Friday, 10/28 – Fire Safety, Stinky Floors, and Home

“Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” – Robert Frost

On Friday, our electricians arrived bright and early, even before Jamie, our builder. The town’s fire chief wasn’t happy that our fire and carbon monoxide monitors on the main floor and basement level weren’t hard-wired into the rest of the system. On the upper level, if one alarm goes off, they all do, but that wasn’t the case on the other levels. The town inspector didn’t want to do a full sign off on occupancy unless the fire chief was happy. Chris looked into doing a wireless approach, but that wasn’t going to do it. Jamie offered to share a bit of the cost (he wants that sign off!) and we decided to have it done.

I’m not even sure where the wires went through, but it’s all set now. If one fire or carbon monoxide monitor in the house goes off, they all will, complete with an odd “ship’s computer” type voice stating the type of problem. The fire chief should be very happy now!

Meanwhile, Jamie arrived and started to rip up the carpet in the old portion of the family room. It was kind of gross to see the dirt that had sifted down through the carpet and padding. We only have a little bit of wall-to-wall carpet left in the house (the guest room, upstairs landing, and the stairs) but seeing what’s underneath one makes me want to get rid of all of the rest! Maybe that will be another project.

The floor people came to sand down the floors and put on the first coat of polyurethane. They used a “dustless” system which involved a big metal unit resembling a fridge. Plastic was put up between the family room and the kitchen and over the current built-ins in the family room. I’m happy to say that, unlike when the plasterers came, we didn’t end up with dust everywhere, so the combination of plastic and the dustless system worked! The smell of the process was also a concern; the doors to all the unaffected rooms were kept shut to keep the smell from them.

We had stayed up rather late on Thursday night getting things cleared out of the current family room; sadly, I only got a couple of hours of sleep! Chris moved the computer into the living room so it was usable; it will stay there until the new built-ins go into the family room. The TV and the wii went into the current dining room (where I’m typing; this will be a dedicated office in the future) so we are able to at least see some TV, play wii, and watch Netflix. The floors will have three coats of polyurethane; we’ll be in this odd interim state for about a week and a half. I’m happy to say that everyone is handling it all really well.

Because of my sleep-deprived nature, I felt like I had to get a nap before leaving the house! I took my pillow into my daughter’s room and was able to nap for a few hours despite the noise of sanding. I inherited crazy napping genes from my dad. I woke up in time to grab a frozen dinner and take it to a friend’s house to heat up for a late lunch and a nice chat. At this point, the family room had been sanded and they were about to start on the sewing room.

When it was time, I picked my youngest up from school. We came home to make sure everything was locked up and to check out the smell. It wasn’t terrible, but after about 10 minutes it was as if I could taste it. Survivable, but not a state I’d like to be in for long! I picked the other kids up from school (they’d been on a field trip) and then took one to a practice and the others to the library while we waited for practice to be over. Once all afternoon activities were complete, we headed up to my brother and sister-in-law’s house 45 minutes away. We had packed clothes to spend Friday and Saturday nights with them to get away from the “new floor” smell.

And this is where the Robert Frost quote comes in. On very short notice (Wednesday afternoon), my brother and sister-in-law took in our little family of five for two days. We have two people with celiac disease (no wheat, rye, barley, or most oats) and one very picky eater, so we’re not the easiest of guests! We were welcomed, well-fed, and well-housed. I had a lot of fun working on puzzles; I’m so happy we’ll have room for a puzzle table in the new family room. The kids did Dance Dance Revolution and saw some movies, including Singin’ in the Rain for the first time and That’s Entertainment!, which I knew was a hit when my youngest wanted it paused so he could use the bathroom. It wasn’t even at a dance number; Gene Kelly was just talking. My boys helped make rolls from scratch and my older son did a fancy craft with his aunt. We are so thankful for our weekend home away from home.

Wednesday, 10/26 – Gutters and Flooring and Scheduling, Oh, My!

We have gutters! They go into PVC piping that routes the water behind the house where we want it to go. I don’t think our leaf guards came in yet, but it’s very exciting to have gutters. When we moved here, most of the house didn’t have gutters. There were wires that hung off the roof like waves (VVVVVVVV) that you were supposed to turn on when it snowed to avoid ice dams (we did not avoid them last winter) but I don’t know what that was going to do for rain.

Our inspector way back when recommended removing the wires and adding gutters, but…we never did. When it rained, the rain just poured off the roof. The moisture stayed near the house, last year resulting in basement flooding. So seeing a whole system of gutters on our side is a wonderful thing.

The floor guys were back and they finished the back room. The “wedge” turned out to be fine. There are small differences between how the boards lie along the wall but they aren’t especially noticeable and when the baseboard trim is on it would take a very picky expert to see it. We definitely made the right decision! They also did a little bit of sanding between the new and old floor to try to get an idea of how it will look; “great” is the answer! Tomorrow they will do the sewing room. It’s a small room so I don’t expect it will take the whole day.

Early in the day we talked about the schedule for the sanding and finishing of the hardwood floors. We don’t love how it worked out, but it’s been scheduled for this Friday, next Tuesday, and next Thursday. This means we have to clear the floor of the current family room by Friday morning — everything out! Then it will need to stay cleared until three days after the final coat which is Monday, 11/7! That’s a long time for us to be without our family room! We also will have to be out of the house (it’s supposed to be give-you-headache-smelly) twice because of the gap between the first and second coats. The company could have done Friday, Monday, and Wednesday (or was it Thursday), but…come on!

Monday is Halloween! We have three children and plans to trick-or-treat with one or two other children. We can’t pack up and be gone for Halloween, one of the most important holidays of the year, according to my daughter. She thinks Halloween and the day after Halloween should be a vacation day. Children need to finalize their outfits on Halloween! The next day, they need to sleep late, sort through their candy, and try to make the very best trades possible.

So Friday, Tuesday, Thursday it is. We already have our weekend get-away planned (thanks S & D). And if your name is “Mom/Grandma,” you might want to think about if you can handle some guests next week…

Tuesday, 10/25 – Hardwood Floors, This and That

Today two men came to put the hardwood floors in the new rooms. In the family room they need to join up with the existing hardwood floor . Luckily, this is running lengthwise so they can just run new pieces alongside the current floor. They’ll stain the new floor to match the old and refinish all of it together; hopefully it will look like the floor has always been that way.

We ran into a problem, though. Apparently the current floor wasn’t all that straight (or rather, the wall wasn’t). From one end of the house to the other, there’s a two inch difference in the width we’re covering so they need to do something funky with the flooring. If we were building a brand new house, I imagine that everything would be “just so,” with all lines straight. But we’re adding on to a late 1970s house that has either changed shape a bit (I have since the 70s, too) or maybe wasn’t built all that well to begin with, and we have to work with what we have.

One option was to put a wedge piece in what will be the middle of the family room. Then on the other side, everything would look orderly. We decided against that. We will continue to have parallel lines down the family room. Once it gets to the other side (the long back side of the house), the floor guys will do what they need to do to fit the difference. That side of the house will be broken up a bit. At the garage door end, there’ll be a built-in over the hardwood. After that there are baseboard heaters down to the sliding doors to the outside; a puzzle table will be along that wall in the family room as well. Then there’s a built-in to separate the dining room from the family room, and baseboard heaters in the dining room all along that wall. Hopefully a weird little wedge somewhere won’t be noticeable in all of that! If it is, at least it’s not in the middle of the family room.

By the end of today, one board more than half of the back room was done. The sewing room (exterior size 10′ by 14′) wasn’t touched. I’m interested to see if they can power through the rest of the back room tomorrow and do the sewing room, too. I’m guessing no, especially since they’ll need to deal with the aforementioned wedge situation.

Jamie was working on his list of little things that need to be done. Chris asked him about the new screen/storm doors; those will be installed at the end so there’s the least likelihood of them being damaged by any other work.

It seems like the scheduling we hoped would work out for sanding and coating the hardwood floors isn’t going to work out, and the alternate schedule suggested wasn’t good at all. I’m hoping my 2nd plan will work out…

Tune in tomorrow!

Monday, 10/24 – Electrical Work; This and That

Jamie noticed right away that we had been busy painting. We are lucky my brother Steve is running our “paint crew” so things are getting done!

The electricians came back for the final time today. They put the rims (this isn’t the right terminology, I’m sure) on the recessed ceiling lights, hung up a fan, installed some exterior lights, did some hocus-pocus-electricus stuff in the basement, and probably did many other things I missed. Our “back room” can be all lit up now! There are six recessed lights in the dining room and ten in the family room. The dining room will also have a center chandelier, but we need a different size of chain before that goes up — for now there’s a blank plate (again perhaps not the right terminology). The family room has a fan in the center; that will be nice in the summer months!

Jamie worked on finishing up a bunch of things. There were a few windows without trim, including the two windows that just went in on Friday. Every window has trim now. My son Thomas will be happy about that; neither window in his room had its complete trim and he was taking it personally! Also, Jamie did more work on the landing & stairs to the outside of the house. I think that just needs a railing at the top to be complete.

We talked about timing for the sanding and coating of the hardwood floors; hopefully the timing will work out so it’s on an upcoming Friday off of school. If so, we can get the kids off to school on Thursday, pick them up at the end of the day, and go stay somewhere until the end of the weekend. Fingers crossed that this will work out — it sounds like it’s impossible to stay in the house when the floors are being done, but it would be awful to have to get them all to school every morning for three days from someplace else.

Unbelievably, we are winding down on this project. They’ll start to put in the hardwood floor tomorrow. The garage door will go in…whenever the garage door people show up. The baseboard trim goes on after the hardwood floors are finished, I believe. The built-ins will still be a while. The one between the dining room and the family room is being worked on; the one at the end of the family room and a small one in the dining room should be ordered tomorrow.

But we have space, heat, lights, walls…it’s pretty incredible.