Electrical update

Last Thursday we had our reinspection for our rough-in electrical and we passed. Yippee! It’s very exciting to have that step complete. Now onto the insulation and drywall. The day after the inspection we wired up a few switch boxes in the basement. After spending the last 4 months not sure that any of the wiring was actually going to work, we flipped our first switch in the mechanical room and voila…We then tackled some of the more complicated 3-way switches in the basement and much to our surprise, everything worked. So far so good, the recessed cans are all aglow. Don’t worry, they’re all compact fluorescent not the evil incandescent bulbs.

Fun with wires

Last week was a busy one. We had 3 inspections: the rough-in electrical, framing and mechanical. We failed all but the mechanical. We started the week with the highly anticipated electrical. Mr. County inspector man arrived annoyed from a previous failed “home owner” inspection, but in the end was impressed that we tackled the job ourselves. We ended up failing the inspection, just as we planned (no smoke detector circuit), but it was a good fail with pretty easy fixes. We worked hard during the week and over the weekend to finish and correct what needed to be done for the re-inspection. We hadn't wired any of our switch boxes, only the outlets, so we put our fingers to work and twisted away. We also ran some additional circuits. We should be ready to call the inspector back out by the end of the week. The wires in the switch boxes began to take on the appearance of octopus'. Who knows, maybe the smiley face will help with the re-inspection. We have one final task left – to find steel plates to cover our routered channels. We'll be venturing to a steel yard this week with Uncle Sam in search of what we need. We will be beside ourselves when the rough-in electrical is complete. We get giddy just talking about being done with it.

Back at it…

Over the long weekend we worked inside and outside of the house. We did our best to stay focused on finishing up the electrical rough-in, but were a bit distracted by the pretty green grass coming up. We dusted off Trish's old "Yard Man" mower and mowed our patchy grass for the first time. The poor mower is injured and probably won't last long.We tied up a few loose ends with electrical and are almost ready for the inspection. Just a little more grounding to do, then we'll call in the inspection. We haven't run the circuit for the smoke detectors yet and plan on having the electrical inspector fail us and then tell us how he wants it done. We really have no idea how the inspection will go but we're certainly ready to get it over with.Wiring the heat pump circuit…We also started priming interior windows and got a couple coats of "red roof" paint on our deck door. Linda was there to lend a hand.It's nice to have a mom who's a professional painter! And last but not least, a few familiar faces stopped by. We think Bradley might have a crush on Willow.

Routering away

We knew this would be a pain in the ass, but we needed to router out channels and spaces for our pancake boxes and electrical wires. As you can tell, the router kicks off a ton of saw dust! Below is one of the channels carved away in the second floor subfloor. The wires will fit right in the channel and then we'll install the wood floors (very carefully) right over top.Below in the kitchen we are going to hang track lights and pendants. Here's Todd routering out a 4" circle for one of the pancake junction boxes.Afterwards it was time to chill on the deck…

Recessed Cans

And the wiring continues. We spent most of the weekend in our basement wiring what seems like 1,000 recessed cans! To complicate things, we had to wire in our "cave" which contains all of our belongings. It was a little tricky balancing on the boxes labeled "fragile."Monkeying around in the caveSay cheese!

High Wire Act

We tackled wiring the main room this past weekend, sans Willy. We put the scaffolding to good use and ran the wires up to the cross beams for our track lighting and ceiling fans. Here's a couple photos taken up on the scaffolding...
See Willow below in her usual spot on the brady bunch sofa.Saturday was a beautiful spring-like day. We are really looking forward to the day when we can open all the doors and windows. Here's Todd carefully drilling a small hole through the crossbeam for the wire to run to the ceiling fan. We'll position the junction box on top of the beam. Erin is now a wire twistin' fiend. Here she is grounding the wires for the rough-in inspection. The inspector will also check to make sure all the wire runs are stapled correctly to code. We've discovered that it's much easier to staple as you go along. It also helps save on wire.

Weekend update

We continued to work on wiring and plumbing this weekend. Rob was out on Saturday working on the master bath shower and the kitchen island plumbing. Todd and Willy worked on running the wires to the master bedroom and mudroom while Erin plugged away upstairs grounding the wires in each of the boxes. We still have a ways to go but are seeing some progress. Earlier in the week we bought our recessed cans for the kitchen, porch and basement. We temporarily laid them out. Here's part of the kitchen...We started hanging drywall in the basement for dust prevention. We plan on blocking off the mechanical room and setting up the basement as our woodworking shop. Here's Todd in action...
We got a bit distracted by a surprise snow this morning. It made for perfect snowballs and building snowmen. Willy left early for the day so we had to build an assistant. :)

Pipes & wires

Our newly framed walls are filling up with electrical wires and pipes. Plumber Rob was busy at work getting the rough-in plumbing done. Here he is hard at work...Rob sloping the pipeHere are Willy and Todd drilling holes through the stud walls…
Next we ran the Romex wire to the boxes. We breezed through the first 500 feet of wire in no time! It's very exciting to have the electrical underway.