A Brief Distraction

We have been plodding along with the house and while the progress isn't exactly lightning fast, we are getting closer to finishing. Actually, getting closer to the point when we can say we are nearing the point of nearly finishing. The kitchen went in without any trouble despite my lack of optimism and looks really good. We lucked out with the kitchen since we bought it online and could only see pictures. It is a showroom model, so it came pretty much assembled and the fake wood grain cabinets actually look convincing. 

We have waterproofed the tub area of the bathroom and will be dropping the tub in permanently soon. Then we can finally finish installing the sub floor in the rest of the bathroom. 

This weekend I will be throwing up some drywall, framing some exterior windows, and working on the roof insulation. I won't have the help of my wife for a few days, since she will be taking care of the 8 new arrivals in our apartment. They arrived between 5:00am  and 10:00am this morning and aside from being quite noisy, will require 2-3 days of supervision to make sure they are all doing OK. 

Its Been Awhile

Firstly, apologies to all the faithful readers for the lack of posts recently. Between waking up at 5:00am everyday, working on the house for 5 hours, then working at the office for 8 hours, I haven't had much time to eat or sleep. Much less update the blog. Who would have thought that building a house would be time consuming?

Anyway, when we last left the story I was struggling with the bathroom and we were halfway through the insulation. For anyone expecting rapid progression in the last two weeks, please prepare yourself for disappointment. Or at least a slight twinge of doubt in my competence. 

I finished framing the bathroom floor and was all set for the plumbers to install the drain. This was my first experience with the subtle battles that rage unspoken between tradesmen. The carpenters had advised me to just build everything first and let the plumbers figure out how to put the pipes in. Sounded a bit odd to me, but what do I know about building a house?  So the plumbers arrive and look at the framing and tell me that it is in the way of the drain. I mention that maybe the could cut a bit of the framing away. Looks of utter puzzlement and confusion answered that question for me. So I dismantled the beautifully constructed frame to shave off about 5 cm of wood. Since then I have had in depth conversations with the plumbers and they have managed to finish all of the plumbing in the bathroom without any further complications.

On the insulation front we have finished almost the entire house aside from the roof. I still have to do about half the roof insulation but it is a fairly straight-forward process. The only annoyance is that it either involves crawling around in the attic on my knees or hanging precariously from a ladder, perched on a 2x10, over a 3-5 meter drop. 

The kitchen has arrived and I will attempt to put the cabinets in this weekend. I am sure that will provide plenty of fodder for the next post.

Carpentry is Hard

We are slowly making progress on the interior. Some days it feels like we haven't accomplished anything at all. I like to think it is because we are seeing the house everyday and don't notice the changes, but sometimes we really don't accomplish anything. This is due to the fact that carpentry is hard. It is easy to look at someone else building something and delude yourself into thinking you could do it. Nevertheless I am fighting through my incompetence and learning some new skills along the way. As you can see from the above photo, we are insulation pros now and have done over half of the first floor.

I am still fighting with the bathtub as little things keep popping up that have to be done immediately. Our chimney was installed yesterday, but before it could go in I had to install the fire proof frame and cut a 35 x 35cm square through the wall of the house. This involved sitting on a bendy, unstable board thrown across the open area above the living room. While using a circular saw, improperly I suppose, since I don't think you are meant to hold it upside down and manually pull back the safety. At one point I hit nail and the saw jumped so far I nearly dropped to avoid severing and artery. 

Despite my growing hatred of the bathroom, I am almost done framing it. The floor will be the hardest part, but once that is done I can waterproof the room. Then I won't have to look at for at least a month. Always look for that silver lining.

Slowly Progessing

We have almost completed the rough frame for the bathtub. All we need to do is wait for the plumbers to put in the rest of the pipes and finish off the concrete blocks. It took most of the weekend and a few early mornings to get it to this point, but everything seems level and the bathtub should slide right in. Honestly, we measured it. Twice.

On the outside the painter has put the first coat of stain on and is starting on the second. The color is a little darker than we expected, but it looks quite nice in the sunlight. He should finish up tomorrow or Saturday and then we are left to our own devices for the interior.

While we were working on the tub, my wife's father continued with the wiring. Our architect/builder decided to lend us a hand and put down the subfloor. We put in the insulation and he did all of the hard work. The floor is about half done and it will be another week or so before we can finish it. 

I took care of a few more little things as well. I screwed metal brackets to the extra supports in the interior walls for earthquakes and drilled some large holes in the walls for the ventilation system. Now our recently water-proofed house has eight 10cm holes in it.

The Parents are in Town

My wife's parents arrived last night to help with the rest of the build. My father-in-law brought a car full of tools and will be living in our tiny apartment for the next two months. We have decided to not charge them any rent in return for 60 days of backbreaking of labor. We are hard negotiators.    

We made some more progress on the bathroom and started to wire the house for electric. This weekend I will be concentrating solely on building the frame for the bathtub while everyone else continues with wiring. The goal is to have the frame done by Sunday night. Reality says it will probably take a week. 

Meanwhile the siding is about halfway up and will be done in a few days. I am excited about this, but once the carpenters are gone I won't be able to hit them up for advice every hour. It's a good thing I know them personally or they probably would have shot me with the nail gun by now. 

Bathtub Time

We started work on the bathroom today. First up was putting the insulation into the wall behind the were the tub will go. I suited up in my 300 yen paper suit for the job. Or as I like to think of it, my James Bond ski-henchman suit. The suit did a reasonable job of protecting me from the glass wool, but it was still an itchy afternoon. In an unprecedented event, I managed to cut the insulation to the correct size on the first try. Then, defying all odds and expectations, I cut the plywood to fit exactly. Hopefully, this trend will not be short lived. 

Once the plywood was up we put in string lines to mark the center of the feet on the bathtub. They are only faint lines in the photograph but tomorrow we will be centering the support bricks where they cross. Then we find out how off our measurements are when we put the tub in. 

Sayonara Glass Blocks - Hello Bathroom

We spent the day doing the final touches on the glass blocks. Now we never have to to touch them again. It is a great feeling. Only matched in intensity by the growing fear about the next project. I have planned out the bathtub framing on paper and we know what we need to do. The scary part is that if we are off by a few millimeters at this stage, we will be in a world of trouble a month from now when we start tiling. But what are the odds of that happening.....

Meanwhile, the professionals continue to put us to shame. They have started the siding and are cruising along like, well, like professionals. Damn them. The siding is Japanese cedar and will be stained a bit darker once it is up. Once they finish the siding, we will be completely on our own for the rest of the build. Expect progress to slow noticeably.