Side room electrical

Because of where the breaker panel is, I had the outlet circuit break off in the two directions to loop around the room.  Because of the added 14/3 wire for the switched outlet and supply for the closet light, I had to order a special extra large single gang box to comply with NEC box fill requirements.

All of the closets have at least 1 outlet, along with a CAT6 jack

Here's the switches, all the bedrooms are basically the same.  Light closest to the door, fan in the middle, and outlet(s) on the right.

Lots of wires going places in these... Each of these light boxes took me about half an hour to terminate.

Front bedroom electrical

I wanted all the holes in the walls to be at the same height, so I used a harbor freight laser to make all the studs for all the holes and boxes.

Here's the level's I'm putting everything at for this room.  The adjacent rooms will be a bit different to making figuring out what wires will go where easier in the future.

There was this really cool old latch at the front by the one window, it looks like it was actually made by a blacksmith.  I wanted a box there, but I also didn't want to remove the latch, so I made a block to go around it.

Here it is with the 120V and ethernet/coax run in the corner.  Of course I made the ethernet and coax the same colors as romex... They are clearly different in person, but in pictures they're basically the same.  I'll be taking better pictures once I get the drywall on the ceiling and attic insulated so there's less junk laying around to get in the way.

Hallway electrical and subpanel

I'll be adding pictures of the hallway electrical once there stops being tons of stuff in the way.  I have the subpanel in the hallway and it'll get covered with a cabinet door later.  This picture is after the first part of all the circuits were done, all of the wires are labeled as well as them being labeled on the cover.

Each room as a separate lights and outlets breaker.  The lights power both the room and closet lights/fan, and there's also a switch for switched outlets on the light circuit.  The wire for the switched outlet goes through all the boxes so people can decide later which boxes they want to make switched.  This also allows each room to draw up to 35 amps which is nice.  If I was doing this again, I would just make the switched outlets on the same breaker as the rest of the outlets and use 12/3 instead, although it costs about the same.  For the most part, it is one continuous piece of copper from the breaker all the way to the last outlet on the circuit, which is cool.

Wrapping up framing

These weren't all done together, but it makes sense to group them all together since it's all framing.  I shrunk the weird closet a bit because the ceiling just got too low for the wall to be useful.

And the wall with the door way.  This door is going to look hilarious.

Front room closet wall, it's going to have 2 narrow doors which swing out

Master bedroom closet, it's a bit bigger than before, but not having the chimney makes it seem much larger on the inside.  I also tried to make it the correct dimensions to fit a washer/dryer for when I move up there.

Of course now that I'm done with this angled wall framing I'm actually getting the hang of it...  It fit perfectly.

And the extra small wall to cover the main plumbing stack.  I really wish that pipe wasn't crooked...

Removing wall sheathing/insulation

To build the closet walls and do the electrical I have to remove all the inside sheathing and insulation.  The insulation will get put into the attic later, and the walls will have fiberglass.

It was supposed to get really cold, so I decided to put plastic up on the living room ceiling since I could feel hot air coming up through the holes in the floor upstairs.  It worked pretty well, and honestly I think it looks better than before (although still terrible).

Dump Truck!

I decided to go in with my neighbor and coworker who has a farm to buy an old dump truck.  With me and my neighbor wanting to dig out our basements, and my coworker wanting to dig a pond on his farm, I found an old dump truck for $2500.  Driving it back took about 4 hours, and learning to drive an unsynchronized transmission is a lot harder than I thought.

I decided to get it weighed after I got it back to the farm:

The interior is in super rough shape, most of the guages don't work, the one working headlight is basically useless, only 1 of the 2 brake lights on each side works, the brake pedal sticks just enough for the tail lights to stay on, and the dump box is in super rough shape (works properly though).  But it runs (and starts) great with a decent battery, and was way cheaper than a reasonably sized dump trailer for my truck.  It's a 1979 GMC Brigadier with a 6-71 2-stroke Detroit Diesel and manual 13-speed Eaton transmission.

Cleaning...

The garage was a complete mess, and I couldn't even fit my car in it, so I decided to take some time to clean it up.  I didn't take any before pictures for some reason.  I didn't have space for all the tools floating around my garage, and pegboard was cheaper than toolboxes so I decided to get some of that and put a bunch of them up.

 

 

Finishing up the chimney

I only took down the chimney below the roof line before, so now I had to get it down below the floor.  The first part that was above the ceiling was by far the most time consuming since I had to constantly go up and down the ladder for buckets and weave between the ceiling joists to get at it.  At least there was somewhere nice to put the bucket while I was up there.

Once I got the chimney down more I noticed I could rock it back and forth, so that's interesting...

And finally down to the floor

Since I saw how many buckets it took to hold just the part over the chimney, I decided it's easier to just have a pile in the back yard that I can gradually put into my garbage cart.  The grass is already mostly gone from the trenching anyway.

Getting it ready for patching

I was surprised how much the changed the feel upstairs.  It almost makes it feel bigger and smaller than before at the same time.  Also this is what the roof patch looks like from underneath.

Finishing plumbing rough-in

I had to tie in the drain line from the tub and sink into the main stack in the basement temporarily, so I decided to use the old spot from the tub and sink before.

Since feeding the PEX has a relatively permanent natural bend to it from being in the spool, I grabbed this dryer vent cleaner thing that I bought a while ago for fishing wires and used it as gauge to shove the pipe over.  It actually worked pretty well.

I tied the cold supply in right where it used to be, so that was convenient since it was already 3/4", but the hot is 1/2" from the new water heater so I had to get an adapter for it.  As a side note, it's actually really nice how the pipes are colored.

Instead of using elbows for all the turns, I used these support things, since less joints is better (and cheaper).  Getting them over the 3/4" PEX was almost impossible though.  Maybe I was doing it wrong or there was a tool or something for it.

This is how I laid it out, for everything up stairs.  I'll be putting a cabinet in behind the tub in the hallway, so the ball valves will still be accessible after everything is done.

And the sink and tub stub out

When I put in the floor joists, I didn't really think about the fact that putting them closer together than 16" centers meant tools wouldn't fit... So I had to order some short spade bits to be able to run the water to the toilet.  At least I was able to leak test everything before then since I had to wait for the bits to come in.  Even with the short spade bits, it barely fit, even with my impact driver.  The plumbing inspector came by and I passed the rough in, so that's cool.