Building a Modern Day Craftsman
Web Log of the construction of the Cullman Cottage



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The Web Logs
Days 1 through 68 * Days 69 through 162 * Days 170 through 280
Days 283 through Day 307 * Days 319 through 350 * Days 351 through 403
Day 346 * Days 420 through Day 448 * Days 546 though Day 662
* Days 663 though Present

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12/10/04	DAY 406 (DAY 27 IN THE HOUSE) Wow, I didn't realize we had been in the house three weeks now till just now. We are settled in as well as we can. Cabinets are on track for Christmas week. I have been doing a wiring on the panel and the alarm. It amazing how what I think would be four hour job turns into two and half days! Thought I would show you something a bit different. I have mentioned that I was going to install a 6' long aquarium as a room divider. I have to order a tank and build the stand but mean time I have put up a 65 gallon in it's place till I can get to that project. With all the recent rain our ground is soaked and the river is in flood stage. My neighbors pond is overflowing and he we loosing fish out his over flow. Since my tanks are pretty much empty I took advantage of this situation and dipped up a few that would have died if not rescued. Click on the Photo for a larger image. This photo is was shot in center of the tank. You can see 3 of the tanks inhabitants. The stump to the right, I am really proud of. I caught my wife walking to the fire with it in her hand a few years ago. I had wanted a small stump for my tank for some time. I had talked to a buddy of mine about paddeling up to the head waters of the lake and see if we could find one we could dig up out of the water. When I saw This one I couldn't believe it. No way was I going to let that stump burn! Don't look to close at the photo. You will see my orange cord on the lights on my hood and the algae that is starting to form on the glass. And a few other flaws I won't point out. Here you can see one of the three bluegill I have in there. This guy is especially curious and was following my camera around the tank. He was either a Ham or he figured out I am the one that puts food in the tank! :-) Bet I know which one. Not the best photo of the fish but these crappie are still very shy. They turn away as soon as you point a camera at them. Pull it away and they turn back around. I have not got them to eat anything yet. Tomorrow I am going to try to pick up some small feeder minnows and see if they will take them. That is their main food in the wild I think. There are a lot of reflections off the glass but you can get a good look at him (or her?) I will keep updating the web site till the house in finished. However the updates will probably not be very frequent as there simple isn't that much to show anymore.
12/15/04	DAY 425 (DAY 27 IN THE HOUSE) IT'S ALWAYS SOMETHING! I am sure you have heard someone say "If it's not one thing it another. We have a big something this morning. Were having very cold weather here. It's in the teens and it not much warmer inside our house. If the thermometer on my kitchen table is correct it's 48 degrees inside. After a little bit of messing around I have decided that the backup heat is not working. We have a heat pump which works well except those few days in the winter we have very low temps like this. Heatpumps have a backup heater for these times. It appears mine is not working. I have a call into the people that installed the unit and I am waiting on call back form them. Hopefully they will get it fixed today. If not......... well I don't know but a warm motel room is looking good!
12/16/04	DAY 426 (DAY 28 IN THE HOUSE?) ABANDON SHIP, ALL HANDS ABANDON SHIP! As I type this it is 42 degrees per the thermometer in my kitchen. We spent the night with a neighbor. Mitch worked on the unit and found the original problem and a new one popped up. As I suspected the strip heaters were not working. It was a simple wiring problem. They got that fixed fairly quick once they found it. House warmed up nicely. Then I noticed it cooling off. I checked and the unit was dead. To keep this short it had blown a low voltage fuse that operates the thermostat. Mitch lives just down from me so he came back, replaced the fuse and thought he had found the problem. About an hour latter it did it again. He was stumped and needed to call the manufactor so we abandon ship. Nothing like moving in a house that is not finished!
12/31/04	DAY 426 (DAY 44 IN THE HOUSE?) TWO WEEKS TO CABINETS! What all has happened? The big news is our (second) cabinet maker showed up Tuesday night to go over the final plans for the cabinets. We verified everything, tweeked the plans and he would start on them Wednesday morning. We asked him for an approximate date and he said they should be installing them in two weeks! We will both be SO happy to have that. We can finally unpack all he boxes marked kitchen! The heating unit is fixed and the attic insulation is in. The unit had run none stop during thr cold spell prior to the insulation being installed. We have not had any really cold weather since they got it installed but I can still tell that unit doesn't run nearly as much as it use to. I have finished installing the tile on the fireplace. All that is left is to grout the tile. I don't have any or I would have finished it up today. It doesn't look like I expected and it's not a traditional Craftsman look. The hearth tile looks traditional but the face tile is really bold. But I like it. Anxious to see the cabinets in place. I think they will tone the "look" down a bit and pull it all together. I have finished installing the alarm system. Had one problem that I simply could not figure out. I had read the manual over and over to no avail. I finally found a place on the Internet I could post my questions. The problem was so simple! I will not go into details on here but I had installed an expansion board in the system and discovered that there is a little tidbit of information in the board manual that is not in the main manual. I had forgotten it had it's own manual. Once I found it the problem was simple and everything works like it is supposed to. I am sure there are other things that I am forgetting. But we are down to the details and minor items now. I did have some visitors two weeks ago. It's not clear but I snapped a photo while the seven of them were not paying attention.
1/22/05	DAY 448 (DAY 66 IN THE HOUSE) CABINETS! Things have been busy around here. House progress has slowed down as I have gone back to work. I have been meaning to update this for a couple of weeks now. We finally have cabinets. No doors yet but the cabinets are installed. That has made life easier but at the same time we are now down to one sink in the house. I have a laundry sink and cabinet I am trying to get finished so I can install it in the Laundry room That will give us a place to wash dishes at least. These are photos of the cabinets just after they were installed. No counter tops yet but they are on order too. The front porch finally has a set of steps. I don't think it is really clear in the photo but the steps are made of sandstone. Natural to this area. Also you can see one of the columns I am working on. I got this one roughed out in my shop last night. It is not assembled and is held together with a tie down strap. I wanted to make sure the it was the right proportions for the house. And it make sure of my sizes before I cut them to length. Will finish them up next week. Then I have to make the ones for the inside of the house. This is my favorite part of the house. My shop! After 20 years I finally have a shop and it is coming together. Slowly but it is happening.