Long time no update. I'll see if I can give a last month rundown.
Hired the electrician. He got started then him Mom in Guyana had a heart attack. He's been in South America for a few weeks now.
Good news is he got nearly everything done before he left. New panel in the house, new feed to the house, trench and new feed to the garage with sub-panel installed, the rough electrical passed inspection and I have most of my lights and all of my outlets live. He messaged and said he's probably coming back home end of next week and will finish up. 4 light fixtures and a 220V outlet and he gets paid.
For me biggest item was travel for 3 weeks for work. A trip to Michigan for a week, home for the weekend, then off to China for 3 weeks.
The weekend before China my son came up for a day and the two of us installed the big garage door.
When I got home from China Wifey Dearest and I made a punch list of items we'd like to get done quickly if I took 3 days of vacation.
1. fill in French drain with #57 stone
2. gravel driveway out back of garage with #57 stone
3. soffits
4. start siding the walls
5. remove GIANT holly bush / tree from front yard
6. trim GIANT crepe myrtles
7. reframe and install rear garage door
8. install garage door opener
9. Sit on porch and drink wine
the French drain and driveway consumed 3 tons of #57 sized Virginia blue stone from my local landscape supply house. That was 3 trips out and back with the trailer and a lot of sweat on my end of a square bladed shovel.
Attachment:
small drain.jpg
Soffits meant putting up the rest of the 2x framing even with the bottom edge of the fascia boards, cutting vinyl soffit and about 1000 staples in my small nailer. Glad I bought that little gem last year when I was installing baseboards and window trim. I did one side and the front then started putting up siding.
About 2 pm on the first day we had 1/2 the siding up the first long wall when Wifey Dearest said we should start on the holly if we wanted to take a load to the dump.
The Giant holly bush turned into a couple of hours each day over 2 afternoons. It was 30 feet tall and looked like the worlds biggest piece of broccoli. The trunk had a fork at the base and the whole thing was leaning toward my neighbors fence. A little bit of log chain, a well placed notch, and some tugging from Wifey Dearest in the Escape and it came down with little fuss. 2 hours each day cutting into pieces and loading the trailer.
2 loads to the dump totaling 1200 poundsThe crepe myrtles actually spilled over into this week. Two more loads to the dump totaling 1100 pounds.
Day two Wifey Dearest came out to lend a hand hanging siding. We wrapped up the first wall in no time. Then on to the front. It has the biggest visual impact for the neighbors. Vinyl siding has a bit of springiness to it and getting lines to match up on both sides of the garage door turned out to require some thinking, planning, and at least one adjustment on the left side. Measuring for the lengths once the roof slope started was another learning process. At the end of the day, I'm really happy with the result.
Attachment:
small front.jpg
End of Day 2 we jumped in the car and drove 2 hours to buy 6 sheets of slatwall. I didn't realize that taking them down off the store wall was my responsibility when I struck a deal, but c'est la vie. They're here and I'm happy.
Day 3 I ripped out the framing for the rear garage door and widened it to 9 feet. Why? Well I tried getting the trailer through an 8 foot opening and it only had 1" to spare. Classic dumb move on my part during planning. The header is still a doubled 2x12; meets code for up to a 9 foot span. The garage sale sawzall made short work of taking out the original framing. Those 2x12's won't be wasted, they'll become ramps for the trailer. New framing went in easily and I got is all weather taped about 30 minutes before our massive storm that took out my neighbors 40 year old maple tree. I'm glad I moved my race car trailer and Miata off the street. His tree trunk was right where my Miata was parked.
Day 4 - Saturday was mostly spent on family. Baby Girl was in town, so we had a morning of garage sales, farmers market, and strawberry picking with an afternoon birthday party for Brother in Law. Late in the day I took a few hours in the garage and installed the small garage door.
Attachment:
small door.jpg
Day 5 - Sunday - Easter church service and family lunch. Late Sunday afternoon I installed the door opener on the big door.
Attachment:
small opener.jpg
2 walls left to side and facia trim to install.
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He thinks that over the years things have been added to the box that weren't in the original plan. For example, there is a gas line behind the clothes dryer and an electrical outlet. That's a 50A circuit that was probably added. The HVAC is a 50A circuit which doesn't make sense. Most likely electric central heat at one point in time. Current is gas.
