'll have to wait and hope ours turn out well..

Here is me.  Why on earth I chose to post this picture is beyond me, but it proves how hot it's been.  This was on insulation day.  It has been just over 100 degrees for over a week now, and will continue that way for a perhaps another week.  I think next Saturday the forecast is only 98 degrees...  With the extreme humidity, I have found it doesn't matter what time of day you work, because when the temps drop down in the upper 80's at night, the relative humidity climbs much higher, and if you are doing anything more than sitting, you are sweating.  It's gross.  I rotate shirts out by drying them in the sun, 3 to 5 per day depending on how bad I want to smell.  I will burn these shirts at the end of this project...

The house is cooler, however, after the insulation.  But very limited windows now don't allow much air through.

Kind of a distant picture, but the round breakfast area where they sprayed the foam, and then "scarfed" it off smooth so the drywall fits cleanly. 

Another shot in the attic.  I have found some places while waiting around I didn't think were sealed good enough, so I have been caulking some wood-wood transitions and adding can foam if in doubt. 

After the foam guys left, I had the plumbers back to tidy up a few items, and pressure test the gas lines.  Then, the HVAC guys came back to inspect things and tidy up a punch list of rough in items, including moving a few ducts around. 

I also had my own punch list, a list of about 35 items that we had to get done before drywall.  Some of these were minor, like run a couple HDMI cables, etc, but others were major...  Insulate the garage with fiberglass, insulate between my sons room and a hallway, insulate between the Master and Study.  Fiberglass insulation is nasty to work with, and it's a joke in terms of it's air seal qualities.  I could be as careful as I wanted and never get close to a foam job.  In retrospect, I wish I had hung some drywall on the inside walls and just foamed those walls for sound.  The insulation does help with noise I think, though... 

Oh, another job that seems minor, but took a lot of time, is that we took digital photos of every wall and most ceilings, and then took video of everything as well.  We filled up 16 gigs of flash cards in no time. 

Another foam shot... I'll have to snap a few of our fiberglass insulation job...  Oh, since I have some extra time now, I have been looking for places to get rid of some extra fiberglass...Stuffing anything questionable.  I think I may take a few hours tomorrow and, even though the windows are sealed with low expansion foam, I have room to stuff some fiberglass around all the frames, so I think I will. 

Today I also used some high temperature caulk (mortar??) and filled the transition in the main fireplace flue pipe where it penetrates the chase.  That makes that pretty much air tight but keeps the combustibles 2 inches away, so it's the best way I could legally address that potential air leak (which is kind of futile since the fireplace flue is basically a 12 inch hole to the sky. 

Robert, the foam guy, showing off his skills on this wall.  This is over straight OSB, and it is 8 inches thick foam, and not a ripple in it...  Wow...

When our kids were little, they watched Teletubbies...  Yes, it was painful, but anyway, they had the sucker thing on there called the Nu Nu...  Well, this one had about a 12 horse engine on it.  After they scarfed the foam, they sucked it up with this thing, and it all flew into a giant cloth bag. 

Yes, the pictures are out of order, but I was talking about the chimney chase.  This isn't where I caulked, but instead on the top where the chimney pipe will stick out the chimney chase and into the chase cap.  I was up there with a roofing guy and we were measuring to fit this area with a stainless steel flashing, which will be made in two pieces and then soldered in place.

Also found out I need to get all the outside corbels and wood braces in place before they stucco/stone.  Either I need to buy a band saw and get to cutting (no) or my trim guy said he could handle this task and install for a fair price... (yes). 

In the meanwhile, I actually had two, yes, 2 nights in a row where I actually went out with my family for dinner, last night I scarfed down some great Mexican food and a whole herd of chips and salsa... yum.  Tonight we went to see a kids movie in 3D.  Wife even took the day off and headed out with friends for a change.  She was really happy because she had ordered a custom vanity cabinet for the powder room that has a copper top on it with an integrated copper sink.  It came, but I will have the furniture store hang onto it for a while, because I have no place for it...

Have a great weekend...

Foam

Really quick, because it's late, I thought you all might enjoy a movie I took today of the happenings at Casa Costa Lotta... 

Anyway, as you know, we have always planned on using foam to insulate the house, as the exterior walls are already insulated by design, that leaves the roof rafters and stem walls to contend with. 

The foam is a product called Sealection 500 from Demilec.  I could talk all day about foam, but in a nutshell it is a highly expansive "open cell" foam that has two big advantages.  First, it insulates well as far as R value, and second since it gets in every nook and cranny it has the capability of air sealing things you wouldn't otherwise be able to consider. 

In this video, they are using a "heated airless" sprayer to apply the two components of the foam, a polymeric isocyanate and resin, which is fed through two heated hoses, and then mixed in the nozzle.  The two components react together to create the foam which expands tremendously and sticks to everything.  The foam cures in just a few seconds and it is permanent.

Here is the finished product high above in the master bathroom.  They still have to "scarf" the foam, which means cut it out where the sheet rock will lay.  In addition to immediately cutting off the source of radiant heat in the house, the foam also deadened the sound so that you can clap your hands, talk, etc. and get no echo at all now in the house. 

Another great contractor that I feel really lucky to have found (thanks to my buddy... Thanks Brian). 

By the way, the man above in the video is wearing a respirator, and a full tyvek suit.  If you were to breathe in this stuff all day, which kind of has a "mist" effect, I think your lungs would be pretty damaged.  The helmet and suit is fed with compressed air so they can breath fresh air.  I think it helps to cool them off a little bit, but the bottom line is that this is a punishing job due to the heat, and being in the suit all day is pretty miserable....

More foam tomorrow, and maybe drywall next week?? 

I continue my continuous list of little jobs I can never get rid of...

Have a great week...

Critters and Liars

Thought I would show you a quick pic I snapped of my buddy's horse barn going up.  It's looking really good, and I especially like the horse stall hardware...  He is hiring the barn done, but like myself, has an endless supply of other jobs to go with it all, and completely getting his property ready for horses and other critters, which will include a horse arena... Very cool...

In addition to the Boracare, which is a termite treatment, I also sprayed for various bugs.  If the chemical police find me out, they will accuse me of not using the product according to the label...  Uh, yes, that's because I am actually trying to kill some pretty mean critters....

Here is a scorpion that bounced down about 3 feet in front of me.  He was in the process of not being too happy about his new chemical environment.  I expedited his death...  He is about 3 inches long.  Super creepy, but scorpions have something like 8 eyeballs.... eh???

Next critter.  Never seen one before, but my buddy with the horse barn above told me there was a Black Widow living in his water meter box.  I found this one hanging out on our nice iron front door.  Tried to take a decent picture, but that didn't happen...  Oh, you'll never believe this...  Ready....  I took a flashlight to my meter box tonight to shut the water off for a few days (the lines have plenty of pressurized air in them, so no reason risking a deer or something stepping on the PVC lines that are above ground into the house... I digress).   So, back to the valve box, at night, which the other night in the dark I reached in there and was feeling around for the shutoff valve when I couldn't get a wrench on it...  Well, tonight, there was a great big BLACK WIDOW spider in there...  Damn....

And what the heck is this thing... Scared me half to death.  Some kind of bug I have never seen.  About 4 inches long, looked like a cross between a frog and a grasshopper.  He was a FREAK.... Can anybody tell me what this critter is???

So, story for the day... Nail in my right front pickup tire... Slow leak.  Take it to (name of major tire people to be not released) and by the way, can you rotate the fronts to the rear... Sure.  So, I come back an hour later to find they have sheared off a lug.  So, they ask who did the work previously and who would tighten up the lug that tight.... The Toyota factory, I reply, never had a wheel off yet.  So, can I see the lug.  Yes, it sheared off when we attempted to remove it...  I'm checking this thing out, trying to remember some metallurgy classes from long ago, a twisted shear fracture...  Going to be 100 dollars to take off my wheel and hub (disk brakes) and get some new parts...  I'm not happy. 

OK, short story long, I get this thing home and chuck it into the vice so I can attempt to remove the broken stud from the nut...  Big pipe wrench... guess what... it comes off with my fingers.  I am P_SS_D off huge.  They lied to me, because if it was loose, they were attempting to put the thing on, not remove it.  Further study of the twisted shear, and sure enough, sheared in the clockwise direction. 

After a nice little 5 minute one way phone conversation, the shop will be repairing my wheel with absolutely no charge...and they will be happy to do it...  GGGGGGGRRRRRRR....

OK, enough of my rant.  Finished (yes, actually finished something) the central vac low voltage wiring, got everything all covered up and ready...  Also got the solar lines into the garage last night and today, so that is ready to go.

Also sorted more wires in the attic tonight, and also flashed the front door where the now dead black widow used to hang out. 

Another thing about bugs...  Scorpions and Spiders do not clean themselves, so they are very hard to kill...who knew?  Other bugs clean themselves and in the process, ingest the poison very quickly and die promptly.  I saw some spiders still alive tonight, but only dead scorpions...  Even the wasps and mud dabbers were mostly dead.  Hornets dead too. 

Next week.... Spray foam insulation...  I'll have to do some video for that....

Have a great weekend...

Getting close to sheetrock...

Yes, it's the "Tour Eiffel" 

Snapped this with my iPhone the other day on the way out of the hotel.  You can't really believe how big this thing is until you have stood underneath it.  Built for the Worlds Fair way back when there was no CAD, nothing is straight on it... so putting it together had to be a challenge. 

Paris is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, hands down.  The French are growing on me too, with some of the latest things in the news, they are doing some good things over there... I won't get into details.

Makes my little project seem pretty dinky... Never the less, it's happening.  I am really happy with the electricians, who came back and wired up the relay panels....  Took them hours, and it was HOT up there.  This is the non dimming high voltage relay panel.  The relays look like automotive relays, but they are rated at 30 amps each, so they are a little bigger.  For you non electricians out there.  Wires are actually pretty neat.  Black is the hot wire, white is neutral, and bare copper is the ground.  Hot is easy to understand, neutral wire is kind of like a plumbing drain, the electrons head out that way once they have lost their potential through the device, and the ground is really a backup to the neutral, but more importantly, the ground always ensures there is a better path to ground than you when you accidentally come into contact with hot wires.

Really nice job on the dimming panels... 

Finally, a shot of "The Bridge".  The transporter room is off to the right ;-)  Someday I'll take my better camera out there so you can get some better perspective shots...  I covered the panels all up with giant shrink wrap and house wrap so they don't get residual foam dust on them.  Next week is the insulator.  So this is probably the last time you will ever see those rafters. 

I have a couple of plumbing leaks.  Once I tended to today and fixed... an outdoor faucet which needed some tweaking.  Unfortunately, the plumbers screwed up two of the manifolds while replacing bad lines when they pressurized the system the other day, so I had to order new ones.  It's a long story, but you can't use a utility knife to remove the pex lines, if you scratch the propex fitting, it will leak, which they did.  The good news is that one of them is plastic (EP for the reverse osmosis water) and it is only like 15 dollars, and the brass one is the smallest manifold in the system, a 6 valve manifold, but still cost me close to 200 dollars with the appropriate installation parts.  I just can't trust that manifold behind the wall, though.  Not worth the risk...

Thought I would throw in a pic of some stucco we like.  This is a product from Dryvit that is basically a stucco with a faux washed finish on top.  We want the "old world" look, and this helps tremendously.  Look at the color difference between this picture and the next.  Same sample....  Different light.  We need to get it more into the yellow and brown tones and away from the pinkish tones in the second pic...

This is the stone we like.  It is called "Moss Rock" because it is quarried on top of the ground, and the stone has moss growing on it.   Mas Moss, as my wife says.  The selections are not completely official, and the stucco color still has some tweaking before we get it just right...  I am probably in trouble for leaking info about this, because I think my wife was holding off on this...  but I have been in trouble before...

This week I have some days off and trying to get everything tweaked as much as I can so they insulators can do their thing next week.  Tonight I actually pressurized the radiant floor with REAL WATER.  Some things probably excite me a lot more than you, eh...  I kind of freaked out when I couldn't get any water to go through the system, and had visions of hanging the whole project up, then remembered a not on the manifold box...  The manifolds were shipped with the flow control valves closed.  phew...  So, after opening those, and running a couple hundred gallons of water through the system to eliminate air, and then tightening several places up that were leaking, I finally left tonight at 11 PM with the system holding at 60.5 psi...  That number is for me, so when I got out there in the morning it better not be too much lower (the system will only operate at about 15 psi once it's online)  If there is a leak, I hope it's easy to find the problem. 

I was elated more than you can possibly imagine last night when I ran my last wire.  All the wires are finally in where they are supposed to be...with of course some exceptions.  I need to run a thermostat wire for the radiant floor computer's thermistor (under the garage eve).  Also need to put in place some HDMI cables, but I thought I would wait until the insulators and everyone else was done walking around on things up in the attic.  Just needs to be done before sheet rock...

Other projects this week...

Borocare spray for termites (basically a boric acid treatment for the wood).

Spray for bugs (way too many scorpions, spiders, etc.)

Tidy up wires in the attic.

Repair some framing here and there.

Start cutting the baseboard backers.

Run the lines from the solar collector on out to the garage.

OH, you may think I'm crazy, (of course those who really know me, that's not news), anyway, I'm going to use my airless sprayer for spraying for bugs.  Mix everything up in a 5 gallon bucket, and spray the crap out of everything.  Getting it all over the place.  I hate bugs.

OH, almost forgot.  Passed my structural and mechanical inspection the other day.  Inspector had some questions about a lot of the "different" things they don't see often, but the questions were more aimed out of curiosity and interest, so we had a nice chat. 

Off to the shower, eat dinner (at 1 AM), and then catch a snooze...

Have a great week...

Ok, since I am already in HOT WATER with wife, I will leak another picture out... Check out the cantera stone here.  The color is kind of a brownish grey, called Cafe II (this column may be something else??), and the columns inside won't have the square part you see on top of this capital.  Outside columns WILL have the square part of the capital and base, though...reason... TOE STUBBERS...

Opposing Thumb

All I could think about today was the fact that humans have an "opposing thumb." 

I was using mine, when I wasn't trying to drill a hole through them by accident.

In the back of my mind, I was hoping I had actually ordered too much wire, and would have to try to figure out what to do with what was left over....nope.... surprisingly, I have used up almost all of it, and could use some more in places. 

I have 3 rooms completely done (meaning completely trimmed out, wires secure and hidden, labeled, counted, and recounted).  One of them was the 14 foot tall master bath which required an extension ladder and lots of burning out foam to make channels (time consuming).  So the rest of the house should now be done in about 2 more days. 

Today was even hotter than ever, 98 degrees, 80 percent humidity, no air moving... at one point I spent 90 minutes straight in the attic sorting wires and moving things around.  When I got down, I drank 5 glasses of cold water, and then completely changed my clothes, which were drenched.  It was easily 140 degrees up there, and the roof deck is even hotter, so it is radiating it's heat more and more the closer you get to it...

I whine, but HVAC, plumbers, electricians, and the other trades have been doing this same kind of work forever, summer after summer...  they should make a Bud Lite commercial for those guys...

Here is some pictures of wires.......  First pic here is the storage area in the attic.  I didn't count them, but now they all need to be sorted by type and destination (matrix switch, ethernet/phone, audio, video, etc).  This is just over the equipment room and they will be dropped down after we sheet rock. 

Picture of my sexy legs as I head up and over.  This was a crappy place to crawl...  A hornets nest about 3 feet from my head.  Hornets all dead now ;-)

There was no good path from the kiddos rooms and rec room to the other side of the house, so I made one.  Twenty or so 2x4's and I boxed a rafter and just started pulling wires (the water lines are radiant supply and return for the north side of the house, and all of this will get encased in foam).  The service entrance is also on that side, and I ran two RG6 quads, and two CAT 5e...  I am pondering a conduit from the service entrance in case the world ever gets on board with fiber... 

These are the wires coming from the east side of the house, meeting lighting control wires (orange) heading in the opposite direction.  I found these cool metal low voltage rings to help keep things somewhat tidy.  My main concern is keeping people from stepping on them.  It's funny to read on the internet about how you are supposed to keep low voltage wires away from high voltage...  OK, so I have now 46,000 feet of wire in a 5000 square foot space??  You do the math...   OH, and it lighting strikes, I am either really safe, or really screwed...

That's it for me... Goodnight...

Low Voltage Progress

Hello all (probably like 10 of you max...)

Thought I would update things a bit.  Came home early tonight (10 PM) after being over there all day running more wires.

Lots of progress lately.  Yesterday we (my favorite wife and I) got kind of a late start, but we were able to talk to the cabinet people and show them around.  Seems a world away to me still that we will ever be that far...

Anyway, after that we ran some wires.  The security, intercom, and lighting control wires were in, but we had to run all the wires for audio/video.  I am probably going a little overboard in this department, but it's not tremendously harder to run extra wires.  Here is how we did it...

First, you identify all the wires you need to a particular room, or even a particular area.  Then we labeled the boxes and wires to match each other (because later when you come back to cut them, you have no idea what is what). 

Here is an example of a run I did to the master bedroom...

2 RG6 wires to the TV location (these are probably overkill, but allows a dual SAT box I would never use)
2 CAT5e wires to the TV location (HDMI over baluns or Infrared control)
4 CAT5e data wires (these can be switched in the equipment room on demand from ethernet to phone)
1 Four conductor speaker wire (this is the audio side of the Russound Compoint intercom system)
1 Five conductor mini RGBHV video feed (this allows for component HD signals from the matrix)
1 Siamese RG6 and 18/2 cable (feeds a surveillance camera on the corner of the house)
Several CAT 5e Data runs to the adjacent study (I think I had 8 of them)

Anyway, this is quite a bundle of wire....  I added more after I took the picture...

And the problem is that you have tension on each wire, and every curve you go around adds to the friction.  Here is a shot of some of the boxes all feeding cable.  I don't show the ones that are on spools, which are being pulled from a different location to save moving them around all the time. 

In this process I learned something about wire.  If you ever purchase it, it turns out that a "pull box" is much easier to pull from that wire off a spool.  They are wound inside the box in such a manner that they just come right out (assuming you don't get an occasion kink, very rare).  Anyway, the wires that come on spools have to be handled differently, put on an axle, elevated, and they pull hard.  When you get the spool going it wants to keep going, and then too much wire comes off and gets wrapped around the axle.  The worst cable I have is a spool in a box.  It is some Cat5 I bought, but it pulls VERY hard. 

The idea here is to group all your cables together that are going to the same destination, in this case, my equipment room, and then separate your wires at both ends to match their exact destination... usually some box in the room, and some piece of equipment back in the equipment room.

So, each room gets basically the wiring program stated above.  The only thing that changes is how much data I pull to each location.  The funny part about the data lines is that they have essentially been replaced by cordless phones and wireless routers.  In the computer world these days, about the only reason you need an ethernet connection is for transferring files, which is quicker with a wire, but otherwise, wireless routers and wireless phones have come a long ways. 

By the time my kids get much older, I would imagine they will have cell phones, laptops, and some pretty cool handheld devices... BUT, I am running their study stations full of wire.  Each kid will have 8 data wires.  Certainly not that they will hook into 8 things at once, but it gives us flexibility in how to set the whole apparatus up...  I think there is a good chance that NONE of those wires will get used.  But, wouldn't you think it's pretty stupid not to run the wires anyway....

  In the planning stages, I was going to have a lot more in the equipment room, but thankfully a lot of that all got moved upstairs to the attic, which wouldn't be possible without it's Air Conditioned status up there.  Check out what the electricians were up to today...

This is how it started....  6 hours later, they have added a CB panel and have everything all organized and ready for hookup...  Every one of these wires is tagged with a numerical ID and they know exactly where they go (I hope anyway...).

I promised early on to not mention names, but I have really grown to like my electrical contractor.  The best part about them is that they are not just electricians, but very well versed in the low voltage side of things.  Even though I am doing my own low voltage, it's great to have them always taking into account what has to happen on my end.  I am quite certain I have challenged them in addition to the norm...

The roofers also came out today.  They tidied up some stuff on the roof, as well as measured the chimney for the metal flashing that has to go in the bottom of the chimney where the pipe comes out.  They also laid down felt paper where the stucco guys will be working, so the roof underlayment doesnt' get trashed.  There are pathways for the stucco guys to work so they don't have to step on tiles.  I was also able to finally get the pipes stuck through the roof to the solar collector while they were here...  That enables a whole new project...

Oh, the insulation contractor came out to day to check on things.  I like this guy because I tend to get overwhelmed with all the details, and he puts me at ease that everything will happen just as it should...

So, perhaps next week we can get some inspections, and then we can foam away... After that, drywall can begin, then cabinets, trim, tile, floors, and then all the electrical and plumbing trimout inside.  Outside can begin almost anytime now...  Electrical boxes are set so they can work.  The stucco guys have been busy making sample boards to get the finish texture and colors just right... 

So... you can see it was a busy day. 

PS, the temperature was 98 degrees today, and very humid.  I drank almost 2 gallons of water just myself...