We woke up to 3+ inches of snow this morning! And then by afternoon, most of it was gone.
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Let it snow!
Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009We passed!
Monday, December 21st, 2009Another day, another power tool
Saturday, December 19th, 2009We got all the lath on, but ran out of staples to do the final nail-down. (We want it to be really tight to help with the stucco.) So, we had a day or two this week to work on other projects.
Brad worked on the columns for the solar, while I worked on the door for the battery house. I’m in charge of all the finishing.
Brad had suggested several times that I try his orbital sander, but I was reluctant. I did a lot of sanding when I was a kid (thanks, Dad, for the good training), and we always sanded by hand. I didn’t think any kind of power sander could do as well. But after many hours of hand sanding the door and some stubborn spots that I couldn’t quite work out, I decided to try the orbital sander.
Surprise — I liked it! (This is a pattern with Brad and I. He often suggests something for me to try — usually computer related — that I resist for many months and then think it’s great. Examples include a USB drive, IMAP, and Thunderbird.)
One thing I really like about the orbital sander is that you have a lot of control with it. It’s small and light (not unlike the palm nailer) and doesn’t feel like it might get away from you. The door (and table) is looking really good now.
We have an inspection on the lath scheduled for Monday. Keep your fingers crossed. This is the first inspection that I really feel like they’re looking at my work.
What I want for Christmas….
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009A passed inspection to proceed with stucco.
And we’re getting close. The paper and stucco netting are all on now. On Monday, we did something else I’ve been waiting for a long time: fire and ice. This is the last layer of underlayment…this one goes on top of the parapet as a final layer to keep water out. Fire and ice is a very thick vinyl with sticky black stuff on the bottom. We were going to put it on earlier, but it has to go over the sharkskin and house wrap paper. (Layers are put on from the bottom up so that water cascades down, hopefully never entering the house.) Fire and ice is kind of expensive, so Brad suggested we wait until the very end to do it. As it turns out, he was very right because we had to tear off all the paper because of wind. If we’d put fire and ice on before, we’d have had to tear it off and redo it too. Good call, Brad.
Fire and ice (blue and white top stuff) on top of the parapet
We also have most of the reinforcing lath that goes on all corners and around windows and doors. This stuff is a sheet of woven metal that goes on to strengthen places that might need it. It looked like it would be difficult to work with, but in fact, it was quite easy. It’s quite malleable, cutting and shaping easily. And it really looks great on the corners. It will make the rounded corners we’re doing much easier.
(Click to enlarge.)
We ran out of this stuff before we got the whole top of the house done, so it’s off to town to get more. Then, that should be it for lath.
Scaffolding goes mobile
Sunday, December 13th, 2009An outrigger…great solution to needing higher scaffolding, and another reason we love our truck. (And this is actually a lot safer than plans A, B, and C!)
We’re here
Friday, December 11th, 2009Apologies for the dearth of electronic communications this week. On top of all my other hand problems, I slammed my finger (left hand, thankfully) in a car door this week, making typing not so easy.
So the storm that many of you saw blow through California over the weekend hit us just as we had stripped our house almost bare to repaper and prepare for stucco. There were gale force winds that blew off some of the little remaining paper that we thought could be salvaged. The wind was so fierce one night that it kept us both up all night. I honestly thought a big piece of something might come through the window at any moment.
I had to work at schools Tues. and Wed., but by Thurs. we were ready to attack the house again. In two days, we got most of the paper back up and more than half stucco netting up. We should finish this weekend and hopefully be having a lath inspection next week. Yay!
Here’s an update from Brad on the solar stuff.
The first five columns to support the solar panels are poured. I need to put together a test in order to determine how far the back row needs to be from the front row so that we can properly adjust the angle of the solar panels. Once this is done, we will pour the next five columns and install the first six solar panels.
Here is what a dried and peeled column looks like.
December 21st is the solstice and the day I need to measure the shadows in order to properly position our two rows of solar panels. I just realized that I need to measure in the morning, afternoon and evening because the sun is making an arc to the south this time of year.
Finding your passion(s)
Monday, December 7th, 2009[I wrote this last week. Since then, I’ve gotten more interested in my project for work, in part I suppose, because it’s been too cold and windy to do much else. It’s a nice quality, at least, to find enjoyment in whatever I’m stuck doing. :]
I’m a big believer in finding something you really love to spend most of your waking hours on. Too many people hate their jobs, and we spend too many hours at work for that. I’m sure that some think it’s pollyanna-ish, but I think that everyone can find something they love that generates enough money to live on. I’ve been fortunate to do this for all my life. I love my job. I’ve been spending less time on it this year though and have started to think a bit about what I’m going to do after the house project is finished (not that that will be anytime soon…but it’s kind of like when I was in Africa; I was puzzling over how my career would track before I even left).
This morning, I spent awhile working on a project for work (my paying job, that is). It’s been a bit of a frustrating project that I just am not having a ton of fun with. After I finished, I went out to work on the house.
I started by putting up insulation for a couple hours. Working with insulation is not the most fun job in the world. It’s itchy and scratchy. You have to wear a mask that is awful. It requires contorting your body in weird angles to reach ceiling corners. And still, while I was doing it, I thought about how much I love doing construction. I kept thinking, “I wonder if I’d like this as much if I were doing it for someone else’s house?”
I asked Brad. He’s worked construction for years, and obviously knows me pretty well, so I thought he’d have a reasonable answer. He said that he thought I might like it even more. He pointed out that building other people’s houses gives you the chance to learn new things and to do kinds of work that you’d never do on your own house.
Food for thought.
Neither gratifying, nor enjoyable
Saturday, December 5th, 2009Lest I’ve given anyone the impression that the work here is all fun and games, let me tell you about today. It was awful.
The morning started cold but with little wind, so it looked like a good day to prep Tumbleweed for stucco (our current #1 priority). So….we spent the day ripping most of the paper off the house so we could put new paper on. You may remember that I wasn’t too keen on putting the paper on. Well, tearing it off was much worse. Trying to dig all the capped nails out of the walls wasn’t that fun either.
As we worked, it got colder and colder. And the wind came up. Pretty soon, we were getting whipped by the half-removed paper.
Knowing it was difficult work, Brad asked me at some point how I was feeling.
“Frustrated. Cold. In pain. Tired. Cranky. And I NEVER WANTED TO BUILD A HOUSE ANYWAY.”
OK, the last part was just out of frustration. We got through it, but with the wind, we didn’t get to the next stage of putting paper on (just to get back to where we started). Maybe tomorrow.
For now, I’m baking fresh bread and pizza and not thinking about it.
Christmas came early
Friday, December 4th, 2009My life has changed! I have discovered the palm nailer.
It you don’t have one of these, you really must get one. (I’d recommend Porter-Cable. I love their tools.) Here’s how it works:
Barry brought us one when he came to visit last week. When he showed it to me, he had a look on his face like it was something really special. Kind of like he was showing a giant chocolate cake to someone who’d never seen or tasted one before. I was thankful for any new tool (he also brought us a nail gun) but didn’t fully appreciate how great this was.
I’d seen some kind of corner nailer on TV and wanted one. It’s supposed to make nailing into corners easier. It’s a handheld thing that you put a nail in the and then it hammers it in for you. With all the problems I’m having with my hands, I thought it might be worthwhile.
The palm nailer is all that and more. First of all, it’s pneumatic (runs off compressed air), which is essential, because it means it has real power.
It works not only in corners but everywhere. I will use it for almost everything from now on.
The nail gun is great too, but the palm nailer has several advantages to me. First, it’s not remotely dangerous. I can imagine nailing myself with a nail gun (and have heard the story about Doug about a hundred times) but not with the palm nailer. It’s very gentle and innocuous. It’s also a lot lighter than the nail gun, which is especially good when you’re nailing overhead. And of course, it’s super small so you can use it almost anywhere.
For a just a minute or two, I wondered if it was lazy or somehow inauthentic to use a power nailer. Then I thought about accounting. I’m glad I know how to do debits and credits by hand on ledgers. Having actually done that, I better understand the process and how the various accounts work. But would I ever think of running a business without an accounting software package? No.
I think that the nail gun and the palm nailer together will probably save us hundreds of hours on the rest of the building. (Just today, I did some work that I never would have finished in a single day without them.) And the pain and wear and tear on my hands that this will eliminate is incalculable.
Me and my new nail gun
Brrr….
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009On Tuesday night we came home from celebrating Brad’s birthday to see snow on the mountains on both sides of the valley. It has continued to be cold this week….20s at night and 50s during the day.
On Wednesday, we got the roof on the battery house in one day. It was pretty easy after doing the other one. (Things are way easier at 9×12 than 44×27.)
Today, our plans, if the wind cooperated, were to start on re-wrapping the house and doing chicken wire to get ready for the stucco.
There was too much wind though, so we finished the interior of the battery house instead. It’s almost finished now. Excellent.