The fish are growing

Did a bit of fishing yesterday afternoon and managed to catch the biggest three since we've been here, a decent striped bass, a catfish with a belly full of catfish food and a nice bluegill ( I didn't know we had any in the pond).

The striped bass

Bluegill (very spikey dorsal!)

Tiny teeth on its jaw

Progress...

Things are moving pretty fast with sometimes four different subs (including me) working at once. The majority of the wiring has been completed and the breaker box will be wired in tomorrow, with the plumbing to start. We should get the inspection for both on Friday afternoon, spray remaining insulation on Monday and then the drywall crew will come in on Tuesday. 

Air ductwork above living room.

Ductwork and wiring along back wall of kitchen

Air handler (left) and breaker box (right)

We've put down the subfloor in the two smaller bedrooms so we can start on them as soon as the drywall is done next week.

A bit more of the siding done.

Patio doors part 2 + some siding

Patio doors in finally!

The patio doors arrived today and two were installed, the third will go in on Friday. These not only let in a lot of light but will allow us to continue putting up the siding on those front walls - we had to wait in order to get the siding to lie flush with the sides of the patio doors.

Three 3'x3' windows will go above the 3 panel door (the missing hole is just temporarily boarded up.

The A/C air ducts are now snaking over the closet and up above the trusses in the main room.

Jerry, electrician/plumber reckons he'll be finished by next Friday (26th) allowing the insulation to be sprayed in the remaining parts a.s.a.p. afterwards, then the drywall, assuming it passes the electrical/plumbing inspection :) We will also try to get the vapor barrier and plywood subfloor down before drywalling so that once they are done we can attack the bamboo hardwood flooring.

Electricity, rain, heat/air system and fish.

Our electrician/plumber has started work on wiring the house. We spent some time walking through each room talking over exactly what we wanted in terms of sockets and light placement. Basically that boils down to loads of sockets everywhere and spotlight tracks on the trusses. Hopefully it won't take more than a week and a half to complete, then we can get the remaining insulation sprayed in and the drywall started.

The roof seems to be doing its job well - we went down last night after a heavy thunderstorm and found no evidence of water intrusion, despite there being large holes where patio doors are going (they'll finally be installed next week). The roof overhangs also worked well to keep the rain away from the sides of the house, although we still have issues with water pooling at the base of the slope on the west side. We'll need a permanent drain to deal with that.

Air handler unit in the HVAC room. (Shower/bath at right)

Our neighbour Larry is installing our heat/air system, he says he's even happy to work over the weekend as he'll never have a job so close to home (he lives across the road on the ridge). He also helped solve our issues of getting a decent internet service on site - it had looked like we were going to have to get satellite internet which is not ideal for a number of reasons. Anyway, to cut a long story short, Larry uses a Verizon mobile broadband hotspot device (which acts as a wireless router) because there is a 100 foot antenna belonging to Verizon on his land, needless to say, we shouldn't have too many problems with signal. It's also handy as you can take it all over the USA and get internet access.

Last Thursday we drove to Whitepath Water Gardens in Ellijay to pick up some grass carp to take care of the weeds in the pond. We also picked up the last batch of catfish they had (63).

Happy!

Acclimatizing the fish to our pond's temperature.

Releasing the grass carp.

One of the catfish that took a while to swim out into the pond, away from the bank.

Found a freshly shed snakeskin in the pond and laid it out on a plank to dry it out. It was 5 feet long and possibly belonged to one of the water snakes we'e been seeing.

Interior shots

We had a good go at clearing out the house of all the lumber cut offs and rubbish once the roofing was complete. I took some photos of the interior pre-wiring:

Kitchen windows on west wall

Vanessa standing in the living room

View from north west corner of the kitchen

Living room (patio doors go in the boarded up openings)

Taken from south east corner of living room - the upper window 'holes' let in a surprising amount of light.

Me sitting on a ladder (as you do) to show the scale of the house.

Roof on

The remaining roof panels were installed today and the metal standing seam roofing will go on tomorrow. It was great to see the whole house enclosed and to see how the interior feels with the varying ceiling and truss heights. The 6 inch roof panel insulation seemed to be doing its job, with the interior being noticeably cooler.

Interior of living room

Still waiting...

The wait for our roof continues and aside from being incredibly frustrating, it's really holding things up. With visitors (family/friends) scheduled for mid-July, the pressure is on for things to get done in all-too-quick succession. We are working really hard to get the siding/cladding as complete as we can so that when ready, we can get on to the flooring.

For us to get to that stage, we need the roof panels, metal roof installed, electric wiring completed, drywall and painting done. Vanessa and I have been starting work as early as possible (6:45am) to beat the heat - its reaching 95F (36C) by 11:00- then coming home to chill out before going back for another 3 or so hours at 5pm.

Here are some more shots of the siding:

The 48' back wall up to about 8'6"

The front bedroom windows up to the 8' mark.