Walking in a Winter Wonderland

Walking in a Winter Wonderland (Pt 1) from Steve Rapport on Vimeo.

White Christmas

Looking down on the lower stairs

Yesterday's gang of four was today's fabulous five, and with Hector completing the preparations the crew was able to race through the remaining drywall, with the thick sheetrock dust leaving The Minnie House looking like a winter wonderland.

The master bedroom

I bought another can of expansive foam and sprayed the few remaining openings that I didn't get to yesterday, so I'm reasonably confident that the house will be tight and draught free.

Hanging the ceiling in the kitchen

Jose the Installer from SimpleFloors came by for a tour of the house this morning, and a quote for laying the engineered hardwood floor should be forthcoming in the next few days, presumably in the region of $3,000.00.

Master bathroom (left) and walk-in closet (right)

The stairwell windows

The garage starts to look like... a garage

Almost finished in the kitchen

Hail! Hail! SheetRock 'n' Roll!

Sheet-rock! On the basement ceiling!

A big day. The gang of four sheet-rockers showed up this morning and began to power through hanging the drywall. Starting with the garage ceiling and the basement ceiling, they did everything they could to complete the rooms, but as always there were complications.

Hanging sheet-rock on the garage perimeter wall

Hector's crew was supposed to finish prepping the house for the drywall team, but they didn't show up on Friday because of the rain, so the prep didn't get done. The shelves holding the remaining Kynar sheets in the garage need to be removed; the last wooden shims need to be cut out from around the windows and doors, as does the excess sprayed foam insulation. This will now all be done in the morning.

The basement, seen through the sheet-rocked doorway

Since I was on hand while the drywall was being hung, I made myself useful stuffing some of the remaining R19 EcoBatts into every last un-insulated nook and cranny, and using my single can of expansive foam to plug every exposed crevice I could find.

The Kynar at the rear of the house is now 99% complete

The gang of four still managed to complete around 60% of the house in a single day, which to my mind was an amazing feat, even though they said they were working a little slowly because this is a modern house requiring a high level of attention to minute detail.

That door in the middle? The cupboard under the stairs

By the end of tomorrow I expect the entire house to be fully sheet-rocked, and ready for the finish guys to come in to tape and float the drywall.

A Simple Floor

I bought one carton to see what it would look like in the house... Nice - I like!

Last week I found out that the flooring I was about to order - Yanchi Russett-Stained Strand Woven Bamboo from Build Direct - was not suitable for installation over my radiant heat. They said I could do it, but it would void my warranty, and I don't want to spend over $5000 on flooring that has no warranty. So it was back to square one.

Even on a truly miserable day it still looks gorgeous

Next stop, engineered wood, which can be glued or nailed down over radiant heat. I tried Lumber Liquidators again, but the Schon Warm Cognac Curupay I liked so much on the display rack in the store looked completely different and rather bland when I was given a sample to take away, so I decided against it.

On Wednesday I re-visited Simple Floors right here in San Francisco, and to be truthful I was quite surprised by how many exquisite species of engineered wood they had on display. My original plan had been for something dark and rich and chocolatey, in keeping with the monochromatic theme of the house, but lately I've been drawn towards something warmer and more inviting, preferably in a cognac-y tone with a reddish tint. And so it was that I found the engineered wood of my dreams - the breathtakingly beautiful African Roma Walnut-stained Acacia that you can see in theese pictures.

Naturally it was more expensive ($4.29 per sq ft) than either the Yanchi bamboo ($3.49 per sq ft) or the Curupay ($2.49 per sq ft), so I was seriously concerned about blowing my budget, but yesterday I found out that Simple Floors has a one-day sale tomorrow when EVERYTHING in the store, including underlayment and glue and accessories, will be reduced by 15%. Hooray for sales!!!

Rock 'n' Roll

Drywall in the sky, delivered by GradAll

I wasn't expecting to see a GradAll forklift when I arrived on the hill this afternoon, but it was a pleasant surprise as it heralded the arrival of a multitude of materials for sheetrock'n' the house.

The guys from L&W Supply bring home the bacon

Five strong guys were on hand to bring all of the materials into the house, where the drywall guys will presumably begin their dusty job tomorrow morning.

Pabco 5/8" sheetrock

If it weren't for the intervention of the holidays this part of the build process would take a couple of weeks, but since next weekend is Christmas I'm once more not holding my breath waiting for this project to be complete any time soon.

Reflections on a beautiful day

Although yesterday was lost to the weather while it rained cats and dogs, today was a welcome break between storms with blue skies, high clouds and plenty of sunshine. While Hector was working on the Kynar siding I was happily wandering around admiring the many new shiny surfaces.

The north east corner of the house

 On a sunny day this house is a photographer's dream.

The south west side of the house is almost finished...

The Dark Knight

R30 Fiber Glass for the roof

Abraham the Insulator, otherwise known as Battman, spent the day laying insulation in the roof, the sub-floor and all of the perimeter walls. I was hoping to avoid fiber glass insulation, but that's still the most cost-effective form of insulation, and in its R30 form it's what Battman used in the roof/attic space.

Kitchen and dining room, now with added snugness

After stuffing the R30 into every nook and cranny of the ceiling and the sub-floor, Battman also filled up all the perimeter wall bays with R19 EcoBatt, and by the end of the day the house felt warm and snug.

Stair windows surrounded by Wookiee entrails

That comfy-ness was also partly due to the expansive foam that Battman sprayed to seal any and all air penetrations around the windows and doors before he left in the Battmobile.

Corrugated Kynar siding being pieced together

Meanwhile, Hector and his mate were forging ahead with the exceedingly tricky Kynar steel siding. The lower flat panels now wrap around the front and the side of the building, several of the upper flat panels now grace the rear of the house, and the south-west side, which is the bedroom wall, is close to being finished.

Hector expects to complete the installation of the siding by the end of the week, but with rain forecast for both tomorrow and Friday I'm highly skeptical. As my mum used to say, we shall see what we shall see.

The Chewbacca Defence

My friend and colleague Jovanny staples the first EcoBatts into the sheer wall

Today marks another major milestone: the beginning of the end (in a good way). We've now embarked on the final stages of construction, starting with insulation: then drywall, priming, cabinets/counters/tiles, finished plumbing and electric, painting and finished floor.

The master bedroom is now warm, cosy, brown and green

We're using 500 sq ft of R13 EcoBatt insulation, bought from a Craigslist ad for $170.00, for the interior walls. EcoBatt is a green product from Knauf which combines sand ("one of the world’s most abundant and renewable resources"), post-consumer recycled bottle glass and ECOSE Technology (since you ask, it's "a revolutionary, new, formaldehyde-free binder technology, based on rapidly renewable materials instead of petro-based chemicals") to create "the next generation of sustainable insulation." Now isn't that sexy? As an added bonus "it doesn't contain phenol, formaldehyde, acrylics or artificial colors used to make traditional fiberglass insulation."

This is exactly what the inside of a Wookiee looks like

It looks kind of cool, but weirdly and rather unnervingly, when you cut it, it feels like you're a medical examiner living on Endor and conducting an autopsy on a recently murdered Wookiee called Chewbacca.

An Inspector Calls

Rain stopped play yesterday, but at least I was able to clean the ginormous windows

After losing a whole day yesterday thanks to torrential rain, the house was buzzing with activity today - Inspection Day!

Andrew the HVAC Guy and his assistant were running 4" vents from the dryer hook-up in the utility room to the 4" hole in the concrete basement wall that Hector drilled last week (this vent cleverly turns 90º downwards into the faux panel, so that it emerges invisibly underneath the panel). Additionally they added intake and outake vents to the utility room and ran them throught the floor joists to then emerge underneath the deck.

The fire sprinkler guy was running water through his system in advance of his inspection, and was concerned because the inspection involves pumping water at 200psi pressure through the pipes - nearly four times more than the regular 60psi that the system uses. He sounded a little like Scotty, warning Captain Kirk that "I can't hold her Captain, she's gonna blow!"

Hector was busy cutting Kynar for the bedroom window, and was nearly ready to start hoisting up the big corrugated panels onto that side of the house when I had to leave for work.

Danny the Plumber was doing a pressure test of his own, filling the big sexy Duravit Happy D bathtub with water to ensure that it would drain properly to the rear of the house - and it did.

And it was all good. Inspector Chai arrived and we passed our rough electrical and rough plumbing inspections; and the Fire Marshall visited after lunch and approved our elaborate and very expensive fire sprinkler system. Now we're ready to move ahead with insulation, and I'll be on site in the morning with my friend Jovanny to pack some green R13 EcoBatt insulation into the interior bays, and R19 EcoBatts into the basement ceiling/sub-floor.

Then it may finally be time to spend my first night at The Minnie House.

Don't Know Why (There's No Sun Up in the Sky)

A little more Kynar siding appears on the front of the house

Stormy weather. Another excuse for no-one but yours truly to work on the house today. Yes, it's raining, it's pouring, and the old man is probably snoring, but really, couldn't the guys find something to do? We're falling further and further behind schedule, and unless the house finds a way to build itself I don't know when it's going to be finished.

The fire sprinkler system in thankfully finished

On the plus side, the electrical wiring is now complete, as is the fire sprinkler system. The latter is unfortunately required here in Pacifica (it added over $8,000 to the cost of the house), and we're also required to install flashing strobe lights and sirens in both the inside and the outside of the house. That's not going to look good!

This mess of wires represents my entire distributed A/V system

Carlos the Alarmist came last week and installed the Bay Alarm security system (and he has to come back because the fire sprinkler guys cut one of his wires), and the A/V guys from Crawford Satellite & Electronics finished their pre-wire for all of the home entertainment system components. As you can see above, everything conveniently terminates in the media closet in the second bedroom.

Kynar flat panels at the front of the house

It wasn't raining yesterday so Hector the Framer was able to get a few more Kynar panels installed on the front and side of the house, and I noticed today that the first corrugated panel was also installed. I'll get a photo after the scaffolding is removed, assuming that the weather improves.

The kitchen, and the newly clean front entry sliding doors

A rainy day seemed like as good a time as any to start cleaning the massive (and very dirty) windows around the house while listening to Band of Horses. I managed to finish the two sliders in the living room and the front door, but I need to spend at least another 2-3 hours at the house this weekend to get the rest of the windows vaguely clean.

Next up is tomorrow's wiring/plumbing and sprinkler system inspection. Assuming we pass, we can move on to installing insulation around the house in preparation for the arrival of the drywall guy, who should start hanging drywall next week.

Can A House Trundle?

Hector core drills 4" vents through the concrete

I think it can, because the house is trundling along. Signs of progress here and there, but nothing earth-shatteringly exciting. Unless you find core drilling to be an erotic experience. Which I don't.

The retaining wall is finally finished and ready for backfill

The retaining wall, on the other hand, is one Sexy Beast (but not like Ben Kingsley as Don Logan...). It's essentially finished now, at long last, with spacers between the beams of pressure treated lumber to allow for drainage. Next step will be for Ken the Excavator to come in with his Bobcat and backfill to the top of the wall.

My new 58" cardboard TV!

Oh, wait, this is exciting too! The A/V guys marked out the spot for the new 58 inch Samsung 3D plasma TV, which I ordered from USAppliance.com at an outrageous price last week (outrageously low for such an amazing TV). The TV will be centered on the wall, but we weren't able to fit my big in-wall speakers into the bays between the studs, and as it's a sheer wall we can't cut any studs. So we're going to switch out the excellent NTIW28s from The Speaker Company (an online retailer that went belly-up earlier this year) for three much smaller Niles HD LCRs, which also come highly recommended.

Rough-in for a Bose in-ceiling speaker alongside a recessed can light

While Mike the Sparks and his intrepid gang of wily electricians finish the rough wiring for the entire house, the A/V guys finish wiring and setting the rough-ins for the eight pairs of Bose 191 in-ceiling speakers that will rock the house in a couple of months.

These look like Hobbit door compared to the giant ones upstairs

And, yes, sliding doors #6 & #7 are now installed in the basement, lending an air of sophisticated comfort that was otherwise missing to the lower half of the house.

The basement starts to look a little more cosy

I also removed the masonite sheets from the basement floor and threw them away, so the concrete floor now looks a thousand times better, even though it's hard to keep it clean during construction.

All six of the rear sliding doors are now installed

Today Hector had to use a Skil saw to cut away big chunks of the OSB above the sliders at the rear of the house, to enable Mike the Sparks to run cables and install the outdoor recessed puck lights into the 6" eaves. Those should go in tomorrow, although the rain may delay the process. And finally, a big clean-up crew came to the house today and worked their collective bollocks off removing waste, trash, materials and junk from all over the site. When the weather improves I will for the first time be able to get some great photos of the exterior of the house, unencumbered by construction detritus.