Hang Interior Doors

Today, we hung the interior doors. They are prehung Mastercraft doors from Menards. My parents and brother helped in a huge way. My dad and brother got 11 doors hung in two days. We bagged the doors with plastic and my mom masked the hinges with painters tape to prepare for painting. We got a lot done and the workmanship was stellar.

Drainage is a Concern

I'm concerned about drainage. I do have an engineered drainage tographic plan, but I still need to keep a close eye on final grading. You can see from the photos that the site tends to hold water. This is during a full day of rain.

Fireplace Stone

The mason has started. The stone looks really nice. The all-house-fan was installed last week.

Mega Mantel

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I've been working on this mantel for over a month. It's made of African Padauk wood from Owl Lumber in Des Plaines, IL. Tom Coyne introduced me to Owl Lumber several months ago and I am now fantically devoted to them. Owl has the best hardwood lumber in Chicago. I made a buck out of plywood so the mason could run the stone around and tight to the mantel's profile. Once the stone is set, the mantel will be slightly recessed into the stone, allowing it to appear like it was set in real load bearing stone (I hope).

Drywall Taping Nearly Complete

The tapers are doing a really nice job. They bomb out the entire house at once. The crew consists of 4 men including the foreman. After today, they will sand on Tuesday and then it's my turn. Time to paint.

Driveway is Stoned

I'm talking about the limestone kind, not the pot kind. It's looking good and this will carry us through the winter. Hopefully, there will be money left for concrete in the spring. You can see the hearthstone in the bottom left hand corner.

It's a Hothouse!!!

No pictures today, but the tapers started and got the first coat on in the entire house. It's a hothouse! 75 degrees on the 2nd floor and well over 70% relative humidity and that was after the windows were open for a half an hour. I opened 4 windows for about 45 minutes and I turned on a dehumidifier on the 2nd floor. Despite the high humidity, the mud is drying. The first coat is always the thickest, so I'm happy to see a large degree of drying. You may think I'm a Construction Nazi, but I've beem slammed too many times at work by complaints from the tapers to let that happen to me again if at all possible. As one infamous WEO Project Manager told me once, "Take away their excuses."

As you can see from the graph, the power consumption has leveled off at 4 kW/h, but the heaters are cranking now, so 12 kW/h here we come.

Front Door Arrives

I'm really pleased with the the front door. It's a fiberglass door with an insulated core. We'll be painting it, so it's not prefinished.

Temp Heat

My three 240V Dayton forced air electric heaters are doing well. The electrician set up long extension cords for the heaters, so I can move them around if needed. Even with the extreme cold, I was pushing 50 degrees on the 2nd floor with only 45,000 BTU of total heating. I have dialed down the heat since we're at least a week away from starting taping. See the temp heat log in this post.

Mid Project Slow Down

Deep cold has delayed the project. With nightly lows hitting 5 degrees and lower and daily highs of less then 32 degrees, no snow is melting. We missed the driveway grading completion by one day. The snow storm on 12/1/06 came at just the wrong time. The excavator is waiting for warmer weather to finish the haul off. Nicor is running in place with the new gas service. As soon as the front yard is cleaned up, I'll have gas and permanent heat. The siding has stopped due to the front yard obstructions and the missing front door. The front door will be delivered to the job on Tuesday at 10:30am.

Drywall + Snow Storm + Siding + Pocket Door

The drywall started on 11/24/06. They finished hanging on 11/27 or 11/28. They installed corner trim below the 3/4" rounded corners to allow wood base to be installed with out split blocks. This is good because spint blocks run $3 to $5 each.

I missed the third pocket door, so I installed it this morning. You can never have too many pocket doors, I always say.

We cut the driveway starting on 11/24/06. The driveway pricing was coming in high due to winter conditions, so I decided to wait until Spring. For now, we'll cut the grade and put down 6 inches of stone. Unfortunately, we got 6-8 inches of snow on 12/1/06, so we'll have to wait to haul off the spoils.

The temperature has really dropped. We got down to 14 degrees last night. Tonight it might get down to 10. The electrician wired my temporary electric heaters today. I'm using three 240 volt Dayton heaters rated at 13,000 BTU each. The eletric meter is a spinin'! If I can maintain 45 or 50 degress, the drywall could be taped. After only 5 hours of heat today, I was pushing 40, so I think I'm in good shape.