Back at the Delaney House

I recognize that the blog has become somewhat dull of late, mostly because the work we have been doing has been somewhat dull. There is just so much one can write about stripping and scraping redwood trim. No matter how beautiful it is, it is still dull, tedious work.

But now things are happening at the Delaney House:

The plumbing for the downstairs bathroom

We're hoping to pour the new slab this week.  David the plumber came and installed the drain waste and vent pipes for the first floor bathroom (all of which are in the slab), along with the drain for the mechanical room.  Tom installed a plastic vapor barrier, and then Tom and Jimmy worked to put all the rebar in place and tie it all off.

The rebar in place, ready for the new concrete slab

Tomorrow, the inspection is happening for the plumbing. Assuming we pass, we'll backfill the holes around the plumbing with gravel, lay the vapor barrier backdown around the pipes, and the concrete slab will be poured Thursday or Friday.

Also on Thursday, the Kolbe windows for the downstairs are arriving.  Artistic Millwork has done a great job in getting us the windows, faster than we expected, so they are being delivered Thursday morning, and Tom and I will meet the truck and move the windows up into the Cheney Cottage for storage.  Eric and his crew are going to finish framing the doors and the bay window, so this weekend Tom and I hope install all 12 windows.  Soon, we hope,  the Delaney House will actually be weather tight AND lock-able!

The new front entrance for the Delaney House - concrete posts for the columns in place

At the Cheney Cottage, not much happened except scraping.  I have been working on installing the St. Charles kitchen cabinets, and have the base cabinets in along with the large overhead cabinet with the glass doors.  We are installing a couple more upper cabinets on the wall near the bathroom, so the Delaney kitchen, albeit small, should have plenty of storage.  The cabinets are going to look great, and now we're trying to decide what kind of counter to put in.  Granite seems to be de rigueur these days, but I hate granite - it's so cold and unfriendly.  We were hoping to put in Corian, which has a linoleum-like look but comes in some beautiful colors and is indestructable. But Corian is also unbelievably expensive ($13/square foot), so we'll probably go with some version of linoleum.

 Kitchen cabinets and stove in the Cheney Cottage