It's sitting there

Sunday. Went to Denver with truck and trailer, this was the second trip for a truck this week. We got the boiler and valves and tank and pump and lots of copper and a couple extra thermostats and headed back after a short stop for lunch and a couple to-go orders for the folks that had to stay home because of work. New cost? $4200, our cost? $750. Of course I got soaked and at one point the guy had a plan that included dropping the whole works down on me (which Crystal put the kabosh on faster than I could), but it all worked out well. I think the soaking with old waste water brought the cost up for me, but then I'm a bit squickish about that sort of thing so ........... all's well that ends well.

Now we just have to get it installed before winter sets in. That thing will heat the studio and the rear of the gallery just fine. I'm pretty sure it'll heat the whole thing just fine but I kinda have to close up all the open holes in the main part before I try actually making it liveable for humans.

Tonight? Sitting in my chair with a monster headache. I could get so much done if I were superhuman, but then that would just make every one else feel inadequate.

Lighting all set

OK, so the lighting has figured itself out. It was Craigslist! I was bopping around there and lo and behold someone has EXACTLY the fixtures I was looking for available for $15 a piece! I had been searching and it would have been around $75 for the things brand new. So we arranged a time for pickup and I trucked to Denver (in my old blue pickup to try it out, what fun is life without a bit of risk of getting stranded hours from home?). It all worked out well. The fella (John) asked how many fixtures I wanted and I told him I could take 10, maybe 12. He said he had 15, not all of them perfect and I could have them all for the price of 12. I peeled off the $180 and loaded the lights.

They're great! 10 even have good diffusers on 'em. That's the plastic thingy that spreads out the light. One even has a dandy battery back up thing that turns the light ON if the power goes OFF. :) So now all I have to do is figure out where to mount my "j" boxes to wire the lights into and run a couple spare pipes and I can get my rough inspection and start insulating and drywalling! WHOOOO HOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That is, of course, depending on my call to another fella on Craigslist. He has a nifty boiler for sale. Good sized with 3 zone valves and 30 feet of baseboard along with the expansion tank and a circulation pump. WAY cheap. I gotta call this morning and if I can have it I'll head up as soon as possible and get it. This would save me THOUSANDS, so it would be well worth giving up a day of production to get it. It would also solve me delima on a heating system, at least for this winter.

Don't cha just love it when things fall together?

Radio Day

Well, it's Saturday again and we got a little bit done on Wednesday but that was it for the gallery. My pesky day job has been fairly demanding of late and takes too much time. Last Wednesday Roger and Crystal and I did a bit more work. We got the pancake boxes up for the exterior lights and mounted the last outside box for an outlet along with it's nailer. This is where Crystal and I learned that you're only allowed to have two wires running through a hole in the wall. :) We only had to move a few to get it all right and ready. Except for getting lighting figured out and putting up nailiing blanks it's ready for the rough inspection so that we can start insulating and hanging drywall! :)

When we originally bought the building last November (and finally got the renter out in January) I had hoped to have the place done by this November. Such is not the case. I got busy at work, then sidetracked into getting the yard sort-of done and there were lots of other demands on my time. As it now sits I will be quite thrilled to have the yard settled and the garage turned into my pottery studio by November. In fact I believe our next step after getting the more finished parts (studio/kitchen/utility and bathrooms) a bit better insulated for winter will be to build the kiln yard. I better get hopping on that since it means pouring some concrete and running a gas and electric line out there and actually constructing the dang things. :) Funny, you buy an existing property and it just doesn't occur to you that you'll have to re-build EVERYTHING including a bunch of tear out before you can actually get some thing you want built there!

Sometimes I am a bit of a dumbass. (but a happy one with a nearly completed studio!)