Quicker and quicker!

The house seems to be coming together faster and faster these days, partly because the size of the crews is increasing and also because the workers are finishing the roof and starting to work on the lower sections of the house once more. The reality is that when you work off a scaffold or ladder things take a whole lot longer than they do on the ground. Harold's contracting crew has now finished the main roof of the house with only the front gable left to be done. They will be up on that part of the house tomorrow ti take care of that section. The Penfold's Roofing folks arrive early next week to begin putting the recycled rubber roof in place. Their quality control fellow came by this week to make sure everything was up to their exacting standards and he gave our construction crew high praise.

I've been keeping our MultiCam CNC router working hard cutting curved bits and pieces from 3/4" plywood that are being used to form the structure for the curved and vaulted ceilings inside the house. We've chewed through more than twenty sheets of plywood so far. Each time the computerized router finished a batch I loaded the trailer attached to the garden tractor and transported them to the house.

Our crew are also working on the facia boards and backing for the soffits. The MultiCam router was pressed into service to cut the curved backing boards for the eyebrows. The CNC machine does in minutes what used to take mme hours. Better yet it does it perfectly accurate every time - while I do something else!

With the warm sunny weather, the ground had at long last dried up enough that I could backfill the east side of the house. Tomorrow the gravel begins to be hauled in again to fill the area behind the house. The boards are against the house to protect the rockwork until we paint it. That will happen after the finish the top of the wall and then paint our way to the bottom. The final grading and backfilling against the rockwork will be done at that time.

Inside the inground plumbing is now all buried. Harold's crew worked hard to perfectly level and pack the floor. Now they are beginning to lay down the 3" thick rigid foam. Some heavy plastic and then some 6"x6" steel mesh will be next. The infloor heating crew arrives next to lay in the infloor heating pipe that will snake over the entire floor to give us the comfortable radiant heat we are looking forward to this coming winter. Their job will take two days with an inspection scheduled for Tuesday. The concrete will follow on Wednesday. By Thursday we'll be dancing on the brand new floor! 

Tomorrow, I'll be posting pictures of the upstairs vaulted ceilings as well as some shots of other things that are quickly coming together. Stay tuned...

-grampa dan

Imagine this...

Today was another busy one on site. Plenty was done and just about everywhere. The soffit boards are being painted. The roof sheeting is almost done. Upstairs I got in a bunch of curved framing. Lots more mesh was fastened to the walls. Our plumbing inspection passed with flying colors and the gravel on the floor is being leveled and packed in readiness for the next step which will be the in-floor heating pipes and then concrete.

Through it all I took plenty of pictures but unfortunately the camera didn't focus and so none of them were of any kind of publishing quality.  You'll have to simply take my word for it today. Things continue to proceed quickly.

Tomorrow I'll sort out the camera problems and take a bunch more pictures. Stay tuned...

-grampa dan

High energy day!

Mondays I never quite know what to expect from the crew. Days off can sometimes be more tiring than working days and sometimes it takes a day or two to get back into the groove. But all of the crews showed up in great spirits and eager to pull out the stops. Peter organized our crew to start mixing the mud (fiberglass reinforced concrete) and I started cutting channels for the wiring and plubing for the airconditioning in the LOGIX ICF blocks.

Because the center of the ICF blocks is filled with solid concrete I use an old electric chainsaw to cut grooves into the foam. The plubing and wiring are pressed into the channels and then I use cans of foam to close up the gaps once more. I was quickly pulled from my task with an arriving truck full of lumber, questions from the plumber and a meeting upstairs with the carpenters to decide where the walls and doors would be located. A customer who dropping by to talk about a sculpture pulled me from that task... and so my day went.

Peter and the crew were determined to sculpt the rock work over the length of the entire east side of the house. I thought it ambitious but encouraged them to give it their best shot. Matthew applied the first thin layer of cement and then Peter followed, shaping his layer to look like stones.

The day was warm and the sun shone bright on th east wall all morning. Just after a very fast coffee break a panic call was heard from the east side of the house. HELP! All hands were needed to carve! Everyone dropped the tools they were using and picked up carving tools to sculpt rock. The quickly drying concrete waits for no one.

Once the first batch of concrete was carved it was back to applying the mud once more. This time Matthew was mixing and both Bec and Peter were applying the mud. They were determined to cover the entire length of the wall before quitting time.

Hailey, Bec and Peter had to work a little past 4:30 to accomplish the task but with the help of the entire crew they met their lofty goal!

When you visit a Disney park there are hidden Mickey's for those who know what to look for. On our house we are hiding hearts instead. There will be plenty before we are done. Some are obvious, while others much less so. Can you see the hidden hearts in this shot?

In spite of the temperatures reaching into the eighties and a strong and hot wind blowing the crew beat the quickly curing concrete and pulled off an amazing amount of work. THANKS!

-grampa dan