Why Stop at Just the Kitchen?

Alex woke the neighborhood early by hammering a hole in the floor of what used to be the entry hall coat closet. We need to move the electrical subpanel, which requires putting in a new sweep up from below the floor. He was quite surprised to find water pipes in the slab and--once we got the water shut off--couldn't understand why they were there. (They're part of the radiant heat system, and I was rather surprised to find them there too. The original building plans show no pipes in that area.)

Dining Room Extension

Alex also finished forming the floor for the dining room. The steel plate at the east end is a template to hold in place the bolts that will support a Simpson Strong-Wall, which will add some needed shear strength to a wall that's otherwise made only of glass. Two of the bolts extend all the way to the bottom of the footing.

Pool Area

It's not enough to have only the house in turmoil; today they started in on two exterior projects that we added to the list "as long as we had a contractor here." They put in some temporary shoring to hold up the shade structure over the shuffleboard court. The bottoms of nearly all the original posts had severe dry rot, so we're going to cut them off and build some new concrete piers.

A second project in the pool area is the result of the pool light being on the blink--literally. For several years we've felt it unsafe to use. But an electrician can't do anything about it until it's brought up to code, which means relocating the junction box several feet away from the pool and above the deck. (Currently, it's located in the deck a few inches from the edge of the pool.) A few months ago, Jan saw an article in Sunset that showed a planter full of rosemary and other plants under the diving board of a home in Pasadena. Soon there will be another home in Pasadena with such an arrangement.

Today Alex and Juan cut out the concrete deck (breaking the electric, water, and drain lines in the process). We now have no electricity anywhere out by the pool; all circuits are off. Most of the house circuits are also dead, so it's getting pretty dark around here.