Closing up, closing down

The team crossed a couple of important milestones this week. First, we finally have an actual garage floor. The post-apocalyptic moonscape that threatened to engulf anyone brave enough to step into the house is now covered with a smooth, beautiful concrete slab and we went from this:


and this:



to This:



Even the laundry room got a nice smooth concrete floor:



Another major milestone was that we passed electrical and sprinkler inspections and started insulating the house and closing up some the outside load bearing walls and the ceilings with plywood, with sheet rock to follow shortly. Here's some of the insulation that is going to keep the house warm and quiet:





And here are some the walls and ceilings that have their internal framing modestly covered with a plywood chador (the blue caps sticking out of the ceiling cover and protect sprinkler heads):









Speaking of sprinkler heads, here's the piece of plumbing that connects the sprinkler system to the water supply, and although we hope never to find out how well it actually works, is supposed to keep the pipes at the correct pressure should sprinkling become necessary:



At the same time, this massive gray cable showed up near the front door. I can only guess that this is the primary connection to the city power supply that will feed this power-hungry house:



The other end of the cable is lying near the new circuit breaker box in the Grotto, where a riot of multi-colored cables are converging to create the control center of the house, or as I call it, main engineering (With humble respect to the greatest chief engineer in any galaxy, Montgomery Scott):



Of course, there is no point in having a main engineering if you don't have a bridge (Ok, last Star Trek reference in this post, I promise), and work on our bridge, and the accompanying deck, continues apace. Here's what the deck and the railing look like from the master bedroom:



And here's a view from the other side, the future location of the back yard deck:



In this view of the beams from below, you can see the battleship gray protective paint that is being applied to all of the exposed metal parts. I wanted to paint it the same color as the Golden Gate Bridge, but I did not want to confuse any commuters.



And here is some of the wood that is waiting to be formed into the deck:



And even with the walls starting to get closed up, privacy is still difficult to come by, even in the master bathroom:



Next week: More of the same, plus gift wrapping the house, stucco, and adventures in garage door design.