Sorry I,m late

Well this is going to be a pretty short update. I ended up working 4 days this week and will next week again. This means that last week only worked on the house on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The really good news is that on Tuesday morning the Electrical inspector came by checked out my deficiencies and has given me the green light. I have passed my electrical inspection. That means that I am now one step closer to an occupancy certificate. During the day I first cleaned the house as it was getting a little messy. I also spent time working on trimming out the small closet in the bathroom as well as painting this trim. Since I am doing small bits at a time I paint all the trim at least once with semi-gloss paint before I install it. I then fill and sand the nail holes and give it another 1-2 coats of paint. So I've also painted the baseboard and window trim for the bathroom and will be installing it shortly. I've decided on a little change in the bathroom in regards to where I will be installing tile in the shower area. I initially was going to tile up and down the front of the shower but have now decided to drywall this area. This now means that I need to mud it and then paint it before installing the tile above the shower.
On Wednesday I continued with the trim work and put on the first coat of drywall mud. Unfortunately I forgot to bring the camera home so I don't have any pictures of this. As well I don't have any pictures of the new culvert the town installed on Thursday while I was at work. This means my access to the house is a lot neater and easier on the vehicles. The dip was so bad the electrical inspector almost needed a tow truck to get out.
Well this coming week I plan on working on the side porch area as well as continuing on in the bathroom. I need to finish the bathroom and the porch as well as install a handrail to the basement before I can get the elusive occupancy certificate.

Hopefully next week I'll be on time with my update.
Till then all the best

Harold

Glorious Sunshine has arrived.

As the title says sunshine has arrived. We had some nice warm days this week and the shingles on the roof are looking better. They still have not all settled down but the vast majority have and the really bad ones are now only a little bit bad. We'll see after a few more weeks what they look like.
Well I finished my first week where I was working at the local Lumber yard for 3days. It really cuts back in the amount of work you can do on the house. So from now on my write ups might be a little bit smaller due to the lack of work. On the flipside I will be earning a bit of money to help offset the money being spent on the house. Now if anybody has the winning lottery numbers feel free to pass them on to me so I can quit the day job and work strictly on the house. Essentially from now on all the work will be done on Tuesday, Wednesday and most Saturday's. I might also start doing some more work on Sunday as well just to get things done.
So on Tuesday we had the Electrical inspector in. Turns out this was the same fellow who had just inspected Mom's house due Insurance issues, however that's another story. When he was finished he stated I needed three more GFCI plugs due to distance from plugs to sinks, I needed to turn my Stove plug 90degrees, I had to remove the plug in the master closet because it was not on the Bedroom AFCI cct and there were two temporary light bulbs installed that had to be replaced due headroom issues. All the issues were easily fixed and I will have an inspector in on Tuesday again to approve the repairs and give me my final inspection paperwork. I also had a company on site installing Eaves-trough on the house and garage. This eaves-trough is black in colour which I think worked out well. While I was waiting for the Electrical Inspector I started work on putting up cedar tongue and groove boards as soffiting in the back porch roof.  Here's a picture showing the front of the house with the eaves-trough installed and a down spout as well. I arranged for down spouts at all four corners of the house. As well the second picture shows the cedar soffits.

 

On Wednesday I proceeded to fix the deficiencies the inspector found. Once that was done I spent some time installing the grout in the Master bath tile floor. After the initial grout was installed it took three wipe downs till all the haze was of the tiles. I think the tiles look great and the grout I chose worked out quite well. I also spent a hour moving dirt from the back of the property to the rear porch area to start filling in the depressions from the settling of the dirt.  Here is a picture of the finished job. The actual tiles look a lot bluer than the picture shows.

That brings us to today Saturday where I spent the majority of the day working outside in the beautiful weather. However the first job was inside putting a coat of Thompsons water seal on 4 3by6in posts I bought that will go up against the house at the four corners under the roof beams. I'll have a picture of them once they are installed. I then spent the rest of the day outside. I basically was scraping away the dug up dirt that was laying on top of the original topsoil. This dirt came from digging the foundations for the house and garage. when they backfilled there was still a few inches of this stuff laying over the original topsoil. I wanted to scrape enough away so that if any topsoil is left from working around the house I can place it on the scraped area. If I don't have enough this soil is still good enough or grass growth behind the garage. The soil was moved by wheelbarrow to the rear porch area where I spread it out and then tamped it down. In the photo below you can see the finished work in the rear porch area. I still need to decide the final height requirements and then will need to bring more dirt in I expect. However for now it is flat enough. In the picture in front of the wheelbarrow you can see the tamper I used. Essentially it is a 8by8in cast iron plate attached to a handle. The weight is sufficient to tamp down the 2-3in of soil that I spread around. In the second picture you can see the area beside and behind the garage that I scraped the soil from. The area beside the garage will have a gravel side walk out to the rear storage shed.

Once this was done I went over to the side porch and removed the temporary decking. I then proceeded to dig out an area where the Air Conditioner will sit and spread this dirt around under the deck area. This area was then tamped down as well as the dug out pit area. Once the tamping was done I placed the deck back on and layered in two wheel barrow loads of gravel in the pit for the A/C pad. Once the second lift was layered and tamped I sprayed some water on it as well to help settle this area. I plan to water and tamp it again before I build a 4ft square wood frame and fill it full of gravel. This gravel area will then be ready to accept the A/C when  it gets installed later next month. Here are two photos showing this work. First shows the area under the deck and the dug out pit, the second shows the gravel in the pit.

Well that's all we physically got done this week. We also picked up some trim material that I will paint and then use to trim out the bathroom. I also have arranged for the stone and brick work for the house. Unfortunately the mason will not be available until the middle of May so the exterior will not be done until the end of May. Once the work is done I can have the AC installed and then we can really go to town on the final grading.

Well that's all for this week. Tomorrow I head out to buy a medium size portable table saw so that I can start working on the trim. As well I will also probably buy the tile that I plan to use around the top of the shower so that I can start installing that as well. And once the electrical inspection is complete I can work in the house at night since I'll have some decent lighting as well. 

Anyway till then enjoy the sunshine because in 9 months it will be cold again.

Harold

We're a little closer to that elusive occupancy cetificate

Ok no attempts and Dutch this week. Other than the weather we had a reasonable week. Even better in that on Tuesday I found out that the local Home Hardware store Penner Lumber has decided to hire me for a part time job starting this coming Monday.This means going to work on Monday, Thursday and Friday with the odd Saturday thrown in. This will help with the finances and keep me busy as well. It will mean though that some of my work time on the house will be curtailed. I'll also have to be a little careful scheduling the last few trades people that I need. So lets begin.
On Sunday I decided to go in and start working on some more wiring. I spent a few hours at the house and managed to wire up the bedroom and bathroom cct. All went well except that the fan and light on the ceiling fan had their wires mixed up such that the wrong switch was controlling the wrong action. This was quickly fixed at the ceiling junction box by switching the two wires around.
On Monday worked on a few more ccts as well as installed all the soffit and facia material I had so that I could calculate how much more I needed to buy. Kinda of interesting when you put the ladder up and it sinks into the mud up to the first rung. Oh well nicer weather is coming that should dry out all this mud.
On Tuesday I installed the Ditraheat matting in the master bedroom. This is a membrane that is cemented down with modified thinset mortar. Once this is dry you install the heating cable and then you can lay down and install your ceramic tile. This went down very smoothly once I cut the matting into manageable chunks. After this was done I finished off installing all the remaining plugs, switches and lights. Here is a picture showing the Ditraheat matting in place.

On Wednesday went to a place call the Wood Shed in Smithville about an hour away to pickup some 10ft long 3by6in fir posts I had cut. This place has lots of different wood from sheet to rough stock. While there I also ended up picking up some clear cedar tongue and groove material 3ft long to use as soffit material in my side porch. I'll most likely go back and pick up some tongue and groove pine later on for the front and rear porch. I had also picked up the remaining soffit and facia the day before so once I got to the house I installed some of the soffit and facia until the rain stopped me. So since we couldn't work outside might as well work on the inside. I then proceeded to start wiring up the main panel. Once I had wired in around 4 ccts I would re-energize the panel and check out the ccts. I was quite pleased in that once complete I only had three issues. 2 were easily solved however the third one was a bit of a poser. In the third cct I had a 3way switch going to a 4way switch going to a three way switch and then powering two lights in the basement hallway. I had proceeded to get a wiring diagram off of the internet showing a cct setup. When rough wiring I ran 14/3 wire between the switches as required. When I wired it up I wired it exactly as the diagram showed. Power to the first common screw, travellers to the four way and then another set of travellers to the 3way and the wire from common screw to the lights. On the diagram the first set of travellers is wired up to the input side of the switch and it shows them as the top two screws and then the bottom two screws as the output to the next switch. Well when powered up the lights did not work as advertised. They would only work when the switches were in certain positions not as they should. After some head scratching I pulled out the other 4way switch I had and was about to start metering it when I noticed that the writing on the back stated that the input was the two screws on one side and the output was the two screws on the other side. So this switch was wired 90deg different then the wiring diagram. Once I rewired it all worked as it should. Thanks for small miracles.

On Thursday I did some more work on the main panel as well as I finished off installing all the soffit and facia. I am now ready to have the gutters installed next week Tuesday. The house looks a lot better with the facia installed on the front and rear as it was all winter without this. Here is a picture of the front of the house with all the metal soffit and facia installed.

On Friday I finished wiring up the main panel. In between wiring up ccts though I had to go out to nail down and then glue down with Tar some shingles on the garage roof that were flapping in the breeze. We had some gusty winds up to 80kmh and when it goes over 70-75kmh I get nervous and watch the roof. Although some of the tiles have glued themselves down I still have quite a few that are still showing a little sail and have not set themselves yet. After finishing the panel I started to lay out and cut some of the ceramic tile for the bathroom in preparation for tiling. Here is a picture of the completed main panel. 

On Saturday I spent 4 hours working on installing tile. First we had to test and install the heating cable. When doing this you need to stay 3in apart, 3in from walls and covered spaces, and 8in away from other heating sources. The cable kit I had was good for 32sqft of coverage and it worked out perfectly as will be seen in the accompanying photo. Then 2 bags worth of thinset later and all the tiles were set with 1/4in spacing. It all worked out pretty good and I think with the exception of one tile by the heating vent they all are nice and level with their neighbours. Interestingly although I had two bags from the same company, one of the bags seemed to mix up better than the other. Hopefully this will not effect the strength of the bond. Here is a picture of the tiles after the heating cable was installed. The thermistors are in the middle of the picture. There are two of them so there is a spare one in case one fails. The second picture is after all the tiles were installed.

Well that's all for this week. Next week we get our electrical inspection on Tuesday and that will dictate the speed at which I get my occupancy certificate. If all goes well then maybe in a couple of weeks I can get occupancy. If not then it will depend on what needs to be redone and how long that takes.

Well until next week have a great time enjoying the sunshine that is finally coming our way.

Harold

Welcomen nar het huise from Oranje

Well hopefully you'll understand my attempt at Dutch spelling. This is all to say that I painted my back entrance room on Monday. This entrance will be used probably 95% of the time so in essence it will be my main entrance. Hence this is the room you'll see upon entering the house. So with out further ado here is a picture of said room after it's first coat of paint.

This was done on Monday as stated. As well I painted the second coat of dark brown in the bedroom and ended the day installing my ceiling fan in the MBedroom. Here is a photo showing the fan and the room.

I might as well take the time give you the paint colours although were they get the names I'm not always sure. As of now all paint is Valspar paint from Lowes. The basic house had a coat of Powder Soft on the walls. I decided that this was a little dark so the remaining 8 litres was mixed with 8 litres of Gilded Endive, this was then applied as the second coat and looks quite abit better. The light brown ceiling and one wall in the MBedroom is Sea Lion Brown and the dark colour on the walls is Gardener's soil. The Orange used in the rear entrance is Island Orange and the office/feature wall which was painted later in the week is Moving Melody. Unfortunately I don't have the paint chip here for the bathroom so can't remember that colour name.
On Tuesday had an appt with Dentist in the AM so only worked at the house in the PM. I painted the three closets with a coat of semi-gloss white. They'll get one more coat and they'll be done. I also spent a little time working on some of the electrical connections.
On Wednesday I painted the walls of the house with my mixed up yellow paint. Once that was done I spent some time installing a couple of the pot light I bought for the kitchen and living room. These are the style that just fit through a hole in your drywall and then two spring clips secure it in the hole you cut out. They worked but I would probably not buy them again. I was not a hundred percent happy with how they secured themselves in the holes. There is a technique to installing them to get the best fit that I figured out after installing 2 just wish that technique had been in the instructions.
On Thursday I painted the second coat of orange in the back entrance and will need to do at least one possibly two more coats for 100pct coverage. I also painted the office wall with my reddish paint. Here is a picture of that wall.

Once the painting was done I again did a hours worth of electrical work. 

On Friday I spent 5hours working on installing plugs, switches, and lights. It was slow work and I am glad that I put some larger boxes in for the 12/2 wire that is used for the kitchen plugs. 

Today Saturday I painted the 3rd coat of orange and the second coat of red. We'll see either tomorrow or Monday when I next visit the house whether I'll need to apply a 3rd or 4th coat. Earlier this morning I went to look at some Burr Oak boards that I am thinking of buying to use as exterior board and batten by the back entrance and around the patio door area. I need to do some measuring to see exactly how much I need and will decide later this week if I go this route. As well later this week I plan to order the stone and brick required for the exterior of the house. Hopefully I can get this delivered within 3-4 weeks and we can then get the mason working on the exterior. Prior to that I have a little bit of Soffit and Facia to install and then I need some eaves trough installed. I did not get any further on the bath room floor this past week, so will have to work on it this week. 

Well I hope you are all enjoying the Easter weekend.

See you next time

Harold