Bring on the inspectors. I'll get lost Monday morning while the inspector comes through at 8:30. Dan and John will be here working and will field any questions the inspector may have for me. I spent time working on the lamp while Tammy took a break.
Seth, from Clearview Glass will be by on Monday to measure for the glass wall in the dance room.
I think Dan plans to tie into the central vac from the basement on Monday and take care of any discrepancies the inspector finds.
We're expecting the sauna to arrive any day. It's a Polar Saunakit Dan ordered through Menards.
Dan and John took care of the odds and ends of the electrical today. John took on a job which I don't think anyone really wanted...fixing the cable tv wire which runs from the main box in the glass shop and serves the tv in the kitchen. It was running along the wrong side of the main beam and had to be rerouted. I played around with it the other night but I wimped out and went to bed before getting anywhere with it. How many tv sets do you need in your home? We've counted 8 in ours. I'm a bit worried with that many sets that the signal strength to each will be diminished as it gets spread thin among so many sets. Dan suggested I buy an amplified splitter. I couldn't find any locally so I ordered one online.
Tammy did a bunch of grinding and foiling today. Rachel came home from school and placed the pieces on the lamp mold. I cleared out the utility room in preparation for our upcoming electrical inspection on Monday. Dan mentioned that the inspector would frown on us using it as a storage space so I moved everything to the garage.
Dan came through with another idea which I liked a lot. He suggested I get a rear center speaker for the surround sound. I have two rear speakers but with the shape of the room and the placement of the speakers I'm worried that the sound will be hard to manage so it's distributed evenly. A rear center speaker will go a long way toward solving that problem.
Tammy and I are sitting here brainstorming as I type this trying to come up with the name of a stained glass company which we'd like to launch some time soon. Tammy just now came up with 'Grapevine Glass Design'. We wanted it to have a Christian connotation and grapevine does that for us..."I am the vine and you are the branches". I'm not sure where we'll go from here but I know Tammy has been wanting to do something like this for a while. I've been a bit ambivalent about it because I'm afraid the hobby I enjoy working on for a few months every winter will become more of a chore and an obligation. I think she's right though. We can begin by dipping our toes in the water and wading in slowly. I may have to give Jerry a call and ask him for advice on getting started.
Day sixteen and we're just about ready for the electrical inspection. The plan now is to have that done on Monday and providing there are no problems, Dan and John will do the insulation and prep work for sheet rock which will go up starting Wednesday. We were hoping to have the electrical inspection done this Friday but the inspector couldn't fit us in.
The electrical is nearly completed. Exhaust fans were installed in the sauna and bathroom and canned lights were put in place in the main room and kitchenette. Keith came by later in the afternoon and caught something I'd let slip by...an outlet for some lights in the entertainment center. There are so many hours which go into the electrical work. It seems by far the most labor intensive part of the job to this point.
We're trying to take all the little things into consideration before the sheet rock goes up. One of those being the electronic dart board. Keith is going to make a cabinet for it and will hide the outlet which serves it at the same time. No doubt we'll forget something we'll wish we'd remembered once the sheet rock has gone up but that's the way it goes. I think we've got most of the bases covered.
Yes, I'm the one doing all the electrical work as you can see in this photo...wink wink. I met Dick today...he's the drywall man and he came today to work on the arches. He also let us know that the full arch in the doorway wouldn't meet code and that we'd have to change it. To meet code the arch would have to begin at least 7 feet above the floor and ours began at a little over 6 feet. So Dick changed thearch to match the one next to it above the half wall. It's actually the way Tammy wanted it in the first place so as they say, 'it's all good'.
As it turned out I was able to leave work early and get here before Dan arrived...I suppose it helped that he overslept but I wasn't going to mention that. ;) Anyway, I was glad I was here as we were able to walk through the rooms together and he could pick my brain about how I wanted the switches to work and their placement as well as the number of lights and their placement.
They got the lighting for the dance roomdone using a total of 6 can lights and one wall sconce...oh, and a couple cans in the closet. Teamwork at its finest was on display at our home today as John searches for his misplaced cellphone...a lousy attempt at humor and I'm really tired so bear with me.
Tammy got a bunch more work done on the lamp and I watched another day slip away where I could've gotten some work done on it but didn't. But I did get to ride today so that was good...I don't suppose there's any correlation between me riding and not getting any work done on the lamp. I won't get to it till Thursday at the earliest now.
Okay, that's it...I'm half asleep as it is so I'm outta here.
Dan and John got a lot done today. I showed them the design for the arches I came up with and Dan thought it would be fine. I think it will look nice when it's done but it does take a bit of imagination at this point to picture it. I just hope it's not too much of a hassle for them to make it work...it does seem like it may be.
They got busy right away drilling holes and running wire for the sub panelin the utility room. Dan also got us to rethink the placement of our future kiln. Rather than have it out in the open in the basement near the storage closet, we're going to have it set up in the utility room. That makes sense in so many ways. First, it allows us to have a run of less than 50 feet from the outside panel to the kiln which is what is recommended. Second, any fumes created will easily be vented outside and not into any of our living areas and lastly, it's not sitting taking up space in the finished part of our basement.
I was hoping to get off work tomorrow so I could meet with Dan and go over the placement of the overhead lighting and switches. It's not looking good for taking the day off so when I got home tonight Tammy and I spent some time in the basement making a list for Dan of where we'd like stuff. I'll give him a call in the morning and see if he needs any more input.
