Final Plumbing and even more Tongue and Groove

This was a big week.  The "boss" started off by working on the installation of the tongue and groove paneling on the guest bedroom dormer.  She then moved into the bonus room and didn't stop there.  After the dormer walls had been completed she decided to start on the ceiling.   This was no small job as the room is over 20' long.

While all this was going on I was busy installing the water lines.  Here I am sweating fittings on the 1/2" line that provides the guest bathroom shower and sink with hot and cold water.  Sweating fittings is not a difficult job but you must only use lead free solder.    We scheduled our rough-in plumbing inspection for Friday but asked the inspector to stop by on Wednesday for a courtesy inspection just to make sure we had everything covered.  This is always a good idea since you really don't want to fail an inspection if you can help it and the inspectors are almost always willing to provide you with helpful information and suggestions to make the actual inspection go a little easier.  As it turned out we were pretty much ready and had no problems passing the inspection Friday morning.

Saturday we decided to finish the framing of the front porch.  We had earlier done the framing across the front of the house but we had not completed the area around the side and across to the kitchen.   Kuhns  Brothers provided 2x8" pressure treated material and the appropriate metal hangers and nails for this task in the package.

Here is the completed porch framing that runs from the front of the house around to the kitchen.  All that's left to do now is install the decking, railings and balusters.  A task that will be performed in a couple weeks.

With the front porch framing done it was time to turn our attention to the back porch.  The back porch is much simpler but somewhat larger than the front porch.  No corners to go around here just a 40' long by 11' wide straight shot across 2/3 of the back of the house.  Here is the completed perimeter framing.  All that's left to install are the floor joists.  On the front porch because it is not as wide the floor joists are placed 24" on center.  The back porch is twice as wide but uses the same 2x8 material so the joists will be placed 12" on center to provide the same strength.  That means there will be 40 joists with 80 joist hangers, each requiring 20 nails to properly install.  Each hanger and joist will be hand nailed as well.  No nail guns here just a framing hammer and one sore arm.

The "boss" meanwhile was busy still working on the tongue and groove in the bonus room. This was not a simple task as there were several different angles to deal with.

The room above the garage was originally designed as unheated storage.  We decided to have our HVAC contractor run a heating duct up to this room just in case we wanted to insulate and heat it some time in the future.  We built this shelf unit in the bonus room to hide the heating duct that comes up through the floor and then goes through the wall into the room above the garage.  All the trim work is not done yet but we did install the trim around the top just to see how labor intensive it would be.  With the proper tools it moves along pretty quickly.

That's it for another week. Now that we have passed our plumbing inspection we can start hooking up toilets, sinks, the garbage disposal, and dishwasher, not to mention showers.  The only inspection we have left is the final and we will be ready for that one in about 60 days.  Next week along with hooking up the plumbing we'll be energizing more electrical circuits and the "boss" will continue on her tongue and groove mission.

Check back Soon