A couple months ago in November, the county inspector approved the drywall installation on the exterior walls. This big step allowed the stucco contractor to begin applying stucco! Before he could start, the lath which had been installed 9 months prior required some repairs. Although I had protected the walls with black plastic from the period of most intense sun (June-October), I had not covered the eaves and they had experienced the most sun damage. The contractor spent several days touching-up; caulking staples and other penetrations in the building paper. I had to pay for the extra labor and materials. I was unhappy that the building inspector made me wait, especially as other inspectors had approved similar jobs for stucco around the county prior to drywall installation, but in the end it did work out ok and the repairs weren’t as extensive as I was expecting.
Once the repairs were completed, they scratch-coated the walls in early December and then applied the brown coat about a week later. As this post goes to print, I am working towards a choosing a color for the final coat (mostly done).
The garage doors arrived in early December. The hardware is reasonably good quality and the doors themselves are very heavy! Once those were installed, I added locks (some cheap temporary, some permanent) to the exterior doors. My house is now officially under lock and key.
Over the last month, I’ve been focusing on a few small areas inside that weren’t ready for the drywall installation. Mostly this has been around the stairs – under the stairs and the outer raised wall on the west side. To meet the required headroom per code, I had to angle the ceiling above the stairs for the first 16 inches. Prepping the surfaces so that the drywall will join smoothly and there is backing to screw it into wasn’t easy and took some time to work out. I also dropped the hall ceiling by 11 inches and am in the process of framing the downstairs bathroom ceiling down the same amount as well. This was to allow room for the HVAC unit in the bathroom and I think the dropped ceiling will also help visually balance both rooms as well because they are so small.
The drywall protruded in few areas around the bottoms of the door frame by up to 3/8″ in some places. In those places, I knocked the drywall out and re-filled with 40-minute joint setting compound, making sure it stayed a little below the surface of the door frame. My plan is to work in a few coats of topping compound to smooth out the transition and sand to blend with the existing drywall. There is definitely some skill to this part of drywall work, but I am optimistic that it will turn out well enough.
For the stair, I made a little pony wall on the living room side that will support a handrail and balusters. I used geometry and math for cutting out the plywood cap for the wall. Because the stairs are curved for the first nine treads, the interior edge of the cap traces a helix about the center point of the stair. To obtain a curve for cutting the plywood, I modeled the stair case as a cylinder of radius r in a CAD program, then drew a helix on the cylinder whose rise angle matched the stair rise. Because a helix does not sit in a plane, the radius for cutting the plywood cap out of a 4×8 sheet (a plane) is determined by projecting the helix onto a tangent plane. I did this graphically in the CAD model by selecting a point, A, mid-way in the run of the 9 curved treads, inserting a tangent plane at this point that also passes through the stair radius center line at the same elevation. I then drew a best fit circle visually on the tangent plane passing through either projected end of the helix and point A. The radius of the resulting circle is the radius that I used for cutting the plywood cap. It sounds complicated but it’s a lot easier to do than it sounds. The resulting plywood cap installed like a dream – almost .
One other fronts, I’ve been working on choosing a paint color for the interior (done) and prepping the shower in the downstairs bathroom for tile (about 50% complete).
Besides a drywall re-inspection for the few areas that haven’t been installed yet, only the county final inspection remains. For that, I’ll need to have both bathrooms and the kitchen finished. I’m hoping to have those done by September, Lord willing. After that I’m planning to take a break from house building for a little bit while I re-focus on a more balanced activity list including more recreation (Mt Whitney – looking your direction). The rest of the finishing (baseboards, trim, window casing, etc.) will come more slowly after that.
And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they? And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest.
And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and He that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them.
They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters; and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.
Rev. 7:13-17
