good times . . . . .

We've been putting in some really long days lately. We have an occupancy permit deadline coming up that we are trying to meet. Don't ask me why Doug is suddenly interested in taking a deadline seriously, but for some reason he is. Maybe he noticed that I was finally getting kind of comfortable with the lack of progress. We certainly can't have that.

Anyway, all of a sudden we have people helping us, which is great, but the coordination of schedules between our drywall putter-uppers and our drywall finishers got a little out of whack and as a result we've been putting in some really long and exhausting days putting up some of the drywall ourselves. I knew this would happen, dammit!!! We basically get up, do drywall, sleep about 6 hours, get up, do drywall, sleep about 6 hours, etc. etc. etc. I've noticed that our pace is about 15 times slower than the two guys who did most of the rest of the house. That makes me feel especially glad that I had this wonderful opportunity to participate in the drywall installation. It just makes the whole process that much more special. Right? Doesn't it make you feel jealous? It has been such a meaningful experience.

Yesterday we finally finished the three rooms that were left to do and today there were some final touches that needed to be taken care of here and there. I had a brunch gig and Doug probably slept in so we worked late, as usual. It's midnight now. We were too tired to continue, so tomorrow we'll get up, probably at 4AM to finish the cleanup so that the drywall finishers won't have to deal with our tools and other junk lying around all over the place.

For the second floor Doug ordered 125 sheets of 12 foot x 4 foot drywall. I don't know how this happened, but I for once did not check his math, partly because he didn't ask. I certainly regret that now because there are 27 (that's TWENTY SEVEN) sheets of absurdly heavy drywall left over up on the second floor. Guess who Doug thought might help him carry these down the stairs, out the back door and down the driveway around to the basement today? What? You have no idea? Well I helped him carry one of them all that distance and then six more from the first floor to the basement since he also bought way too much for the first floor as well. That was all I could do. I will have to use my brain (somebody needs to) to figure out a more intelligent (and probably expensive) way to get all of that drywall moved downstairs. I've done enough (hopefully not permanent) damage to myself on behalf of Doug's Foam Core Fantasy. It's neither smart, nor worth it, to completely destroy yourself just for a house.

Speaking of permanent damage, Doug chopped off about an eighth inch of his index finger with a circular saw the other day. So now our subfloor has blood all over it. He wouldn't go to the doctor. He thinks it will grow back. I guess fingers don't matter as much to trombone players.

some men beat their wives....

Mine just makes me be a construction worker. I was so enthusiastic last week because my foot was finally out of the cast. I suddenly felt all excited again about the house. It was so great to finally be free to wear shoes, walk easily, and climb ladders and scaffolding. But I really overdid it with the hammer. My hands are killing me this week and I feel very grumpy about that.

Our house is never going to be finished. The only reason I agreed to tearing down our original house was because Doug promised that we would get professional people to work on the new part - and that meant not us. What I feared would happen did happen. Why in the world is someone like me building a house? It's ridiculous. I wanted to do the normal thing and let the insurance company restore our original house after the fire so we could move back in as quickly as possible and get on with our lives. And here we are, a couple of musicians still slaving away on our house that we haven't been able to live in for almost four years. Four Years. I can't do what I really want to do because I have to stay home and build my house. But I digress....

So we worked extremely hard last week and nearly all of the siding is up. But not quite all of it. Because not finishing anything is what it's all about around here. So now we are working on the trim - another long, drawn out, tedious process that will probably take several weeks before it is nearly done. I got really out of shape for construction work after being laid up with a broken foot for six weeks, and now I am really paying for it, both physically and mentally, after last week's burst of enthusiasm. I am not in the mood to build a house anymore. Why should I ever be in the mood to build a house? I never wanted to build a house. Why in the world am I building a house? Lots of people don't have to build their own house all by themselves. But I guess I should just suck it up - after all the pioneers used to build their own houses. Who do I think I am, anyway, complaining about this? I am a musician who needs the use of my hands. I don't want to destroy them just because of this house that I don't want to build. That would be really stupid.

Well I'll probably be feeling much more cheerful when my hands stop hurting, my foot is completely better, my back stops hurting, and we actually completely finish one of our many homebuilding tasks before moving on to the next one.

even more siding progress

So I've been kind of detached from the housebuilding scene lately. Look what has happened to the nice neat workspace that I used to maintain:

There are siding scraps everywhere, all over the entire floor. Hey Doug! Where's the trashcan? I can't walk through this room in my cast. There is no clear area of floor big enough to safely set my foot down. I know what I'll be doing when I'm back in action. But he's made really good progress on the siding all by himself, with no help whatsoever from me. Check it out:

September 24, 2008

October 3, 2008

When we were first talking about siding (about 10 years ago) the siding people convinced us to go with vinyl. I was really burned out from scraping and painting the exterior. They said "vinyl's final." I didn't like the idea of it too much, but the low maintenance was very appealing. Doug immediately went nuts about "Cedar Impressions" by Certainteed. It is quite a bit thicker than normal siding and does not look cheap like some vinyl siding does. And it most certainly is not cheap. But he had to have it and it has held up so well over the past 10 years that we decided to use the new version of it for the new version of our house. The color is called "Granite Gray." Most people say they can't tell it's vinyl. Maybe they are just being nice, but they seem to mean it. The new stuff has an even better texture.

One thing that's cool about the new siding is that it has temperature gauges built right in so that the siding can be spaced to allow for expansion and contraction based on the temperature at the time of installation. The nails go into slots, so that the side can move as it needs to without buckling.

Now that I'm back at work with somewhat limited use of my foot (no ladders for now) I'm putting up the siding in the lower sections while Doug works from the ladder. Doug has figured out a way for me to use the hammer with no risk of injury to my fingers. So I hold the nail with the needle-nosed plyers in my left hand and hammer with my right hand. Two tools at one time - aren't I something. By the way, the hairy arm shown below is not mine! I couldn't get Doug to take the picture I wanted so I photographed him doing it instead.

One thing I've noticed is that I seem to have a lot more control over the hammer when I used a backhand stroke. Isn't that weird? It seems so wrong. Maybe it's because in real life I play with a French bow and the backhand stroke of the hammer approaches the nail just like an upbow. The normal forehand hammer stroke seems more similar to the way the German bow is used. I guess we all can figure out what I'd rather be doing.

blah blah blah blah blah......

I've been feeling a little detached and uninvolved in the housebuilding process recently. My broken foot has been the main cause of this. It is extremely frustrating to not be able to work on my house. When both of us are there it seems like we get three times as much work done as when it's just Doug. That's mostly because I help him arrive at decisions faster when I'm there, and believe me, there are tons of tiny decisions that need to be made all day long. And I haven't been there.

Not being there is stressful because one of my "jobs" is to make sure that Doug doesn't engage in risky behavior while he's up on the ladder. I have no idea how far over he's leaning over or whether the bottom of the ladder is sufficiently stable. I cringe to think about it. Maybe he's more careful when I'm not there. I can only hope is that he is so careless about safety in front of me because he enjoys hearing how much I care about him when I yell at him about how unsafe he's being. That's kind of sick, isn't it?

We've both had our share of injuries which have slowed down the progress of the house. Mine tend to come from over use and Doug's are usually from accidental mishaps. We both messed up our knees and totally trashed our backs carrying in 25 of the new windows all in one day. My hands were stiff for months last year after I dismantled all of the old stud walls. My knees didn't enjoy that activity much either. Last fall when Doug decided that planting 2500 liriope would be an excellent activity for me, I ended up with a mild case of carpal tunnel syndrome. And my broken foot is the most recent housebuilding injury. It happened as an encore to the sprained ankle on the other foot. Doug's first house related injury was when he tripped in the dark over a circular saw that he had neglected to put away. He hit his chin on something on the way down and his teeth seriously cut into his bottom lip. Ouch!!! He couldn't play for a while but he used his other skills to deal with that. When we were carrying in all of the windows he thought he had a hernia, but it turned out to be "just" a strained groin muscle. Last spring he mis-stepped and fell through the floor joists on the porch and cracked one of his ribs. He's had occasional hand issues because of the nail gun, but he sometimes wears anti-vibration gloves to help with that. I always wear work gloves when handling wood and I haven't gotten a single splinter. As a bass player, I am terrified of getting splinters. Thankfully neither of us have suffered any permanent injuries. I think we're actually going to make it through this ordeal relatively unscathed!

Doug has been putting up the siding kind of randomly recently. He wants to get all of the tricky parts out of the way before we do any more big areas. I say "we" because I'm due to get my final X-ray tomorrow where the doctor tells me my foot is fully healed and I can get back to work next week. Wish me luck! Anyway, the screened-in porch has a bunch of different angles and we have to figure out how to do the siding and trim it attractively which means that sometimes we need to work through different opinions about what is attractive. I'm usually trying to find the least complicated way to make it look good whereas Doug seems to be highly attracted to complicated ways of doing things. So we are constantly trying to find the balance between those two philosophies.

It constantly amazes me the way "men" seem to think that carpentry and construction require mysterious abilities that only certain people have. There seems to be a certain mystique associated with it or something. I prefer the practical and matter-of-fact attitude that is presented in the Journal of Light Construction and Fine Homebuilding. We've both been reading these magazines for at least 10 years.

It seems to me that the main things that are required to do a good job building a house include common sense about structure and how things go together, measuring accurately, and using materials of good quality. It is no different than sewing in that regard. At this point, having done quite a bit of both, I actually think that sewing is more complicated. I am really grateful that I have that background because I've managed to come up with some solutions for our house that I know damn well came from the sewing part of my brain. The similarities are really quite amazing. The biggest difference between the two is the physical part. It's definitely not the most ideal activity for a couple of musicians, that's for sure.

disappearing carpenters

While Doug was waiting for the carpenters to come back to finish the steps, he did a bunch of miscellaneous things, like framing the attic floor and some doorways, more window installation, and installing a patio door into the porch. That is when he fell and CRACKED ONE OF HIS RIBS.

We had such a fantastic experience with the kitchen designer that we decided to get some advice from a lighting designer as well. We have mixed feelings about that experience. We did learn a lot, but it was expensive and more complicated than it needed to be. I wish we had researched it more and figured it all out on our own. But we did get detailed lighting diagrams done for the electrician who was due to start work this month.

I spent a lot of time this month sanding and painting a bunch of doors. These doors all have multiple window panes in them. It was a real pain to paint these doors, but they look really nice. Except that the front door color is not exactly what I had in mind – it’s what Doug had in mind. Maybe I’ll be able to do something about that later, like the next time Doug goes out on tour. The door is very pretty, but maybe just a little too pretty for our particular neighborhood.

Next we had to pick out and buy all of our plumbing stuff so that the plumber could do the proper rough-ins. I hate picking stuff out – it is so hard to decide what will look the best in all of those rooms that don’t even exist yet.

I got awesome deep bathtubs and beautiful medicine cabinets. Oh, and my kitchen sink is named “Orca" - not by me, but by the manufacturer. Doug selected some pretty cool looking faucets and a really girly sink for the powder room. If I can stand what he likes, I let him pick stuff out. I still don’t know about that door color though.

The pretty sink that Doug picked out



This door certainly is purple

WE ARE GETTING TOO OLD FOR THIS

After they finished installing the water line not much else happened for the remainder of December. The 25 Anderson windows I ordered earlier this fall arrived on December 18th and Doug and I carried all of them up the stairs and into the house that same day. Carrying windows is a very physically awkward activity. We both completely trashed our backs and visited the chiropractor more often than usual for the rest of the month. In addition, Doug thought he had a hernia, but it turned out to be “only” a sprained groin muscle. Needless to say, we had to take it easy for a couple of weeks.