Some siding, kitchen backer board

Today Jenm and Mikem hung up about 1/2 of the temporary siding. As a reminder, we tore all the aluminium siding off the back part of the house, to allow the new door and window to be installed. Jenm and Mikem made new siding by ripping 1/2" OSB into 12" wide strips. Those strips form our siding in this part of the house.

In future phases of construction we will replace all the siding with something new. However, this siding will suffice until then.

Billn cut and secured 1/2" cementatious backerboard on the kitchen floor. We will adhere the tile to the backer board, once Jenm chooses some.

The countertop manufacturer comes to measure tomorrow. In two weeks or so, they return with our finished countertop.

Don't look for many updates this week, 70Hack is travelling.

All base cabinets set, range installed

Today we set all the base cabinets and leveled and secured them to the wall/base. The shimming process for the cabinets on the platform we built was nothing (shim the platform, don't shim the cabinets). Installing the interior wall cabinets was another story. Shimming those to be level and even was a challenge, but not beyond what 70hack can accomplish.

Mikem is here this weekend, he did some childcare and installed the hardware on the Freedom Door (which is nice, we have been using the construction-period handle which was lame).

We are feeling like we did some progress. All the late nights roughing the electric in pays off. Everything ended up where it was supposed to, which was nice. Putting cabinets up in one day seems so much easier than pulling wire, insulating walls or installing drywall.

Here you can see the improved drywall compound we are using, their advertising slogan is "now with 50% more cat."

Clamping, drilling and fastening cabinets is serious business.

Here is a picture of a nifty extra we did with the cabinets. We have roll-out garbage and recycling cans in the base cabinets. Neat.

Part of the family of raccoons (from our tree) found their way into our sink base cabinet.

George checks out the cabinet before installation.

Some of you have asked why billn doesn't smile in pictures.

Here are the interior wall base cabinets. Nice.

Finished cabinet base, set a few in place

This week was spent cutting, assembling, leveling and squaring the base we are creating under many of our base cabinets. 70Hack likes a taller-than-standard counter height so we built a base from OSB and 2x4s. These pictures show the progression of the base construction. More than a few hours went into putting the base together and shimming it level. In the end it is worth it, we set three cabinets on the base last night, they fit right and sat square to each other.

Like the window, we hope to install the base cabinets with no shimming.

To the right of the drawer-unit goes our range and coming out of the screen will be the refrigerator.

The other side of the kitchen is slated for cabinets too, but those will be at the standard height so no base construction. Those we will have to shim and adjust to sit level.

We won't set the wall cabinets for a little while, we have to finish the ceiling with joint compound and paint.

The counter top manufacturer comes Monday to measure, so all the base cabinets and appliances will be in place by Sunday.

Kitchen window is in

Tonight billn cut all the pieces to form the framing for the cabinet base. The adults of 70Hack are relatively tall and prefer a higher than standard cabinet height. So we will build a 2x4 frame topped with 3/4" OSB to raise the cabinet height. If we were wealthy, we would have purchased the additional height as part of the base cabinets. Here is a picture of our chop saw with a stop-block to ensure all the frame pieces are the same length. Could we have any more clamps?

Here you can see a family of raccoons moved into our tree. Hopefully the exterminator we call uses humane methods (although in VT he probably just shows up, shoots and then brings them home for dinner).

Here senior and junior inspect the rough opening. Prior to tonight, the entire exterior wall was covered with building paper (tyvek). We pulled it off so we could install the window.

Here billn applies the caulk. Thanks to Tomd for suggesting the polyurethane caulk, Sikaflex 1a. This stuff is really strong, the best. Notice the homemade scaffold from wood and sawhorses.

Here billn completes the installation of the window. It isn't every married couple that can install a 30" high, 96" wide window into a rough opening that includes standing on sawhorses. But we at 70Hack are not every married couple.

Here is a picture of the interior. The level in the corner is 2'0", it is there to give you an idea of the scale. That's a big window.

Some might ask why the interior surface of the wall is covered with plywood and OSB (oriented strand board). The OSB goes behind the base cabinets, making cabinet installation much easier and OSB is 75% of the cost of drywall and more durable. The plywood is where the wall tile will adhere.

Installing the window in the rough opening was a snap. It was easy because we spent 45-60 minutes setting the sill of the rough opening LEVEL. No shims needed when you build the sill level, just set it and forget it.

Tomorrow we mow the grass and hopefully complete the base construction for the cabinets.

Jenm bought a couple of sample tiles for the kitchen floor, she is undecided still.

Cabinets are here, camping

Don't mind senior's dirty face, here she sits with George and checks the delivered quality of our cabinets.

Here is our bathroom/kitchen sink. Camping is worse, but when you come home from camping, you have a real kitchen sink.

Laundry room tile

We finished the baseboard convector (we don't waste time heating with hot air here, we use hot water and natural convection). Also, you can see our tile selection and the rough in for the laundry sink (no pliers in the sink rough picture).

If any readers have ever been in a post WWII house in Buffalo, NY you have seen our laundry room floor tiles before.

If any readers have been on a South shore of Long Island beach around the end of the twentieth century, you have seen billn's feet before.

The 4-1/2" hole down through the floor is for the dryer vent.

Moving day (from May, 2007)

Here are pictures from the move at the end of May 2007. We engaged Booska movers, two guys, one truck, pay by the hour. They moved fast, no dogging it. They didn't damage our stuff, they didn't let George (cat) out of the house. 70Hack encourages local blog readers (if there are any) to use these guys.

Alissa (Jenm's sister) was present to help with the children. Also, she was in charge of directing the movers when the stuff showed up at 70Hack. To say she was happy directing our movers is an understatement.

Those of you who received "we moved" cards last year will recognize this picture. This time senior and junior are sitting on the boxes in 70Hack.

You may believe we are bad parents for letting the children sit in this toy box, stacked up on boxes. That's OK, we don't worry about what other people think of our parenting. Height, danger and instability are part of life, why shelter them now?

DSL is online, the camera is on vacation

OK, the DSL modem showed up this week, after a not too painful installation process, we have a wired connection. Never mind Verizon sent a nifty wireless modem/router without giving the password to manage the router (so it isn't wireless). It works.

This week's work has been somewhat frustrating, nothing was easy associated with fitting up the baseboard heat in the laundry room. However, the hard part is done, we need a short length of 3/4" pex barrier tubing to finish the fit-up. Also, the phone lines and thermostat wiring are done through the house. Our attic is still a tiny, ugly place to spend time.

Jenm purchased the last bit of laundry room floor tile. No pictures of it. Jenm took senior and junior back to Long Island this week for a visit; the camera went with them.

Today billn picked up this week's produce from our CSA. If you don't know what a CSA is, then that means you don't live near earthy-crunchy farmers.

Work is continuing. The goal is a functional (sans countertop) kitchen by Sunday, June 24, 2007.

Still here, just no internet connection yet

We have been making progress; just not documenting it here.

We have a telephone at the house now, the number is 802-22x-xxxx. Did any of you think billn would acutally post his home number on the web? Then everybody would call during our dinner hour and disturb us.

The laundry room is primed. We paint it today. The kitchen ceiling has the first coat of joint compound. Some minor electrical parts are in (like the 3-way switches for the basement lights, some temporary lights in the hall and on the stairs). The lawn is cut (it has been terrible weather for grass growing, lots of rain and sun, terrible in that it grows fast and strong, taking valuable time and energy to mow).

The current goal for a 100% kitchen is Sunday June 24, 2007. There are reasons for this date and we hope to make it. The only piece that may be missing by then is the countertops, but that is out of our control (made by others). The Corian order is back, gas is $2.93 a gallon.

We do not have a real date yet for our DSL connection to the house, so we continue to be unable to share with you our progress. Soon the pliers will be back!

Remember, I want ideas or actual items for sealing up in our walls as a time capsule. Time is running out.

Still alive, but in-transition

We had the movers over on Wednesday, the brought the furniture and whatever boxes we had packed to the house. We are in the process of moving the remaining stuff with our cars this week; we have to be out of the apartment on Sunday, June 03, 2007.

We have seen a lot of 2:00 and 3:00 AM in the last week, between that and the move and going to regular paying job, no time for blogging.

Our Internet connection at the house won't be up for 2.5 weeks, long story but all due to the previous home occupant who for some reason will not cancel his telephone. We will not have any extensive blog posts until after then.

Peter: We do not like you and we wish you would have turned off the phone like you said you would. We hope your new residence has a leaky roof.

The kitchen cabinets come on Tuesday (June 05, 2007) , hopefully we'll have the kitchen walls insulated, covered and ready for cabinets the middle of next week. Our priority now is to move them into place so we can start using our range (instead of grilling everything).

It is like camping now, only a few working outlets and lights in the house, but finalizing the electricity will have to wait until after the kitchen is closer to being operable.