Presents from Lisa

Lisa sent me pics tonight... drywall... cool...

Here's the great room... it looks huge!

Check out the floor... looks like it's been snowing...

Here's the master bedroom...

and its soffit...

and the wiring box in the closet (not yet drywalled)


Here's the closet under the stairs:


And up the stairs, the family room looms large:


And they've built the structure in the family room (someday a flat screen will hang here)...

...and here it is as seen from the boys' bathroom...


You can't see the changes from the outside

But we know what's going on inside... we and you (Becky, we know you're reading this... thanks!)

Greetings from Chicago

Here I am at the Hyatt Regency... in a "non-smoking" room that reminds my olfactory sense of a Vegas casino (housekeeping is coming BACK with a stronger de-odorant).

Lisa called with good news: UCLA is whooping OSU in the 4th quarter (and only in the fourth... they were trailing for the entire game up until then when the Beavers suffered a catastrophic meltdown), and while there's still no sign of a front door, there's drywall throughout the first floor of the house... hoofreakingray.

Some bad news that I forgot from yesterday: Hickox from the City called me up late in the afternoon: it seems Port Hueneme gets its water supply from the Callegas Water District. And they want a piece of that cash cow we like the call the "Home Addition Adventure"... up to $2500... Hickox wants to review our form 126A from the County... he thinks he might be able to convince Callegas to waive the fee. I'll get him the form when I get back.

Trying to think not so much about the third paragraph of this entry, and focus on the second...

More Pics Coming

Lowe's called the front door is in. Called Frank to let him know. He'll be picking up the door later today... should be installed tomorrow.

Frank mentioned the work that is taking place now: insulation being installed, in preparation for the beginning of drywall hanging, which could happen as early as tomorrow. Prepping for stucco (tar-papering/netting) should be done by the end of the weekend. I asked about the stucco and the color: he has color chips in his car. We'll meet later this afternoon when I pick up Jack. He said that the stucco will go on in three layers, the top layer of which (the finish coat) will have the color mixed in. The first two layers adhere first to the netting, then the second layer. He wanted to know if we wanted to match the existing texture of the garage stucco (yuck, no). So he'll bring in the sandblast guy to smooth out the garage to the middle coat so that the transition of the two stuccos will be seamless.

The catch: that's an extra $500. Great. That's going to be another item for us to discuss with Fred (or for Lisa to discuss with Fred on Monday when the combined 88K check gets signed over).

Anyway, Frank says that if we're going to take pictures, today would be a good day to do it... as by the end of the weekend, the house is going to look different...

So you know how I said yesterday that those pics would probably be the last for a while... not so much. Check back for more photos, folks....

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PICTORAL UPDATE:

So as Jack and I pulled up, I see that roofing is continuing on the garage...

and workers are rolling the installation bundles into the house

(there's much less than were there yesterday...)

After Frank gives me the stucco color samples (Lisa and I picked "French Vanilla" which is almost a perfect match to the Dunn-Edwards color we chose two weeks ago), the inspector from the City, Steve, arrives, and Frank takes him through the house; I head around the house,

checking things out from all angles (note the insulation above the nook's window line)


From all angles, the exterior is just about ready for stucco...





[above is the pipe that guides all the external power/phone/and cable lines in]
(here, Steve says that it might be a good idea to provide power to the power panel itself for a UPS for fibre optic backup [something that would be useless today, but might reap benefits in the future])










[above, note the exposed insulation around the family room window]

The dining room sliding door has come in and has been installed...


But inside is where the real changes are: INSULATION!

and lots of it (in the dining room above, kitchen below ... well, in the kitchen ceiling below)

and in the breakfast nook

and in the great room

and in dad's room

[and the fire sprinkler valve is installed as well... in dad's room... or at least in his wall]


Lisa's tube lights have been installed in the laundry room

and the hall... it's not quite as impressive or "natural" as I had envisioned... they kinda look fluorescent... I hope Lisa likes them (we're hoping they look this way because of today's cloud cover)


Back to the insulation installation... dad's bath...

and the master bedroom

and the master closet (check out that wiring box... cool)

and the master bath...


And that troublesome bedroom door is back, not broken, and installed!


And so I head up the stairs, and the insulation is there as well...

and the family room

even with its ceiling almost complete (is there anywhere they haven't installed insulation? as it turns out, not so much... they're finishing up)

Jack's room is insulated as well...

And the boys' bath...

It's pretty freaking cool, all this work. It's preparation for drywall... according to Frank, that could start as early as this weekend.

We're still waiting for the front door...

And then the doors will be complete, with only the breakfast nook windows to come...

The house is looking pretty cool...

Can't wait to see what it looks like when I get back.

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FURTHER UPDATE:

We cruised by in the dark after taking the boys to the movies. The front door is not yet installed, but there's a HUGE pile of something (sand?) in the driveway. I'm figuring it's for the stucco. It's late and time for bed... tomorrow night I'll be in Chicago dreaming of my family in my new home. We're halfway through our six-month purgatory at SuckSide 3... I'm sure time will crawl in my myopic focus (big picture, Bill, big picture...), but a guy can dream, right?

Good News (potential)

Just got off the phone with Hickox from the City. Some good news potentially...

Two bids:

• $6746
• $6261 (with a potential cost of only $3600 if they can do the non-trench "pull"... but 6261 tops)
  

We go with the second bid. I ask Hickox based on his experience if he thinks the "pull" will fly. He thinks it might, if our soil is more sandy than clay-y... but he said that they wouldn't know until they tried. He initially thought we were too far north to be that sandy, but the fact that the contractor actually floated the idea is promising.

More potential good news. Seems that there's a busted valve in the neighborhood, and they'll need to shut the entire main down to repair it... they could run this job at the same time. And this could potentially happen in the next two weeks.

I'll drop off the $6261 check off on my way to pick up Jack from school.

And we'll see if all of this can live up to its "potential"...

Pics

Been a while since I took some pics, and since I was out getting car maintenance done, I dropped by the house early to take some...

The exterior is tar-papered and netted for stucco...

(it's amazing to see all the scaffolding)



As we move around the north side of the house...

the amount of tar paper lessens...



until we get to the west side...

wall to wall tar paper...


Inside, it's amazing to see the wiring:

here, we see all the wiring coming in through the dining room ceiling from the power panel...

And the wiring is throughout the kitchen

A DOOR!

installed. finally.
(the second door, for the master bedroom, is missing... must be on order... hopefully, it will come in tomorrow with the front door)

The washer hook-up is ready.


And the fire sprinklers are in.

They will be concealed in the ceiling in spring-loaded casings with soldered-on facings. The solder melts at a fairly low temperature, then when the spring is released so is the water... pretty damn cool. This one is in Dad's room...

Here, the master bedroom closet is the staging area for the network cabling before it goes upstairs into the "entertainment hub"... Cable for both satellite, cable TV/Modem, and CAT6... suh-weeeeeeeeeeeeeet!


As I head upstairs, I can see the water heater hook-up piping ready to go...


Windows fill the family room:


Just like the dining room directly below does for the first floor, Jack's room's ceiling carries much of the second floor's electrical wiring from the power panel...


Jack's (and Kyle's) east window(s) is finally in and installed!


The boys' frosted shower window is also installed.


Kyle's (and Jack's) built-in can lights for the built-in desk are ready to go:


As are the supplies in the garage for the drywalling to begin:

(Notice: all the dirt in the garage is gone!)

Insulation...

and drywall

await installation.

And all the trash from this next phase has a newly emptied dumpster (this is number three) to house it:


The house continues to evolve.


These will probably be the last pics for a week... I'm heading out of town again for a conference in Chicago on Saturday... I'll be back a week from today (and while it's possible that I'll take pics to post tomorrow... but I doubt it).

Wonder what it'll look like when I get back...