Chapter 28...How To Wire An Outlet And Painting

Off Grid...Chapter 28 Good Morning Everyone! It's time for the week of September 15 of our story. Monday 9-15 Today we went to Lowe's(again) and "finally bought our interior paint. Yeah. We got 10 gallons of tinted sheetrock primer, 10 gallons of paint, and 2 gallons of gloss white paint for the doors and trim. Hopefully we bought enough. We also ordered the tile for the kitchen counter top, it's supposed to be in on the 22nd.(today). We had to stop at K-mart and Wal-mart to pick up some winter items. We haven't spent a winter in the cold since 2002. We bought some winter boots, matching , and some sweats. It's a start. Poor Niki girl, she's a Florida girl and I have no idea how she will like the winter. She might be in shock when she sees the snow. Tuesday 9-16 Now that we have all the paint it's time to really clean the house. First we cleared everything out of the house and Mike got out the electric blower. He blew off all the rafters, walls, and floors. Then he blew all the debris out the door. After everything settled we vacuumed the house. What a dusty mess we made! We did this process 2 more times to make sure it was all clean. Then we let all the dust settle overnight. Wednesday 9-17 We started our day by making a dump run. When we got back home we vacuumed the house again. After that we started putting plastic on all the cabinets and taping everything off. We are using a leftover roll of plastic(like a huge roll of saran wrap) that we've had for about 3 years. We don't let anything o to waste, lol. We put plastic and tape on the kitchen cabinets. And the shower. And the front door. I put the painters tape on all the outlets to protect the wires from the paint. I also covered all the gas and water lines with the plastic wrap. Now everything is covered and ready for primer in the morning. That afternoon Mike ordered more solar panels, another wind generator, combiner boxes, breakers, and another charge controller. He is still trying to perfect our system. I ordered my propane refrigerator that uses "no" electric. I got the Diamond Elite 19ss. It's a good thing I saved money on my cabinets because I just made up for my savings. This is it. Propane Gas Refrigerators Thursday 9-18 Now we are ready to prime the walls. Mike got out the paint sprayer and mixed our tinted primer. We laid out sheets and plastic on the floors to protect them from over spray. Now hopefully we did a good job with the plastic and we have enough paint. Mike is priming the kitchen wall. He is done in the kitchen. Look no more green walls in the bathroom. We are done. Mike did a great job. We made it with the primer. We used about 8 of the 10 gallons so we have enough to do the closets, when we build them. After everything was set up it only took about 3 hours for Mike to paint the house and about 45 minutes for us to clean the sprayer, Yuk, and the paint buckets. The house is now ready for paint. Woo Hoo! Friday 9-19 Today was just a repeat of yesterday except Mike sprayed on the paint instead of primer. Again it only took a few hours and now the inside of the house is painted. We let everything dry for a couple of hours then we removed all the tape and plastic. Now we have to wait for everything to completely dry to touch up any problem areas. We are now ready for the floor to be installed. We made it! The floor should be installed Tuesday or Wednesday(I hope). After the flooring is installed we can paint all the doors and trim in gloss white. After dinner Mike started working on the outlets. I told him to do 1 each time he went down to the house and it wouldn't seem so bad. We have a lot of outlets. We will never use them all but we wanted to make sure the house had them in case we ever hook up to electric, which I doubt. Mike wants to show me how to do the outlets but I'm not sure that's a good idea, lol. Mike also found out that our washer, dryer, and fireplace have been delivered to our propane company. We will pick them up next week(well this week). Saturday 9-20 Today I had to do the usual running around, grocery shopping, cleaning and laundry. I can't wait to move into the house. The motorhome is exploding with stuff. Mostly food and kitchen things. Mike worked on the electrical outlets in the house. Here are the ones in the kitchen. This is how Mike wires and electrical outlet. Do not try this if you have no electrical knowledge. First he pulls the wires out of the box. He cuts them down. He slices the coverings open and cuts off the excess. Then he twists the ground(copper) wires together. Connect the ground(copper) wires to the ground screw. Connect the neutral(white) wires to the silver screws on the side of the outlet. Flip the box over and connect the black(hot or live) wires to the gold screws. Tuck it all back into the wall and screw the outlet in place. Screw the outlet cover on. That's how Mike installs an outlet. He installed 24 outlets today. Later today I got a call from Lowe's and my kitchen tile is in. Sunday 9-21 Today we had to do the "long" shopping trip into Virginia. We went to exit 7(our favorite) in Bristol. That exit has everything we need. Walmart, Sam's, Tractor Supply, Home Depot, Lowe;s, and a lot more. Our goal today was to find a bathroom vanity. We went to Sam's and found a really nice one but it was too small, oh well. We checked the Lowe's there and also stopped at a furniture store. The furniture store was a big disappointment. Mike and I didn't find anything we like. We are in so much trouble because we do need to get furniture this week. What's so hard about plain, simple and not trendy or gaudy? Anyway if any of you know of any "large" furniture showrooms in Elizabethton or Johnson City please, please share. Thank you. We did find a nice and clean looking vanity at Home Depot. So it wasn't a wasted trip. We got the vanity, a sink, faucet, and a mirrored medicine cabinet. We need all the storage we can get. After our long day of running and shopping which is never any fun for us Nicole stopped by. We had a really nice time with her. That's another week in the Mike and Lisa world. I hope you enjoyed. This week we will be getting the flooring, hopefully get furniture, and start moving some things into the house. Yeah! It was cold this morning so we need to get on it. Have a great week and I'll write again next Monday. We should get a lot done this week. Lisa and Mike

Chapter 22...Kitchen Install

Off Grid...Chapter 22 Going back to Thursday 8-21-08 Today was the the first day all week that it was just Mike and I. We work the best when it is just the two of us. That's how we really like it because, as you all know, we're best friends. We went down to the house and finished stubbing out the plumbing in the bathroom for the water heater. Then we were able to finish installing the smaller pieces of sheet rock in the bathroom. Mike hates installing all the smaller sections because it is very time consuming and it doesn't feel like you get anything done. After a lot of grumbling we "finally" finished the bathroom. Next we started on the kitchen wall. See now that looks like we are getting something done. After we got that wall done Mike showed me how to spackle. This is how it is done. After the sheet rock is installed on the wall studs the seams have to be taped. Then you spread the sheet rock "mud"(very smelly stuff) on the tape and scrape off the excess. You also fill in all the screw holes with mud and scrape that off. Let it all dry about 12 hours, lightly sand it all, and then repeat the whole process 2 more times. So far we haven't done any sanding which means we have a ton of finish work left. Yuk! While I was spackling, Mike was working on the transoms above the doors. We made extra work for ourselves by deciding to put the decorative glass above the doorways but I think Mike and I will be very happy with them. Mike had to cut 2x4's to make a frame for the glass and then he covered it all with sheet rock. The bathroom transom is done. The bedroom transom. Now all we have left is the other bedroom transom. That's for another day. Mike also finished working on the sheet rock for the angled wall that goes into the bedroom and we fixed the bedroom door. This is everything we did today. It was a very good day. Friday- 8-22-08 This morning we went down to the house and started the electrical wiring for the dining area. Mike likes to install wire for each room individually so that each room in the house has it's own circuit breaker. We run wire in all the outlets and switches. Then we run a wire for an overhead light in each room. After that all the wire goes back to the breaker box. The front wall of the dining area is done. Now we only have the living room to do. After the wiring, we started to sheet rock the front wall. This is Mike using a jigsaw on the sheet rock to cut out the electrical boxes. We finished most of the front wall today. We had to stop and go to town. We had to pick up more insulation and also go to our other property to mow. A few hours later we made it back home. Yeah! When we got home Mike's daughter, Nicole, stopped my with her son A.J.. She needed to borrow our compound miter saw so she could finish the trim in her bathroom. A.J. is 10 and really excited about the house. He can't wait to stay over. I briefly explained how the solar works and he was amazed and thought it was very cool that we have no electric bill. After they left, Mike and I moved the kitchen base kitchen cabinets from the 2nd bedroom back into the kitchen. Mike is "really" tired of sheet rock so he wants to do something different. It is taking a long time for the 2 of us to do the sheet rock but we are saving about $45.00( so far we have bought 65 boards) per board for a professional to come in and hang and finish sheet rock. We bought small plastic nail in protectors to put on the bottoms of my base cabinets. We are putting these on because my cabinets aren't solid wood and this will protect the bottoms in case the floor ever gets wet. We got all the cabinets lined up and ready to install tomorrow. Saturday- 8-23-08 This morning we started installing the base cabinets in the kitchen. We installed 6 base cabinets and a utility cabinet. Then we moved on to the upper cabinets. We used the top of the utility cabinet as our marker for the top cabinets. We placed a 2x4 across the top of the utility cabinet and to the corner, made sure it was level, and screwed the 2x4 into the wall. This made it much easier to lift the cabinets up to the 2x4 and screw them in place. Almost finished with the upper cabinets. Later on we finished installing 16 cabinets. We still have one more for above the refrigerator but we have to wait. Sunday- 8-24-08 It was nice walking into the house and seeing all the kitchen cabinets done. It kind of gives you a boost to see some type of finish work on the house. We started off by installing 2 small 2x4' by the corner carousel cabinet. This is in preparation for the installing the plywood on top of the base cabinets for my counter top. We used 2 sheets, 4x8, of 3/4 inch thick finished plywood. We measured the plywood and cut two pieces for each section of the counter. The plywood is now 1 1/2 inches thick and ready for tile. Some people like to use backer board for their counters but we never have and have never had any problems. As Mike likes to say, "If it ain't broke don't fix it". Mike started the template for my kitchen sink. He then drew it onto the counter and used a jigsaw to cut a whole for my sink. This was a very slow process. While he was doing that I did a little more spackling. Mike says I did a good job and that I seem to have a knack for it. I think he just doesn't want to do it ha, ha. Actually I like spackling. Mike says I like a lot of weird jobs when we build. It's OK at least one of us does. This is my sink and faucet installed. Of course we aren't hooked to water yet but it's in. It makes us feel better. I love it. I haven't had a big sink in years. The motor home has a double sink which I hate because I can' fit my big pans in the sink when I wash dishes. I love to cook so I use a lot of bigger pans. I also hate the single lever faucets, again in the motor home. They are a pain to clean because the connections for the levers are really hard to clean "all around them". Next we started on sheet rock again! I can't wait until we are done. At least we had a day away from doing sheet rock. We put up 4 smaller boards and called it quits. We decided to take the rest of the night off and kick some butt tomorrow. Later on we took a ride on the 4-wheeler and on our way back up we saw a raccoon eating apples in one of the apple trees. I love raccoons. They are like little burglars with their masks. A cow was right below the tree where the raccoon was in hopes of a fallen apple. We watched them for awhile. It is amazing how many animals we have on this property. Must be all the apple trees. So now I have more competition for apples. The cows are eating all the apples they can reach and the raccoons are eating the higher apples. I better hurry and start picking. That's all for now. We have a really busy week coming up. We are trying to paint the interior within a couple of weeks, get the flooring done, install the appliances, and do the counter top. We better start ordering everything. I am glad you are all enjoying the story. Have a great day. Lisa and Mike