The Big Addition: Surfaces
In this next phase, we move to surfaces: siding, great room ceiling, granite, and some tile. We will be continuing with priming and painting, and the office and laundry room will be first to be complete.
The Swisspearl project is the biggest job in this phase. The first part of this project is to make window frames. This is to provide an edge detail for the SP. You'll see. The second part is to cut and install battens on which the SP is hung. Team L (Lentz Construction) will cut the battens, which we will then coat with Copper Green to help keep it bug free. Then, EPDM rubber is unrolled on top of the battens. Finally, the SP itself is hung. We can't wait!
Walls, Floors, and Ceilings!
Team L brought in a tent for their operation - this will keep dust from cutting the Swisspearl concrete board from wafting through the neighborhood. The Swisspearl, along with accompanying materials, was delivered to the house - about 3 tons of it. We sort-of over-ordered EPDM. Perhaps twice as much. Good news is that Western Specialty has another customer that needs it (this is not something you buy at Home Depot). We'll sell it to them. Lots of prep work - cutting battens, cutting window frame aluminum, welding the frames together... Then installing battens, and even a few panels!Tiling is also getting underway. Concrete board was set on the steps up from the garage, and the bathroom walls were prepped for "float". Tiles were set for the hearth. The great room ceiling is taking shape, although as installation progressed, we ran into some problems, care of our ex-GC. (We'd rather not talk about it, but we think we have a solution.)
Granite was installed in the bathroom, and it looks great. The hearth is about done, and Harbor Tile has started work in the bathroom. The guardrail posts for the stairs are in and very solid. Swisspearl prep continued, with battens and EPDM going up all over the house. There are "wow's" (bows, flares, etc.) in various walls which Lentz's team handles by shimming the battens as needed, or in some cases, just following the surface. Inside, we continued painting. The office and laundry room have finish paint and the laundry hanging cabinet was re-installed. Door casing and floor moulding, too. The office is done, and laundry next week. The bedroom french doors returned from the door shop ready to be re-hung, and Andy picked up the new bathroom door and pocket door. Priming of the garage, bedroom, and storerooms will probably be complete the weekend of 4/19.
Batten down the hatches
Team E (Ethan Edgar Construction) has been busy. The great room ceiling is finished. All of the window sills are in and lots of door casing is installed. The french doors for the bedroom (currently the tile cutting room) have been re-hung. Tiling continues in the bathroom. All that remains is a few glass accents, the shower floor, and grout. We are almost ready for finish plumbing. Outside, we've had great weather; although we had about a week of very chilly days, only one rain day all month. Team L is virtually done with battens and EPDM. Panels should start going up the week of 5/5. Beth has been busy drawing all of the panel layouts. Although we have the plans, and some drawings from the supplier of the Swisspearl, neither matches reality, so now we have the layout. Andy wrote a program to optimize the usage of the Swisspearl sheets. Swisspearl started going up in earnest, and Brint Plumbing returned to do most of the fixture installation. Team E worked on doors and trim.And then, there's painting and staining. Andy has been priming the walls under the house and in the garage, as well as painting gutters. Beth is staining the wood doors for the bathroom and the base of the garage stairs. We've been looking at carpet, and we've had 3 bids on the shower glass door/partition.
It did not take long to get doors up in the bathroom, and then the temporary walls came down! The bedroom and bath trim was completed (just about). Downstairs, the box beam trimmed finished off the transition between the living room and the great room. We have one more door to stain and install, and then the last of the temporary walls come down. Outside, more 'pearl goes up every day. Each piece is measured multiple times, and custom fit. It's painstaking work.
Electric Pearl
Sounds like a great name for a band. Mid-may, and our electrical contractor Harlan Kastor has returned and outlets, switches, lights, and fans are popping up everywhere. Ethan's team finished up trim and some miscellaneous punch list items. This included removing some tiles in the shower to help Brint Plumbing fix an 'oops'. The shower diverter was hooked up backwards so the shower head was always on. They returned to fix it and the tilers will repair the hole.Meanwhile, Team L is going great guns on the Swisspearl! Many walls are filling in and we expect the east and south walls of the great room to be done around the end of May (so we can remove that part of scaffolding and start tiling the decks and finish the railings). We've been painting and cleaning up. The bedroom, loft, and bathroom are painted. Painting has begun in the great room. Now if we could just pick carpet!
... Which we did Friday, June 13th! Let's see. In the last week... the steps from the garage to the great room are tiled and the tile border in the great room is complete. Lentz's team has the living room face, and the east and south faces of the great room complete. Electrical work is making progress, but local wildland fires and car problems kept Harlan away for more than a week. We made progress with painting and bathroom trim.
Day 366
It's June 18th, 2008. That's one year since we started. The good news is, we're making lots of progress. But a quick check of reality indicates that we're not going to be done until at least mid-August, fully six months behind schedule. Sigh.We got the first glimpse of what the house will look like when we dropped the scaffold from the garage roof decks in preparation for tiling. The shower glass was installed and it looks great. We've got the the railings, and carpet scheduled over the next 4 weeks. Painting continues - other than trim, the bulk of interior painting is complete with the exception of the garage.
Harbor Tile has started on the garage roof decks. It took many days to "float" the decks, but after two days of tiling, all of the whole tiles are placed! The 'pearl continues to go up - check out the Superman post. A bit more scaffold came down the week of the 23rd. Harlan continued to have problems with his van, but made it up one day and completed work on the transfer switch and generator "inlet". Into July, more progress was made on the pearl and the garage roof decks. Carpet (the last surface?) installation began 7/2. We phased it so that the living room & great room could be delayed a few weeks to give us time to finish painting, remove scaffolding, and so on. Carpeting your house is a lot like moving. Beth spent days boxing up the library, the office, ... pretty much everything.
This section is pretty long now - about 3 months worth, so we'll start a new phase: Finishing.
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