Plans Go Awry

We are really trying to get the Pantry done before my brother and his family come to town for Thanksgiving. We are using a light from their first house in it. They bought that house in Oklahoma 37 years ago so I guess we are using an antique light in there. Want to show it hanging to them.

The weather has co-operated and it has been too cold for business at the rock yard. We should have been able to get that room finished. But, my parents have had medical things going on this week that I needed to attend to so Bill hasn't been able to go home and tape and mud. Today he is there while I sit by the phone waiting to hear about our 16 month old granddaughter's surgery. My Daddy has surgery next week and then hopefully, all the medical will be done for a long time.

Last weekend Bill gave me a refresher course on taping.

 He doesn't like giving up control on these things but we have a lot of this kind of work ahead of us and if he doesn't want to get exhausted he needs to share.

Just got the text and Brynnlee's surgery went great.

Scooch Over Just a Little

We are a long way off from putting in the heat and air units but we have to plan now. The return air is suppose to be at the highest point. That won't work in the back hallway since we are doing a barrel ceiling. I don't think I want a flat spot in the barrel to hold the register vent.  We are putting it above the door going into the Cleaning Closet. Of course, the framing wasn't right for that because  this is out of the ordinary.  Those studs need to be moved out to make the right size opening. The more return air vents you have the better and more efficiently your HVAC works.

Moved the studs above the door and added the box. The vent pipes will be added at a much later date.

 The return air box juts out into the Cleaning Closet. It has to be just above the door header because of the barrel coming down the wall.

We will need to frame in around it and the ceiling will be low as you enter the room/closet for two feet but then it will go back to the ten foot height. This bothers Bill, but since he will probably never go into this area once he has finished building it I'm not too concerned about it. It will hold our cleaning supplies and he doesn't do too much with that. I shouldn't say that, when a rent house needs to be cleaned he does jump in and usually does the really gross stuff for me. I just pull the cleaners together for the job.

Plan Plan Plan

It's time to map out the Pantry. This is not your normal Pantry, of course we don't do any thing normal. The Pantry will house the freezer, cabinets for paper goods and stuff, entertaining items and of course food. There will be a counter top for unloading grocery bags plus lots and lots of shelves.

Now to figure out what size of shelves I need. Off to my grocery shelves and measure.

I am one of those people who can live for months out of their pantry stock. If there is mustard in the fridge there will be the replacement waiting in the wings. I searched the internet on how other people have done their pantries and decided I am only going with two different heights for my shelves. My OCDC tendencies mean that if each shelf was a different height to make the best use of the space it would drive me crazy. You know like if a tile isn't set perfectly in line with the others; can't do that.

Our first thought for the counter top was directly next to the freeze. But, I have decided that I want some actual cabinets in the room with doors on them. Paper goods are never neat, and who knows what all I will be putting in there so plans changed.

The upper and lower cabinets will be going in the middle of this wall so the doors opening do not take any shelf space away. Our building plans are very fluid. Between the two of us we will end up with what we want.

Switches and Plugs

Now that power is almost on we have switches and plugs in the Pantry and Cleaning Closet. Next will be tape and mud then sanding, then texture, then paint, then cabinets, then shelves, then I can use them.

We Still Have Those Old Sparks

Now that the new circuit board is in place and grounded we need to get power to it.

 First step is to unwind the length of wire to separate the wire.

 Then pull the wire across the ceiling joists.

 Now for the sparks to fly. To be able to feed the wire down the wall to where the main power comes in a piece of the metal skin had to be cut out. Every piece of metal that comes down helps with our cell phone and wireless reception. We can't get rid of all of it or the buildings would lose their strength.

Next step was to feed the wire down the wall. Now the wall is fully insulated and one side is drywalled. We don't make things easy on ourselves.

 We had to cut into the insulation to help the wire come down the wall.

 Okay, the wire is here, now to start the important work. Power will be to the lights in the pantry and cleaning closet very soon.

Life Hack

I was talking with our daughter, Tiffany, and she asked where to get the pant hangers that swing out and you can put 4 or 5 pairs on the same hanger. She was wanting to store her wrapping and craft ribbons on the hanger to keep things organized.

I knew of a big mess we had that needed some organizing.

There are a lot of paint brushes, rollers, and mixing sticks. We each have our favorite brushes for different jobs. There are brushes for staining, for cutting in, for rough textures, for smooth textures. We clean our brushes very well each time we use them so they last forever. We have some that are probably close to 30 years old and are still in great shape.

Tiffany's hanger idea to the rescue.

We have three hangers for brushes and one for rollers. The brushes are organized by type and size. We just need to find the perfect wall or inside a door to hang these on. No more searching and not finding the brush we want or the bristles spreading out from standing up in a coffee can.

Staying Grounded

With the build out we need to expand the electric service coming into the house. We don't want to overload any of the existing circuit boards. Each building has its own. Bill learned how to pull a meter at one of our rent houses a month ago so we didn't need to call an electrician to come out and this for us. There is not a main shut off switch for our power there should be but there isn't.. The drawback of living outside an incorporated city is that people do not need to follow code. You should, Oklahoma has a statewide building code everyone is suppose to follow but not everyone does. We like it because we don't have to have professionals come in and sign off on our work and wait for inspectors. We are building according to code, the experts put these standards in place for a reason not just to make busy work.We know a lot of the professionals who sat on the committee which wrote the code and they volunteered their time to set the building code. If we don't know how something is suppose to be done we call the pros and ask them.

First thing you need to do is ground the box. You drill a hole through the floor and pound a metal rod into the dirt at least two feet. That way if any sparking happens it runs into the ground and is grounded.

 Copper is used everywhere to keep the electricity from jumping all over the place.

 Green is always your ground wire.

The little copper wire screwed in to the right side tower and the box is another ground.

 So if something should happen the errant electricity will follow the copper wire down, under, up and then down the green wire into the ground. Whew! We are safe!