30 June 2016
Perry and I built and
installed the shelves for the linen closet, making Chree a much happier
person. She quickly finished unpacking
the boxes stacked up in a corner of the master bathroom that were awaiting
completion of that project. Charlie,
Danielle, and Alyssa arrived mid-afternoon for an overnight stay. Unfortunately, the guest bathroom shower is,
as yet, unenclosed…
28 June 2016
Sonny and Brandon
finished the cedar closet.
Unfortunately, they decided to trim the shelf widths by an inch rather
than notch the shelves around the door casing, which I didn’t catch until too
late. They didn’t think it would make
all that much difference… but it does.
27 June 2016
After ten relatively
stress-free days finishing the unpacking and settling into the house, today was
quite hectic. Sonny arrived just after
7, followed an hour later by Tom and Brandon.
Their mission: knocking out the 18 carpentry and electrical punch list
items. Those included: plugging a multitude
of Cortex® screw holes in exterior Koma® blocking;
painting all the exterior air supply and exhaust vents; adjusting various doors
so they open / close properly; installing the wood stove and grouting the
stove’s fresh air supply duct into the woodstove nook soapstone wall;
installing an accent light in the small nook above the wood bin; and (Sonny’s
favorite) installing Roxul® insulation in the mechanical room
ceiling. Virtually all of those items
were done by noon. So, after lunch, the
guys started on the big item: installing aromatic Eastern Red Cedar on the
ceiling and walls of the aptly named cedar closet. My radial arm saw and dust collection system
got a good workout… and, oh, does the shop smell nice tonight! They got well over half of that project done
by quitting time. Dennis arrived early
afternoon to install the fancy Venmar HRV programmable controller that I had
asked him to order for us. We also
reviewed the other 9 items on the plumbing punch list… and the latest Ryan’s
bill, about which I had some questions.
He also explained how to prevent the geothermal system from filling the
heating / cooling holding tank with 107° water whenever the
A/C is turned off temporarily, with the tank, at that point, full of 41° water. Sean also came by to check
on progress. Together with Dennis, we
started to fill out the required Vermont Residential Building Energy Standards
(RBES) Certificate that ultimately has to be filed with the State Public
Service Department and the Town Clerk.
Tom Hobbs came by mid-afternoon to finish that part of the dust
collection system that captures debris when the radial arm saw is in crosscut
mode. Perry also stopped by for a few
minutes. For awhile there, the shop was
a very busy place! We discovered,
after dinner, that the HRV is only supplying air through the A/C ducts, which
means that ¾ of the house is not getting the intended fresh air exchange. Phone call to Dennis to follow…
17 June 2016
Jeff Many was here in
the morning installing a remote keypad for Chree’s garage door, programming all
of our various garage door openers to work (no mean feat given how tempermental
garage door openers seem to be), and putting in a rubber door strip that should
(hopefully) keep the shed garage door from freezing shut ever again. In the great news
department: (1) Chree told me today that she really loves our new house and (2)
we paid off the National Bank of Middlebury construction loan… leaving us
completely debt free once again… and forevermore!
16 June 2016
Another day of
unpacking and putting away. (Are you
starting to see a pattern here?) Tom
Hobbs came at noon and, in a couple of hours, put an extension on the dust collection
duct work. That extension captures the
vast majority of the sawdust produced by the radial arm saw operating in
crosscut mode.
14 June 2016
Another day of
unpacking and putting away. We’re down
to less than a dozen boxes needing emptying.
Found a super-fancy HRV controller on the Venmar website, priced, of
course, to match. However, it did have
all the features I was looking for, so told Dennis to order it anyway. Kate came up for dinner solo, Danny having
left hurriedly for New York this morning to get back for a short-notice acting
audition.
13 June 2016
Dennis was here most
of the morning and Steve was here most of the day getting the HRV to run. Now that it is operational, we have to decide
how we want to control the critter. The
timer that Dennis brought seems to be designed to control a security lighting
system… which is not the rock I was looking for. I spent most of the day in the shop, making slow
headway against the tremendous mess therein.
Chree started in earnest unpacking all the book boxes in the study.
12 June 2016
In the morning, Alex
helped me put up shelves in the garage and get that area semi-organized. The kids and Devin departed right after lunch,
it being a rainy, dreary kind of day.
Spent the afternoon working on the mess in the shop. Chree and I went down to Marty & Merry’s
for an absolutely fantastic chicken dinner, joined there by Kate and
Danny. Merry really, really
outdid herself this time!!!!
11 June 2016
Birthday party for
Alverta, who turns 92 tomorrow. Lynne,
Perry, Erin, Steve, and Mary here for a barbeque picnic lunch… eaten inside
(and, yes, our living / dining room can be configured to accommodate 14 diners)
because of the all-too-accurate rain shower forecast. Sauna at six with Perry and Tasi. Lake temperature has dropped noticeably.
10 June 2016
Steve was here most of
the day, joined by Dennis for most of the morning, as they tried (but did not
succeed) to get the HRV operational.
Sean also stopped by to see how things were going. Tom came for a couple of hours to grout the
front entry porch slate. Larry and Earl
were here most of the day, slowly getting the security system operational. Chree and I spent the day unpacking. The collection of empty boxes is becoming
truly mountainous. Tasi and Rachel
arrived at 4:30. As we were finishing a
leisurely and fabulous meatball lasagna dinner at 7:40, Alex, Katy, and Devin
arrived to join the festivities (and partake of the dinner leavings). They brought a bottle of maple-infused Crown
Royal… which took a major hit before the evening was done. Turned on the television for the first time
and observed that the TV enclosure design is absolutely perfect! Two points to the architect.
9 June 2016
Tom spent the morning
installing ½″ Vermont Black slate on the front entry porch. After lunch we did some more electrical work
for a couple of hours, getting most of the garage lights and outlets installed. Chree and I spent the day wading through the
disaster area, slowly getting things out of boxes and put away.
8 June 2016
Jorge Hemandez (driver
and crew leader), Pedro Gonzalez, Francisco Bou, and Manuel Arguera from
Hilldrup Moving and Storage arrived at 9.
The original plan had been for the long-distance moving van to be
unloaded into smaller trucks down at the United Van Lines facility in Rutland,
‘cause nobody thought a huge 18 wheeler would fit down our
driveway. Murphy’s Law: no small trucks
available today. After looking things
over, Jorge said, “No problem”… and proceeded to back his 65 foot rig down the
driveway (with inches to spare in many places), first try. Amazing driving!!!! Started to rain just as we finished moving
the last item into the house (the 400 pound wine cellar, that we used the Kubota’s
forklift to get from the moving van around to the shop door). The moving crew was on the road again (headed
for Boston) by 2, leaving behind a house crammed full of boxes… and other
detritus. Chree and I spent the rest of
the day unpacking the kitchen so we could eat dinner and then the master
bedroom so we could go to bed.
7 June 2016
Sean stopped by to
review the punch list. Chree and I spent
the day getting ready for the movers to bring our household goods from
Virginia.
6 June 2016
Kevin stopped by first
thing in the morning to collect a down payment on the patio work he will be
doing. Chree and I spent the day
settling into the house.
4 June 2016
Finished varnishing
the stair railings and the woodbin. This
time only had one (rather full, as always) truckload of cardboard for the
bi-weekly Leicester recycling collection. Chree and I went up to Addison to see John
Baker (Wildflower Iron Works) and give him plans for the custom grill he is
going to fabricate for the patio outdoor fireplace. Then we went on to
Burlington to spend a few hundred dollars at Lowe’s, pick up the last (??) house
lights from The Lighting House (a truly wonderful place to do illumination business),
get a steal of a deal on a pretty red pot to put on the wood stove to humidify
the air, and have a picnic lunch with Alverta.
Also stopped to buy a twin mattress so Devin (and others of his ilk) will
have a bed to sleep on when he visits.
3 June 2016
Put another coat of
polyurethane on the stair railings and the woodbin. Decided that the mud entry coat rack was too
long for the available wall space, so whacked eight inches off, then discovered
that I no longer seem to have a ¼″ cove bit for my router, said bit needed to
restore the edge detail on the ends of the coat rack. Looks like a trip to Lowe’s is in our near
future… Retrieved from Vermont Specialty
Slate the 40 pieces of 12″ x 12″ x ½″ black slate that will surface the front
entry porch. Also bought 40 pieces (roughly
70 square feet) of irregularly shaped and about 1″ thick black slate that will
become the walkway between the driveway and the front entry steps. Wrestled five of the gravestones (at 100
pounds apiece) into position to make a temporary step for the front entry.
2 June 2016
Highlight of our day:
the Cassala truck came about noon and took away the almost-full 30 yard
dumpster. Put a second coat of
polyurethane on the stair railings, a final (sic) coat on the mud entry coat
rack, and a first coat on the woodbin. Got
a quote from D&F Excavating and Paving for putting in an asphalt driveway…
405 feet long x 12 feet wide, plus the car turnaround area. Quote was less than half of what we were
expecting, so quickly signed on the dotted line. The bad news is that they probably won’t get
to our number on their backlog list until late July or early August. Finally got my radial arm saw put back
together with a new table, fresh blade, and perfect alignment. Chree finished putting in the garden, which
now contains fourteen zillion onion plants, plus lots of other goodies of a
vegetarian persuasion.
1 June 2016
A fairly quiet day for
a change (he thought) with only Steve here insulating plumbing and Sean
stopping by for lunch to review the punch list I’ve been
assembling. Chree and I got her video
doorbell operating. Now, when someone
rings our doorbell, she can see and talk to that person, no
matter where she is in the world, so long as her smart phone is connected to
the internet. Pretty slick! Steve and I finally figured out what the
extraneous AWG 12-2 wire under the stairs is for: it connects to the radiant
floor heat controller in the storage room cabinet. Which explains, also, why that controller wasn’t
getting any power. Connected the wire to
the hot water recirculating pump circuit under the stairs. Kate and Danny stopped by just as John Plant
was arriving to sand the garage drywall, for which I needed to empty the garage
of “stuff”, and just as Steve needed help with some woodwork in the mechanical
room, and just as the phone was ringing.
Perfect timing, so Kate and Danny came back again mid-afternoon for a
tour. They oohed and ahhed in all the
right places…
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