Christmas Lights

So normally this time of year I try to get out the festive garland, tree, ornaments, and most importantly the lights on the tree. This year due to our compressed time schedule and imminent baby deadline, Christmas lights have a taken a new turn. My mom coming to visit in 5 days has also made Bryan hurry a little bit more, since the guest bedroom and bath are currently without any power.

Bryan has been working diligently on some of the electrical work in the house. We have as part of the last few projects had the main line to the house upgraded, new 200 amp box, new outlets on the 1st floor, and all new electrical on the 3rd floor. So really a good portion of the work is complete. Just the second floor and the ceiling in the first floor remain as remnants of the old work. This nice pretty yellow wire, is how all the new stuff is supposed to look.

The picture to the right shows some of this old work. For those who haven't experienced the wonders of knob and tube wiring this may seem even stranger, but this is a weird combination. This is actually a junction between the old knob and tube, and conventional, but old, wiring that also existed in the house. We are pretty close to getting all of the old wiring out of the house, but when you do see some of this old stuff, it is still surprising that the lights have actually worked for the last 100 years, and that we haven't burned the place down yet.

So the last couple of weekends have focused on new lights, and new outlets. As with all projects sometimes they take an unexpected turn. This one is no exception. They do create some unexpected results, that can also be kind of funny in a sort of sad way. This next picture falls into this category. It is kind of hard to tell, but this is a look into our old bathroom, which for the last week hasn't had power to the lights. So there is an extension cord from another room with a table lamp on the toilet. I should say it does create a nice ambiance in the room at least. With Bryan's extreme diligence it does seem that this situation will be remedied by Thursday when my mom shows up. While we can deal with bizarre situations in the house, it isn't nice to subject guests to our chaos. I did tell her to bring slippers, and a thick robe, as there is no real way to clean most of the areas under construction, but in theory she won't have to trip over the saws-all and table lamp in the bathroom for Christmas!

Third floor walkthrough video

As an appendix to my "Epilogue" post, I'm attempting to upload a video tour I created this morning. We used some crappy digital recorder that Angie's List gave us for complaining a lot or something. The point is that the lighting is suspect and the volume might be low, so please forgive me.

Next time I'll create one in a Bollywood style or something. The video is like 3 mins, unedited and about 13MB. Enjoy.

Epilogue | Reveal | Pictures

It's kind of weird to type this, but as of last night (December 8th 2008 to be accurate) Christina and I slept in our third floor suite. Not only that, but the rooms are done* and life can move on to the other 3 months of projects waiting for us.

I won't use this post to rehash the months and months of events that have gone int creating our third floor suite**, that's what all of the links are for to the right. But I am going to post some pictures of the final product along with just a couple shots of what it was like back in late April when we started really getting down and dirty with this project. So right before the demo was done we had something like this on the right.

Which was promptly wrapped up to create one big space that had no more plaster walls, no dropped plaster ceilings, and no closet. Like the picture on the left.

So you get the point. These pics are from previous posts, but it's fun to look back at them from time to time to really remember what kind of rabbit hole we really decided to jump down.

I'm posting pictures of the finished spaces below without much commentary. I think over the past posts we've beat that horse so if you want to know what is what then by all means post a comment. Plus Christina LOVES COMMENTS! Again, sorry for the spotty lens...

Over the past 4 months we've had various paid "professionals" come and go along with me finding out that not only can I create software pretty well, but I think I prefer to create things with my hands even more. I have to say that being forced to learn on the fly various skill sets that you didn't know you could muster up was awesome and something that in the end I'm grateful for.

All of that reminds of Ferris Bueller's Day Off and the great exchange between Cameron and the parking garage attendant:
>You guys got nothing to worry about, I'm a professional.
>A professional what?

Of course there's another side to that coin, and that would be that when I took over most of the work, it meant more money in tools, days off of work, material (cause you know you need to learn how to make that mitre cut at least twice) and sanity. We also quickly realized that while Christina's day job as "Senior Designer" means that she's great at thinking up cool looking ideas, someone in the conversation needs to be the practical person saying "yeah, but how to you expect that to work?".

Also, on at least 3 occasions, we really screwed up the order of things which we'll never do again I hope.

A partial list of dont's when doing something like this:

• Don't paint before the hardwoods are in. Just resist. That's why drop cloths were invented, and touching up paint will never happen.
• Don't assume that anyone knows what they are doing. This sounds both cynical and obvious, but whatever. Just because you pay a "professional" to do something doesn't mean it's not a clusterf*$k when they leave. It ALWAYS will be. Check on the work before they "professional" leaves the house, and be straight if it's not up to par. It's your money.
• Don't install plumbing fixtures before you're truly ready. We installed the tub before the window trim was done as well as the baseboards and getting those in was a nightmare.
• Don't freak out if something isn't installing like you might see on TOH or similar tv show. This is the real world, and you have to be crafty A LOT.
• Don't make a trip to the ER part of your project. That sucked.
  

The list of dos are obvious, but the big ones that I'm going to use for every project:

• If you have to hire out and you're blessed (like we are now with our cement guy) to have that ONE contractor that is great and knows people...go with the guys he knows. We've saved a ton of money, time, and aggravation after we started talking to Joe's various trade guys. All of them have been great.
• Use Angie's list or something similar for reference only. They tended to be pricey for what we were wanting, but they were a good baseline for prices on that higher end.
• Get yourself a decent workshop space that you don't care how much mess is created. We just don't have a lot of room being in a rowhouse, but when I did create my shop space it was a lifesaver.
• If you're completely gun shy about doing something yourself, then don't press the issue. It's OK to hire out. Like I was terrified to refinish the floor I laid down, and instead spent $400 on a pro and it was great. The peace of mind was worth the money without a doubt.
• Right tool, for the right job. Period, end of story. If you are needing to do something that requires some special tool, or have to nail in hundreds of feet of trim, rent of buy what you need. Done.

So yeah, that's really it pretty much. In all the process was ridiculous, stressful, and tiring. But I'd do it again any day of the week. The pay off was incredible and in the end we have a space that Christina designed and that is ours.

I couldn't sleep last night at all, but I wasn't sure if it was because of the "moment" or if it was due to our new bedroom feeling foreign and like a hotel room at first. I mean new surroundings, new bed...even new sheets and duvet cover. It was a lot to process.

I'll say that I'm ready for at least one weekend away from house work. But then again, I'm addicted to the stuff and at this point I' don't know what to do with my time that isn't either at the Depot or working on the house. Is there anything else left in life!?!

Now for the disclaimers:
* The tub is going to require a "professional" (great) to get the feet fixed so I can hook it back up to the plumbing. The banister is obviously missing spindles still, but that is part of the first floor/second floor renovation slated to be completed by March 2009**.

** I don't call this a "Master Suite" and I won't. I find that term hearkening back to the plantation slave era and I'm not into that. I don't get how and why that term was ever popularized, but it's a pretty crap term if you ask me.

*** That March 2009 date is hard because well...we're having a baby (girl supposedly) on or near April 6th. Yeah us! I tried to find an ultrasound picture to Photoshop with a little tool belt and hard hat, but what we have look like Rorschach tests instead. What can you do.

We have to thank the following friends for their help with this project: Niko, Jen, Graham, Andrea (and Logan!), Cat, Anna (the roman shades and duvet are awesome!) and everyone else who gave an opinion or encouragement. Seriously, it meant a lot to us and we owe you all big time.

So yeah, I guess now we start the next chapter of our house. That's the wrap up of the ongoing electrical chapter, with a hopeful tale of fresh drywall in 75% of the remaining spaces, and even the introduction of a new character to the plot.

It's about to get VERY interesting around here for sure. Cheers!!!

- Bryan

Friday Night Fun

So you know that you have reach a ripe old age, when it suddenly becomes not a only a good idea, but fun to stay in and put together furniture. This first image is just one of the bags necessary to create an heirloom quality dresser from IKEA. The first dresser took us about an hour and a half, which was a bit discouraging......but we plodded along, and did the second one in half that time. I joked with Bryan that if the economy continues to go south, I would hire him out to all the other poor suckers in the IKEA parking lot, and send him home to put together their furniture for a nominal fee. He was not keen on this idea, and the fact that we still had a bed to get together I decided not to poke the bear too much!

The bed actually isn't from IKEA, and it has 2 drawers for off season storage underneath, which is great. Between the 2 dressers, the bed, and 5 closets, I am going to have to go shopping in order to actually fill all the space. There are worse things I suppose.

(sorry for the spotty camera lens, we're having technical difficulties)

Sorry to the avid readers, but going back to Indy for T-Day did dampen our speed a bit on getting this place together. As you can see from this last picture we did get pretty close last weekend to moving up there. The mirror finally got on the wall, another purchase from June. I think it has been in every room of the house on its journey upstairs. It even went upstairs and then back down in the same day at least 1 time. Now it is in its final home, and we are close to making this room look not so much like a construction site an more like a livable room. We promise to not go so long next time!