Joy and Doug's Hood Court House Web Log

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Friday, July 1, 2005

We finished June up with Gary completing all the interior wall and ceiling painting, Rick installing particle-board subfloor on the upper

level floors and hard wood being delivered. Joy is in love with her color choices. It's nice to have her confident that she made the right decisions because there was a lot of doubt along the way.

The wallpaper, carpet and tile samples have now cozied up to just about every wall in the house. The colors seem to offer a lot of flexibility for

determining these other choices. Rick had the particle-board laid upstairs in a couple hours where we intend to put carpet. The half-inch thick board will give the surface smoothness, insulation and better transition height to the master bathroom, vanity and laundry floor tile areas.

1600 square feet of quarter-sawn red oak was delivered and stacked in the living room to start acclimating for a couple weeks. The entire main level will receive the wood. If you've been reading this from time to time you know that

Joy got through her breast cancer lumpectomy without any problems and that there was no sign of any more cancerous tissue. She went to the doctor to get prepped for her 33 daily radiation treatments which will start in a couple weeks, a necessary part of the process to totally eradicate these evil cells. She'll be experiencing some tiredness and fatigue as we get closer to completing the house.

Monday, July 4, 2005

Today was the second anniversary of our discovery of the Hood Court property and to celebrate, Shawn played in the dirt in the morning hours. He and his guys dug trenches for the water, sewer, gas, electric, and cable lines for hook-up to the street. They also laid drainpipe on the north and south sides of the house for eventual rain gutter connections. To protect from concrete

splashes, Joy and I taped plastic to the walls inside the garage in advance of the floor possibly being poured soon.
The mountain was out just like it was on that fateful day two years ago when we threw caution to the wind.

Tuesday, July 5, 2005
Shawn returned to lay pipes and fill all the trenches back in. Now the different utility services will be on track to make their final connections to the house. It's a novelty being able to go in the front door without hopping a hole. Dan can do concrete in the front

walkway and garage when he gets a break in his schedule. Marcel, the hardwood installer, is due to do a moisture test in the underlayment to make sure he can proceed. Tom installed the sump pump to the north of the lower deck. With that out of the way we can finally get

the Trex on that deck since Tom had needed working access below and around it. Joy and I are feeling a little time crunch. Our bank loan completion date is for October 2nd

(a little less than three months from now). There still seems so much to do. Our potentially biggest time delayer is the cabinetry. Matt is in high demand and speculates that he'll need a full month to get cabinets set. So many things depend on his schedule. Cabinets need to be stained. Trim work needs to be set around finished cabinets. Granite tops can only be measured with complete cabinet bases in place. Millennium Stone has a measuring scheduled for Monday, July 25th (yeah, right!) and informed us that they are so swamped that it would be September before they could come out to measure again. So the doubt sets in and the questions arise about what we could have done when things seemed to have been moving along quite well and maybe I'm borrowing trouble again, but we are calling the bank to find out if there's a grace period and if not, what will be the financial impact?

Wednesday, July 6, 2005
Stan, our loan man, said an additional 30-day extension would cost around $1200. We'd prefer not to have to come up with that money, of course, but we'd handle it if necessary. Millennium

Stone took a little heat off by saying a measurement for granite top fabrication could take place in mid-August instead of September. Dan hauled in gravel and snapped chalk lines in the garage and will be continuing Thursday with preparation for a Monday pour.

That leaves time for Marcel to lay our hardwood. He tested for moisture and pronounced the area ready to go for Thursday. I picked up some 15-pound felt paper at Home Depot at 9:30 this evening to go under the wood. We'll be rushing to get him 30 feet of stairnose trim for the top step and stairwell shelf connected to the main level.

Thursday, July 7, 2005

Marcel's guys got close to half of the hardwood installed. After distributing bundles throughout the main level, they loose-fit appropriate sized pieces over vapor paper for a number of widths and then hammer-nailed away. Thanks goes to our friend Dennis, who works for our hardwood source. He spent half the morning

locating the stairnose we needed for the stairwell and personally delivered it to us just as the installers were

nearing that point of the installation. The four-inch wide quarter-sawn red oak has a conservative rustic quality. Understated contrast to the tight, lineal grain gives way to beautiful imperfections (knots and wormholes?). I'm voting for a very light touch of darker stain to bring out a little more contrast. Dan attached metal flashing up the garage sheetrock to protect it from the concrete he plans to pour Monday.

Saturday, July 9, 2005

After two very long days, Marcel's guys finished the entire hardwood installation Friday evening. A sanding and first coat of finish is to follow at some point next week, so we didn't bother to clean up the stray sawdust. Having all the hardwood and interior painting done

further helps Joy in determining area rugs, tile and window coverings. An eerie mist wafted up from the trees filtering though from the river beyond the bluff. It rose to meet us but flowed away with the rain after a few minutes. Saturday I cleaned up wood scraps and set aside good excess for repairs down the road. I'll stick it up above the garage once the insulators are done. Our tile installers,

Tom and Robin, made a first visit to set pan liner in the three shower areas, sloping sand and cement and placing pan liner for a proper slope to the drains. Each pan was filled with water for the plumbing inspector to check for leaks.

Monday, July 11, 2005
Dan poured the garage floor today. Nice to have the garage door actually meeting floor.

Friday, July 15, 2005

Dan returned Wednesday to cut grooves in the garage floor down the middle width and length to ease the cracking potential. We covered the floor in excess hardwood felt paper for a little added protection. Tom's shower pan liners passed inspection.

Northwest Natural Gas attached the meter and hooked us up officially. Matt, our cabinet man, gave us hope Thursday that he's working us into his schedule when he submitted schematics for our approval. This morning the Spray-On Foam guys returned to insulate the attic spaces, possible now that the sheetrock had been completed. Western Pacific delivered our door and molding package.

So many weeks had passed since Joy selected all the stuff, she was surprised to see the iron spindles which will support the stair railings, thinking she has chosen wood spindles instead. We sure hope Steve, our finish man, can sort it out when we go over it with him Saturday morning.

Wednesday, July 20, 2005
As commonly happens, a good portion of our wood package was wrong or incomplete. Steve, Joy and WestPac representative, Dean,

met tonight to clarify and correct the order. Steve also hung around to take doors to their appropriate rooms. Tom brought tile backer-board to the house to get started on shower walls and tile floor areas over the next couple days. Our insulation inspection passed Tuesday. Tuesday was also the first of 33 radiation treatments for Joy to zap any remaining breast cancer cells hanging around. We've been told she may experience some fatigue but I think that will come with having to get up to get to the weekday appointments by 8 a.m.

Friday, July 22, 2005

Leafguard returned and connected downspouts to their gutters. No more splashy puddles! Tom finished the second phase of the shower pan installations by forming the curbs, filling the liners with cement mix and sloping the floors to the drains.

He also installed tile backer-board on all the shower walls and on the floors of the laundry and master bath. We goofed and forgot to get the spa tub out of his way before the backer-board was applied to the tub deck.

It's a cleaner, more finished look to have the tile going under the lip of the tub instead of butting to the edge. So we called the other Tom, the plumber, and he'll remove the tub over the weekend. Hopefully it won't be a big deal to put some backer-board slices nearer to the hole adjacent to where he ended his installation around the tub. Well, we debated on whether to share some news with everyone on Joy and the latest cancer details. When she went in a good week or so ago to get prepped for all these radiation treatments, the doctors saw what looked like a spot on her pancreas. So this past Monday before her radiation treatments they had her back in to look more closely. We got word today that something is definitely there. No one can tell us anything about what it might be, but it's very small. Unfortunately, biopsying the thing is no easy task. She'll have to go under again and let them get to it surgically. The circumstances with her just getting started with radiation treatments and the potential toll that will take on her energy levels, along with the winding down of the building of the house over the next few months points toward any medical intervention needing to take place after we're moved in and settled. At the same time there's this perpetual uncertainty hanging over us telling us not to wait too long. Let me just be the first to say in print, if it isn't already obvious, that this royally sucks.

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

James returned to install Trex on the lower deck and built us a landing and stairs off the south garage exit. Watch that last step until the final grading. It's a doozy. Second phase shower pan inspections passed. Tom pulled the spa tub out of its hole for tile installation. Joy has a Friday appointment with a pancreas specialist to get some bearing on what we should be worrying and not worrying about.

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Today is our 14th wedding anniversary. Marcel showed in the evening to do a first fill and sanding of the hardwood. James wrapped deck posts and

finished cedar application on the upper deck ceiling. Joy has settled into a routine with the morning radiation treatments. We got word yesterday that she may have to undergo an endoscopic ultrasound when it comes time to explore around the pancreas. When I did a little research we were both a little horrified at the idea of it, but maybe it's not so bad if you're unconscious.

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