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  

Any one for some chocolate???

Well there is some colour now in the house in various rooms. As referenced by the title the bedroom has it's "chocolate" brown colouration. I've even heard rumours that the brother was so enamoured with the colours they may repaint their bedroom as well :-):-):-). So how did all this colour get there and when is now the story.
I'll start on Monday with the plan of painting. However when I got to the house it was a little chilly. I had turned off the furnace the previous Saturday while doing some drywall in the basement and forgot to turn it back on. So I decided it would be a good time to finish all the drywall in the basement. Well by midday it was done, so I loaded up the truck with all the scrap drywall for delivery to the dump later that day. To finish off the day I installed all the plugs, switches, and lights in the basement with the exception of the north bedroom. Since this bedroom is all drywalled and mudded I might give it a coat of primer before I install the electrics.
Well by Tuesday the temp was just fine so we gave the ceiling a light sanding and the painted the second coat of flat ceiling paint. One thing I noticed right away was that I was having a lot of small threads in the paint at times. I initially thought it was the paint rollers but it happened with multiple rollers. In the end I think it was a multitude of issues. Some roller were better than others so age had a bearing as well I noticed that the second can of paint was better than the first. In the end it all worked out however I did spend some time during the painting to stop and remove blemishes. I really hoped that after this coat was done the ceiling would be done.
Well when I came into the house on Wednesday morning and looked at the ceiling I had to roll out at third coat. I'm sure this is when people would say you should of hired a pro. Well that may be the case but I'm still cheaper than they are. So another day was spent giving the ceiling a light sanding and then putting on a third coat. This time I was real careful and made sure there was good overlap as well as rolling in two directions at ninety degrees to each other.
So Thursday I came to the house and looked at the ceiling. It was not perfect. It was a lot better than before but there are still areas in sunlight where you can see roller marks. Well there would be no fourth coat. I'm leaving it as is and we'll see if maybe it changes with a little more time to dry. So I then went and painted the second coat of light brown in the Master bedroom on the rear wall and ceiling. I also painted the Master bath with a blue coloured paint. Man was this paint thick, you could almost spoon it out like porridge.  Well here us a picture of the bathroom.

So on Friday I decided to paint the stairwell as I had installed my scaffolding in there to be able to reach the ceiling to cut in the wall paint. So we climbed the scaffolding and cut in the wall paint. Since it was a little unstable I used painters tape to help with the cutting in so that I would not get any paint on the ceiling. Here is a pictures of the scaffold. I installed that scaffold and then used a piece of 2by10 lumber on the rungs of the scaffold and the stepladder. By standing on the 2by10 I was high enough to comfortably cut in the wall paint. The second picture is once the painting was all done before I removed the actual scaffold.

I then went and painted the second coat of blue in the bathroom and painted the first coat of dark brown in the master bedroom. Once you see this picture you'll understand the title of this piece.

I know that my brother is not fond of these colours but so far I am quite happy with them. Once the trim is in and the doors are installed it will be a nice cosy sleeping area.

So this brings us to today, Saturday. Well today we painted the living, dining room, kitchen and hallway. As the day progressed I became much more proficient at cutting in the paint at the wall/ceiling interface. It took some time but by mid afternoon these rooms were all done. Here are two photos showing this.

I have also picked up the material I needed for the underfloor heat in the master bathroom. I am using what is called Ditra heat from Schluter. Hopefully by the end of the week this will be installed and possibly the floor tiles as well. I also picked up the wood flooring for the Master bedroom so once the bathroom is finished we'll be able to install the flooring in the bedroom. I'll probably also take some time this week to work on the wiring for upstairs. After I put my second coat on the walls I'll be able to install all the plugs and light switches. After all the sooner that is done the sooner I can get my final electrical inspection. 

Well that's all for this week. I'll see you again in a weeks time.

Harold

And the painting continues

Well this week was all about painting, with a little bit of drywall and electrical thrown in for good measure. My guess is that I've got at least a week of solid painting to go and possibly more since I'll probably work on other things in between. As well I plan on letting the paint thoroughly dry between coats.
On Monday I spent time priming the spare bedroom, the spare bathroom as well as the front hallway. I only had the back entrance left to do but ran out of paint and since it was late in the day did not feel like opening a new can just for the one room.
So on Tuesday we opened the new can and finished the side entrance and the three small storage cubicles I have. By the time I was finished I had used up approximately 50 litres of paint through the entire main floor. I have a sinking feeling that the paint budget might be woefully inadequate. Oh well just one of the joys of building a house. Nothing every gets finished on time and nothing costs what you think it will.
On Wednesday I spent the day driving back and forth to London Ont to bring my Mom to visit with my brother for a few days during spring break. The brother and half the family brought her back today. So we spent no time at the house working.
On Thursday I spent the day starting to put up the first coat of Flat ceiling paint. Let me tell you painting white on white is not an ideal situation. I really wish I had bought that paint that changes colour when it dries so that you can see where you've been. You really had to look close sometimes to figure out where you stopped and started. Oh well just one of the joys of painting. Another one of the joys is painting the stairwell. Later on I plan on installing my scaffolding in there when I paint the final ceiling coat. Then once the ceiling is done I'll paint the two coats of wall paint before removing the scaffold. So for now to paint the corners we need to improvise to be able to reach 12ft above your head. Well as the attached picture shows this is how I improvised, I taped the brush to the extend-able painters stick.

On Friday finished up with the first ceiling coat and then put a coat of semi gloss in two of the storage cubby holes. I plan on using white semi gloss in all the closets as well. Once I finished the painting I spent some time downstairs installing some drywall  and installing plugs, switches and light fixtures. The circuits weren't livened up just wanted to put the fixtures in. I also went out and bought 16 more sheets of drywall and with the Brother in laws help brought them down stairs. Once they are installed I should be short just a couple of sheets but we'll she how that goes.
On Saturday I decided to paint the light brown paint that will go in my Master bedroom. I've decided that not only will this light paint go in the recess but it will also go on the ceiling. As the Brother stated when he came today, boy is this room going to be dark. Well that's the whole intention. I want a nice cosy dark room for sleeping in. Here are two pictures a before and after of what that first coat of brown looks like.

After cleaning up I decided to try and install all the drywall I had picked up yesterday so that I could see how many more sheets were required. Well did not quite get that done before the family showed up. However I anticipate I will need another three sheets and then the drywall installation will be complete. So we'll finish that next week Monday or Tuesday.

Well that's it for this week. Next week will be another week of painting and possibly some tile flooring work. Going to order the Ditra heat materials on Monday or Tuesday and should be able to install the Ditra material at least I hope by end of week.

Until then have great week.

Harold

The joys of painting

Well I will apologise right away because there will be no pictures with this blog entry. First of all I left the camera at the house and secondly the photos won't be all that different than the last few. After all how many times can you look at a picture of a room with just primed drywall.
It has been a decent week here. Sunshine has finally started to arrive and this of course brings warmer temperatures so that we will now be dealing with water, mud and settling fill around the foundation.
However on to the story. First of all the drywallers finished on Monday evening around 7pm after all the sanding was complete. During this time I had the furnace vents blocked as well the furnace was turned off. I ran my electric heater to keep temp up. While they were sanding upstairs I finished off the north basement bedroom such that it is ready for a coat of primer. Of course what do you need to do once they are finished, well clean house of course. I spent the next two days carefully cleaning all the dust and excess drywall mud up. I carefully wiped down the walls to get as much dust off them as possible without scratching the walls. I learned really quickly that this new drywall mud is really dainty. It does not take much to put a scratch into it. The mudding crew actually told me to leave the dust and just paint over it as a vacuum brush would scratch the drywall mud. Well maybe some of the painters do this however I was not about to paint over all that dust. I bought a fairly soft brush and carefully wiped down the walls and no scratches were left by my brush.
On Wednesday the plumber came down to install a dedicated dishwasher line from the HWT directly to where the DW will be. I added this last minute and thankfully the plumber had some free time so was able to come down and finalize this. Of course this also meant he could hand deliver the bill as well and get his cheque. Previously on Monday the gas inspector came and passed all the Gas work. So with these two items taken care of I can now finish the remainder of the drywall installation.
On Thursday and Friday I started priming the entire house. By end of day on Friday I estimate 70% of the house has been primed upstairs. Next week Monday I'll finish the priming and the start painting the ceiling with it's two coats of ceiling paint.
Today I spent the morning installing the remainder of the drywall I had in the basement. With this installed I can calculate how much more I need to finish all the drywall. Looks like I need another 14 sheets of drywall 4by8ft. I'll probably pick them up sometime next week and finish this chore during the week. In the afternoon went out with Mom and the sister and brother inlaw to choose some paint colours and to pick-up the bathroom tile I had decided on last week.  Always nice to have a feminine touch when doing this. I've chosen a dark brown for the bedroom, an off blue for the bathroom and for the majority of the house a cream colour. One extra splash will be a red wall behind the desk in the office area. It will take a few weeks but hopefully it all works out and the pictures will hopefully show this as well.
Other than dealing with a broken laptop that's been my week. Well that and a broken tooth that needs repairing but can't use glue on that.

Well until next week keep dry and lets hope that sunshine continues.

Harold

There is a light at the end of the tunnel

Well it's been a dirty week at the jobsite. That's one result of mudding and taping, you get a lot of pieces of mud on the floor. However the work is almost done. The drywaller figures to do the final sanding on Monday and if nothing goes wrong he'll be done and that should be the last of the trades people that need to be hired on the job until the brick work gets done later this spring. This won't be a long post in that other than drywalling not much else happened on the job site.

Yours truly did the following, I primed and then painted two coats of semi-gloss white in my storage room. I then livened up the electrical cct in that room which also includes the sump-pump. This allowed me to remove the extension cord I was using and thereby was able to fully close the cold cellar door. Here are two pictures showing the storage room all painted the sump pump is in the cold cellar behind the door in the first picture. Now all that I need to do to make it functional is install some shelving at the one end.

The only other thing I did this week was work on mudding the North basement bedroom. This is one of two completed rooms in the basement. The other is one of the rec rooms that is full of my tools and other junk. I did not work at a furious pace and left plenty of time for the mud to dry between coats. I have now finished mudding and am halfway through final sanding. Will the job be as good as the professionals upstairs, no. However I am improving and for a basement bedroom it is fine. The rest of my time was spent watching the drywallers work and doing crossword puzzles. For info here is a picture of the house at the end of today in the living room area. Sorry no picture of the bedroom.

Since the HVAC people have finished installing the heating system and hot water tank I can now have my gas inspection. Once that is done on Monday, and we pass, I will be able to finish installing the rest of my drywall in the basement. As well once the drywallers are finished I can go around clean up, finish sand, and then prime all the surfaces as well as finish painting the ceiling. I have a paint colour picked out for the bedrooms, now I just have to pick out a final colour for the walls of the rest of the house. Then we need to install the underfloor heat in the master bedroom, then choose tiles for the floor and above the shower, pick a vanity, etc etc. The decisions will be coming fast and furious now in the decoration department.

One little side note. I knew that I was building an airtight house. Well the proof has really been evident this past week. The humidity level in the house is almost off the scale. I've had to turn the HRV(heat recovery ventilator) on full time just to help get rid of the humidity. As well I have a dehumidifier working almost full time that fills up a bucket of water every 24hrs. It was working so hard that the unit froze solid and I had to use a heater to defrost it. Once the HRV was running we managed to get the humidity down to 58% however It needs to go lower which will happen as all the drywall mud dries. Once I've primed the walls I hope the HVAC guys return to install the proper thermostat for the furnace and HRV and then it will run as needed.

Earlier on my Blog I talked about having issues with my shingles not sitting flat and therefore being susceptible to strong winds. I complained to GAF about this and submitted a claim. Well they came back and denied my claim saying that Blow off is not covered by warranty when you do not hand seal the shingles during installation in cold weather. Nowhere in the letter did it talk about the problem in regards to raised shingle tabs. So I contacted them again and they said if I felt they made a mistake to ship more shingles to them with this problem and their lab will look into it. I don't think I will win but I intend to continue this fight as long as possible. Stayed tuned for a Youtube video on my issues.

Last week I mentioned going to an interview with Home Depot. Well at this time they have advised me that they will keep my application on file but that they have no openings for me. Oh well maybe one of the other applications I submitted will come to fruition. Building a house can be quite expensive especially if you want to do it right.

Well thats it for now. The sun is starting to shine the temp is warming up and summer is on its way. Now if only the lottery gods would shine upon me as well.

Harold