New layers - 01/13/06

The record rainfalls over the holidays left the towns of Fairfax and adjacent San Anselmo flooded. The creek just below our property (Deer Creek), took out some yards, walls and rooms from some of the residences along its edges. There were mudslides in Fairfax which damaged houses but our hillside survived. There were no problems with our foundation. These were the worst rains since 1982, and before 1982, the rains of the mid-1960's, which caused the former house on our lot to slide on it's foundation, necessitating the house's removal. The road washed out then too, and the town of Fairfax had to rebuild the road, supporting the road with the huge concrete enbutment which is now at the upper end of our property. Our foundation has passed its first significant test.

The siding is more than 50% complete and should be finished in a week. The electrician have finished wiring the house, the radiant heat is installed in the floors, The insulation is in the walls and the sheetrocking is about to begin. We wired the house for sound ourselves.

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Brother Douglas spotted our house from out on the main road. We were never able to see it from down below until the walls went up.	1/6/06 - the tower gets its first siding.	The bathroom window in the tower is finally installed.
	1/8/06. Mary and I arrived early on a cold Sunday morning loaded with tools to install speaker wiring in the walls. It was around 49 degrees in the house. We drove our car onto the still unpaved parking deck for the first time.	Henry Larsen (our brother-in-law and structural engineer) drilled holes for speaker wire all day long - who better to know where a hole can go?
Maria pulling wire through the joists in the living room - we wired the room for surround sound!	The two 250' spools of 12-gauge copper wire. We used it all plus another 100 ft - 600 feet of wire in all.	Decorated with sawdust.
The next day, 1/9/06, the radient heat installers laid all of the tubing for the heat. This is the crawl space where the floor heating tubing will hook up with the water heater. The tubing is being tested for leaks under 120 lbs. of pressure, for 36 hours. The gauge is for monitoring the pressure.		The living room floor. Tubes are 12" apart.
All of the tubing will be covered with 1.5 inches of lightweight concrete.	The downstairs bathroom. They even heat under the shower pan!	The tubing is more concentrated by the sliding glass doors to the deck.
The tubes in the dining room connect to a manifold under the floor.	Marshall showing Tony how to operate one of the heaters used to dry out the house.	Another heater.
Music room.	The upstairs manifold is installed in the entry closet.	The upstairs heating tubing runs vertically in the tower wall to the crawl space.
Speaker connection central for downstairs. 8 speakers - 2 go to the kitchen's back wall.	As of 1/09/06. The west wall is sided, and the tubing is run for the radiant heat.
1/13/06. Maria, Miguel, Abel (rear) Tony, Mike, Drake (rear) and Laddie Richardson - our contractor. We brought burritos up and finally got Laddie to join us for a taqueria lunch on the parking deck.	Insulation going in the music room. The The sheetrock has just been delivered. The concrete floors have been poured.	Upstairs above the stairway.
Kitchen with the floors poured.	Mike and Drake installed the Roman tub filler today.	Living room.
Two of the windows in the music room were delivered in the wrong configuration and had to be sent back. The repalcements will be delivered in four more days.	Tony (on the roof) is in charge of the siding and finish work.	As of 01/13/2006. The vertical siding is going up. The tower is getting the rest of its horizontal siding. The floors are poured and most of the insulation is in.