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.)

And now we have a floor.

We had a really productive week this week.

Monday they finished back-filling and prepping the inside of foundation for the slab. 4 inches of gravel were brought in to go under the slab.

Tuesday our plumbers started the rough plumbing. They put in all the sewer and water lines that need to go under the slab.

Wednesday all the work the plumbers did on Tuesday was inspected and then the interior footings were dug, the plastic vapor barrier was put down and a wire mesh was put down. The vapor barrier is to hopefully keep any ground water from making its way from underneath into our slab. It also serves to reflect the heat generated from the radiant tubing up into the slab and not down into the earth. The wire mesh should help keep any cracks in the slab from spreading too much.

Thursday the plumbers started working on the radiant tubing for the first floor. The tubing was laid out in rows one foot apart. A loop was put outside the front door so that we can tie into it later and keep the porch heated and ice-free. We are really excited about the radiant heat. This was all inspected Thursday afternoon and ready for the pour on Friday.

On Friday the concrete crew for the flat work was there early to get ready for the pour at 9:00 a.m. First they snapped a level line for the top of the slab then put rebar dowels into the foundation walls to keep the slab from slipping in the event of settling. We did a lot of compacting and hope that settling won't be an issue. We couldn't really afford a pump truck for this pour, but fortunately there was room for the concrete truck along the south side of the house. We had a really good crew on the flat work and they worked quickly and efficiently to rake out and level out the concrete. As soon as we started to pour the wind really kicked up causing the concrete to set up a little faster than we would have liked, but with the power trowel, we were able to get a really smooth surface.

Saturday the slab guy came back to score the slab. Concrete slabs like ours have a tendency to crack. It's a pretty big area for a single slab and it is inside the foundation without anywhere to expand. This makes it pretty unpredictable and cracking is pretty much inevitable. By scoring the slab we hope to create a place for the slab to crack where it will be contained and unnoticeable. Like I said though, concrete is unpredictable and we had a few cracks overnight. One of them was pretty big right through the center of the house. I'm sure we grow to love our cracks here and there, and hope that we won't have many more.

The sad nook (and sadder checkbook)

No washer and dryer. In the meantime, I sadly shake my head to the kind inquiries of neighbors to whom we bragged about adding the W/D combo months ago...

We're stymied on a couple of things, both of which ultimately come back to the sad checkbook. Our power to this corner is a mere 110V, and the vast majority of washers and dryers require a minimum of 220V. The second is that we just don't have the wherewithal to purchase the W/D combo at the moment, so it's going to cost us in quarters instead.

In the meantime, it remains a junk nook:

Two steps forward, one step back

Tai finished the work on the tile for the washer/dryer nook this week, and I spent some time looking for appliances. We have very specific requirements for what can go in there: 30" wide by 30" deep by less than 78" tall for a stacked washer and dryer. The dryer has to be electric because we purposely didn't run gas to the space, and both the washer and dryer have to be able to run on 120 V.

It's the last condition that is proving the most difficult. Standard power for washers and electric dryers is 240 V. I went to a couple of different spots around town looking for something that would fit our criteria, and in each store, the salesmen showed me the same catalogue with the same, single option for a 120 V electric dryer. This type of dryer evidently also takes a really long time to dry because there's half as much juice running to the machine.

Another option for us is to purchase a combination washer/dryer, which I've only ever seen in Europe. They're tiny — built to fit under a kitchen counter like a dishwasher, and the one I saw the other night was a condensation dryer (no, I don't know exactly what that means). And, about 150% as expensive as a typical stacked washer/dryer would be.

But it's so cute, no?

We're hoping our friend The Google Search comes through with some more options for us, one of which may be running a gas line right through some drywall to the space. TBD...

Thing of Beauty

Meet the new drain line for the washing machine that will soon be blessing our lives and making trips to the 7-11 for quarters a thing of the past.

We were finally able to find a plumber who would show up and do the job last week. Of the near dozen plumbers we called, only one other showed up to give me a bid. He said it was impossible and never showed up again. We ended up having a friend of the family who is a plumber do the work and he was great. The whole thing took less than 4 hours.

The new drain line is in the wall separating our utility closet from the washer/dryer cubby.

At the top of the drain pipe in the wall is a mechanical vent, which allows air into the pipes which facilitates the draining action. Before the advent of mechanical vents, we would have had to take this pipe all the way to the roof and vent it there. That would have been difficult since there is a unit above us.

With the drain in place, water hookups were added and now it's up to me to get some electrical in there, drywall, paint, install a dryer vent, tile the floor and get a washer and dryer installed in there. Wish me luck.

Countdown

I'm putting this out there to hold myself to it: we want to move in on Dec. 15. That's two weeks from tomorrow.

In those two weeks, we need to do the following:

Install and paint baseboards, paint door trim, install kitchen cabinet doors, install kitchen trim pieces to match cabinet doors, build and install a concrete kitchen countertop, install a kitchen sink, install a kitchen sink disposal, install a kitchen tile backsplash, reseal the tile, build living room bookshelves and fireplace cover, install window coverings, find a plumber and get a washer drain line hooked up to finish the washer-dryer nook, purchase and install a refrigerator, install a bathroom sink and cabinet, install a bathroom mirror, find and install a bathroom light, paint interior of hall linen closet, install hall linen closet doors, install closet shelving systems in two rooms, touch up living room paint, paint inside of living room coat closet, rehang remaining doors, install new doorknobs, find and install kitchen lights, put up a shower rod, install a bathroom fan cover, saw off and cover the toilet floor bolts, caulk baseboard, install threshold pieces between bamboo and tile flooring, replace the bedroom ceiling fan with something better looking, and clean everything.

Oh my.

Toilet's in

Here's the sewer drain hole that no one should ever get too close to.


Here's the wax ring that I replaced on the bottom of the new toilet (upside-down bowl) to seal it to the sewer drain.


This illustrates me leveling out the bowl. It took a few shims to make the bubbles line up.


And here's our can, newly installed and fully functional:


We still need to cover up the floor bolts, but the covers that came with the toilet can't accommodate the super-long screws. After we hacksaw off the tops of the bolts, we can cover them up. We also have baseboard attached to the bathroom walls, but it is awaiting primer and two coats of white paint. And, when the Miracle Method tub and tile refinisher left, he took some of our fresh bathroom paint with him, so we'll be adding another coat, hopefully sometime this weekend.

Cheap and Swedish

My mother refused to help us remodel until we could provide a functioning bathroom — you know that I'm excited about the toilet since I've already done two posts about it (maybe it goes in tonight?), but here's what we're planning on for the vanity and sink:


And here's what we're thinking of for the faucet:


This setup appeals for us for a couple of reasons: one, it's IKEA which means that it looks decent for not a lot of money, and two, the sink eliminates any need for a separate bathroom countertop. I'm relieved because the idea of having to come up with a few square feet of bathroom countertop was giving me a headache (for instance, does it match the kitchen? if so, is it worth it to do concrete in the bathroom? if not, what do we get that looks good but doesn't cost a fortune?, etc.).

The can

We are, after weeks of dashing to businesses where I would never purchase anything, ready to replace the toilet in our bathroom.

This is what it currently looks like, in the middle of our office:


And this is the video that will help us get there. I've never been so excited about plumbing in my life!