Progress over the last four months

The Christmas tree is in the addition this year.

The bathroom in the mother-in-law apartment.  Walk-in shower to the right.

The vanity.  All that is missing is the mirror.

The shower.

To provide access from the house to the mother-in-law apartment, we had to demolish the downstairs guest bathroom.  We replaced it with a narrow bathroom next to the hallway to the addition.  It has a pocket door. 

The kitchen is ready to go.  Fully operational.

Spent the last two days...

...working on trying to get the downstairs guest bathroom functional again. Yesterday,it meant pulling out the last vestiges of the old bathroom in order to be able to put up the new wall with the pocket door in it. Today was spent framing out the pocket door wall, and moving the heating/AC vent from the middle of the hallway into the new bathroom. Lots of uncouth language was required to get the new ductwork hooked up.

Here is a picture of the new (about to be) pocket door wall.

And here is the relocated vent.

Only 5 Days Since My Last Post

And what an active 5 days.

On the 18th (Monday) I called in for my sheathing and tie-down inspection, and also thought I would try for the framing inspection.

The sheathing and tie-down inspection were passed on the 19th (Tuesday), and I was given permission to cover up the sheathing and tie-downs. I failed the framing because the inspector wants to wait until all the subcontractor work is complete just in case someone decides to take a shortcut and slice through an important framing member. So final framing will wait until the four-way inspection... framing, rough plumbing, rough electrical, and mechanical.

I called my stucco contractor on Tuesday afternoon to tell him I was ready for stucco. On the morning of the 20th (Wednesday) the stucco guys showed up. They were two of the hardest working people I have ever seen. They told me they would be ready for the weather barrier and stucco lathe inspection by noon on the 21st (Thursday) . So I called Sandy City and scheduled the inspection for Thursday afternoon.

The inspector showed up at about 10:30 Thursday morning.... "he was in the area". He checked out the work being done, and told me that I was working with people who really knew what they were doing, and he passed both inspections.

The stucco guys left about noon on Thursday, and were not here on Friday. This morning they showed up in force... six of them in total, and before three in the afternoon had completed the first layer of stucco.

It is a pleasure to watch people work who know what they are doing, and do it in an efficient and coordinated manner...

So here is how the house looked on the 18th... just before I passed the sheathing

Here are some pictures from the 21st (Thursday)

And then some from today (23rd -- Saturday)

Since the doors and windows are all in and latches and deadbolts are now installed, I was able to move ahead with opening up the entry way from the house to the addition.

This meant the demolition of what remained in the downstairs bathroom (except for the toilet.)

Here is a picture from the house looking into the addition taken on Friday...

And one taken from the addition looking back into the house.

Today I made an attempt to add some privacy back to the bathroom.

Three Week Progress Report

The work being done over the last few weeks does not make for interesting pictures. After finishing the roof, I started to focus on the plumbing. There are two sides to the plumbing; the "gozintas" and the "gozoutas". And you have to start with the "gozoutas", because if you have gozintas without gosoutas, you have a flood in your project.

I started working on the waste side plumbing on the first floor. I rearranged the waste plumbing coming from the master bedroom bath, added a 2" drain for the new laundry room, and added in the toilet and vanity drains from the new guest bathroom. This also required a re-engineering of the vent lines for the new guest room toilet, and vanity.

The silver pipe snaking its way though everything is the exhaust for the gas fireplace in the family room.

Here is a picture of the waste plumbing and venting for the guest room vanity.

The venting pipe continues up, and eventually out through the roof. In this picture the new vanity venting combines with the old stack which now vents the washing machine and the new guest bathroom toilet. The old stack could not be extended straight up since it was directly below the new roof ridge beam, so I had to move it to the west, where it connects up with the vanity vent.

After rebuilding the waste stack on the first floor, I turned my attention to the waste plumbing in the new addition.

Here is the entrance to the crawl space:

... and here, after 4-5 days of work is the waste plumbing for the addition.

This led to the main waste stack which had to be entirely rebuilt to accomodate the contribution from the addition.

May I present the new main waste stack...

In the mean time, the exterior doors arrived. Here is the back patio door. It has not been finally installed since it was delivered with a piece which was intended for 2x4 framing, and we are 2x6. The piece is on order.

Here are a couple pictures of the front door which has been installed.

Because the old active vents were venting into the new attic, I had to leave some sheathing off the attic walls. Today, I pushed the active vents through the roof, and so was able to complete the sheathing. This was done much to the dismay of a family of wasps who hadtaken up residence in the new attic. Here is a picture of the fully sheathed wall.

n the meantime the garden is doing okay given the very late start. I have three plantings of corn coming along. The last planting should come due around the end of September.

... and the tomatoes are coming along nicely, although they are also late.

It has been almost a month!

My apologies for not posting! After the last batch of rain, we finally got all of the roof sheathing and tar paper on. Theoretically drY. Since then the rain has pretty much stopped.

We have made a lot of progress, as one would hope in a months time, and the framing and outside work is almost complete. I will soon have to get a framing inspection, and then we will be ready for the stucco guy.

Getting the big front window in was a bit of a challenge. Thank goodness there were neighbors about who were happy to help.

Raining Again!

And for the next two days

I cannot thank my neighbor, Josh, and his family enough for the help they have given me in trying to get the addition dry. In a normal year, we would not have had to put forth the amount of effort to try and protect the materials from the elements, but this year is an extraordinary one with rain more than 50% of the time.

Josh came home from a trip on Thursday night, and he worked with me for the last two days to try and get the framing done to a point where we can sheath the main floor roof and then put plastic over it. That would still leave the trusses and stick framing of the second story roof... but one thing at a time.

Today we pretty much completed framing the main floor... and need to get sheathing up on the roof. Unfortunately it has started raining, and will do so for the next two days. It is not a gentle rain either. I con't imagine what this will mean for the water in the snow pack, which has not really started to melt yet. I am sure many people will incur a lot more water damage than I will.

Here are a couple of pictures showing the framing work which we completed over the last two days.

Again, thanks to Josh, and also to Erika, and their two children, Victoria and Gage, who have given up time with Josh so he could help me on the project.

Another day!

So after all my engineering of the second story drainage, it was an unmitigated disaster. I was foolish enough to think that all my construction on the second floor would channel the water toward the one available exit point. There was at least one serious flaw which led to an accumulation of a massive amount of water outside of the drainage channel I had prepared. So during a deluge at 3 AM, I was awakened by the sound of infrastructure failing and several tens of gallons of water inundating the second story.

So once again my day started with a squeegee and a towel to try and get the water off the deck... This was at 6 AM. I have deluded myself into thinking that I have repaired the system (still will require manual intervention during a serious storm), and I then proceeded to work on completing the fascia around the front of the addition so we can sheath the roof and get the trusses onto the second story.

Todays pictures show the small amount of work I was able to complete on the fascia. I had to go to Home Depot to get more wood to complete this work. I can fit 5 (maybe 6) 8' 2x6 pieces of wood into the Accord... up through the trunk, right next to the driver.

Not sure what I will do tomorrow (supposed to be a sunny day). Here are some pictures of the fascia work, and a picture of a dry interior.

By the way, the winds came up this afternoon, and I had to spend an hour or so trying to get the plastic into order. Doing so meant that there will be no rain tonight; had I failed to repair the plastic we would be guaranteed a deluge.