Roofers too!

The projects we work on require so many skills with a wide variety of creative solutions to the designs I create. Above the old fireplace in the Fox and Hounds Pub is a raised ceiling, going up about eight feet above the rest of the ceiling. We will be creating an old London skyline with seven or eight old brick chimneys poking through the slate roof around the opening. The chimneys we will do in sculpted fiberglass reinforced concrete. Some bits like the chimney tops will be routed from 30 lb Precision Board.

After lots of head scratching I have decided to do the slate shingles using 3/8" medium density fiberboard. This means every piece will be cut at random and then painted to look like slate. We used a jigsaw rather than the router to cut the MDF as this method created more random shapes. In this shot Sarah is using the die grinder to bevel and roughen up the edges. She's got a ways to go yet...

Then it is off to the paint department. Becky got a crash course in painting from multiple buckets of colorful paint - all at the same time.

The end result is a pretty realistic slate shingle that will look fabulous on the Pub 'roof'.

This job should keep the ladies busy until I get back next week!

-grampa dan

On to the next

With one area well underway at the Fox and Hounds Pub it is time to turn our attention to the next that will get the treatment. In the new restaurant portion the feature piece will be a small fireplace flanked by two large trees. The fireplace fellow finished installing the fireplace on Friday, clearing the way for the carpenters and dry wallers to build the surround which will allow us to start out work onsite on this portion of the project in a week or so.

As anybody who knows me understands, I am fond of anything but a straight line. The mantle curves gently from end to end tapering in the middle and from the top view it bulges about five inches. The result is a magical piece that will work in concert with the room. The flowing bricks and curved ceiling will complement the mantle and everything will work together to create a room like none other.

-grampa dan

Big bites

Each time we do carved concrete it is a bit of a guessing game. The tough part is to guess just how much I can apply and carve in a work day. We have far to go and it is important to get as much done as possible. But If I guess wrong it makes for some very long hard days. Yesterday We were doing the beams. Overhead work always takes longer, because we work on scaffolds and ladders. On top of that I should have taken into account that the beams have a lot of detail - which takes time. Add in the fact that I am the eternal optimist thinking things will take far less time than they really do.

The mixing and applying of the concrete is done before lunch. This means the time from the first applications until we start carving in that same spot is about three hours. In that time under the working conditions we are in means the concrete has set enough to start carving the detail. Then I carve at roughly the same rate as I applied the concrete and all goes well. Only yesterday I had asked the carpenters to do some small bits of drywall so we could do those areas and work against a finished surface. I felt obligated to do those areas. It turned out to be a LOT of surface area. We didn't get our lunch break until 2:00 in the afternoon.

This meant the first concrete we had applied in the morning was now much older (and harder) than I like. Carving it was difficult. There is nothing more motivating than more than fifty feet of hardening concrete to carve head of me. I knew if I could carve fast it would get easier as I went. With concrete you do it today or you start over tomorrow. Our new employee, Becky, who had never carved concrete before got a crash course and we sweated our way through the beams. The big 'wood work' looks fabulous and changes the look of the entry in a big way. We made it with only two hours overtime.

As I wearily walked in the door last night Janis looked up from her task, smiled and made the comment "Got greedy huh?" with a smile. I've gone down that road before.

-grampa dan