Hybrid House, Part 6
Things with the house have slowed way down, because what’s to be done now are the technical, tedious, but before we get into that, there are a couple things I forgot to show you.
The men from Trinity Lutheran, Midland, Michigan installed the attic access pull down steps. In our current home, we have no attic storage and no closets. I climbed up there yesterday, and once I get some plywood up there, we will have some nice storage.
Forgot to show you the four-foot shower in the family bathroom. See the little transom window up there? Isn’t it cute? It caused some serious problems earlier. The installer did not realize the shower would be a one-piece unit, so once the shower arrived, I discovered it overlapped the window by a couple of inches. I was thinking of ways to custom fit the shower stall around the window (like at Camp Dularge, remember?), but the builder thought it was easier to remove two panels of metal from the exterior, remove the window, cut the iron framework and re-weld it, move the window up, reinstall two new panels of metal, and voila! It’s all done!
In the master bath is a one-piece shower/tub combination. I’m sadly giving up my clawfoot tub, which was one of my most ambitious projects in years past. My current bathroom, pictured in the above link, has been my sanctuary for the past ten years, and I will really miss it. With more planning, maybe I could have duplicated it in the new house? Oh well . . . . moving on to the new . . .
Just off the end of the back porch, on its own little platform, sits the condensing unit for the cooling part of the HVAC system–the fancy acronym for heating and cooling. All appliances must be above the flood plain, including water heaters, washers, dryers, frig. and freezers, because flood insurance will not cover any appliances below a certain elevation.
Because we are stretching the dollars, we could not afford the high SEER that we would have liked, so all you Greenies out there, please forgive us. We’re doing the best we can with what we have. Just remember that I laid out the doors and windows to take advantage of prevailing winds, so that we might not always have to use the A/C.
This is the return air closet, looking up into the . . .
attic unit portion of the heating and cooling . . . you know they call all this the “rough in”, right?
So, here’s what the air conditioning duct work and register looks like before everything is closed in.
After the HVAC, came the electrical rough-in. I had no clue there were so many different kinds of wire. Here are two that went into our house recently.
by this young man, standing on the trusty new attic steps . . .
He may be young, but he definitely knows his stuff, and he’s a hard worker, too.
So, we have wires hanging everywhere. And they are installing the phone lines and the cable wires, also.
To be continued . . . .
PS Because of the large number of bloggers reaching out to Community Coffee for prizes, they are changing the way they market through us. I’m sorry to say that we won’t be giving away a product per week as in the past. I know some of you have been wondering, and that you will now cry yourself to sleep tonight because you will no longer have the chance to win. Therefore, I guess I’ll have to get creative, like I used to do, and come up with some more original BW contests. What would you like to do first? Name that photo? Find that photo? Name that flower? And I think your prize will be a BW original photo, which a couple of you have told me you display proudly in your homes or offices. So, let me have some feedback, okay?
I like the idea of a BW original photo for prizes. Maybe you could have on your blogsite a spot where they can go choose the one they’d like. As far as a contest I think “Name that photo” and “Name that flower” are my favorites.
In the past, I’ve emailed the winner photos that he/she could choose from, but that’s a good idea. THanks.
Aint building fun?
Fun? Hm. Let me think about it!
I like the ‘name the photo’. You may want to consider a ‘where am I’ contest once in a while, too.
I get so excited to see the progress on your new home! I hunger for new pictures of any progress! Living in an older mobile home myself makes it all the more exciting. I know it must be a lot of work and aggravation at times, but it will definately be worth it when it’s done.
Never enough wire. Send the kid up here I got some replacing needs done and additions.
Saw flock of sandhill cranes today on way back from BassPro and Gander Mt.
I might make it through kayak and crappie season now.
I removed about 10 of those old tubs from houses being demolished. 4 were upstairs unbelievably.
Never seen sandhill cranes. Ganer Mt. = Wal Mart? Hope you make it through. When is the Palooza? What did you do with the tubs?
PP VI is May 15. Fourchon.
Gander Mt = Cabela’s sorta kinda maybe. Some tubs broke.
Some tubs got recycled as tubs or cattle watering troughs. Some were taken over by cold and stoney virgins named Mary. I remember having to dig a couple out of ground after the drop from upstairs to ground.
I was beginning to wonder how The Bayou Manor was coming along. Cross ventilation is great, but when the humidity is up there, I NEED air conditioning!
BTW, prizes are great, but I think the majority of us would continue to visit with or without a prize. One never knows what to expect when we log on. Cooking, hunting, fishing, constuction, “tell all”, photography etc.
Well, thank y’all for hanging in here with me because building a house sort of dries up the creative juices!!!
I feel for you on losing that tub! We are eventually going to have to replace ours I think. The kids replaced the flooring in our bathroom while I was in the hospital last Sept. and when my son in law went to pick up his end of that heavy monster, he and the tub went thru what was left of the floor! SIL was ok and they used hydraulic jacks to get it back up but, one of the legs was damaged slightly. It has a small ridge inside the tub from the bent leg now.
I wonder how much one weighs with 40+ gallons of water in it?? Finding the right faucet for it was a pain too. Had to go to a salvage place in Dallas to get another one. They don’t make them anymore!
I am with Steffi on the prizes. They are nice but, I enjoy the site with or without them. I like the name the flower contests.
I would like to take the old tub out to the new house, but the plumber looked at me like I was crazy when I asked him to put plumbing on the porch!!! Lots of productive mental percolating was done while soaking in my tub over the years, and I don’t think the new one will lend itself to much of that. Besides, I was too embarrassed to climb in it in the store and try it out first!!!
The shower stall is exactly like mine in the master bath and I love it. Your old claw tub is amazing and I’d put on the porch and let the plumber figure it out!
An idea of what to do with that tub if you cant—-someone donated a tub like that to our school library when I was in the 2nd grade and it STILL sits in the corner, full of pillows for kids to sit and read in. To this day, kids still fight over who gets to read in the tub. My entire Senior class fit into it (all 16 of us, lol) for our last group picture. If you can’t take it with you, donate it!
What a cute idea, though I don’t think I could part with it! I’ll keep it and decide later. It would take another sky trac to lift that thing up to the porch any way!!!
Haul your tub to the new house, put it on the porch and use it as a planter. I’d plant tomatoes and green onions, but I’m pretty sure you’d plant petunias. LOL!
Are you making fun of me, woman? Oh, I plan to keep the tub, I’m just not sure what I will do with it yet. Not a priority right now.
Actually, I don’t see you as a “Petunia person” LOL. However, I sure can see you transplanting a variety of Louisiana Irises in it.
Steffi, you know me amazingly well!
Hey, I would have said to use it as a live well, but I know you only use artificial baits. Then, I remembered seeing a TV commercial with 2 tubs on a dock. Man in one ,lady in the other. It was an ad for one of the impotence pills. Maybe you could find another tub and put it on your dock. LOL!!
LOL is right!!!!!
Love the clawfoot tub, and loved its “place” in your world”.
Sandhill cranes are wonderful. They’re grayish, and maybe 4′, and they can make a racket. There’s an area about halfway between Galveston and Port Aransas, slightly inland, where they farm a lot of rice, and the sandhills always stop by for the winter. They’re a lot easier to find than the whooping cranes, too.
Glad to see all that wire-pulling going on. Personally, if I had to give anyone a little extra time to work, I believe I’d give it to the electricians. That stuff’s like black magic to me.
Looking great! My sister had one of the tubs filled with pillows too. Used to love going to her house and sleeping in the bathtub when I was a kid.
I’ll trade you the player piano for the tub!! I’d also like to use the electrician – think he’d make a trip up north?
The progress on the house is exciting!!
Wait, wait a second. Who said I wanted to get rid of my tub?
Cute electrician! I do like those Native American-looking ones. 😉