Wired

So a good bit got done over the weekend at the studio/gallery. ON Saturday after yard sales of course...... Crystal and I started on the wall for the existing garage door. By 7 PM we had put up the wall, faced it with OSB and put in a window. Sure sure sure, we didn't have all the screws we needed in the OSB and the window wasn't quite all finished but we were bushed! We assembled the wall on the floor after taking careful measurements and then we stood it up to slide it into the old garage door opening. It was a shade too tall so we just jacked up the wall a tiny bit. :) Car jacks are very good building assistants. We went to get OSB at the local wood products store only to find out that they'd closed at noon. So we went to Alamosa to find it. Those two stores were also closed. We went to my friend Ernie's house and got a couple sheets of OSB outta his pile (I left him a message and paid him for 'em on Monday). Then we got it all faced and threw in the window before we went to our houses to sleep a bit.

Sunday I went over and cleaned up our mess from Saturday. Then I got the job site ready. At a bit after 10 my friend Roger showed up. His wife Marian came an hour or so after that. They're both electricians. An hour or two after that my buddy Tim came by and then Crystal showed up. We were wiring fools! My first job was to drag a copper wire from the back of the house to the water pipe up front. The electrical panel has to be bonded to the incoming water pipe and it HAS to be at the front and immediate entrance. :) That house is a hundred years old and underneath is all cut up and has bunches of walls and you have to keep going up and down throught the floor to get from one rooms crawlspace to the other. We finally finished that (Tim and I) and my next task was running a wire for a subpaned through the attic. From up to down. Both were dusty and nasty. UG. Roger and I had set the new panel in when he first got there so that was done too. While I was doing my two jobs Roger and Marian and Crystal were running wire all through the new garage.

It was a day full of work and fun. We had pizza and Que' Papas from Pizza Hut. Lots of laughing and an abrasion here and there. At then end of Sunday it was 90% wired in the garage. AND it was all cleaned up too. We'll try to finish the rest in a week or two. :) And I'll update when I get the chance. I'd be working tonight but I'm beat.

wood and wire

Last weekend........ shopping for stuff to work on the gallery. It would seem there is a bit of a lottery to the purchasing of wire. The price of copper has gone through the roof and one needs to find a store that has stock from some time ago and hasn't raised the price in anticipation of the next batch of wire. For example....... 12/3 with ground at a really large home products store ..... $98.00 the same wire at my little hometown store? $68.00. So on Saturday I bought $368.00 in copper wire and walked away feeling like I'd just made a giant score! The rest of Saturday was spent (after yard sales) getting my old truck shined up a bit. Then on Sunday we finished up nearly all the framing in the studio and got lots of the electrical boxes placed. Now, very soon, we can work on putting up the new breaker box and running wire all over the place.

I can't wait.

Windows. I do windows.

Last weekend actually saw a bit of improvement in the gallery area. :) We got a window in. A BIG window. 4'X6'. We put it in the garage that will become the clay studio. We've decided to concentrate on the studio and maybe next year we'll have the gallery part getting done. I pulled the electrical permit today. It cost a whole $40 and we'll see if I can make it fly. IF that goes through then we'll try the plumbing permit next. Those are really the only ones I think a person should ever have to pull. Otherwise it's just governmental oversite silliness. If you aren't gonna drown or electrocute someone then you should really be good to go.

In any case, last Saturday's window went MUCH more quickly than the one I took forever doing that was only like 1/10th the size. Something about doing it the right way that makes a bit of a difference. :) Now we'll start wiring so we can pass a partial inspection and get the drywall in and the garage door in there. That'll close in the studio and then I'll work on the plumbing permit and get the studio heated and the water heater moved out there. That way most of the sub-level work will be done as far as utilities go. Then maybe we'll finish Laura's paper studio and then move on to tearing out lathe and plaster and flooring and basically every damned thing that is not a brick wall.

VA VOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!