Chaos and Construction

Painted eaves.

2006-08-12T10:37:00.000-07:00

We had the eaves, front windows, and front door painted white last weekend. We also cleaned up the front yard a bit. Suddenly the house looks a lot more put-together. I think it's quite cute now!

Back yard cleanup.

2006-07-07T17:38:00.000-07:00

Before and after last weekend's work.

Now all we need is some new grass!

We all live in a yellow bungalow

2006-04-23T09:04:00.000-07:00

Yellow bungalow, yellow bungalow.

Although perhaps "bungalow" is too modest of a term for the house we've got at this point!

It's been awhile since we've posted any updates to this blog, but that's because not very much has been happening, construction-wise. However, we passed a very significant milestone this week, when the stucco guys finished applying the last of the color coat, then took down their scaffolding. Suddenly, we can see clearly out of our windows--and we can see the house in all its glory. We like the way it looks very much.

Color!

2006-04-08T20:36:00.000-07:00

What with all the rain, it's been impossible for the stucco guys to return at all for the past several weeks. We had something like 29 days of rain last month -- the wettest March since 1904. But the weather has broken a little bit in the past few days. There was enough clear weather that we went camping at Half Moon Bay on Thursday night. And today, the stucco guys returned and started spraying on the final, color coat. You can see what a difference it makes in this photo. We're thinking that the color will become a bit paler as the stucco dries, but either way, it's a pretty cheerful yellow, isn't it?

Laundry time

2006-03-29T20:21:00.000-08:00

Karen hooked up the washer and dryer today. No more trips to Mr. Bubbles to do our laundry, no sir! We still need to hook up the hot water, but we can wash, and we can dry. In this picture, Karen demonstrates.

To her right is the table where I've been working the past couple of weeks; to the right of that is the door to our bedroom. Behind K is the rail alongside the stairwell.

For reference, I took the following picture from almost exactly the same spot, pointing the same direction, a little more than four months ago.

Making sweet potato pie.

2006-03-26T13:53:00.000-08:00

In the breakfast nook (which used to be our laundry room).

New office

2006-03-26T13:50:00.000-08:00

Here's the office to be -- it used to be Clara's bedroom, and you can tell by looking at the purple baseboard along the bottom, which is a leftover from the room's old color ("poetic blue"). Now the room has been painted a color that Home Depot calls "chai latte." With the sunlight coming in through the windows and the door (which will open onto the deck, once we put the deck back), I think it looks gorgeous. Right now, though, it still needs a bit of work -- and we need to clear out some things being stored there.

Living room / dining room

2006-03-26T13:42:00.000-08:00

I still think of these as two separate rooms, although they're much less separate than they used to be, since we took out the dividing wall between them. However, they're not exactly the same size (the dining room is about two feet wider) and Karen carefully rebuilt the soffit that ran around the outer edge of the living room ceiling, which helps provide some visual separation.

Anyhow, here's what the living room looks like now. Still a bit of construction material lying around (mostly trim that has yet to be installed), plus the bar which still has a blanket draped over it and hasn't moved back to the dining room yet. Note the can lights in the ceiling. For the past 3 or 4 weeks those lights have been always on (haven't installed a switch yet).

The living room is a slightly different shade of green than it used to be -- paler. In the dining room, however, David and Sally applied a rich dark red to two of the walls, and a deeper green to the other two. Here's a look. It looks rough along the top because they didn't paint all the way to the top of the wall -- leaving room for trim that will be installed later.

Three views of the kitchen cabinets

2006-03-26T13:36:00.000-08:00

Karen worked really hard on these cabinets for over two weeks, just finishing up about a week ago. When she installed the white handles and pull knobs, it all came together somehow. I really like the way the white and chrome of the knobs echoes the white and chrome of the 1950s era stove.

Bring on the junk

2006-03-17T20:32:00.000-08:00

When we cleared the last bits of stuff out of the house in preparation for putting up drywall, we had no place to put it. So Dave and I laid down some boards and plywood over the back lawn, piled up all our junk there, and covered it with a few big tarps (including the big 40' x 60' one we had over the whole house awhile back). Before it got covered, the pile reminded me of that book where a photographer went around the world, getting families to put all their posessions out on their lawns, and then photographed the whole family together with all their stuff. It was humiliating. Such a huge pile of crap (and that's not even counting the stuff we had in storage and the stuff tucked away long ago in the office shed and behind the office shed). Tarp-covered, it was like a big, white dragon, probably ten feet wide and fifteen or twenty feet long, piled about 5 feet high on average.

So it was with mixed feelings that Dave and I uncovered this stuff and dragged a lot of it back into the house last weekend. It turns out a lot of this is not truly crap (cutting boards, kitchen pots, and other useful things) but there is still a *lot* of it. We didn't even manage to get everything inside, but the remaining pile is at least a more manageable 10' x 10' square.

To the left you can see another pile of stuff covered with a blue tarp. That's lumber salvaged from the old house--mostly planks from the old roof, but also moulding and baseboard from inside the house. This pile is also about 15'-20' long but only about 3' high and 5' wide. This past week, Efren has been pulling baseboard and moulding out of the pile, cleaning it up, and installing it in various places around the house.

(March 13, 2006)

Everything including the kitchen sink

2006-03-17T20:27:00.000-08:00

Karen hooks up the kitchen sink -- to everyone's great relief, as we'd been washing dishes in the bathroom sink and bathtub ever since we moved back in to the house (almost 3 weeks). With the cabinets almost completely installed, and the countertops on, Karen hooked up the sink and we were in business! Still no power to the dishwasher or garbage disposal, but give it time, give it time. Meanwhile, the kitchen has acquired a floor, the living room and dining room got painted in opulent shades of green and dark red ("chablis" is the color Home Depot calls it), and most of the dust has been vacuumed up. Almost all of that happened while I was in San Diego March 6-9. Go Karen, David, and Sally!

(March 11, 2006)

On the bright side...

2006-02-28T20:38:00.000-08:00

.. our kitchen is gorgeous! We finished painting it this weekend. Then Karen and I put up a cute lamp in the breakfast nook -- which also has a nice view of the blossoming plum tree outside. (Carefully not shown -- much -- in this photo: The huge piles of junk covered by tarps that currently cover the lawn.)

And for the past two days, Karen and Sally have been busy installing the Ikea cabinets. These things look great and they're brilliantly designed.

Casa Polvo.

2006-02-28T20:12:00.000-08:00

I hate the rain.

It poured yesterday and really dumped on us today, in between sunny breaks in the cloud cover. And during yesterday's storm, we discovered a leak.

It's in Clara's old room, about two or three feet in from the wall. There was a baseball-sized wet spot in the new ceiling and a softball-sized puddle in the dust on the floor when I passed through yesterday about 4pm. KJ and I did some sleuthing and I went up on the roof. The culprit: Scaffolding erected by the stucco guys, which had been nailed to the roof. One board had three fucking nails, right through the roofing. And what do you know? When you drive nails through your roof, water leaks in through the holes.

I got a can of Rescue 911, pried up the offending board, and sprayed the black tarry stuff all around the holes. Twice. And a third time today, which seems to have stanched the flow of water. Alberto, who hired/translates for Fernando the stucco guy, says he'll talk to F. and will fix the drywall. But it means he'll have to tear a hole in the ceiling, pull out the insulation (again!), dry everything out (again!), and then patch the hole. And at the glacial pace that Alberto is currently finishing up the drywall taping, that will add an unknown and very irritating quantity to the number of days that we have to live with all this freaking drywall dust.

Fortunately, it's a small leak, and so far seems to be the only one. Other spots where the scaffolding rests on the roof are either not nailed, or haven't leaked yet.

What makes this leak especially infuriating is that it's in almost exactly the same place where our old roof first leaked -- over by the north wall of Clara's room -- which got us started on this whole damn project. Two years later, we've sunk god knows how much money and time and effort into the thing, and we still have the SAME FREAKING LEAK?

A typical floor at the Casa de Polvo ("House of Dust," in Spanish), with cable modem and Wi-Fi router, encased in a Ziploc bag, in the background

Home again!

2006-02-23T11:58:00.000-08:00

We slept in our house last night -- for the first time in more than 3 months. Everyone slept extremely well.

Right now the bedrooms are the only rooms in the house that are even semi-finished. Clara's room is pretty much all put together, although it still needs doors on the closet, and trim on the windows and doors.

Our room still needs baseboard, trim, and doors -- plus probably another (4th) coat of red paint on the one red wall. (The other walls are white.)

Downstairs the tapers are still working, and there is dust and mud everywhere. In October and November, I felt like we were living below a construction zone, as all this work happened above our heads. Now I feel like we're living *above* a construction zone! Still, it's a whole lot better than living with the 30-minute commute to and from Pacifica every day.

It's good to be back.

Many thanks

2006-02-20T08:45:00.000-08:00

Many thanks to all the people who helped us paint this weekend. Grandpa Ryan and Grandma Karin drove all the way out from Beatty, NV on Friday -- a 12 hour drive -- so they could help paint on Saturday and Sunday. Chris and Leila came to help both days, too. Mark and Karen stopped by with Mara and Kaia on Saturday. And Sally has been looking after Clara throughout the entire long weekend.

Many, many thanks to all of your for helping us. We are so grateful!

Victory!

2006-02-19T22:17:00.000-08:00

The painters pause to declare victory -- a full coat of paint in Clara's room. Huzzah!

Dave's suggested caption: "Demented surgical team covers up victim, hoping smiles and salutes will bury their mistake."

Paging Dr. Hornick

2006-02-19T22:16:00.000-08:00

Paging Dr. Leila Hornick... fresh paint application required on level 2!

Painters.

2006-02-19T07:31:00.000-08:00

A few members of the extensive painting crew that applied primer upstairs yesterday.

Going up?

2006-02-19T07:30:00.000-08:00

Karen poses with her completed stairs. There's still finish work to do on these, and the railings are temporary, but we can walk up and down. It's so cool! (Feb. 18, 2006)

More stair construction.

2006-02-17T23:03:00.000-08:00

Scenes from a staircase.

Brown coat.

2006-02-17T22:56:00.000-08:00

OK, so here's some more information about stucco. The first, gray coat of stucco is called a "scratch coat." I guess that's because of the deep V-shaped grooves that are scratched into it. The second coat is called a "brown coat." That's what we've got today. It's brown. The final coat, which will go on in a couple of weeks, is called the "color coat." That's the layer that has the color we want the house to be: blue or green or yellow or white or whatever.

Also, stucco makes a huge freakin' mess. There is mud and slop all over our yard, driveway, and everywhere, even after the stucco guys cleaned up.

So here's the plan.

2006-02-17T10:19:00.000-08:00

Today: Tapers come to sand the final coat of mud upstairs, then start taping downstairs. As soon as they're done sanding, we'll clean the upstairs and put up a coat of primer. Meanwhile, Karen and Efren will finish the stairs.

Saturday: Tapers return to do a second coat and maybe third coat downstairs. We'll paint -- primer and finish coats? -- upstairs.

Sunday: We'll install floors upstairs and put up primer downstairs.

Monday: Install toilets and doors upstairs. Finish coats of paint downstairs. Assemble and install kitchen cabinets.

Tuesday: More painting, cabinets, and doors. Pack up our stuff in the house in Pacifica. Move as much as possible out.

Wednesday morning: Move the last of our crap out of Pacifica house. Madly clean Pacifica house. Now we live back in San Mateo!

Building a stairway

2006-02-16T22:07:00.000-08:00

Karen and Efren did a lot of work on the stairs today. As you can see in the first picture, the living room has been temporarily converted into a staircase workshop. In the foreground, you can see the "winders" -- the diagonally winding stairs at the bottom of the staircase. Karen and Efren both seem very happy to be doing this work. I think that's because it's an interesting spatial problem, and solving it and building the actual stairs must be very satisfying.

For my part, I am just excited to stand on the new steps!

You can also see lots of the new downstairs drywall in this shot. For comparison's sake, take a look at a similar view from exactly two months ago.

The second picture shows what our current mode of ascent is, next to our future mode. The brown line is some exposed wood that more or less corresponds to the angle of the staircase. Karen says they'll be able to finish it tomorrow, which seems astonishingly impossible to me. But then, most everything about the project seems astonishingly impossible right now. And yet it's going right ahead!

Porch/2

2006-02-16T22:03:00.000-08:00

Or, Porch * 0.5, if you prefer.

Efren demolished what was left of the right half of our porch this week. Here's how it looks now. Not half bad for half a porch.

Some day we will probably replace it. Some day sooner than that we will put up a temporary guard rail to keep people from falling over the edge as they drunkenly stumble out the front door after one of our parties.

(Feb. 12, 2006)

Downstairs drywall.

2006-02-15T11:42:00.000-08:00

The drywallers finally came yesterday and installed the sheetrock downstairs. They're just finishing up this morning. This afternoon: The tapers return.

Meanwhile, we have to just cool our jets. There's very little we can do inside while they work.

This photo shows the living room, looking out towards the front of the house.

Progress report.

2006-02-14T09:54:00.000-08:00

The drywallers were supposed to come and hang drywall downstairs on Saturday. In order to get ready for them, we worked furiously on the electrical and insulation last week. I helped out a bit for a couple of days. Friday evening we ate pizza in the kitchen, sitting on a stack of drywall, and then Karen and her dad stayed on until late in the evening replacing kitchen wiring. The inspector had come that afternoon and pointed out that we needed to use heavy-duty wiring for the kitchen outlets -- something we didn't know beforehand. He was almost apologetic about it. But, Karen has spent a lot of time building a good relationship with this guy and it paid off, because he approved the wiring and told Karen all she had to do was replace the wiring, then take pictures of it so he could verify it had been upgraded. Whew!

Anyhow, after working late Friday and going in early Saturday morning to square a few things away, we were all set for the drywallers. But they didn't show. They didn't show on Monday, either. Finally, they turned up this morning and started hanging sheetrock downstairs. But the tapers aren't coming to put the final coat on upstairs until tomorrow, and they won't start taping downstairs until tomorrow either.

That means we won't be able to start painting until a couple days from now, at least. And until we paint the kitchen, we can't hang the cabinets, and we can't put it flooring. We'd also like to have all the bedrooms painted and floored before we move into them.

Our move in date is still Feb. 20. We're not sure exactly what things will look like then, but it's clear that we'll still have many, many things to do.

Stucco stucco stucco!

2006-02-10T21:17:00.000-08:00

The first coat of stucco went on this week. Wahoo! Here's some documentary evidence.

The stucco guys have this big motorized mixer. It runs on a gasoline engine. They've got hefty bags of Portland cement, a giant pile of sand, shovels, and a wheelbarrow. The sand, cement, and water go into the mixer. It makes a big noise, and churns everything up. Then they scoop the wet stucco into a wheelbarrow, roll it around to wherever they're working, and then climb up on the scaffolding and spread it onto the house like soft butter.

A fresh layer of stucco. It's got deep grooves from the notched trowels the stucco guys use to apply it. This is just the first of 3 layers. After it dries they'll put on a second coat, and then a final, colored layer will go on top.

The back of the house, all covered up.

The front of the house. Everything is covered in new stucco now (except the porch. The porch is another story altogether.) It actually looks a lot lighter in shade today, after it's been drying for a couple days -- but when I took this picture 3 days ago, it was pretty dark gray.

I'm excited about the stucco partly because it was so emotionally wrenching for me to rip the old stucco off the house. That really felt like the point of no return: We were stripping off our protection against the elements, and in so doing fundamentally diminishing the "house-ness" of our house. Now that the stucco is going back on, I feel a whole lot more relaxed. Yes, the roof was a bigger milestone. But this is a good one too.

(all Feb. 7, 2006)

Another drywall shot.

2006-02-10T21:14:00.000-08:00

Because I just love the drywall so much, here is another picture of it, taken after Alberto's drywall team put up the sheetrock, but before they taped it.

This is the front wall of the front bedroom, aka the "master" bedroom. Isn't that a funny term to use for a bedroom? Master bedroom indeed. What are we building anyway, a castle? A plantation house? I'd rather just call it the upstairs front bedroom. Or, if you prefer, my and Karen's bedroom.

I should explain a bit about these interior walls. Once we put in the insulation we immediately noticed a reduction in the noise level inside the house, plus a significant increase in warmth. Once the drywall guys put the drywall in, it got even quieter -- although the sound inside is quite "bright" now because the drywall reflects our sounds a lot. However, noise from the outside is significantly less. The stucco should deaden outside sounds even more.

As for the insulation, it's everywhere. We've got R30 in the roofs, which is quite warm and insulating. All the exterior walls have R13, and many of the interior walls do too, for sound insulation. And the ceiling between the 1st floor and the 2nd floor is also getting insulation, R19, to help keep the warmth contained downstairs and also for sound insulation. Once everything is all closed up we should have an extremely snug, and quiet, house.

(Feb. 5, 2006)

Before the drywall

2006-02-10T21:10:00.000-08:00

A couple of pictures showing how things looked before the drywall went up on the 2nd storey. Dave and Sally, Karen's parents, spent a couple of days last week helping put insulation up in the walls and ceilings. The first shot here is looking up at the skylights above the stairwell. Isn't that framing around the skylights cool? Also notice the four can lights surrounding the skylights. These are tied into that 4-way switch system.

The second shot shows what the back wall of Clara's room looked like after all the insulation was in.

(both Feb. 2)

Step one, step two

2006-02-09T09:14:00.000-08:00

Karen started building the stairs last week. Here are the first two steps!

(Feb. 2)

Before and after

2006-02-09T09:11:00.000-08:00

Here's what a little sheetrock can do. The first picture shows Clara, busy pounding a nail into the floor of our bedroom. The framing behind her (with Karen) is the wall between the bedroom and the bath. The second picture, from one week later (this week!), shows the same view, with the addition of drywall (and minus Clara).

(1/29/2006)

(2/6/2006)

Sheetrock.

2006-02-03T08:42:00.000-08:00

The sheetrock arrives. Soon we will have interior walls!

Electrical inspection passed

2006-02-02T12:47:00.000-08:00

Karen reports that we passed our electrical inspection. That means the drywallers can start putting sheetrock up over the wood and wires upstairs. Excellent news! Also, a four-way switch setup that Karen installed is working beautifully. This is a system that will let us turn the hall/stair lights on or off from 3 locations: a switch at the bottom of the stairs, a switch at the top of the stairs, and a switch at the end of the hall near the master bedroom.

Before the drywall goes up, Karen is going to make a videotape of the upstairs framing and wiring, so if we need to find or fix any of it in the future, we'll have some idea where it is.

BTW, Three way switches are pretty cool. Four-way switches are even cooler, but a bit mind boggling to me, however.

Let there be light!

2006-02-01T08:00:00.000-08:00

For the past week or two, Karen has been working hard installing wiring upstairs. Yesterday, she connected the upstairs wiring to the main powerline. And it works! Here's a picture of a working light in the upstairs master bedroom. Cool, huh?

The inspection scheduled for yesterday morning didn't go quite so perfectly, unfortunately. We have to replace some of the circuit breakers (with $30 "arc fault interrupt" circuit breakers -- exorbitant!), make sure all the switches are grounded, upgrade the bathroom circuits to 20 amps, and put in power for smoke detectors. As Karen said, she's not a professional electrician. Fortunately it represents only about a day's worth of work. In my opinion, that's pretty good for a nonprofessional job!

Farewell to Marvin

2006-02-01T07:58:00.000-08:00

On Monday 1/30, Marvin let Karen know that it would be his last day. He's moving with his family to Vallejo. Here's a picture Karen took that afternoon of Marvin and Efren.

Rainbow

2006-01-28T15:27:00.000-08:00

Karen snapped this picture of a rainbow with her cell phone today. The picture is taken from our house, looking across the street.

The master plan.

2006-01-28T11:59:00.000-08:00

Karen came home with this plan, sketched on a whiteboard, last night. A lot has to happen between now and Feb. 20!

All covered up.

2006-01-28T11:56:00.001-08:00

The stucco guys finished putting up the building paper and chicken wire early this week. Now the house is waterproof. Ain't she pretty?

Actual stucco will go on in a week or two, after we get and install the replacement for a window frame that got broken by Gilberto's guys, the clumsy oafs.

(Photo date: 1/22/06)

Kitchen

2006-01-21T20:04:00.000-08:00

Here's the current state of the kitchen. These 3 photos are all taken from the dining room doorway. The first one is looking left towards the new, extended-out wall (with its new windows). The second one is looking straight back into the breakfast nook (all walls and cabinetry removed ... the washer & dryer got taken out after this picture was taken). And the third one is looking to the right, towards the deck door. If I had the right software on hand I'd just make this into a panorama, but for now, this is the best I can do.

(all 1/18/2006)

Dining room

2006-01-21T20:01:00.000-08:00

Here's what the dining room looks like right now. This shot was taken from the living room-dining room border looking back towards the new windows. The horizontal framing above the windows corresponds approximately to the new part of the room -- we extended the exterior wall about as far as that framing goes. (1/18/2006)

Chimney

2006-01-21T19:59:00.000-08:00

The masons finished the chimney this week. It looks ridiculously long-necked to me now--like a brick giraffe or something--but it's nice to have it done.
(1/18/2006)

Big water.

2006-01-17T21:54:00.000-08:00

The water company upgraded our water service today. This was necessary because our new sprinkler system requires a one-inch water pipe and we only had a half inch. They dug a hole next to the curb across the street, and then they ran some kind of borer to dig all the way under the street from the opposite side. Then they replaced the existing one-inch galvanized pipe with three-quarter inch copper, and installed one-and-a-half inch copper pipe running from our curb to our house, or something like that. Maybe Karen can explain more clearly what happened; I'm a bit confused about it. All I know is that I'm very glad we don't have to pay for the service upgrade. All that digging and boring and copper pipe sounds very expensive to me.

Eddie.

2006-01-15T16:55:00.000-08:00

Eddie the plumber, one of the true heroes of this job, poses with the bathtub he just installed upstairs. Uncharacteristically, he's wearing his uniform (albeit unbuttoned) and not a "West Coast Choppers" long-sleeve black T-shirt.

(Jan. 11, 2006)

Stacking bricks.

2006-01-15T16:51:00.000-08:00

The chimney guys tore our existing chimney down a few feet this week, then started stacking it back up. Clara posed with the huge pile of bricks they put in our front yard the first day. Karen was worried about these bricks walking off the job site overnight, since the mason had mentioned that they represented about $1,000 worth of materials. She mentioned this to the younger mason, who laughed it off. "It would take an hour for anyone to take all those bricks," he said. But he covered them up with a blue tarp before leaving for the day.

(Jan. 10, 2006)

Paper.

2006-01-15T16:45:00.000-08:00

With building paper going onto the house, we're feeling a lot better about the rain. This makes the walls waterproof!

(Jan. 8, 2006)

Putting in the windows

2005-12-31T09:51:00.000-08:00

Here's a quick house update. Not much has happened in the past week, as we (and our crew) have been on vacation. We went down to Santa Barbara from Monday until yesterday evening, returning just before a big rainstorm hit the coast (up to 4 inches in the north bay, and 2.5 inches in the last 24 hours at SFO). It was the kind of gusty, blowsy rainstorm that really makes you appreciate being snug inside a warm, watertight shelter (and even feel a bit nervous about it -- those skylights aren't going to blow off are they?).

Before departing, however, we made some progress on the house. Most notably, Karen, Efren, and Marvin* installed almost every window on the second floor. In the first photo here, from 12/17, Efren and Marvin install a window in the master bathroom.

The second photo, from 12/21, shows the windows installed in the front (master) bedroom. Don't they look nice? Clara is posing on the front porch. She's pretty cute, too, I think.

* Yes, Marvin is back! He returned a couple weeks ago, after recovering from an attack of appendicitis which sent him to the hospital in early November (the same week we got rained out of our house). He's doing well. And, the first morning he was here, he cleaned up the entire driveway, which had become choked with lumber scraps, piles of plaster and lath, and other junk. That man can CLEAN, and that's a real asset around here.

Relocating to Pacifica

2005-12-22T11:53:00.000-08:00

Just a quick note: It turns out that we can't move back in to our house this week after all. The past several days we've had quite a bit of rain -- maybe 2 or 3 inches over the weekend, and more off and on since then. With the weekend rainfall there was also a bit of wind, which exposed the last major remaining weakness of the house: The walls. Although the roof is watertight, the plywood walls aren't. More specifically, they let water sheet down them, where it then slides behind the roof flashing and drips into the house. It's not nearly as bad as it was before we had a roof, but there are still leaks -- and that means we can't reinstall all the insulation and plaster we ripped out last week, not until we've got watertight walls and, ideally, stucco that directs the water out over the flashing instead of behind it.

Luckily, we were able to find a short-term house rental. So for the next 2 months, we're staying in Pacifica, in a lovely 3-bedroom house that's about a 5 minute drive from Linda Mar, a nice beach favored by beginning surfers. As a bonus, the house has a hot tub. It's also fully furnished (and decorated) by its owner, a woman who makes her living as a new age healer, Reiki teacher, and "clarity breathwork" instructor.

Virtually in move-in condition

2005-12-16T20:58:00.000-08:00

With just a couple days left before our hoped-for move-in date, this is what the living room downstairs looks like. Virtually move-in condition, eh? All it needs it a bit of drywall, some taping, and a spot of paint and bam! Home sweet home.

The past couple of days we've been demoing ceilings and walls on the first floor. This is the price we're paying for getting wet during those rainstorms. As we pull the lath off, we're discovering many pieces of insulation that are soaked with water and literally dripping -- many of which have already started to mold. So, it's a really good thing we're pulling them out. Fortunately, the demo is almost all done and putting up drywall should go fast. I hope!

The wall the planning commission demanded, part 2

2005-12-16T16:56:00.000-08:00

Now that it's complete, the Wall The Planning Commission Demanded looks pretty sweet. Come to think of it, that side of the house does look really articulated, doesn't it? In fact, it's so damn articulate we're thinking of trying to get it on the debate team at San Mateo High School.

Going up?

2005-12-14T17:04:00.000-08:00

We cut out the hole for the staircase today. Since we don't have any windows or insulation upstairs yet, this makes things a little chilly. But it's very exciting for us! Karen took the ceremonial first ascent. (Note: Actual stairs will not be quite as steep as this ladder!)

Two of the big paralam beams meet in the corner of the stairwell. Here's a picture, with Karen's arm for a sense of scale.

Geeky trivia: Karen is wearing a Blogger sweatshirt which the company sent her (for free!) when they got bought by Google. Blogger is the same thing we're using to publish this blog.

Another fine sight.

2005-12-14T17:00:00.000-08:00

Clara sweeps the floor of her new room.* I took a picture because I figured I might never see her cleaning her room again!

* Journalistic accuracy demands that I point out her sweeping actually increased the mess on the floor, by spreading a neat pile of sawdust over a much larger area. But her intentions were good and her enthusiasm for sweeping was great!

Yes, we were very careful when helping her up the ladder to the 2nd floor.

A sublime sight

2005-12-12T17:51:00.000-08:00

Forget the Taj Mahal, the Chrysler Building, the Bilbao Guggenheim -- the most inspiring architectural vista to me, right now, is the roof here:

Here's a view from the top, as of this morning. Since then, we've installed skylights in the two holes on the left, and the roofers have covered everything else with felt, shingles, and flashing. The only spot that still needs shingles is the low roof over our laundry room, in back, and that's covered with felt so it should be watertight.

Our 57 days (and 4 rainstorms) without a roof have finally come to an end.

WAHOO!

The view

2005-12-09T21:56:00.000-08:00

Here's the view from our front bedroom upstairs, looking out over that low roof we just finished. That's Alicia's (Efren's on-again off-again girlfriend's) house in the middle.

Why we don't live here now

2005-12-09T21:44:00.000-08:00

In case you were wondering why we've spent the last month in a hotel: This is what it looks like inside right now.

The roofers arrive

2005-12-09T18:59:00.000-08:00

Today, the roofers showed up. They were two young guys who had clearly spent the morning surfing, but they knew what they were doing. Today, that mostly meant looking around and pointing out things we needed to fix before they could get to work in earnest tomorrow.

And then, around 1:30, the roof arrived, on the back of a big truck with a big black lift mounted on it. The lift, which is stenciled with the name "The Beast" on its side, is basically a large movable conveyor belt. Helps a lot in getting bundles of shingles up onto the rooftop!

Dylan and Karen survey the as-yet-uncovered roof in pictures 1 and 2. In the first picture, Karen is standing next to the hipped roof over our bathroom -- a fairly complex construction problem that literally kept her awake nights until she had figured it out and she and Gilbert's guys had completed it.

In the second picture, Dylan is standing on some plywood that he drove a lot of nails into.

"The Beast" moves into position in picture 3.

Getting the roof on

2005-12-09T18:56:00.000-08:00

We finally have a nearly-complete roof. There was a bit of rain on Wednesday evening, about a quarter of an inch, so we had to put the tarp back on. This time, however, it was resting comfortably on top of a roof that is completely covered in plywood -- meaning, no places for the tarp to sag and collect the rainfall into big sacks of water. And -- success! We stayed dry. It also helped that there wasn't much wind to blow that tarp around, or off.

The first two pictures show what the house looked like earlier this week, when we were building the little low roof in front (picture 1) and Gilbert's crew put up some scaffolding to trim the eaves (picture 2). And the third picture shows Karen and Clara posing in front of the house this morning. Note the fascia boards we put in front of that low roof when we were done. Neat eh?

A few more pictures

2005-12-02T16:43:00.000-08:00

Here's what the house looks like from the back. (Note the sleepy-looking project boss in the lower left corner, standing on the deck.)

The view out of the window in what we're calling Clara's room, at the back of the house. The actual window won't be this big -- we haven't put the wall in yet, because this is how we come and go on the 2nd storey right now.

Reverse angle, looking into Clara's new room from the little roof just outside of it.

And here's the north side of the house, showing The Wall That The Planning Commission Demanded. That little wall that sticks out about 18 inches from the existing first-floor wall? Its only reason for existing is so the second storey can be set back a little ways. The planning commission hates, hates, hates contiguous two-storey walls. With a very few exceptions, they want the second floor to be set back a little. We didn't have room to do that, so we asked if we could push the first floor wall out a little bit instead. No problem, they said. It's a big pain in the ass and a big expense, but on the plus side we'll gain a few extra square feet in the kitchen and dining room.

You can also see our chimney -- which clearly needs to be extended now! The wall behind the chimney is one of the few allowable two-storey walls. The other one is in the back of the house (hidden behind the tree in the top picture, above) -- they figure the only people who will see that wall are us, and if we don't mind (and we don't) then the planners don't mind either.

Proof of progress

2005-12-02T12:01:00.000-08:00

If we seem really happy in this blog, it's because we're not taking pictures when we're crying.

Yesterday, we had about an inch of rain. And stiff winds -- which blew the tarp off. We were taking the day off (can't work in the rain) and by the time we arrived for lunch, around noon, the tarp was lying like a discarded skirt around the knees of our house. A bit more than half of the roof now has plywood on it, so in those spots, water was just dripping gently here and there. But in the areas that are still exposed, rain was falling right on the floor -- then seeping through and dripping from the ceilings below onto the first-floor rooms.

We struggled with the tarp for awhile, trying to get it back into position. But a 40' by 60' tarp is just too big and heavy for two people to lift up onto a 2nd-storey roof, especially when it's wet and the wind is blowing. We finally decided to just let the rain fall where it may. After all, we've already removed most of the stuff downstairs that we care about; the rest of it is covered in plastic, and the ceilings are already damaged enough that we have to replace them anyway.

Fortunately, the rain stopped in the night, and it's sunny and cold today. Work has resumed on the roof -- and the water is not nearly so bad inside the house as we'd expected. We did a bit of cleanup this morning, and we'll get as much rafter and plywood up today and tomorrow as we can. We're almost ready to call in a roofer -- by Wednesday, we hope, roofing paper and shingles will be going onto our then-complete roof. Keep your fingers crossed for us.

The pictures here show the roof's progress. The first two are from Nov. 28, the third one was taken this morning.

Raise the roof beam HIGHER, carpenters!

2005-11-27T17:27:00.000-08:00

Oops. Turns out the ridge beam we celebrated last week was was unfortunately about a foot lower than it should have been. Karen figured this out after looking at the dozen or so rafters already installed and realizing that they had a 3-in-12 slope instead of the required 4-in-12 slope. Not good: Such a shallow angle would have let water creep back up under shingles, possibly making for a very leaky roof -- not to mention, the slope didn't match that of the existing roof lines.

So, after agonizing over the issue overnight, we tore off the existing rafters and took down the roof beam. With the help of our neighbor Mike's friend Carlos and two other guys, we got the ridge beam reinstalled on a higher set of posts by 2:30 yesterday. Then Efren, Karen, and I started installing rafters (at the correct angle -- requiring some recutting, of course) and by lunchtime today, this is how things looked. By the end of the day, we'd installed even more -- making tremendous progress!

While we were working, Karen K. and Mara came walking by. While they were walking around the lumber in the driveway we took this picture (the 3rd one here) from the top of the second story wall.

Topping out

2005-11-23T17:38:00.000-08:00

Today our crew raised the roof beam, a major milestone. And a helluvan achievement -- this is one of those huge powerlam beams that probably weighs 300 pounds or so. Six or seven of us helped lift it from the ground up to the top of the new walls, and later on a few of Gilbert's crew dropped it into the metal saddles atop the posts, where it stands now. Actually, the beam you see in these pictures is just one of two sections; the other one (behind it) is longer.

A lot of plywood went up today too, which has the effect of making all the rooms upstairs seem suddenly much more *real* -- and paradoxically, much larger.

To celebrate, Karen placed a wreath on the end of the beam late this afternoon. It's a Christmas wreath, which is timely -- but it's also traditional to put pine boughs on the ridge beam after you raise it. Afterwards, we celebrated by drinking a bottle of Cristalino with Efren.

The view from on top of the ridge beam is incredible. You can't quite see the bay, but you can see from the hills to our west all the way to the mounded eucalyptus of Coyote Point to the east, and almost as far as Foster City to the south.

More walls

2005-11-21T16:56:00.000-08:00

Wahoo, we've got walls, thanks to the lightning fast work of Gilbert and his crew of 6 carpenters. These are almost all of the exterior and interior walls (lacking plywood) and got done on Friday and Saturday. Tomorrow, the crew will come back to put plywood on the exterior walls. We'll raise the ridge beams and then Gilbert will return later in the week (after Thanksgiving?) to frame the roof and put plywood on it.

The first walls go up

2005-11-17T22:39:00.000-08:00

Our very first wall. This one is the back of what we call the laundry room (really just an alcove big enough for a washer & dryer). In the first picture, Karen is advising Efren on rafter installation. Then we all pose with the new wall! Finally, a picture of that first wall (on the right) plus one more, from ground level.

It feels really good to be actually building new construction now, instead of just tearing shit out and reinforcing the existing structure. These photos are from Tuesday and Wednesday. Now we've got a few more walls than that, even. And tomorrow, the cavalry arrives: Karen hired a team of framers to build the remaining walls and the roof in double time so (we hope) we can get closed in before the rains start in earnest.

Floor!

2005-11-17T22:26:00.000-08:00

Last week, Friday, we finally finished installing all of the subfloor over those joists.

Joists!

2005-11-17T10:13:00.000-08:00

This is what the top of our house looked like a couple weeks ago, after Karen got all the beams and joists installed and successfully inspected. A major milestone! Unfortunately, from a hydraulic standpoint, those joists are a problem: They're about 18 inches deep and sixteen inches apart, which leaves a lot of room for water to pool up when they're covered with tarp. (Photo date: Saturday Nov. 5)

Tarped

2005-11-17T10:10:00.000-08:00

This is what passes for our roof these days (photo taken Nov. 2)

Rained out!

2005-11-08T07:34:00.000-08:00

Last night we came back home in the rain, after having had a very nice ice cream dessert at Baskin Robbins. The rain was leaking pretty badly into Clara's room. Nothing new there -- we've had leaks here and there whenever it rained before, since we have no roof.

Actually -- the roof situation is improving; on Friday the second-floor framing, plumbing, and sprinkler system all got inspected and approved, which was a terrific accomplishment for Karen and her helpers. So on Saturday and Sunday they started nailing down subfloor, and got about half the floor in. That greatly helps the rain situation because the leaks don't come through the subfloor part -- but they can still leak into the rest of the house.

Unfortunately, it started raining Sunday, one of Karen's guys went to the hospital with appendicitis, and the forecast called for rain on Monday, so we weren't able to finish putting down the subfloor. Result: Serious leaks when the rain finally came last night.

Even more unfortunately, I made the situation worse when I tried to go and dump extra water off the tarp in the dark. Stumbling around in the dark under a wet, weighed-down tarp, I wound up dumping a bunch of water into the house. And probably messed up the tarp arrangement in the process.

Just as we were putting plastic coverings over all our stuff inside the house, our neighbors Alicia and Efren (yes, that's Efren who has been working for Karen) rang the doorbell and asked if we wanted to stay at their house. So we got to spend a night in a dry bed, under a watertight roof, which was wonderful.

This morning we'll probably be moving some furniture out and into a short-term rental apartment, where we'll stay for the next month or so. In addition to getting the subfloor in (and the second-storey walls built), we now have a lot of drywall to replace, ceilings to fix, carpet to remove, and water to mop up. Hey, it's no Katrina. Our house is still standing, it's just a little water damage, and nobody's getting hurt. So we're very happy and grateful. It's still a bit of a setback, though.

You can reach us on our cellphones (or by email) if you need to; the home phone works but there's no answering machine right now.

2005-11-02T08:54:00.000-08:00

Here's a hole in the ceiling of the hallway. Those are just loose boards lying over it. The black you see between them? It's the night sky.

One of three new windows in Clara's room.

Here's where it all began: this is a leak in the ceiling of Clara's room. When this leak appeared 2 years ago, it was our first warning that the rafters in the roof had cracked -- and that's what launched us on the whole remodeling project.

The hole thing, part 3: Bedrooms

2005-11-02T07:39:00.000-08:00

Here are some holes in our bedroom. We've actually got two new windows, and they're fully installed, so they don't count as holes anymore. They're even insulated, as you can see!

But where we installed the Hardy Frame, there are some holes where you can peek outside.

The hole thing part 2: Living room / dining room

2005-10-31T22:18:00.000-08:00

Here's what the windows to the left and right of the fireplace in our living room look like. New windows, yay! But there's a bit of exposed lath around each one, and you can also see the Hardy Frames (the metal things) that help lend rigidity to the wall. Fortunately, no actual holes to let in cold winds here.

On the opposite wall, the interior wall of our living room, there are just a couple of exposed patches where we had to put in posts and run some wiring. This is one of two such holes.

This is one of my favorite holes. In the southeast corner of the dining room, there's nothing between us and the street sounds except a few boards -- with gaps between them, as you can see. We haven't bothered covering this over yet because the wall immediately to the right will soon be removed, to be replaced by a wall that's about 12 inches further out. When we do that, we'll extend and then close up this short stretch of semi-open wall.

I wasn't too worried about this hole, in the opposite corner of the dining room, in the floor. It's where the wood stove used to stand, back before this house's *last* major remodel, in 1935. When they added on the current kitchen, they took the stove out but left the chimney, enclosed it in walls, and used it as a vent for the new stove, which was now on the other side of the wall. Anyhow, after we took out this ancient chimney there was a little hole left in the floor. I wasn't too worried about it until a week ago when I was working on the computer and heard a rustling. I turned around just in time to see a racoon's tail end disappearing back down this hole, into the basement. He'd come up out of the hole, found himself in our dining room, and turned right back around. We put a board over this hole shortly after that.

The hole thing, part 1: The kitchen

2005-10-30T16:15:00.000-08:00

To give you all a sense of what kind of conditions we're living in right now, I thought I'd take you on a tour of all the major holes in our house. Most of these are holes that compromise the integrity of the interior/exterior barrier in some way. Some are just a bit inconvenient.

First stop: The kitchen. Here we have a wonderful deck door, installed last summer by Karen and her father, David. The exposed framing is no big deal--we'll put finish trim around it soon enough. More of a hazard is the 18-inch wide, 3' deep gap on the other side of the door. You've got to step way out and down a bit to get onto the deck -- since Karen had to remove a few boards from the deck in order to gain access to the wall earlier this summer. That's why the sign says "Watch Your Step."

Here's a little hole in the kitchen ceiling. We don't worry about it too much because it's over the cabinet. The gravel, bits of tar, plaster, and dust that fall through this hole fall on top of the cabinet, where we almost never see them. Out of sight, out of mind!

This hole is a bigger deal. It's just to the right of the sink. It got formed two weekends ago when a new guy that we'd hired to help install the beams put his foot in the wrong place. Instead of stepping on ceiling joists, he stepped on lath and plaster, and put his foot right through. He was OK, but the ceiling took a bad hit. The guy did not come back the next day.

Moonlight

2005-10-23T19:24:00.000-07:00

Dylan says: By the way, there's nothing quite so surreal and mysterious as waking up in the middle of the night and noticing a thin shaft of moonlight coming straight down into the hallway from a crack in the ceiling. Side effect of having no roof...

Beams!

2005-10-23T15:47:00.000-07:00

Karen and her crew (Efren and Marvin plus two more strong guys) hoisted the beams up onto the roof on Thursday and Friday. These beams are massive, composite things: essentially they are 11 boards glued together into one giant, long-ass piece of lumber. The narrow version is about 3 1/2 inches wide by 14 inches deep, and it weighs about 13 pounds per foot. The lengths we had to hoist onto the roof ranged from 8 feet long (approx 100 pounds by my estimate) to 25 feet long (325 pounds!). Some of the beams were fatter: about 5 1/2 inches wide by 14 inches deep, and accordingly heavier.

Karen found these cool "material lifts" that she rented from a local place. We used the lifts to hoist the beams up to the roof level, then we slid them over onto the roof on 4x4s. Then manhandled them into place.

If all this seems excessive, it probably is. The whole second floor rests on these beams, which rest on 4x4 (or bigger) posts that go down through the first floor into the giant concrete footings underneath. In other words, the second floor is not resting on the first floor -- it's a two-storey stilt house, floating (more or less) on top of the existing house. Of course everything is tied together so it's not as clearcut as that -- but that explains the engineering that goes into it, and the need for these huge, honking beams.

This last picture shows TJIs, which are kind of like wooden I-beams. They're actually quite light. They attach to the big beams with hangers, and will go everywhere under the floor that does *not* have beams.

Going topless!

2005-10-19T07:40:00.000-07:00

As Funkadelic said, "Tear the roof off the mother!" Some scenes from the past few days.

Breakfast nook II

2005-10-11T08:05:00.000-07:00

Here's what the back of the house looks like since Friday, when Karen installed our new 4' by 3' window -- which is almost as wide as the whole wall here. On the inside, there's about 1 foot of wall on either side of the window. We love this window! Even though it's still a laundry room, this space has suddenly become much more beautiful, since you can see the entire back yard from it.

New floor

2005-10-08T08:35:00.000-07:00

Breakfast nook

2005-10-08T08:33:00.000-07:00

This is the back of the house, where the breakfast nook will go.

Two views of the dining room.

2005-09-30T22:17:00.000-07:00

Where the closets used to be, and where the stairs eventually will come down.

Where all our crap currently is.

Post footing.

2005-09-30T22:15:00.000-07:00

What those massive 4' x 4' pad footings are for: holding up mighty posts.

New windows & door.

2005-09-30T22:12:00.000-07:00

Plywood is nailed up on the west wall of Clara's room, then cut out to make room for the new door and windows. (That's Efren, who just finished a cut). Then the windows and door are installed -- and Clara and Karen pose behind the new glass. Date: Sept. 25 approx.

Concrete day

2005-09-30T22:04:00.000-07:00

The cement mixer arrives in front of our house.

Pouring concrete into the forms (Dylan and Clara are way over on the left, watching)

Dylan writes: Clara's handprints and footprints are recorded for posterity in the pad footing at the corner of the house. This one was done on Sept. 19, the first concrete day. We had a second pour, for the rest of the foundation, today, Sept. 30. Today's pour was about 15 cubic yards of concrete. I think the first one was about 12 yards.

Rain!

2005-09-20T17:04:00.000-07:00

Either that, or Christo paid a visit.
From Dylan:
We had a surprise thunderstorm today (9/20). After an hour of intermittent distant lightning, raindrops finally started to fall. Very unusual for this time of year! Karen called Dylan, who picked up a dozen 12 x 18 foot tarps at Costco and rushed home with them. While the rain fell, Efren, Marvin, Karen, and Dylan nailed them up all around the house, which not only is missing exterior walls but also lacks many windows now, too. Also, the plumber came today. They dug up our sewer line, removed the toilet, and left a big trench in the middle of the yard. They swear the plumbing will all be fixed tomorrow.

The rain let up just as we were finishing around 4:30 pm, of course. (It has since picked up again -- so the tarps are doing their job after all.) Then while we were sitting on the porch musing on the ridiculousness of our situation, we heard a loud crash and tinkling sound from inside the house. Took us a couple minutes to find the source: The bathroom mirror had fallen off the wall, and was lying in pieces on and around the dismantled toilet. We decided to leave it until tomorrow.

Tonight: A hotel!

Karen sez:
I blame the plumber, Eddie, who said it would rain today. All these tarps only cost $100, much less than thought. Thank you Costco.

Btw, that is rum in my hand as I stand on the porch.

Hardy frame

2005-09-20T17:03:00.000-07:00

Karen stands next to a Hardy Frame, installed in between the chimney and window.

Big holes

2005-09-20T16:58:00.000-07:00

Here's one of the really big pad footing holes under the house. No good sense of scale, so here are the dimensions: 4.5 feet by 4.5 feet by 18 inches deep. Efren dug four of these, and Marvin removed the dirt from under the crawlspace. So far, we've removed enough dirt and concrete and stucco to fill 4 debris boxes.

This hole is for a pad footing. It goes right under the current foundation. As you can see, daylight is coming in to the basement through this hole.

How the dirt comes out from under the house: on a sled.

Porch? What porch?

2005-09-20T16:57:00.000-07:00

Karen stands in the middle of the right half of our porch. Or where the porch would be, if it hadn't been demo'd and removed by Efren and Marvin.

Behold the power of the sawzall

2005-09-20T16:55:00.000-07:00

Found this block of wood in the trash pile. The sawzall had sliced cleanly through an old nail, lengthwise. That's a pretty good nail, too--they don't make them like that any more!

Stripped

2005-09-20T16:53:00.000-07:00

This is what the back of the house looks like now. All the stucco and underlying wood has been removed, and some insulation has been installed. The framing will get reinforced, then we'll nail plywood over everything.

This is the outside of the kitchen wall. As you can see, there's nothing between the back of the dishwasher (and the pipes) and the outside world.

New door.

2005-09-20T16:51:00.000-07:00

Karen cut a hole in the wall of Clara's room to make a door. Eventually this room will become an office, and the door will open onto the back deck. Still looking a bit unfinished!

Smash that wall!

2005-09-20T16:49:00.000-07:00

Karen demonstrates proper wall demolition technique.

This is the wall that formerly separated Clara's closet (and the coat closet) from the dining room.

2005-09-15T08:09:00.000-07:00

2005-09-12T14:53:00.000-07:00

2005-09-10T10:38:00.000-07:00

2005-09-01T13:27:00.000-07:00

2005-09-01T12:38:00.000-07:00

Never did like that wall

2005-08-30T16:10:00.000-07:00

Yes, that's daylight you see streaming in. My plan is to put up temporary plywood until we wedge in the posts that need to go in there, to the right.

Now for the Spanish students -- "Jorobado"

2005-08-25T21:39:00.000-07:00

As in the "Jorobado de Notre Dame." Efren taught me this word while digging this pad footing. I taught him "hunchback." There's about 18"-20" of headroom there. He's says he'll come back tomorrow.

More digging

2005-08-25T21:30:00.000-07:00

We have to underpin our existing beefy but substandard foundations to support a 2nd floor load. That's what all this digging is about. Here's an underpinning trench that tok us hours to cut (through surface concrete) and excavate 12" outside existing foundation + 6" under it, both to 18" deep.

Doesn't look like much? Dylan tries to reach the bottom.

There goes the recycling

2005-08-25T14:50:00.000-07:00

The truck loads the first "rock box," 8 tons of concrete dirt and bound somewhere to be sorted somehow and resold as fill.
The next one comes tomorrow. San Mateo is holding $4000 of ours to make sure we recycle

The driver hoses down the load to reduce dust en route.

Outside trenches are done!

2005-08-24T21:21:00.000-07:00

Yours truly and her most excellent crew, Efren, celebrate a temporary victory. Tomorrow there are more holes to dig.

La montana

2005-08-23T21:06:00.000-07:00

Soon to have a waterfall and goats. Happy Client shown for scale.

Gone over to the dark side.

2005-08-23T21:04:00.000-07:00

Even there, Efren digs it out fast.