Moving Forward

After a few weeks of very little happening, things are hopping again. The drywall crew is due to arrive on Monday and a large roof-support beam is supposed to be installed on Tuesday. In preparation for the beam, I had to remove all the upper cabinets in the kitchen and open up a couple walls for the support pillars. I had taken several pictures of the kitchen just before I started tearing things out, unfortunately, the memory card in the camera decided to go bad so those pictures no longer exist. So what is below is all I have. I had to remove the lower cabinet just to the left of the dishwasher and discovered that granite is pretty tough to remove. It had to be pulverized by beating on it with a hammer and then removed in very small pieces. This was a little hard to do because I just installed it three years ago.

As soon as the beam is in place, the wall with the window will be completely removed.


Meanwhile, the siding guy was hard at work on the exterior and will probably be finishing this coming week also.


Below are a couple pictures of the inside of the addition. It's just waiting for drywall right now.

A Garage-Full

Our cabinets were delivered today. We're not near ready for them. The drywallers are not scheduled to arrive until after Thanksgiving, so, until the drywall is done, the cabinets will be crowding the garage.


I did manage to save some space by consolidating some of the boxes. One box felt rather light, and I opened it to find it nearly empty. It only contained a very small box with six knobs and four drawer pulls. So much for efficiency.


Abigail helped me check most of the shipment over. We discovered she was just about the right size to fit in one of the shelves, sort of looked like a doll in a box.


I spent most of the evening opening boxes and checking the paperwork. Abigail thought it was fun, sort of like a whole garage full of large Christmas presents, only we knew what they all were.

November 10, 2008 - Gotcha Day

Two years ago, we were sitting in a hotel room in central China, wondering what to do next. We had just picked up a scared little 9-year-old girl the day before and now we had the newest little member of our family whom we didn't have a clue how to communicate with. We could tell she was a talkative person because she jabbered continuously with our Chinese guide and struck up conversations with just about anyone she met on the street. She just didn't converse with us. In the two years that followed, she gradually grew nearly silent as one language faded away and then started to talk again as the next language was acquired. She now loves to talk again.

In the mean time, she has grown nearly nine inches in height and her hair, coming from the normal orphanage buzz cut, is now halfway down her back. I wonder if those she knew back in China would recognize her anymore.

She celebrated her "gotcha day" by making an apple pie. She had scratched "Abigail, 2 years" into the top crust before she baked it and we enjoyed most of it yesterday.

I must say, these last two years have been quite an adventure. Pulling two far-different cultures together in one family has been a stretching experience for all of us. Abigail has grown from a scared little 9-year-old into a lovely, outgoing 11-year-old. And we are eating more rice. Among other things.

It will be interesting to see what the next two years has in store...

Warm and Dry (almost)

The new addition has been dry for a while, now it is almost warm. I spent most of Saturday hanging insulation, and finished the entire addition except for just a few wall cavities. I spent the next several hours scratching my itches. Fiberglass is fun stuff to work with.

Wiring Approved

The last several days have been spent drilling holes and pulling wire. It's amazing how much wire goes into a kitchen and a bathroom, especially when the bathroom will eventually contain laundry appliances. Today the electrical inspector came and inspected and approved the wiring. With that approved, I could proceed with the insulation and cover up my beautiful wiring job. I completed just about all the wall insulation, and the ceiling will follow shortly. Below are a few pictures of the current state of things. It is still technically outside the envelope of the house, since the original wall is still up and there is no heat yet, but we are moving closer to having the wall come down.

Looking into what will be the bathroom

Looking at the old wall of the house and the old kitchen and bathroom window

Dry

With the roof on and the windows in, it is now officially "dry". We no longer have to worry about water coming in through various openings or ending up in the basement. Just in time for the inclement weather that's supposed to be headed our way.

NOT Another Use for Duct Tape

We have been having phone problems lately. Lots of problems. As a result, we've missed a lot of calls. If one of them was you, please accept our apologies. It wasn't intentional. We've contacted AT&T service a few times over the last couple months, and each time, things started working acceptably before they came.

This past Tuesday, the phones stopped working altogether. No dial tone, no Ring-y Ding-y, no Internet, no nothing. It was at that time that we realized how much we rely on the Internet for so many things. Even tonight, there are four of us in one room, each one with a computer on their lap. We are a connected family.

I got on the Internet at work and logged a trouble report on AT&T's web site. Their estimate for having it fixed was Saturday evening, five days hence. So much for speedy service.

On our way to church a couple days later, I noticed a wire lying on the road. In fact, I ran over it as I passed by. It looked the right size to be a phone line. I put two and two together. That was probably MY phone line being pounded into the pavement by all the passing cars.

Most of it disappeared a couple days later. Perhaps that coincided with the apartment complex across the street mowing their lawn. Now my line is not only down, it's probably shredded into a million pieces.

On Saturday afternoon, we were beginning to lose hope. There was no sign of any AT&T repairman. And David is supposed to start an on-line class on Monday. It was looking like he might start his class at the local McDonalds.

The guy showed up at 4:00 on Saturday afternoon. I pointed to the wire dangling from the pole. "That could very well be the problem," he stated. I agreed with him.

An hour later he came to the door. "You should be all set," he told me. I tried it out. Wow, a dial tone!

He called about a half hour later. When the phone rang, we were dismayed to hear that the old problems were still there. It worked, but we were now back to the problems of a couple weeks ago. He told us that he checked the line after getting it fixed and it still registered a problem. "I will try to be back out on Monday," he said.

I did a little checking of my own and figured out that the problem was INSIDE the house instead of OUTSIDE. That meant it was my responsibility. So I set to work attempting to isolate sections of the wiring to determine where the problem was.

I eventually found it. A splice behind a wall. There are quite a few splices in this house, but this one was different. It was wrapped with duct tape. I'm not sure what gave me the presence of mind to wrap electrical connections with duct tape, but I now know that, as the stuff ages it assumes certain electrical characteristics that can drive you and your phone company nuts.

I was just at Lowe's today, buying some supplies for our new addition. In the electrical section was a large box containing zillions of rolls of electrical tape. I remember pondering it for just a few seconds, and then concluding that I really don't use electrical tape all that much and the sixty cents would be better spent somewhere else.

I now know better.

Progress In Spite of Being Busy

The picture below is a little bit old. It was taken Monday and it is now Friday. From the outside it still looks similar, although the roof is now done and the door is installed. Inside, the plumbers have been hard at work, the heating guy was here yesterday, and the electrician (yours truly) has been drilling his own holes in the walls and the floor.


There wasn't a lot of time to work on it yesterday evening; about the only thing I had time for was to hang a couple recessed light fixtures, and then we were off to a presentation of traditional Chinese dance and music put on by the Living Hope Angels, a group of Chinese orphans who are currently traveling here in the States and putting on these presentations. We were privileged to host five of them at our home last night, three teenage girls, an interpreter, and a US-based support person. Abigail was excited to have them over. All the girls slept on cots and mattresses in the basement last night, and Abigail joined them--sort of like a Chinese slumber party. She even was able to practice a little bit of her Chinese

Getting Darker

It's definitely getting darker on the inside. On Friday, more of the trusses were put up and quite a bit of the roof deck was also placed. Right now it is all protected against the rain by a patchwork of tarps and leftover Tyvek.


Below is a view from the inside, looking out the old kitchen window. The stud wall in the foreground is the location of the sink, although the wall will be half-high, and allow a view of the window beyond from the kitchen. The wall on the right is the new half bath.

Growing Taller

Some of the trusses were set yesterday. This gives a little better idea of what the roof line will look like. Also, a few interior walls, outer sheathing, and some of the moisture wrap.

Last night it rained. Hard. But we were better prepared this time. The basement stayed dry.