Tree to table

There's nothing quite like chopping down a tree and turning it into a table. But to get to this,

You have to do a lot of this:

It helps if you convince a talented little brother to swap an old table for design work on the new:

And then it's not even sad when you have to say good-bye to the table you bought just before you got married:

We love the new table. It fits perfectly with the rest of the house and it feels like it's been here since day one. Quinn did a wonderful job for us; he considered all the other finishes, angles, and design elements in our home and designed the new table to fit with those. The colors of the wood -- mostly plum with some lighter shades of rich brown -- blend so beautifully with the finished steel. The table seats 10 comfortably and 12 in a pinch. It arrived the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, just in time to host dinner for some family members.

Tai built the wood sections (as you can see from the slideshow), and we had the metal base fabricated by a few of Quinn's contacts from school. All told, we estimate that we spent roughly 8 to 10 percent of what it would have cost us to purchase a similar piece at retail. We now have an heirloom piece of furniture with a great story and a ton of sweat equity.

We're still waiting for Quinn to pick a name for it. Suggestions welcome.

Finished fence

Tai and his dad took a Friday off to finish the south fence, which has now completely walled in our patio and created a really nice private place for us off our dining room.

With the work the previous weekend on the post holes, the finish work went a bit faster, although it still took the better part of a day. First, they prepped the bottom rail:

...then the top:

Then, came the addition of the vertical boards:

By the end of the day, our patio smelled blissfully of fresh cedar, and the sawdust pile in the garage was a happy reminder of the work completed:

Setting the stage

This is what a season's worth of yard projects looks like:

Looking around at what we still wanted to do this year, we cashed in pretty much every single credit card reward point to our name for a stack of Home Depot gift cards. We figure there are no black-out dates for these things (and travel on rewards is so difficult to book).

Then, I happened to ask my currently unemployed brother whether he wanted to help Tai build a fence this year and he enthusiastically said yes. I'm sure we can make him regret it.

These new homes are real killers

Saturday we wanted to knock out a bit of yard work before another storm rolled in, so Tai mowed the lawn for the first time this season, then put down a fertilizer/herbicide, while I cleared a spot to plant a peach tree. We got those finished up and were about to start laying weed barrier fabric on our dirt stretches in the front yard when Tai went inside and stepped in this:

We had a similar puddle on the other side of that wall in our mud room. Water was seeping throughout the west end of our first floor via all the micro cracks (you can see that in the picture). Lots and lots of panic ensued. Can we avoid swollen dry wall? How deep is the leak? Which pipe is it? Will the baseboard be ok? Why is our entire first floor weeping? How the #$%^ did this happen? Why do these things always happen on the weekends? Etc.

We did what we always do in these situations, which is call Tai's dad for a dose of serenity and reassurance before tearing into the wall. The wall that divides the kitchen and the mud room is a shear wall, meaning that it's faced with plywood for stability in the event of an earthquake, meaning that even if we cut into the drywall we will have a lot of depth and structural stuff to cut through to get to the plumbing in the guts of the wall. One side of that wall was covered with kitchen cabinets and a counter top, and the other side had some lovely brand-new cabinets. Remember these?

They shortly looked like this:

Tai and his dad (who graciously and cheerfully gave up his Saturday to come help us) actually pulled the counter top off as well in order to cut a hole near where we knew the leak was coming from.

We thought that the problem wasn't in the regular house plumbing because we hadn't done anything unusual lately and hadn't gotten a leak until Saturday. The only thing we did Saturday that we don't normally do is use the hose (to water the nascent peach tree) -- Tai's first thought is that he had somehow punctured the hose supply line while hanging the cabinetry last week. As it turns out, it was a burst hose bib -- most likely my fault, from not properly draining and emptying and disconnecting the hose at some point during the winter. 

Oops.

Tai and his dad confirmed this theory after cutting into the wall near the hose bib connection in the mud room. They chopped off the hose bib, which is a long length of copper pipe sheathing that goes deep into an interior wall -- so as to prevent exactly this type of freeze-burst! -- with a bit of pex tubing coming out the interior wall side for the water supply.

After a couple of trips to England Plumbing (seriously, they are the best) for the correct size replacement bib and a tool rental, they were happily cutting into the bones of the house and installing the new part.

We are no longer leaking, but we're not putting the cabinetry back together until we can fill in the hole with some foam for insulation of the hose connector. And I shall train myself from now on to always, always, always turn off the water and disconnect the hose. (Oops.)

I sheepishly stayed out of the way during the repairs and tried to make myself useful in other ways. So I got some of the weed fabric down -- turns out that you're supposed to get rid of all the weeds first, so I spent much of the afternoon on my hands and knees digging up all sorts of nasty little things. Then, I roughly graded the covered spots and finally tacked down the fabric:

We're hoping that this stuff makes life a little easier -- so far our greatest gardening successes have been the quantity and variety of weeds our yard supports. Sooner rather than later we hope to layer a lot of mulch on top, and we're hoping for a few plants down the road as well. We also got our lawn aerated cheaply by some folks trolling the neighborhood for business, meaning that now we do not need to spend several hours and $ grabbing a Home Depot rental aerator. The peach tree that (sort of) started it all:

So lesson learned: I said we were going to blog more, and the universe said, "You want to blog more? I'll give you something to blog about!" Then, right as this all was starting to develop, I mentioned to Tai that if nothing else this will make a good story, and he said, "I'm TIRED of having good stories." Here's hoping for nothing but boring updates for the rest of the season.

(And thanks to the friends/family who called or stopped by after reading my panicked Facebook status update. You guys are the best.)

Weekend update

Things that have happened at the house recently:

• backyard graded (landscaping waits until spring, but our mud waits for no one)
• siding continues to go up on the exterior of the garage, in prep for our appraisal this afternoon
• final plumbing went in, including our kitchen faucet and hooking up our stove:


• we gave imaginary gold stars to our family members who spent the day Saturday helping us clean the kitchen and clean and prep the concrete floor
• finished up the last of the baseboard detailing
• Tai and I sealed the concrete floor with a clear sealant that adds the tiniest bit of shine to the floor and brings out all the gnarly variations in the concrete
• cleaning, cleaning, cleaning

We have a major fridge problem. The fridge shown in my last post sticks out from the cabinetry about 9+ inches, which is a huge bummer because we love the bottom-freezer option and that was about the only one available (it also took two weeks getting here). So, we need a replacement asap.

Our limiting dimensions are the width of the space (30") and the depth that feels good in that space (roughly 28", excluding the handle); height is as flexible as we need it. I have run through salesmen at Lowe's and Orson Gigi looking for something that works with no luck. Suggestions welcome. Oh, and we need something as soon as possible so that we're not fridge-less during the holidays. Argh.

...

Forgive us the posting drought. By way of brief announcement, I was pregnant this fall, and over Thanksgiving I went into pre-term labor and gave birth to our stillborn son. We will be mourning for quite some time, but we have been so grateful for the love and support of our family and friends through it all. Pouring ourselves into finishing this house has been a great comfort to both of us — we are clinging to the happy anticipation of a finished house as a way to soothe the grieving process.

We are close. Yesterday our staircase and landing rail system arrived and was installed in a matter of hours (you can also see our finished, exposed duct work):


You can see the blue that we settled on for the large north wall, too. Many, MANY thanks to the our weekend volunteer crew: Judy, Greg, Nancy, Laura, and especially my father-in-law Tainui who couldn't be dragged from helping by wild horses. Tainui: we owe you our baseboard, our painted walls, our light fixtures, our tile floors, our sanity and our love.

Davido's crew has been hard at work on our garage. Over the weekend that meant putting up particle-board sheeting in sub-freezing temperatures. Today, it meant installing a garage door in the biggest blizzard of the year:



In the "insult upon injury" category, last Saturday night we discovered water damage in our kitchen ceiling. Turns out that a part of our master bath shower fixture had a slow leak that had been dripping onto our ceiling since it was installed. A late-Saturday-night visit from Davido, the plumber and my in-laws helped us pinpoint the location of the leak. The plumber repaired it yesterday, and today the drywaller was redoing the kitchen ceiling.


Part of the stairs delivery included the frame for our front door canopy, which will eventually have 2"x4" cedar planks to form the "roof" for our front door and approach:


So, we're getting there.

Good things, Utah (or, wherein I sing the praises of our contractor)

A long time ago when this house was just a twinkle in Tai's eye, we had a discussion about who would build it. Davido's name came up. Knowing next to nothing about the Biesinger clan (except that it is a mighty huge clan), I was reluctant to hire a family member — I was worried about what would happen if things went wrong, if we got mad, if he got mad, budget overruns, missed deadlines, etc. Basically, I was worried about what would happen if we hired a family member and then had a stereotypical GC experience.


But, my family connections include a geologist, a second-grade teacher, a pediatric endocrinologist, and a couple of college students, so I couldn't really produce another general contractor option. We hired Davido, and I'm so glad that we did. Here's a brief list of the good things that have happened because we did:

• started digging approximately 90 minutes after we received our building permit and finished excavation that same day
• got us a connection to an awesome concrete subcontractor who we otherwise couldn't have afforded — our first floor (which will remain exposed concrete) is beautiful
• got us another connection to a metal subcontractor who has matched an early, low bid and does great custom work
• put bonus reflective insulation around our bathtub — hey, who knows whether it will keep our water hot longer, but it's worth a shot!
• got us blown-in insulation for only $400 more than our initial blanket insulation bid, taking us from R-17 to R-23
• got us additional sound-proofing insulation in interior walls upstairs
• bonus: radiant heat in the front porch concrete!
• tolerated Tai working to his heart's content on the framing crew, giving him the bona fides to say, "I built this house"
• the specs on our framing plan called for a lot of unique hardware, but Davido tracked down less expensive options that still maintained high performance
• enjoyed a friendly relationship with all inspectors, who come out to the site more to admire Davido's handiwork than to find fault with it
• Davido found us an equally beautiful but less expensive window brand than was originally specified, saving us several thousand dollars
• got a level 5 finish on our drywall, making it look like it was painted before so much as a layer of primer went on and thoroughly hiding all drywall seams and patches
• found a pro painter who was willing to work on hourly with materials at cost, meaning that we get a fully painted house with lacquered doors and windows by the end of this week for minimally more money — saving us the roughly three weeks it was going to take us to do the same job (which saves us much more in construction interest payments than the painting will cost)
• Davido has done so well keeping things on budget that we have barely touched our contingency money, and we've gone so quickly that we won't use all the construction interest money in the budget. He has saved us enough money in construction that it looks as though we might be able to build a garage with the savings, something we thought we'd have to wait a year or two before doing.

But there are two big things that deserve their own paragraphs: timeline and peace of mind.

We are flying on this house. It's now looking quite likely that we'll be moved in before Thanksgiving, which was a laughable pipe dream back when we got our permit on July 29. Things have moved so quickly. We will get to celebrate the holidays in our new house.

Every time I hear anything about construction, it's because another piece of good news rolled in — either Davido has saved another $500 on some sub-bid or product, or he got us a free upgrade, or he's shaved another couple of days off the construction schedule. The more I share this with people, the more I'm coming to realize how exceptional it is to be under budget and moving faster than expected. Which gives us total peace of mind about our general contractor.

Stabbing Pain

We met with the architects and the builder on Friday and have made cuts and are close enough to just move forward. The plans will be done on Friday morning next week and we will go to the city and put them in for permit.

So this weekend I went to my dad's house to help him on some projects before my life gets consumed in the construction of our house. We were fixing his fence which had fallen down in a few places and............... I stabbed my self with a bowie knife.

Long story long, my dad has a knife that he uses for sprinklers that he had just gotten cleaned up and sharpened. I went to look at it and then decided to throw it in the grass, because that's what really cool people do. My stance had my right leg in front of me and I threw the knife handle first (first mistake) and let go of it a split second too late and so instead of going forward and down into the grass a few feet in front of me, it went straight down and into my shin. The point of the knife went into my leg, pierced the shin bone and then bounced several feet.

At first it just felt like I hit my shin with some blunt object but then I remembered that I had been throwing a fracking knife and fell to the ground and put pressure on the stab hole that I had put in my leg. My dad helped me into the car and we went to the ER. I got to ride in a wheel chair for the first time though and that was cool. When they were checking me in they asked what my pain level was on a 1 - 10 scale. It was about a 4. After about an hour the doc showed up and shot the area up with some very nice stuff that makes it feel like nothing happened. As he got to cleaning the wound he found that the knife had pierced the shin bone, which changed things quite a bit since if infection got in the bone it would be a really really bad thing (amputation was mentioned). So he stitched me up and ordered an x-ray to see the extent of the damage to the bone and gave me a huge shot of anti-biotic in each of my butt cheeks and prescribed me a 7 day round of anti-biotics. This with all the cleaning he did of the wound should take care of any danger of infection, but I need to follow up with an orthopedic surgeon if it doesn't feel better in a week or so.

After about 3 hours I was able to leave the hospital and I was feeling pretty good, if not like a complete idiot. I went back to my parents where I had dinner and then took off for home. I needed to pick up my prescription first. This took about an hour and half. Each minute that passed more of the local anesthesia wore off and the pain increased. By the time I was driving home from the pharmacy the pain was approaching a 9. Nobody was driving fast enough and I hit every red light. I was screaming louder than I ever have at everyone in my way all the swears I could think of.

All I could think about was getting home to the Lortab that was not prescribed to me for this, but that I have in my cupboard from some oral surgery last year.I took it and now the pain is a 6 or 7. Advil just wasn't going to cut it.

I had ridden my bike 30 miles this morning and then worked in the sun for a few hours and I was pretty dang filthy. Now, you're not supposed to change the dressings for 24 hours and you really aren't supposed to get them wet. Well, I put a trash bag on my leg and taped the top with tape that wasn't sticky enough and got in the shower. I got my dressing all wet, so I changed it with the stuff I got at the pharmacy, but it isn't really doing the job and I'm alone because Kersten is in San Francisco for the weekend. So, I'm basically a wreck and though they stitched up my leg, my ego needs some major work right now. Like maybe a transplant.

So, don't throw knives because getting stabbed hurts exactly as much as you think it would hurt.

Remodeling elves

We couldn't have done this process without all the help from our families. We've mentioned Tai's rock-star dad on this blog many times before (see subfloor 1, subfloor 2, tile) with even a picture of the fine gent here. We interrupted his Saturday night with a desperate call for help wiring our dishwasher and garbage disposal. He graciously responded by crawling around on our floor for several hours:


My mother bravely trekked downtown in the middle of the season's first blizzard to help us paint some closet interiors. The hall linen closet and the living room coat closet both now have paint thanks to her.



The brothers-in-law helped put down the bamboo, and my grandfather spent two back-breaking days under our kitchen sink trying to figure out our antiquated plumbing. Bless his heart — he is SO tired of doing our plumbing. He's also been housing us since mid-August, so I'm pretty sure he's sick of that, too!


My dad and little sister even got in the action by priming on our kitchen walls and front door. My dad made an encore appearance to prime the bathroom baseboard (ah, our lives are so glamorous!). My mother and grandfather made a much-needed dump run for us, which is why you haven't been treated to a final photo of the old toilet in an odd setting — they got the honor of throwing it into the dump pit. I got word this morning from my mother that she ironed and hemmed our bedroom and office curtains for us ("It's curtains for you..." was her exact phrase). And Daniel and Lacy gave us a jump start on our kitchen cabinets one very cold night just before Thanksgiving.

So, this is great. When I grumble about living in Utah (see: the last three years), it's usually because I've forgotten what a benefit it is to live near family. Help with our remodeling project is just a small reason why I'm constantly reminding myself that we are indeed lucky to have all trillion of them nearby!