Week 6 was not as productive as I had hoped it would be, but things are still moving forward.
This week they ripped the old deck off the house and framed in a temporary door. I suspect they don’t want to put the real new door in place until framing is in place for the new sunroom, and they can’t get that done until we have a building permit for that part of the job. We continue to expect that permit any day now but don’t yet have it in hand. They also trimmed out and started patching in shingles around the new windows, but were hampered by weather. Today I moved the loft’s ethernet cable up out of the way, and removed the deck speakers (moving one around the corner to its new home, and the other into the basement since it will attach to the outside of the sunroom). I had hoped they would finish shingling around at least one window so I could paint it this weekend, but no. Here’s what the side of the house looks like now:
Inside, the insulation was installed and we got our plumbing rough inspection. Not much else visible will happen in there until the blueboard goes up. We have prepared a time capsule to insert into the walls for some future remodeler to find.
I worked from home on Wednesday to go talk to the tile supplier, and got an update on a number of fronts.
The window mystery is solved. You’ll recall that we had the third new kitchen window in-house, and it disappeared. It turns out our contractor re-ordered this window in tempered glass because of its proximity to the new coat closet doors. Evidently the building code is concerned about people slamming doors hard enough to break nearby windows, and might possibly require temprered glass in such a situation. Better to put that in now than have to rip it out and re-do later.
We also discovered the source of major air infiltration into the crawlspace below the half bath. Ever since we had the footings and posts in this crawlspace repaired, we’ve had a problem in the winter with cold air just pouring through this crawlspace into the basement itself. It turns out that the old stoop concealed a spot where the new stub wall was shorter than it needed to be by about 4 inches. That’ll do it! I’m hopeful that with this spot repaired, the whole basement will be warmer, and we won’t have to use heat tape to protect the half bath’s plumbing pipes from freezing.
The deck demolition evidently went smoothly. In contrast to the undersized footings for the front porch and the 1/2 bath bumpout, the deck’s footings were actually properly sized and a small ordeal to remove. The post for the old back stoop is similarly set in a large amount of concrete that’s attached to a concrete slab that we want to keep, and so will be somewhat difficult to get rid of. The current plan is to cut it off flush and use chemical stump remover to decompose the post, then patch the hole with concrete.
I mentioned talking to the tile supplier. We ordered parts for a tile mosaic that will form a decorative backsplash behind the stove. The center component is a mosaic of 1 inch travertine, glass, and pewter-ish metal tiles; I’ve posted a picture of it previously. But the metal in the mosaic we got from the tile store was more bronze than pewter. It turns out the manufacturer has two colors in this pattern, and the sample our tile store had was an early run of the “copper” color, when that color was closer to the other color, “silver.” The tile store has agreed to exchange these for us, though of course it’ll be another 2-4 weeks before the new one is in. That’s fine; we won’t need it until then anyway.
Our cabinets are scheduled to be installed the week of Memorial Day. To meet this date, we’ve got to get framing & insulation inspections, blueboard & plaster, and flooring in the next 2 weeks. Our cabinets were originally estimated for delivery sometime next week, but I have not heard anything from the shipping company as of yet. Our new refrigerator was also originally scheduled for next Thursday, but I have re-scheduled that for May 24th.
