The Livingroom

Tom has also started on the livingroom while Ronnie is finishing off the bath. Although, Ronnie did build the edge of the wall at an angle which will accommodate the television. The angle is to allow access to the tv from throughout the room and keep the reflections from the light coming through the windows onto the television to a minimum. Ronnie has also wired the room for several outlets. Next will come the finish work of filling in the seams and covering the screws, called taping and texturing by the guys.  When all of that work is finished, we can start painting the walls.

Sheet rock up

My pot-bellied stove

The shower is in place

Ronnie got the shower in place which leaves the rest of the walls, the vanity/mirror and the toilet to install. We've used a water/damp resistant sheet rock for the bath.  It requires about 3 coats of paint after the seams have been finished off. I've decided to go with white walls throughout because of the darkness of the rooms which don't have access to direct light.

Bath Update

As many of you know, most of the country east of the Rockies is suffering from a major heat wave and we have not been spared either. So the work is moving along slowly, a few hours in the mornings and then it's back to the safety of an air conditioned house. However, I thought I would update you on the bathroom, it is getting there. But Tom and Ronnie have been jumping around the house, doing some of this and some of that, mostly because it's been easier. Today they are working on putting in the shower, I'll go take pictures of that later today. In the meantime, this is were we are as of this morning.

The Bath

It's been slow going, the heat and humidity making it nearly impossible to work.  Tom and Ronnie have been working a few hours in the morning on most days. They are putting in the bathroom, the pipes for the water, the power, floor, connections for the washer/dryer and walls. They've also been working on sealing the floors and putting the sub flooring in, which they need to do before framing out the walls.

Taking down the walls...

Now that we've gotten the roof completed and the door in along with two of the three windows, it's time to take down some walls to allow access to all three of the containers.  Tom started cutting through the container walls with a grinder, which worked all right but it was a lot of work.  Next they rented a huge grinder, which resembled a chain saw, that wasn't better, in fact it was worse.  It was extremely heavy and cumbersome to use. So while I was looking through the weekly sales papers I came across a "plasma cutter"...woo, thought I, this would be great for Tom to use instead of that horrible grinder. Of course, Tom, yeah, yeah, yeah'd me and continued with the grinder for a few more days before he gave in and got the plasma cutter.  By which time the sale was over with, but the people at Atwoods here in Oklahoma are great and gave it to us at the sale price from the week before.  Tom has to cut 15 min at a time, then break 15 min, but it's much less strain on the body and a much cleaner cut.

Livingroom

Leading to the Bedroom




Tom using the Plasma Cutter.

Windows

Tom and Ronnie put in two of my three windows, the last one will wait until they get to working on the kitchen area.  The one next to the door is where the dining area will be and the other looks into the livingroom. The livingroom window will open to the outside, while they will eventually build a screened room which will enclose the door and the smaller window. We are looking at a 10 x 15 or 10 x 20 screened room for that area.

Water...whoopee

Tom and Ronnie did a fantastic job getting the 2000 ft of pipe laid for the water.  The first backhoe was too small to dig very deep, so they sent it back and got a bigger one.  They worked extremely hard, long days,  up and down the hill, through huge and small rock in just a week. So we now have city water installed. The first well we had dug came out salty, the second came out dry, so this was our last option or spend the rest of our days picking up drinking water at the local Wally World, not something I prefer to do. 

 Tom and Ronnie putting in the cut-off switches.

Finishing touches down by the containers.

 These are some of the huge boulders they had to dig up all along the way.

This is the bottom of the hill that Tom and Ronnie had to dig down into in order to get the pipe laid at a certain depth to prevent freezing. I believe they went 18 inches down.