Getting ready to sheetrock & put up the tin ceiling

Aaron couldn't come today because of a prior commitment so I started making the preparations to put up the ceiling tomorrow (with his help). I bought an attachment for my drill that snips/cuts the metal roofing that I'm using for our ceiling. Hopefully it will work as well as they promised at the metal roofing company. Today since I was alone, I needed to find something that I could easily do by myself so I began "hanging" the foil/foam/foil insulation on the AAC block wall. I finished putting it up in the master bedroom, the master closet and the utility room. The more I thought about it the more it made sense to go ahead and hang the sheetrock as we put up the ceiling. Having the sheetrock up will give us a definite and final edge to butt the metal ceiling to and since the propane guy can't come until next Thursday I can't close up the ceiling until then anyway... so I thought why not?... we'll hang sheet rock as we move from room to room with the ceiling. Here is the east master bedroom wall with the foil/foam/foil hung. The space between each foil panel is for "Liquid Nails"... 3" sheetrock screws and Liquid Nails should cause the sheetrock to be there FOREVER.Yesterday I finished up the rough-in plumbing in preparation for Howell King returning on Saturday to solder the copper incoming water line to my CPVC inhouse system for the pressure test.Living on the far eastern edge of the central time zone causes it to get pretty dark by 5 PM after the "fall back" time change. Nevertheless you can still see how beautiful Tennessee is in the fall even late in the afternoon. This picture was taken from the front of our property looking east down St. Mary's Lane to Sherwood Road (our road is freshly paved and striped).And for your amusement here's a gratituious shot of Mose-Bose (Mosby... "nobody knows where Mose-Bose goes... where do your suppose?")... he's a VERY peculiar little dog but we love him.My dear friend Roger Gertz wrote me today and told me I'd be SHOCKED at the #2 listing if I googled "sir john templeton library." I did and I was.

We passed the electrical rough-in inspection!

As the blue sticker attests... we passed our rough-in electrical inspection this afternoon. I do have to run one more circuit for the ignition on the tankless hot water heater but that will only take about 10 minutes. The good part is that we can start putting up the tin ceiling tomorrow. In the meantime I've got to run some "black iron" (pipe) for the propane cook stove in the kitchen. I have to do it myself because the propane guy can't get here until November 13th and that will delay the ceiling installation unless I do it myself. Here is a picture of the sticker that says we passed.
While I was waiting on the inspector to arrive, I decided to suck it up and glue the CPVC pipes together... it had to be done and I have been putting it off for no good reason. Nevertheless I got about 85% of the pipes glued when I ran out of several fittings (I'll pick them up tomorrow when I buy the black iron).
Finally GLUED:
I also finished gluing on the styrofoam trim around the windows getting them ready for the stucco (I will remove the 2' X 4' under the window soon). I still have to trim out the the front door and add styrofoam trim for the stucco but I'll do that in a day or two.

Water heater, more wiring and clean up

Aaron helped me again today and we got the tankless waterheater hung on the south wall outside the garden tub. The compartment that we built underneath the unit is for access in case we have a pipe to freeze.Howell King came back today and ALMOST got the wiring finished and ready for the rough in inspection on Tuesday. He'll come back Sunday after church and button things up. In the meantime he gave me some last minute assignments like putting covers on all the junction boxes. Aaron began tidying up around the cottage... here's the pile of junk wood we'll use this winter for kindling in our wood stove. The stack actually looks bigger than it is because of the numerous pallets that make up the bulk of the pile.Here are some photos of miscellaneous things related to our building project... this is a shot of the "guest loft." There is just one sheet of plywood flooring up there now (and no walls) while we wait on the cellulose insulation to be blown in:This is a shot of the kitchen window from the outside with 2" X 4" styrofoam trim which will be covered with stucco in the near future (the wood support nailed on the bottom trim piece will be removed):This is a long shot of the front of the cottage looking over one of our wood piles (our 16' X 20' storage building is in the distance):And here we have Boone-Dog grooming Mosby who is wearing his stylish orange winter coat. Mosby is essentially NEKKID because his fur is so short and needs his coat this time of year to keep him from shivering.The rough in electrical inspection will be a MAJOR milestone for our building progress. Assuming we pass the rough in, I'll immediately go down the mountain and pick up Aaron who will help me put up our white tin ceiling (approx 2 days). As soon as that is finished we'll insulate the attic (one day), stain the concrete (2 days)(it'll be a "chicory" color and look like beige suede) and begin moving cabinets and STUFF into the house. We'll physically move over soon after that.

Lights... camera, action!

Howell King, our electrician, returned yesterday (Monday) and when he left we had LIGHTS (in 2/3s of the house):It's beginning to look like a cozy little Irish cottage don't you think? (sorry for the blurr). If you look closely, you can see the styrofoam trim that I'm gluing around the windows and door. Believe it or not, stucco sticks to the styrofoam.:Aaron and I worked on "spiffing up" the wiring today (I've heard the electrical inspector is favorably impressed if the wires look neat in their runs and in the panel). Howell did a masterful job making the panel look neat and professional so I felt compelled to make the runs look neat and secure (we did a lot of stapling and tying the multiple wires together with plastic mini-ties). We also ran our telephone lines (office, bedroom, kitchen and THE BATHROOM for those important calls from special people).
We also moved the dog pen over off the back of the house so the boys are now living in the cottage. The 20' steel cargo container gets removed tomorrow which will save us $71/month... huzza!
Howell will return and finish up the wiring on Thursday. I'll go in on Friday and request an early Tuesday morning inspection... so assuming we pass the inspection, Aaron and I will begin screwing up the tin ceiling Tuesday morning. I think the ceiling will take about 2 days so I'll schedule the insulation to be blown in on Thursday. Next the floor gets stained and we're almost ready to move in... oops... I've still got to glue the CPVC pipes together so we'll have water.

Getting ready for the rough-in electrial inspection, etc.

I continued to finish Howell King's wiring assignments (the stuff that takes no brains and that which Howell can trust a "college boy" with) which mainly includes running conduit in grooves that I had to saw in the AAC block while making square holes for the metal electrical boxes. Here is the work in progress:
Yesterday I began hooking up the plug-in receptacles, to wit:
Alexis wanted to include a picture of the "thingy" that will hold up the living room ceiling fan:Since attaching the AAC window trim will take several days because of the weight of the block 2" X 4"s, I started by "Liquid Nailing" the bottom piece of trim on all the windows. To begin this multiple-day process, I nailed a wooden 2" X 4" to the bottom of the window opening so the block would have something to sit on while the glue dried (the wood will be removed when the glue sets up and the vertical block pieces on either side of the windows will sit on the block bottom piece while their glue dries).So you'll have a better idea of how the trim will be attached, here's a shot of me holding up a vertical piece of the AAC block trim. Stucco will cover the AAC trim as well as the styrofoam behind it. I'll mix up a small batch of concrete and pour an angled sill from the window facing out to the edge of the bottom trim piece to keep water from coming in under the window.
Aaron Gifford came today and finished a bunch of odds and ends-type jobs. Most importantly he adjusted the SW knee wall flashing which was keeping me up nights (shown, below). He used my new "belt-fed" screw gun on Jerry Hawkins 30' ladder to secure some of the HardiPlanks at the tipy-top of the gable end walls (this gun is like a belt-fed machine gun and screws in sheetrock screws... the manufacturer claims that a 4' X 12' sheet of sheetrock can be hung in 60 seconds... I'm not sure I believe that one but it does work pretty well as long as the phillips head bit lasts... two new ones are enroute)... and he continued cleaning up the AAC adhesive "drips" next to the block wall that accumulated while I was laying block (have I mentioned how glad I am that the block laying is FINISHED!?). This needed to be done in preparation for staining the concrete floor. Aaron will come back tomorrow and we'll finish up some more pesky little jobs including more electrical stuff. Howell King can't come back to wrap me up until next Monday afternoon. Hopefully the rough-in inspection will take place next Tuesday and I can start putting up our tin ceiling.

Close to finishing exterior... not counting stucco/paint

Today Aaron and I finished the soffits front and back including the end caps on the overhangs. Now except for the AAC trim around the front windows/door and finishing a dab of HardiPlanking on the south wall, we are essentially finished with the exterior of our Irish cottage (awaiting the light gray stucco). Here's a picture of the soffit on the south overhang with its closed-in end cap. As you may recall, the southside overhang is wider than the front and designed to block the summer sun (which is higher in the sky) and let in the winter sun to passively heat our Irish cottage.
This is a shot of the front overhang/soffit and end cap:
We also finished some odds and ends today including changing out one of the hinges on the back door that was sprung and adding a "sweep" to the bottom of both front and back doors to seal out "Old Man Winter."
Additionally, we started cleaning the concrete floor in preparation for staining it to look like brown suede. The stain will be transparent ("chicory") and will allow the "blemishes" in the concrete (see discoloration in concrete, below) to show through giving the floor a natural stone-like look.Howell King, our plumber/electrician, has been booked up with service work recently and can't come back to help us finish up until Sunday afternoon. The hope is we'll pass our rough-in electrical inspection next week and then be able to install our tin ceiling and summons the insulation guy to blow in cellulose (R-32 front wall, R-50 ceiling). It's gonna be toasty warm this winter in our Irish cottage!

Finishing up the knee wall...

A number of folks have asked why my Irish cottage design included a knee wall at both ends. The answer is simple... most of the pictures of Irish cottages I saw sported a knee wall... so the answer is "for the look." Today Aaron and I finished (99%) the west knee wall. We definitely got better at the process as we went along. What helped tremendously was the auto-feeding screw gun that I bought at Home Depot. A tape of sheet rock screws feeds through the head and makes screwing the HardiPlank both fast and secure. The company claims that you can hang a 4' X 8' sheet of sheet rock in 60 seconds. The gun does work surprisingly well... here's a picture of the west wall inside and out:
Inside of wall:
Outside. We won't completely finish screwing the cap down until the building is stuccoed.
Here's a picture of the back door we re-hung yesterday taken from the inside of the house:We'll move the boys' kennel over to the house soon and they will be the first to move into our Irish cottage (left-to-right: Mosby, Baxter, Boone).