Housebuilding discussion.

191 responses total.

My partner Jim and I started building a 960 sq ft (no basement) very insulated
house in 1986 and the city gave me six months to finish it (May 28 2013). 
Jim refuses to come here because he was assaulted twice by some awful new
neighbors and I am building with help from two friends.  
Today the architect friend and I are putting skim coat white thinset mortar
on the exterior downstairs walls.  This is very sticky stuff (polymer added)
that we mix up by hand (5 lb powder, 1 pint clean water), apply with a trowel
(making sure to cover all screws and taped joints), then she uses a special
Japanese trowel to smooth it as flat as possible.  Maybe two more days of
these.  The cement board is Hardibacker, 3x5' sheets .40 inches thick, 40 lb
per sheet, and was a challenge to put on the walls over resilient channel
(metal channel) without bending the channel or puncturing the foil over bubble
wrap vapor barrier.  Two weeks of cement board (370 sq ft) and now about the
same of skim coat, two people working together.  Two more days to go?  

After this 9" deep window jambs and a second set of windows (inswinging sash,
designed by Jim and to be made by the company that made our outswinging
windows).  They will close like doors, with standard window latches and
hinges.

We are taking off early today (5 pm) to get my friend some more used work
pants at Value World.  My other friend is off fixing things for other people
and we will continue wiring tomorrow afternoon.  The first friend is in
charge of the HRV (heat recovery ventilator) and an accessible bathroom
floor.

We need to do plumbing, wiring, ventilation, interior walls.  The wiring
includes lights (we finished exterior lights and outlets) and space heaters.
Lights will probably be $10 fixtures from Ikea that come with 3x35W halogen
bulbs and can be used with 3 3 to 9W LED bulbs from CHina ($1-2.50 each
includes shipping).  THe space heaters will be hydronic electric baseboard,
probably 500-1000W each.  I need 2200W total to heat from 0 to 70.,  Right
now the heat is at 50F because I turned up the space heater from its low of
43 so the mortar would cure better.  I am heating with one space heater set
on low (1500 watts rarely one), on dehumidifer (660W when dehumidifier,
purchased new locally for ebay matching price), and five double fluorescent
light fixtures (we turned those on one day before the dehumidifier when it
got down to 40 downstairs).  When the sun shines no other heat should be
needed once the two south porches are glazed in.  Or if I cook wastefully or
take hot showers every day I should not need to add more heat.

The architect friend is building her own house and I promised her two weeks
help stuccoing in June.

I am learning how wiring works, and service panels, and 4-way switches, and
double motion sensors (it actually works - one outside and one inside the
porch so the porch light goes on if someone approaches or leaves the house,
to light the stairs).  We have lighted mercury switches which light when in
the off position and are not lighted when on, unless you put them sideways
in which case they don't work at all and are always lighted.

We are leaving - more another time.  Is anyone else here building a house?

27 years to build a house (2013-1986). Every day is a challenge for some
 people I suppose. 

Where does she get the money for building materials? 

The Habitat Re-store in Ann Arbor has some really nice stuff.

re #1
Thanks for sharing finer details.  Sounds like quite a chore.  I'd like to
play bodyguard for Jim if it would help him get back on the horse but I'm
across the country.  Maybe this Summer I can come out - would be fun.
With your cancer and linguistics, I can imagine this hasn't been the number
one priority for much of your time.  Consider the a-hole neighbors just
an adjustment to priorities til June then perhaps the reward will come 
sooner for longer enjoyment.

Are the neighbors really assholes, or are they just upset that there's been
this hole next to them for the last 27 years, thus driving down their own
property values?  Things like houses don't exist or have value solely on their
own merits, they hold value because of what's around them as well.  It doesn't
seem unreasonable to me for someone to be angry that someone else in the
neighborhood isn't pulling their share of the weight, particularly given the
economic downturn.

Try to see things from somebody else's perspective every once in a while,
Sindi.  It will do you some good.

after you get the load center installed (circuit breaker box) i will help
withall the inside wiriing. been there;done that ... ibew 58 witdrawal card
if you care.

I can vouch for tsty's indoor wiring experience.  He's pulled entire houses.

Re #3 - we stopped there once and got some porch light fixtures for $5 each
(Lowes has similar ones for $6) which turned out to be too deep for our 2x6
ceiling joists.  Restore also has lots of paint and kitchen cabinets.  Reuse
Center has a large selection of cheap tiles (5 cents for a 4x4 if bought in
bulk).  White wall tiles come in too many thicknesses and sizes.  New ones
are only 10 cents at Lowes.  At Reuse Center I bought a bunch of used screens
to put on the lower front porch ($20 did the whole porch) to keep out the snow
and rain after the bad neighbors complained about the new greenhouse plastic.

The neighbors are trying to hide a major code violation by driving us out of
the neighborhood.  You don't encourage people to finish building a house by
screaming abuse at them repeatedly, or asking a judge to keep them off their
own property for three years then asking the city to demolish it because they
are not working on it.  The neighbor in back has a garage that is falling down
(half the roof and siding are gone) which they don't complain about.  The
neighbor across the street has wisteria half blocking the sidewalk which they
don't complain about - they tried to get me fined $100 for not pulling a few
bits of grass out of my ground cover in front (because it was not safe for
me to go there).  I dug out the ground cover in that area and let it grow to
weeds instead (no law against weeds up to 3', but grass has to be under 12").
There has been LOTS of abusive screaming by them at us and even a grading
inspector and another neighbor, which they somehow get away with.  The
neighbors are extreme assholes as well as crooks.  Their neighbors are lying
for them - another neighbor says they are drug pushers.  

These neighbors have not been there for 27 years - they built in 2011 and have
been going around annoying everyone else telling them to clean up their yards,
even leaving notes.  Their house is much too large for their lot (in fact
their garage is twice the allowed size but the city missed that, as someone
in the building dept. pointed out to me).  They have been abusing their next
door neighbor with the shared driveway, who has been parking in the street
for 2 years now, and started attacking us for defending him.  They are very
bad neighbors who care about nobody but themselves.

We spent about a month putting temporary railings and screens on the front
porches (all of this has to come off later to enclose them with glass
properly, which you cannot do in December in too little time).  Then cement
board on the downstairs exterior walls, and now the skim coat.  We need to
plan out ventilation and install at least the ductwork for it, a bit more
framing around that.  Window jambs and sash (the sash might go in after the
CO since there is one set of windows already).  I only need to finish the
downstairs but would rather put the sash in after the upstairs exterior walls
are on, all at once.  Wiring is taking a long time because we are planning
it as we go and a lot has to be redone when plans evolve.  Jim draws it up
and we keep calling him for details and where to put each outlet.  We need
to run enough wiring and plumbing upstairs that we can put on a ceiling
downstairs, which means planning most of the upstairs, which takes longer than
the actual work.

You are required to have mechanical ventilation, or a blower door test to
prove the house is leaky enough not to need it.  I could pass by leaving a
hole in the kitchen floor and opening the crawlspace vent.  If you have a
furnace they don't require any of this because furnaces make the house leaky.
My architect friend will plan this out.  You can set the HRV to run at various
speeds, and only intermittently.  The smallest one would give us 1 air change
per house, code requires 1/3, and oxygen requirements are only 1/15 which
natural leakage would probably accomplish.  The main reason for ventilation
is to remove moisture and we could do that with a dehumidifier much cheaper
than a $2000 HRV.  The one I bought for $200 is doing fine, taking out about
15 pints every two days (it is rated for 60 pints/day).  An HRV can be set
to run if the bathroom or kitchen humidity go up.  You can add filters for
particulates and maybe also other pollutants (from all the motor vehicle
traffic in that area).  The $2000 model my friend bought is for a house three
times the size of ours so the "apartment sized" model is probably cheaper.
This is German and 92% efficient.  American ones are less so.  If you change
the air once an hour, you lose 8% of the heat each time.  If once every 10
hours, about 20% of the heat per day.  It could add $20/year to our heat bill.
The main purpose of it is to pass inspection.  Jim was going to design his
own system with a fan but the commercial ones are already designed and will
either preheat incoming air or turn off intake and circulate house air to
defrost in cold weather.  The dehumidifier also has a defrost cycle that runs
half the time, and is about 1/4 as efficient as advertised (probably designed
mainly for summer use).  It works down to 40F, and the house has been 40-50
(I turned up the heat to 50 so the mortar would cure better).  

Electric cable comes in various sizes - 14 for lighting (15A circuit), 12 for
power (20A ciruit and breaker), 30 for water heater, 40 or 50 for stove.  You
drill holes in the framing and pull the wire through them, up to 5 wires per
hole.  You also pull wires through holes in the service panel (aka main panel
or breaker box) and strip off the housing and attach black, white, and bare
wires to different screws, after buying ground bar kits for the ground wires.
You can put two ground wires of the same size on one screw if 12 or 14.  You
need to ground the breaker box to water pipe and ground rod with number 6 or
8 copper wire.  If you have two meters and two services (because one is the
cheaper time of day rate for water heating and space heating, which are
cheaper from 7 pm to 11 am weekdays), things get complicated and there is a
bonding screw which we were told to remove by the inspector but told to put
back by an electrician.....  There is a maximum number of outlets for each
size circuit, something like 14 for 15A and more for 20A.  We need to have
two lighting circuits for 15 light fixtures because you have to count up the
rated amperage or wattage of each fixture even though you will be using 9W
of LED lights instead of 105W of halogen lights, which puts about 300W on a
circuit though it could handle 1440W.  You need to design so some future idiot
could replace all the LED bulbs in the house with higher wattage halogens and
turn on every light in the house at the same time.  Code will catch up with
reality some day.  Exposed wiring needs to be in conduit, which includes the
porch ceiling lights unless we put on ceiling material which we can't do
because we don't have time to wire the upstairs porches also they would need
outside outlet and switch boxes because they are not yet enclosed....

I am learning a lot and getting little sleep.  This could have been fun at a
reasonable pace with Jim also working there and nobody attacking us.
We are omitting the planned porch light motion sensors because the wiring
would need to go in conduit and it will therefore be done another year.

I think it is wise to push off things like the motion sensors. Work now to 
get the house to a point where you can get occupancy. Then pull a permit 
for renovation. :)

What they gave me is a permit for renovation, actually.  The side porch motion
sensors will wait until another year.  The front porch one lets us go in and
out after dark safely.  I will leave the flooring for later (I can live with
painted plywood) and maybe the bathroom wall tile (but that means removing
the toilet and laundry tub to tile later).  Hopefully can do the bathroom
floor tile before putting in fixtures.  I was thinking of putting in a cheap
temporary ceiling and removing it to do upstairs plumbing and wiring which
is ridiculous.  

I'm glad to see code is still considering the technology that's actually
useful today, and not some future time.  LED can be useful for some
people, but most require more lighting.  LED has certainly gotten a lot
better in the past year or two, but I still don't think it's quite there
yet, and not affordable enough for the required light to meet the needs
that existed for incandescents.

I can say that my wife and I bought property about 2 years ago now for a
house we intend on building.  I certainly hope we're not still working
on this house 27 years from now. :/  I'd like to start building it
sometime this year, but I need to complete the plans, go to get the
building permits, and then get started on it.  I figure it'll take us a
couple of years, and it'll certainly be larger than 960 sq ft, but it
should be interesting to complete.  Maybe there are some people here who
can give me some pointers.  I really need to figure out what the hell
I'm doing for putting in the basement/foundation, and then framing it. 
Once I've got that done and it's got a roof and frame, windows, and
siding (if I go with siding), going inside and building room by room
shouldn't be a horrible deal.  Time consuming, but at least sheltered
from the elements and can be cooled/heated as necessary without being
rained/snowed on. :)

I do definitely think you'll find it better to plan for too little load
than too much.  The house I'm in now was built by Pulte, who I'm fairly
certain has never had someone living in a home they've built actually
working for them.  I've got most of the lighting/outlets on a single
outlet, that stretches from the kitchen downstairs through the bedrooms
upstairs.  I pretty frequently blow breakers because I just have too
much on the circuits.  Replacing wiring without tearing down walls is
kind of a bitch.  I may need to enlist TSTY's help if he's pulled whole
houses.  Maybe he can figure out a way to run a new circuit to my office
where much of the electric usage on that circuit now resides since I
have a lot of electronics there for work.

I've done a lot of wiring work myself in the past couple of years.  I
wired most of my basement when I remodeled it 5 years ago, and I also
wired the garage of the cottage my parents own up north 5 years ago. 
That was a real job, because I had to run 200' of wire from the main
cottage out to the garage to bring up the new breaker box we put out
there.  I also replaced the fuse panel with a breaker box there last
year, as their insurance company informed them they could save several
hundred dollars a year on their premiums by doing that.  I found
interesting things doing that job, and replaced some 50+ year old wiring
in the process that I was pretty happy to get rid of.  The people that
did that wiring clearly had no idea what they were doing, but it worked
for a long time.  I think it was a fire hazard, so I'm glad it broke
when I was replacing the box and I could replace it then rather than
having the place burn down when we weren't up there.

I've replaced my T8 flourescents in the garage with LED and the
light is not only brighter but cleaner without the hospital hum.
I also replaced a few of the recessed halogens in the kitchen with
dimmable LED and it is crazy how much brighter it is even at the
lowest setting.  (Plus, the dimmer switch isn't hot anymore, heh)

heh it might be worth trying that in my kitchen.  The switch gets crazy
hot with the bulbs I've had in there lately.

A 12W LED bulb gives as much light as a 65W incandescent and can be had for
$3.50 from ebay including shipping.  9W is $2.30 (if you buy 10 at once) and
3W is offered for 99 cents.  The dimmable LEDs cost a bit more.  GU10 - 
two pins in a bulb that screws in. For $1-2 you can buy replacements for the
Edison (screw-in) sockets that will take GU10 bulbs.  Or you can even convert
GU10 fixtures to Edison.  We found $10 fixtures at Ikea that have three GU10
sockets with three halogen bulbs in them (35W) which we can replace with $10
worth of LED bulbs that give twice the light (36W equivalent to 200W
incandescent).  The fancier fixtures with shades are $25-29.  There are some
with 2 or 4 or 5 sockets, your choice of straight line, wavy line, or round
fixture.

We have separate circuits for lighting and outlets.  YOu can put up to 13 of
these 3-bulb (105W halogen) on a 15A circuit and we want 15 fixtures.  The
halogen bulbs would use 1440W and the LEDs a maximum of 13x36W - if you can
stand the equivalent of 800W light in a room.  If I left them all halogen that
would be more heat than a space heater and overheat the house.

I have been reading about old wiring.  After knob and tube there was something
with a woven coating that wears out, then older forms of 'Romex' with grounds
that are too small (we put in and then removed some). Wire is now color coded
- yellow for No. 12 and white for No. 14.  We have odds and ends - white,
blue, and black No. 14, black No. 10.  Makes it easier to trace what is what.

LEDs are available in the more efficient 6000K color temperature (white
instead of yellow) or 2700K (yellow) and they do not dim with time, and take
forever to wear out.  I can't imagine anyone replacing our LEDs with
incandescents.  Or leaving on all the lights in the house at one time.

Jim is upset about a motion sensor using 1W all the time.  The equivalent of
two 12W LEDs on for an hour a day.  We added manual switches to switch off
the motion sensors during the daytime or in the summer.

Today we are pulling 14-2 and 14-3 wire between four light fixtures and
several 3-way and 4-way switches.  Kitchen has 3 doors.  We need to place
fixtures above sink, stove, and refrigerator area within 11 of the wall so
if someone ever installs upper cabinets the wiring can be moved to a
transformer then small low-voltage wiring run to under-cabinet lights.  I will
probably tile the walls and not have upper cabinets but have a tall set of
shelves for food and dishes instead.  Hopefully they will give me time to tile
the walls before putting on the surface wiring sowe don't need to remove it
later to tile.  Same for bathroom floor and wall tile so we don't need to take
out the tub and toilet to tile later.

This would be in the DIY forum but nobody reads it any more andI even forgot
how to link items between forums.  

We will be combining outlets from two kitchen circuits in quad boxes, and
switches from inside and outside lighting circuits in a box with two switches,
and are putting little connectors between the two circuits so you can't turn
off one breaker without the other, and whoever works on one half of the box
won't get any surprises when they hit a hot wire in the other circuit.  Thisis
not required by code.  DOing this will let us use fewer boxes and thus drill
fewer holes in the wallboard.

We have now mostly wired two pairs of 3-way and one 4-way switch (we need a
3/4" bushing for the 3/4" conduit holding three NO. 14 cables) and have two
temporary lighting fixtures temporarily screwed to ceiling joists with two
more to go, and may have semipermanent kitchen lighting in a day or two
instead of a fluorescent fixture plugged into a temporary outlet.  Jim carved
holes for four gang boxes in door jambs, which is making it a challenge to
find the right box (depth, clamps).  We have one double switch that controls
motion sensors on two circuits.  One light fixture controlled by two motion
sensors and one of these switches.  Some lighted switches that are lighted
when off and don't work when horizontal.

Sindi, how much do you have to do to be allowed to occupy the house, so
you can meet this court ordered deadline?  Just the basics, please.

re #13 
 heh it might be worth trying that in my kitchen.  The switch gets crazy
 hot with the bulbs I've had in there lately.

I used the 12.5W Philips for the recessed and for the bathroom the
EcoSmart 8.5W.  In the garage, the T8's I replaced with some $35 LED tubes
off AliBaba

The tubes are expensive because they have lots of LEDs in them.  The bulbs
I might buy have 3 LEDs of 1W or more.

To get a certificate of occupancy I was required to:

Remove the rainbarrels (which another dept of the city wants me to have)
Remove the protective plastic on the porches (which were designed to be
enclosed)
Bring the porches up to code in December including making them pretty - so
we put on low walls, used aluminum siding, used screens and a screen door 6"
too short and 4" too wide for the opening, and plastic hidden behind the
screening upstairs to keep out the rain.  Downstairs the screening keeps out
most of the snow and less of the rain and I mop a lot.

Now we need to do plumbing, wiring, ventilation (it is required), interior
doors between downstairs and upstairs (but apparently not bathroom doors),
walls and ceilings.  I am allowed to finish just the upstairs, but in order
to put on downstairs ceilings I need to do most of the upstairs plumbing (get
it above the floor) and get the wiring to the second floor (plan it all out
- which takes most of the time).  I also need to put in window jambs between
the windows on the exterior and the walls 9" to the interior, and maybe a
second set of windows on the interior unless they let me do that later.

I need a washable kitchen floor (painted subfloor should work) and a washable
wall next to the bathtub or shower and  a washable bathroom floor.  The
quickest way to have that in the bathroom is to put in linoleum, put in the
fixtures, then remove all the fixtures and replace with tile when I have time,
which is ridiculous.  I want tile above the sink but if I don't have time,
I need to put in the wiring and sink now, then remove them to put the tile
on later.  

The walls are cement board over resilient metal channel for sound control.
It took two of us two weeks to put on the boards on the exterior downstairs
wall.  It is hard to cut, hard to get screws through, and the channel bends
and we were inventing various ways to clamp it and cut it and predrill and
countersink and it was exhausting work.  I would like to do the upstairs walls
and put jambs and windows on both floors at the same time but will probably
have to do it in an illogical order.  40F is the right temperature for this
sort of work.  It is also another two weeks to skim coat the surface with
thinset mortar.  I am skim coating where there will probably be tile, which
is unnecessary under tile but quicker than putting the tile on.

We need to paint the jambs and windows which we cannot do in this weather.
The tile would go on after the jambs and the wiring preferably after the tile.
It would make far more sense to use the cold weather to put on the rest of
the cement board and the warm weather to paint and tile.

In two months we have decorated the porch (with materials which all need to
come off again to enclose it which will waste another week), put up about half
the downstairs walls, skim coated most of those, done the lighting and wiring
of attic, cellar, crawlspace, and two downstairs porches (except for motion
sensors on one) but not the two upstairs porches, put in the downstairs
circuits for outlets that go on interior walls (but the outlets need to come
off so we can put the walls on, then go back on), and started on the
downstairs lighting.   In addition to outlets and lights, there is electric
heat, doorbell, other low-voltage wiring (Jim wants an electronic door latch
on one porch and a system to show that all the locks are locked), a smoke
alarm in every room but bathroom even the cellar and hall all wired together
on the lighting circuit with battery backup (photoelectric), and a complicated
heat recovery ventilation system.  Phone and ethernet.  

We were required to have two outdoor outlets with weatherproof boxes, weather
resistant tamper proof, with special covers that let people leave things
plugged in with the cover on (I need to tape over the holes this leaves in
the bottom to keep bugs out - I can't imagine every using these outlets). 
On the porches (because they are not enclosed) we needed the same boxes and
outlets but different covers (they are weather proof only when closed, and
make it very difficult to plug anything in and will be removed when the
porches are enclosed).  The motion sensors were supposed to be in outdoor
boxes but we did not do that for the one on the porch which is not exposed
to the weather (unless there is a tornado which blows the screens off).
The porch railings need to be 36" high.  

The wiring could be done within a month, plumbing another month, ventilation
who knows how long, and I might beg for permission to tile before the surface
wiring and the plumbing fixtures.  

Today my friend who is helplping wired two 3-way switches, ran cable to two
more switches, put some cable in conduit but did not wire that switch because
we needed a 3/4" plastic screw-on bushing, and we spent a lot of time
discussing what height to put the switches next to the kitchen door so as not
to interfere with the outlets next to them, while letting us screw the boxes
to sound channel (or not) and how to run 14-2 and 14-3 unswitched power to two
bathroom switches and one light, and where to put the bathroom light and three
kitchen lights, and how to get a light in the ceiling of another room without
messing up the structure (we decided to put that light on a wall) and how to
go from junction box to the ceiling (through wall not floor) and whether to
use the 3-way switches with or without ground screws.
y
DO we use green ground screws or green ground clips?  (Clips tend to drift
away).  Should we combine outlets or switches from two circuits in one square
box or use two handiboxes or gang boxes.  Handiboxes go on the surface and
gang boxes go in the wall.  Jim carved spots for them in the posts instead.
On the square boxes do we use plain metal cover plates, or use mud adaptors
(?) that take regular switch plates which stick out beyond the boxes meaning
we would need to put wood around the boxes.  We went with the plain metal,
what my friend calls 'industrial chick'.   When running outlets in conduit
do we put them vertically up, vertically down, or horizontal (which tends to
make wall worts fall off but looks better).  Should we use flat cable which
pulls through holes better, or try to use up the round stuff that we had.
Is the cable so dirty that it cannot be washed and will look used?  Is it
actually used and not so safe to reuse?  Does that tiny black on black print
say 14-2 or 14-3 AWG?  14-3 contains an extra non-ground wire and is used with
switches, or smoke alarms, or two circuits together on the porch so we don't
need to pull two cables through a small hole in the columns from crawlspace.

What size ground bar kit do we add to the electric panels?  We finally decided
on 12, but nobody sells it so we got 15 after returning the 15s for one 23
and considering 6s with two wires per hole.  

Can we legally put 6 wires into one grey wire nut?  (Yes, but you need a
deeper box to do it in so we stacked them).  Can you put two NM (romex) cables
into 1/2" or three into 3/4" conduit?  Yes, if one end is open.  How far above
counters can outlets be (18") and how far must you be from an outlet (2' above
counters, 6' elsewhere).  You need two 20A circuits in the kitchen and all
outlets within 6' of a sink must be GFCI (I bought GFCI circuit breakers) -
this includes the one required bathroom outlet and the one require laundry
outlet.  Refrigerators don't work well on GFCI outlets.  Refrigerators in
kitchens can be non-GFCI.  All outlets within 5' of the ground must be tamper
proof.  We put one non-GFCI fridge outlet 5.5' above ground.  All outside or
below-grade outlets GFCI.  Bedroom outlets but not lights AFCI (or AFIC and
GFIC).  I bought three GFCI and one AFCI breaker instead - they are huge and
hard to get into the panel.  Stairway lights must be 3-way switched or motion
sensor.  Egress lights can be switched or motion sensor (ours are both). 
Kitchen and bath require switched lights, other rooms switched outlets.

My friend is amazingly good at wiring up 4-way switches and double motion
sensors and they mostly work on the first try.  He likes challenges.
We need to switch two switches on the porch so the near switch does the nearer
light.  

Sindi, it doesn't matter in the slightest what is ridiculous, and what
you agree with.  You don't have any options.  You've got 5 months.  You
need to aim at doing everything within 2 more months, because there are
distractions and you have to leave time to take care of them too.  Also,
if anything goes wrong in any way, you have to have a buffer.

If you don't see any way to be done in 2 months because of this and that
and the other -- then give up.  You're going to fail.  Better to accept
that now; it doesn't matter that it's been 27 years; every day more that
you spend is wasted if you're going to fail in the end anyway.  You are
not going to come up to May 13, have half the work done, then have the
rest all suddenly get done.  

Make a plan.  Get the house done according to the city's priority list.
 Then every single thing that comes up that can be put off, that isn't
part of that plan, needs to be put off.  That means writing letters to
the city attorney about advertising that you got but didn't want;
friends in other cities who can't get past their problems; everything.

Once you've moved in, you can spend the next 10 years re-doing
everything if you want, according to some grand design.  That problem is
for later.  For now, just save your house.  That's enough of a task for
anyone.

I have four more months and it is highly unlikely that if most of it is done
they will demolish it.  They could give me another 6 months extension if I
am making steady progress.  I unfortunately need to spend a fair amount of
time preparing to go to court so that it will be safe for me to live there
and for Jim to visit and maybe even help build if we get to court in time.
Today I need to spend time talking to police records dept about how to get
records of the fraudulent calls made by my neighbors before we get back to
work on kitchen and bathroom lighting (or if it is not raining, adding a bit
more aluminum to the porch to block the rest of the snow and rain).  

I could pay a builder to do the plumbing and tiling if necessary but the
wiring is very non-standard and we have to do it ourselves.  
Same for the walls, which interact with the wiring.  
We already removed the rainbarrels and decorated the porches.
I will probably pay a builder to do the window jambs and doors - he has an
indoor shop to make and paint them and we don't even have a working table saw.
We managed to get five saw tables out of the shed (returned four to Jim) and
found a saw base in the crawlspace and five motors and are waiting for the
manufacturer to provide a wiring diagram of one of the motors and for my
friend to cut the proper size plywood base for the saw itself.  He wanted to
make the jambs but would first have to make the saw.  

Before starting to build, I spent two months emptying stuff out of the house
which had collected itself over the years including tools and materials we
had used for cement work and painting, etc.  Jim is so busy doing drawings
that it has all ended up in his living room and kitchen, along with four dead
dehumidifiers that he has no time to try to fix and no interest in giving up
on.  I bought a new one - the house was 80% humid and is now down to 68%. 
Mortar gives off water when curing.  Everything took longer because I could
not go there myself.  I never realized how many good friends we have until
now.

Whining breeds a bad attitude, which breeds laziness, which
breeds failure. Mission is everything.  Get 'er done.

I like the attitude, Cindy.

The turtle that took 27 years to get to the finish line wins! 
Winning!

You cannot possibly be accusing me of laziness, tod.
We made a day on the town out of our trip to two records depts.  Picnic at
a table in Kerrytown Mall next to the stairs (Zingerman's bread ends and
Sparrow Market avocadoes), then visited a new food store downstairs from a
new luxury student apartment building where they insisted we try several
cheese samples, then a quick visit to the art gallery (the archeology museum
was closed on Monday).  Our other days out have been walking to the store for
milk or toilet paper.  I set up one computer for someone who has been waiting
months for it and now we need to find a time for her to come try it out.  Jim
tried to rescue a French woman whose computer stopped working yesterday and
today sent over a French speaking friend who discovered that the woman's
friend got her a virus while doing personal ads on it.  Nice to have a little
bit of what used to be our normal life of helping other people with things.

It seems strange not to have hair full of cement dust, and to be home before
8 or 10 pm able to cook supper.  Tomorrow back to 'normal' pulling wires
through holes and discussing how high to put how many outlets on what circuits
and whether to run the bathroom wiring through the ceiling or the floor.  
I wonder how one runs ethernet and phone wires through a new house - normally
they get stapled along baseboards.  We also need power to the street number
that my friend will be making out of LEDs in red, yellow, and green, to be
read from inside or outside in computer-style numbers 5 1 2.  Not many street
numbers would work that way - 0 1 or 8 in any position, 2 or 5 opposite each
other.  The number itself can wait but the wiring cannot.

re #22
 You cannot possibly be accusing me of laziness, tod.

On the contrary, I was comparing your positive attitude to the defeatist
one of jep in the response prior to yours.  Prepare for failure and doom
and all that just doesn't seem helpful.

Jep was trying to be helpful and urging me not to do anything extraneous such
as lead a normal life or do anything now that could be done later instead.
Problem is doing things later will take several times as long.

It will be fun working outside tomorrow.

No, Sindi, I am in favor of leading a normal life; eating good meals,
resting, having some time for recreation, and things like that.  I had
misunderstood what you said, apparently, and thought you said you'd lose
the house if you didn't get it ready to move in by May.  I was urging
you to focus on the things you are required to do even if they cause
delays in getting things the way you want them.

She wont lose the house by most odds but definitely some sleep it sounds
like.

Where do you suggest I find the time to cook?  I have been microwaving
potatoes and taking them along for lunch.  I was indeed told the house would
be demolished if I don't finish by May, but that would require a hearing and
the city is allowed to give extensions.  When it gets to the point where it
would make more sense to tile before putting in the bathtub instead of
removing it to tile later I will talk to them.  (Another option is omitting
he bathtub and using a hand shower attachment on the laundry tub and a floor
drain and then only removing the laundry tub and toilet to tile later.)

I have not had a lot of sleep for over a year now.  Last Jan I had to move
in one month (actually I was paid to be out in one month) when my landlord
let the bank foreclose and I have been losing sleep over the legal problems
since then and now the building on top of that.  A good night is six hours.
It would have been nice to deal with just one issue at a time.  Astonishingly
I have not ended up sick despite the overwork, lack of food and sleep, and
the cold - first working outside all November then inside at 45 or less.  I
have been amazingly fortunate to have such helpful and competent friends.
They are even entertaining me with puns and songs (we sing rounds).  

Is the lack of food due to time constraint or financial?

Little time to cook in the morning (I have a glass of milk for breakfast),
getting tired of cold potatoes or bread and cheese for lunch, and too tired
to cook and eat when I get back.  Jim has been warming things up for me but
he is very busy drawing up electrical wiring plans.  If we get this legal
stuff under control we will hopefully have more time and less stress.  I
should get up now and make breakfast, lunch, and supper, and pack more fruit.
One of my helpers thinks carbohydrates are bad for him (including fruit) so
we are feeding him a carnivorous diet (plus carrot sticks) and the other is
surviving on Cliff bars and pears this year while building her own house. 
She claims they are a balanced diet.  

Part of the stress is the living room and kitchen filling up with stuff I
bring back from the house, and also four dead dehumidifiers that Jim refuses
to get rid of because they may be fixable some day.  Makes it hard to cook
when most of the cabinets are blocked.  Learning disabled people have trouble
being organized and making quick decisions.  Also other projects were left
in mid stream (such as hot water and phone), and there is no place to hang
laundry except living room or kitchen because the basement is full.  We
started experimenting with water heater timer, and Jim decided something was
wrong with our VOIP phone system so unplugged all but two phones and we have
to answer in three rings to avoid GV voicemail.   

I should get up now and use my free hour to cook.  My 'builder' is not a
morning person so I am rewarding him with 2 points every time he shows up by
10 am.  He can redeem 10 points for one meal at a Chinese buffet (and bring
a friend if he collects 20 points).  We were finishing as late as 10 pm.
We already rewarded him (without points) for working on Thanksgiving,
Christmas, and his birthday (twice).  Running out of new buffets.

http://buildbankroll.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/ghetto_house.jpg

Before I could cook, Jim wanted me to 'translate' something he wrote (legal)
which I spent a half hour rewriting while he cooked instead.  I now have 20
min to eat, what luxury.  Today we are picking up some cheap light fixtures
to  use for CO instead of spending a day going to Ikea for them now.  

resp:30 Off topic I know, but stay away from that Chinese Buffet on
Washtenaw. They had the most health violations of any restaurant I have
ever seen in Ann Arbor. Serious ones too. It is called Asia City and I
always always think of the "City Wok" South Park jokes when I drive by.
The health dept warnings really reinforced that. 

We have not been to that one.  Hibachi Grill (discount through Feb 2 or so)
was better than average.  Great Shanghai (west A2) was worse - the salad bar
consisted of iceberg lettuce and various colors of jello.  The good ones have
daikon.

Today we discovered that someone had completely removed wooden stakes we had
put in above my two front property markers, but left behind one of the two
pink plastic ribbons that probably fell off one of them first.  The crazies
were accusing us of removing their survey stake last year (which they had
buried under gravel - we dug it up and marked it with a yelow plastic ribbon
which disappeared shortly after).  They pretended it was further east when
paving their driveway.  So I can guess who did this.

Today we need to replace the two wooden stakes, put some flashing at the
bottom of the porch screening to block more rain and snow, figure out why one
motion sensor goes on in daytime and the other does not go on at all, switch
two switches, add two plastic bushings to conduit, wire in three switches,
pull two more wires for kitchen lighting, and start on bathroom lighting.

We looked for light fixtures at Restore but there was nothing suitable - lots
of track lighting parts and lots of fancy decorative stuff with glass shades.
No 48" kitchen sink cabinets and 99% of what they had was particle board so
we will make a 2x4 frame (which makes it easier to remove the sink later to
tile under and behind it).  My very clever friend not only does cement board,
tiling, wiring, plumbing, and rough carpentry but enough woodworking that he
made someone kitchen counters and a coffee table out of his own tree.  And
roofing but I don't need a roof now.  I am not required to have kitchen
cabinets.  

It is odd to have working porch lights with switches now.

Sindi, don't plan on going back to Hibachi Grill any time soon; they 
closed last month [sign on the door] and haven't said if/when they will 
be reopening.

So where do we find another Chinese buffet?   
We are putting up kitchen light fixtures (temporary).  Two that I like have
holes spaced too far apart for the larger octagon boxes so I got a smaller
box with the right holes but the fixture is too big for it and we would need
a 6" bar which we don't have as an adaptor so put back the bigger box and
dropped a few screws which rolled away and are using a standard porcelain
light fixture (we have a few without the pull chains).  This may be our first
8-hour day wiring.  (Nope, leaving after 7.5 hours to go to the hardware
store, and we started with 1.5 hours at Restore - about 10 hours plus my
friend's one hour transportation).  Chipotle chips for his supper.

Too many chinese buffet = too much sodium

I take the team to an Islamic Chinese restaurant called Mas.  They don't
have sodium nor MSG.  Great to avoid afternoon carbo coma.  That
won't work for you since I'm in Orange County, though.  You could see
about switching it up to healthier soups/salads somewhere, though.

I don't like all the salt and grease either, but can stand it once a month
(actually it has been four times in two months already).  We would go for the
lunch buffet most likely.
Today I had half a cold potato and a piece of bread and some fruit for lunch
around 4:30 pm, and got back early from the hardware store at 8:30 pm to find
that Jim was making me a hot supper consisting of half a steamed artichoke
and some leftover cooked squash so I cooked some macaroni and cheese for us
and we watched shower tiling videos on youtube.

What does the Islamic Chinese restaurant serve?  Most Chinese buffets seem
to offer a maximum of three vegetable dishes - green beans, bok choy and mixed
vegetables with tofu.  Hibachi Grill I think also had spinach.  

My building friend thinks fruit is bad for him because it has carbs and
pesticides, but apparently cookies and chips are grown without either.

Normally we eat in a restaurant about once a year.  Last year was twice before
we started building, both times with me treating Jim and another friend who
give blood together and needed to restore their energy.

OOh...Mac&Cheeze how I love thee...alas, that stuff will kill me.

Mas serves this awesome corn chowder soup and also thin sesame bread.
Anything with lamb is good.  Mongolian beef is a favorite.  String 
beans with a sauce.  They're like most chinese menu except they include
some great Halal.  Honey walnut shrimp...crazy good.  Chow mein..excellent.
The tea - always good..but wait for it to steep.  And they put a full 
condiment rack out with the jalapeno/fish sauce, or sweet/hot sauce, or
chili pepper jelly...and soy sauce (low sodium upon request.)

Sometimes, we go just for the corn chowder and sesame bread with a side of
tea.  The most amazing thing is the price...absolutely the lowest in town.
They're closed on Tuesdays, though...

I like bok choy...we make that at home or leeks with olives and tomato.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss