End of Year and leaves......

The leaves have fallen, now is the time to blow them away!

I actually mulch them and use them in my garden.

New Batch of chickens

We thought we would try another bred in desperation to find laying chickens. They turned out to be 2 months away from eggs! I should have known.

The coop all cleaned up ready for the new baby chicks.

It is so hard to believe they will be laying eggs in 5 months!

The Bedroom Bathroom Cabinet

We got this cabinet from our recycling guy years ago, it is beautifully made so we decided to modify it to fit.We had to cut off one section, then it fit perfect!

Richard made a stand for it to sit on to elevate it a bit.

In place and ready for the top.

The Bedroom porch

We finished the tin except for the front. There we are installing a porch. First is the board that will hold the roof of the porch and enable the siding to overlap the roof of the porch.

Then comes the posts that support the porch roof at the front.

The rafters are next to support the roofing material. ie the decking, tar paper and tin.

And that is as far as we got because we decided to make the porch roof longer. Oh well......

The sheetrock goes up in the Bedroom

We hired some locals to hang the sheetrock, they did this in a day! It is truly an art to do this!
They do this all the time and were very reasonable. It would have taken us forever and I know it would not have looked so good.

WOW IT REALLY IS LOOKING LIKE A ROOM!!!
As you can see we covered the floor with cardboard, always necessary!

One guy came back to "float " , that is the process that  covers up the seams and nail heads.

Insulation for the Bedroom

The insulation is always a bear, it is fiberglass after all! It is not a hard job, but because Richard can be more affected than me , it is my job.

It is a matter of having the studs either 16" or 24" on center, that is the width the insulation comes in., you do not want to be cutting or piecing together insulation between the studs.We used 6" insulation.

The out-side tin goes up on the bedroom/ almost

Now for the walls, Measure twice, cut once, not as easy as you would think!

Richard filed the edges so they would be smooth.

We used the house wrap on the walls before installing the metal.

 It was tricky around the windows but carefully measuring was the key.

Soffit installation for the bedroom

To finish out the overhang we used hardiplank soffit. We had to frame out the voids to attach the soffit to with 2X4s.

This is me holding the piece in place with my feet, I was on my back on the scaffolding!
It was actually the easiest way to hold it.

We slowly moved down and around until it was all done!

Gas line and Hot water heater

We decided to use an on demand hot water heater and got the cover to protect it,

The gas line is installed, which we had to hire an authorized person to do this.

This was the line all the way to the tank which we hand dug.

Here is what the inside looks like, Electric start, gas feeds, water in and out  and a wire that goes inside to the controller .

Staining the floor of the bedroom

It is still hot here so we decided to finish the floors with the walls still open.
here is what the poured cement looks like before any color.....

And here it is with just the color applied......

Here is the finished floor!

It is not hard to do this process. You need to test the color on your cement first to see if that is the right color to use. I used an acid resistance sprayer to apply the acid color. I let it dry then washed it to see how it would look after it was sealed. I then let it dry thoroughly , then applied the sealer 3Xs letting it dry for a day between coats.

Electrical, plumbing and ceiling insulation for Bedroom

I ran the electrical myself, that way we have the outlets and lights just where we want them.We always use code as our guide and save thousands of dollars. It is not hard, I studied the electrical manual I got from Home Depot,it was well written and easy to understand. The good thing about running electrical lines is you probably have the tools already with a few others specific to electrical work.

We did hire a plumber to do the rough out and finish work, but there were mistakes that we had to amend as we went along. We realized that we had to be right with them every step of the way or they would do not so careful installations.

They did install the special water pipes made of a material that cannot split when it freeze's.
That did take special equipment.

The insulation went up next, we used 5 inch Styrofoam in a double  thickness, alternating the sheets.
I used a 4 foot long T-square and cut it with a wood saw, it worked very well.

I measured and fit them as tight as I could using little nails to hold them in place where necessary.

It made a huge difference in the heat exchange from the roof heating up the room, even with the walls uncovered.

Then the Tyvek went up to add another moisture /heat barrier.