Summer Work

Well, once again it has been way too long since I updated the blog.  We have been quite busy with the house.  We got our framing inspection passed and after a couple of tries, we got the electrical inspection passed as well.   We decided to add extra closets to our original plan.   The sheetrock work has been done now and some of the electrical work has been added.  We won't add all of the lights, etc. until all of the taping, mudding and painting has been done.  Just a week ago, we installed the upstairs toilet and a temporary sink.   Whitney is VERY HAPPY about it.  We will soon finish the sheetrock work and start installing the tile for the shower.

April & May Work

It's very late so this will be very short and sweet. The latest slide show is the work Jon and I have completed the last couple of months. It includes a lot of framing and some side projects as well.
Enjoy!

Plumbing

Once again it has been way too long since I added anything to this blog. Luckily, we have not been idle and there is much to talk about. We have recently finished and passed our inspection on what I refer to as the "Holy Grail" of house remodeling... Plumbing. Plumbing...hmm...an odd choice maybe. However, I understand and can whole heartily endorse the cost of a plumber. Personally, I think it has been the most challenging and at sometimes the dirtiest job we have had to do. At the end of the installation, we replaced all of the plumbing on the west end of the house; drain pipes and supply pipes. We used copper for all of the supply lines. To quote a favorite movie "Copper...it cost's money because it saves money". I hope this is true. Although we replaced our plumbing in Austin with the new fandangled plastic piping, we had second thoughts about doing it for this house. For the DWV piping, we used ABS. If I had unlimited resources, I would have had someone else do it and used cast iron. ABS is pretty easy to work with, but it is noisy as hell. New photos have been added to the blog to show some of the work.

Structure Work Finished

The crew at the Hill House recently finished the structure work for the new bathroom. To meet the new codes for a bathroom (40#'s per sq ft), we had to add four new beams to the west side of the house. We added new glu-lam beams (4x10) to the upstairs "knee" wall and then ran 4x4 posts down to the basement. These beams take the load of the roof off of the second story floor. Then we added two solid 4x10 beams under the 1st floor bathroom walls. These new beams turn the existing first floor bathroom walls into load bearing walls which will support the second floor bathroom. We couldn't have done the work without Jon's friend, Damian. For the low cost of fajitas and beer, he spent the afternoon with us helping us to place all of the beams. There aren't as many photos as I would have liked. With only the three of us, it made picture taking difficult. For the glu-lams which went into the second floor, we had to lift them on to the roof and bring them through the middle skylight. All and all, a very successful event. See pictures under Structure Work Finished.