August 29, 2007—Plumbing disaster averted

I arrived at the job at 7:45 am—just in time to avert a plumbing disaster! The previous day, after an all caps email from Janver, I had picked up a revised set of plans from Sam, the project manager. This is the only current set of plans printed so far, and when I got to the job, the plumber was just ready to lay out the laundry room from the old plans which placed it on the wrong side of the house. The new plan puts the laundry room right behind the master bath—much more efficient for plumbing—which made the plumber happy. I was just happy that my laundry room was now going to be in the right place!

Here you see Kai in the distance talking to the plumber and the cage crew working on building the rebar cages.

This huge stack of rebar will be made into grade-beam cages once the piers are all filled with their cages.

Jasmine and a crew member set the back of the south wall form. This line is the line that the whole house is being measured from.

Later in the day, the plumber was laying out the master bath plumbing to the 1/8th inch from this board.

Here is a great picture in the low light which shows the ditches more graphically. The pieces of wood are for walking on and running wheel barrows full of gravel over.

The plumbers get the pipes set at exactly the angle they want to get the proper fall (so the sewage runs through toward the septic tank). They told me that they use 1/4 inch per foot of fall. Then they set the pipes in gravel so that they don’t get moved around during the concrete pour.

Jasmine surveys the job, while Ginger looks on from a nice, shady spot. Even though this was 8 am, it was already 69 degrees. It got up to 97 by mid-afternoon.

Meanwhile, in the barn, my assistant began work on finishing the guest cottage cabinets. These are really well made cabinets with wonderful hardware. We are saving almost $4000 by finishing them ourselves. I bought a great low VOC oil and wax combination finish for them.

If we put a conventional finish on them, not only is it hard to apply evenly, but if the cabinets get dinged, the only way to fix the ding is to strip the entire cabinet. This oil/wax combo has a nice smell and the wood came out looking terrific. I will try to take a photo of the finished cabinets on Friday.

Behind the brown door, is a box containing a cabinet from Ikea which I put together to hold the barn sink.

This piece of art is, I believe, courtesy of the furnace crew. It is actually an extra piece of the insulation from the attic, and hung on the light sconce. It sort of looks like the skull of the original version of Mickey Mouse. Very amusing.

This photo is of the newly painted ceiling in the guest cottage and the finished attic door. Kai promised that he would make it as unobtrusive as possible. I think he did a good job.

The painters should start on the walls next week.

Last week, I brought up some pots and plants, and slammed them into the ground at the last minute. Unfortunately, when I took this picture the cottage was casting a shadow over them so they are kind of hard to see. Next to the rock is a plumbego. This is a fountaining bush with pale blue flowers. You sometimes see them next to the freeway—very pretty.

There are geraniums in the brown pots. Eventually they will go by the cottage porch, but not until the plasterers are finished. There are also some lavender plants in black 1-gallon pots. I am going to test them on the bank by the cottage and see how they do. I have an idea for landscape around the cottage, but if you have ever put in a garden, you understand that the design evolves according to your mood and what the nursery has in stock.

Click here to see how the pier cages are built  
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