Almost There!

Zimmer Family
Residence

circa April, '07











Zimmer Family
Residence

Computer Rendering












Zimmer Family
Residence

circa October, '07








Hey Friends!

The final paint coat is on the walls, the electrical fixtures and outlets are hooked up and working. The fireplace is kicking out tons of heat! Our tile floor is warm as the radiant floors are up and working! The exterior siding is finally complete....we're almost there!

We've got just a few items (a dozen or so) left on the punch list to complete our 600sf addition.


Here's a list of some of the bigger issues:

- Shower repair. My shower drain ended up in a high spot, so I have to modify the floor pan
to slope to the drain.
- Add handrail to stairs.
- Add door hardware.
- Trim out replacement windows. We had the old metal, single-pane windows from the '50's in our main house. We had bought replacement windows from Pella, and Jeff and I cut out the old windows just before our storm last weekend (4" of snow!) I got the windows inserted
and weathered-in before the storm hit, but now I need to trim them out and make
them look perty.
- Add a cap to the wainscot
- Add two gutters

Not much work left, and some of it can be done during the winter months. Kathy and I have been living in the space since it got carpeted in August, and we have been loving it! It's great to get closer and closer with each passing weekend. Soon we will be all done with construction and turn our attention to skiing on the weekends.

I'm looking forward to hanging the Christmas lights this year with our new exterior profile. The new front gable should prove to be a great addition to our light arrangement. I also included an X-10 outlet outside our bedroom doors. This will allow me to program the outlet via my computer and us the programming from our home-security system to control when the Christmas lights go on and off. Just another guy-gadget. I'll let you know how it turns out!



Note to Jeff and Nate:
Remember how careful we were with laying out the floor heat fabric and wire? Remember how much attention we gave to making sure not to pinch or damage the wire? Well guess what. My electrician finally hooked up the wires -- and there was a short on the closet-side wire, preventing it from working. I was REALLY bummed. My electrician was able to hook up the wire under the tile and it worked just fine, but the other wire was grounding out when he tested it with his Ohm-meter, which meant that there was a fault in the wire, either a nail nicking it or a pinch in the line or even a point in the line that got severed. And we were so careful with the loud mouth! Then I noted that 4 of the entry tiles were under the other mat, because the bathroom floor would be warm except for the first 4 tiles as you enter. This made me even MORE bummed! I started thinking about where the problem could be. I was sure the carpet guy had nailed one of his tack strips thru one of the wires. The loud mouth had run out of batteries by the time the carpet was being laid down, so there was no way to warn us if he accidentally nailed through our wires. We knew the tackstrip near the bathroom threshold was tight, so I had made sure he glued down the strip instead of nailing it down, but the rest were all nailed down. I asked my sparky if there was anyway to track where the fault might be, and he had no way of tracing it. Then I remembered one key error (you guys may not know about this). The door openings into the bathroom and closet were designed for a 28" door. But I ordered 24" custom doors from Lowes, an error which I did not realize until the day I was setting them. Standing there with custom doors 4" too narrow, I decided to hug the hinge-sides tight to the existing opening and add 2- 2x4's to the jamb to fur the opening to fit the 24" doors. This meant that I had to add more drywall, tape and mud and abut the already finished walls. It sucked, but it was a good fix. UNTIL THE CARPET GUY CAME! I didn't even think about it, but he laid out his tack strip tight to the new opening. I was thinking about this when it hit me -- we laid out the wire 3-4" from the walls. Well, I'm sure there was a wire right in his NEW path for the tack strip near the extended jamb. Working off of this assumption, I pulled up the carpet at the closet door jamb area and found 4 possible nails that could be the culprit. I pulled the nails (thus losing one tack strip at the door jamb) and had my sparky re-test the wire for a fault. IT WAS CLEAN!He hooked the wire up to the T-stat and it's all up and running the way it was meant to be! YEA!! Just thought you might enjoy this little story, since we worked so hard and were so careful on installing the floor. I thought I was going to have to abandon the heated floor, but now it works! The nail must have just nicked the wire and not severed it completely. All because I never replaced the loud mouth battery!!!


Well, that's about it for now. I have some other non-house related pictures to post of the family. I will create a separate blog entry later for them. We're still working on the red-tape paper work for Kimmee. At this point we are planning on traveling in January to Korea to go bring her home! Other than that, we are just gearing up for Halloween next week: the kids will be going out as a pair of pirates! Will post pics!


On a side note, I would like to dedicate this blog entry to my cousin, Sean, who recently passed away from diabetic complications. He was almost 32 and left behind 2 children and his wife. It's tough losing a family member, and especially hard when the younger ones leave us early. He was one of the few die-hard Bronco fans in our big family and Kathy and I would always enjoy talking football with him at Christmas. One year we had wrapped up a Bronco's sweatshirt for the family gift exchange, which he immediately snatched up. His joy in "winning" our sweatshirt still brings us smiles.

Rest-in-peace, Sean. You will be deeply missed. We will continue to keep your family in our thoughts and prayers.