Day 38: Feb. 22, 2011

I just took a quick tour back through the blog. It's fun to see the progress and changes in plans. I have to keep up this blog: it will be a priceless reminder of the Martha experience.

You may have noticed the "Day" count in this blog's title jumped. I was only counting workdays, but that didn't make sense. So I changed the count to reflect the number of days since we received the keys to Martha. When I have a chance, I'll go back and change the other blog titles. My goal is to make this a 90-day project. (Who just laughed?)

The play is over, so I have my evenings back. Now the snow is with us. An ice storm Sunday night closed schools on Monday. This morning, there's more snow coming down.

I was making great progress on heat runs when my reciprocating saw died. Instead of putting the runs in the living room wall (and making a chase necessary), I decided to put them in the kitchen wall. This makes a straight run from where the new furnace will be located, through the west bedroom closet, and into the attic. The other wall in the kitchen already has a chase for a cold-air duct, so I'll simply put 45-degree angled ceilings on opposite walls. No one will know they hide ductwork. Plus, this lets me put some electrical wiring outside the walls, making the electrical work easier.

The route through the bedroom closet will bump out the wall behind the door a good 6-8 inches, but once it's dry-walled over, I don't think anyone will be able to tell it wasn't an original wall.

Anyhoo, after the saw died (may it rest in peace), I spent the rest of the day working on wiring the kitchen. I almost finished, so that feels good. I'll have to make a trip to Auburn to buy a new saw. (I'm a tool snob, so I have to buy them at Home Depot.)

Right now the house is virtually without electricity. I made a temporary circuit to give my tools power and to run the furnace. Other than that, I've torn out so much old wiring that I decided not to try to determine what is on which circuit, etc. Instead, I'm just tearing it all out and starting new at the box.

PM

I spent most of today cleaning up so that I had two trash bins full for collection tomorrow. The basement now looks much bigger (and cleaner).

I also finished running wiring for kitchen lights and lights in the hallway leading to the basement.

The following photos show what the east kitchen wall now looks like (baring the studs was necessary to get the hot air ducts up to the second floor). The second photo shows how I ran wire outside of the kitchen wall. (It will be covered up with the 45-degree chase that is necessary to allow the ducts to go through the second story floors.) The third photo shows the holes in the bedroom closet floor where flexible duct will be used to get the heat into the attic (the flexible ducts will then be connected to the heat diffusers in the bedroom ceilings). And the final photo shows the attic access, which is in the back of that funny half-closet in the bathroom.