This week saw no big changes, but progress nonetheless. The most visible progress — a replacement water heater — was not even technically part of the project. A lot of little things add up to forward progress, but the pace of visible changes has slowed.
The other large project this week was that the flooring contractor visited and did not like the prospect of installing a new oak floor atop the old one, so our GC had to remove the existing floor in the ex-sunroom after all, and install plywood subfloor to bring it back up to flush with the old part of the kitchen. As I posted, this exposed newspapers from 1935 that were under there! So now we know when this flooring was installed. The other thing this means is that we were able to salvage a few boards from this floor to repair damage in other parts of the first floor, a project I will take on after the pros leave.
We are installing three new windows and one new exterior door in the kitchen. One window was required — the old one was too close to the floor to have counter in front of it — and one was in bad enough shape to be worth replacing even though it’s almost the same size. The third window goes where the old back door was; that door needed to go away to allow us enough room to put our coat closet in the back hallway. Finally, the new exterior door replaces the slider between kitchen and what will be the new sunroom with a more attractive, more energy efficient unit — exterior because the sunroom will be unheated. The first two windows are in, and in fact were in at this time last week. The third window we expected to go in this week, but there was some dry-rot around the old door that required more rebuilding. It’s also been rainy this week, not the ideal conditions in which to put in a new window.
But the weird part is that this third window is no longer in the house. I suspect it was the wrong size, damaged in some way, or otherwise not useable. I’m sure I’ll hear the story when I talk to our contractor. My understanding is that the new door is on order and is expected this week.
Our electrical rough-in is complete. Friday the electricians came back to do the last couple of tasks, and they got their inspection. I spent some time last weekend hooking up speaker wires to terminal blocks in the basement and fishing new wire to the stereo. And I spent some time today terminating the Ethernet cable at both ends; the same work for the phone cable will have to wait for a Home Depot run.
Our plumbing rough-in also appears complete; I’m not sure why they didn’t get their rough inspection at the same time as the electrical one. Maybe it was someone’s availability.
I think we need the new window & door before we can get the final (framing/structural) rough inspection. The contractor also did fire-blocking this week — a very important code issue in a 120 year
old balloon-framed house. He must feel we’re close, because there are bales of insulation on site, and he can’t insulate until the rough inspections are done. Once insulation is in and inspected, we can proceed to wallboard and skim-coat plaster, which I am sure everyone will see as a major milestone. I’m not sure we’ll be there at this time next week, but I think we’ll be close.
We are still waiting on the building permit for the sunroom portion. The city is requiring a footing plan signed-off by a structural engineer, as they did with 2 previous projects on this house. But our contractor has a structural engineer on staff, so I am hopeful we’ll see the permit this week.
