Getting Ready for the Big Move (not what you think)

Tomorrow morning at 8am, my friends Greg and Adrian are showing up at my old house to help me move my woodshop machines to the new house. For those who don't know, I take my woodwork seriously. My planer weighs almost 2000 pounds alone. I rented a tool called a "reach fork" which is a forklift that can move the tangs up and down AND forwards and backwards. So it can reach into the old house, lift the planer, and then take it up the nastly hill to the front yard and lovingly put it in the back of my truck for the 2 block ride to my new house where I will reverse the process. I have 6 machines total that are too heavy to move without machines: Planer, Jointer, Tablesaw, Shaper, Drum Sander, and Bandsaw. We are hoping it will take 4 hours or less.

In addition, my kids are actively helping in removing the parquet flooring in preparation for the concrete polishing.

Jen is still painting. There is a lot of wall to paint, and it ALL needed painting. Many coats. Trim galore. Tali's bedroom door had a doorknob that was smarter than me, and I could not remove it. Finally, I realized we have to cut the door down 1/2 and inch anyways for the carpet, and the door was one of those crappy hollow doors. So I bought a solid door slab, and got the nifty kit to bore the holes. She's priming the wood and will be painting it up.

Flooring, electrical update, Wall

Goodbye hardwood floors. They were going to be way expensive, and we thought we should look into what we could do with the existing concrete floors. After all, this bunker of a house is made of concrete, why not celebrate it? So the picture you see is a floor done by the company we picked to polish and color the floor (Thompson Floors). The bid to do the living room, entry way, and dining room was about 1/5th of a hardwood floor price. We will make sure to soften the rooms down with area rugs, plants, and other soft things.

The electrician bid came in, and it was $5K less than I thought. Phew. After adding the ridiculous amount to move the power cable underground, I think this one will come in fairly close to budget.

Put up the third wall of the home theatre. Framing a wall against a cinderblock wall is kinda tricky.

Wood Paneling

So we decided that the entryway and the wall that runs from the entryway to the newly-made arch needs to be exquisitely done wood paneling with moulding and the works, floor to ceiling. So now I only need to drywall the ceiling in the entryway, and the arch I created on the big wall removal. Downstairs the drywall work is all for square easy walls, so....

...I am going to be an idiot and do it myself.

Carpet and Move-In

Carpet has been chosen, install on April 26 and 27. The race is on to get everything done. Move-in day is going to be April 30!

Shocking!

Today I met with the electrician to discuss wiring. There are lots of things to be done:

* Fix the wiring in the entryway where we ripped out the ceiling.
* Add power to the kitchen for the double ovens
* Fix the lighting in the living room which I destroyed in the initial demolition
* Fix the lighting in the basement which I destroyed in the demolition
* Add power and lighting to the home theatre room
* Add industrial power and lighting to the garage as it will be my woodshop
* Run power to a junction box outside for future hot tub (some day, probably in 2034)

Unfortunately, I will need to run the wire from the power pole into the house to a new location (called the "strike"). There is a long explanation for that, which I will will condense into two words "Fire Code". The only way to do this is to bury the wire. So I have to run a wire down the power pole, go under ground, and attach to the house. The nice thing is that this will remove all wires running to the house. The bad news is that it is stinking expensive.

The overall bid is going to run $12-15K over. Blurg. Looks like the hardwood floors and geothermal heat will have to wait a couple years unless you, my loyal reader, give me a present.

Walls and Doors

Framed up the other wall for the home theatre tonight. Hung a door. Pre-hung doors are awesome as long as you do it right. Jen painted like crazy. My friend Adrian helped with demolition. Tired.

Tomorrow morning we meet the electrician at 7:30am to discuss getting power to my woodshop and theatre room as well as fixing the wiring I ruined when I cleaned up the living room wall fiasco. Tomorrow night we have Empire Today coming to bid on the carpets.

Front Door

This is what it will look like.