We got into a bit of a “hurry up and wait” situation with the power company there for a bit, but the wait is over! Our meter has moved to its new permanent home on the north side of our closet bump-out. This may seem like a small thing but it means WE CAN HAVE HEAT! 

Yes, among many other things this means heat, my friends, after two chilly winters with space heaters and electric blankets. We started testing the system last night. We are still un-insulated through a good portion of the new construction (though the walls that meet earth are double-insulated), so it remains to be seen how this particular winter goes for us. I can tell you that when I got home just now, I felt the need to immediately remove my hat and scarf and down vest, but I did keep on my cotton jacket. It is mid-day, the sun is streaming in, but it’s in the low 40’s out there… we’ll see what happens when I get home tonight after the sun goes down and the temperature drops again to freezing. And we’ll see what that power bill looks like!

Other things this meter move potentiates: Sealing up the last bit of decking where the old power came through! Siding around the old meter site! Wiring the house! That last one is a biggie. Morgan loves doing electrical work, so he is gleeful. 

We are also enjoying a strange and well-timed situation in which Morgan is getting paid by his employer to work on our house. It involves a crazy issue with the project he is supposed to be working on, but I think their client is on the hook for paying the crew while they figure out what is up. Small blessings!

Check out our heating system– it’s coming together! That little box with the American flag on it is the water heater for our closed-system hydronic radiant heat. Yesterday Morgan was installing conduit for the power to hook in.

Speaking of power, we have met the exterior grade requirements for moving the power to the new location and are waiting for the power company to make a date with us to actually move it, which should be within the next couple of weeks.

Siding is our other pressing goal. We got the Hardie plank finished on the lower level, but have quite a bit of cedar left to hang and paint.

We’re on the verge of a new level of comfort here at the Hammershack. After two winters with only space heaters for comfort, we are really looking forward to the steady warmth of a heated slab of concrete.

We returned from Burning Man last week to a note from Seattle City Light in our mailbox: “Hey guys, we’ve let you get away with this unreadable meter thing for two years, you have 30 days to make it readable or you’re cut off.”

In truth, it is kind of amazing how long they let us do this: 

For whatever reason, Puget Sound Energy, who will move our power drop for us and thus make the meter accessible, wants the exterior surface by that meter to be finished before they will move it. Morgan has spent the past several days doing drainage work on the North side of the house so that we can backfill the necessary ground to PSE’s satisfaction, a weird, seemingly disconnected but apparently crucial task that of course had to get done sooner or later anyway.

It’s hot as biscuits out there today. 

I just returned from a dump run (it’s what I’m good at) that I undertook when I could no longer stand the sweaty confines of the dust mask I had to wear while scraping and sanding strips of our 100-year-old cedar siding for re-use. We assume that at least one of the paint layers is lead-filled, and take appropriate precautions.

You might think we are crazy for trying to re-use this stuff, but here’s the deal: we had to have new stuff milled to match at $1.63/board foot (plus $200 setup fee), which got expensive fast. 

We failed to factor into our equations the stuff that had to be pulled off the South side of the house where the old tongue-and-groove sheathing underneath the siding had begun buckling and warping after 100 years of fierce weather exposure. The siding is brittle there, too, so not all of it survives removal.

So there is necessity. 

There is something cool about this old wood, too, though. It was likely cut and milled very nearby; at the time this house was built they were still harvesting lumber from nearby Skyway and Taylor’s Mill operated in Rainier Beach.

Having just returned from the dump, where we offloaded a bunch of plastic and Hardie plank scraps, it also feels good to do what we can to reduce waste where we are able. It’s a small thing, but it’s something.

So much prep has gone into siding (as with everything), but we finally got a chunk of it up! We bought the pre-painted Hardie plank, so we get instant satisfaction.

Thanks go to Gabe Stern who gave us a day of his skilled labor and excellent company to get this first corner done.

Apologies to Tricia Petersen, our color advisor, as we were forced to temporarily (read: for the next ten years) just leave the front door trim like everything else, which means our fir door just disappears into the trim. Someday that will become an art project, but for now we just need to cover up and keep going.

Check out that belly band, y’all. It’s special, but only a builder would know why. We’ve got trim on our windows and two layers of Tyvek. Siding next!

At long last, Morgan has carved out a few weeks to work on our project again. 

Our priority for now is covering the outside, and the first “steps”, if you will, involve putting in these stair lights. Both the front and back of the house will have stairways that need to be lit. 

You can see in the pictures how he’s carved away the insulation on the outside to run conduit for the wires. That insulation caused us some issues earlier this year when we realized that the fixtures weren’t ok being snuggled into it given the bulbs they were spec’d with. A search for appropriate LED replacements took many hours of research, but they were eventually found– this is what people are talking about when they say it will take longer than you think it will.

Siding was our next official goal, but the side sewer permit expiration notice got us excited to finish something and be done with it. Ha!

A significant portion of the side sewer work was inspected and passed, but FINAL inspection can’t happen until the exterior horizontal surfaces are up to final grade. This means all underground work like footing drains, gutter drains, irrigation (which has nothing to do with our permit but is nevertheless underground and needing to morph around this project) need to be completed and then all the gravel we intend to put out there on our future patio needs to be in place.

Coincidentally, the folks at City Light also want final grade by the new electrical drop in order to move our power to the new location, so although this underground work wasn’t first on our list, it does have to get done for other things that we are excited about to happen.

Truthfully, we have been using a temporary system to get water out to the irrigation and hose bibs in the yard, and getting that dialed in in its permanent incarnation IS kind of exciting, especially as we seem to be headed for another unusually warm spring and summer.

Morgan has been working for money lately, and squeezing in a bit of our work when he can. We got a notice that our side sewer permit was about to expire, so he figured it would be a good time to finish that up. 

   
We also scored a nice used kitchen faucet from a client who was remodeling his kitchen (thanks, Ryan!) 

and replaced the SUPER cheap plastic thing we have been making due with for what feels like forever. I don’t know why we didn’t just buy the real faucet we want when we needed to replace the old leaky one, but now we are set until the new sink/faucet are installed in the new kitchen.

One more little thing just today- we want to have friends over again, and the temporary toilet situation needed a bit of accommodation. It’s still next to the stove with just a curtain to separate them, but Morgan threw some more drywall up to isolate it from the stairwell. 

 
It’s still not completely walled in, but you can’t see the toilet from the stairs anymore and that’s something.

Paying jobs have not been lining up all in a row, so Morgan has been installing the tubes for our radiant heating system for the past couple of weeks. Given that this is our second winter making due with space heaters, I find this project VERY exciting. 

 
The concrete slab already has the tubes in it, but since the ceiling is open, we thought the existing house would benefit from an upgrade as well.  

We don’t yet have the boiler, and there is still a lot yet to be done, but seeing this makes me warmer already.  

 

Have I ever mentioned how freaking lucky Huck and I are to have Morgan around? Look at the care and attention going into this project– not for one second do I take that for granted. Thank you, Morgan!!!