It's Moday, January 11th. I haven't blogged for a couple of weeks because we were in the process of
drying out the house. This became more involved than we originally
thought it would be. Sheetrock cannot be installed until the moisture
level is below a certain percentage (17 or 18, I think.) We were above the
amount needed in almost every room. We own three propane heaters, a small
dehumidifier and a box fan, so we put those in the house along with the
rented equipment I told you about, boarded up the doors and turned on the
funace. It really made a difference when we got the heat up. We dumped
gallons and gallons of water out of the dehumidifiers. I must say this
has been the most challenging part of the owner to do list. (If anyone is
interested in exactly what we did, Jeff kept a record of how he went about this process.)
Anyway, when Ben came back one week later, we were good to go. That was January 1st.
Almost forgot. During that week after Christmas the concrete for the
garage floor got poured, and we had the house rough plumbed for a central
vacuum system. With Jeff's asthma, we feel it's a good feature to
include. That needed to be done before the insulation. Also, Jeff
installed the dryer vent.
On Tuesday, the 4rd, the house was insulated. We decided to have some of
the interior walls insulated also. It only cost us an extra $135.00, but
we were able to insulate the master bedroom, the island, and the laundry
room from the great room. You can see some of this in the picture below. Should make for a quieter house. Wednesday the insulation and framing were inspected by the county.
I had read in my Homeowner's Handbook (provided by Adair) that
reinforcements should be installed beside windows if we intended to hang
curtains. So Jeff put pieces of 2x6 at the windows and also a couple
other spots we intend to hang heavy things (like a wall mount TV in the
master bedroom.) I noticed the framers had already done that for things
like towel racks. It will be great not having stuff pull out of the wall
because it is only attached to sheetrock. Not having built a house
before, it is really nice to be able to address these little things as the
house comes together.
The rain has really impacted our ability to start the outside paint, but
we decided to at least tackle the prep work this last week-end. We have a
painter we are working with, but have decided to do some of the work
ourselves in order to save money. So Saturday, with the help of some
family, we began caulking joints in the siding. It is a long process if
you do it thoroughly. We feel like if we do a really good job now we are
less likely to have problems later. Since yesterday (Sunday) was a dry
day, the painter came out and painted two sides and part of the back of
the house with the first coat. It is exactly the color I wanted! The
green was a little startling at first, as I have been looking out my
window at light tan siding for weeks. But when it is all trimmed out, it
is going to be perfect.
The sheetrock was delivered Thursday. The install crew came rolling in
this morning, and as I type I can hear them working away. Music to my
ears. We also have a guy over there continuing to work on the caulking.
We hope to be finished with that by Wednesday. There are so many little
places where water can get in.
Speaking of the Handbook, that has been a wonderful tool. There are
folders to keep all of my important papers in, from the bid process to
loan docs and the like. At the back of the book is a detailed narrative of
the building process, along with directives and helpful tips. At first I
thought, nice, don't need it, whatever. But then I made myself read it,
because . . . I should. I found there was alot of good information in
there. As we got further into this process, I found there was invaluable
information in there. I have come to depend on the "back of the book" to
keep me on track. Great tool.
I
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