We sprang a leak

There was a pretty serious amount of water coming out of a pipe at the back of the house after the driveway got jackhammered last week. Thankfully, our unpleasant plumber was out of town, so the concrete guy, Melesio, came to fix it instead. He's awesome, and a very nice guy.

He fixed the leak in the back, but the backpressure of shutting off the water created another leak at the water main/valve in the front yard. So, he borrowed some bread from us to plug the pipe. Huh? Yes, apparently this is what plumbers do to slow a leak enough to heat the pipe with a blowtorch when soldering a joint. Seems like there'd be a specific product for that. Nope. Wonderbread or Bimbo does the trick every time. At one point, Melesio asked me for another slice of bread, as someone on his crew got hungry and ate the other one.

We've hired Melesio to lay sprinklers and sod in the backyard, as well as pouring the concrete for the driveway and patio. If I could get him to finish everything left on the house I would, and I'm pretty sure we'd get our Certificate of Occupancy in half the time.

Octavio Primes

Does that post title sound like something from the Transformers, or is it just me? These guys have been fantastic in their attention to detail during prepping and priming. I can't wait for the color to go up.
While walking the kids around the block yesterday we realized that the paint color going over the existing stucco is very similar to our neighbors house two down from us. However, they've got white trim and we'll have the Iron Fixture trim, so the look will probably be very different. I can't wait for this powdery baby blue color to be gone.

Loads of stuff

There have been lots of things happening at the house over the last few days:

• The painters have primed and prepped the interior of the addition.
• They're sanding window sills and other trim and have been taping off the front porch to prime and paint out there.
• We've finalized the trim color to Dunn Edwards's Iron Fixture:

• The plumber moved the water heater and removed it's housing so the back wall can be stuccoed.
• The siding is almost entirely done, just a small section remains to be done over the balcony.
  
• The railing has been installed on the balcony and looks very cool (despite having changed the design from horizontal to vertical rails to avoid the whole "toddlers think it's a ladder" issue).
• The balcony floor has been sealed with some noxious smelling stuff.
• The solar guys are installing the solar panels. Erin said she took some pictures of the panels before they were hoisted up, so I'll post those later.

It's very exciting to see so much happening all at once.

update:

• Concrete patching to fix a plumbing mistake from eight months ago will happen this week.
• Cleaning, sandblasting, and sealing the interior concrete floor is scheduled to begin next week.
  

Awful quiet

Nothing seemed to happen last week. Could this have anything to do with us mentioning to J.D. that we're running out of money? We're meeting James on Wednesday to talk over the remaining allowance items and where we can save.

Here's a question: Do we avoid buying cheap stuff that isn't needed for a Certificate of Occupancy (e.g., laundry room door?) altogether and just buy the better stuff later when money magically appears in our lives? Or do we get everything in place, even if it means replacing some of it down the road?

Today I saw the plumber lurking around, but that's about it. The siding guys were supposed to come either Saturday or today, hopefully they'll be here today. Once they're done the stucco can continue.

Rough plumbing inspection

We passed!

Pano tour of rough electrical

I've gone mad. Click on the image to check out a panoramic QTVR tour of the current state of the house. In it, please be sure to look up and note the many can lights.

The rough electrical and plumbing installations seem to be going well. I never knew they hammered little metal plates onto each 2x4 to guard the high voltage wire from homeowner studfinders & nails.

By the way, if you have any problems viewing the QTVR pano movie, please email me.

More thoughts on fixtures. Railings, too.

Erin says:

We've almost decided to go with Hudson Reed for faucets. JP has been scouring blogs and forums for reviews, and most people seem to think that as long as you get the correct conversion parts, installation is okay. Our problem now is that he wants a more overhead-type "rain" showerhead, and I don't. Since I have long hair, I often skip washing it, and I prefer an angled head. We may go for both -- we have to ask if that's possible, or if it's a budget-buster.

We're also waiting to find our if we can have wall-mounted faucets without a weird sink. You know, those bowls that sit on your counter.

On a different note, I really want to get a dual-level handrail for the stairs, so there's one at adult level and one at kid level. I was looking for a photo online, but I haven't found one yet. Our Ikea has them on their stairs.

Looking for fixture suggestions

The plumber told me this morning that we need to have our bath and shower fixtures as well as the bathtub picked out sometime in the next week or two. This is normally the kind of thing we would obsessively research for months before coming to a tortured decision. Can anyone help accelerate this for us? Erwins, I'm looking squarely at you!

James, does the company that makes the knock-offs of highend faucets have a website?

Update:
This shower is nice looking, however I'm sure it's a bit on the pricey side.

Let the plumber plumb

These pipes were dropped off a few days ago. Some holes were drilled. The concrete has to be cut to move the sink drain back.

Framers have finished

They got the stairs and everything else done yesterday, after working a very long day. I'll post some photos or panoramas soon.

Next up are the plumber to cut and move one pipe, and the electricians will start getting high voltage wiring in.

On a related note, we're going to be meeting with the low voltage guy sometime to talk about all the cool wiring: ethernet CAT5, coaxial, speakers, phone, and others. I'm thinking we'll try to terminate everything in the closet of the studio. I'm envisioning a huge patch bay and scads of blinking lights. James was telling us about having IR remote receivers in a few rooms that send their signals over wire to the media closet. That's where TiVo and pals will live. Does anyone have any other recommendations on serving audio and video up from a central location?

Where'd the stairs go?

My son and I have a tradition of going outside when I get home from work to see what the workers have done. Yesterday as we were heading out I heard him say, "Where'd the stairs go, Dadda?". Huh?! Where indeed? They were simply gone.

I immediately assumed that it was collateral damage from the ongoing battle between the framer and the plumber, but there were not enough blood stains evident to support that theory.

So I called J.D. He said they were just doing it for fun. Actually, it turns out there was some confusion about the structural engineer's drawings of the landing height, so to correct it he's gonna rebuild it all today.

Fisticuffs

The heat here in Los Angeles (108 degrees!) has clearly slowed down the rate of construction. The framing looks to be 95% finished but it's taking a while to get that last bit done. We see the framer for a few hours in the morning and then he never returns from lunch. Is it the heat? Does he have another job to go to? Is he waiting on some part to come in? Or is it that his feelings are still hurt from the drama with the plumber?

We weren't home for this, but we've learned from a couple of sources that the framer and the plumber nearly got into a fist fight a couple of days ago. One of our neighbors said they were screaming profanities at each other with such vigor that she heard them from inside her house. She came outside and reminded them that there are kids on our block who shouldn't be learning that kind of vocabulary just yet.

Wood drop two

The framers are starting to run out of wood, so a second wood drop has arrived.

I talked with the plumber this morning. He recommends that we use two small flash water heaters. This way neither one is positioned too far from a faucet. He wants to do an exterior mount on the "hidden" side of the house. Our architect, James, refers to this as "scabbing" things onto the outside, and would prefer to have them mounted in the attic or under the stairs. I side with James for aesthetic reasons, but the plumber alleges that there will be considerable money saved by going with the barnacular approach. Not sure which way we'll go in the end.

Plumbed

The plumber has installed what he needed to before the concrete gets poured on Friday. You can also sort of see the grid of rebar that Kevin and Javier built to tie the existing foundation into the new one. The inspector comes today to make sure all is proper before the foundation goes in.

Rebar

Day 5
More reinforcing today. They started adding rebar in the trenches as well. There should be a plumber in the next day or two to put the pipes in there before the cement gets poured.

We met with James (the architect) yesterday, which was fun. I think we'll have to pick out the color of our concrete floor soon. This will run down the hallway to the stairs, in the studio, the little downstairs bathroom, and the back bedroom. They mix color into the concrete, so you can't change it later. Oh, the pressure!

I was nervous about the concrete floor until I happened to see it in my friend's kitchen. It was a very warm yellow, and she loves it.