We are moving right along. Apparently moving along so well in fact that fate decided we should slow down. Last Sunday morning i arrived at the crime scene (= my house) to find that someone had decided we had too many power tools so they would help us out by taking them away for us at no charge! They were so considerate that they even did it at night so that we would not have to be bothered moving all of those silly boxes around when we were ready to start the work day. Damn those frelling bastards! I mean, really? Steal from the girl who is completely broke and has owned a house for seven months that she still can’t live in? That’s just mean!
Well said jerks took all of Dad’s power tools, the paint sprayer, and the gas powered generator that all of the tools run off of so needless to say Sunday wasn’t very productive once the police left. I was impressed with the Berkeley Police department; they actually dusted for finger prints! I mean wow, it’s not like i lost 10K worth of stuff. Also they were nice, friendly, and even helpful. Also i got to meet my “beat cop”. I guess he drives around my neighborhood 4 nights a week. It’s always nice to get to be on good terms with the local law enforcement; makes those “the music is too loud at 4am” interactions so much smoother.
Once the important tools were replaced work proceeded. Actually a lot of work proceeded. Mom was up for the weekend and managed to strip 8 layers of paint off of the original window jamb for the living room. It’s amazing what that woman can do with paint remover. We also managed to get a lot of odds and ends wrapped up that had been lingering. Things like corrections to the vent piping for the bathroom and adding missing electrical wires rounded out the weekend.
Last Tuesday i braved an inspection all by myself! Yea! I even understood 99% of what the corrections were from the inspector. I am truly filling my head with building knowledge, wonder how long i will retain it? Well the corrections were what this weekend was spent fixing. Two basic items: a) “Nail” the floor, apparently 3,000 screws are not going to hold it in place during an earthquake; b) “Make up” the electrical boxes. This means put all of the appropriate wires together for each box, which “appropriate” changes depending upon the type of switch/outlet/and interaction location. Lots of referring to the pretty pictures for how this stuff is supposed to go together.
Floor Nailing – Now while this is actually a fairly easy and straight forward task when you have a framing nail gun this is a time consuming pain if you have different ages and dryness of wood that you will be shooting the nails into. The newer non dry wood doesn’t readily take the nails as well as the original wood for the house, and since i have to have the nails at the surface of the floor as best as possible this means setting the nail gun at it’s minimum penetrating depth so i don’t occasionally go through the floor. Also this means that about 50% of the nails placed in the floor using the gun will not drive fully into the wood so they must be gone back over with a hammer. So one room is about 30 minutes nailing and an hour hammering. This floor is never going a-n-y-w-h-e-r-e!!!
Piggy Tails! I am really enjoying the electrical wiring. I get to strip wires (easy and painless), follow different diagrams for different parts and trouble shoot the best way to get everything connected for the proper hot flow, and i get to stick little plastic holdy bits onto the wires to complete circuits. Here are some examples of my electrical fantasticness. This week i get to figure out the remaining 3-way lights, smoke alarms, and my doorbell!
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