August 29, 2004

Things are still moving along well.  The brick has been started and the sheetrock is up, finished and primed.  Some of the floor tile has been started.  More detail is described with the following pictures.

 

The view below shows that the most of the rear of the house is completed. The scaffold is built to complete the house right end wall. The items that remain are the seals under the basement windows and the area under the covered porch.  A footing needs to be poured on the porch to support the brick on the porch area. 

This picture is several days old, but it shows the completion of the brick on the retaining wall. None of the brick on the back side of the wall has been completed.  When both side of the wall are completed, the top will be capped off with brick also.

This picture shows the start of the brick around the front of the house on the garage end. Note the height of the wall is approaching the need for scaffolds to go higher.

The brick on the north end of the house around the master bedroom and bath.  Note again that it is approaching the height to need scaffolds to go higher.

The brick at the covered porch and garage.  The block is used in place of the brick where it will be underground.  The slab for the drive will come back towards the porch and a set of steps will access the porch from the outside.

The installation of the sheetrock was a marvel to see.  All of the sheetrock for first floor and basement was hung in 2 ˝ days.  Finishing the sheetrock took another four or five days and the preparation and priming took another four days.  The actual spraying of the primer took only one day.  It was the wall prep and masking off that took the other three days.  I think everyone has seen sheetrock hung and taped, so I will try to show some of the more unusual things they did.

 

No the house is not on fire!  That is sanding dust you see in the picture.  I could not get many pictures of the sanding process due to the amount of dust in the house.  The dust was rolling out of the windows like a house fire.  The main sanding is done with a motorized sander that looks something like a weed eater.  The motor is on one end to balance the sanding head.  It only took about three hours for them to do this part before going to the hand sanding they could not do with the power sanders.

A man and woman came in and masked off every window, door and anything else that needed to be primed.  They even stuffed plastic in the recessed fixtures to keep out the primer.  The primer being used is a U S Gypsum product called Tuff-Hide. (http://usg.com/Product_Index/newprod_tuffhide.asp=).  Another crew had come before them and used a quartz light to look at the walls for defects.  They repaired the walls with a blue joint compound so they would know where to sand.  The owner of the company had come in and marked places that he saw that needed to be touched up.  Then the man and lady went over everything again and checked it.  They made repairs and sanded. 

The picture below shows the “pumping station” set up in the family room.  He is applying the material in hall between the foyer and family room.  The lady tended the pump and kept the bucket full.  If I understood the man, there were a total of 26 buckets of primer to be used.

This picture shows the application of the primer to the ceiling.  You can see the blue repairs on the walls.  I was a little concerned with the distance of the spray pattern from the wall.  I talked to the owner of the company and he told me that all of the walls and ceiling would be sanded and the end results would look plaster (smooth, even and no variation in texture).  I have seen some of his other work and it did look like plaster, so I will just have to wait and see the end results.

Below is the application of the floor in the master bath.  A porcelain tiles is being used in all of the baths.  The tile setter said it is much harder and more durable than ceramic tile.  Several patters were laid out on the floor and this is the one that seems to look the best.  The tile setters had to quit with the application of the primer and will return Monday to continue with setting of the tile.

Becky and I have decided to go with hardwood floors on all of the first floor that is not covered with tile.  We will use white oak and it will have a light stain to blend all of the colors of the floor together.  It will probably be the Early American color by Minwax.  The floor installer is due in tomorrow to unload the flooring and start putting it down.  With the flooring down, we can do the trim of all the windows and doors, and then start the painting of the house.  The floors will stay in the “raw wood” state until the house is painted out and then they will be sanded and finished.

The cabinet maker picked up a truck load of prepared walnut to start the bath vanities and kitchen cabinets.  He said all of the work would take about six weeks to complete.