Posts
Sanding the floors
After we finished most of the interior walls, we spent over a month sanding the floors to prepare them for polyurethane. The pine planks had gotten cupped, dirty, and discolored from exposure to sun and rain last summer before we got the roof on. We could have gone the easy route and painted the floors, but we like the natural wood look and decided to do the extra effort to preserve that look.
April 3, 2013
Interior framing
For the last month or so, we’ve been working on the interior framing: putting up the walls for the various rooms in the house. So far we’ve done the basement stairs, the kitchen pantry, the downstairs bedroom and bathroom, and the wall for the upstairs guest room. What’s left is the upstairs bathroom, which is going to be bit tricky due to the sloped ceiling, which comes down to about 4.5 feet at the outside wall.
February 7, 2013
The siding is done (mostly)
Yesterday we put up the last piece of siding, ending a six-week slog and a race against winter. We got it done just in time; last night it snowed a little and now it’s raining steadily. This was a huge milestone, and we can finally relax a little knowing that the house is weather-proof now.
December 10, 2012
Race against winter
We’re now in a race to see if we get all the siding up before real winter arrives. We managed to get the most difficult and dangerous part of it done over two days: putting up the siding over the one story roof.
November 15, 2012
Using an "unauthorized" network card in a ThinkPad
I recently decided to replace the Intel Wimax/WiFi Link 5350 card in a ThinkPad X200s, because the WiMax part of the card seemed to be flaking out and causing Linux kernel errors and hangs. I found a generic (non-Lenovo branded) Intel 5300 card, which is just a WiFi adapter (no WiMax). But I got an unpleasant surprise when I powered on the X200s: the BIOS gave an error message: “1802: Unauthorized network card is plugged in - Power off and remove the miniPCI network card” and then refused to boot.
October 26, 2012
First siding boards are up
After a week and half of part-time work, we now have about 25 feet of siding boards put up.
October 25, 2012
Doors
Over the last couple of weeks we’ve installed the four exterior doors. There are two doors in the walkout basement wall, and two up on the main floor. Now that the wind doesn’t blow through the house, it stays a lot warmer inside, which makes it more pleasant to do interior work.
October 23, 2012
Stain and siding
We started working on the siding today, after spending more time than we expected on deciding what kind and color of stain to use on the wood. The siding is 1x8 pine shiplap (made in Vermont) that is rough on the outward facing side. We wanted to find a semi-transparent stain that looked like real wood with a slightly reddish tinge. But most of the stains we tried didn’t quite achieve that effect.
October 12, 2012
Roofing is done
Last week we had two mornings when it wasn’t raining, so we used those times to finish installing the metal roofing. There wasn’t a lot left, but the last bits were tricky and dangerous to install, because they were at the end of the one story section that has a very large drop, and because it was no longer possible to climb back down on the strapping once the last piece was up.
October 10, 2012
Stairs, windows, and roofing
The last three weeks have been pretty busy and we have made quite a bit of progress. At first things seemed to go slowly and frustratingly. Putting the foam up on the walls and nailing it down with strapping would seem to be a quick, straightforward job at first sight. But with so many windows in this house (35 total) the task becomes quite tedious, with lots of cutting of foam, test placing, trimming, replacing, etc. The worst part is putting up the triangular pieces. Sometimes the 3-4-5 triangle rule seems to work, and sometimes not quite.
September 24, 2012