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!!!  
 

All I wanted for Christmas was a new water heater installed, and yesterday my dreams came true.

When we moved our old water heater out of the basement before demolition, it broke. We salvaged one from Morgan’s sister’s remodel project and when we got it in we realized that it did indeed heat water, but the thermostat was busted so it was either on or in emergency shutoff mode. Despite the real danger if that shutoff mode failed to function, we have been living with it like that for a year and a half.

We would turn on the water heater before we needed water, and off again when we were done, a situation made less onerous by the proximity of the water heater to our basic needs. Still, not ideal.
Our situation doesn’t really allow for anything too fancy to be our permanent replacement. Heat-pump water heaters need a lot more space around them to function properly than our little mechanical room will afford, and we don’t have gas service to our home, so a flow-through/tankless model won’t work either. (Don’t get me started on how much I hate electric tankless systems; I have lots of experience with one and I loathe it.)

I did spend money on a lifetime-warrantied model, though, with a plastic tank that will never rust out. A precaution we might not have needed as much as other folks, as we have a drain in the floor of our mec room. But what the heck? Why not buy the longest lasting version you can?

Anyway, I am super delighted with my Christmas present, and look forward to just doing some dishes and taking some showers without having to anticipate the need for hot water first.

 

I’m giving myself another break this year with the Christmas cards. Even though we are pretty used to living in construction, it’s one less thing for me to deal with. Frankly, I can say more and show you more this way anyway. So, here’s our end-of-year greeting:

In 2015 we went from this

To this

We got these

And this one continued to grow

The garden bloomed

Good times were had

Morgan turned 40, Huck started middle school, we ran out of the big pile of money we had borrowed to do the house. None of this was a surprise. I decided after a crazy attempt to land a larger workspace I could share with others that perhaps I could just hang in there and keep something solid and reliable while the house continues to shift around us. It has been a good call so far.

We continue to strive, to learn and grow and to try to create something beautiful around us. We hope we get to see you in the coming year, and that you are feeling as blessed as we are. Happy New  Year!

One thing we miss with all this upheaval is just somewhere to put our stuff. We had a whole basement, and we will have a shed eventually, but the closets in our bedrooms are teeny-tiny and the attic is full of loose insulation.

We have been using the attic anyway, as well as cramming the attic space above Morgan’s shop, but when we lost our front door we also gained a nice walk-in closet, which will eventually be for the master bedroom that our living room becomes.

You wouldn’t believe how nice that 8x6sf space is to have– I don’t have to grab a ladder for every little thing that I don’t want out in my living space– coolers, totes, wrapping paper… Now, if I had a private working area to wrap presents in!

 

Morgan has gone back to working for other folks to make some money again. Last week he took a few minutes (literally, like ten) to pop our last window into place.

We will probably be on hold for three or four months now. Perhaps this weekend I will take some time to peel the stickers off the windows and do some general tidying, as we will be living with this version for a little bit. 

Looking back to a year ago, we have come SO FAR! I’m sure we have a long way still to go, but it feels really good to be weather tight and windowed up. 

Last weekend Morgan took some time to pull our water line in through its permanent port in the wall. Since we are living here during all of this there are a lot of temporary mechanisms in place, among which was a large coil of pvc pipe near our front porch that came in through the window to deliver our water.

  
It’s a small thing, but it feels good to get the small things dialed in, especially when they stand in the way of other small and not-small things happening, like installing that window. Another small step in the right direction!

 

 
 

 

This past week we got roofing/decking material applied to our new roof/balcony. A banner day here at the Hammershack, where falling rain is a soothing sound once again!

We could not wait for City Light’s mysteriously cumbersome process of moving our power line to complete, so there is about a 2.5″ hole where the existing power line still drops through. It’s well protected, or as well protected as it can be.

Just a couple more things to do before we are weatherproof– a parge coat needs to go on the west lower wall before that last downstairs window can go in, and just a wee bit more Tyvek (we’ve been picking up scraps from friends to avoid buying another big roll) and then the closet window upstairs. 

Once we are weatherproof, Morgan will go back to earning money for a few months and we will hang in limbo. We don’t have heat or insulation, so the prediction of a mild winter is welcome. We at least will have a container around us that stops the wind, which is way better than we had last year! 

Now, where did I stash those electric blankets…?