The Start of the Finishing!

While framing continued upstairs, Simon continued to install doors and windows all week.


Working very carefuly and with great precision, he was able to install up to 4 doors each day.

The wall between Evan's room and the Kid's Den takes shape,

Evan's room, still full of lumber!

The arch top windows in the Master Bedroom were placed, involving a little bit of custom adapting!

More bedroom level framing was completed:

The huge iron front door arrived this week! It was so heavy that the full crew was needed to get it into place, and that was just the frame and the transom! 

The frame was bolted to the rough framing, then each door (without the glass) took 2 people to carry and set onto the hinges. After the door frame was plumbed and squared, the glass panels were hung onto the doors.

The plumbers made a lot of progress this week! This view of the crawlspace behind the kitchen shows all of the waste lines for the upstairs bathrooms:


The plumbing in the wall between bathrooms and above the crawl space was also worked on:

As soon as enough windows and doors were installed,  the waterproofers from All Year Roofing came and caulked around all of the windows:

I guess to be a roofer you can't have a fear of heights!

A special caulking heavy-duty was used,  and all gaps between ICF,  concrete and window jambs were completely sealed.

Thomas Craven, the garage door finisher, came by to show me some finish samples.  He had one that matched the door and window finish,  and I thought would look really nice for the garage doors,  so we made the deal! 

The waste line was extended from the fitting in the middle of the driveway to the north side yard.  This would take the waste from the master bathroom and the roof sink.

The raised floor for the tub area in the Master Bathroom was started.

The stairs between the lower and upper roof decks were formed,

as well as the upper roof deck parapet walls.

The fire sprinkler company started installing the special orange piping this week.  They went very quickly;  in just a few days,  most of the pipe was placed.  

I had my guys cut out the foam channels and notch the steel joists,  so it was fairly straight forward.  

We still had to figure out how to run the lines to the proper locations,  and get the sprinkler heads at the right height.  

Sometimes this would mean making a little loop at the sprinkler heads.

Next week, some more exterior details!

Framing the 2nd Floor

This week the fireplace was installed! The opening in the concrete was a little wide, as planned, so wood studs were anchored to the concrete for the fireplace to be attached to. The depth of the alcove was not quite deep enough so one of the laborers had to jackhammer a few inches off of the whole back side!

The flue was attached and extended as far as we had built the chimney. The installation company would return to extend it all the way up later.

The stone columns and moulding also arrived and were stacked in the house until we could install them.




Now that the last of the shoring has been removed, the second floor interior framing could be started. The center walls that aligned with the structural posts and plumbing were laid out first, then the rest of the walls were laid out around them. In this photo, Charlie is laying out the sill plates for Kyle's room.

The Master Bedroom Suite was also laid out. The wall below separates the Sitting room from the Bathroom.

Under this window will be the Master Bath.

Now that the windows and doors were finally on site, I was able to start installing them. The first ones in were the Kitchen/Great Room windows.


Tim Adams from All Year Roofing came by to offer advice on the first windows, making sure we installed the flashing properly so they would not leak.

The most challenging windows turned out to be the arch topped windows in the curved wall of the Master Bedroom tower. To simplify the forming of the wall, the openings were formed as rectangles, so now the openings needed to be adapted to fit the windows.

Most of the upstairs walls were framed, except for the ones blocked by the huge stacks of drywall!

The skylight openings with the forms removed:

Up on the roof, the forms were being set for the parapet walls. All the leftover shoring lumber was stacked on the roof to allow some clear working area on the bedroom level, which made it pretty crowded on the roof!

The round tower section forms were removed to make way for the parapet framing:

The South parapet wall with it's three openings is formed:

The 6' high east wall is formed:

As the forms rose around the roof deck, the pile of scrap wood and foam rose in the middle!

Soon I would have to take the time to get it all down to the recycling dumpster!

Next week, more doors and windows!

A Couple of Important Deliveries!

So much has been happening,  and I have not been able to keep up on the construction and the blog!  I have been taking pictures throughout,  and will try to recall the last month's progress!

In the second week of October the drywall was delivered for the entire house!  The process of "stocking" the house took most of the morning.  First,  two trucks full of drywall were unloaded in to neat stacks on the street.  

The Gradall Forklift then took one stack at a time and positioned it outside of the garage,  while the stocking crew slid it off the forklift and re-stacked it inside.  They next lifted a large stack to the livingroom.

Another stack was loaded into the kitchen.

Here the stockers are pulling double sheets of drywall into the kitchen through the window.      

Another big stack was set into the Master Bedroom,

Finally,  the rest of the drywall was lifted to the top level.  Since the stockers had to slide it in through the porch doors,  trhe drywall had to be loaded onto a special rack,  then lifted 33 feet abovee the street to the kids porch, slid in and stacked.  

The crew worked very hard and did a great job!

Also this week,  the HVAC crew came to do more duck work for the 2nd floor.

When we poured the 2nd floor,  there were quite a few places where I forgot to leave voids in the concrete for ducts,  so we have had to cut and chip a lot of holes in the concrete.  Lot's of noisy work!  Daniel is shown chipping a hole in the tower wall for a heater vent.

FINALLY,  the custom doors and windows arrived!  The journey from my design,  to ordering from Tikal Doors,  to manufacturing by Antigua Doors in Guatemala,  and finally to Buckingham was a long one,  delayed yet another week by Customs!  As luck would have it,  the container with my order was picked at random for a detailed Customs search. 

 Everything was pulled out,  piece by piece,  inspected,  then repacked.  Not very well re-packed,  in my opinion!  In fact,  one of the doors had a large scratch on it,  I'm sure because it was so badly repacked by the Customs Office. 

When the container arrived,  it was parked at the bottom of Buckingham,  and each door and window was unloaded and carried up to the lot.

The smaller doors and windows were carried up the path,  and the larger unites were pulled up to the house on a ramp in front of the garage.  Some of these double doors were HEAVY!

All of the doors and windows were stockpiled in the round tower room for later installation.

The First FAMILY WORK WEEKEND!

My dear family all came together this last weekend to lend a hand,  and it was WONDERFUL! Not only do I have a talented family,  but a very supportive and intelligent family!  I was able to start each of them on different jobs and they would do it with enthusiasm! What a pleasure it was to have them all working with me!

Dad had the difficult job of creating the curved top plate for the wall that thickens the first floor of the tower.  

My brother and his wife worked on the "structured wiring".  This is the communications wiring that goes to each room from a central hub,  including phone,  computer and tv cabling.  

Some of the family spent time removing the shoring from the kid's bedroom level, 

 

Others were stationed on the roof deck,  assembling what was left of the EcoBlock.  It's going to be close! 

    At lunch the little ones arrived to eat with us!  They were so excited to climb around and explore!  I can't wait to get some railings up so we can let them go wild!

 After lunch we got back to work!  Steel rebar was cut:

The front of the garage was prepped for the small roof facade to be built later:

Finally,  a LOT of cleanup!  By the end of Saturday,  the entire upper floor was cleared of shoring and swept clean!

On Sunday we spent the morning quietly laying out the walls for the top floor,  and doing even more cleaning.  This was made a little difficult by the huge stack of lumber in the middle of the floor,  but the family managed to get most of the walls defined,  and fill another dumpster with debris! 

After lunch my mom and I went to a great exhibit of works by one of my favorite architects, John Lautner.  I find his work challenging and very inspiring.  Lautner was not afraid to think outside the box,  he used a huge variety of materials (including lots of concrete!) and experimented with bold shapes and spaces in all of his works.  His most famous home is the Chemosphere, but I am most inspired by Marbrisas in Acapulco, the Elrod House in Palm Springs, the Turner House in Aspen, and the Schaffer Residence in Montrose.

Thanks to my dear family,  this was a very productive and exciting weekend! 

Getting to the Interior Details (finally!)

Now that the major pours have been completed,  the more interesting work on the inside.  One of the areas I have been looking forward to is the foyer ceiling. For years I have imagined a domed and vaulted ceiling for this round room, and it has been great to get started.  First,  we built 6 plywood "rib" structures.    

These rib structures were mounted on each structural pole,  meeting in the center.

Another interesting area is the music nook off of the livingroom.  When plastered,  the nook ceiling will follow the shape that I formed in the concrete beam.

The electrician and the HVAC crews have been busy.  Most of the electrical on the first floors is done,  and most has been inspected and approved.  

The recessed lighting fixtures have also been installed.  When the wiring runs parallel to the AmDeck, the wires run inside the channels formed in the foam,  but when we need to run perpendicular to the AmDeck,  a channel needed to be cut as shown below.

The HVAC crew installed a large rectangular duct on the drop ceiling space above the 1/2 bath and portion of the kitchen. This will go from the 2nd heater located in the crawl space behind the kitchen and will service the entire 2nd floor.  

The wall oven arrived,  and it's HEAVY!  It took 4 of us to carry it up the path to the kitchen and I'm thinking it will stay right where it is until it gets installed!

After I got the 7 day test reports for the concrete,  I started removing the shoring. 

 It was great to see my arch going into the tower bedroom that I had imagined for so long!

The rest of the shoring would have to wait until the big weekend!

The Big Roof Pour(s)!

It has been a hard few weeks. The forming for the roof deck has taken longer than I thought, and is very complex. Every surface is slanted for proper drainage, yet I had to make sure all levels interconnected at the proper heights. The other difficulty is that I am now trying to build forms 39 to 45 feet above street level, so it's tough to access! I frequently find myself on my belly hanging on to some rebar with one hand and bending over the edge to screw some form to the outside wall! If I had a fear of heights when I started, it is all gone now!  Here is a typical view looking down from the roof as I assemble AmDeck.  The orange Looney Bins dumpster is at the street,  Jeanne is at the front porch 18 feet above, and I'm 45 feet above the street on the roof!

Dad has continued to come in 2 days a week to help out and it has been wonderful having him around! This week he worked on the special stairs going up from the living-room to the dining room kitchen level.  

Each step is a different shape so it was a tough one to figure.  They came out just as I had hoped,  and it is also nice to not have the walk up the rickety old ramp!  

After getting the plumbing and electrical approved for the kitchen and dining room,  we mounted plywood to the walls to give us a perfectly plumb and square surface to mount the cabinetry.  We even brought in a couple of the cabinets to see how they look!

Here is a close-up of the plumbing and electrical mounted in channels cut in the foam:

On the great-room side opposite the kitchen,  Dad and his helper built the AV counter.  This will house the TV and stereo system  as well as an access panel for all of the structured wiring.  

Now to the mammoth shoring and forming job upstairs!!  My favorite part of the task was to form the custom compound curved archway into the Master Bedroom tower!  I can't wait to take off the forms!

The shoring for the round tower room is so dense that it is very hard to get in and out!  Here are the 3 windows formed and almost ready to pour:

In an effort to divert as much as possible from the landfill, I have been saving all but the smallest scraps of foam forms.  The problem is,  it is starting to take up a bit of space!  

The forms for the skylights in the Guest and kids bathrooms were finished:

Finally,  the form was almost finished.  I had to get a bit more EPS foam for the roof  so it was time for another ridiculous load on the CRV!  I got some pretty strange looks as I drove through town!

Finally the week of the last big pour arrived.  I was in a race to get the roof done for an inspection on Saturday, so I pushed to pour the walls on Thursday, then the roofs on Friday.  

That meant being ready for inspections on Tuesday and Wednesday.  They both went well,  so now the time had come!

The next 3 days were a BLUR!  There are no pictures because I didn't have a second to take any!  I had to buzz through the next 3 days without sitting down,  and hardly slept at night!

Thursday went alright,  I had a few small blowouts,  and a few places where I just didn't have time to finish the forms well enough,  so I decided to hold off on those areas and do them with the roof slab on Friday.

Friday came and I spend a frantic morning with my laborers  finishing forms in anticipation of a 12:30 pour.  I had to delay the trucks another hour so I could get more forming done, then we started pouring.   The first few trucks went sort of slowly,  then we had a pump problem in the middle of the 2nd truck.  When the pumper got it working we emptied the truck,  then I tried to call for my "cleanup" load but the dispatch number had been closed for the day!  I talked to the driver who gave me the direct line to the concrete plant.  I reached the dispatcher who sent me my last 2 trucks.  By the time the 4th truck backed into place it was 7:02!  I quickly called my nearest neighbor and pleaded for their patience as I had to pour so late.  They were very understanding and did not complain so I poured it as fast as possible.  As the truck finished unloading it was now completely dark!  And on top of that, there was not enough concrete to finish the whole job!  I carefully chose which areas to do with the concrete we had to make sure the roof was structurally sound,  then the finishers did their best by flashlight to finish those areas.

On Saturday I called at 5:30 in the morning to order more concrete,  the first truck I could get was for 12:30, so I took the morning with a bunch on new laborers to finish the forms once and for all.  A few of my neighbors showed up during the morning concerned hat I was going to be making a noisy mess all day because they were hosting a wedding.  I assured them I would be done by 2-3:00 so there would be no problem . They were so nice and understanding about it,  amazing considering what they have put up with for  17 months!  

When the first truck rolled up I still wasn't really ready,  but we started pouring.   I let the finishers do the hose and vibrator as I checked under the forms to make sure everything held up, and to supervise the laborers who were still finishing forms.  It was pretty exciting (stressful!) having the pour literally going on all around me!  I could always tell if my forms were not perfectly tight, though!   When the laborers were finished with the forms they started cleaning up . All of the blowout spills  from the previous 2 days were broken up by jackhammer... 

... then picked up and thrown into the side yard. It was quite a pile!  (Before final backfilling,  all of the trash and any non-concrete items will be removed)

By 3:00 the last truck arrived and we pump it is as fast as possible to honor the promise I made to my neighbor.  Getting the truck to wash out and the pumper to clean up and leave quickly was challenging because by this point we were all very tired!!  Finally, the street was cleared of trucks and I quickly hosed it down so it would look as presentable as possible.

When the laborers left at 4:00,  the inside had been relatively cleaned up,  and we even moved some of the ICFs up to the roof!

The Bank Inspector came shortly after we cleaned up, and did his inspection.  One of the things he asked me to do was climb up on the back hill to take a picture. It has been a long time since I saw the house from this angle,  So after he left I took my own pictures!  It's looking so much like the house I imagined!   Here is a view of the largest portion of the roof,  this will be the sod roof, and will have a bridge that comes off of the lower left corner so we can access the back yard.

This view is looking between the 2 Oak Trees.  Someday I hope to put a jacuzzi or small pool here!

This section of the rear of the home will mostly be underground.  The window on the left is the Guest Bedroom,  and just to the right of it is the back door.  From the back door a gradual path with steps will wind up the hill,  a small bridge will lead from the path to the roof deck, and then the path will wind around the tree to the rest of the back yard.  

Here is how I look after a 3 day pour!  

Next we push forward on the interior details,  and hopefully,  install some windows and doors!  

Finishing the Roof Forms

Lots of progress to report in many different areas!  The framing in the Kitchen area is almost complete,  thanks to Charlie and Dad!

After a lot of agonizing,  I finally signed a contract with a custom garage door company.  There are a lot of companies out there,  but not a lot of companies that really followed through.  I contacted many companies and actually met with a few,  but the bids and followthrough ranged were all over the map!  I finally decided on Summit Door,  the first company I had talked to over 2 years ago.  They recommended an installer, who I needed to hire separately anyway.  I was impressed with their commitment,  one of the executives came out and showed me an impressive sample of a door.  Eddie the installer came out as soon as I signed a contract,  and made a template of the actual opening.

This template allows Summit Doors to make the frame at the top of the door match the opening very closely.

I also arranged for 2 big deliveries, more than a ton of rebar,  and a big stack of lumber and plywood.  Hopefully,  this will be the majority of lumber and steel needed for the rest of the job!

 

The Home Depot forklift brought it up to the fence but was too short to lift it over the toilet,  so he just set it down and we had to carry it piece by piece up to the living room.

 

Now that more lumber had arrived,  Dad and his helper finished the stairs and built the Stereo cabinet shelf in the great room.

Darrel from Blue Fields Electric spent most of the week wiring the kitchen and dining room.  He does very complete work!  I had all of the channels in the foam already cut,  so he set the boxes,  ran the wire,  and prepped all of the wiring in the boxes.  I had the inspector out to clear the kitchen walls so I could cover the wiring and start mounting the cabinets, and the electrical passed the inspection with flying colors!

Meanwhile up on the next level,  the tower round wall was almost complete and the rest of the shoring was in place. 

 

I needed to get more EPS (foam) sheets for the  Amdeck,  so here is the first of the pictures of crazy loads I've put on my CRV! 

By the middle of the week,  Dad had finished the stairs,  and they are great!  I can now walk all over the house without a ladder! 

For the first time,  it is easy to imagine the dining room in it's finished state.  I decided to leave an arched opening in the wall that goes up between the stairs.  As you come down the stairs you will have this view through the arch.

 

Here are the stairs as viewed from the kitchen door.  There will be a skylight positioned over the stairs so there will be natural light streaming down.  Not as much as this, though! 

Thanks Dad,  for the great work!

Another exciting development this week was that we purchased our first granite slab for the kitchen counters!  We had previously gone down to the yard at Stoneville and after hours of looking we had settled on 3 different stones.  Then last weekend I found a postcard for a "parking-lot sale" at Stoneville,  and when we went on Saturday,  one of the ones we wanted was on sale!  We made the deal and purchased a slab, then on Monday I made the deal with the fabricator.  On Wednesday I met his partner at Stoneville and picked out the actual slab. Here's a little movie of the process:

By Friday almost all of the roof deck was formed and AmDeck placed.  There are still some small areas and details to be done,  but there is enough done for us to start setting some of the rebar on Monday!

     

One complex area is the transition between the 3 different roof levels.  In the end there will be steps going up from the lower level to the round middle level,  then another series of steps that continue to the highest roof level.  I think on this pour I am going to simplify for now then go back and add the details later!

The round roof area is shored and ready for Amdeck.  This will be my main focus next week.

  

If all goes well I will be ready for inspection by end of week, and do the biggest pour so far on the following Monday!  

Hopefully, the next entry will be after the roof is POURED!