Workshop - Days 27-31

The replacement door finally arrived, and it wasn't built properly either. However, in this case the company was able to send someone to fix it on site.

Once the door was in place, I was able to get the last of the siding up and the outside of my workshop is complete!

I called for the final inspection, but I didn't pass on the first try. Since my workshop is so close to the back of our property, I am required to have 5/8" firecode gypsum board installed on the interior wall. Since I still have to do wiring, I hadn't done that yet.

After discussing it with the inspector, I have put up the gypsum board but have not taped and finished the seams. This was enough to pass my inspection as "substantially complete" with the understanding that I would be properly finishing the interior.

So, as of 10:30 am today, my workshop's building permit is closed. Now I can get started on the interior.

Drumming

When Emma's not playing, Leo thinks the bass drum is a wonderful kitty house.

Emma's been working hard, and she's finally getting to lessons that sound like music.

Workshop - Days 19-26

I've hit my first big roadblock on building the workshop: the door was not built properly. It's amazing that the door was able to get past quality control and out of the factory. Problems include:

• The installation hardware and instructions are missing.
• The frame isn't square. (The header is 3/16" longer than the sill.)
• The slabs aren't mounted square on the hinges.
• There is weather stripping missing.
• The brick mould was packed before the paint had fully cured and therefore the paint peeled when I separated the pieces.

The company is being good about it and is sending me a new door, but the replacement won't be here until the middle of December. So, for now I have the door just tacked in place to keep the snow and critters out. Until I get the proper door, however, I can't do much on the front of the workshop.

With the roof, the house wrap, and the temporary door in place, the workshop is now water tight and the electrician was able to come in and hook up the panel for me. So now I've got a couple lights and wall plug temporarily hooked up in the workshop. It's so much more convenient than stringing extension cords across the back yard.

While doing the electrical, I ordered the siding. Unfortunately, there were problems with the siding order too. The siding we chose for the house and workshop comes in random lengths, but I really don't want seams in my trim pieces. So I paid a premium to ensure that I only got 8' pieces of trim. Unfortunately, the shipper sent me pieces that were at least 8' long. So, I need four 8' lengths of 2x5 trim, but what I got was a 9', an 11', and a 12' piece. So I got the overall length I want, but not the pieces I need. Again, they were good about getting my the extra pieces of trim so that I wouldn't have seams, but it was another frustrating delay.

Anyhow, once I got my additional trim pieces, I started plugging away at getting the siding up, spending a couple hours each day at it. Unfortunately, I can't put the siding on the front wall until I have the new door installed. I was able, however, to put enough siding on the front wall to allow the aluminium guys to get started. They should be here later this week.

So Much for Peace and Quiet

Workshop - Days 17 and 18

I really want to get the outside of the workshop done before the snow flies, and the roof in particular. Given that I still have to get the boat put away for the winter as well, I decided to bring in the pros to do the shingles.

While they were doing the roof, I put on the house wrap and installed the windows. Next stop: the door and siding.

Workshop - Days 12-16 "It's just like a little house!"

For some reason, when I show a picture of my completely framed workshop, the first thing that I hear is: "it's just like a little house!"

I spent a few more half days getting the framing completed, and then I got stalled by a paperwork mix-up. Originally, the workshop was supposed to be under the same building permit as our house. Late in the renovation, however, I discovered that for some reason the workshop had been dropped from the permit.

The contractor was good and got me a separate building permit for my workshop. Of course, this new permit doesn't have any record of any inspections against it, so when I called in for my framing inspection, I was told that I still had to have my excavation and shoring inspected. Given that the foundation is poured and the workshop built, this could be a wee bit challenging. However our contractor stepped up again and had his engineer come out and do the inspection.

Now I've got a letter from the engineer saying my workshop has a proper foundation and has been properly built, so I can move on to getting the shingles and siding on. All it cost me was a two week delay. (But that wasn't so bad because I had to get the boat ready for haul-out).

Quotes

A couple quotes from Emma this last week:

• Emma and Christine had had a rough morning and had been butting heads a fair bit. When I got Emma to school, her best friend bounced over to see her and suggested that they play house. She'd be the mommy and Emma would be the baby. Emma looks at her and says, "You can't pretend to be my mommy. My mommy is grumpy."  [In my defense, she woke me up in the middle of the night and I was awake for 2 hours. C. ]

• Emma was talking about werewolves, so I asked her what a werewolf is. She replied: "A werewolf is a scary wolf...that freaks people out...and...and...and is aware of things."