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Saturday, December 8, 2012

Owner Building a Home - Week 28 - Library Panelling, Grinding and Polishing Countertops, Septic System

This week Mr.W started work on the library panelling we will have going up the stairway.  I love the detail it adds.


Mr.W made somewhat of a comprehensive list this week to outline what still needs to be done.  It is not short.  Since I need to start working even more at the house, the kids are now doing their school at the new house.  Yes, I still have to stop frequently to answer questions and help them out but we are sticking to the basics of math, language, spelling, and Bible for now.  We will catch up on the other subjects once we have moved in.




Since we poured the counters one week ago, it was time to take off the moulds.  I was so excited to see how they looked.  It seems we did a rather good job with the vibrating because there are not too many air pockets.  Overall, I am pleased with how they looked straight out of the mould.




We started grinding and polishing the counters, which is what I have spent the majority of my time on this week.  With the island counter top, we started grinding with a 50 grit diamond polishing pad.  It worked - sort of - but would have taken forever.  Plus, we would have gone through numerous pads and at $40+ each, I didn't like that option.  Since we needed to grind quite a bit of it smooth since the glass was sticking up everywhere, we used a concrete grinding disc and went to work with that.  Super fast!  I kept the counter wet while Mr.W ground it to the level we wanted.  Then I resumed grinding with the diamond polishing pads, starting with 50 grit and moving up to 100, 200 and 400.  They work really well when used on a orbital sander with a wet counter.  I am impressed with their performance but not impressed that the Velcro used to attach the pads to the sander wore out before the grit part did.  Oh well, they work just as well if you use them by hand, just not nearly as quickly.  It is wet and messy work.





Finally, towards the end of the week, the company we hired to install the septic system arrived!  It was a very happy day since we have been waiting for them for a while.  They also installed a water line out into the yard that has a hydrant-style tap to turn it on and off  farther under the ground.  This prevents the lines from freezing so that we can not only use the line to water a garden in the summer but we can also use the line to make a skating rink in the winter.  How thoughtful of my husband!   While they worked on the system outside, Jay continued working on the plumbing inside and completed all we needed in order to check all the water lines for water tightness.  We now have running water throughout the house!  Now if only we were ready to install a faucet!  With the septic system complete and the water running, a toilet is first on the agenda for next week.






And that sums up our week.

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