Construction Update

The electrician was out today to install, among other things, the outside light fixtures.




I began the first of what will ultimately be a huge project - decorating the gameroom! I put in a working payphone, complete with '80s-ish signage.




The bathroom light fixtures were also installed today. Here's a picture of that, plus a better photo of the plumbing now that there is actually a light in the closet.




And a gratuitous photo of one of the fans. Because it looks cool.



A couple photos of the water/septic ditch (it's been raining since they dug it, so this is the first good photo I've gotten of it).

Construction Update

Lots of stuff has been happening. I'll just go through them.

They secured the metal column at the corner of the building. I was figuring that's how they would do it, since putting a bolt through any of the other 3 holes probably would have cracked or weakened the concrete slab. I think tomorrow they are going to put the cedar wrap around it.




The torn up drywall in the bathroom has been repaired, and the drain is finally a drain - not a pipe sticking up into the room.



The water heater was added today. It's a VERY small, on-demand unit. It's only for the hot water in the sink. I figure it would get used a couple times a month at most, so this is better energy-wise, and reduces the chance that a large, tank-based water heater will explode in my gameroom. :-)



They've been running the sewer and water lines as well. They were out yesterday all day and dug a large trench around to the other side of the house for the water. Apparently there are some problems getting the proper "fall" in the line running to the septic tank, so they are going to have to take up some of the floor in the building and see if they can fix things up. Barring that, they'll need to install a pump. Eew.



My wife and I went out over the weekend and picked up all the electric fixtures we need. This is the outside lanterns, and the vanity and overhead fixtures for the bathroom. Oh, and a replacement neon tube for the last-remaining broken fan.



The builder made these wooden plates for the outside lanterns to mount to.



And the stone mason was out to add some stone plates for the lantern and electrical outlet.

Construction Update

The electrician was out today and fixed the fan that the motor wasn't working on, and fixed up some of the minor problems with the wiring. Everything seems to work okay now! I just need to replace the broken neon tube on the one last fan.

I'm going to go out tomorrow and pick up all the outdoor lanterns we need. There are a total of 8 lanterns we need for the building, although we only need 3 of them to pass inspection.

Construction Update

The plumbing guy was out today and got the plumbing done for the most part, except for hooking up the fixtures and the on-demand water heater, since those things aren't here yet. He did end up running the water pipe for the toilet supply over top of the room, rather than alongside the outside wall. We were concerned about the pipe freezing in winter. There is still the sewage line hookup outside and digging the trench and laying the line for the water supply. That has to go all the way around the house.

Construction Update

Woohoo! After getting the electrician's permission to turn on the breakers, I went out and took these photos:




Once all the machines and blacklights are installed, I'll have the "house lights" on dimmers and turned way down so things won't be so bright.

Here's the upstairs (some of the lights weren't working)



The only bad news - I found ANOTHER fan with a broken neon - grrrrr!!! And one of the fans doesn't turn. Hopefully it's just wired wrong, but it's possible I'll end up having to replace the darn thing. These fans are driving me nuts.

Construction Update

The electric company came out yesterday and hooked up the power and the meter. Yay! The electrician needs to come out now and turn things on. I was too chicken to turn on the breakers.



Wow, look how little power we've used! :-)

Construction Update

A couple things have happened over the last few days. The electrician came out and added boxes for the outdoor electrical fixtures. Looks like he also hooked up the power for the outdoor AC units. We're just waiting on the electric company at this point to come out and hook us up and add the meter.



The bathroom vent fan was added yesterday.



They also tore out the drywall around the bottom of the bathroom so that they could add the water supply pipe to where the toilet will go (they forgot to add that before they did the drywall). My only concern here is that the pipe will be running along an outside wall - the wall pictured below with the insulation showing. I guess the pipe will have that layer of insulation (and the outdoor siding) between it and the outside, but I'm kind of worried about the pipe freezing in winter. Anyone have any thoughts on this? Am I just being paranoid?

Construction Update

Yesterday they finished the final coat of staining and painting the trim. It's WAY lighter than I wanted (funny - these photos actually make the stain look lighter than the previous photos!). We had the same problem with our house. Oh well. It looks nice anyway. They will still have to return once the stairs/decking has been done.

The electric, I'm being told, should be live sometime next week.

Construction Update

They did one coat of stain yesterday.

Construction Update

The staining is being done this week. Yesterday and today they were caulking, and today they masked off the windows.

Construction Update

So, it turns out that the electrician did have difficulty while digging the trench for the electric. If you remember from my previous post the electrician only got the trench halfway dug. He kept hitting rocks and ripping the chain off the trench-digger he was using. The rental company finally fussed at him since he had to take it back to them every time the chain came off. So today he and one of the builder's workmen were out with a larger excavator machine. They successfully laid the pipe for the electric to be hooked up through. Unfortunately they accidentally cut through our phone cable, which hadn't been properly marked by the utility company. No biggie. At least they missed our internet cable. The electrician told me we should have power in the building by next week sometime. Can't wait!


Laying the pipe for the AC.


That's our phone line. Oops.


Almost to the transformer. Note the bar across the trench. That marks where our internet cable is. If they had hit that I wouldn't be posting this now.

Construction Update

Yup, things are still slow here on the gameroom. Today about half of the trench for the electrical was dug. Not sure if there were difficulties or if they just ran out of time, but it looks like it goes about halfway to the transformer.



Over the weekend we got (another) loan for (hopefully!) the last $20k we need to complete the building. Yay! I contacted the painter who stained our house and he's going to begin staining the cedar siding on the gameroom on Monday the 24th. He said it would take him about 5-10 days to complete. It should look really sweet when it's all stained, and after it's stained they should be able to put up the guttering. The steps to the house deck and to the upstairs gameroom door have not been built yet. He says he'll come back and do those when they are built.

Time-Out Tunnel article

Here's a nice article that links to my Time-Out website.

The article is here:
http://threespeech.com/blog/?p=593

Construction Update

Things were slow this last week. People showed up on Friday and installed almost all the rest of the HVAC system, including the outside units, the registers, and the thermostats. The only part left is to wire up the power to the outside units. The building still doesn't have electricity, so we won't be chillin' any time soon. They also put in the rest of the stairway railing.



In other news, I did manage to find a replacement neon tube for the one damaged ceiling fan. The part cost $30, but I was happy to find it was available!