Week 14

Lots of doings this week! Except for Monday, where nothing happened because the truck that was supposed to be delivering the lumber broke down.

Tuesday

The lumber!

The forms began to come off:

And they went right into the garage:

(as well as every possible corner of the yard)

Wednesday

By the time we got home on Wednesday, all the forms were gone:

And the guys were set up to go full steam ahead on framing:

The north wall was begun:

Pickles did a special inspection of the footing of the south wall, paying careful attention to the way the bolts are set into the concrete:

And I got word that the next day, they would start removing large sections of this wall:

Thursday

If you've ever wondered how they build houses so close together, where a person can't even get in between them to swing a hammer, this is how it's done -- they build the wall as a separate module, & then push it up into place. It's called a blind wall. Here is the beginning of the bathroom wall:

When it's done, they'll lift it up & bolt it down on that footing that Pickles was inspecting earlier.

Here's the beginning of the wall on the north side:

And, on the south side, the fence-like structure that the neighbor built & attached to the side of our house has been removed, with a piece of plywood put in its place while they build the walls & lift them into place:

Meanwhile, when a dog has to go, a dog has to go:

Sorry, construction guys!

They also did another haul to the dump, bringing some much-needed relief to the yard & garage:

Which they then started to fill up again, with the debris from the demo in the kitchen.

First step: remove the top of the wall & edge of the ceiling so that they can put in some kind of heavy duty header, to support the roof when they open up the 5 1/2 foot-long passthrough:

It's hard to see from the photos, but there are actually two different roofs here, making it look like this big addition to the original house is actually two additions. This picture is the best I could get:

The taller part of the room on the right, seems like a normal room addition, and the shorter one on the left,  seems like it was a porch that was later enclosed.  We've all speculated as to why the kitchen ceiling comes down two feet like that -- apparently, it's just a way to deal with the slope of that porch roof. We're thinking about asking whether it might be possible to just open that up to get some additional height in that part of the room, without it adding a lot to the time or cost of the project.

They also tore up the walls & ceiling in the back porch. Here is the view from below (correct, still no floor):

Meanwhile, Pickles is doing just great. Here she is, practicing her sit/stay in the spot where we're hoping to put the bed, while I pick up after her in the yard:

Also, fun times on Thursday, the crew managed to cut the phone cord. Mr. Bunkport is trying to get the phone company to come out "asap" to fix it, on his dime. It's Sunday, & we're still without phone or internet, but hey, no problem!

Friday

Ah, more debris:

But more encouraging, the north wall is starting to look more like an actual wall, including what's clearly a spot for a window:

Here is one of several heavy duty-looking bracket things that are part of the earthquake safety shearwalls:

Meanwhile, on the south side of the room, blind wall section number two is beginning:

And now that the main part of the concrete slab is ready for action, they started putting more support stilts back in place.

We had noticed a definite wiggle to the house since the pour, so this should help with that.

The plumber also worked on correcting a problem with the vent for the kitchen sink.

Lastly, also on Friday, writing appeared in the kitchen:

We're guessing that one day next week, we'll come home & this is where the hole will be.

Next week, more framing. Before too much longer, we'll have actual walls again, and this pile of dirt can stop being the neighborhood litterbox, aka Pickles' Snack Bar. Barf.

Week 13

Lucky week 13!

On Monday, the ufer ground successfully passed inspection:

And then on Tuesday, the concrete truck arrived promptly at 7:00am. By 6pm, this is what things looked like:

Wow! So exciting!

The floor in the room has a smooth finish -- we'll be tinting the concrete a glossy brown & leaving it at that as far as flooring is concerned. We will be extending the tinting out into the Patio Pit area, as well, to help tie the indoor & outdoor spaces together. The area with the large drain hole will be set with brown pavers that will hide the drain, but still allow the water to flow in there.

The steps are taller & extend further into the yard than we had originally expected, so that will take some getting used to. The purpose of the steps being done this way is to create lots of light, air, & space to keep the room from feeling like a basement, & we like that. But it's not a big yard to begin with, so losing so much of the dirt area to concrete steps is disappointing. Here is the view of the now even tinier yard, taken from the Patio Pit:

There are things that can be done get some of that area back if we want to spend the time & money changing how the steps were built. Neither of us is inclined to add time & cost to this project at this point, though, so we're going to keep rolling along & see if we can learn to love it (or at least live with it...).

Step one will be brainstorming & seeing if we can change the way we think about the space & how we use it -- for example, what if we look at the steps as an element that adds multi-dimensionality to the yard, instead of something that takes space away? It's been nice this weekend, so we spent some time sitting on the steps in the sun, thinking of ways to make this work for us.

One thought: with the way the sliding French doors work, versus how the accordion doors would have worked, we'll be able to leave our Adirondack chairs out in the Patio Pit (versus in the dirt area). Being two feet down below grade gives a little more sense of privacy & coziness, so that would be nice. This is the view from where one of the chairs would be:

(I might put a hammock over there, where that stuff is stacked. It will be nice & shady for napping. The only problem is the spiders who live in those bushes. Ick.)

To enhance that sense of privacy, we could set long planters on the side walls, with something tall like bamboo in there:

To break up the visual angularity of the concrete, we also talked about putting a type of rosemary in that would grow down over the side of the planter & concrete (which would also be kind of nice conceptually, since it would recall that overgrown rosemary bush/tree that we took out). I doubt that we could put both in a planter that narrow (Arave Family Landscapers, your ideas will be appreciated!), but if we could, it might look something like this (with an idea of how the tinting & pavers may look):

The steps themselves may actually be good built-in seating for impromptu visitors (allowing us to use more of the dirt area of the yard for games with the dog, rather than having chairs always set up there). And we can also break up some of that expanse of concrete with more planters on the steps themselves. 

Either way, we have plenty of time to think about it. In the meantime, we also now finally have a way of getting the dog out to the yard that doesn't involve navigating piles of construction debris:

I didn't have my usual Friday chat with Mr. Bunkport, so I'm not positive what will be happening this week. Based on previous conversations, I would guess that they will start framing the walls & securing the house to the foundation, & then look at getting those Jenga puzzle cribs out of there.

Week 12

Little actual building happened this week -- they installed what I'm guessing will be part of the bathroom wall:

And they nailed many more tiny pieces of wood to the forms. Lots and lots of them.

But 2 more important milestones were hit this week!

One milestone is we passed two of three pre-pour inspections:

And we got a street space permit to clear the parked cars from the house to the top of the block, so that the cement truck will be able to pull in & out. This gives an idea of the distance (about 100 feet):

One last inspection will be happening on Monday morning -- the inspection of the ufer ground, which is this coil of wire in the wall...

...that then runs along the rebar and into the ground:

Once that's approved, they can move forward with the pour, which is scheduled for Tuesday.

The other milestone this week is that we ordered the windows and doors. We had originally wanted the 12-foot door opening to be fully openable, using accordion doors like this:

We learned that those doors don't do well in this area, though, due to the blustery weather & the way the ground shifts around over time. The salesman at the lumber store said that he would sell them to us, but would have gone as far as to write on the bill of sale that we ordered them against his recommendation. It's disappointing, but the Plan B he recommended turns out to be pretty nice, as well -- sliding French doors:

Similar idea to sliding patio doors, but with a little more visual heft to them (& better locks). The actual door opening will be about 6 feet, but the full 12-foot opening in the wall will still be all glass, so we'll still get a ton of light & a sense of integration of the indoor & outdoor space. And these cost a third as much as the accordion doors, so we could afford to get nicer windows for the second floor (& actually still come out ahead on budget) -- French casements:

The really nice thing about these, versus regular casements, is that there is no bar in the center of the window when they're open. These also have this fancy mechanism that makes washing the windows very simple -- the fine clay soil gets everywhere when the wind blows up here, so being able to keep the windows clean is going to make a big difference in that room. 

We chose oil-rubbed bronze for all the hardware, & we're going to stain the interior to match the color of the wood that we are recycling into the two rooms (the new counter in the kitchen, and parts of the new bathroom downstairs) That should look pretty good. 

These, plus 3 double-hung windows for the side of the room, and a fire door for the entrance to the garage, are now on their way!