After the last update I had to tuck tail and wave the white flag on the electrical. Called my electrician contact and he sent out his main guy to take a look at our situation. He was supposed to just get an idea of what was needed and get back to me on cost. Never heard from him and that evening when I got home he had run the majority of the home-run lines and tied in any boxes that I hadn't gotten to. I immediately lost any regret I may have had from waving the white flag. The next day I met with him on site and talked through our plan (he did a bunch of work the first day without knowing ANYTHING about the house, and he was spot-on on all of it). So electrical is now ready for drywall. We may have one or 2 tiny things to button up right before drywall, but it is basically off the list.





(and fuzzyfan, the zip tie wire will be fixed, promise. Just not done yet in these photos)

Just after the electrician got on site, the A/C contractor was able to make it. Only took them 2 or 3 days, and they are ready for drywall now also.



While these guys were doing their thing during the day. The Mrs. and I worked on water supply and also on packing up the old house. Hats off to her on the packing part, she knocked almost all of it out by herself, I would just help load, haul, and unload the boxes. Water supply is now 100% in place, tested, and now "live". Water heater is in place and operating.

Master bath vanities, shop bath on backside of wall:


Master shower. We also built the little pony wall, helping define the space a little more:


Kitchen. Left to right is a pot filler, sink, water to fridge:


THEN comes my little self-inflicted PITA. For whatever reason I got the great idea that we need a 3 stage water filter. Have had the idea from the beginning. To make it worse, I decided it would fit in the hall closet. (the main water into the house is located there, so it made sence).



Can't really tell from the picture, but it does NOT fit well in the closet. I mean IT fits really good, but nothing else would be able to fit. So we would have a hall filter closet. So the next day, with a fresh mind, I moved all the filters to the loft directly above the closet.



Redoing work is never fun. But this was the right decision. And because the move was directly vertical, the main water supply was still in a good location.

With the electrical and plumbing done, we then focused on moving into the doghouse. March 9th we rented the biggest U-haul available and in pretty much one trip got all the furniture and remaining boxes from the old house to the barndo. My family came up for the weekend and with all the help we had the truck loaded and unloaded in about 4 hours!
The rest of the weekend was spent cleaning up for living out there and the girls "decorated" the doghouse. I guess the best way to store wall hanging items is to hang them on a wall.







I also got the window A/C mounted in the doghouse, some clothes hanging racks, mini blinds, etc.

We went ahead and "finished" out the hall bath for us to use during the doghouse days.







...yup... that's the bathroom. In place of a vanity and sink that would get damaged before move-in, we bought the sink that will eventually be the shop sink. Installed the actual toilet. And installed the actual shower valve and trim kit. Cloth drop cloths for the walls and black 6-mil plastic for the tub surround. The tub has been installed for a while, but now that we have used it, I highly recommend a cast iron tub. And highly recommend a 32" wide tub. This one was out of our price range, but ended up getting a deal on it.
Don't have power ran to it yet, but I got the air compressor sitting in its new place. Also needs some wedge anchors installed.



Just got off the phone with the internet folks. They have to run new wires to the property, but should be done today. Getting a whopping 4Mbps!!! Gunna be blazing!! Hopefully it is worth the $25/month. I'll still have to come back and run it into the house.

We are now focusing on getting ready for spray foam. Need to get the upper back wall framed then plywood the whole back wall. Then finish any exterior penetrations.

Quick update.

Last weekend we ended up doing more barn house activities than barn house work.

Stared by clearing out some freezer space. 1 a buddy brought over, 1 is Mrs. Gingos, and 1 is mine.



Adding a little Dawn dish soap added to the water goes along way in helping clean the heads up. They are headed for the peroxide now.

While those were cooking, and maybe the main reason my buddy wanted to come over, we added a PowerPole to his boat. It's an aluminum Express boat, so he needed me to TIG the bracket on.

Forgot to get a before pic, but here is the other side, without bracket:




A little paint removal, lots of cleaning, and lots of awkward welding positions:



Bolted it up, mounted the hydraulic pump, and ran the hoses. all done:



I forgot to grab a "down" picture, but we did the whole priming process, should be good to go now. I'm not an avid fisherman, but I do like quality fabrication, and I was pretty impressed with the quality of the Power Pole. I have no experience with it, but they seem to have a good rep, and from what I could tell, pretty decent quality.

The whole weekend wasn't lost however. I did get the LAST wall framed up (WHOOP!).



We changed our ceiling height slightly in the great room, so I need to go back and add on a bit to some others. But this marks the end of new wall construction.

Another bird got in the barn during working with all the doors open. One thing led to another and my duct tape ended up JUST out of reach.



Unfortunately, no birds were harmed in this....experiment....

Earlier this week I got a funny phone call from Mrs. Gringo. Somehow the doghouse got locked and the keys were inside. so......



......ya, the keys are no longer in there

I dunno if I locked them in there, or if she did. Either way, she made up for it with literal brownie points. Before you look at this picture, remember that we only have an Academy propane grill at the house.



Maybe brownies on a grill is a normal thing, I've never heard of it, I was amazed.


Last night I did some clearing and loaded the lift up with a few sheets of plywood.



So, that is where I am headed now, start getting the back wall sheeted.

First news of the weekend, we have one more mouth to feed......







Mrs. Gringo has been insistent on getting a dog once we moved to the land. She finally found what she was looking for. Red Heeler. His name is Cash. Will be 6 weeks old on Thursday.


Last update I was headed to work on sheeting the back wall. That went well this weekend. I got everything sheeted that is ready for sheets.



With Cash around, Mrs. Gringo wasn't as readily available to help. So I had to make my own set of 2nd hands. The bottom row was easy, after that however, was a little tricky to balance a full sheet on the 1/2 inch "ledge" of the sheet below it.

This is my solution

Use one screw to attach a 2x6 just below the top of the sheet.


This gives a slight lip to hold the new sheet. Then once it is there, the one screw let ,e rotate the boards.



The 2 boards held the new sheet really well. I could then get the nail gun and get it all buttoned up




Having the shop half way usable is just too tempting. So over lunch on Sunday the BIL came over and we put a leveling kit on his truck. 2" spacer on the front strut.

Before:


After:

So here is one of those more exciting updates I mentioned. We have spray foam!















Energy Guard Spray Foam are they guys who ended up doing it. They did a great job. They cleaned up much better than expected at the end of the day, which is greatly appreciated. I'm sure my jobsite is cleaner than normal and I appreciated them doing their best to keep it that way. They also did a good job protecting windows and anything else valuable in the area (i.e. our fridge and cast iron bath tub).

I got the guys lined out in the morning and then went into work. Got a call mid-day because their quality control guy was on-site and had some questions that proved to me they were really thinking through the whole job, not just their foam portion. This was a big relief knowing they seemed to care about the overall product. After work I ended up meeting the quality control guy at the house while the crew was finishing up. Talking with him made it obvious he really was thinking through everything.

Only issues were caused by me. I forgot to tell the QC guy I needed the door to the storage loft sprayed. Also forgot to tell them not to spray the stud bay above the breaker box (not all wires are installed yet).


Before spray foam showed up, I got the front porch electrical buttoned up.

Started with this:



After doing my best Michelangelo :




Also did a similar process with hose bibs, but don't have a picture yet.


Also over the past month we have had 2 impressive (in my opinion) kills. Bifen XTS stopped them in their tracks:



Made this guy puke his guts up:



Our issue now is Scorpions. Have had a handful in the barn recently. I've been told Taurus, but research doesn't support that.



A little sneek preview of the next (hopefully) update:

(fades in to LocoGringo standing on an empty stage in a dark theater with a lone spot light on him)



(taps microphone twice)

thump!

thump!



(blows into microphone)

"check. check 1. check 2. Is this thing on?"



(clears throat)

TexAgs, we have the internets!



(fades to black)







(fades back in to same frame.)

(CenturyLink technician carrying tool bag walks across spotlight field behind LocoGringo)



(fades to black again)

(Music starts : Metallica - Fade to Black )


The end




That may have sounded funnier in my head. Point is, the "sneak peek" pictures at the end of the last post are the trench and conduit Mrs. Gingo and I did that weekend. The conduit carries a CAT6 cable from the CenturyLink box into the house to a modem/router. I know nothing about how this stuff works, but DSL is the only service available in my area and I know DSL is only 2 wires. So I took a guess on which wires went where. No dice. Called CenturyLink Tuesday, they came out Wednesday (at 10AM for a scheduled "between 1 and 5pm" appointment... ) Ends up the modem I was trying to use was DOA.

It is nice to have wifi at home again. It's only 3Mbps, but it's better than very unreliable cell service.


Keeping in the vein of "creature comforts" I woke up an hour early Tuesday and moved our washer and dryer in place. Through a receptacle in their respective boxes and connected them inside the breaker box. Mrs. Gringo is much happier now.




Last weekend I also got a little over 1000 feet of low voltage wiring installed. Picture doesn't do it justice.



Have a few more runs to do but I ran out of wire.

This week after work I have been working on getting interior wall insulation installed. Goes pretty quick, but every piece has to be cut, so that slows it a bit.


With the 3 day weekend coming up, I am really pushing to get the majority of the drywall list knocked out so those guys can be scheduled before the end of the month.