Feb 2008
Open House
Feb/29/08 08:12 AM
Hi Friends!
It has been 3 months since we began renovations on our 1925 Bungalow. It’s time for the before party (after will come eventually but don’t hold your breath, craftsmanship takes time).
We envisioned martinis, appetizers and twinkle lights BUT who are we kidding?…we don’t even have running water yet.
You have seen us recently, with our heavy lids protecting our glazed over eyes. We have been working hard and you have been so supportive. Thank you for listening to all of our stories and tolerating “the house” as our only topic of interest.
You aren’t going to believe what we have gotten ourselves into. The house is at its most incredible point. We want you to see it before we put up insulation, while it’s opened up. So stop by on Saturday to check it out.
Time: 4:00 – Dusk (we don’t have lights either)
Address: 136 E Spring St. (College, one block south of Dickson, East on Spring Street, 5th house on the left)
Reality: Less of a party, more like an open house
RSVP: Way too casual for that
Special: Guest appearance by Fluffy
In the event that you hold out for the after party or can’t make it due to ridiculously short notice our blog is up to date with lots of pictures and stories.
Hope to see you on Saturday!
Kristin and Brant
P.S. not kidding about the water. Don’t worry we live 3 houses away in case of emergency J
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Electrical Rough-In Complete
Feb/21/08 08:11 AM
After much worry, we have finally convinced our electrician to finish the rough in for inspection today. Kristin and I toured the house this morning and decided that we need to postpone the inspection due to the fact that the electrician has “forgotten” to wire a couple of key boxes. That and the fact that the house is a literal disaster area, that being mostly due to us.
But honestly our biggest problem that we ran into was that the recessed lights on the front porch were spec’d to be centered length-wise, and as it turned out there was a ceiling joist that forced us to put the lights to one side or the other. However, it seems ok with us in their location.
Our goal now is to have the initial inspection by Monday, put the insulation in next weekend and have that inspected on the following Monday and then we can drywall the following week. And then we move in the following week after that? Is that right? We would love to be further along, but quite frankly, money is getting tight and paying double mortgage is killing our budget. So now we are putting our other bungalow up for rent this week. And I guess we will move in amongst the construction for the finishing phases. Maybe that will give us more incentive to work harder and get it done faster... I hope.
Technical Difficulties
Feb/20/08 08:11 AM
Houseblogging Rant
Feb/20/08 08:10 AM
've come to realize that houseblogging may, in fact, be as difficult as remodeling a house. I don't claim to be a wizard with the computer or anything, but I have designed a few websites. And that is enough to know that Blogs are a whole other can of worms. Pair the difficulty factor with a half-assed hosting service (By the way never pick your hosting service by googling the cheapest one) stir in the learning curve of blog upkeep, and just for kicks add a dash of "too damn busy" and the end result is a wonderful concoction I call a headache.
When I started houseblogging, I decided to tinker with the blog feature on iWeb (my first mistake), then I thought, "Hey I'll add a subdomain to my existing domain" (My second mistake) and TADA! The Williams House Blog was born. While using iWeb I found that I had to FTP the ENTIRE site every time I posted a new entry. At first this was no problem... Then 50 or so entries later it was starting to take the fun out of blogging, if you know what I mean. It was starting to take HOURS to upload the site and then if I had an error I had to start all over again. As it turns out, my web host was having difficulties with this set up and I was having more errors than not. So at this point making an entry was taking the better part of a day. F - that!
So now I have switched to a much faster hosting service, and let me say that was no easy feat. First of all Startlogic (my original host) has a tech support worthy of a lit bag of crap. The host main page has no interface to change the CNAME of your domain, which means if you want to switch hosting service, you have to contact TECH SUPPORT, arrrrrgh! My longest stretch, and probably worthy of some sort of world record, was FOUR hours on hold. Yeah pretty bad huh? Well get this, the first time I called I was on hold for two hours only to be told in extremely poor english that their system was down and that I needed to call back in an hour. So I furiously hung up and called back immediately assuming that I would be on hold for two hours and by that time surely their system would be back up. Two hours later I was correct. So they changed it, or so they said. They said to wait 48 hours for the change to occur. So for good measure I waited 144 hours. Still it wasn't changed. The next call was the four hour wait on hold. So let's add that up, eight hours on hold... That is enough time to fly to to whatever country (that is the tech support capital of the world) and kick the crap out of whoever it is that thinks it's OK to leave someone on hold for that long. And who knows, maybe have an enjoyable vacation too.
That said and off my chest, I hope the new service will afford me the time to upload lot's more posts, because I DO enjoy houseblogging.
HVAC Installed
Feb/15/08 08:08 AM
Our HVAC guys finished installing our unit and running our ductwork yesterday. Troy at AirTech did the install.
Originally we had several people show up to give us a quote. After receiving the specs and quotes a buddy of mine, who is a civil engineer, looked it over for us and helped us narrow our selection down to 2 companies with relatively similar quotes and specs.
We made our final decision in a strange way of sorts. The guy from Company 1, while touring the house for the quote, pointed at the Rinnai water heater and said “What’s that?” Me being so dang proud of the thing, I filled his ear so full of technical info about gallons per minute and flow activation that I think it made him regret asking. Strangely enough, the guy from Company 2, while also touring the house for the quote, looked at the water heater and said “Wow, you’ve got a Rinnai, those things are great!”
It is thus that we made our decision, I figured Company 2 was interested enough in his work to keep up with technology and innovations in mechanical systems, and therefore more likely to give us the most up-to-date system. While Company 1 has probably been installing the same old HVAC unit for 20 years. Although this assumption is completely unfounded, it seemed as good a reason as any to choose company 2.
Electric Step-Up
Feb/07/08 08:06 AM
We’ve started the installation of our electric, and Shawn at Davis Electric is performing the install. At first we had some issues with him showing up and disappearing for a week or so then magically reappearing when we started to get frustrated. And for a while it seemed as if he was working about an hour day every-other day. I’d expressed to my architect about our concern and he replied “Well, did you expect something different?” Then it occurred to me that I never gave him a deadline, that in fact I may have told him that we weren’t in any big hurry. This reminds me of myself many in ways, because being an artist, I know that one thing you don’t tell an artist is that you aren’t in any big hurry.
My brother-in-law asked me for a T-shirt design for his volunteer fire department, and he told me that he “wasn’t in any big hurry for it,” and that was about six months ago and I’ve yet to do it.
Since this realization I’ve led the electrician to believe that we are in a crunch, which in all actuality WE ARE. With less than a month to go we have to get to a move-in condition or we will be stuck with paying double mortgage. So now the crunch is on...
Guest Blogger Architect
Feb/01/08 12:08 AM
When Kristin and I embarked on our project, we debated on hiring an architect. In the end, we decided that the help of an architect could give us needed direction since neither she nor I had ever done this sort of thing. And man are we glad we did.
We immediately hit-it-off with with Bret, and he has since become a strong supporter and promoter of our house-blog, thus I invited him to write a guest entry in place of my usual Friday find. After you read the blog I encourage you to visit his website and even drop him an email. So here it is, from Bret Park of Park Company Architects.
Hey Brant,
Thanks for the invitation. I've been trying to think of something to offer your blog that would meet your high literary and content standards. In the absence of any historical artifacts or mummified animals, I thought I'd just tell you a few things that we admire about your project.
The project is more than the building and its history. It is also the circumstance of the design and construction. It includes the people associated with the project. You and Kristin, as the primary residents, owners, and clients, are currently at the center of this series of circumstances and relationships. I think this is a crucial realization that is so obvious that many people overlook it. We've said over and over that good clients make good projects. I'm not the first person to say that I'm sure, but it sure is true. You are the key to the success of this project. I know that your hearts are in the right place. That makes a huge difference.
You two have done a terrific job of recognizing the opportunity that the house represents. That was your first sharp move. It's a good, solid investment. You've maintained the residential character of the neighborhood by saving the property from being developed as condos. It's going to be a wonderful home. Nice.
I'll be very interested to know your opinion at the end of the project, but my feeling is that an experienced architect or designer can dramatically improve the overall outcome of a project. In addition, I believe that our participation usually results in significant savings that can help to offset our expense. Thanks again for including us. We're having a great time working with you.
Stacey and I have been very impressed with your resourcefulness. It has been a hoot watching you work. You seem to have an uncanny ability to synchronize efforts. I think your coordination of the termite service and the foundation subcontractor was brilliant! I suppose the observation or advice that I would suggest for any person embarking on such a project would be to think systematically about what is going on and try to consolidate efforts. By reducing redundant efforts, you can increase efficiency and reduce costs (sometimes!). Also, nice score on the picket fencing!
It seems that you have a healthy reverence for the history of the house. That's a tremendous asset. I think it puts you in touch with the inherent opportunities and limitations of the old house. The absence of a powder room is an example. That would have been a very unusual feature in a house of this type when it was built. Now, forcing a powder room into the project would necessarily compromise other functional elements. It's great that you're thinking about the past and future of the house rather than simply focusing on the immediate.
There is no substitute for hard work, and I know that you and Kristin have been going at it. We've had clients in past who have insisted that they would take on parts of the labor themselves. I'm always cautious about this. I've become comfortable suggesting to some that they carefully evaluate their own capacity to perform certain aspects of the work. It certainly kills project momentum when the owner can't...seem....to....get....the....tasks....done. You two have done very well at executing the parts you're comfortable with and delegating or hiring others. That's a big reason things have gone so smoothly so far. Momentum may not be everything, but it sure is hard to get it back once it's gone.
I think this blog is fantastic. We've had clients keep design and construction journals or scrapbooks. That's great, but they're private documents. Sharing your experiences in this blog has engaged a unique community of readers. I'm a big believer in the value of collective energy. I know that it must be a motivation to you to know that so many people are interested (and personally engaged) in the progress of your project.
Here's one that's hard to quantify. It's two aspects of the same quality. First, you and Kristin roll with things. That is immeasurably valuable in a project that is destined to have unpredictable and frustrating moments. I've yet to see you stress without smiling. In addition, you're kind to each other. You listen to each other. You work together. Thank you for that. It is so hard for us to watch a project turn into an arena of conflict. It doesn't happen very often, but whoa, that can be ugly! I would encourage anyone embarking on such a project to agree to be agreeable.
So, great job so far! Thanks for inviting me to make a few observations. I hope that I haven't embarrassed you by braggin’ on you too much, but the things you're doing well represent principles that could benefit anyone doing a similar project. Keep up the good work and call us if you need anything!
Bret
www.parkco.net