The connection is made!

We can now access the new stairway through the living room, after the guys created the new entrance first thing this morning.  This was a major achievement, as it connected the main house to the new downstairs area.  And, it added a lot more light to the living room, as well.

Tony and Chris hang up some plastic sheeting, prior to cutting out the new entrance

All sealed up to contain any dust

Tony begins to cut out the new entrance

Bottom half of the entrance is cut out

Chris and Tony remove the rubble

The first stage of the entrance is finished

The new entrance is plastered

As Tony was plastering the new entrance, John Sr., Johnny and Chris installed the stair railing.  Usually, I would have taken pictures of the process, but was too busy painting the office at the time.  So, I just took pictures of the railing later on.

The upper section of the railing

I'm the only one in this household who likes having the the original outside windows remain in the stairway.  Everyone else wants to remove the windows and block up the hole.  In addition to providing lots of light in the sun room, I just think it's unique and adds a nice touch to this section of the house.  These same people, who shall remain nameless, also moaned and groaned when I said I was going to paint the radio room and office a light shade of brown!


During the morning, Johnny finished digging a trench in the garage to install a water drainage pipe, before the concrete floor is poured.

Johnny digs a trench in the garage

The water drainage pipe leads out of the garage to the driveway

I finished painting the office with a base coat of primer and will put a couple coats of the regular paint on the ceiling and walls tomorrow.  Then, I can start priming the stairway.

In the office, looking toward the radio room

Looking toward the office entrance

Troy got here around 6pm and concentrated on installing switches in both the living room and the office to control the lights in the stairway.  He rigged up a temporary light bulb in the stairway ceiling until we can figure out how to reach the utility box and install a permanent hanging light fixture.

Troy hooks up the stairway light switch in the living room

A temporary bulb hangs from the ceiling in the stairway

It's 10:30pm and time to call it a day.  For me, it's back to painting in the morning.  I'm not sure what the construction team has planned for tomorrow, but I expect we'll continue to make lots of progress, as usual.

Happy Easter!

A quick post for today, since it was too late to post last night.  The mudders arrived, yesterday morning, and finished all their work in the "dungeon" rooms.  Since they did my section first, I was able to get to the radio room to begin painting, around 10:30am.


First, I had to clear everything out of there, which was mostly tools belonging to the construction team.  The bench saw was too big and bulky to get out of the room, so I just left it in there and worked around it.  Then, I had to sweep up all the dust from the work that had been done in there during the past few weeks and, finally, prepare the walls for painting.


I primed the ceiling and the walls, then did it again before putting a couple of coats of paint on.  I didn't finish the job until 9:45pm and went upstairs to have my dinner and get to bed about an hour later.  I decided to wait until this morning to take a picture of the painted room, since I was planning to get on the ham radio from the new room for the Bermuda Net.

Ready to speak with my mates on the Bermuda Net

It's difficult to see the actual color from the above picture, but just think of chocolate milk.  That's a pretty good way to describe it.


After the Bermuda Net was over, I dragged all that stuff back upstairs so the room is now ready for the tiler.  Before any tiling can be done, however, I need to paint the office the same color, which I plan to do tomorrow.  It's a bigger room, but I hope I can finish much earlier than last night.


Since I'll be painting all day, there may not be quite as many pictures as usual, but I'll try to keep up with the construction crew as much as possible.  Be sure to check out tomorrow's blog.

Saturday morning

Looks to be a quiet day around here.  One of the mudders is here and already working in the radio room.  He tells me I should be able to start painting in there later this morning.  Now, I just have to find my 'get up and go' because today I feel like it 'got up and went!'


Yesterday morning, Troy stopped by at around 8:30am and we got busy pulling wires into the various outlets in the radio room.  One of the pulls was a bit tough, with Troy pushing the wires in from the kitchen and me pulling them in from the radio room below.  But, we eventually got them through.


As Troy attached the wires to plugs and installed them into the outlet boxes, I ran the snake through a couple other flex conduits in order to get a pull wire in place so I can pull the Internet cable through when I'm ready.


We finished just after noon and I went upstairs to cook up some fish cakes, since it was Good Friday... and they tasted sumkinda good!


It's 8:30am now and the other mudder has just arrived.  The plan is to finish all the "dungeon" rooms this morning and they'll be out of here.  The two of them work quickly, so I'm sure they'll accomplish the task easily.


In Thursday's blog, I mentioned how Troy climbed up through a small opening in the wall under the new stairs in order to connect some flex conduit to the upstairs sun room.  I really should have had my camera ready to snap a shot of his legs hanging out, as he climbed in, but was too busy laughing at the time.  So, I took a picture of the opening, yesterday morning, to give everyone an idea of just how little room there is to get in through that space.

The infamous hole in the wall - up at the  top left, where the water pipe is

Maybe I shouldn't have laughed at Troy, because I also still have to climb the ladder in order to paint that area, while I'm painting the stairway.  Who's idea was all this renovation stuff?  I thought all us old people are supposed to get lots of rest and not have to work so hard!


Hopefully, I'll finish painting the radio room and office today.  A couple more fish cakes for lunch might help give me energy.... or not!

Almost ready for some painting

It's almost 6am on Good Friday as I start this next post.  While Troy and I were running wires, etc., last night, the electrical power went off in the neighborhood around 9:15pm (not our fault!) and stayed off for just over an hour.  So, I decided to wait until this morning to update the blog.


As mentioned in Wednesday's blog, I wasn't expecting any of the construction team to show up yesterday, but Chris and Tony were able to be here for the morning and built up more of the wall for the master bedroom/bathroom.

Chris and Tony working on the master bedroom/bathroom area

Tony puts one of the side wall blocks in place

Chris mixes another load of mortar

Tony puts one of the front wall blocks in place

The front wall is now at 8 block height

The back and side walls are now at the maximum height of 11 rows of block

While the guys were building the walls, the mudders were down in the "dungeon" continuing to mud the various joints in the wall board.  They finished the major work by the end of the day and will return on Saturday morning to sand the walls and ceilings to complete the job.  Then, I can begin painting.


Also during the morning, the telephone company guy arrived to run a line in the underground pipe to the outside wall of my office.  I'll bring the initial wires from there into my office and extend individual lines out to the rest of the house, including the new apartment, through flex conduit that was installed in the ceilings some weeks ago.

New box connection at the pole

Installing the new wire on the outside of the house

At the end of the afternoon, Johnny stopped by to deliver the three sections of railing for the new stairs.  Two sections were able to be stored in the office, but we had to leave the third section outside for now because it was quite large, and heavy, so the two of us couldn't easily angle it through the door.  We'll wait for a third person to help.

The large section of stair railing

Troy arrived just before 6pm and our first goal was to get a phone line working for the holiday weekend.  Unfortunately, the telephone guy didn't leave the original line available until I could get all the new lines distributed throughout the house, so I wanted to re-establish a connection right away.  This meant Troy had to climb up through a small opening under the new stairs and hook up an outlet box to the underside of the upper floor, then connect the flex conduit to it.  He kept insisting that he could easily do it, as long as there were no monster spiders in there!  We had already run a piece of flex there from the main control box in the office, which was to allow access to the phone and internet lines, so just needed to finish the connection to upstairs.

Troy sorts out the connections for the outlet box

Troy fastens the outlet box to the underside of the floor

Troy determines where to cut and add a coupling to connect the flex conduits

These pictures show what I discovered in the "dungeon" under the house, back in 1986 when I first started to dig out to make a radio room, which is now Jason's "man cave."  The intention was to just have the 8 x 10 room with steps leading to it from the outside.  But, I remember poking my head through a small air hole while digging and discovered another area that later turned out to be 10 x 30.  So, I decided to dig that out as well.  Once I started to dig out in the long room, I saw another air hole at the far end of it and poked my head through there, too.   I saw yet another space, so figured I'd keep on going!  That space turned out to be 12 x 15 and is now my office.  Too bad the air hole for the above area wasn't accessible from the office room or I would have dug that out back then, also.  It would have been an additional 8 x 10 room to use down there.


Okay, that's it for now.  Today, I'll make some fish cakes and then start running new telephone wires upstairs to access the new underground line.  Of course, if I eat too many fish cakes, I might have to take a nap and just dream about installing those lines!

The dungeon wall goes up!

My days of walking from one side of the "dungeon" to the other are now over.  This morning, the guys took my large desk from the old radio room into the new office and then closed up the remaining portion of the separating wall between the radio room and the downstairs bedroom.


Before that, however, they worked on putting up the ceiling in Jason's "man cave" and installed some extra sound-proofing material before installing the sheet rock.  The material was a bit awkward to work with, but the fact that the room is not properly squared made it much more difficult.

Johnny, Tony and Chris install the additional sound proofing material

Chris secures the sheet rock to the joists

Tony measures for the next piece of sheet rock

The ceiling is almost finished

Tony and Chris take measurements for the wall board in the radio room

Now you see through.....

.....now you don't!

The radio room is now separated from the downstairs bedroom

Johnny had to do some work at the hospital project, during the morning, but came back later in the afternoon to continue working on the lower apartment bathroom plumbing.

Johnny glues some of the pipe sections

The "mudders" also returned, this morning, to mud up the walls and ceilings downstairs.  They zip around the place pretty quickly, so I stayed out of the way for most of the day.


As usual, Troy showed up at the end of the afternoon and we did some temporary wiring modifications in the radio room to allow the lights in the downstairs bedroom to have a separate switch for now.  Otherwise, I would have had to go outside to get to the radio room, each night, in order to turn off the lights on the other side of the wall.


After that was done, Troy went outside to the master bedroom/bathroom to channel out some of the block and install electrical boxes in various locations.

Troy marks out an area of block to be channeled

Using the power saw to cut the block

The dust flies everywhere

Troy installs the flex conduit for the electrical outlet box

Tomorrow, the construction team will be working at the hospital project, so only the two other guys will be here to continue the next phase of the mudding process.

We've had a break through!

This was an eventful day, as an entrance between the new stairs area and the new office & radio rooms was opened up.  Tony got the jack hammer going and the wall was removed by early afternoon.  Luckily, the guys were able to get the small double windows out in good shape, so those will be put in the upstairs dining room at a later date.


Also, John Sr. and Tony installed the new outside door to the stairway prior to any jack hammering.  This was to ensure no dust would fly around during the process because it was an extremely windy day again.

Tony begins to jack hammer the office wall

Tony and Chris continue removing the wall after the windows have been removed

Almost there

Removing the first bit of rubble

Tony jack hammers from the other side

Success!

Tony starts the first layer of mortar

The new entrance is plastered by the end of the day

While this was going on, Johnny caulked the three windows in the "dungeon" and then began working on the plumbing for the bathroom, which will be situated in what is currently the garage area.  The pipes for the bathroom, as well as for the adjacent laundry room, have to be laid out before the new kitchen concrete floor can be poured.

Johnny caulks the window in the radio room

Johnny cuts out an area on the back wall for the bathroom plumbing pipes

Johnny digs a channel for the bathroom pipes

Sometime after lunch, two guys arrived to begin work on taping and mudding the wall board in the downstairs area.  They will continue the process tomorrow and, hopefully, be finished by the end of day, Thursday.  I'm hoping that will be the case because I'd like to paint the radio room and office over the holiday weekend.  Then, the tiler can do his thing right after that.

Mudding the radio room ceiling

Mudding the office ceiling

Troy arrived just after 5pm and is now working to complete all the necessary work in the ceiling of Jason's new "man cave" so it can be closed in tomorrow.

Troy installs an electrical box under the upstairs floor

I should mention that it was another cold, wet and windy day, today - much colder than yesterday.  In fact, Kari told me she saw hail on the ground, this morning!  All of us are hoping it will warm up and the winds will calm down soon, so we can have an enjoyable Easter holiday.

The nasty weather is back

It rained quite a bit, last night, and the winds began to strengthen as well.  This morning, it was mostly cloudy and windy, then it was partly cloudy with more wind, then it got mostly cloudy again and the wind kept getting stronger and then it became overcast, wet and the wind REALLY started to blow!  Should be a stormy night, but perhaps things will look better in the morning.


Yesterday, I finished clearing out the old radio room and I don't know how I managed to get all that stuff in this room, but I did.  Now, I have to walk from my desk to the doors slowly and sideways!

And there's still more stuff to the right of this picture!

John Sr., Johnny, Chris and Tony showed up early and got right to work.  John Sr. and Chris started to take the ceiling down in the old radio room, Johnny worked on clearing the garage and doing more jack hammering around the edges, while Tony plastered in the new office room and then in the entrance to the downstairs area.


Things were pretty hectic, so I quickly snapped a couple of photos, then got out of everyone's way.  Around that time, I had a call from my mate, Tony, asking me to join him for a game of golf.  He had promised me a game for my 60th birthday, back in December, but my leg has been bothering me for awhile and I never took him up on his offer.  I gave him a few reasons why I couldn't play today, but he wouldn't take no for an answer and we were teeing off at Ocean View Golf Course at 10am.


I haven't played in over a year, so wasn't expecting to be invited to The Masters after today's game!  Because of my leg, I thought I'd only be able to play 9 holes, but we ended up playing 27 holes.  In the good old days, we probably would have played about 72 holes since the price was the same for 9 or 90 holes, but I thought it best to call it a day when we had gone around the course three times.  Thankfully, my leg was none the worse for wear, so that gave me some hope.


Anyhow, back to the renovations.....  By the time I got home, only Chris and Tony were here and working in the old radio room.  They had removed the previous ceiling and built up the walls by one block in height.  At the end of the day, the framework for the ceiling had been constructed and is now ready to have the ceiling installed.  Troy is down there right now, putting up light fixtures and running conduit.  He should have his part done by tomorrow night and then the ceiling can be put in place.

Chris takes down the ceiling in the old radio room

Johnny clears out the garage

The entrance to the "dungeon" is plastered

Chris and Tony check wall levels before building the ceiling framework

The new ceiling framework is completed

I'm not sure what the plan is for tomorrow, so you'll just have to check the blog post to find out what happens!