Contractor never showed...

Well, maybe that's a bit harsh, but he was supposed to be here today to start framing. At noon I called him and got the news that he was working on compiling a crew for one day at the "Extreme MakeOver - Home Edition" house up in the Highlands area, actually just a few houses down from his.

I have no problem with that, it is a very good cause and also great networking/visibility for a builder, but he could AT LEAST have called and told me that Saturday would be a "no show" day.

Monday will now be spent at the "Extreme" house and they will start framing Tuesday morning.

Forecast does not look good for the roof this week...

Lumber delivered

Early this morning (7.30 AM), got the first load of lumber delivered. Been raining all night and I guess this was likely sitting outside. But, inexplicbly the sun came out and it turned out ot be a really nice day - contrary to all forecasts.
Also stopped by City Hall (dog walking) to see if there was any redlines on revised permit. None, good!

The guys are supposed to be out here tomorrow morning, digging the drainage and starting framing.

Waterproofing done - and the rains are here...

Today was mostly cleaning up. Tons of concrete dust from removing the puke bricks, blowing it out and then washing the driveway, before washing the car as well.

Later a guy came and gave the foundation walls a "make over" with some heavy duty waterproofing. Very oily, very black. Amazing no cat managed to step in it since it took quite a few hours to be "dry to the touch".

Covered the dirt pile with plastic in order to control potential erosion. Should make the City happy.

Just before the rains started, we walked up to the Highlands and saw the final stages of the demolition of a house for the TV show "Extreme MakeOver - Home Edition".

A Kirkland lady with 4 kids has just been whisked away and where her old house stood earlier today, a brand new house, garage, and a pool will be built in ONE WEEK. Wow, just wonder how the building quality is at the end with such a pressed schedule.

In any case, she's likely happy. Getting a brand new house for her and the kids, all donated. Only happens in the U.S.

Walls can be seen

The forms were pulled off today and the concrete walls can finally be seen. A few blemishes, but really nothing major. Can finally get a better feel for what this is going to look like. Up close it still looks like a bomb shelter.

Day was also stellar. One of those fall days when the air is so clear so you don't really think it exists. Need about another week of them, but forecast has the first fall rains coming tomorrow night...

Removed the remaining puke bricks over the garage door and started cleaning up. Concrete dust is not fun having to blow around (worse than drywall dust).
The old support beam over the garagedoors will come down and I'll put it up on Craigslist. No need for it.

Concrete Day

Tom and Jim prepped the forms and also rected the last form for the wall by the stairs. Man, that'll be a tall one. Much taller when what one would have eye balled.
Jim also put in the ventilation blocks in the wall (crawlspace needs to be nicely ventilated).

LAter a GIGANTIC pump truck showed up. Seem that was what they had for us nearby, instead of the line pump ordered. Tom says it'll work as well, he just have to be more careful when filling the forms due to the potential for greater velocity of the concrete racing down the pipe from a much higher elevation.

But, this pump truck looks more like it belongs in a traveling amusement park...

After about an hour's wait (for everyone), the cement truck arrived as well. Activity kicked in.

Apart from a few blockages in the dump tube, it'll went reasonably well. A bit of an issue at the end when the pump guy accidentally cleaned out his tube in the yard, and then again in the cement truck. And they both want to charge for "off-site" clean-up. Go figure. Tom handled it well though and got a needed break from one of them.

Beside some patching and tifying it up, the concrete will now sit and cure overnight. Tom will tear the forms tomorrow and hopyfully start framing on Saturday.

And, also got the word that now it seem like trusses - and crew - are lined up for Thursday of next week. Good weather in the forecast?

Redesign has been "cleared"

Got a call from the City today telling me that I could pick up the revised permit - to the tune of some $150. Good, that means the design and construction changes we did after lifting the entry way floor passed the muster.

Concrete is now on schedule for tomorrow afternoon, so having the paper work formally cleared adds a little bit of relief. Concrete is both awfully hard and expensive...

SEC Inspection cleared

Tim from the City of Kirkland was here this morning and signed off on the Sediment and Erosion Control (actually both of them). Means that concrete can be poured, when it can be found, and we can backfill at leisure after that.

But a set back yesterday in that contractor did not carry his phone, missed my call and therefor delayed a call to the truss company. We missed our delivery slot for this Friday, so trusses are now delayed to next week.

Weather's great outside at the moment, but who knows what it would have been this weekend - or will be next week...

Weather forecast is not the best...

Forecast for this weekend calls out for some drizzles Friday and Saturday, but no major storms. Really tough call, but since there are no guarantees that next week or weekend will be any better, I just gave the "go ahead" call to the contractor.

The Puget Sound "convergence zone" is a tricky place when it comes to weather forecasts. Fronts can sneak in south or north of the protective Olympic Mountains and weather is very hard to predict once the jet stream moves south and allows the low pressures off the Gulf of Alaksa to wander down the coast.

In any case, it'll mean I will be busy over the nex days tearing off the existing roof...

Trusses have been measured

This morning contractor was here and also had a guy fro mthe truss company to measure and discuss the final design of the roof trusses. Interior height will be around 8 feet which is not that bad, considering the very strict height limit the City has for all buildings (maximum 25 feet above "ABE", Average building Elevation").

Plan is to have the a new plate built up on Friday during the day and the new trusses delivered late Friday afternoon and lift them up at the same. Contractor and his crew will then work over the weekend to line them up and sheet that new roof. Monday morning would then be the time for inspection of nailing pattern and hold downs (required in Earthquake zones).

I plan to take Wednesday and Thursday to tear the old roof off so all is ready for Friday morning. This past Saturday I went out a bought two gigantic tarps to be able to cover up the "exposed" area if needed, but I really hope that we can "swing" this during a good break in the weather. Been closely followign the weather forecasts...

Decision for go-ahead or not this weekend has to be made by Tuesday...

Concrete forms are up

Tom and Jim put in two days of hard work to finish the excavation, level the site and build the forms for the concrete walls. All looks good and it'll be a while now before we see any more "heavy" equipment on site. Due to heavy demand for cement, earliest delivery sounds like Thursday of next week.

Also had the City Inspector out here to inspect the footings/setback, and foundation walls. Passed with flying colors! Now we "only" need that darn cement truck to show up...

11th hour Design Change

Took some serious time over the weekend to discuss through what to do and how to proceed. Wife was now "OK" with current plan (entry at "slab/ground" level, but I was open for at least investigating the option to lift it up, or rather keep, the entry at the existing "split" level and build out addition from that point.

Benefits would be that you get in at a slightly higher level and get more of a view out, as well as more of a view "up and in" to the house. We also don't have to mess around with the stairs inside and I don't have to re-route a lot electrical feeders at all. No cutting through basement wall and less demolition on the inside in basement family room are other side benefits.
Lifting that floor from slab to rest on floor joists also provides for a 3 foot tall "garden shed" underneath new addition (mowers and wheel barrows), but just as it'll remove some cost in less concrete, it'll add new ones for the "lifted" floor and architectural changes.

After having made the call for at least investigating "spousal" option, we had a chat with the contractor and his crew early monday morning here on site. As they were OK with either option, I did a run down to City Hall to talk to the Building Engineer and the the city Planner.

Since there are really no external changes except that we would have a slighty taller concrete wall (only about a foot), Building Engineer was very accommodating and essentially said "I know, I've been married for a long time too. You only have one spouse".

Since that sounded pretty good, the run contiunued to the architecht's office. If he could do a quick design change and provide updated drawings to the City, we're rolling. He promised to squeeze it in, and after a few hours of further discussions at home, we gave him the "go ahead".

At the end, I'm more than OK with the change and think it'll look just as good, or even better than the initial plans. Just to bad it had to be in the 11th hour.

Even though we looked over these drawings so many times, I guess there is never really a final time. If you're heading up the project, you almost have to "force" the rest of the family to look at the design, even though it might be boring and uninteresting when it is "just" on paper. Lesson learned.

While contracor was on site this morning we also discussed options for the "darn" basement beam and pillars with the architect. Turns out that he had measured correctly, but indicated the measurments incorrectly on the drawings. So the structural engineer worked with calculations for a span that was more than 4 feet longer than reality. Therefore the intial need for the pillars in the basement. Now the decision was made to put the support beam inside the wall between kitchen and bedroom. Very slick and no need to mess around with all the electrical and ethernet cables in the basement.

Excavating and Spousal Melt-Down

Tom showed up with his bobCat and took care of all the concrete and also did the rough excavation for the foundation.

Wife came home around lunch and later in the afternoon poked out and asked "why are we digging that deep?"

Anwser is given, "There's where the entrance is supposed to be, at slab level".

"No, it'll look stupid, no one wants to walk into a basement!"

Concrete is gone but you can read more here!

Now we REALLY need to take some time this weelend to look over things and options.

Excavating lined up

Contractor showed up late today. Did review the site and what's needed to be done. Will be back Friday AM to start hauling concrete away and digging out.

Things are finally on its way. All is good - and rain is nowhere in sight...

And, even better, several neighbors commented that they really appreciated the little "heads-up" I sent them last week. Maybe something the "professional" developers could learn from...

But still no word from architect on support beams. Mental note to self to call him tomorrow (this is annoying to say the least).

Did we ever get rain?

Did we ever get rain? Sure we did, but thanks to some good old prep work, no damage and no flooding after last night's downpour. And no erosion which the City can be very, very, picky about. They actually require 3 (three) inspections to verify that "SEC", Sediment and Erosion Control" is properly addressed.

This morning the contractor also called. He'll be in touch later today and plan to have a crew our for excavation of foundation tomorrow morning. Weather's supposed to be really good (again).

Puke Bricks Gone!

Part of getting wife to buy into ANY idea (apart from lifting the roof which she stressed from the get-go) was to get rid of the "puke bricks" decorating the front surrounding the garage doors.
So after a little bit of labor of love (=hammer and chisel) the bricks are now gone. Some of the bricks were "wasted" in the process and taking the sledge hammer to tear down the entire wall was one option, but I sort of wanted to keep these bricks for future use, so they are now nicely stacked up for another project (garden paths, planters, you name it).

Also took off some of the old cedar siding as well and managed to put up a few drain lines for the rain that never materialized tonight.

And while digging around also came across the sewer connection and a small access hatch. Good, means I don't have to put one in. Looks dirty, but was amazingly clean and "odor free".