A Blank Slate (and A River Runs Through It)

Plastering is complete!  This weekend:  Met with the trim/stairs guy and went over the entire house window by window, door by door, stair tread by stair tread.  Jeff and I installed the garage-house doors.  Amy and I started prepping the upstairs for painting (sanding and cleaning).  I was also able to tie in all the circuits to the breaker box. 

After working all day with the power off, Amy and I turned the power on to test the basement lights that I had installed...  Short circuit.  Not a good first try at powering up all the wiring I had done.  Troubleshooting found it was just the switch for one side that shorted the breaker.  Too tired and hungry.  Quick dinner (thanks Sue), made a cardboard box airplane with Ella, quick trip to HD (4th one this weekend) to get door knobs and a new GFI breaker to replace the broken one that someone had snuck back into its original packaging and returned so that I could buy it, back to the house.  Further investigation revealed that the $1.37 fixtures from HD that don't have a ground terminal also do not have insulation over the hot terminal.  On one of the fixtures the hot screw was in contact with the loose ground wire and it shorted to ground as soon as it was turned on.  I took them all down, isolated the grounds, insulated the hots, and reinstalled.  Works like a charm.  I spent the next ten minutes standing in the stairs turning the lights on and off like it was the first time I had seen electricity.  It was very gratifying.

Started the weekend with a welcome night off: Father-Daughter Sweetheart Social.

Swing dancing with Ella.

Slow dancing.

With the plastering complete, the entire house is a blank slate.  Can't wait to start painting and installing finishes.  This is the balcony over the family room.

Nice kitchen table.

Dormer in the play room.

Our bedroom.

The attic.

Spent a lot of the weekend battling ice.  When opened the garage door Saturday morning the entire garage turned into a big fog bank as the cold air hit the humid air inside.  The humidity was from the water that had seeped in overnight.

I dug this trench to redirect the water.  It seemed to be working....

But on Sunday morning the garage was back to being a river.  You could actually see the current coming under the far door and running out the near door.

Dad came by with panty hose and salt to try to re-open the frozen trench.  No luck.

This is what happens when the river runs out on to the driveway and re-freezes.  He parked the car at the top, came in to get me, and when we came out the car wasn't where he left it.  It slid all the way out into the street... in park!  Maybe not surprising since the day before, Amy got out of her dad's truck and it started sliding then Sue got Amy's car stuck when she slid off the side.  Lots of pushing and sand got it out okay.

Amy scraping plaster off the window frames.

And scrubbing plaster dust out of the window locks with Q-tips.

Sunday 7am.

Sunday 7pm.

All circuits tied in and ready to be closed up.