Rain Day

With a sudden rainstorm lashing the house, the third and final coat of Stucco has to wait for a couple of days, but in the meantime, other work continues around and inside the house.

Before withdrawing to a warm and dry shelter to wait for better weather, the stucco crew did manage to attach the forms or "pop outs" around the doors, windows, and outer edges of the front and back facades. When the third and final layer stucco is applied over these pop outs, the facade will have depth and texture instead of being flat.









Another project that is taking advantage of the rain delay is the construction of a box outside the garage.



The purpose of this box is to house my new smart meter from PG&E that will let me sell any excess electricity the solar cells generate back.



Unlike the Stucco guys, the deck builders are not hindered by the rain and continue to work on the deck. In the tradition of the rest of the house, the crew is adding four massive concrete footings under the deck. Here's what the footings look like from the deck level:





And here is one of the footings seen from the side:



The reason for adding these four footings, other than the usual tendency to overbuild the house, is that one day we may want to add a hot tub to the deck and we would not want the deck to cave in when we put 6000 Pounds of water and a bunch of slightly tipsy people on it. Generally speaking, we want the hot tub to look something like this (who are these people?):



And definitely not like this:



While the deck is being prepared to support the weight of a couple of fully laden SUVs, the work inside the house concerns smoothness and texture. The drywall crew are applying "mud." This is mud:




And this is how it is applied:



The end result looks like this, gypsum boards on the walls and ceiling with patches of mud covering the screws, seams, joints and any other less than smooth spots, creating an even surface that will be sanded to uniform smoothness:













At the same time, cement board is installed in the bathrooms to provide a proper backing for tiles.



Also inside the house, the team was assembling to do the final wiring and installation of the shower controller. Our contractor got as far as taking the controller, which is surprisingly large, out of the box and reading the wiring manual before making a hasty retreat from the building. He said he would be back with the plumber, the electrician, and a couple of Nobel prize winners to try to figure it out.

Here's the controller:



And here's the wiring diagram:



Doesn't seem all that hard to me.

Next week: Less rain, more stucco, and even more mud everywhere.