My son Jeremy & grand daughter Madeline came by today and helped me cut, fit & screw down a few cedar boards on our deck. Lynna took some pictures while we worked.

Merry Christmas everyone!

We exchanged gifts this morning, then Lynna cooked a nice breakfast.

Today's job was to replace our temporary stairs with the new treads I have been finishing. The temporary treads were just 2X6's that didn't give very safe footing, especially for the grandchildren.

First I had to bring the new treads downstairs.(Sunny thought the canvas I spread was his new bed) Next I removed the old treads, then cleaned out all the debris under the stairway, and screwed down the new treads. Eventually I will add a piece of laminate flooring to each riser for a cleaner look but that can wait until after we pass final inspection.

Finished up hanging & fastening cabinets yesterday & all the doors are back on & adjusted. The cabinet on the extreme right goes on our breakfast bar. It will remain on the floor until I build the bar.

Yesterday we woke to a beautiful snowscape. Three neighbor boys converted the slope by our front walk into a toboggan run. Seems kids & dogs are the only ones enjoying the snow. Lynna continued her room by room battle with sanding dust left from finishing the floors. I completed installation of the hood vent over the cook top and connected its wiring. Just need a few feet of venting to finish. I put another coat of Danish oil on several cabinets and re-hung the doors on the upper kitchen cabinets that were installed over the week-end. The new floors don't photograph in their true color, they aren't so yellow & look almost like unfinished wood. Must be something in the penetrating oil product we used or perhaps its reflection from the yellow walls. I haven't found a way to compensate so far. I will put up my best attempt at color adjustment along with the unbalanced shots but its still not right. The floor has shades from a warm white to a rich brown on the most figured wood, very pretty but impossible to show in an image.

The city has been plowing our arterials so I took Lynna to Safeway & Roth's to shop for groceries. This required shoveling the driveway which had snow on top of ice on top of snow. It took a while! Our first stop was Safeway which is always crowded. We got everything on our list then stood in line for 1/2 hour to reach the checkstand. Roth's was much better with no lines at all. We also stopped at Ace Hardware & bought a flourescent tube for the hood vent. We have installed this same Braun vent in our two previous homes and it always came with a tube. Looks like the bean counters decided to boost profits a bit.

We received our first good dose of snow yesterday. We had been in the rain/snow transition area of the previous storms passing through our area and only recieved light dustings of snow which would be washed away by rain. Over the weekend we got some freezing rain but the ground was above freezing and the outside air temperature of 31F-32F wasn't low enough to freeze the warmer rain. The day started cloudy with a light drizzle that changed to heavy snow about 9AM. The heavy snowfall let up after an hour & I took these pictures. Soon the snow resumed & by day's end we had received about 4" of snow and it was 27F.

Lynna worked on cleaning up the dust left behind by the floor finishing. The sanding crew had vacuumed the wood floors but all the hanging lights and every other horizontal surface had a coat of fine sanding dust.

I made two 18" boxes to support our large cabinet while I fastened it to the wall with long screws and cabinet washers. When I had it hung, I test fit & hung the cabinets on either side. Then my neighbor, John, came up to see how things were going & offered help. He held the hood vent up while I fastened it into place.

Our finished floors look great but the Pall oil finish is closer to satin than the semi-gloss Lynna wanted. We could add an additional coat of another product to get more gloss but decided to see if we like this finish with more time.

The flooring crew arrived at 8AM & I shut down, then removed our two gas stoves so they could sand & refinish the corners where they stood. The 4 workers spent about a couple hours removing all their equipment and vacuuming everything. I took a few pictures that show the family room and nook all ready for the oil finish, and some of the Master Bedroom during the first coat. They started in the master bedroom and worked through to the West Wing & finished with the big hallway. I think it will look great when they are all done.

We had about an inch of snow overnight and perhaps another inch during the morning but it warmed up by mid-day & tonight there isn't much snow left. Our plumbers were a no show. Today the crew sanded the whole floor with 100 grit and then went over it with a rotary floor polisher. They are coming back tomorrow to vacuum & buff in the first coat of finish, so we continue to run the heat day & night to keep everything stabilized and dry. They want me to shut down both stoves at 8:00 AM Saturday morning & move them outside while they sand & buff the floor where they stood, then bring them back inside, hook everything up & get them going again.

I put another coat of spar varnish on the stair treads, cut & installed a cover for the crawl space entry, then de-greased and assembled my tenoning jig. Western Tool had marked these jigs down as some were returned for being to tight a fit in the saw table slot, so they might not fit all saws without filing. I had several sliding miter attachments that fit my saw & could swap a bar from one if necessary. I found the jig bar was designed for a T slot, but after I removed the roller guides from the bottom of the bar, it was a near perfect fit to my slots.

The crew finished up the coarse sanding today & troweled the filler in to dry overnight. Tomorrow they will do the 100 grit sanding & buff in the first coat of oil finish to cure over the weekend. I did the fine sanding of our stair treads & brushed on a coat of finish. I came down for a break & Lynna was cooking up some split pea soup, sure smelled good.

I took the dogs out for a walk after lunch and saw a BC Plumbing truck parked in our drive. Found a plumber wandering around in the house, tracking muddy footprints on the floor. I led him to the garage to finish plumbing the dog bath and water filter system, then apologized to the sanders. Turns out it didn't hurt anything as the fine sanding will clean up his tracks. Later another BC tech came to help me plumb the indirect hot water heater & boiler. I spent the afternoon with him going over all the safety devices required by Marion County. There is a low water cut-off, a high temperature cut-off, a second high temperature release valve, a spill switch for the vent, a temperature/pressure dial and a large air capture device that looks like it belongs on a submarine. (Most of these parts weren't required on the boilers I installed in previous homes or they were installed at the factory) there will be 4 heating zones in the house plus a zone for the hot water heater and I'm adding isolation valves and purge valves for each zone. (This is a trick I learned from Mr. Harwood, the old fellow I bought my previous 2 boilers from) Using these valves allows for quick purging of air from the system, balancing the heat between the living or sleeping areas and only requires two zone valves and one circulating pump.

The plumber last worked on a boiler about 6 years ago & was enthusiastic as he dry assembled & sketched out the layout for everything. He is returning tomorrow with a few more fittings. When everything is together I will probably pay an electrician to do the wiring just to make sure it passes inspection.

The sanding crew left around 4 PM so I locked up and took some pictures. The crew has almost finished the coarse sanding, with just the wide Hallway, a couple spots in the Family Room and some edge sanding to go. They were running two of the big sanders for most of the afternoon.

When we went for our dental appointment yesterday, we made a stop at Western Tool and bought a sawdust collector for my workshop. Lynna spotted a tenoning jig on the clearance table for only $20. I had found they just marked $20 off the sale price of the tool I came for, so doesn't that mean I could get it for free? They had a scratch & dent sale in the warehouse out back with great prices on some large stationary tools but I couldn't justify anything except a nice little router table.

While the sanders worked upstairs, I spent a couple hours in the basement shop unpacking & assembling the dust collector. The router table was an assembled floor model & ready to use, so I opened the tenoning jig packaging only to find it is in pieces, covered in heavy grease and wrapped in plastic. My hands are beat up from the flooring and I have "trigger finger" on several digits, so the cleanup was put off & I spent the afternoon in our bonus room sanding the stair treads. After I get a few coats of finish on, I can install them next week.

After the first hour, I went up to take some pictures of how things were progressing. One man is running the big sander at a 45degree angle to the boards. The second is working around the perimeter of every room with an edge sander. They are emptying the sanding dust into a large bag outside & its already nearly full.

I called our plumbing contractor & let him know Tuesday was the last open day to finish up in the house before the floor finishing begins Wednesday & that resulted in two plumbers showing up at lunch time. They spent about an hour & finished the drain plumbing for our two kitchen sinks and hooked up the dishwasher & garbage disposer. They still have to do the water filter & dog bath station in the garage. Also the indirect hot water heater in the basement needs plumbed but all that can be done while the finishing proceeds.

The floor finishing crew arrived at 7:30 AM today & so far the expected snow & freezing rain hasn't reached us. They masked off the closets that were full of all the stuff from our now cleared floors & also taped off our oven cabinet. Their foreman had to leave after an hour to deal with the frozen well pump at his house, so not sure if he will be back today. He & one of his helpers were kind enough to lift our largest uppper cabinet into place & set its base on either side of the cooktop. It is very heavy & I had put sliders underneath so it could slide from the Family room to the kitchen, but they just picked it up & carried it in. Peaches doesn't like the extreme cold we've been having so we got her a coat. Its a litlle big but does the job. Last evening she was frisking around so much, I had trouble getting a good picture.