Water storage tank delivered!

Wow, thanks to my neighbor George (who coordinated the whole pain-staking process), the 1850 gallon solid concrete water storage tank was delivered today.

Water storage tank (incorrectly referred to as "cistern" by island locals)

I will be heading back up this weekend to help with some water tank set-up as well as finishing up the pex supply line plumbing, wall insulation, and other miscellaneous tasks. 

Moving along...

Last weekend I installed the coaxial cable runs for the bedrooms and great room, ran about 90% of the pex water supply lines, and 1/2 of the wall insulation. Saturday night I was so caught up in the insulation mess, I worked until 3:00 am Sunday morning. Tim (Hulk Hogan) finished the drain plumbing with the hope to complete the pressure test this week.

R13 kraft faced insulation in the exterior facing walls

Pex manifold and supply lines in progress

Unfortunately, I ran out of blue 1/2 pex tubing or I would have finished the job on Sunday. Working with pex is without question the easiest way to install water supply lines. I was able to finish 90% of the rough-in work in 3-4 hrs with no previous plumbing experience at all! Of course, this is all dry fitting, since I have no water supply to test yet. Hopefully, I can post the photos of the final product (all strapped up) in a few weeks!

New cottage name?

Bonnie and I (and Anna) have been kicking around a new idea for the official name of the cottage. We are now thinking we like "Our House" better than "Our-Little-Cottage". Anyway, the song "Our House" by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young was actually our wedding song. We still love it as much as we did when we danced to it on June 20, 1998.

My rough design of our new idea

The whole "Our House" concept has really been a central theme throughout our marriage (and life together). so I guess it just makes natural sense to carry it forward...

Let there be light!

Big weekend, we totally "rocked-out" the electrical rough-in for the cottage (in two days!) and still managed to have some laughs (and beers). Uncle Al and Joe, co-owners of ANJ Electric LLC, are serious about what they do. I can't thank them enough for their expertise and quality work.

Joe and Al working hard

Uncle Al

Working on the panel

Big Joe

Switch box

It's a little tricky to try and accurately capture a whole house electrical rough-in with pictures. However, the photo above is a nice example of the quality work of ANJ Electric (440 427 0577). Huge thanks from me and the family!

More family, less construction

Just got back from a great long weekend with the family up on the island. We visited the Carnival, enjoyed a nice boat ride (thanks John), and played in the pool at the Venture Resort. Bonnie decided to take the family up to Put-In-Bay for the day on Wednesday.

Bonnie and the girls at the Carnival

Me and my boy on cousin John's new boat

The whole family on the boat enjoying the day

Sophie just "sitting on the dock of the bay"

Mom and Bonnie with coconut drinks (their new favorite thing) back at the Cedar Cottage

The whole crew at Papa T's famous ice cream downtown KI

Bonnie at Put-In-Bay

Anna at Put-In-Bay

Although this trip was dedicated to the family, we were able to get the plumbing drains started (thanks Tim, a.k.a. "Hulk Hogan"). Here is the bulk of the pvc fittings. I also brought up ~200 ft of pvc pipe in various diameters. The plan is to have the drain plumbing rough-in completed by the end of next weekend.

Mess of pvc fittings

I am heading back up to Kelleys on Friday to start more work on the whole house electrical and hopefully wrap-up the drain plumbing.

Good times

Bonnie and I had some big fun on the island this weekend. On Friday, we just chilled and made our rounds to our favorite places and had dinner at the Village Pump. On Saturday, Ron and Sandy took us up to Put-In-Bay for the day on their boat. The weather was beautiful and a good time was had by all.

Perry's monument from the boat heading to Put-In-Bay

We stopped for a few cocktails at the new Mojito Bay - Tiki Bar. This place is ridiculously fun! Great drinks (~30 flavors of Mojitos all made with fresh muddled mint and lime - wow), the floor is all sand, open air, live entertainment, etc. I even won a free drink because I could name 3 of the 5 members of the Traveling Wilburys. Bonnie was in heaven swinging on the hanging bench style bar stools.

Bon enjoying a rum drink in a fresh coconut 

On Sunday (much less exciting but way more productive), Tim and I installed the gutter drains and started planning the interior plumbing.

Back of the house side gutter drain dry-fitted

Gutter drains, 2 sump pump lines and the new outdoor sump crock

Next steps are to install gutters (and downspouts), hard-pipe the new outdoor sump pump and back-fill the entire mess. This area will be eventually covered by the deck. I will need to build an access panel to get at this stuff from above. Hopefully, we can get rolling on the rest of the pluming soon.

Hot! Hot! Hot!

Holy frijole! Made it up to the island on Thurs, July 5th and wow... it was hot! Crazy hot! Ultra humid with a heat index of well over 100 deg. I seriously can't recall painful heat like this in recent memory. Anyway, I got the pex manifold installed for the water fixture supply (can't wait to get rolling on the rest of the pex plumbing).

Manabloc water management manifold - for 1/2" pex tubing

Uncle Al came up on Friday morning to install the electrical service and meter base on the outside of the cottage and the electrical panel on the inside - all while fighting the extreme heat.

Electrical service - nice!

Inside panel - ready to rock-n-roll

Saturday, despite the 3rd straight day of gross heat and unforgiving humidity, I was able to paint the front door and hard-pipe the crawlspace sump pump. Did I mention it was hot?

Freshly painted front door

Crawlspace sump pump - done. 

Ran into another snag with the cistern installation. Although we did receive our permit in the mail last week, we need to re-layout the plot plan (again) to accommodate the required set-backs from the road, etc. As expected, nothing is easy (or cheap) on the island...

Funny, now that the weekend is over, and I'm back to reality (Monday on the mainland), the temperature is in the mid 70s with low humidity - absolutely beautiful. Perfect. Go figure.

Next weekend, Bonnie and I are headed-up to have some fun (a little work) and spend some much needed "no-kids" time together. Looking forward to it!