Friday, April 30, 2010

Drywall starts Monday!

Today our drywall guy has a few carpenters onsite framing out basement kitchen ductwork and closets. Tomorrow 5,000sf of drywall are being delivered with work slated to start on Monday! Eric, Cleve and Phil are also all working on final details today, very exciting!







DC has finally responded to my requests to remove the stump in the tree box in front of our house so they are grinding away. I would like to plant it up but a new tree will be planted in the fall and DC will likely damage whatever I put there.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Inching toward drywall

So, last week I thought we were ready for drywall but then Eric sent me a 2-page list of to-dos we needed to take care of first. I took Friday off and we worked on the list all weekend. I became a huge fan of the chop saw loaned to us by Oliver across the street and we shortened the list to under 1 page. This week, Eric has enlisted his high school friends Cleve and Phil, both very skilled carpenters, to help as much as possible, but as things get crossed off the list, others seem to get added. Today Eric's been stressed about the under-stair details. We have a series of doors under the stairs (for laundry, hot water heater, electric/coat closet, and Rudy's litter box) and he's trying to figure out exactly how to instruct the drywall guys to install drywall in that area.

In other exciting news, the Marie Reed Elementary School behind our house has been undergoing major much-needed renovations and today Michelle Obama and other congressional wives came to help paint the mural / dedicate the new playground area. Unfortunately no one in the neighborhood could get very close but our house is just on the other side of the black fence you see on the right in this picture. This involved swarms of secret service guys with machine guns littering our back alley all afternoon who couldn't tell Eric who was coming. Eric told one of SS guys that he'd be shooting off a nail gun all day and to please not storm the house, so thankfully he radio'ed that message to his counterparts and everything was fine, except for the minor indicent when the SS guys hit our jiffy john (gently). The best photos of mural painting I have found are here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/30/michelle-obama-paints-but_n_558238.html#s86338

Friday, April 16, 2010

Two Amigos in the Shower

Eric calls this photo "Two Amigos in the Shower". Today durarock installation was completed. This weekend will be full of washing haze off the basement tiles and reframing door openings. Drywall should be ready to commence next week!

Monday, April 12, 2010

Shower bliss

We finalized our upstairs shower tile selection this weekend and spent 6 hours together building a sleek shampoo shelf. It's another Tau Ceramica porcelain tile (I love them!) called Gael. It's wavy like water and comes in 13x35 straight from Italia. We sized our shelf to be the exact size of a tile (after durarock & thinset) as not to mess up our pattern at all. This, along with showerheads on both sides, will make for an excellent showering experience.




Tile challenges

So it turns out that our awesome bargain auction tiles are slightly warped, go figure. They bulge up a little in the center. It's only barely noticeable in a few places so we decided to accept it and keep moving. However, Eric's grout selection has proved to be the next challenge. He did all of the research and decided to go with a urethane-based mortar, not the typical sand or epoxy-based types, because it doesn't fade, has more flex, can't mildew, etc. However, the installation technique is different (easier) and requires wiping any excess grout off the tiles ASAP or a haze will form that will require a lot more scrubbing after the fact. Eric explained the process to Diaz, the 2 installers and even got them instructions in Spanish, but of course they did not read them and now we're having to research methods and chemicals for haze removal. Luckily they only grouted the back bedroom and not the rest of the apartment, although this hasn't stopped him from asking for full payment (obviously, no). Tomorrow Diaz & his guys are returning to clean the hazy tiles and install the rest of the grout, hopefully with more care for the instructions this time.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Basement Tile!

Basement tiling commenced today! We bought this tile (Stonepeak Parkland Acadia 6x24) at an auction for $0.90psf. It retails for $7psf. The guys doing the work also did the West End 25 luxury apartments downtown so we're going to have really tight grout lines. Eric is supervising and thinks it's going to look hot!

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

It's starting to come together...

This is a busy week:

Yesterday - Eric made last-minute framing modifications, met with a metalworker

Today - passed our insulation inspection, framing modifications continue

Tomorrow - window finish work starts upstairs that has to be done before drywall, so the drywall and pitcon reveals have something to butt up to.

Thursday - our tile guy, Diaz, starts laying the basement floor (we transported 2,000lbs of tile from storage to the house on Saturday) and installing durarock throughout.

Next Monday - Jose, my handyman from Lamont St. commences drywall and finish work on the basement

Also next week (hopefully) - Douglas starts on drywall upstairs