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Ceiling is complete

Janie in Lafayette, LA — Wed, 16 May 2012 22:27:23 GMT

The ceiling boards are finished!!!! Yeah!! We are making plans as to how we could move and complete the rest of the work when we are moved. We really want to get our current home on the market and get out from under 2 mortgages!!! Not to mention 2 electric bills, water bills, etc. We have everything we need at the Dome to livve comfortably. Why not move!!! I am so ready and I know Whitey is too. Then we have the cat issues. You see I have 2 sibling cats that have never been outside. I really want to try to expose them to the wonderful outdoors, at least during the day and restrict them to the Utility during the night. I am not sure how this will work, I am just tired of cat scratching on my furniture. I love my kitty cats but I don't love the destruction of my furniture or the litter box issues we have had ( Another Story) Pictures to follow.

Oh yea, we went to Austin TX for several days. Went to see Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, it was so wonderful, they are the best.

Second Floor Kids' Rooms Installed

Shawn in Richfield, WI — Wed, 16 May 2012 13:31:58 GMT

Roof truss installation begins today.

Main level = 9-foot ceilings - 1,900 square feet

Second floor kids' rooms = 8-foot ceilings - 600 square feet

Past few weeks progress

Tim in North Pole, AK — Sun, 13 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

I haven't updated in a while, since I've been steadily working on the house in the evenings and on weekends. Progress has been slowed by small details along the way. The drywall is installed on the ceilings of bedrooms 2, 3, 4, the bonus room, and the long hallway upstairs between beds 2-3. The bath above the garage is rough plumbed-in and bathtub set in place. I have the ceiling sheetrocked in there as well and most of the walls covered too. I subbed out the DWV rough-in, and the drain for this tub when set in place, was directly above a joist, complicating matters. The joists above the garage are 12" O.C., so the simplest way to correct the problem was to build a platform for the tub to sit on, then turn the drainpipe over and down to the stub-out. The distance between the tub and the toilet would be too close if I moved the tub over any further to use the adjacent joist bay.

All the power, lights, and smoke detector rough-in wiring is complete on the second floor. A couple of the power circuits are fully hooked up so I don't have to have so many extension cords laying around. My inspector came out and did an inspection on the upper level and part of the lower level so I can close those areas up, and said it all looked fine. I also pre-wired in the ceiling boxes for an overhead projector with HDMI, Cat5, RCA video and RG-6 coax cables. I ordered two of the big windows, one for the bonus room and one for bedroom #4. I don't have a picture available, but I also cut in an opening on the back gable wall for attic access. I framed up a 2x5 platform just inside the opening so there is a place to sit down and stage tools/materials when there's work to do up there. It sets about 2' above the bottom chord of the truss, so there's plenty of space for insulation underneath.

The spring weight restrictions on the roads were lifted the other day, so I had 10 yards of fill dirt brought in to finish leveling out some bumpy spots in the yard so we can finally plant some grass. I have 20 yards of gravel coming tomorrow, so I can finish grading the woodcutting and storage area too. This week I'll be ordering shingles and finishing up details so a couple friends and I can hang the drywall on the great room and stairwell ceiling next Saturday. Nobody in town has a drywall lift that goes 19' so I'll have to bolt my drywall lift to the scaffold I'm using and take it easy.

Deal of the month: I walked into Home Depot to buy some 4'x12' sheets of 5/8 drywall and they had 28 sheets of damaged drywall (almost all 5/8) stacked on a cart. I asked about it and they said they were $5 each. They're normally $22 each and the damage to most of them would be cut off anyways so I snatched them all up. I was able to use all of them without too much waste and only made one extra butt joint. Talk about perfect timing.

MORE drywall... almost done.

Brian in Dome-ville, central, FL — Thu, 10 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

I believe I am down to the last five or six sheets of drywall. Next trip I will put those up and clean up. There are about a hundred small randomly-shaped pieces of drywall sitting everywhere in the house, and a fine coating of drywall dust covers everything. A thick coating covers the floor. After drywall, the cement board for the bathtub surround is next.

First Floor Framing

Shawn in Richfield, WI — Thu, 10 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

First floor framing is complete.