Upstairs, downstairs, on the roof and around the foundation.

Work continued all around the house today. There were people working on the roof, upstairs, downstairs and even around the foundation. Most of my waking hours today were spent in the bobcat once again. Tomorrow will also be spent filling the patio area at the back of the house. We made good progress today.

Its a slow process. The truck dumps the sand out by the road. I pick it up with the bobcat and transport it to the rear of the house, dumping it in place and then backblade it to a six inch lift. While I go to get another load of sand fill one of the crew quickly rakes it flat and then runs the packer over it to make it hard. Its a process repeated over and over. We placed a hundred and ten cubic yards of sand today. Tomorrow should the the end of this task until the old house is removed.

At the front of the house the carpenters were busy working on the last of the roof details. The front gable is the final bit to be finished.

Yesterday I finished one of the dormer ceiling frameworks. I used many of the pieces we had cut on the CNC router. This ceiling will stay as it is until the sprayfoam is finished. We'll then finish strapping the ceing in preparation for the plastering.

The crew also finished laying down the foam and steel mesh on the floor of the house. Our heating fellow arrives tomorrow morning to lay down the heating pipe in the floor. The concrete floor is now only a few days away and the roofing crew arrives early next week!

-grampa dan

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