Oct 8 - watching concrete harden

Wow.

1) Both our trench in the kitchen and the extension of the step up into the dining room have now been poured.   The little corner in the garage had already been poured the day before.

2) We're closed in.  All the drywall has been done save a couple of small pieces.

3) I put in the stove vent hood exhaust pipe, mostly.  That was awful working up in the attic.  Once it's finalized, I've got to go back up there and hang it with some metal straps -- I've simply duct-taped it as support right now.

4) I wired some receptacles and switches.  That took some forensic electrical work.  The five-bank switch in the kitchen has switches for two lights in the kitchen, the fan and two outside lights.  The electrician had nicely bundled wires together for each switch but I couldn't get the fan to operate.  I opened up the fan to see which color wire was going there and then had to go into the big junction box where all these wires came in and then headed to that switch bank.  That junction box was necessary because we moved the switches when we moved the door to the garage.

Well, as I was checking things, I discovered that for one switch, there were two hot wires.  Hmm.  That won't do anything.  Back at the junction box, I found the wire that would power the fan and then which wire in the switch box would turn that one live, then reconnected things in the junction box properly.   The fan now works.  Actually, once the new island is in place we're going to replace the fan with lights over the island.  We may regret not having a ceiling fan in the kitchen - that will now be the one room without a fan - but c'est la vie.

5) Sandy and Debbie went to Melbourne and finalized the granite selection.  That was the first time that Debbie had been to one of these granite places and she was amazed.  They'd picked their granite from small samples.

6) The plasterer came and sized things up.  He's going to do his thing on Thursday and the tiling will start, in the kitchen, on Friday.

7) Tony et al cut the landing at the top of the non-stairs and installed the header that will support the new stairs.  I don't know Sam's (stair guy) timeline but his work is not the priority at this point, the kitchen is the priority.  Sam's time will come ...

All that's left for Tony to do is some minor drywall work, help with the stair installation (very heavy), remove the loft railing and small wall.  I had hoped that the last bit of messy work was finished this week, and it will be.  We were so close to finishing that yesterday.  Oh well.

We had some scope creep.  I was not a happy camper at the end of the day but that has now subsided.  I don't like scope creep.  Sandy decided that she wanted the door trim replaced.  All the doors.  Kitchen sliders, laundry room, closet, bathroom,  bedroom, dining room sliders, entrance to the upstairs bedroom wing -- I hacked all that off and created more mess.  That took a couple of hours, including cleanup.

I suspect that I just created major scope creep for the plasterer as well -- he won't be happy when he comes on Thursday and sees that his job has just expanded.  Removing the trim has mucked up some walls that he didn't have to touch.  All that silicone didn't come off off the walls willingly.  Hopefully he can still finish up the kitchen so that the tiling can start.  If not ... we're in trouble.

We had some kind of fish done on the little barbie along with rice and asparagus.  It was a fish that we hadn't tried before and neither of us particularly liked it since it was somewhat dry.  There's probably a way of cooking it that doesn't end up that way -- perhaps on the griddle -- but the open grill isn't the way.

Today will be quiet at the house.  I've got to talk to Jeff and Vic but otherwise, no contractors at work.

Judith is coming over to size up the house and see if she's interested in doing the painting and we're riding.  It's the first time that I've ridden with her in a long time.  Perhaps she could Harry Potter theme our walls ?   Perhaps something along the lines of the new Fantasy Land would work better ?    No, Sandy has already picked her two colors -- walls and ceilings -- so this will be quite plain.   I suspect that this might not be up her alley, so to speak, but I wanted to give her an opportunity to look at it.

I was on the phone with Jim Griffin yesterday getting his help with the Randonneurs Ontario year-end reconciliation.  He found the problem with my work after I'd left the house for the day.  Hopefully we're on track there -- I'll look at that this a.m. when I get to the house.

Oh oh -- I just realized that I didn't remove the crown moulding in the dining room.  More hacking.  Rats.

Onward !