I'm back! Alive and well, and as sane as I ever am. :D

The house remodel pretty much ate my brain the last couple months. Phase one, the addition, is finished. I'm sitting and typing this in my new office, which is still a novel feeling for me, not to be sitting at the kitchen table with the computer gear taking up most of the floor space.

Next phase will be to get the carpet replaced in the living room, the kitchen floor replaced, and stuff moved around to free up the master bedroom for my mom. We hope to finish combining households this year.

We spent a quiet Christmas together, around heavy snowstorms and "weather". We were hoping to be joined by my sister and her family, but the roads kept closing and the passes over the mountains were full of avalanches, so they stayed home and stayed safe. New Years we spent with friends, watching the Dark Knight movie, eating cookies, drinking coffee, and chatting till midnight. We're such a wild bunch. :D

I hope everyone has a wonderful, healthy, and safe 2009.

Oh my goodness, I actually have something up there that looks like a roof! This was the proof of my conceptual design -- that I would end up with a nice little peak over my old roofline and that it would look decent. Even though it isn't finished with shingles and siding, I think it looks good.



The pantry side of the addition, showing how the roofline forms a T. with the old roofline. When I showed one of my local friends a photo, she said "you're building a new house onto your old one!" I suppose that's a fairly close description, although there are houses in the neighborhood where people really did build a two-story home behind the old one and connected the two together to give their family more room.



The backside of the house, the pantry and entrances on the right, the very large picture window into the family room is in the middle, and on the right is the window looking into my office.



This is the office corner, the smaller window closest to the house looks into the new bathroom.

They put up the trusses today and we had a terrible windstorm right afterward -- it figures. Mother nature is stress-testing everything. The interior of the addition was a malestrom of dirt, pink insulation flocking, dust, lawn debris, bits of tarpaper... ugh! I've got a sand dune in my scalp!


Look, Mom! A roof line!

Why was I inside the interior of the addition in such terrible conditions? The builders had put a nice heavy piece of plastic over the area where the hot water heater was nestled, but in high winds it tends to tear loose and make a lot of noise as it flaps against a wall of the kitchen. So I sallied forth with duct tape and scissors to tack it all down again. I'm debating washing my hair before I go to bed since bits of gravel and dirt fall out of my hair when I shake it. 0__o

Mom is having the interior of her house repainted this month, and I went over this evening to bring dinner, and help her move stuff out of the first areas that are going to get painted. When I got home, the wind storm was pretty much over, and the new trusses were still standing. Hooray for modern construction! One of the builders was swinging by to check on it as I left the house; I really appreciate their care and professionalism.



A view straight up through the middle of the house, showing the attic trusses in place.



The front of the addition-- well, actually it's the back of the house --notice the big prop running up to the ridge line. The front truss was tied into the frame as well, but they put in the prop as extra insurance, and I'm glad they did.

I took Saki to the vet today to get his teeth cleaned, and rescued him on the way home from work. Like his brother, he had a little bit of that reabsorbtive disease and they had to extract one of his pre-molars. He also had a little cyst in his mouth which they removed, but his teeth were in better shape than his brother's. Hopefully this will help to keep him healthy and sassy for many years to come.

They finished switching over the electrical system today. At about quarter till 8 the contractor's electricians showed up, followed shortly thereafter by the city Public Works electricians.

This is what the electric meter, and assorted power cables looked like before they started.



Our electrician is an artist -- he put a little doodle on the cardboard covering the place where the electrical meter would go. :D

At eight o'clock they took down the main power and commenced switching everything over to the new system. I left for work, and mom dropped by at 9:30 to see how everything was going. The day turned out to be incredibly hot with a high at or near 100°. The electrician told me yesterday the power would only be down for an hour or two, max, but I was a little worried if it took longer than that the house might start getting uncomfortably warm for the cats. I needn't have worried. They had almost all the power to the main house restored by the time mom showed up. They had the important stuff like the air conditioner and the refrigerator running, and by the time I got home at the end of the day all power in the older part of the house was functional.



This is what it looked like when I got home today -- the power cable had been switched over and tied in. I wonder what they used to splice the cables together? It must be tough stuff to withstand the wind load that is going to happen over the years it is in service.

Something else had been accomplished at the end of the day -- the roof trusses had arrived and the preparation work had begun to start fitting them on to the frame of the addition. I can tell it's going to look rather messy until that part is done, since they have to peel off old roof tiles to make new for the new trusses. At the moment, the trusses are all stacked up neatly -- mostly over the framing of the new edition with some of it laying on the roof of the old house. I was concerned about the weight, and then I realized everything has to bear the weight of the trusses anyway, so I quit worrying so much.



Trusses! Laid across the span of the addition.



The trusses viewed from inside the pantry/laundry room. There is a smallish attic zone in the middle of the trusses, where we might be able to store light stuff like the Xmas lights.

Click for cat pictures! :) ( Read more... )

Well, we seem to have survived the night of the young pyromaniacs. Our town still allows people to buy and set off fireworks for the Fourth of July celebration, and so most of the evening is spent in a haze of gunsmoke and the sound of mortar rounds and screaming shells going off. Some of the displays were quite beautiful, but I at least get a little nervous about misfiring fireworks and the potential for accidental blazes. I managed to get nearly the entire lawn well watered yesterday, which helped a little and then kept an eye on the house and yard.



I finally figured out how to get photographs out of my iphone, so here is a picture taken on Wednesday of almost the entire span of the addition.



On Thursday the electrician arrived and began putting in the new electrical meter, circuit breaker box, and the supports for the power cables which will come in through the new roof. The electrician says the power supply will be enough to support power for a 3000 square-foot house, which is almost twice as big as what this place will be when it is finished. So I guess I don't have to worry about power issues for awhile, if ever.



The new breaker box which is on the interior wall of the pantry.

You can see the riser for the power cables above the box. This neighborhood was built in the late 1940s and so all the power comes into the houses from overhead cables rather than buried underground.

The building crew arrived and went right to work at eight o'clock. I left them vitamin water and cookies, and I came home to the result of their day's labors and took pictures. I'm very impressed. I can't believe how quickly it goes up and starts looking like a real house. My contractor says the roof trusses should arrive soon.



This side shows the pantry room door, and the picture window into the family room.



And this side shows the same picture window and the window into the office.

Click for interior shots of the rooms. ( Read more... )
The things you learn when working with contractors -- because I'm living in a World War II era house I'm permitted to put in windows of the same size as the original windows, they call it "grandfathered construction". Technically all modern construction should have windows that are even a size larger -- large enough to admit a fireman in full rescue gear. The windows certainly will be big enough to permit everyone to bail out if necessary. There are small homes in the neighborhood built in the same time period as my own with very small windows that probably would not allow an adult human to escape in the event of an emergency. I think if I was renovating one of them I would upgrade the windows for safety's sake.

The framing-in was started yesterday, with the builders working in 103-degree heat. I gave them vitamin water and access to the house so they could get cold water and maybe cool off if they needed to.

We had more thunderstorms and dry lightning last night, but I don't smell any more range fire smoke. Not sure if that means there weren't any new fires made, or if the breeze is pushing the smoke up the valley.


This side will hold the office and the bathroom. A bathroom with a window, yay!


The start of the family room wall. The large opening will hold a big picture window.


The view of the work area yesterday noon. The power cords are fed through a hole in the wall around the old piping into the kitchen, which has modern grounded outlets. Heh, no outside power sockets on my house (yet). I think I asked for one on the new addition. More to come, the guys are just driving up.

Got a call midweek from my contractor saying the lumber for the framing would start to show up Monday or so and that the roof trusses were on order. Once the material arrives the framing-in will start and evidently that goes very fast. He said, "soon it will look like a house!" Cool. :)

This meant I had to make a decision on what color shingles were going to go on the roof. I took Friday off as a little minivacation, so Mom and I went down to the contractor's office and looked at samples of shingles and siding. We were torn between a color called "weathered white" and another color called "pewter". The weathered white looked like its name, while the pewter looked like a nice medium gray. I was leaning toward the pewter color because it would make a very lovely contrast with the pale siding we wanted. The very nice lady in charge of the office said there were two homes the contractor had just re-roofed, one with each color, so we could go and see how it looked in daylight. I got the addresses, printed out maps from Google maps, and then Mom and I went on a little drive around the area to find the homes. It turned out it was time well spent, the weathered white colored shingles actually look like a soft silver gray in daylight, which is a color I really like and so did Mom. The pewter shingles looked almost black -- very handsome -- but in this climate in the full sun they would really retain the heat. So we decided on the weathered white shingles and a siding color called "Pearl", which is a very pale warm gray close to what I have on the house already.

The concrete is now hard as... well, concrete. I've been walking over it as I drag the hose and sprinkler from one end of the yard to the other in an attempt to keep the lawn alive. Summer is here with a vengeance -- it has been 105-107 degrees F the past few days, ugh. Looks like the weather may moderate toward the end of the week, but is IS July, and that means hot. This probably means the various builders may be showing up very early in the morning to beat the heat. Guess I should get to bed before 1 am, huh?

Here are two photos from last week.



The concrete slab all nice and set up. This is before a bunch of birds decided to poop on it after eating wild cherries. :P



The back of the house as it looks right now. The exposed wall doesn't look terribly nice, but it is holding up well despite the vagaries of the weather. As of this moment it is wind storming outside and there were big thunderheads on the horizon before the sun went down. Maybe if we are lucky we'll get a little free water out of the deal, but this time of year we are just as likely to get a dust storm rather than a rain shower.

The concrete folks very nicely strung the hose from the old washer faucet and nailed it up along the side of the house to keep it out of the setting concrete. Someone also turned on the exterior faucet on the front of my house which was a really big help since I'm now using that to run all my sprinklers. At some point, the plumber is going to replace all that old piping and life may get a little bit easier in terms of the water supply.

The weather *finally* got good today -- clear skies, bright sun, temps in the low 80's, and no gale force winds. Which meant I got to sally forth into the junky jungle of my back yard and tackle some long-neglected yard work. So today I:

1. Tackled the outgrowths sprouting from the weeping cherry tree - scions of the rootstock that were definitely NOT weeping in growth habit but instead shot up 20 feet in a year. Cut off two of three big limbs, then asked mom to bring over the saw with big teeth that is better for heavy woodcutting jobs. The small pruning saw I had took forever and sure gave me a good aerobic workout. :P

2. Pruned grape vines and put them on their trellises where they belonged.
3. Pruned the weeping cherry, forsythia, and some of the lilacs.
4. Tried to cut down a persistent willow-thing that keeps trying to grow through my back fence. Will work on it tomorrow again with the bigger saw. Geeze, turn your back for a season and you get a jungle! Also tried to take out the walnut-grove the squirrels keep trying to plant.
5. Picked up the clippings and put them in the trash can (mostly). The larger limbs from the cherry will need to be cut up smaller to fit.
6. Planted catnip in the hanging planter.
7. Pruned the roses out front.
8. Planted lavender, verbena, and some petunias in a nice pot.
9. Watered the 3 earthboxes (tomatoes and basil) so far planted.
10. Dragged out the hose, connected the sprinkler and began watering the back yard the old-fashioned way. This is how it will be till I can get the irrigation fixed. Oy vey.

Time to collapse, I think. Will post a few more pics --


More rough plumbing, this for the kitchen and laundry area.


Sable mugging for the camera.

Click for more cat-pics. ( Read more... )

Goodness, it is blowing yet another windstorm, interspersed with spates of rain. The wind is averaging 30 mph, with gusts up to 45 mph. I had to re-wrap the washer and dryer, which are sitting under a blue plastic tarp along the side of the house -- the wind keeps working the tarp loose, and when I came home today, the tarp was in the hedge. At least it hadn't totally blown away.

Then I had to duct-tape the plastic sheeting protecting the circuit breaker and power cables, since the wind had torn most of it free of the staples holding it in place. Yay for duct tape! I really don't want water getting on the electrical stuff.



A closer picture of the plumbing stubs for the new bathroom. Interesting how it is done. Sometime this week the concrete will be poured, I think, assuming the weather cooperates. I doubt anyone would want to work in this gale. My scalp is full of sand from my sojourn outside. The outdoor kitties, came, ate, complained bitterly about the weather, and disappeared to their kitty house for the night.



I bought herbs on Saturday - rosemary, parsley, and catnip. I parked the catnip on top of the fridge, but Grey found it all too soon. So it is now in the back bedroom behind closed doors till I can put it in the hanging planter.

This week the plumber put in the "rough-in plumbing", which are the connections to the sewer and water main needed to supply the new bathroom and laundry area.


The start of putting in the plumbing for the bathroom.


The long trench down the middle shows where they dug down to connect up with the sewer main. The old pipes sticking out in thin air are the old pipes for the now-demolished laundry area. I need to check with the contractor on Monday about when/how they will upgrade the old kitchen pipes, some of which you can see on the exposed wall of the house.


And this is the start of the plumbing for the laundry room.

In other news, Blackjack the rescue kitty has gone to Seattle to be offered for adoption. I hope he finds a wonderful, loving home. Now I just need to find homes for the rest of the outdoor tribe -- the two Siamese brothers definitely want to move in with people, so perhaps in the fall, we can put them up for adoption.

The young man with the backhoe and dump truck finished leveling the area for the new addition and digging the footings. The work was completed Monday and I was much impressed with what one person with power machinery and a laser level could do.

Most of the pipe-like objects sticking out are the irrigation lines, which will have to be fixed after all the fun and games with the foundation is completed.

Then it poured and thunder stormed all day Tuesday. The packed footings weathered the weather just fine.

Today the crew came out and started in on the concrete forms for the foundation. It is kind of like having house-elves -- I go to work, and when I come home something new has been done.



I also put in a request to have the contractor's plumber check the old piping that is now exposed and easy(er) to get to and give me an estimate on the cost of replacement. If I can, I will, since the old galvanized pipe is the same age as the house, which was built in '48 or '49. Might as well upgrade that while it is relatively easy.

Took me awhile to find the old drawings from back when I bought this place, but here is the footprint of the original house on the lot.


It's not a huge lot, but then I didn't want to mow grass all weekend (and currently I pay the neighbor boy to do that). My mom's place has more than 1 acre to care for, and that is way more than either of us want to maintain, even if it does look like an English park.



This is my try at adding the new part to the old house -- not to scale, although I did the best I could, since I really want to eyeball the remaining space and work out where other things need to go & think about landscaping. The addition sits about four feet beyond the old porch roof, which spanned the back of the house. I think there is room enough for a modest garage behind the house (someday).

The backhoe man arrived at 7 am today and started in with an earth-compactor, much to the cat's distress. I hope my neighbors weren't planning on sleeping in. 0_o Me, I'm going to work as soon as I call the plumber to fix the commode.

Photos taken early this morning -- the start of the footings for the new foundation.

You can clearly see the pad where the old shed used to be.

The boarded-up windows were lost when the original porch was put in. Assuming I designed things correctly, the addition will add light to the living areas by doors with glass panels to conduct light from the new family room into the kitchen. We'll see how that works out. My parent's house, while much newer and more modern, had no windows on the sides of the structure, only on the front and back. Granted, they were big windows, but if it wasn't for side windows, my place would be much darker than it is. I've got excellent light in every room but the kitchen, which lost a window over the sink back in some remodeling job done before I bought the place. So in my design all doors into the kitchen area have windows to let whatever ambient light there is pass through.

The backhoe guy returns tomorrow. And I have to call the plumber to fix the commode, which has worn internal workings and is starting to constantly run. I did install a temporary light in the kitchen to augment the old one which is running half-lit. I think the shaking damaged the old thing. Replacing it will be a job for the electrician.

Oh yeah, it is wind-storming a bit right now. 0_o

Sorry for the month-long delay. The house remodel went from the planning stage to reality very quickly and I've been busier than a one-armed paperhanger frantically preparing for it. Activities to date in a nutshell:

Took everything out of the old family/junk/library room, laundry room, and the shed. Everything. Gave much of it to the bookstore, Goodwill, or recycle, then boxed the rest. Had in the moving men to move heavy bookcases and the washer/dryer. Time 1 week, 3 days. (I thought I would have a month for this, but nope.)

Watched the demolition crew start to tear down the old rooms. Scary. Amazing. Young guys with chainsaws and crowbars, working while the radio played "Smoke on the Water". Left for work, returned home to find shed and old rooms gone. Totally gone. 0__o

Watched the electrician working on the wiring in the rain while standing in a puddle. Left for work. Returned home to find he had done the job without getting fried.

Concrete removal guy cut/broke up what passed for the old foundation of the porch and the slab under the laundry room. Not a bad job, but he broke the water main, which was partly embedded in a deep layer of concrete. He shut off the main, but didn't tell anyone, so I came home to no water, and no way to get it fixed for the day. <__< Stayed at mom's for the night. Phoned the main contractor. Main contractor fixed the pipe so I have water again (with much muttering about the subcontractor). Backhoe "crew" arrived to prepare the new footings for the concrete foundation. One man, a dump truck, and a huge backhoe. This job should be finished on Monday, and then the concrete team prepare the forms for the foundation. Amazing choreography. Will post pics soon. Off to shop.

I got tagged to do a silly meme over on DeviantArt, and it got me to try my hand at drawing a childhood hero, Black Fury, wild mustang and all-round horse hero. I read this comic way before I ever encountered Walter Farley's Black Stallion books, so to me, Black Fury is still THE black stallion of my dreams.

Black Fury is from the old Charleton comic book of the same name. The perfect wild fantasy mustang living in a 1950’s idealized Western universe where horses are smarter than humans and the bad guys (usually) miss their victims, and an untameable black stallion can solve most any problem with the proper application of hooves, teeth, or blinding speed.

This series had a number of artists, most of whom could draw horses, animals, and western scenes quite well. Even now, many years later, the images have a vibrancy and movement that I still find compelling. Alas, most of them didn't sign their work, especially their best artist. My version is a try at his style.

Black Fury was copyrighted to Charleton Comics in 1950, which is over 50 years ago. I've no idea who holds the copyright now, since Charleton is long gone, alas. I'd still be buying and reading this comic if they were still here.
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On the cat front, Saki has been diagnosed with hyperactive thyroid, which may be part of beginning renal failure (kidney disease for the layman). Hobbes went that way, so I'm not exactly looking forward to things, but... right now I've got meds to give him, and he's hanging in there. Rum had a tooth infection. After a course of Clavamox, he's feeling pretty good, so next week, he'll go and get his teeth cleaned. Then hopefully he'll feel better yet.

Grey is healthy, thanks goodness, as is the outdoor crew. Phew.

Oh yeah, still working on house renovation plans. I need clones! Lots of them. 0_o

We're still waiting for word on my brother and his family. They are telling people down in the San Diego area not to use their cell phones to keep the airwaves clear for emergency workers, so I'll bet we won't be hearing from them till they can get to a land line. Half a million people are now displaced. I can't even get my head around that.

It is supposed to be windy till tomorrow, which is not what they need.

Off to work in a bit -- might as well worry near workmates than home alone.