Joy and Doug's Hood Court House Web Log

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Sunday, May 1, 2005

Today was family day at the new Gilford house. Uncle Dave, back from an east coast trek, looked at all that had changed from the pre-truss days. My folks and niece, Sadie, tagged along for the visit. Before their arrival, Joy and I did our weekly weekend cleaning ritual of cleaning up contractor trash and deep sweeping. Our plumber, Tom, spent late last week fine tuning the plumbing with the showers, sinks, master tub and outdoor connections. Jim, our heating man,

moved ever closer to completing the mother of all furnace jobs with some of the most intricate duct work I've ever seen. Joy visits her surgeon tomorrow to plan her upcoming lumpectomy.

Tuesday, May 3, 2005

We were surprised to learn that the electricians showed up and spent all day at the house on Monday and were continuing today. By the time we met Randy and his guys much of the upstairs was completed. Wires and plastic boxes never looked so beautiful. Here was a case in which Joy thought she had only given them an idea of when we thought we'd be ready for them and they took it verbatim, showing up ready to work (with no complaints from us). We're convinced spies are helping us out every now and then.

We were a little distracted Monday with Joy being gone half the day to meet with her surgeon to go over surgery options for next Wednesday, May 11. In addition to the lumpectomy she has opted for a lymph node biopsy to see if any breast cancer cells have found there way to lymph nodes in the armpit. The anticpation for this and everything coming up for the house is slightly overwhelming.

Thursday, May 5, 2005
Much has gone on in the last couple days. We got the Leafguard gutters installed Wednesday. No falling off the roof for us. Heating man, Jim, almost had a knock-down, drag-out fight with the local gas company representative over the placement of the main junction into the house. The gas man intended to place the junction on the side of the house as near to the west corner as possible near the garage doors. Jim had built his whole system with the thought that the junction would be located another 30 feet to the east, more centralized on the south side. Choice words were exchanged and the gas guy walked off the job. Joy called the gas company, got hold of the still-steaming representative and, in her naturally innocent approach, made the guy see why Jim's entry into the house was best. Level-headedness prevailed. Thursday, I met with Randy, the electrician, and Matt, our cabinet man, to fine tune wiring in relation to cabinet placement. These guys know each other quite well from years of working together, and you can't have a better situation than this when contractors get along and respect each other's work. An example was talking through the layout of the laundry washer and dryer and a side cabinet. Having everybody there to know heights, depths and widths saved a lot

of potential errors or assumptions down the road. It also made us realize how nice it would be to have a full counter extending from the cabinet over the washer and dryer. My finger was itchy to snap some photos but I didn't get a chance so here's an old photo of dad and I hauling firewood.

Sunday, May 8, 2005
When Joy and I went up to clean this morning we observed that the vacuum system installer had been very busy Saturday, getting the internal network of pipes installed in that one day. Joy purchased a new shop-vac which caused us to spend a lot more time deep cleaning then was probably necessary at this point. But five hours later the place sparkled. It appeared Jim had run the majority of gas lines Thursday and Friday especially evident in the kitchen. Electrical installation continues this week on the main level and downstairs. Joy has pre-op appointments Monday and Tuesday to prepare for Wednesday's scheduled lumpectomy and lymph node biopsy. These house updates may be a little light this week as we move on to more important matters with Joy's health.

Monday, May 9, 2005

A quick visit tonight showed further electrical work being done on the main level.

Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Joy had a successful surgery this afternoon and when I left her this evening she was still groggy and peaceful from the anesthesia. We're obviously hoping for good news with the lab reports and will keep you up to date on that news. She comes home tomorrow sometime and will be laying low for a while.

Thursday, May 12, 2005

After work this evening I picked Joy up from the hospital. She had some problems with nausea and nurses wanted to make sure the combinations of medicine were going to work for her, so they kept her under observation a little longer than expected. But other than that she's doing fine, had some soup when she got home, vacuumed up around the cat box, did a few dishes, got scolded by mom for not laying low and went to bed. Earlier in the day I was able to break away and meet with Jeff, our audio/video/security guy, to walk through those placements. Randy continued to get closer to electrical completion, wiring in the main junction panels

in the garage. And let me say from personal experience with doing electrical with my brother and uncle in my previous house and Derek's house, Randy's work borders on beautiful if you can call running wires into boxes beautiful. It was nice to have someone else do it this time around. Tom did some more plumbing including running pipe in the garage for an extra laundry tub. Siding is on the horizon...

Monday, May 16, 2005
We're in a little hurry up and wait mode as Jeff, our audio/video/security guy, takes his week or so to pull his wires and set the panel where all the wires will converge down by the furnace. His work and any other loose ends needing to be tied up by the electrician, plumber and heating guy must be finished before the insulators can have their time. And we learned today that Kurt, our sheetrocker, wants to "stock" the house with his boards before Dick and his siding folks plop their big pile of wood in his way. So no overlap can occur for a while. In the meantime, we're waiting patiently for Joy's lab results as she continues to convalesce. My mom, Sue, has been gracious enough to sit in for Joy at the store.

Tuesday, May 17, 2005
The results are in! Doctors report no spread of cancer to Joy's lymph nodes extracted at the time of surgery. That was extremely good news of course, but Joy's not quite done yet. June 8th she gets to go back for a more minor follow-up in which they'll open up her incision, go in and remove a bit more tissue. Apparently, the doctor didn't feel she had a clear margin between the cancerous and non-cancerous tissue. The analogy is cutting out the rest of the bruise on the apple. This surgery will be done with Joy sedated and the area locally anesthetized partly because it will be a less intense surgery and partly because Joy had such a rough time with the nausea following the previous surgery. About two or three weeks after the June 8th surgery, Joy can look forward to radiation treatment consisting of 33 weekday zaps. You read that correctly. She'll be following a 33 day, Monday through Friday routine (time of day to be determined) of visiting the hospital for a dose of radiation, hoping to burn away any left over cancerous cells. Thanks to family and friends for all the calls, emails and cards that have come our way over the last few weeks. We appreciate your good thoughts and prayers.

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Since Joy had been good the last couple days we allowed her to travel to Portland with me to pick up our floorcovering supplies for the week. The real goal of the trip was to visit Millennium Stone to preview the Brown Rainforest marble slabs they'll be fabricating to go on the countertops in the majority of the house.

Thursday, May 19, 2005

Joy had drain tubing removed from her side this morning that had been draining the lymph node area. Didn't sound very fun. Dick's siders wrapped the house in Tyvek in advance of siding. Jeff got done with audio, video, computer, security wiring. Ironically, a south window has been stolen. Someone went to a lot of trouble to climb a ladder and pry it out of the opening.

Saturday, May 21, 2005

Just a few random things to end the week. I wanted to get some photos of the Tyvek and Jeff's communications panel down in

the furnace room on line. I forgot to mention Tom the plumber did a number of very important things this week. He moved the downstairs bathroom shower drain to the center of the shower in response to us deciding to do a mudset instead of a preformed shower. He drilled through the thick concrete

in the lower northeast corner to give an exit for basement flow to the sump pump. And, as pictured, main level and upstairs flow now has an exit under the west front door to connect with the sewer. It looks like the week ahead will see Shawn excavating

some trenches around the property so Tom can connect to his sewer hook-ups. So we're guessing insulation, siding and sheetrock are close behind that in the coming weeks. Oh, and a new window, too. Good friends Rod, Kate and their babies Savannah Kay and Maddy Jo are leaving the northwest for Charlotte, North Carolina. We wish them the best.

Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Mt. Hood has come out of hiding the last couple days but especially tonight when we arrived to see what was going on. A stack of siding materials had been delivered and Dick's siders

had erected scaffolding for more circus high-wire acts. His crew had also started work on the lower level deck. Just about all inspections up to this point have passed (mechanical-gas, electrical, low voltage wiring) with the exception of Tom's plumbing.

There was an obvious leak under the master tub, but that paled in comparison to the last note the inspector failed us on. Evidently there is a little confusion about where we're sending the water from the gutters in the back (west side) of the house.

Early on it was thought that we'd have to channel it through the center of the house in a pipe placed at the ceiling level of the basement to the front of the house where it would connect with the front (east side) runoff. This was to be done for the most part to have less of an erosion impact. But further review from John, our geo-tech, permitted sending the water down the hill if we followed a careful distribution plan.

Today the inspector mentioned that one reason we failed was because we hadn't diverted the water through the house. So we're scratching our heads and wondering if the city ever received John's letter of new instructions. We're also borrowing a little trouble thinking about the implications if this becomes a big deal. It would throw off the schedule considerably and cause a lot of the work so far to be altered or redone to accomodate this through-the-house pipe. Joy plans to be on the city's doorstep tomorrow at 8 a.m. with John's letter in hand to get to the bottom of it all.

Thursday, May 26, 2005

A hot, windy one today with temperature around 90 degrees made water drinking essential for the siding crew. Joy's visit to the city Wednesday was productive. She found out that they had never received John's runoff letter. But dealing with the city of Sandy has been a dream so far. By 10:30 this morning, Tom had made his two or three plumbing corrections and the inspector had revisited the site and passed everything. When the house is built and I'm no longer putting updates on this site I plan to go into fiction writing so I can continue borrowing trouble in made-up scenarios. Maybe if Joy and I built houses for a living we'd be used to the way the inspection process works, but right now I can't help visualizing someone shutting us down over a leaky pipe or missing nail. The next inspection is Friday for the final framing. It would be nice to pass this one so our insulators can start as scheduled on Tuesday.

Monday, May 30, 2005 -- Memorial Day

We passed the framing final with a note from the inspector saying how well he thought the house was framed. In advance of the insulators Joy and I did a last cleaning to get any sawdust that might have been in the walls where they'd be spraying. To end the day we had a

surprise visit from Rod, Kate and the girls. Leaving Thursday for Kate's new job promotion in North Carolina, they found the time to introduce us to Maddy Jo and to look at the house. Joy meets with Dean, the door and finish wood provider, Tuesday morning.

Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Insulators from Spray-On Foam, using a product called Sealection 500, got over half the house done. The foam fills cavities nicely and appears

to go places where standard insulation would be limited by the reach of installers. According to the specs it expands up to 120 times its liquid volume within seconds. Workers come back and slice off the excess even with the studs. Also today, the siders were back to start the east side of the house and Joy met with the door and finish wood guy to get that package of wood going.

Continue on to June