Wednesday, July 18, 2012

So close and so not

The house remodel process has been a series of two steps forward, one step back or one forward and two back, really. I arrived at the house last Monday to meet Ruben the floor guy. He and his crew were going to repair all the Dorothea Lange holes in the floor and patch where the floor furnace used to be.

They were about 30 minutes into the work when Ruben asked about electricity to plug in all the equipment they needed to sand the floors. I explained that we had one outlet that is outside connected to the rickety old electric boxes.
He would need two outlets and lots of volts he explained in technical terms, that sort of went in one ear and out the other. I just knew that we didn't have enough. Then he asked about AC. Well, we currently have the ducts and this...
the spot for the AC condenser that will be installed after drywall. 

If Ruben were to install the floor without AC, we run the risk of the floor "cupping" once we turn the AC on and the floor be ruined. That's a risk we can't afford to take. So the guys worked on repairing the floor and will come back post-AC install. 

In the end, we did have a success that day. Our new electric mast and boxes were installed on the house.  Electricity! Well, not really. We still have the one outlet and all the plugs and lights will be installed after drywall. (Can't wait for drywall!) 

At the end of the week new windows were installed. All the windows except for the front bedroom. Because, you see, if we were to replace those windows they would not meet the egress law which requires a minimum width, height and square footage opening. I'd met with the inspector the day prior and he made it clear that this was a necessity if we replaced the windows. So, I went to the permit office for the third time this week and altered our building permit to read: install replacement windows in house except for front bedroom. 

Our Saturday workday was very productive. Our friend Jonathan and I cleaned and oiled the wooden walls while John and Carpenter Rick build a mini-shiplap wall in the back room. It's our effort to tie in the wooden walls in the front three rooms with the mostly all-drywall room in the back. Oooh la la - continuity. 

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