A floor to dance on!

Today was the day the concrete was to be poured  for the floor. Our placer was Terry and his crew. When I came out of the house at 7:30 the pump truck was parked at the curb and they were slinging the heavy hoses through a front window. At eight o'clock sharp the Western Concrete truck drove up. It was time to pump some concrete.

The concrete placing crew was all business and worked quickly.

By supper time the floor was done, hard enough to walk on without leaving a mark if we were careful. Janis I I did out nightly tour of the house on the brand new floor!

As soon as the concrete began to harden the finishing crew was busy with the trowels making it smooth.

The carpenters were busy on the outside of the house starting to put up the soffits.

Our crew was busy putting up the diamond lath in preparation for the cement work that will soon follow.

It was an exciting day and once more a great deal was accomplished! Tomorrow the roofers start at last. The soffits should be a good deal of the way around the house and Peter will begin the welding onve more.

Stay tuned...

-grampa dan

Some (unique) assembly required.

Those who visit our place often question me about the 'exotic' materials we are using in the new house. The truth is that almost everything we are using is pretty common and available at the same places where they shop. The materials, with a few exceptions, are the same ones in their houses. The difference is how we assemble them.

I get a chuckle each time we get a delivery from one of our suppliers. The drivers love to come to our place and each time they do they ask what we are building this time. They often ask to look around and each time they see something new, something they haven't seen before. We simply cut and assemble these same common materials together in a creative and unique fashion.

The key is to ask 'WHAT IF?' each time we pick up some material. Cutting it in some new way, layering it, using it in unconventional ways and doing things like no one else does. Our whole team is into the process. The result in this case is our dream house.

-grampa dan

Around the roof in three days...

We're working hard to get ready for the roofers who arrive on Monday. Our current focus is to double up the facia boards and then staple diamond lath to them. First we put a little blue skin (rubber membrane) over the edge of the roof and down onto the facia. It will prevent any wayward moisture from delaminating the plywood should it somehow get behind the facia. We start stapling  the mesh to the facia by lining it up with the top edge and then wrap it around the bottom and up the back side. There is a little more than 400 feet of facia in total but thankfully the air-powered staplers can pound a lot of staples in a short time. It will take our crew three days in total (nine person days) to go around the edge of the roof.

We are going through a ton of diamond lath on the outside of the house, more than 300 sheets so far. It's hard to estimate but I suspect we'll go through 7-800 sheets in total.

While we are up working on the roof today we took the time to admire the spectacular view on our morning coffee break.

The soffit boards are now all painted in preparation for the next tep. Once the soffits are up our crew can begin applying the fiberglass-reinforced-concrete to the walls. The house will quickly begin to look as we dreamed from the start.

-grampa dan