Steady as She Goes

Another weekend of progress. We had a long weekend due to Veterans' Day off so we spend three straight days working on the house. Starting to feel like a real homeowner. Spend every extra dime on the house and my vacation days working on it. We also got our first property tax bill last week. After the initial shock of it being around double what we thought it would be, I took it upon myself to take a closer look. Fortunately, we discovered that our homeowners exemption had not been applied. After a few trips to the County Assessor's Office we got it all sorted out and got it back down to where it should be.

So with that behind us we moved on to inspections. Kelly had lined up three for Friday morning. Plumbing, electrical, and framing inspectors all made their way through our construction site with approving eyes. It was a very stressful time that we are thankful is behind us until we are finished. OR SO WE THOUGHT. We were told that we need an insulation inspection. What the crap?! Four inspections just to be able to put up drywall. Oh, and a tip on remodeling an old house: don't shake anything too much. A few weeks ago, while working on the electrical we needed to saw around some of our plumbing. Apparently, that shook away the corrosion that was preventing the drain pipe from the tub to the waste stack from leaking. That was ok, because the plumber was scheduled to start the next day and it was really just a drip. The plumber was great and got everything new in before turning to the leaky pipe. He fixed the leak only to find that the force he had to exert on the pipe to get it lose from the tub caused another section to leak. This section was right next to the stairs so he had some choice words for it prior to fixing it. He did a great job. We are really happy with how everything looks.

Hummm, new pipe

My brother and soon to be a dad, Tim, made his return appearance to our place. He helped us move in so this was his first visit since we started to destroy the place. He and Ron came down to help us keep on keepin' on. Since we were told we couldn't put up walls until after the insulation inspection we managed to find other tasks for them to help us out with. Ron put trim up around the windows so that our stucco guy can hopefully come soon and finish that up. He also built and put up the soffit that goes over the cabinets. Timbro pulled down the final pieces of plaster - a section over and behind the radiator in the new kitchen that Kelly and I had refused to touch for the past month. Tim and I then put insulation in the ceiling to help with the noise that comes with old wood floors. Then came the drywall. Tim, a veteran of the drywall circuit, showed me some of the ropes before we called in Ron for the hard piece. We managed to get four pieces on the ceiling.

For those of you wondering who the extra set of hands is, it's Neil Couch ladies and gentleman. Now a resident of Naperville, he came over to see Tim and stuck around to pitch in. Thanks.

I used Sunday and Monday to put all the insulation in the walls and Kelly began pulling up some of the subfloor that is in the new half bath. No pictures of this stuff, maybe next week. We also had a guy over to give us an estimate on refinishing the floors. Not as bad as I thought it would be but still something that will be further down the road. And just to bring everything full circle homeowner, I raked the leaves this afternoon.

The dogs provided their usual assistance.