It's June, and we're busting out all over.

Greetings, family and friends!

I've been busy chasing down loose ends at the end of my school year so I haven't done much on the house or on here the last few weeks. My apologies to all those who are tracking our progress and hanging on every word. :)

Today we visited the local building code inspector and learned two things of supreme importance.

1) Anything done within the existing structure does not need a permit nor an inspection.

You could have knocked me over with a feather when they said this. This means we can build, renovate, etc. within the "old house" at our own pace, without waiting for inspections, etc. It also means that if we get that done, we can move in there and work on the rest of it a bit at a time. Yeah! (Right now we're paying rent AND a mortgage...) It won't be convenient, but it could be done in a pinch.

2) We do not need to use licensed tradesmen to pull permits and do the work.

This frees us up to do more of the work ourselves (and with trusted friends), thus lowering the cost of the project. There are still two things I absolutely want to hire out, the foundation and the roof. The first because I don't have the expert knowledge to make no mistakes on it, the second because I don't like heights. :)

We also visited our friendly local insurance broker. The bad news on the day is that we can't get liability insurance to protect us against injuries on the place. But the house itself will be insured against loss of the building, etc. before the week is out. Guess I have to stop making jokes about burning the place down and starting fresh. :)

We can't get homeowners until we live there, but even if we had it and they found out we're doing construction, they'd cancel it. So we're stuck with this situation for the forseeable future. You'd think a country that could land a man on the moon 38 years ago could figure out how to insure against injuries while you worked on it...

Our last stop of the day was Lowes to buy some boxes and electrical parts so I could try to get the electricity in the barn figured out and straightened out. It's a rat's nest in there.

I have an existing conduit that comes up out of the ground with about eight wires in it, none of them tagged. None of them romex. They're all braided wire, not solid copper. Out of that bunch I have two white and six black. There should be half and half in my book, but that's not what I've got, so it's really "mix and match".

After the better part of *six* hours work this afternoon and evening I have got one matched pair hooked up to the pool circuit, with one outlet solidly mounted inside the barn that's "hot." That will get me power to tools in the shop with extension cords for the time being.

It took so long in part because the breaker panel is in the basement of the house, and every time I wanted to figure out which of the three circuits out there I was dealing with, I had to walk inside, hop down the stairs (they are rotted off half way down), trip the breaker and then clamber back up/out and across the yard again. The good side of this is that the basement was about 55F and a welcome relief from the 95F outside. (A very intense thunder storm rolled through about 7PM and -really- cooled things off, whew!) I've identified the two black wires for circuits #2 and #3, but I've only got one white left and not sure which one it goes to. There's got to be a way to do this, but it'll take some research.

One other weird thing is that they installed three, count them, three, wires out to what we call the chicken shed (but they used it as a kids hang out we think). Not sure why they needed three wires out from the barn to the chicken shed, because the feed all came out from the house through one set of wires. Oh, well. Another mystery to ponder...

Nah.

I disconnected those three wires and I'm going to re-route that "chicken coop" circuit to the barn, so I can have one circuit for the loft upstairs and another for the workshop downstairs. It'll take some work, but it's inside, a good rainy weather job.

My previous theory about where the power came from and went to re: the pool, etc. turned out to be all wrong. Once I started disconnecting things and really analyzing it, I found out that my first idea, the logical way to route things with a minimum of trenches, was really the way it was. So I thought I was wrong, but it turned out I was right at the start. :)

I took the little push mower back over in the truck, anticipating getting some mowing in, but the heat really didn't make that look like a good idea. I tinkered with the barn electricity instead. The grass will have to wait for another day. My blood hasn't thinned out to summer consistency yet.

Did I mention that the starter on Eloise fried several weeks ago? I've been having to roll her down a hill to start her, and the most suitable hill is on the back of the property, which means she sat outside for a few weeks. Not a good idea. So last time I ran her I put her in the barn, which means I either had to get a new starter (hard to find) or use a hand crank (easy to find on eBay). Remember the Model T's? Cranking over the tractor is supposed to be like that apparently. I just have to remember to keep my thumb outside the handle in case she kicks back.

Well, I bought a hand crank for Eloise off eBay and it arrived this week. It was supposed to be painted red, to match the tractor, but arrived bare metal. The seller was notified but hasn't responded to my request for a 1/3 rebate. I'm anxious to see if it will work, but forgot to take it with me today. At some point I need to replace her starter, but tracking one down and installing it is more work than I want to get involved in right now.

Tomorrow we're going to go look at some kitchen cabinets. They've quoted us about $25,000 for a very complex and complete kitchen. That's a huge chunk of the budget, so we'll see if we can lower it a bit, but it's really a good deal for what we're getting.

Need to hit the shower and then the bed. I didn't do a lot of heavy lifting today, but I'm a bit pooped. :) More another day.

Doug