Lights Please

We actually completed another item on the house recently and I am very excited about it!!  Now, I know already that the BFA (big, fancy architect) is going to hate the fact I defiled his steel beam by hanging pendent lights from it but the basic fact is, I could not see worth a crap on that side of the kitchen with no overhead lighting.  In the winter, when the sun comes in, it's no big deal, except at night.  But in the summer when there is no direct sunlight, I was having trouble.  Yes, my eyes are not what they used to be and I need a little more light.  So, we picked out a nice light fixture with very unobtrusive wiring and Allen did the rest.  The wiring runs along the upper side of the bottom flange of the beam, so it is completely concealed.

I know you can't tell crap from the first photo about what the globes look like, so here is a close up.  Personally, I think it looks really cool.  I had thought about repurposing wine bottles again to make the globes but just wanted something a little nicer and these were not that expensive.  The entire fixture was about $45 maybe.

This is just a view from the other direction and from here the wires the globes hang from basically disappear  because of the dark wall behind them.  Anyway, they add a wonderful light and clarity to the kitchen area. 

Which is better to highlight the glass and slate tile I picked out for the backsplashes and stuff!!  Yay!!  The small sheet tile will be the backsplash area along all the counter tops and behind the stove, up about 2 feet.  The large slate tiles will be from the range hood and up and completely cover the other side of that wall, around the gas fireplace.  Well, with a bit of mosaic thrown in.  I am very anxious to get started on this part but there are a number of things that must come first, such as pouring the actual countertops!

Just a little close-up of the glass and slate.  I really like these and the tan/ brown/ goldish colors will blend well with my kitchen cabinets. 
Now, you all know I always advice people to go to a specialty supplier when buying stuff like this and not assume Lowe's or some other big box place is going to be cheaper.  However, in this case Lowe's was actually the best deal by a long shot.  Still, it doesn't hurt to check the supply houses first.  I had seen these tiles at Lowe's a while back but went to look at a tile supplier in Birmingham just to see.  In fact, they were the same supplier I bought my shower tile from and, at the time, they beat Lowe's price quite well and had a better selection.  Well, sometimes things change I guess.  I really couldn't find anything at the supplier that I liked better than these and they wanted 3 times what Lowe's was asking per square foot.  Literally, 3 times.  Plus, I had a gift card from a while back that was a safety award from my construction days and that got me another $50 off, so....

Unfortunately, I am still working in Birmingham and then have to get back to my pottery for a big special order and some other stuff, so it may be a while before I actually get to start installing this stuff.  Well, and get over a terrible head cold that has left me not feeling like doing anything.  Hopefully it won't be much longer and I can really start getting this kitchen finished.  I think it's gonna look fabulous!

Looking Back...And Ahead

The purple crocus down by the creek have finally awoken to signal the earliest signs of a much anticipated spring.  We still flip-flop between cold, dreary and thunderously rainy days to warm, agonizingly bright sunny days.  Currently, it's one of those bright, sunny ones but with a forecast of snow flurries tonight.  Such is Alabama and all this does wonders for my sinuses and bronchitis, which is still clinging for dear life.
So, in an effort to cheer myself by looking at what all we've accomplished this past year and what I want to get done this coming year, I offer you the standard Blog Year in Review!

In the Garden:
1.  We established a sizable asparagus bed with 1 year old plants.  I'm really looking forward to being able to cut a few stalks this spring.  If it comes up, that is.
2.  I redid my existing strawberry bed with plants more acclimated and bred for our southern climate.  It shows some promise already.
3.  Established a small grove of tea plants.  They are still alive anyway and hopefully will show quite a bit of growth this year.
4.  Planted yet another apple tree to replace the one decimated by moles (or whatever) this past year.

In The House:
1.  As you may see in the photo above, all of the incoming power and cable/ Internet is now underground. Just so happened that the phone company came out the next week to upgrade things for us (no charge) and happily ran new Internet/ phone cable through that dedicated underground conduit.  Now there are NO overhead wires anywhere around the house.
2.  Installed new kitchen cabinets!  Yay!
3.  Installed duct work and electrical for range hood vent and completely closed up the dividing wall in the kitchen.
4.  Painted main kitchen wall and trimmed out all windows.
5.  Started wall covering on west end of kitchen.
6.  We finished the clerestory area of the house completely!!  Way, way overdue.
7.  Also finished all the painting/ siding and miscellaneous on exterior of the house.  Even installed the porch light fixtures.

Chickens/ Land/ Misc.:

1.  Added a bitty coop to the Big Run so batches of young chicks can be more easily separated from grown hens and have more room.
2.  Built a large wood drying and storage shed. 
3.  Established my pottery business to a greater degree by securing 3 more outlets for sales and enlarging my product line/ new glazes etc.
4.  Added to the landscaping by enlarging my daffodil and iris collections.

There may be a few other things that have slipped my mind at the moment but I think that is the majority of it.  Seeing how long this post already is (more stuff done than I thought!) I think I'll do a separate post on what we want to do this year.  Now, if I could just get well enough to work before any more of this year slips away!

Move It

Wow! was it the title to that last post or what?! My hits were through the roof yesterday! Maybe it was my new profile photo? Haha! I don't think so. I think it was due to a new link to this blog. Anyway, I have gotten a fair amount done these past couple of days. They finally picked up the machine yesterday so I don't have that as a distraction anymore. I did use it all I could yesterday though to get a few last minute projects done. I kinda got these photos out of order but I'm not going to try to fix it. I had used the machine to rake the dirt back from the footing on the house and then had to clean it by hand, down to the concrete. This wonderful weather lately has allowed it to dry well and today I put the coat of waterproofing on. And I know some of you may be thinking; oooh, that looks like some kind of nasty petroleum based stuff and you would be right. I hate to use such but there really is not a better product for this situation. Now, once the stuff dries it will become inert and not be absorbed into the soil or anything, plus I am going to put a layer of peel and stick rubber membrane over this, further sealing it from the soil.
Now, a lot of people will tell you that you don't need to use this and that white paint on stuff works fine etc, and there are a lot of people out there with leaky basements too. In all of my experience with construction, and we bury a lot of concrete, this method is the only one that truly works over the long term. And I assure you, I don't want to be digging this footing out again when I'm seventy. It may seem like overkill to some but you do it right the first time, you know. 'Course, if I had really had a brain I would have put a keyway in the footing and inserted the bentonite coils where the wall joins the footing. But I didn't think of that back then.
Now, not much water will actually seep through solid concrete but you would be surprised how much can go through that crack between the wall and footing and through the snap tie holes. If you have concrete block that you are backfilling against you REALLY need good waterproofing. Water seeps right through that stuff. Here I have cleaned the footing and wall as best I could to assure a good seal. I've got to do a little layout and figuring tomorrow to know exactly how far up the wall it will be backfilled. I believe code requires that you stay at least 8 inches down from the bottom of your siding. Then you have to figure the ground sloping away from the house for good drainage.
After I get all of the membrane applied, I will install a French drain down at the footing level and backfill a couple of feet with stone and then cover that with dirt.
I also dug a deep trench for the permanent power line to come into the house. It is deep enough that I can go over it with the footing, without fear of hitting it, if I ever get around to building the other half of the house. And I know you are probably thinking, well, why wasn't this already done? Well, I thought the other half would have started by now and I wanted to place the meter on that side but things change so I'm going to go ahead run permanent as if this is all that there will be. If I do get to build more it won't be much trouble to move the meter if I want to but it won't be mandatory. I got pretty good with that excavator, huh? Pretty darn straight diggin! Dale would be proud of me! I hope to get the conduit in for the line soon and can go ahead and cover this up and pull the wire at my leisure.
This is the biggest of the trees that were cut. I used the excavator to carry the logs out to where I am storing firewood. I can cut it up later. I've still got to clean up some limbs and such.
I also painted some more on the north side of the house and am close to being ready to move the scaffolding down to the other half and be done with that side! Yea!!!! Hopefully, the rain will hold off for another couple of days.


*Cliff Richards

Cover Me

Siding update! Well, I have turned the corner, so to speak, and have run both the north and east sides as far up as I can reach with the current scaffolding. Here, I need to put my flashing above the windows and door before I can go any higher. On the north side I am completely finishing the siding as I go up, painting and all, so that I don't have to rebuild the scaffolding, so it is taking a little longer. Allen came and helped me this weekend so it went some faster. We had a little excitement Saturday though that I could have done without. We were on the north side working and I started noticing a bunch of these little bugs flying everywhere. Not that unusual; but after a time there was a lot more. I walked around to the east side to go in the house and there were hundreds of these little things everywhere and they looked like flying ants. Allen said it appeared that they were coming from the east and then it occurred to the both of us; we were in the midst of a termite colony swarm. I ran in the house and they were coming in under the door and seemingly through cracks in the windows too. If you don't live in the South I will tell you that nothing strikes fear in a homeowners heart down here like the word "termite". Maybe "tornado" but it's about the same. So, we spent the next 2 hours vacuuming termites out of the house and spraying and caulking, anything to get rid of those horrible creatures. No sign of them today.
Someone had asked about how I was running the siding around the windows since I had run the trim first. The siding is just cut out to the profile of the window and trim and then very carefully lifted into place and nailed. This is a piece waiting to be installed.
This is the same piece installed. If you are careful you can get a pretty tight fit. I will caulk these joints and paint and you'll never know the difference.
I have several plugs on the deck and around the house that I had to accommodate. When I was running the circuit, I just drilled a hole in the exterior wall and roughed out about a foot of wire in the approximate area I wanted the plug. I did not set a box yet. When I started running the siding I then could see where each piece was going to hit and could then put the box in the wall making sure that it was going to hit fully within one piece of siding. You don't want it to hit in between two pieces; it makes putting a cover on a royal pain. The siding is nailed every 16" on the studs. When I located the studs I just plumbed a line all the way up (that's the black line on the Tyvek) so that I would know where they were as I was nailing. I am using 4d galvanized nails with a small head for the siding. I am using 8d galvanized casing nails (no head) for the trim. You have to be careful with galvanized nails. I think that it is easier for your hammer to slip off the nail as you are driving it and hit the board. It's bad because if it slips off and you hit your nice, (expensive) cypress trim and leave a pecker mark, it will cause you to talk very ugly for a few minutes, so be aware of this.
Just for the record so that everyone does not think that I am a complete moron, I wanted to make a note of something. Pablo left a comment on the last post saying I should write a novel because I had a good theme in that post. I asked what that theme was; I wasn't sure. Well, I know what the main theme of the post was but I have noticed that a lot of the comments I get are not about what the main topic was, since I tend to ramble at the end of a post, such as now. That post had several ideas in it so Pablo could have, theoretically, been speaking of one of the others. Ha! I'm still dense and it takes me a while sometimes to think about things.


*Bruce Springsteen

Family

Well, I hope everybody out there had a great Thanksgiving holiday and got some rest maybe. I actually did nothing but eat on Thanksgiving day. No work. I tried to relax....really. On Saturday we had a big surprise when my sister just showed up for a visit and brought her 2 kids. That's Katie and Hunter. It has been some time since any of the family came to see the house. None of them live very close; my sister and her family is about 45 minutes away. My sister, Rosemary, was recently named "Occupational Therapist Of The Year" with her company! I am hoping that they will all be able to come to my house this Christmas for breakfast at least. Years ago when our aunt Corinne was alive, she would all have us to her place for breakfast on Christmas Eve and it was very enjoyable. I am hoping to revive that tradition. I told Katie also that when I move into the house we could have a big sleep over with all the kids (my brother's children too) and stay up watch movies and eat tons of junk food. Katie is very smart and left handed like me so she is a good kid. All my nieces and nephew are great kids though.
We got a good bit done on the house over the holiday. I had 4 days off from work so that has been nice. We installed the sleeve for the gas line and got that covered back up. That is what Allen is doing here with Oliver before he ripped his box blade in half while trying to smooth out a new part of the driveway. I finished building the wall between the kitchen and living room and installed the heater there. It is just waiting on the installation of the gas tank and lines. We installed the shower fixtures and connected the water heater so I now have running hot water! It is sooo glorious! Spring water is extremely cold. Of course, it is probably costing me a small fortune to heat that spring water in that electric water heater. I will be very happy when I have my solar water system up and running but that will be put off until summer at least. I ordered a new sediment filter and it is on it's way. I finally chose a good color for the living room and painted the high gable wall that required the scaffolding to reach. I need to run a little trim there and touch up the paint this week and I can get that scaffold out of the house. We ran the circuits in the new kitchen wall for plugs etc. but I need to get some more Romex so we can make the home run. The ceiling fans are still not operating correctly and the water is still slightly muddy. The wasp population is down considerably but they are still coming in from somewhere. I can't figure that one out. I hope to get the gas tank delivered this week and have it hooked up by the end of next weekend. It really looks like I might move in by Christmas. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Cool, Clear Water

I do not think I can quite express my overwhelming joy and glee at what you are now seeing. That beautiful, clear water is freely flowing from my garden hose whenever I turn the knob! True, it's not flowing in the house yet, but like the monkey said when he got his tail caught in the door, it won't be long now. Mostly due to Allen's great efforts, we finally relocated the pump and tank and got everything wired and hooked up. The pump house itself is not finished but is providing enough shelter for the equipment for now.

We had to run about 220 feet of #8 wire in conduit to this new location. We are using a 1hp shallow well pump which draws 7 or 8 amps running but more when it initially starts up. I found several different recommendations for wire size on this due to length of the pull etc. but #12 seemed to be the most popular size. I did want to go one size up from that because this allows for greater energy efficiency. Just like water flows freer through a larger pipe, electricity flows easier through larger wire. I read a couple of studies on how much cheaper it is to run an appliance or whatever if you go one size bigger on the wire. On average, it was about $30-$40 a year savings, which may not seem like that much but to me, that adds up. Actually, the #8 is 2 sizes bigger but Allen insisted and we worked out a deal where he gets my leftover #12 wire (which I had procured at an earlier date for free), which will be a lot, in exchange for this wire here. The electrical box is an old leftover off a job, the rafters are 80 year old heart pine out of an old building downtown and the roof decking is plyform from way back when we poured the first foundation wall for the house. We did buy the PT 2x4's for the framing.

Here you can see the configuration of the pump and tank and how that is all hooked up. There will be a real floor in the house at some point. It did not take anywhere near the effort to prime the system this time. Of course, the water line was still holding water from our first efforts but it was much easier to get going and you can hear that it just runs better and sounds better. There is only one 90 degree turn in the pipe on the suction side.

Here you can see that, in order to keep the water lines as even and in line as possible, the equipment was located at different elevations. I was pleased to see the concrete walls came out as well as they did. I was afraid that with such tight (4") forms and no vibrator, we were going to have a bunch of honeycomb in the walls but we didn't. I bumped them really good but gently with a sledgehammer the whole time we were pouring. If you look close you can see the little PT blocks we embedded in the top of the walls for the framing to fasten to. That seemed to work well. Pulling wire that far was really a pain. We ran a strong string through the conduit as we were gluing it together but when we tried to pull all three wires through, the string broke. So, we pulled everything back out and sucked the string back through with a vacuum. We then pulled just the ground wire through (we had double length of it) and used it to pull the 2 hot wires and another length of ground wire. That worked pretty good but you still need one person at each end pushing and pulling.

So now I can water my garden just standing there instead of hauling water in buckets up from the creek. I watered everything I could reach today, even myself some. That spring water is COLD though! After about an hour of running water and making sure the pump and tank were going to work properly, I checked the spring level. It had dropped about 12-14 inches, which did cause me some concern. I have not seen it drop that much that fast. Anyway, I turned the water off and left for about 2 hours and when I came back the spring had completely recovered to it's previous level.

What's Going On

I have started installing the plugs where we have hung Sheetrock just to have some more places to plug in tools and stuff. I wanted to show this because Allen says this is the commercial way of wiring plugs, not the way most residential plugs are done. I don't know much about electrical work but he has been teaching me some and how to do plumbing also. Anyway, he wires these little pigtails (what I am pointing to) at each plug and switch so that if the plug or switch is defective, it does not kill the whole circuit. This way the plug is sorta on it's own little driveway off the main road instead of a junction in the main road. I think I am explaining this correctly but if not please let me know. These are all 15 amp plugs in the bedroom and living room areas but in the kitchen and bath, I am using 20 amp plugs. They don't cost much more and just gives you a little extra coverage.

We finally finished hanging the clerestory wall and Allen has mudded it completely also. It will be my job to sand and prime it. We were trying to get this done before we took all the pick boards down etc. and not have to put that stuff back up again. I am going to set up a rolling scaffold in the living room now to finish this stuff because we need to ladders and pick board outside. We have hung more Sheetrock but I'll show that later.

I finally got my slate floor laid out the way I want it for the bathroom. This is the standard pattern but I didn't have ANY extra to try to do any kind of an unusual pattern. In fact, all those 6x6 holes in the pattern are going to have to be filled in with some other type of tile but I thought that would look cool. I want to have the Sheetrock in the bath finished before I put the floor down but I had to know what kind of tile shortage I was facing. I do have a little extra that you can see in the background but that will have to be used to do the cuts around the edges.

We are actually going on a little vacation to the beach this Wednesday so I may not post again until next week but I wil try to get one more up before we leave.

Blinded By The Light

We got almost all the lighting wired for the living room/kitchen area. This is the lighting plan that the BFA came up with for me and I think it is SO cool. Due somewhat to the fact that the ceilings are so high and vaulted etc. he decided to put all of the lighting on the walls. The fixtures start approximately 2' out of the corners and then you have one every 4 feet and go all the way around the room. On the North and South walls these line up with every other rafter; this photo shows that. Now, they are wired in equal sections so that you can turn on part of them instead of just everone of them coming on at one time. If I want just the ones over the kitchen sink on, I can turn just those on or opposite sections in the living room etc. I think you probably get the idea. I know at first glance some of you are probably thinking that there is nothing green about this as they probably burn alot of electricity but it would be rare for me to actually turn them all on plus they will use about 40-60 watt bulbs and now they have those cool swirly ones that hardly use any power. Now, the BFA wants me to use plain, porcelain socket type fixture (very economical) but this would require using special light bulbs since they would be exposed and you don't want them glaring at you. I'm not very disposed to having to go someplace special to find some special light bulb that they are going to charge you some special price for. So.. I'm trying to find a very simple, affordable fixture ( I need 30).
Plus, with a porcelain fixture etc., the bulb sticks out straight and I just don't like that or the color blah, blah, blah so anyway, I am trying to come up with something maybe I could make. I'll keep you informed. The BFA is aggravated at me for this but he is usually aggravated at me about something so it's all fine. I am going to keep it simple though which I think is the main idea. These pictures really don't do it justice but of course, there is no drywall up or anything so it is sort of hard to imagine. We have some sockets on the boxes now just to be able to have light and the bulbs in them are 100 watt so they are much brighter than what I think they will be later.
This is just a silly shot of the bedroom ceiling with the light on. I'm still fascinated with the fact that you can go in the house and flip lights on. Oh!! My windows came in this morning so we will be installing those soon. YES! No more wind and rain blowing in! We have hung all the ceilings that get drywall and have hung the Durock in the shower and insulated some exterior walls. That means that I now have an attic too! Which needs insulating. I feel like I will be working the rest of my life on this house and I know in ways I will, but I will be glad to see even a glimpse of the light at the end of the tunnel.

Finally!

I have been so bad about posting lately or not posting I should say. What's been going on lately just has not seemed that interesting so I haven't been excited about putting much up. I mean, it's very exciting to me but I think would not be that thrilling to other people. Anyway, we got the power actually ran to the house!! After all this riggamaroll (?) about finding an 18' pole for our temporary, Allen came to me the other day and said he thought that the pole he had all this time was 18'. He thought previously it was 16' but didn't check it. I know everyone out there has felt that desire (that I felt then) to choke the crap out of someone at some time in their life. But, it was okay. We now have plenty of 18' pressure treated timbers. Should we ever need one again.
And when you put all those wires together, you get this!! Yea!! I couldn't help but have my feelings of joy dampened just a little by what we had to pay for 200 amp service wire though. All wiring has gone up tremendously lately. They tell me it's China's fault. Concrete has skyrocketed too. I finally got quotes from 2 different places on my windows too. Another sobering reality. I really wish I could have salvaged some windows from somewhere but that just didn't happen so they are going to be one of my bigger expenses. But I really can't complain because of all of the stuff I have gotten for free. And once again, Lowe's and Home Depot have been beaten out by the little local building supply. Do not ever assume, as alot of people do, that those big stores are the best deal. A building supply in a nearby town beat Lowe's quote by a considerable amount and I just can't see how that is possible IF Lowe's was really trying to give me the best price. Anyway, I'll try to post more soon.

Hey, Hey!

Lookie!!!! We got power! Well, sort of. This is as far as it goes right now; it's not actually attached to the house yet. The power company ran their poles etc. and we set our pole Thanksgiving morning or Allen did and I chopped a bit of firewood for Mama. We actually took the rest of the day off. Allen got the pole ready last night with the meter and breaker box and now I just have to call and get the power company to come back out and connect us. We should have had our pole set before they left but we had a little trouble finding an 18 ft. pressure treated pole. Ended up having to order one from the lumber company. Our temporary pole we set is about 15 feet from this one and then we will run underground to the house which is about 100 ft.
I would like to have run underground from this pole which is the second one from the house but I estimate it would have been a minimum of about $700.00. Maybe later. We also got a fair amount of this brush cleared up and burned. The weather was beautiful over the holiday weekend.
I didn't get to set any windows like I hoped. I went to see about buying them and they don't keep the ones I want in stock ( big suprise). All they keep in stock are vinyl windows and I don't want those so I will have to order mine and it will take about 3 weeks to get them. I should have investigated this more beforehand. So we put in the blocking that goes between the rafters that the exterior siding and the interior sheetrock or whatever will fasten to. If your rafters don't show you don't have to do this but since I wanted to make my life more difficult whenever possible.........I was suprised to see how baggy my pants look in this photo; looks like a family of raccoons just moved out. I have lost about 15 lbs. since we started building the house. It can be kinda stressful to do everything yourself and I have gotten sick a couple of times. It shows more than I thought.
This is a close up of the blocking that I was talking about. I dreaded doing it but it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be and now when the windows and doors are plugged in the house will be pretty much weather tight. This gave us a chance to use up alot of little bitty scrap pieces of 2x4 and plywood that we had been saving.
Since the weather was so nice, we worked after dark a little by lantern light. Allen thought he would get a little creative with the camera. I thought the photo was pretty cool! What is shadow and what is steel??!! Well, that's obvious, but it's still neat that the beam kinda looks like it could be shadows cast by something else. Or that's the way I see it. What do you see?

Working Too Hard

Blogger has gotten me screwed up with the photos here. I started on the second one but had to reload and they are not in the correct order. Anyway, you can get the idea. The Power Company cometh. This is actually on Fred's land coming down to where it connects to us. I hate that so much forest has been cut. Some of the trees were so pretty. I'm in a grumpy mood because of it too and it's my own fault! I asked the power company to come in! Ugh!
They sent their tree cutting subcontractor out to clear the way before they run my lines. I just hate the way they do this but I guess I don't have much choice. At least we convinced them to come in the back way sort of and not start in the front down the driveway. That is a 30 foot wide trail they cut and will have to stay cleared. On the right in the photo is one of the power company's pole markers with the pink flagging on it. This is the pole that will be closest to the house. When the rest of my house is built I will have the power run underground from this pole to the house but right now it's not really in the best place for that. We have kind of gone a little backwards with this part because the power service should really enter the house in the other section but I did not want that section built first due to the fact it is mainly bedrooms. Make sense? It's much easier when you can build your whole house at once but I guess I'm doing the best I can.

Things have not changed a whole lot lately. Stuff has been done but it's in that phase now where most of the work is inside. We have set the main breaker panel inside and done alot of the electrical work and we finished the Tyvek wrap as you can see here. Alot of time has been spent building scaffolding or moving scaffolding etc. But you've got to do it. Some we are going to leave up for awhile 'cause I'll need it again soon for painting and siding etc. I get fairly discouraged sometimes at the rate of progress on the house but there is only so much you can do I guess. We both work 40+ each on regular construction jobs and then both have a 50 minute commute one way. Then we usually have a couple of side projects going on sometimes. Well, I do; Allen has about quit doing side work but I need the money to finance the house. And I sometimes have a project that fufills my half of a barter deal I worked out. Then we have all the regular chores that go with running a house hold like grocery shopping, washing clothes, paying bills etc. and the paper work that goes with running a business if you are self employed. I couldn't imagine if I had kids to go along with all this. We actually went out to a gallery opening on Friday! Haven't been out in a long time. This weekend we did not get alot done. It was cold and gloomy and we sat by a bonfire alot. We did frame a covered walkway section. I hope to set windows over the long Thanksgiving weekend.

Wire In The Hole!

We are waiting on the metal roof to be ordered so we decided to work on some interior stuff this weekend. I tried to think of everywhere I could possibly imagine wanting an electrical plug. That is harder than it seems. I think we did pretty good though so we set a bunch of plug and switch boxes and started running wire to them and making circuits. This is just all standard stuff right now; heavy duty stuff will be later such as my kiln, the washer etc. I keep wondering if I have forgotten something though. Do any of you have any kind of unusually placed plugs or switches that you have found to be indispensable? Maybe something people would not normally think of? I have put several in the pantry for dustvac, etc.
We also framed in this gable end and sheathed the attic side. This side (the living room side) will be covered in a very nice plywood (maple or something) instead of sheetrock and stained different colors. I know this is going to be hard to imagine but I'll try to explain the best I can. We will use some really nice looking fasteners to attach the plywood (so its ok if they show) and each sheet of plywood will maintain its borders so we will not try to patch them all together, like you would sheetrock. It will be a little industrial looking I think. Then each sheet will be stained a different color. Kind of muted, natural blues, greens, reds etc. Then there will be a really cool shelving system overlaid on this made of squares and rectangles of various sizes and these will hold my ceramic and sculpture collection. This was the BFA's idea and I think it's going to look great. I've got to figure out lighting for it now though!




I can barely stand to type looking at this photos 'cause these things give me the willies so! I guess the cool weather is causing many critters to look for warmer places and we found several of these nasty, hideous creatures in the house. Most of you know these are camel crickets but I prefer to call them spawn of the devil. There are not many things in this world that will make me scream like a sissy but these are one of them. I think this one was about the size of my hand but I smashed him before it could go for my throat which they will do, you know!