There Was a Crooked House

The floor of the garage had to be sloped to match the elevation of the two metal buildings. We hired "professional" framers to frame in the exterior walls and the rooms being built in the garage. They must have forgot to square their studs to the world. We reminded them several times during the time they were building that the floor was not level. They had to redo the front window opening to make the window level so you would have thought that would have really reminded them to make the needed adjustments. Sometimes the English language can be a bigger barrier than we realize. It may be that we just didn't make ourselves clear enough.

We wanted a coat closet and it was on the plans and they forgot. That's an easy thing to fix all Bill had to do was take out a 4 foot wall then build the closet That's when we saw how far out of alignment the studs are. Fortunately, Bill is pretty darn good at this stuff and he made the corrections and all the extra blocks of wood added to make straight walls will be hidden by sheet rock.

One More Time

The roofers were out for what we hope is the very last time. They took all the hip ridges off, put a different product down and screwed the ridge back on. Then more stuff was squeezed around all the edges; making sure they did not lift the hip ridge. They think that might have been part of the problem; the ridge wasn't laying flat everywhere.

 

 
 Roofing boss said they had closed the garage door so it was dark to find and fix all the sunlight holes. We then walked through the garage and pointed two out to them they had missed. They said one of them had silicone in it but why would you use clear silicone when the sheet metal screws with arubber gasket makes it watertight forever?

Hopefully, we found everything. We had marked all the sunlight and water holes with chalk on the floor. Blue for water and yellow for sunlight. They didn't remember that coding system.

Hopefully, it will rain pretty good this weekend so we will know for susre we are watertight and then the ceiling can go up, lights and then insulation.

Storage Wars

I have started looking at our plans hard to be sure we aren't missing anything. Once the walls go up for each of these rooms; that's it.We are planning on being in this house when we are elderly. This means very little will be stored in the attic.We don't want to be carrying large items up and down the stairs.

 I realized we had no place in mind to store our extra chairs and folding tables that are needed for the big family dinners. Bill said not worry about this that when the kids, grand kids, and great grand kids come over they can pull them down for me. I gave him one of "those" looks, he shook his head and said, "right you'll want everything perfect before they get here."  I woke up at 2:30 in the morning and started wandering looking for a place to store coolers. We use those several times a month to take our food to the lake. I am the person putting the food in the cooler so they need to be low enough for me to get to them.

I had an inspiration, then had to tell Bill I needed to redesign the garage layout.

Ask and I do receive. Bill built a closet on the back side of the pantry wall to store all kinds of stuff. Only took 2 1/2 feet out of the garage space and we have lots of space in it. The bottom four feet will be chair and table storage and then two shelves up above for coolers and such. The top of the closet will become a shelf that will be for storing all the pool toys and life jackets over the winter.

Grand idea!

Not So Self Sufficient

I consider myself fairly handy around the house. If Bill isn't around I can do almost anything I don't want to but I can. Well, this morning I felt as if I was the punch line of a blonde joke. How many blondes does it take to unscrew a light bulb. The punch line would have been "more than just MaryBeth". I was going to replace all the incandescent bulbs with our new LED ones. Out of 28 lights I was able to get 2 bulbs out and that's all. Most wouldn't unscrew at all they were so tight.  The few I could unscrew; the bulbs were bigger than the housing so they wouldn't come out. I couldn't get the housing to drop down from the ceiling either, I would have used a screwdriver to pull it down but I only do things like that if Bill says it's okay. Don't want to gouge the ceiling if there is a better way.

Doesn't look as if it would be difficult does it? By golly it beat me today.

Paint Dilemma

We have cans and cans of paint. We have different colors for different houses plus we seem to just accumulate paint. There are different kinds of urethane for different jobs, paint cans galore because they can cover a multitude of sins at rent houses, and lots and lots of silicone.The cans can very quickly take over a space. Bill is ready to figure out this problem in his Workshop.


These have to be put somewhere to be stored. They also have to be accessible so we aren't crawling around looking for the color we need when we need it.                                                            

And it isn't just the paint it is all the stuff you need to go with the job.

Bill had planned to put everything under this shelf but he sees now that it won't work. I suggested either a couple of lazy susan towers under here or build a closet in his Trophy Room with a ceiling one of his full mounts cold stand on top of. He is going to go home and stare at it a while to see if he can get an inspiration.

Secret Notes

Came home to more walls. Totally changes the way the garage looks and feels. Nowhere near as cavernous or echoey (don't know if that is a word or not but it serves its purpose).

 It is really looking like a house now.

Bill loves to put secret notes in while building. This one is "Home Sweet Home Smithbuilt 9-16-14". It will be painted over but we will know it is there. The house I grew up in was built on the same site and a lot of the wood came from the house that my Great Grandparents built. This may be where I get my "use everything you possibly can without buying new" philosophy. In that house there is a board at the front door that the carpenter from my Great Grandparents had signed and put into that house a long long time ago.

Christmas in September

 Got home from work yesterday and it was very exciting. There was lumber for studs and sheet rock for walls. Roof leaks aren't fixed yet, so I don't know how much sheet rock can be put up. Bill says don't worry sheet rock stays half an inch off the floor so there shouldn't be a problem.

I was expecting all of this to be here when I got home. I was also expecting to have to help haul all of it into the garage, it's always a pleasant surprise when I don't have to do manual labor.


Bill had also bought electric boxes for the garage, my pantry, the cleaning closet, and the back hallway. He started putting them up and then figured he had better wait for me to get home, He didn't want to have to move too many of them. Didn't realize we were at this point so we hadn't really discussed electricity yet.

Good thing he stopped. This is the pantry, the freezer outlet is in the right spot but the outlet box up on the wall needs to be dropped. His thinking is that I would want the outlet up high out of the way. My thinking is that if I ever need something plugged into the pantry wall I want it counter height. So out of 4 boxes he nailed to the studs only one had to be moved.

I was expecting all the above, I wasn't expecting a wall and a doorway! How exciting! This door goes into the back hall where the pantry and cleaning closet are and then leads into the Residence through the kitchen.

We kept going in and out of our new door. We really are like two little kids when it comes to this stuff. This means the Residence is actually started. It's time to get serious and make some more final set in stone plans.