Home Construction (Day 29 - August 24)

They started the electrical wiring today - first day of the installation:



See our electrical meter already reads '000001' even though we have NOT used 1 kWhr of electrical energy, thankyouverymuch:



We plan to ask the electrical company for our 1-cent refund when this is all over.

In the middle of the vaulted ceiling, they've put in the fixtures for our fans:



The second floor is a bit messy today -- the electrical guys must have forgotten to clean everything after themselves. We have wires all over the place:


And the wires now officially prevent us from "walking through walls" like we used to. No more pretending to be a ghost! At least we can still see through the walls...

Look, they made holes around the wood frames and put wires around:



Check out the long wires that prevent us from walking through the walls now:

Why this picture? Because this is the day they pasted our electrical diagrams and the list of all our interior options on our windows - it means we are getting closer to our next appointment (the "dry wall orientation" on Sept. 1st)


They have placed power outlets around the kitchen wall - all those little gray blocks are electrical outlets, per the Russian's explanation. Like he knows anything about home construction...


Wires now come out from the second floor down to the first floor (laundry area):




And there is a floor pad with a drain for the future washing machine, to prevent spills.

Home Construction (Day 28 - August 21)

Today they seem to have finished with the floor of our porch:


I must say, the porch looks nice from the side.

Also, they've added a window on the right side of the house (this is the window over the staircase). The funny thing is, they added it right after I questioned them about the water leaking into the basement through the wall. Their explanation was that our missing window on the second floor was causing it:


This was our first time standing on our front patio. Quite roomy and nice:



Our gas pipes? There are a bunch of warning stickers about not smoking around there, lighting them on fire, or performing weird electrical experiments near them. Must be the gas pipes:


They say if we smell something funny, run out of the home, don't try to "find" the gas leak using a match. I'm sorry. Who finds a gas leak using a match?! I guess someone somewhere did, otherwise the warning wouldn't be there.

Anyway. They also completed all the windows in the back of the home (the ones left were all in the basement area), so now it looks all finished:


Just very blue, that's all. Yesterday we still didn't have basement doors and windows, but today we have both:


Other small changes outside the home include:

1. The water faucet:


2: A couple of air vents: (this is the oxygen intake for the fireplace)



and (not shown) we have a vent from the kitchen out to the back of the home -- for the fan over the stove.

Inside the home, walking in from the patio using the main door, which now also has a door knob:




They've completed the window over the staircase - we were a bit disappointed that they remembered this window should be small. In the beginning they had made the window frame much bigger than this window was supposed to be - and we were so happy with that mistake! Oh well, here is the end result:



They also completed our sewage drain. Let's not talk about what is going to go down there:


Basically they've completed all the changes for our exterior (except the siding) - and it is now time to mark our territory. I left that duty for the Russian, who learned it from the Learning Channel, or the Discovery Channel or something:





We're not going near that corner of the home again. Ever.

Home Construction (Day 27 - August 20)

It's been raining all day today - I personally love this kind of weather - but our home is not that happy with the weather since some of our windows are not done yet (most of the front windows are not done) and water is pooling everywhere inside, on the pressed wood floors.


I stopped by the home without any Russian today, since we knew there wouldn't be many changes in the home. The sky was really scary, too:


See there is one more window now, not quite installed yet though. They left it in the laundry room. But we have two more windows for the right side of the home:



So what progress was made today? Ahaaaa, they worked on the ventilation ducts in the ceiling over the kitchen and living room:



Water is leaking into the walk-in closet for the master bedroom - they haven't placed the window there yet:


Don't worry. The water was dry by the time we got there the next day. Or, it absorbed into the pressed wood floor and weakened it, structurally. When the Russian walks on top of it, we'll find out, one way or another...

Home Construction (Day 26 - August 19)

Now they've circled the pillars for the porch and we have 2 more windows for our porch area:



We no longer can enter from our main door because they took away the step - a bit too high to jump. They placed it really far from our main door - not really looking forward to moving it even a little bit:


We think they've managed to use all the stuff from the garage now - all we see are empty boxes:



They started adding the fireplace and painted some of it black:


Ah -- and, I'm sure you were wondering -- they've also covered the holes they made into the basement. That's for HVAC again? (see previous posts for a handy definition of HVAC!)


It seems not that much progress was made on the home today, but actually if you think about it they placed a lot of pipes all around the home, which isn't the easiest thing to do I'm sure.

I am just too lazy to upload all the pictures - the internets are way too slow today.

Home Construction (Day 20 - August 11)

Ok This is an older post which we either forgot to post or accidentally deleted and posted now

They added more boards support for our roof and we have our vaulted ceiling frame for our master bedroom. There are no holes around the home except the roof of the room above the garage.

The hole on the side is our window above the stair, but comparing to yesterday's pictures, our roof are covered more now.




The frame for our vaulted ceiling


See, the garage's roof is not done yet