I worked with my brother on getting the plumbing stuff figured out last Friday night and got the new pressure tank down in the basement ready to go. More on that later... The main thing was that he said where I wanted to put walls wouldn't cause him any heart ache so I put up a little pantry and the main utility room wall. The electrical for that is still one of the three initial zones but that is ok for the nonce.
Drywall is up!!! I am quite excited by this. My next door neighbor in my old house hangs drywall for a living, he doesn't tape/mud it, he hangs it, period. I figured well I have to get it hung, I am dead tired from working solid on this thing, I will get him to quote how much to hang the board... I go tell him, he is very shocked I am moving. He comes out, loves the place, totally understands why I am coming out there. Said it is like a whole new attitude takes over your body as you drive out there. And that is exactly how I feel about it, you know the city is just around the corner (3-4 miles), but you don't have to bring it with you. The last few nights have been spectacular, I don't care who you are, you just want to sit down and love it.
So Vern, my neighbor, looks over the job, hoes and hums about it, isn't happy I want it finished by Wednesday so I can tape and mud and possibly paint the office and be ready to move into it by this weekend. He figured there was 24 4x8 sheets worth of drywall that needed to be cut and hung. He says he can possibly have it finished by Wed night, I say fine, how much. He says, well you are supplying all of the materials right? I said yep. He said, you will have the board down here in the basement waiting? I said nope, you and I will be carrying it down from the trailer. He said, ok, then how about $100. I was like, well you know Vern, I don't know about that... how about I give you $200... As you can see, I took several courses in effective negotiating tactics. My goal was for him to then say "no, how about $50?" but instead he just smiled and said, "thanks Joe, I can really use the money" to which I said something like, yep, I know man. You are really helping me out, I know you will do a great job and it will be done Wednesday and that is totally worth it to me. I wouldn't do that with everyone, just people who I know personally and in my heart I know are good. It is good karma and quite honestly, I am asking for a lot from karma at the moment and need a good surplus to get what I want.
Vern shows up at about 4:45PM and we carry the 28 boards I picked up at Home Depot (always get extra drywall when you buy it, ALWAYS) to the basement (I want a walkout basement for Xmas Santa...). Vern was done by 9PM, I was amazed at how fast he went and it looks fantastic. I think he even shocked himself as he really expected he would be coming back on Wednesday and there were a lot of nasty cuts and angles he had to deal with as you will see in the pics. He ended up using 27 boards... Admittedly there was a little extra waste but that means less taping for me of odd joints.
Oh I hung all the doors, let me say 36" doors are kind of a bitch to hang, never did doors that big before. Tough to keep them square when working on them. The 28" door I put in for the pantry was done in like 4-5 minutes, the 36's all took at least 30-40 minutes each. Overall though, I can't complain, this stuff is flying along. Getting help at key points and burning the midnight and 3-4AM oil is really paying off.
Main area looking at newly dry walled section
Brand new furnace room that I built with my own cut and calloused and very sore hands. :)
Hallway to pantry, utility room, and home office
First home office door
Now pantry door
And utility room door
Here is the pantry
Here is the utility room, remember that stack of wood from previous photos?
Looking out of utility room to home office
And the home office (note how off level the pier is, that will be fun to do something with...).
Note the electrical sockets... Down at the normal area but also up by where light switches normally are. I am a computer guy, I like sockets up high too. Maybe that isn't just because I am a computer guy, I don't know, I just know what I like and I don't care what anyone else thinks, if I like it, I should get it or do it if at all possible. (:
Oh this corner is future home of rack of a couple of servers.
Future home of desk with main PC and laptop docking stuff.
Looking out into hallway and utility room
Try it with door shut to utility room... much more peaceful and clean looking.
There is the door to the main part of the basement
Office door closed, see my nice pole. I am going to take pole dancing lessons I think... ;) Nah, not enough room to swing about that, but I have heard exotic pole dancing can be quite the good workout.
This is the back wall of the office. You will note a socket at the floor level, a light switch in the middle and then a socket at the top. This is an odd combination I admit. But the socket at the top is switched by the light switch. A nice shelf will be put up there and it will contain a bunch of cool plasma and electric type gifts and things I have bought over the years. The light switch just makes it easier to turn on and off so I can more easily enjoy it all.
So that is what Vern did...
I was working on trying to figure out the wiring mess in the house, lots of cut wires, mostly phone but others. I have an image of what is in place in the house now, I will sleep on it and my brain will tell me how to lay it all out anew.
Oh, if you put in light switches that you may be hunting for in the dark, spring the extra cash for the lighted switches, it is worth it, especially if you have guests... This is in my office. I doubt I will have the main lights on much. I will be going through changing a bunch of switches in the house to these type.
Plumbing
The plumbing guy said, oh no, bigger isn't necessarily better on the pressure tank replacement idea. He said let's start with this slightly bigger WellMate and I expect your issues will be gone, if not, then we will look at a second tank. The issue here is if you pull too much water too fast, you make the well go dry for a bit and that isn't good for the pump... It is all about balance...
So in this pic you can see my water softener, my old robin's egg blue pressure tank and my nice shiney new pressure tank and the water heater. This is all going to change, all of that is going up against the wall the water heater is on and the water heater is getting replaced and moving down the wall a little further to be closer to its vent.
Also going to fix the main line running into the house and going to the pressure tank, kind of half ass hung. Also the electrical has to be redone, for some reason they ran 2 gauge out the 1300 feet to the well but ran 10 gauge from the breaker box to the junction for the well... Not sure if people realize how incorrect that is... My brother is getting a solenoid so we can use the existing 10 gauge but have it fire the 2 gauge, not feed it.
