Trap door for an in floor outlet

The lid isn't quite finished.  But this weekend, our huge accomplishment was detailing a trap door for an in floor outlet.  

The door will blend into the floor, with a small hole to open and close it.  Then inside is a floor rated electrical box.  We think we're likely going to have a carpet here, so didn't want the outlet to be bold of the floor.  So this was a creative solution made from pre-finished plywood and lots of pocket screws.  It's a relief to have it in, because now we can continue on in the great room.

If we don't decide to use it for a floor lamp, I'm tempted to stick our expired passports, and collection of spare change from our foreign trips in here before putting down the carpet, as an Easter egg for whoever lives here after us 

More floor

I wanted to get some pictures of the process of the floor.

This is the end of our stack of flooring.  

We're going to return 5 boxes of that because we have less waste than their calculator expected.  

This is how the planks look as they are laid out to mix up boxes and vent.

This shows the paper underlayment.  It's a silicone vapor barrier.  I!m mystified why I need a vapor barrier between upstairs and downstairs when there is a big open staircase connecting it.  But I'm trusting the folks who write the manufacturer's recommendations.

The last bit past the paper gets glued.  It's crazy stuff that looks like a mix between cheez-wiz and caramel sauce.  It stinks like crazy but is supposedly low VOC.

Then to make sure it's good and flat we put weights in the glued portion to keep it down as it dries.

Progress continues

Since our last post we've been making good progress in several directions.  Shortly after that post we got lights installed in the great room 

We were able to take down the scaffolding over our stairs.  Our living room feels huge again!

We got the sprinkler inspection.  That was the first "final" inspection to close out our permit.  That was a huge milestone.  

We've moved on to the floor.  Bamboo tongue and groove.

It's turning out really nicely.  To make the stairs work out we needed to paint our way out from the top of the stairs.  The TV area came first then we moved to the other side and are partway through the master bedroom now.  It looks beautiful and feels so good on bare feet.  Our cats are grumpy because they can't dig their claws into the floor to run around the house.  It also means we move a bunch of furniture install some floor (with some stinky glue and lots of loud nailing), then move all the furniture back.  It's a lot of change.  They miss the rough framed walls that they could walk through.