Living Room Prep (1/30/14)

We passed our electrical inspection for the living room, downstairs bathroom, Jonah's new room, and the storage room.  Next step is a framing inspection.  In order to get a framing inspection Mike has to run some water lines in the downstairs bathroom and for the wet bar in the dining room.  He also has to cut in some holes where duct work will go and frame the wall behind the tub in the downstairs bathroom.  We would then finalize our insulation and get that inspected, and then be able to sheetrock.  This all will take some time and doesn't give me anything to do in the meantime; so we decided to tackle the living room first and move on from there.  We've been living with UGLY insulation walls for quite some time so I'm pretty excited about getting sheetrock up!!  Mike called the city and asked if we really needed our framing inspected now that the electrical has been inspected since they have seen it a few times, they said that we can go ahead and sheetrock!  Yay!!!  This skips 2 inspections which means we can plug right along!

I got the insulation stapled to the wall.  We moved Kate out of the future office and into the back bedroom which will be our master bedroom.  Her and Evan kind of share a room at the moment, there is a door (or 2) but you have to go through Evan's room to get to hers.   These kids are so patient with us! :)  We took down the wall of our old bedroom opening up the office and we moved the desk into the new office.  

Ready to staple insulation to the walls!

Bringing down the wall!  Old master bedroom wall

Helpers!  Inside old master bedroom wall

Sheetrock is gone

Wall is open to office now

New space for desk in new office

Desk is moved out, feels like a fire place now!

Electrical Finished (1/29/14)

Today Mike finished the electrical!  The recessed lights we just put in the living room now work.  We are ready for our electrical inspection for the living room, downstairs bathroom, laundry room, storage room, and Jonah's new bedroom.

Living Room Recessed Lights in (1/28/14)

Tonight we put in the recessed lights in the living room and got them wired up.  Mike still needs to wire up the switches and wire the lights to the electrical panel, and then we should be ready for an electrical inspection.

Wiring up the lights!

This is when freakishly tall does not come in handy :)

Look at all the hanging lights!

Finished

Downstairs Wiring Finished (1/27/14)

Tonight we finished the wiring downstairs.  We now have working lights in the bathroom, laundry room, Jonah's new room, and an outlet to put in a light in the storage room.  We are so close to an electrical inspection for all those rooms, we just need to put in the recessed lights in the living room upstairs.  Then we can put up a whole ton of sheetrock......I can't even wait!

Living Room Electrical (1/23/14)

Tonight we worked on the electrical in the living room.  We ran all the wires to the outlets and switches and got them wired up.  There is just one more wire that needs to go from the light switch by the front door, up through the attic, and down to the switch by the staircase.  Mike wasn't jumping at going up in the attic so he'll do that one another night.

Living Room Ceiling Patching (1/22/14)

So I'm sitting on the couch and notice it's a little chilly in the room and look up to see daylight streaming in up by the ceiling....and then the lovely insulation on the wall started to blow in the breeze!  Ugh!  Mike took out one of the old boards that had framed in the closet that was previously there and didn't get to patching it up yet.  

Turns out once he took down the sheetrock on the ceiling in that spot there was no insulation in that corner.  So he put up a lot more insulation and a new piece of sheetrock.

Fireplace Framing (1/21/14)

Today I wired up the recessed lights and outlets in the new bathroom downstairs.

Mike cut out the old hard wood floor and framed up the spot for the fireplace.  Feels like something now!

Jonah helped put all the hardwood floor pieces in the trash can

Downstairs Bathroom Electrical (1/20/14)

Today Mike put in the recessed lights in the new downstairs bathroom.  He hung the boxes for the outlets and light switches and ran wire to them all.

Outside Lights (1/19/14)

Today Mike put up the lights next to the back sliding door.

Downstairs Concrete finished (1/17/14 - 1/18/14)

Mike finished pouring all the trenches downstairs with concrete today!  

Starting the Downstairs Concrete (1/16/14)

Today Mike picked up the concrete bag mix from Menards on 2 separate trips.  He hauled it all downstairs, we calculated that getting it from Menards into the Suburban and then hauling it downstairs, Mike lifted 7600 lbs!!!!  He's got some sore muscles!!  Once he gets all poured into the floor that # will be doubled!  Holy workout!!

After getting all the concrete hauled down, Mike was able to start some concrete mixing and pouring!  There wasn't much I could help with besides getting the water to mix it up.

The kids were really excited to see the pouring so they got to stay up extra late and watch!  They were some pretty happy kids!

56 bags of concrete!

Concrete mixing...Mike only got his finger caught in the gear once - good thing he had gloves on but it still got munched!

Happy kids!

Pouring the concrete around the toilet

Water girl

Tub & toilet holes filled

Kitchen sink run done

Under bathroom vanity done

Doesn't Everyone have a cement mixer in their LIVING ROOM??? (1/15/14)

We need to fill in the trenches downstairs with concrete now that the plumbing is done.  Mike checked into renting a cement mixer (because we have way too much to mix it my hand - he calculated we will need 53 of the 60 lb. bags of concrete!).  He figured it would be easier and probably the same cost to just buy one and then sell it when we are done using it, that way we don't have to hurry and finish within a certain time frame that the mixer needs to be returned.  So he picked one up and put it together in the LIVING ROOM of course....cause where else would you put together a cement mixer??

Now we are all set to start pouring tomorrow night!

Trenches Filled! (1/14/14)

Today we had our inspection for the plumbing downstairs.  There was one fitting that the inspector said we needed to replace with another.  Mike checked Menards, Home Depot, & Ace and didn't find the fitting; after checking with his plumber friend it turned out this fitting is not state code. Mike called the inspector back who is going to check into it but said we can leave it how we have it - yay!  

We had to put in a sump basin to pump the plumbing in the back addition because that plumbing ended up too low when it was put in.  Mike didn't have the basin in yet for the inspection so the inspector said he needed to come back to check it out before we pour the concrete.  Inspection appointments are pretty easy to get, but it's annoying that we can't just keep moving along at our pace.  When Mike talked to the inspector about the fitting he couldn't find they also talked about the basin; for whatever reason the inspector said we could just take pics of it and didn't need it inspected - yay!  

Mike got the basin put in and the plumbing run to it.  We filled the trenches back in so now they are ready for concrete - yay!  We also got the room cleaned up that the dirt was piled in, we are down to a kiddie pool of dirt and some buckets!  Feels good not to have a big mound of dirt downstairs anymore!

Trench filled going into new bathroom

Trench filled

Sump basin

Sand pile cleaned up!

Old Bathroom Downstairs Demo (1/13/14)

Tonight we took out the old bathroom downstairs!  It's so weird how we were just using it like 2 days ago and now it's completely gone!  I like demo, it's fun to get rid of the old and see the new taking shape!

Getting started, toilet & vanity are gone

This is the wall on the other side of the bathroom that is now gone

My helper!

HAHAHAHA!!!  This was on one of the boards when we pulled off the sheetrock!

There was concrete under the shower, turned out to be some sort of plaster that broke apart really easy

Bathroom is gone!  View from new bathroom

Another view from new bathroom

View from in front of Jonah's door

View from new addition

View from other side of steps looking at Jonah's door

Dining Room Primed & Plumbing Pressurized!

Today I finished priming the dining room.

Mike pressurized the new plumbing downstairs AND there were no leaks!!!  YAY!!!  Sometimes things can go right :)  He hooked up the plumbing to the main line which meant we couldn't flush toilets or let any water down any drains for awhile, it went quick but now we are down to one bathroom until we get going on the new bathroom downstairs.  He also finished the run to the new kitchen sink and cut out a bunch of the old plumbing. We started doing a little tear out of the old bathroom downstairs, didn't get too far yet.