He's Back!

Last year I got quite a surprise when a poisonous copperhead snake was hiding under a big piece of lumber I picked up.

Today, it happened again, although this time he was coiled up under a hose and I actually grabbed him as I went to pick up the hose.  Luckily when I realized it felt squishy I immediately released and backed off, and yep, there he was staring at me.

I must have startled him as much as it startled me, because he didn't start trying to bite right away when I started to pick him up.  This time however, I couldn't let him go with the kids moving in soon, can't have a poisonous snake around!

Mirrors and Fireplace

I hung one of the big mirrors, and the boys' J/J bathroom mirror was installed...

Also fired up the fireplace for the first time and installed the surrounding faceplate trim...

Deck Screens

Screens are installed, the back deck is awesome like a tree house!

Air Replacement Unit 2

They ran the wire in the living room behind the kitchen hood.  Ugg, sometimes house building and making corrections is ugly.  It's drywalled now and will be painted tomorrow...

More Exterior Details

Stairs to backyard being built with proper drainage

More backfill

Catch basin installed to move water coming down the hill past the house

Concrete pad around well

Railing on both sides of the porch because of the height

Landscaping Drainage

The landscaper put underground drainage to far behind the house for every gutter downspout.

Also, on the side of the house that gets a massive amount of water due to the slope of the land, he is installing a 6'' catch basin to collect all rainwater away and past the house.  This entire pipe will be buried and exit into the woods...

Before the catch basin, we would get a creek on the side of the house with a heavy rain...

Inspectors Suck (sometimes ;-)

Truth is, you want your inspector hard on you cause it can save your life.  But in this particular instance, the inspector sucks :)

During rough in, the inspector told me to put T-ply up in the unfinished area under a stairwell.  So I spent a weekend insulating and cutting T-ply sheets to install...

During the pre-final inspection he tells me that's not good enough and that I need to replace with fire-resistant drywall to meet code.  Yeah, thanks buddy.  It's much harder to do now that I closed down the access door to a smaller size after drywall.  Anyway, I ripped out everything this weekend and replaced with drywall...

Update 5/25... I taped and mudded it myself, probably the worse job ever, but who cares, it's in a small access door to unfinished space in the garage and will never been seen :)