Attic Fun....

I happened to be home one day during the extremely cold winter days and an odd thing happened, our smoke alarms when off. When this happened I went around to each alarm disabling it and taking it out of it's junction box to inspect the wiring. When I got to the alarm in our bedroom some water poured out when I took it down. I called our general contractor to see what his thoughts were. He mentioned that sometimes warm air can make it's way into the box and condense during these very cold days but I should probably take a look in the attic to see if there are any obvious issue. When I went in the attic I saw frost build up on the nail heads protruding from the roof sheathing so the condensation theory seemed quite feasible. I didn't dig around much more.

Well, a couple of days ago (in warmer weather) Jess was noticing a smooshy portion of the drywall near that same smoke alarm. This time I explored the attic a bit further.  I noticed that one of the new vent stacks had an unusual "Y" in it that went nowhere. I think the core issue was that condensate built up in the larger dead end portion, froze, expanded, and burst the end cap.

Cabinet Crown Trim & LED Wire

We are almost complete with the cabinet crown trim. I just need to fill in the pin nailer holes with some colored wax to blend into the prefinished surface.  Dealing with a prefinished surface didn't leave room for error since filling gaps or sanding away blemishes isn't much of an option. I made a little jig to help get the corners accurate. The jig holds the pieces together at the proper angle while the glue dries.

We just need to make some adjustments to the doors to even out the upper gaps.

We were getting used to using the kitchen being functional so a little chaos was in order.

I think we finally are ready to move forward on our back-splash installation project. I did a little under cabinet LED wiring prep. Originally we were going to have a valence that would span the gap over the sink. Since the valence didn't work out I needed another way to route signal and low voltage power cable to the free standing cabinet to the right of the sink.

I simply embedded the cabling in the drywall and fished it up into the cabinet. All this will eventually be covered in mortar and tile.