So much has happened in the last two weeks, I've been too busy to write! We had a terrible heat wave that just happened to be when Sue and I had to install our wiring for telephone, TV etc. It figures. Our roof was installed, attic has been vented and the paper and wire installed for stucco. So much is going on and we're seeing changes every day. I'll write more about our wiring adventures later.

The last couple of weeks various subcontractors have been roughing in the electric, plumbing and ductwork for heating. The framing crew had one or two final visits to correct minor issues and install the windows, so the project site has been very busy! Photos here: http://www.employees.org/~bdf/construction_iii.htm

The hardwood floor installer also paid a visit to measure the house, and our fireplace is getting roughed-in today.

We spend the last two weekends getting ready to pull the wiring for telephone, network, CATV etc. We started by installing the in-wall boxes where the wall plates will eventually go. We also drilled holes both for conduit (to ease adding future wiring) and for the wires we'll be installing. We finished installing all the conduit this past weekend, so hopefully we're ready to go for wire pulling on this coming weekend. There's a rush to get this all finished before the sheetrock shows up which may only be 1-2 weeks away.

Sue and I met today with Contractor Kevin and Electrician Gary to walk through placement of outlets, switches and lights. In hopes of saving time Sue and I did a pre-walkthrough last night to decide on what changes we wanted from the plans. The pre-walkthrough took over 2 hours but we figured it would save time this morning. Nevertheless, it took another 2 hours to go over everything with Kevin and Gary. Some of our changes:

• Addition of under-eve outlets front and back for hanging Christmas lights. These outlets will be switched from the garage
  
• Access to power at the back corner for installing a lawn sprinkler control panel
  
• Added an outlet in the attic
  
• Added low-voltage reading lights above the bed area in master bedroom
  
• Added over-desk ceiling cans in the office
  
• Extra wiring for possible future light additions in living room
  
• Added power for wiring closet to support my low-voltage wiring project (telephone, network, audio etc)
  

In addition we moved quite a few switches around and added a number of outlets. We had no idea we'd be making so many changes!

Gary told me to look into wiring the smoke detectors into the home security system (so the house could phone me if a smoke detector goes off). That will be today's research project.

It looks just like the plans!

The framers were putting in the finishing touches today as we met with our cabinetmaker to go over the kitchen design as well as the bath and laundry room cabinets. We had a busy couple of weeks driving around to select granite slabs for countertops, meeting with James at HomeTech to go over our low-voltage wiring plans, the cabinet meeting this morning and so on. There should be a lot of activity starting now to get plumbing, gas, AC, heating/ventilation etc installed.

I have to re-work our home networking plans as James suggested we use a different panel (Channel Vision) which will fit more easily in our wiring closet and cost a lot less than the FutureSmart panel I had planned to use. He also suggested installing in-ceiling speakers and we're thinking that might be a good idea. I like the look of the ABUS audio system, but I think I'll run speaker wire in parallel in case we want to switch to a centralized amplifier system. The reason I like ABUS is that it easily allows local audio sources in each room as well as a main source such as a home stereo. A nice looking alternative is NuVo, and I think I can pretty much use the same wiring regardless.

Lots of work on the roof the last couple of days. The crew first built some of the roof framework along with some scaffolding, then used it to hoist a large beam up to the roof peak. Today they were nailing up the rafters. Also, work on the garage floor has begun, and the electrician is coming by to move the electric service panel from some leftover wall and move it to our new exterior wall. Then we can tear out the last of the old wall.

The crew has been hamming it up for the photos. Some of them are here: Photos of week 13

The framing is going along swimmingly! Here are more photos: Photos of week 12

Sue checked with the city and they said adding the chimney is no problem, it just requires a separate permit. Yay! We had worried that we might need to re-submit plans for review which would have been a pain.

Finally we are going 3-dimensional! Framing started on Tuesday and is progressing very quickly. I'll try to get photos on the website tonight.

I phoned Kevin out of panic because I thought the wall around the office looked too high. The exterior wall is only supposed to be 7 feet but I thought it looked more like 9'. Later when I saw what the 9.5' walls looked like I realized it was an optical illusion and office wall height is correct. It seems the eye gets tricked very easily when looking at the framing. Poor Kevin. It's his job to deal with the nervous homeowners.

Steve (our architect) called this morning with not-so-good news. Not really too bad either. Because of how we are doing the construction we're going to have to retroactively pay more for the permits (not a huge amount but it's still a pain). There is also a drainage problem around our garage because our lot is so flat, the garage slab will need to be elevated. According to Steve this is not too bad either. We also needed to commit to our fireplace location (on the wall between the living room and the office) because they were ready to start framing it.

Sue's checking with the city on whether we can build a chimney on the roof. We'll probably just go with a simple venting pipe if the city gives us grief over it but hopefully we can just pull a separate permit. Steve designed a nice chimney for us so I hope we can build it.

We now have a lovely hole in the old foundation for crawl space access! This may not have been amusing to the neighbors: They jackhammered this hole on a Saturday. Sorry neighbors.

The time is flying, we're already nearly 3 months into the project. As the plumbing and duct work completes the crew is installing insulation under the floor. Framing should be underway any minute. Photos of week 12

Another diving catch: Because we were able to rip out the old slab floor, it became possible to switch the heating duct work from the attic to under the floor. Apparently this will be more efficient. Unfortunately we neglected to double check the plans to be sure the vents would be in suitable floor locations (they just moved the ceiling locations straight down to the floor). On the weekend we noticed one of the vent locations had been cut out and realized it was not going to work. After looking over the plans we asked Kevin to change a few of the vent locations. Sounds like we caught it in time, and as a result of the discussion we'll be adding a vent to the guest bath which was omitted from the plans.