After Christmas Break - Kitchen electrical

December 29th, 2007

We were away for Christmas (a whole week) visiting Lianne's family & friends in Ottawa and Andreas' family in Guelph.

However, believe it or not there was still some work happening at the house. We know because Andreas kept getting calls!

First day back from our Christmas travels and we've got a To Do list from the electrician. One thing is to go through the house & look at what he's done to see if it's right or not. Unfortunately the electrician went ahead with some wiring against instructions to wait for our approval. We will need to move some things, and Andreas is hell bent on doing it himself so he unscrewed some electrical outlet boxes and placed them where we actually want them.

Most things are good but there are some that we needed to 'adjust'. Then again there is only 1/2 the electrics done at this point.

Our other to do list was to decide where all the kitchen lighting is to go. I put on my Kitchen Imagination Hat & we set to work. Some two hours later we've pointed and drawn sketches and used 2x4's to lay out the 'kitchen' so that we at least have some idea of where the counters will be. This is not an easy chore! The last thing we needed to also do was to mark 'exactly' on the ceiling where the lights above the island would be. Okay I say & then practically bend over backwards for another hour or so while Andreas climbs up and down and up and down and up and down the ladder.

Here is one of the 'approved' electrical parts - after this we moved it! Master Bedroom the plugs and light switches on either side of the bed.


'X' marks the spot! Andreas marking the over island pendant lights. Hopefully in the right place!

More Power

December 20th, 2007

Marat warned us the Electrician would be coming, so earlier this week Andreas met Marat and Gena (like henna) at the house to talk about electrics. Surprise, he's a little Russian Latvian. :)

Although Andreas and I had spent a couple hours looking over the house plans and placing outlets and lights, seems Gena was not particularly interested however between Marat's experience, Gena's electrician's eye and Andreas waving around our drawings, they did manage to come up with a electrical installation plan.

Thursday (today) was the start date and since there were still some questions, I accompanied Andreas over first thing in the morning to see Gena. He was pleased to see us and we started with some lights in the master bath (I never knew there could be so many in a bathroom!) and then moved on to the upstairs hall. Despite stomping around and back and forth and saying no no no, I did get the switch configuration I preferred. That was Gena stomping and say no, not me! He's very excitable.

Then we looked at some lights in the rest of the upstairs, and the master. In the middle of this Gena got a call and he packed up in a flash and dashed out the door! He left his doodle of our light layout, and said Marat needed him. We just shrugged and placed X's on the wall for the kitchen outlets, then off I went to work.

Later that day Andreas stopped in as Gena had more questions. We're not sure what, if anything, is next but apparently Marat is away for two weeks and we are also out of town for a few days. We were worried about not being able to be available and check in on the progress so Gena has been told to just put in all the boxes, no wires, until after Christmas. We'll be back to have a look between Christmas and New Years.

A couple of pictures of some electrical work



A few other pictures of some work done recently.

Storage closed under the stairs


View through from the kitchen/dining to the living room/front hall


A talented Sergei the carpenter, boxing in a duct in the basement rec room.


We had a little snow in the master bath!


Front door, from the inside.

Elmsdale's Got Gas!

December 16th, 2007

'Dan the Gas Man' , actually Daniel has been a few days at the house last week and finished up this week. He is highly recommended. ~ Andgio Gas Services.

Daniel did a great job (and our first 's non-Russian trade).

We're glad to now have gas for the kitchen stove, backyard BBQ and the 2 fireplaces. Of course, the furnace and water as well.



Daniel even left a note for the A/C guy.

The rest of the week saw busy workers coming and going, but nothing too exciting to relate a story about!

Here are some pictures of the week of December 9th - 15, 2007

Duct boxed in at the front corner of the living room


Frame 'arch' made around the opening from the living room to the front hall. We hadn't thought of it but when Sergei got up on a ladder and waved around a plank, we saw his vision and agreed wholeheartedly with it!


Andreas has been buggging Marat to get the crap out of the backyard, so Igor was hauling away this stuff. There was also a dirt pile that was left from excavation that was actually in the way, so for a couple of days one of Marat's random mexican workers was there with a jackhammer (it was frozen solid).


Here is the future location of the master bedroom fireplace - there is the gas pipe! (Behind it the master bath)



Master Shower


Finally the 2 side windows over the stairs!


Ducts boxed up in the basement guest room, and this little guy is the future location of my stove!

A chilled out Saturday morning

Saturday December 8, 2007

We need measure the kitchen space a little more accurately, now that ducts have been boxed in. We take some time Saturday morning, around 10:00am, thinking we would have at least a couple of hours to figure this out.

Since it *is* winter and all, I dig out my toque and ski jacket along with a measureing tape in anticipation of standing around a drafty house. We also brought along some empty cardboard boxes to place around like cabinets. I am really a visual-type so having actual items in place is good for me to design a kitchen.

We arrive, it's quite chilly and isn't there an large pile of lumber right in the kitchen. No worries though, with a little moving around it became the base of the bottom cabinets! Half-way through the lumber- shifting, who should show up but Sergei, the carpenter. He looked a little possesive, seeing as we were moving the wood pile, but was ok when we explained we would make sure it was all laid flat when we were done. We also saw that one of the upstairs bathtubs is installed, yay!

Done being the operative word...I did have a theatre tickets for a matinee show that afternoon and not two minutes after Sergei arrives did he drag us around the house pointing at things and asking opinions. Of course, never an issue since this is our house and all, but then when Slava the plumber showed up soon after it was a free-for-all! Ok, maybe not quite but in the end it was a funny moment of the four of us standing in the master bathroom, weaving around tools, being asked in broken english if we want 'dis ting five eenches or seven eenches'. This loosely tranlates to a question on the spacing of the shower fixture handles.

Eventually we got to the boxes and the measuring, here are the pics of the future kitchen, ain't it grand?

That's the view from the living room, with the (future) island on the left




View from the family room, slight overhead shot


The view from the back sliding doors, stove on the left, island on the right


And,yes I am the dorky one who has to have a picture taken in the only tub in the house so far!

The stairs are here the stairs are here

Thursday December 6th

bzzzzz,bzzzzz, bzzzzzz my little crackberry messenger goes off while I am at my desk at the office.

"the stairs have arrived"

ooooooh I am SO exited about a set of stairs it's almost abnormal. I start saying out loud, to anyone who is within earshot "my stairs are here! this is SO exciting"

I practically skip over to the next set of cubicles to ask a question of someone, and of course tell them that my stairs have arrived! I am practically giddy for at least an hour until

bzzzzz, bzzzzz, bzzzzz

'"'Sergei needs to know what size the kitchen bulkhead is"

oh damn, I was supposed to figure that out, wasn't I. I completely forgot. So for the next 20 minutes, Andreas and I exchange text messages about cabinets, floor to ceiling measurements, bulkheads while I surf the web looking for some standard dimensions and some specs on cabinets. Eventually I say "12 inches, but 11 or 10 would be good". Then he starts messaging back so I just pick up the phone and we have a big old conversation about bulkhead dimensions that I am sure the rest of the office is so interested to hear! I work in cubicleville so nothing is sacred.

I am still not sure I know what was decided on but hopefully it will work out ok in the end!

Now to box in the ducts

Tuesday, December 4th

Andreas has been at the house So much I think HE should be named the General Contractor!

I took a couple of hours this morning to go to the house with him to talk to Sergei about 'stuff'. Turns out the 'stuff' was all the framing to box around the duct work and pipes, etc. Also known as bulkheads.

Sergei is always asking the questions of 'how you want this' an Andreas' usual answers is 'I don't know, how would you do it?' men, no imagination

So I was glad to be there, and Sergei gave me a big grin when he saw I was there. That's always nice...even though it was freezing cold and we stood around a lot pointing at things and trying to figure out what he was saying, I think we decided a good numbner of things so he could work this week without waiting on us. I have to still come back with the kitchen details...you don't want to have the box too low and you also don't want it too high or you could end up with a weird gap above your cabinets that collects nothing but dust.

I also got the meet the plumber Slava finally (he looks a little like Borat in a fuzzy hat). He has less of a grasp on english but is a very nice man. We even had to run out to Home Depot to get some plumbing bits (tub drain units). Andreas wonders why Slava doesn't buy them and he tries to explain they can be $20 - $150 and I nod as I know this but Andreas doesn't agree, until we go to buy it! You can get the everyday piece for $20, which we have at the crackhouse and we'll use on the second tub here, however the master is all 'brushed nickel' and the everyday piece is chrome. On a somewhat cool note, the HD was all out of the expensive packages we wanted for the master bath but they had some ripped open boxes with only partial contents. Luckily for us, the week day staff at HD are not 16 years old and the guy said just take that one part because all we do it write it off as an incomplete set. Very cool.

We still have seen no sign of the duct guys, they are supposed to be fixing some outstanding things but then we heard the boss is having a baby so I think we can excuse the tardiness a little!

We had a little snow

Sunday December 2nd, 2007

Andreas and I popped by, as usual on the weekend...we had been working on the crackhouse & decidecd we better go over to this house - there was a significant amount of snow on the ground and we needed to shovel the sidewalk (city rules, otherwise you can be held responsible if anyone gets injured - yes, that would be the sidewalk that is city property...but I digress...).



We went inside first and discovered the snow had blown in, it was quite entertaining to see one's living room with a big snowdrift inside it!

Looking from front door in...as you can see there is still a hole where our dining room window used to be.



Looking towards the front of the house. We squeeze in and out of the gap between the door and the wall.



Here's the basement and me, acting silly, in the master bedroom.

FRONT DOOR! FURNACE!

Our front door was delivered, complete with transom (window across top) and side lights (windows down each side). It's a beaut!

Sergei chipped out the existing bricks to place the door in it's new home.



Currently white - primer coat. It will be black in the end.







Andreas stopped by and low and behold, there was a furnace in the house as well! He took some shots (ok, like about 20) of plumbing...?! Here are some, very exiting for our blog followers, I am sure!

This is the upstairs bathroom


The duct that was re-routed (under duress) instead of it running clear across in front of the window!




Furnace in place with some of the 'special order' ductwork - runs along the top right in the second picture...click for a bigger version!

One more time, let's go over this

Wednesday November 28th, 2007

Poor Andreas, he says he feels like he is repeating himself and it's no wonder why. Now that Sergei is back on the job, Andreas is over there now, 9:00am this morning, to review all the items that need doing!

Monday Andreas went by the house to speak to the ducting boss. He reviewed all the locations of the bulkheads and pipes and the guy took exact measurements for some custom pieces we need. And here I thought that the last week and a half that they weren't at the house, was because we were waiting for the custom pieces!

Other exciting news, the 'Stair Guy' (the first non-Russian!!) came as well on Monday to measure for our oak stairs.

How embarrassing, to be escorted out

Tuesday November 27th, 2007

Every day there is something to do, and usually in the evening as some of us have workplaces to go to during the day.

Tonight I think I would like to have a go at getting my midnight, last minute kitchen pencil sketch into a computer. Well, we are looking at IKEA cabinets (as the budget is swayed heavily in the direction of my range...but I digress) and the software you can download from their website works incredibly badly on our home computer.

I convince Andreas that we should drive out to the store, during rush hour, so we can get a couple of hours at their workstations. We do this, and it was actually a little past rush hour so not too bad, and while at IKEA we grab a bite to eat.

It's 8:00pm by the time we sit down at the workstations, but not too worry, there is plenty of time since the store does not close until 10:00pm.

Several false starts later, and I am well on the way to 'designing' the kitchen in the computer. Lo and Behold, doesn't it crash, and I have to start ALL over again. A while later, I go to save the 2nd attempt, only to find that Ikea is offline and you can't save it. Not even locally to the workstation, because they are dumb terminals. I could not be more irritated, however all I can do really is to print out the list of products plus 87 different 3D views and this takes some time.
Andreas is working beside me on the crackhouse kitchen, and gets a hold of one of the IKEA guys...who at this point, has come over to remind us that the store is closing. Andreas perseveres and chats him up so the guy, Sam, starts to help him with the design.

I am still printing and then they are off to a display to measure something...by the time the manager comes by and rattles his keys at us, it's well past 10pm and Sam has to escort us out of IKEA! Oops. He actually takes us through the back stairs (much shorter than going through the whole store, for those of you familiar with IKEA layouts...). We are laughing and apologizing at being escorted out...but we get to the exit and isn't there at least 20 people still in line at the cashes waiting to check out!

We at least got some good designing done, even though we could not save it.

Slow week at the house

November 18 - 24th, 2007

No sign of the stucco guy, he seems to be taking his sweet time at the other site so although we were promised to have stucco complete by Nov 20th, it was not to be. We don't even have revised completion date as of yes, Marat just says "soon".

Slava the plumber has put in a number of drains and vent pipes, and discovered one small issue that he says 'happens all the time' - the toilet drain in the concrete in the basement bathroom is too far away from the wall. He just shrugs and says, we smash out the concrete and fix it.

Marat brought in another carpenter, Boris, so Andreas explained all the outstanding items to him. As far as we can tell, he flipped the front bay side windows, because they were in backwards, and then installed two windows in the basement (incorrectly) and then didn't do anything else. The two windows were just put in too far forward towards the outside. We think it is because the new guy assumed, incorrectly, that we would be covering the whole house with stucco. It's VERY common to do this, but we hate that look so even though the drawings quite clearly show the exisiting brick remaining, it's like they don't think to check the plans!

You must have the fixtures...tomorrow.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

We must have been on a hundred shopping trips for bathroom fixtures. Finally, we had to actually purchase something because the plumber was coming on Thursday and Marat pinned us down on this.

Andreas and I had been to yet another store, this time one with a HUGE showroom and actually knowledgeable and helpful staff. And (amazingly) open hours for normal people with full-time jobs! I went straight from work and met Andreas there. We had narrowed it down to 2 tubs for the master and 2 kinds of toilet and we also had a general idea of what we wanted in the master shower controls. You'd think this wasn't rocket science, but let me tell you sometimes it feels like it comes very close.

Here is Andreas 'testing' out a tub :)


In the end we got shower system ordered (with rain can head), 4 toilets for the house ordered and a MAAX 'Palace' tub with air bubble system (instead of jacuzzi jets). I prefer the air bubbles...and there was a promotion on where we got "Chromotherapy" thrown in. What is that, you wonder? Well, me too...so I looked it up, and it's underwater mood lights. Ok, it was free.



Then we got home and Andreas says to me, you know, is the kitchen design sorted out as well? the plumber will need to know where everything is going for that as well.

AAAAAACK! No, it's not. The kitchen has been a source of contention since I wanted a professional designer, but the one I wanted was expensive, so then we went to Marat's guy, who designs very nice kitchen but not AT ALL to my taste. I had pretty much come to the conclusion that it was going to be a U-Design-It situation but figured I had more time!

Not so much. So, I get out all my idea books and magazines and previous attempts at designs. By midnight, I had 2 versions sketched out that we discussed before finally deciding on one of them. So, I better like it, because the plumbing is going in!

The plumber, Slava (you'll remember him from the basement plumbing) met up with Andreas at the house on Thursday to get started. I say only started, because once Andreas left that day, it seems Slava did too!

The last sound you expect to hear

Poor Andreas was outnumbered by Bosnian (Milan) duct guys and me
practically crawling through the phone because I couldn't be on site.

Bulkheads are here, there and everywhere.  Here is Andreas' account

Tuesday November 13th 2007

So it's ducting time!  Yea, progress is occurring.

"Where's the ducting plan?", Andreas asks of Marat.
"What do you need that for, these guys are professionals; it will be
fine", says Marat.

"Well, it's Thursday and they are coming on Monday to install the Ducts
so I would like to see where everything is going to go", says Andreas
"Ok, here's the name of the Ducting Engineer, Dan. Contact him for a
copy of the plans", says Marat.

Andreas emails Dan. Nothing. Friday call Marat and ask for Dan to
contact us. Nothing.
Saturday we finally reach Dan by phone and ask him for a copy of the
plan. He sends them and we look over them over the weekend.

"There's a bulkhead running in front of a doorway in the basement!",
say Andreas
"There's pipes blowing air downwards into the second floor bedrooms!",
says Lianne.

What the h*ck is this!

So Monday the ducting installers come. Andreas is there. Andreas asks
them about the bulkhead in the basement, and the attic pipes.
"Oh, the engineer is crazy; nobody installs supply ducts in the attic.
That's too much work, too many bends, too much airflow is lost so
almost nothing comes out at the end", says Milan the duct installer lead.

Dan the duct engineer is called.

"Dan, what's up with these bulkheads and attic ducts?", Andreas asks.
"Why, would you like them somewhere else?", asks Dan.
"Yes, they block a basement door and the installer doesn't like the
Attic ones", says Andreas.
"Ok, I'll revise them and email you the update.", says Dan.

"Email, where do I get email on a construction site?", thinks Andreas.
Fortunately on of the neighbours (whom Andreas has performed computer
salvation on several occasions), let him use their computer and printer.

So while Andreas is fiddling around trying to get the important bits of
11x17 PDF diagram to fit onto 8.5x11 paper he hears a loud and
terrifying noise:
BRAAAAAAAAA!!!!  BRAAA!  BRAAA!   BRRAAAAAA!!

Get this: IT'S THE SOUND OF A CHAINSAW!
(...cutting up our newly built house!)

So Andreas finishes the printing and races over there. By now the noise
has stopped and the whole house smells of oil and gasoline.
Any fires?; any collapsing floors or caving in walls?   No, Phew!

Turns out Ducting Installers use a Chainsaw to "simplify" their work.
Yea, Right!
We've seen what duct installers do. In fact in another house (with
ducts put in a long, long time ago), a duct installer cut entirely through
a supporting floor joist to accommodate his precious duct.

Fortunately here the chainsaw was only used to put in the square-corner
floor vents and returns.  Panic averted.


So the new plans from Dan the Ducting Engineer feature no more ducts in
the attic (He blames cheap and lazy Duct Installers for not wanting to
install them).
So even though the new plans don't have Attic Ducts, Andreas asks for
one be added (in addition to a floor vent) in the master bedroom over
the bay window to help with air conditioning in the summer. Milan
reluctantly agrees and puts it in.

All is not perfect however, as the ducts in the floors upstairs now
need to have a huge bulkhead running the length of the house on the Main
Floor.
In front of the Bay Window on the main floor, another giant pipe runs
that needs to be covered with an ugly wart of a bulkhead.
"You can't have open concept and no bulkheads", says Milan the Duct
Installer

"Why can't you put the duct behind the supporting beam over the
window?", asks Andreas in reply.
"Oh, we don't dare cut any wood near that beam, as it could collapse",
says Milan.
(More likely a slip of the chainsaw could be fatal to the house!)

Andreas leaves, and the Duct Installers work late into the day to
finish their ducting of the upper floors.
The following day Andreas goes back again, and figures out that if the
Carpenter (Sergi) cuts the path for the ducting, the Duct Installers
can relocate the pipe over the bay window.

That's the plan anyway.  Now we just have to convince Sergi to cut the
path and Milan (or his boss), to move the ugly pipe.
Oh, yea. Then we have to "negotiate" with Marat to use some spray foam
insulation instead of fiberglass around this rerouted duct.  If we
don't it could get very cold from it's detoured route, and not move heat
where it needs to in the winter!