Texture and paint

Whoooo HOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

It's moving forward. Friday at work we dug in electric, gas, phone and cable TV to a new set of condos at the local golf course. I dig the backhoe and shovel work so when I was done I saved a bucket load of dirt for the hole in our garage floor that I need to fill up so I can pour concrete. I threw the bucket load of dirt in the back of my little Nissan and hauled it home to wheelbarrow in to the hole. It was perfect! I had 1 1/2 wheelbarrow loads left over.

Laura got the texture all shot on the walls and ceilings in there so that was set and the masking stayed up so we were all set for today!

Today was painting. My friends Mary, James and Jane came over and the four of us got it primed in about 2 hours. We were higher than a kite when we got done, even with a fan on and a door open. It looks great in there! Tonight Poly and I will caulk the corners and seams that need it and tomorrow we'll finish up the painting!

This is incredibly exciting to me. :) This week Roger and I will install sockets and switches and perhaps a paddle fan or two. These electricians make me laugh. It's not a ceiling fan, it's a paddle fan.

By the end of next week we'll be moving in equiptment and thinking about how to get the cabinets all installled. :) Life is good. Heck, we're even having our next art meeting in there.

Done. I think.

It was a successful weekend. Today I finished up the sewer reroute. I spent from 11ish till 4:30 and at the end of it all the gluing was done. I still have to check under there when the water has run a bit. But all the pipes are put together, and I installed the new cleanout and floor drain.

This is one of those projects. When I started it there was a riser pipe in the garage in one of the dirt holes. Now that I'm done? There are two cleanout pipes and a floor drain in the dirt hole. I spent a week working. Digging and tunneling and gluing and cutting and crawling around on the dirt and through holes wearing dust masks and helmet lights and ear muffs. At the end of the whole thing it looks almost exactly like it did when I started.

Now I have to find some more dirt to bring up the dirt level since all the concrete I moved outta there underground left a sizable dent in the volume. Then I can pour it fulla concrete and it'll finally be a finished floor.

Laura is gonna get the texturing done pretty soon after Crystal gets a last sponging done on the drywall in there. Then we can prime and paint and move in cabinets and equiptment.

Excited? Yes I am.

Part way there.

I forgot to take pics! What a dumbass.

Anyhow....... Yesterday was somewhat productive. Got parts on Friday and then again on Saturday morning since once you bust out the old sewer connections there is no #2 until you get it done. :) Saturday morning after parts runs I got under the house and did most of the rest of the prep digging. Pablo and Crystal were in the garage drywalling sometime in there. I even opened up my first under the house trench with the hammerdrill so I could get the proper lift on the pipe. Then I prebuilt the cleanout and pre-cut some riser pipes. Time I got done with the digging I was by myself again and it was nearly 4 PM. Luckily at that time Roger showed up to check on me and I had help. Much appreciated help. It's really nice to have someone to hold things in place while you measure and cut. Saves a LOT of time.

By 7 PM I had the laundry room crawl space sewer done and some dirt on the stuff in the garage. I had to stop there since I ran outta glue. Today I hope to finish the piping and get the hole in the garage filled as best I can and get the busted crappy concrete hauled outta there. Oh and maybe I can get that pesky floor drain installed. We'll see how far I get. Crystal is gonna finish the drywall sponging and then might help me do some hauling and shoveling unless she goes over to spin with my sweet LoLo. Either way, it promises to be a good day.

Sewer, I hate sewer

It was a battle royale at the gallery today.

I dug sewer pipe today. I HATE sewer pipe. I started following the cleanout in the garage. It lead down diagionally to a plastic pipe. Good news. 2 feet closer to the house it turned to clay pipe. Not so good. 2 feet later it turned into concrete. Worse. 2 feet after that it lead to a kitchen barrel grease trap. Now we're in nightmare catagory.

I just kept digging.

And breaking concrete with sledge hammer and bar and shovel.

HOURS later I had a good path through the old kitchen trap, has unearthed the "Y" that lead to an angled pipe for the kitchen and was still digging my butt off. Then I started trenching under the foundation for my "future" pipe. I tunneled under for a bit. 18 or 20 inches in I hit more concrete. I took that out with a 1/2 inch by 6 foot steel pipe and a freakin sledge hammer. Things work if you simply refuse to admit the impossibility and insanity of it all.

I quit around 7ish to come take a long hot bath. Tomorrow maybe I'll dig down inside the house and find the tunnel from the other side.

Oh and Pablo was in taping drywall today. He works so hard and does such good work. It's really cool to watch. You should come see......

Decisions made

Projects this big are always tough because there's so many ways to go up to the point when you actually start doing it. Like right now I'm 99% decided to move the bathroom. In fact I'm SO decided that today while Pablo is taping and texturing drywall I'll start digging in a new sewer line and prepping the floor for fixtures. The real goal is getting the garage/studio done and with the new sewer line in I can finally cement in the last bits of dirt in the floor. :) This will be a good thing.

My dear friend Roger will probably pop by today. He came by yesterday and basically offered himself as crew boss on days we have a lot going on. This will be a good thing. I'm not terribly good at bossing people. Roger's response when I said that?

"I am"

I love my friends. They're wonderful people.

Nekid walls

So while I'm waiting on taping and texturing to be done so I can start finishing up the studio and throw pots I've found other things to do. The flicker badge has updated pics as is usual when we've gotten something good done.

Saturday Crystal and I tore out the wall that made the dark, tiny hallway leading from the kitchen to the main building. It was sadly fulla black mold that I'm very glad to have out of there. Crystal got a good laugh when I was taking out the cross studs that ran between the upright studs (after we tore off that crappy, dark paneling). I had to hit them HARD to get 'em out and, of course, I found one that was crappy wood and not nailed in so well and it flew into millions of bits that covered me and everything in the room. I would suppose it did look pretty funny.

We had to cut out bits here and there to get the wiring outta the existing studs and the pipes settled nicely without causing leaks. And when we were done there is room and light and no mold left where there was a dark little hole before.

On Sunday I wandered over and started taking out the corner, bearing wall and putting up a header to hold the existing roofline. It was fun but took lots more thinking than wall from the day before. Had to pull out paneling, then drywall, then the funny angled 1X boards. Following that I removed all but one of the studs so that the header would fold in when I was done. Then I jacked up the roof with a spare 2X4 and my car jack so I could take out the last stud. When I took the jack off the ceiling didn't bow so I hurried up and stuck the header in to keep things nice and tight.

Now I'm going to head over and do some research for the smallest footprint possible for a bathroom. Because.... you know..... now I wanna move the bathroom into the space I've just created and reclaim the 60 square feet the existing one takes up by replacing it with a smaller one that functions better and doesn't take up such a prominent and unwieldly section of the prep area.

I'm flying off to the internet, try to keep up!