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The General Project Overview

As I've referenced in previous blog posts, I'm in the middle of a whole house remodel on our second home. Actually, we're not doing the WHOLE house, but instead just a kicthen, bath, great room, living room, dining room, game room, home gym, and 2 work studios, along with an entirely new electrical and plumbing system. That sound you heard? That was me vomiting in the corner from the stress.

What possesed us to do this in the middle of the summer? I still can't answer that, so let me get back to you. In any case, the house needed some updating VERY badly and we figured that we would get it all done before we moved in.

Here is a picture of the house itself:

I'd like to be one of those guys that finds the silver lining in everything, but to tell you the truth, nothing in the process has gone well yet, and we started before Easter. Picking contractors sucks, finding a GC sucks, finding a plumber sucks, getting estimates sucks, picking out appliances su...no wait, that was cool..., picking out paint sucks, carting 115 pieces of cabinetry back from IKEA sucks. What's cool? Using a sledghammer...that's cool. Not that I'm necessarily doing a whole lot of that myself, since that's the reason we hired a General Contractor.

Speaking of the GC...he seems pretty trustworthy so far, and for the amount of cash that I'm slinging his way, I should be able to take a Saws-all to his scrotum and not hear him complain. His crew is definitely tearing through the house pretty quickly, and I'm interested to see if the Swedish instructions from Ikea slow them down at all.

OK, so what geek factor am I throwing into this whole thing? Well, I'm upgrading to a 200amp service, future proofing against lack of circuits, running a whole new lighting plan, and loading in some pretty neat toys. I started with a double oven, a 1HP garbage disposer, an instant hot-water dispenser, and the obligatory other kitchen appliances. I'm also adding a vessel sink and a Wasauna Steam Shower into the bath, which is easily the coolest thing yet, since it has integrated radio and phone. Word.

Not sure how I'm gonna handle the hardcore computer stuff. I'll definitely be primarily wireless, but don't even think about war driving since I'll have it locked down by MAC. On the good side,I WILL have a segmented guest network. I'll be installing a NAS, some networked AV equipment, and camera systems to keep an eye on it all. Maybe I'll even setup a DMZ if I can get a fat enough pipe into the house. I was looking into home automation, but nothing is tickling my fancy just yet.

We're thinking about a big TV and/or pool table, but it all depends on space and budget (the latter of which could be TIGHT!).

A couple of projects have cropped up that I want to get started as soon as I move my various table saws into the garage...an upright MAME cabinet (for the aforementioned gameroom) and converting an old console stereo system, you know the big ass cabinet-style, into a Satellite Radio/MP3 player. THAT will be awesome.

Follow these links to pages for each sub-project: