A sad week.

I'm guessing most people reading this know that my good friend, Dave Brodeur, was killed in Afghanistan last week.  He was a Major in the Air Force deployed in Kabul to train Afghan pilots.  Please keep him and his family in your thoughts and prayers.

Since then, things have been a blur and motivating to work on the house has been near impossible.   I'll try my best to update on the work done since my last post. 

The last few weeks have seen a few things visibly change.  But mostly it's been organizing, planning, and coordinating people.  Had a great weather weekend to urethane all the upstairs windows.  I managed to get that done with a lot of help from dad.  

Prepped the bathroom for tiling the shower and tub.

Met with the carpenter doing the stairways and railings.  He started Tuesday and things are looking good so far.  Pictures of that soon.

Plumber came to hook up well, run basement piping, and put in outside fixtures.  One of them has hot and cold water.  Hello outdoor shower!  While he was there I convinced him to install one bathroom so we could get rid of the outhouse.  He also needed to cut my central vac pipes to run his, so I had to do some reworking of that...

The well is connected and wired.  Unfortunately, I wired it wrong (120 V instead of 240 V), so they couldn't turn it on.  I fixed the wiring today and turned it on myself.  Very scary to start pumping water at pressure into the house.  A few clanks and bangs that made my heart stop, but otherwise no issues... except the leak at one of the joints in the basement ceiling.  SO Shut everything down and get the plumber back.  Just hoping there aren't any inaccessible leaks behind walls.

Started laying bamboo flooring in the playroom to learn how to do it.  This is the tiger strip style for that room.  Only a few messed up nails with the new nail gun.  Having Amy there to help made it go way faster.  She measured and cut.  I nailed.

Trimmed out the master bath tub so the tiler could continue his work.  The angled corner step seemed like a good idea when it was rough framed.  The trim details were a little hairy.  Also trimmed out that window.  Everything is ready for tile.

The waterproofed walls and sloped mud bed.  Ready for the next phase.

Moved the swing that my Uncle Kirk made to the porch.  We had our first real opportunity to use the porch last night when Meg, Tara, Jenny, Amy, and I were interviewed by Curt Nickisch for a story about Dave on NPR.  It was a good experience to hang out and tell stories.  I'm looking forward to hearing what he puts together for his report.  It's supposed to air Friday on Morning Edition and again on Saturday for Weekend Edition.  I'll post a link when it's up.

Still waiting to connect the geothermal wells to the house.  One step closer since Jeff dug a trench to redirect the spring water away from where they'll have to trench.  Hopefully it'll be dry enough soon to connect to the house.

This is actually a photo from Simon's house, next door.  My plumber had never connected a sewer pump, so I had to do some research to figure out how it's done and pass it on to him.  He connected mine today.  The start-up inspection is scheduled for Friday.  Should have running water and a flushable toilet then!