We Survived April

The good news is that most of the snow has melted and that is very welcomed here.  We still have one pile there on the north side of the house.  That area pretty much stays in the shade all the time and will probably be there for a few more weeks.  The sun is strong here at 5500ft and I think we saw 70 degrees today.  The snow here is different from the eastern snow that we know well.  It is very dry here and cold, so the snow falls as very light fluffy stuff 95% of the time.  The elevation encourages it to snow often.  What we discovered this winter here, as we became snow moving aficionados, is that although the snow falls light and fluffy, but it doesn't stay that way for long.   What happens is that the strong daytime sunshine at 5500 ft tends to melt the top layer of the snow, and since it stays so cold over the winter it seeps down and freezes right back.  Then what looks like a pile of snow, or wherever you've left it, becomes a solid white ice mass that looks like snow, but is really hard as ice!  The moral of the snow story is to move the snow the same day it falls if you can, then it is MUCH easier.  We won't have to worry about that for several more months now, yay!

We will continue to see snow on Baldy Mountain through June and likely into the first days of July.  The top of Baldy sits at just under 10,000 ft.  That elevation really does make a big difference.

The other good news is in this picture.  We have posted a picture of the completed water heater installation previously, but this shot has one small, or shall I say really BIG difference...

BOOM, there it is, that little white sticker that says we passed our final plumbing inspection by the state of Idaho.  BIG difference!  Now we will concentrate to bringing the electrical and HVAC to the same status.

And that is just what we set ourselves to last week.  Below is the house service panel before we started.  Well almost.  We did install the square gray junction box just below and to the left of the service panel.  The strategy there is that we will pull the 200A service conductors under the driveway in a conduit we installed last year.  Those underground conductors will enter through an LB joint on the side of the garage and come directly into that little junction box.  We have that little black 50A temporary line coming over from the shop now providing power while we work in the house.

Below is where we are today, well almost.  We did replace the service panel cover for safety and to keep dust out of the electrical connections.  What we have here is the required 200A rated service entrance cable connected to the service panel input.  That big gray cable is then run down into the junction box where it is now connected to the temporary 50 A line and will eventually connect to the permanent 200A underground conductors.

This glorious picture below shows our preparation to pull the permanent 200A underground conductors.  The reason it is glorious is that there are not 5 ft piles of icy snow next to each building.  The shop is on the right and we will pull the 200A conductors from that little conduit stub sticking out of the ground underneath the 200A disconnect switch over to the house on the left and come out that LB joint to the left of the personnel door on the house garage wall.  We put the buckets up to stop traffic from driving across our three power cords laying on the gravel driveway.  We have two 20A heavy duty 100 ft extension cords coming from the shop on different circuits and the black 50A cable that is currently connected to the house service panel.  That black cable was in the underground conduit until last week. We just pulled it back out so we can now pull the permanent 200A conductors in that same conduit.  Until just a week or so ago we couldn't even see the conduit stub at the shop or the LB joint at the house as they were both under feet of ice and snow.  Glorious I tell ya.

Another angle.  The black 50A line is plugged into an RV 50A hook up on the side of the shop.  There is a 20A outlet next to the RV 50A outlet and that is where one of the yellow extension cords is plugged in.  The other yellow extension cord is coming from a 20A outlet inside the shop and just runs underneath an overhead door and then over to the house.  You can see the stub at the shop better here.  It is directly underneath the 200A disconnect switch enclosure. You may see a yellow nylon rope coming out of the stub.  We pulled that into the conduit when we pulled the black 50A cable out last week.  We are going to try and find a pulling strap to pull the 200A conductors.  We will pull that through the conduit using the rope we left in there.  There is more than you ever wanted to know about pulling underground cables.  We can look back at this in a few years and say, how did we do that?  And here will be the answer.

One of the last things we are preparing for is the construction of all the linen and pantry shelving and the clothes closets rods and shelves.  These things are not required for occupancy so they will come after the electrical and HVAC work remaining.  We found some nice 3/4 inch sanded plywood for a 30% discount.  Unbelievably, one sheet of sanded 3/4 inch now goes for around $80 per 4 ft x 8ft sheet.  That cost adds up fast.  These things we found are hybrid plywood with some layers of particle board.  The difference in weight and strength is surprisingly small as compared to pure plywood, and is not an issue for what we are doing, so big savings for us on this job.  The dimensional lumber at the right will be used as ledger boards to support most all of the shelving.

This is a shot of the edge grain of the "plywood"  I wouldn't know the difference myself if I wasn't told.

Well that was an abrupt place to end, but that is where we are at the end of April.  All the electric needs is the permanent 200A conductors pulled over to the house and connected to the house service panel.  Once we have the full electric service we can then complete the HVAC work.  The HVAC needs the thermostat and the supply register covers installed, then the system will be turned on and tested for proper performance by the installing company.  That is a one day job once we are on that company's schedule.  We are hoping all this and the inspections can be completed in June.  Hoping for early in the month... we will see.  Wouldn't that be a hoot if we finished in May?!

Forgot to mention that the carpet we ordered for the two bedrooms was install this past month.  Now all the floor covering is completed in the homestead.  Pad installed in master bedroom below.

 Pad installed in guest bedroom.

 

Carpet being seamed in master bedroom.

 Finished guest bedroom. There, that seems more like a finished ending for a post.

April Anniversary

It's probably not what you think; we have been working on the homestead project for one year in a stretch as of April 4th.  Whew!  A lot of good things have occurred over the past 3 or 4 weeks.  We keep inching closer to occupancy and here's the update for April. 

First, let's talk about the weather.  It's gonna snow.  A shot of Mt Baldy and Sheep Mountain coming back into Swan Valley after an IF (Idaho Falls) run.

Buggy ride up the hill first of the month.  Still a lot of snow, and more was still falling regularly.

Up the hill we go.

Elk feeding with the Equine livestock at Conant Ranch.  MMMmm that's good hay!

Picture below today.  In a melting slot.  Hope it lasts!  We think it will.  Well, it will snow again, but it should melt of quickly then.

Fire ring and wood pile reappeared after several months of being buried in the snow.  Hopefully we will have a few fires before long.

Couple days before, finally getting the east driveway opened up. We had finally conceded defeat and let the snow have it for a month or more.  It's ours again, yay!  It helps a bunch when we pull the flat bed trailer, and don't have to turn around in the driveway with the trailer on.

Probably 10 AM and it looks like it wants to snow... it probably did.  Something we say often when we look out the window, "look, it's snowing again!"  hahahaha  That's what it does.

A small group of Honkers flying past Eagle View.

Speaking of Honkers. look at this pair!  Looks like a union break going on.  OK, let's get inside and get busy.

We completed baseboard installation.  Gari is the head stain and polyurethane finisher.  Below she is working in the guest bedroom.   Best light in there... on the south side of the house.

Steve installing HVAC return registers and baseboard in the master bedroom.

That part of the master bedroom is completed.

...and the rest of the master bedroom baseboard is now officially complete.  Certified by Inspector #3.

We finished the tile feature for the gas log.  The gas log arrived and we set it up in it's place.

Now that the master baseboard is complete, Gari moves the staining operation into the master so we can install more baseboards in the guest bedroom.  Carpet for the bedrooms is on order and we have to have these bedrooms ready.

And..... the guest bedroom baseboard is also now completed.  Next time you see these two bedrooms there will be carpet in them.  Carpet install is on schedule for tomorrow.  That will complete all finish floor covering in the house.

Made a couple design tweaks to the plumbing header in the garage.  It's still dry fit below.

Below was the day we decided to tear the header up and glue the plumbing header back together.  It is now completed and looks like the picture above

One of the other baseboard priorities was to get baseboard installed behind where the toilets set.  That is, so we could set the toilets.  Mission accomplished.

What's next?  You guessed it, toilets are now set.  This is what we call a luxury feature of the homestead project.

Master toilet ready to install.

Finished!  We went with white after searching for an off white toilet with a reasonable price.  The prices were ridiculous.  Thanks Ann & Barbara for guiding us in this decision.

We decided to hook up the electric water heater one day.  Well, I glued the cold water plumbing in the wrong sequence.  Can you see it?  The valve should have been up top on the horizontal.  Had to get a replacement ball valve and try again another day.  Wish I had a picture of my expression when I was trying to hook up the supply connection and it didn't fit.  I knew it was just right.  What's going on here?!?!  hahahahah  Dumb mistake.

Got 'er done!  another day.  More comedy there.  We had roughed in the cold supply on the left and the hot on the right, which by plumbing convention is backwards.  Just didn't think about that at the time. The ball valve handles that we ended up with have a red handle on the cold supply and a blue handle on the hot effluent.  That seems backwards to me too.  Oh well, life is like that sometimes.  Two short stories; dad got up early one morning many years ago and wall paper glued a life size poster photo of a horse in a stall looking out dutch stall doors, to our basement garage door.  He did a meticulous job.  It was when he went to rehang the door that he realized he had glued the horse upside down.  It stayed just like that for many years.  I get it honest.  Second and last story; I have previously purchased a house built by professionals and our toilet was connected to hot water!  Surprise!  I guess it happens to the best of us!

Electric connect completed on the water heater too.

We purchased and installed a utility tub in the guest bathroom/laundry room.  At first look I thought it was going to be a plumbing disaster.  We fixed it by building up blocks under the legs to get the drain height we needed.  We will build a custom plywood cabinet around it before long.  Will probably do that when we get to building out all the shelving.

Thomas and John from FloForm came out and installed the kitchen countertop this month.  It is a solid surface product they say is Corian.  Long story that I won't go into, but after an excellent experience with the cabinetry installation, the countertop was a minor disaster.  Was not Thomas or John's fault.  FlowForm outsources the fabricated countertop and it was just made wrong and very sloppy.  The guys did their best to recover the job from total disaster.  We have requested compensation from Lowe's.  Should be interesting to see what happens.

From a distance to the untrained eye it looks OK.  So that is a small consolation.  The picture below is very large and you may be able to scroll horizontally to see the entire set up.

Looks like the homestretch.  Gari knocks the dust off of the walls and ceilings with her new gymnasium dust mop we picked up in IF.

Meticulously, Gari wipes down the wood trim.  It looks great.

We did a lot of coping with the baseboard job.

Steve holds the LAST piece of baseboard!  It's a coper piece again, and is in the hallway coat closet.  As good a place to finish as any.

Searching for a stud....

Found one!

That nails it!