Another busy day

Today was another one of those days where a lot was going on. About 10:00 this morning I started getting calls about the house. The general contractor called and there is a problem with 1 to 3 of the small curved top windows above the living room windows. There were made incorrectly. You would have thought that the guy window guy with the plans would have ordered the correct sizes, but he did not. So he will have to come out and measure and re-order the correct windows on their nickel. Then the fireplace installers called and they did not have the access code to get in the airpark and they wanted a check before they started. George talked them into starting while I was driving out there. Then the HVAC guy called. The place where we were going to put the outside HVAC conditioner coils was stolen by the electrical guys for the electric meter and messed up our plan. But we worked that out and found another spot that is just a good and perhaps a bit better.

 

All is better now and by the end of the day all but three of the windows will be installed. The fireplace insert is in and we have plan the AC units. I took some pictures of the windows. Go to http://groups.yahoo.com/SteveNcindyHome and bring up the Windows photo album.

 

Cheers, Steve

Steve Aughinbaugh

Manager, Plano Engineering Sustaining
McAfee, MS 3N035
5000 Headquarters Drive
Plano, Texas 75024

972-963-7496 (office)

972-989-6770 (cell)

steve_aughinbaugh@mcafee.com

 

Messy worksite

I never knew that building a house was such a mess. There is trash everywhere, sawdust all over the house and building material scraps everywhere.

Data, TV, intercom and phone wiring

Last weekend I pulled about 1,000 feet of cable through out the house. I have about 500 more feet to run. I decided to run my own cable for the network, intercom, TVs and phone lines. I have it all going to a closet at the top of the back stairs next to the media room. Right now there are abou 35 cables going into that closet plus the electricians have run all of the security wiring in there also. It will allow me to keep the house up to date as new technology comes out and for me to automate the house. At some point the house will talk to us as we enter or leave and arm the security system.

Roof is finished

They put shingles on the roof last week and most of the electrical and HVAC stuff has been roughed in. We are waiting on windows now. They should be installed next week and then exterior doors. We are in the process of finalizing the stone and brick and the labor for that.

I ran the thermostat wire for the two Rinnai tankless water heaters. We have the thermostats in by each tub/shower and in the kitchen. This weekend I will work on pulling telephone, internet and cable.

We bought the exhaust fan/light units for the 4 bathrooms and the powder room this week plus the vent-a-hood for the kitchen so the vents for all of them can be run. We also need to get the fireplace insert so that can be roughed in.

Always something to do. Speaking of that we ordered the SPA tub on Friday and on Monday the called said it was ready to be picked up. So we need to go get that on Friday. Busy, busy, busy.

We know how big the house is now!

We know how big it is because we spent much of the day sweeping it! The carpenters had swept some the day before, but there was still tons of saw dust and bits of lumber and nails all over the house. So we did our part and swept all but the family room where a couple of carpenters were working. Cindy and I think they were laughing at us sweeping while they were still producing more saw dust. But we enjoyed it and it gave us chance to get to know our new home.

The house is coming along great. We went to Home Depot and bought a nail magnet to pluck the nails out of the saw dust. That was a great idea. So far we have almost a full box of nails, both bent and perfectly usable.

The new house, Jan 11 2008

I started Friday, at my doctor's office for my annual physical and ended the day watching the carpenters complete the construction of the curved stairway in our new foyer. I had not intended to do that but after the doctor's visit I decided to take the day off. I then went to a supply house and picked up the tankless water heaters that we had ordered.

Upon arriving at the house, the framing foreman and carpenter were telling me that they may still need to add a column under the front stairway to support the upper stringer. Niether Cindy nor I wanted to have a column 3 feet from wall and 5 feet from the kitchen half wall right in the middle of a walkway area between the foyer/family room and ktchen. After discussing it for a bit I suggested placing a doubled 2x6 under the existing stringer and running them up into the beam of the second floor. the light went on with the framing foreman the rest is history. We now have a great looking stairway and nice location for a message desk under the stairs!

The carpenters finished the stairs and Cindy joined me at the house after work. She was very happy with the result as am I.